BlockBeats report: On June 11, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced that Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk, 37, and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, 25, have been arrested and criminally charged with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and conspiracy to entrap money laundering. U.S. prosecutors allege that the two operated a cryptocurrency laundering service called "AudiA6," which is believed to have laundered over $389 million in cryptocurrency. Tkachuk is a Ukrainian citizen, and Ledenev is a Russian citizen; both reside in Batumi, Georgia, and are currently detained by Georgian authorities. U.S. prosecutors are seeking their extradition to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
According to the criminal indictment, Tkachuk and Ledenev were senior members of the AudiA6 organization, managing the cryptocurrency money laundering service and the Dark2Web cybercrime forum. The indictment states that AudiA6 explicitly advertised on Dark2Web that it could conceal and obfuscate the origins of cryptocurrency funds traceable to criminal sources, charging fees of up to 5%.
Law enforcement agencies, through blockchain analysis, determined that approximately 10,333 BTC were deposited into the AudiA6 cryptocurrency wallet since its launch in 2021, valued at approximately $389.7 million at the time of the transactions. Of this amount, approximately 393.39 BTC were directly sourced from known darknet markets, ransomware groups, cybercrime services, and other illicit origins, valued at approximately $19.23 million at the time of the transactions. If convicted, each defendant could face up to 20 years in prison.