March 7 (UPI) — Working with Germany and Finland, U.S. officials disrupted and took down the online infrastructure used to operate Garantex, a cryptocurrency exchange that allegedly facilitated money laundering by transnational criminal organizations.
Those organizations included terrorist groups, according to U.S. Justice Department officials, who made the announcement in a press release on Friday.
An indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia leveled charges against Aleksej Besciokov, 46, a Lithuanian national and Russian resident, and Aleksandr Mira Serda (also known as Aleksandr Ntifo-Siaw), 40, a Russian national and United Arab Emirates resident, according to Justice officials.
According to the indictment, Garantex has processed at least $96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions since April 2019.
In the release, Justice officials said Mira Serda and Besciokov are charged with money laundering conspiracy, and Besciokov is charged with conspiracy to violate sanctions and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Garantex was run by Mira Serda and Besciokov from 2019 to 2015, according to Justice officials. Authorities said Besciokov was Garantex’s main technical administrator and responsible for maintaining critical Garantex infrastructure, as well as reviewing and approving transactions. Officials say Mira Serda was Garantex’s co-founder and chief commercial officer.
U.S. officials say the crypto exchange Garantex received hundreds of millions in criminal funding and was used to “facilitate various crimes, including hacking, ransomware, terrorism, and drug trafficking, often with substantial impact to U.S. victims.”
Besciokov and Mira Serda knew that the exchange was facilitating crimes, Justice officials said, adding that Garantex took steps to conceal the facilitation of illegal activities, such as money laundering, on its platform.
According to Friday’s release from the Justice Department, in April 2022 the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Garantex for its role in facilitating money laundering of funds from ransomware actors and so-called darknet markets.
According to court documents cited in Friday’s release, “despite the widespread publicity of the sanctions and Garantex administrator’s personal knowledge of them, Besciokov and his co-conspirators violated those sanctions by continuing to transact with U.S.-based entities.
“Further, Besciokov and his co-conspirators redesigned Garantex’s operations to evade and violate U.S. sanctions and induce U.S. businesses to unwittingly transact with Garantex in violation of the sanctions,” Justice officials said.
As an example of attempts at evasion, Justice officials said Garantex allegedly moved its operational cryptocurrency wallets to different virtual currency addresses on a daily basis “in order to make it difficult for U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges to identify and block transactions with Garantex accounts.”
Additionally and despite doing a notable amount of business in the United States and operating as a money transmitting business, Garantex failed to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as required, Justice officials said.
The U.S. Justice Department said that, on March 6, U.S. law enforcement executed a seizure order authorized by a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia against three website domain names used to support Garantex’s operations: Garantex.org, Garantex.io, and Garantex.academy.
According to officials, the seizure will prevent the sites from being used for money laundering and any other crimes. Individuals who go to those sites now see a message indicating that the site has been seized by law enforcement.
Additionally, officials said Friday that German and Finnish law enforcement also seized servers hosting Garantex’s operations. U.S. law authorities, according to the Justice Department, have separately obtained earlier copies of Garantex’s servers, including customer and accounting databases. More than $26 million in funds used to facilitate Garantex’s money laundering activities have been frozen, U.S. officials said.
If convicted, Besciokov and Mira Serda face decades behind bars.
While studies reveal institutional investors and wealth managers believe tokenized ETFs will drive mainstream market adoption for cryptocurrency, there looms the theft of bad actors that most often go untraceable.
Currency throughout history that became mainstream
ShutterStock
Barriers to the expansion of tokenization are starting to fall as major investment firms consider launching tokenized ETFs, according to new global research by London-based Nickel Digital Asset Management (Nickel), Europe’s leading digital assets hedge fund manager founded by alumni of Bankers Trust, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
Its study with institutional investors (pension funds, insurance asset managers and family offices) and wealth managers at organisations which collectively manage over $14 trillion in assets found almost all (97%) believe the potential launch of tokenized ETFs such as BlackRock’s will be important to the expansion of the sector with nearly one in three (32%) rating the development as very important.
The study also reflected the belief that tokenization will continue to grow, with nearly 70% of respondents believing that fund managers looking to tokenize investment funds and asset classes will increase over the next three years.
Nickel’s research with firms in the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates found growing awareness of the benefits of tokenization. Private markets are seen as offering the greatest potential for tokenization, with almost 70% seeing private equity funds as the asset class with the most opportunity, followed by fixed income (55%) and public equities (42%).
Anatoly Crachilov, CEO and Founding Partner at Nickel Digital, said: “Tokenization is quickly moving from theory to real-world adoption as institutional investors grow more comfortable with its benefits and see major players enter the space. When firms like BlackRock step in, it fundamentally shifts the conversation. This development is timely for our multi-manager vehicle as expanding liquidity depth will allow some of our pods to start trading tokenized assets in the coming months.”
To address potential criminal threat, an advanced detection system to identify and trace blockchain funds connected with criminal activity was presented earlier this week at the Annual CyberASAP Demo Day in London.
The system, called SynapTrack, enables faster and more accurate detection of fraudulent activity using blockchains and cryptocurrencies, where traditional anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing systems struggle to keep pace.
Although current fraud detection methods pick up unusual activity, they deliver an extremely high rate (40%) of false positive reports. These require manual checking by compliance professionals, resulting in backlogs in identifying and acting on suspicious activity.
The SynapTrack system is designed to deliver a substantially lower rate of false positives. It has already been tested using real-life data from the notorious 2025 Bybit hack, where criminals stole $1.5bn of digital tokens from a cryptocurrency exchange. SynapTrack traced the hacker with 98% accuracy.
The team behind SynapTrack is keen to hear from exchanges, financial regulators or law enforcement agencies who want to test the prototype in real-world conditions.
SynapTrack uses a validated methodology to score the likelihood of transactions being part of a money laundering scheme. It has a self-improving algorithm that continuously adapts to new tactics – dynamically identifying suspicious patterns in blockchain transactions. It has a universal cross-chain capability, and is designed around how compliance teams work, presenting results in a dashboard. No infrastructure changes are needed for installation.
It is relatively easy to obscure fraudulent or criminal activity by moving funds between blockchains, or dispersing them across many blockchains, in what are known as ‘cross-chain’ transactions. It is these transactions that pose the greatest difficulty for existing anti-money laundering systems.
SynapTrack was developed by University of Birmingham computer scientists Dr Pascal Berrang and PhD student Endong Liu, in collaboration with blockchain developer Nimiq. Dr Berrang’s research is in IT security and privacy on blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The subject of Endong Liu’s PhD is transaction tracing. Nimiq is supporting with blockchain-specific insights, knowledge of real-world constraints, and implementation.
The team is currently fundraising to ensure regulatory readiness and complete the team with a CEO and software developers.
Dr Berrang said: “The last few years have seen a near-exponential growth in blockchain transactions. While many of these are legitimate, blockchains are attractive to criminals as funds can be moved very quickly to other jurisdictions. Our work with Nimiq and the creation of SynapTrack is addressing this black spot, and will enable more effective regulation, making the whole ecosystem of blockchain safer and more trustworthy.”
With the financial market and cybersecurity industry converging, cryptocurrency is here to stay.
Bitcoin briefly reclaimed $65,000 before pulling back to $64,700 as the Iran conflict continued to escalate through Saturday.
Iranian state media reported at least 70 killed in its Hormozgan province, per Aljazeera, including a strike on an elementary school. Israel activated air raid alerts after detecting fresh missile launches from Iran.
Trump told the Washington Post that “all I want is freedom for the people.” NATO said it was “closely following” developments, China urged an immediate ceasefire, and Turkey offered to mediate.
Bitcoin’s inability to hold $65,000 on the bounce suggests sellers remain in control, but the relative stability given the severity of the headlines points to thin weekend order books rather than active selling pressure.
Headline risks persist for BTC traders as the U.S. day progresses.
Earlier in the day, BTC neared $63,000 in Saturday trading after the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes on Iran, pushing the largest cryptocurrency down roughly 3% in a matter of hours and extending what had already been a difficult weekend for risk assets.
The move brought bitcoin to its lowest level since the Feb. 5 crash, when the token briefly dipped below $60,000.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared an immediate state of emergency across all areas of Israel. A U.S. official confirmed American participation in the strikes, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The sell-off follows a well-established pattern. Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, while equity and bond markets are closed on weekends.
That makes it one of the only large, liquid assets available for traders to sell when geopolitical risk spikes outside of traditional market hours.
The result is that bitcoin often acts as a pressure valve for broader risk-off sentiment during weekend events, absorbing selling that would otherwise spread across equities, commodities, and currencies if those markets were open.
The attack risks a wider regional conflict in one of the most economically sensitive parts of the world, following a month-long U.S. military buildup and failed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
Both Ethereum (ETH 6.03%) and XRP (XRP 3.76%) are tried-and-tested blockchains which have survived (and sometimes thrived) for years on end. That means they’re both sturdy enough to be candidates for a big investment, like $5,000, and for holding over the very long term, or even forever.
So which of these two leading coins is the better option for a forever hold?
Image source: Getty Images.
Forever is a long time, especially for an investment in an emerging sector like crypto. Therefore, an asset’s optionality regarding where it can derive growth is a key factor, as today’s growth drivers might peter out and new ones are likely to emerge.
On that front, Ethereum has plenty of options. It already hosts a large decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem worth more than $53 billion today, powered by a massive stablecoin base of $159 billion. That existing base of capital is a strategic asset because it gives developers and financial institutions a reason to build new products right where liquidity already lives. It also gives investors exposure to many possible growth lanes at once, from the onboarding of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) to the development of new settlement rails for payments between AI agents.
Today’s Change
(-6.03%) $-123.58
Current Price
$1924.97
Market Cap
$232B
Day’s Range
$1898.54 – $2048.55
52wk Range
$1398.62 – $4946.05
Volume
20B
Another advantage is that Ethereum has a track record of consistently shipping large protocol upgrades. The Pectra upgrade, for example, landed on the mainnet in May 2025, followed by the Fusaka upgrade in December. Two similarly large feature packages are expected for 2026, and they should help to build the chain’s ability to scale up without spiking transaction costs.
If you plan to hold an asset indefinitely, this network’s culture of iterative improvement reduces the risk that its technical capabilities will become irrelevant as emerging opportunities for growth arise. Its habit of attracting and retaining substantial capital also helps prevent that outcome.
XRP is not a bad crypto asset by any means, but its long-term burden is its far narrower positioning than Ethereum.
Ripple, the coin’s issuer, built the XRP Ledger (XRPL) ecosystem as a toolkit of financial technologies to support specific workflows in institutional finance, especially cross-border payments and money transfers, and, more recently, the management of tokenized asset capital. The coin’s value is thus derived from the utility of its ledger.
That focus could pay off if the financial companies the chain targets like what it’s offering, but it also concentrates risk. Financial institutions move cautiously, and winning them over is a slow, grinding process of catering to their needs and building strong relationships. Their technology adoption process can stall for years, even when the product works, and decision-makers broadly want to adopt the new tech.
To Ripple’s credit, the XRP Ledger includes plenty of features that match institutional requirements and seek to minimize their potential pain points. The network’s authorized trust lines, for instance, let tokenized asset issuers whitelist who can hold their issued tokens, which is a feature that supports regulatory constraints around who can legally custody an asset. Similarly, the ledger supports freezing tokens when suspicious activity appears, which is a control that traditional finance teams tend to expect in regulated asset workflows.
Today’s Change
(-3.76%) $-0.05
Current Price
$1.35 Market Cap
$83B
Day’s Range
$1.34 – $1.42
52wk Range $1.14 – $3.65
Volume
2.8B
Key Data Points
But holding a coin forever is unforgiving of sustained competitive pressure, which XRP doubtlessly faces. Its competitors include fintech companies and other cryptocurrencies, not to mention the internal tech development capabilities of many of its target users in big banks. So it’ll need to continuously one up the other players in its space if it’s going to grow over the long term, and it’s hard to believe that it’ll win every round that counts.
The decision here is about resilience and resources.
Ethereum’s “grizzled veteran” reputation today stems from surviving numerous shifts in user demand patterns while maintaining a large on-chain capital pool and growing it all the while. Its success or failure in any given crypto market segment is not guaranteed, nor was it in the past, but its constant evolution has ensured that failures are not fatal, and also that missed opportunities aren’t very damaging overall.
XRP, on the other hand, is only just starting to scale up its on-chain capital base; it has only $418 million in stablecoins. Furthermore, while it has succeeded in attracting some financial institutions to its chain, the truth is that its growth trajectory has not yet been seriously tested, and is still finding an appropriate product-market fit. Its real competitive challenges have only just begun.
So if you want a coin to buy with $5,000 and hold forever, pick the asset that can win without needing to be perfect: Ethereum. XRP is still a decent long-term hold, assuming it’s part of a diversified crypto portfolio, but it’s riskier.
Exclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
Mother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
2026 MHSA Montana Wrestling State Championship Brackets And Results – FloWrestling
10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
Wildfire near Gum Swamp Road in Livingston Parish now under control; more than 200 acres burned
YouTube TV billing scam emails are hitting inboxes
Stellantis is in a crisis of its own making
OpenAI didn’t contact police despite employees flagging mass shooter’s concerning chatbot interactions: REPORT
