TL;DR:
- The DOJ charged two men for operating AudiA6, a cryptocurrency money laundering service that processed over $389 million since 2021.
- The accused charged commissions of up to 5% to conceal the origin of illicit funds and are detained in Georgia pending extradition to American soil.
- The operation was coordinated with the Secret Service, the IRS, Europol and law enforcement agencies from ten additional countries.
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed criminal charges against two men accused of operating AudiA6, a cryptocurrency money laundering service that processed over $389 million in transactions since its launch in 2021. Both individuals were arrested in Batumi, Georgia.
The accused are Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk, 37, a Ukrainian national, and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, 25, a Russian national. Each faces one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and one count of concealed money laundering, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Both remain in Georgian custody pending extradition to the United States.
According to the criminal complaint, Tkachuk and Ledenev are senior members of the AudiA6 organization and also administer the Dark2Web cybercrime forum, a platform where the service advertised its crypto laundering operations. An advertisement cited in the complaint promised to conceal and disguise the origin of cryptocurrencies for any client in exchange for commissions of up to 5% of the laundered amount.
Onchain Crypto Laundering: From Dark Markets to Anonymous Wallets
Through blockchain analysis, authorities determined that approximately 10,333 bitcoin were deposited into AudiA6 wallets since 2021. Of that total, around 393.39 BTC arrived directly from darknet markets, ransomware organizations and other cybercrime services. The remainder entered indirectly from equally illicit sources.
The operation was carried out jointly by the U.S. Secret Service, the IRS Criminal Investigation division, Europol and Eurojust, with participation from the forces of Australia, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Poland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Among the multiple operations were raids, seizure of servers and domains, blocking of Telegram accounts, freezing of crypto assets and confiscation of digital devices. The visible and hidden web infrastructure of AudiA6 and the Dark2Web forum was replaced by law enforcement seizure banners.
