Russian police and FSB officers are conducting searches at dozens of addresses related to crypto exchangers. Investigative actions are being carried out in St. Petersburg and 14 other Russian regions. In St. Petersburg alone, about five thousand law enforcement officers are involved in searches.

Operative officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Criminal Investigation Department are taking part in the investigative actions. The department for investigating particularly important cases of the Moscow Investigative Committee was named as the ordering party for the searches.

Cases were initiated under three articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: 210 (organization of a criminal community), 172 (illegal banking activities), 187 (illegal circulation of means of payment). IN
The materials are about transactions with cryptocurrency.

According to the publication 78.ru, one of the organizers of the exchangers lives in the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg – in the village of Lisiy Nos. The searches at this address may be related to the anonymous exchanger Cryptex and the UAPS project, which were subject to US blocking sanctions less than a week ago.

There are 90 people suspected, and as the Delta.News portal writes, one of them is Sergei Ivanov, also known by the name Omelnitsky. Six days ago, personal sanctions were imposed against this businessman by the US OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control).

Earlier, the investigative department of the Netherlands Tax Office seized the servers of two large cryptocurrency exchange services located in the country. We are talking about the equipment of the PM2BTC and Cryptex exchanges, which the authorities associate with Russian Sergei Ivanov.