U.S. prosecutors charge two individuals in a $389 million cryptocurrency money laundering case.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced that Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk, a 37-year-old Ukrainian national, and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, a 25-year-old Russian national—both residents of Batumi, Georgia—were arrested on June 11 and charged with one count each of conspiracy to launder money and money laundering. The two are alleged to have operated the cryptocurrency laundering service "AudiA6" since 2021, charging clients up to a 5% fee to conceal funds derived from illegal sources, processing approximately 10,333 bitcoins valued at around $389 million, some of which originated directly from darknet markets, ransomware groups, and other illicit channels. This arrest was conducted jointly by the U.S. Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, and law enforcement agencies from multiple countries including Europol, Australia, Canada, France, Georgia, and Germany. Related servers and domains were seized, cryptocurrency assets were frozen, and the AudiA6 website and the darknet forum Dark2Web were replaced with law enforcement seizure notices. The two defendants are currently in custody under Georgian authorities, and the U.S. Department of Justice will seek their extradition. If convicted, each faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.