Global Ledger experts have discovered unfrozen wallets of the sub-sanctioned exchange Garantex with assets worth more than $15 million. Capital movements on them continued even after USDT was blocked on the platform’s accounts.

The Garantex exchange effectively suspended operations on March 6, 2025. This was preceded by the freezing of the platform’s wallets by Tether, the USDT issuer. Stablecoin assets worth 2.5 billion rubles (about $28 million at the time) were blocked on the accounts.

Later, Global Ledger discovered that the Garantex team had launched a new project – the Grinex exchange. The platform actually continued to operate under a new brand.

However, as the organization’s experts managed to find out, Garantex had not only USDT, but also other crypto assets, including bitcoin, ERC20 and BEP20 tokens, as well as the new ruble-denominated A7A5 stablecoin.

According to the report, the exchange’s Ethereum (ETH) wallet, which had accumulated 3,265 ETH (about $8.6 million) by March 6, awakened by the end of the month. Between March 22 and June 4, 2025, 844.99 ETH was withdrawn from it, which was later laundered through the Tornado Cash mixer.

As of June 4, the said account still holds 2,334.25 ETH.

At the same time, Garantex, according to the report, controls 30.04 BTC. Most of these funds were accumulated on March 6, and on May 8, 2.2 BTC were transferred to the TRON network and settled in Grinex accounts.

Garantex also controls about $4 million in crypto assets on the BNB Chain network.

“While this [about $15 million] may only represent a fraction of the exchange’s total reserves, the fact that such a large amount remains in circulation (more than half of the assets already frozen) underscores the scale of how traditional measures may not be effective in the crosschain space,” Global Ledger said.