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 $26 million in funds used to facilitate Garantex’s money laundering activities have been frozen, U.S. officials said.
If convicted, Besciokov and Mira Serda face decades behind bars.
Next Big Cryptocurrency: Is Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) Going To Rip This Week?
Traders looking for the next big cryptocurrency have Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) (https://bitcoinhyper.com/) on their radar as catalysts line up this week. The pitch is simple.
A Bitcoin Layer 2 (https://www.binance.com/en/academy/glossary/layer-2) that anchors to mainnet while importing smart contracts and low fees. The hook is speed and usability for everyday use.
The marketing is presale plus staking, with governance on top. The risk is delivery. If the team ships demos, listings and tooling, interest compounds. If not, liquidity dries up and hype fades faster than headlines.
Market Snapshot For November 2025
November started steady. Bitcoin is near institutional interest after the October high, and that’s still guiding risk behavior across the board. Ethereum (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) and its Layer 2s are still where most smart contract activity happens, so throughput and fees on that side matter for sentiment. Liquidity is deepest on BTC and ETH, while smaller assets move harder on news. For presales, timing and venue matter most, since spreads blow out fast when order books are thin.
BTC And ETH Set The Tone
Bitcoin (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) is still setting the tone for alt rotations. When BTC trends strongly, correlations rise and ranges compress for weaker names. When BTC stalls, capital looks for momentum elsewhere, especially where there are clear catalysts. Ethereum’s lane is where the builders and DeFi users are, and that means persistent fee pressure and predictable activity cycles. If ETH Layer 2s keep fees low and finality decent, traders take more risk on the edges. That opens up windows for new narratives that promise speed, practical UX and cleaner settlements.
Risk Appetite And Liquidity Conditions
Risk appetite is choppy not broken. Desks add exposure when depth improves and funding cools, then pull back when wicks exaggerate. In that push and pull, early stage tokens can move big, both ways. The detail that matters is refill speed on bids and how spreads behave after bumps. If buy walls rebuild fast, confidence sticks. If walls disappear, volatility punishes impatience. For presales, unlock calendars, venue rules and market making prep dictate whether hype translates into sustained trading or a quick flip.
Why Bitcoin Hyper Is The Next Big Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) (https://bitcoinhyper.com/) is a bridge between Bitcoin’s brand and high performance DeFi. The architecture claims sub second finality, tens of thousands of transactions per second and penny level fees through an SVM compatible runtime that settles back to Bitcoin. The token angle is simple. Capture protocol fees, fund staking rewards and align governance with roadmap choices. If the team pairs those promises with verifiable testnets, audits and clean bridges the story gets shelf space. Execution missteps can collapse spreads and stall further listings.
Core Proposition In One Sentence
$HYPER sells speed, settlement confidence and developer familiarity. The path to relevance runs through three checkpoints. Show working throughput under realistic load, demonstrate a secure canonical bridge to Bitcoin and deliver tooling that Solana developers can pick up in a weekend. If those pieces appear alongside an orderly listing and a transparent unlock map the token gets time to breathe. Miss those marks and the market will treat it as a momentum trade with short memory and shallow conviction among larger participants.
On Chain And Order Book Signals
Presale structures concentrate supply so early on chain reads skew towards clustered wallets and synchronized moves. Watch claim windows, bridge activity and staking flows. A burst of transfers into exchanges without matching bid depth signals distribution pressure. Balanced flows into dApps, validators or bridges suggest organic adoption. Order books tell the truth intraday. Tight spreads plus steady bids indicate healthy curiosity. Wide spreads and lumpy walls reveal hesitant market makers and a crowd waiting for someone else to blink first.
Holders, Transfers, Median Size
Holder concentration is the first tell. If a handful of wallets dominate circulating supply unlock events can dictate the entire week. Median transfer size adds color. Shrinking medians after claims point to distribution towards smaller wallets and retail corridors. Rising medians often imply whale reshuffling or custodial movements. Pair those reads with exchange depth snapshots. If asks are thin and buys refill breakouts sustain longer. If sells stack and buys vanish after a wick prepare for chops and lower highs until liquidity improves again.
Price Levels And Scenarios For This Week
Use the presale reference near thirteen tenths of a cent as a simple anchor. Prints above that figure require credible liquidity and visible catalysts to avoid round trips. Prints below invite value buyers if unlock pressure is limited. Three paths cover most outcomes. A bull path from strong listings and bridge demos, a base path with steady staking and gradual venues, and a bear path driven by unlock clusters and missed technical milestones. Update probabilities as order books and on chain reads evolve.
Bull Scenario: Levels To Flip
The bullish script starts with a credible venue, functioning bridge paths and visible staking. That trio reduces hesitation, keeps spreads tight and invites faster market making. Price holds above the presale anchor, consolidates with higher lows and pushes into announced resistance levels with real bids. Social chatter assists only if backed by consistent depth. If dev updates arrive on schedule the window for sustained trend opens. A measured stair step grind is healthier than a single spike that evaporates by the next session.
Base Case: Range To Respect
The base case looks like controlled chop around the anchor as participants test both sides. Staking flows reduce circulating float but intermittent unlocks or small listings inject supply at awkward times. Spreads widen during quiet hours and tighten during peaks producing a sawtooth rhythm that shakes out impatient entries. In this lane disciplined traders ladder bids near support, trim into strength and let alerts manage risk. Progress depends on documentation releases and incremental tool shipments rather than splashy announcements alone.
Bear Scenario: Invalidations To Note
The bear script is simple. Unlocks collide with thin order books, listings disappoint and technical documentation lags. Sell walls stack above obvious levels while bids fail to rebuild after dips. Median transfer size rises as larger holders rotate out and claims outpace staking deposits. In that environment price can drift back towards or below the presale reference and stay pinned. Recovery requires a pause in supply, a consolidating base and credible signals that bridges, validators and developer tooling are actually ready.
Verdict Today
Bitcoin Hyper is between upside and execution risk. The idea makes sense. A Bitcoin aligned Layer 2 that borrows SVM speed, anchors to mainnet and funnels protocol fees to a staking token is a good concept. Add an audit, a refund policy in some regions and a big presale and curiosity is natural. None of that replaces shipped code. The market pays for delivery not slogans. Testnets, bridges and tools are what buyers respect when volatility returns.
Final Take For Traders And Editors
Treat Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) (https://bitcoinhyper.com/) as a satellite not a core position. Size entries small, respect liquidity and plan exits before headlines hit. If listings come with real market making, staking absorbs float and dev updates verify promised throughput the path to trend opens up. If anonymity persists, docs lag or bridges slip expect fade after each pop. For a Google News audience keep the thesis simple. Proof beats promises. The next big cryptocurrency earns that label by shipping not by saying it.
Buchenweg, Karlsruhe, Germany
For more information about Bitcoin Hyper (HYPER) visit the links below:
Website: https://bitcoinhyper.com
Whitepaper: https://bitcoinhyper.com/assets/documents/whitepaper.pdf
Telegram: https://t.me/btchyperz
Twitter/X: https://x.com/BTC_Hyper2
Disclosure: Crypto is a high-risk asset class. This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice.
CryptoTimes24 is a digital media and analytics platform dedicated to providing timely, accurate, and insightful information about the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. The enterprise focuses on delivering high-quality news coverage, market analysis, project reviews, and educational resources for both investors and enthusiasts. By combining data-driven journalism with expert commentary, CryptoTimes24 aims to become a trusted global source for emerging trends in decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, Web3 technologies, and digital asset markets.
This release was published on openPR.
Half-naked woman was allegedly tortured and chained in Texas backyard for months by five ‘friends’ who didn’t ‘like her anymore’
Texas launches effort to install TPUSA in every high school and college
ESPN scoop adds another intriguing name to Seahawks chatter before NFL trade deadline
Israel’s focus on political drama rather than Palestinian rape victim
Army veteran-turned-MAGA rising star jumps into fiery GOP Senate primary as polls tighten
Soundgarden Enlist Jim Carrey and Seattle All-Stars for Rock Hall 2025 Ceremony
Louisiana high school football final scores, results — November 7, 2025
Missing Kapolei man found in Waipio, attorney says
