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A sanctioned Russian cryptocurrency exchange has resurfaced, using new platforms to move funds through banks and intermediary companies, according to an investigation published Wednesday by Transparency International Russia in Exile.
The report looked into firms associated with Moscow-based currency exchange Garantex Europe Ou, which was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2022, and stripped of its license by Estonian regulators.
The Russian chapter of Transparency International, which operates in exile, based its findings partly on blockchain analysis using tools developed by the firms Crystal and Elliptic.
A crackdown by law enforcement in March 2025 targeted Garantex’s servers and domains, and the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment against its alleged administrators. Indian authorities reportedly arrested a system administrator at Washington’s request.
However, members of the team behind Garantex have since launched more cryptocurrency platforms, according to the Transparency International report.
Two of the platforms have addresses in Moscow and were allegedly engaged in suspicious activity that could indicate money laundering, according to the report. Blockchain analysis showed that crypto wallets linked to the platforms were directly tied to sanctioned Garantex cryptocurrency wallet addresses.
The U.S. Treasury Department expanded sanctions in August to include the successor platform, Grinex, which was “created by Garantex employees to support the company’s sanctions evasion efforts.”
Three Garantex executives, including its co-founder, Sergey Mendeleev, were also sanctioned. The Treasury Department sanctioned a second successor platform called Exved, which Mendeleev had co-founded.
Transparency International Russia told OCCRP that neither Mendeleev nor Exved responded to its requests for comment on the researchers’ findings.
The Treasury Department did not include much information about Exved in its sanctions notice. But Transparency International researchers found out more when they reached out on Telegram to an account identified as Exved, posing as potential clients from a Hong Kong company looking to export goods to Russia.
The researchers presented credentials for the fictitious company in chats that took place over the course of a couple weeks. After Exved approved them as clients, they were told a “partner” agent in a different country would handle their foreign transaction.
“Exved uses a multi-step process to move money internationally while obscuring the trail, keeping the crypto element invisible to regulators and banks,” the Transparency International report said.
Funds are paid out through accounts in jurisdictions including Hong Kong, Dubai or Thailand, the report added.
Transparency International’s research built on evidence collected by the U.S. Treasury Department, which also pointed to Exved’s role in circumventing sanctions in concert with another company cofounded by Mendeleev, Russia-based InDeFi Bank.
“Exved is a payment platform that works closely with InDeFi Bank to facilitate cryptocurrency-mediated trade between Russia and other countries to subvert U.S. sanctions on Russia’s financial services sector,” the Treasury Department said in its August statement.
This story has been updated to cite the use of research tools developed by Crystal and Elliptic, and it has been edited for clarity.