Beyond the Freeze: $15M in Garantex Crypto Still Moving

Key Highlights:

Over $15M in Garantex-linked crypto remains active despite the freeze on Tether (USDT) assets.
ETH and BTC reserves are being laundered via Tornado Cash, among others.
$4M in BNB Chain assets remain untouched.

What happens when you freeze $26M but miss the rest?

The U.S. froze $26M in Garantex’s Tether assets, but the sanctioned exchange wasn’t stopped — just “rerouted”.

New findings from the Global Ledger’s research team reveal that while one door closed, Garantex quietly opened others, moving over $15M in crypto across multiple chains.

"The Garantex case undermines the illusion of control that many still cling to. $15 million moving freely through obscure chains and mixers isn’t a failure of law — it’s a failure of sanction enforcement."

Lex Fisun, CEO and co-founder of Global Ledger

Garantex's hidden reserves: what sanctions didn't touch

Quick reminder: Garantex’s site was taken down on March 6, 2025. Shortly after, its apparent successor, Grinex, emerged.

Frozen USDT ≠ frozen exchange

In early March 2025, U.S. authorities, alongside Germany and Finland, froze over $26M in Garantex’s USDT across Ethereum and TRON. This operation targeted Tether (USDT) tokens at the smart contract level. It was supposed to lock the funds and stop access but Garantex’s assets have kept moving even after the freeze.

Beyond Tether: a wider asset base

Garantex continued to support and hold:

Native assets like ETH and BTC.
ERC20/BEP20 tokens, including USDC, DAI, and Binance-pegged stablecoins, among others.
A newly observed ruble-pegged stablecoin (A7A5).

This diversified structure allowed Garantex to sidestep the freeze and keep operating.

Garantex continues to launder money

After analyzing activity on Ethereum and Bitcoin, our research team has uncovered aggregation operations spanning multiple blockchains that had previously gone unnoticed. These hidden reserves are substantial, and recent transactions suggest they may be part of an ongoing laundering scheme.

Ethereum: over $8.6M, and laundering in progress

A previously inactive Garantex Ethereum wallet started collecting Ether on March 6 and later funneled about $2.3 million worth of ETH through Tornado Cash.

Garantex ETH flows

As of June 4, 2025, the wallet still holds $6.1 million in ETH, with no further movement observed since.

Bitcoin: reserves reawakened

A similar pattern was seen with Bitcoin. On March 6, 2025, several wallets received a total of 19.39 BTC through aggregation transactions, just like what happened with Ethereum. The BTC came from “old” addresses that hadn’t been used for years.

Moreover, on May 8, 2.2 BTC was moved to the TRON network and partly sent to Grinex.

Garantex BTC flows

BNB Chain: untouchable funds

Roughly $4M sits unspent on the BNB Chain, which neither supports Tether nor allows contract-level freezes. The funds have not been spent to date.

What this case means

This case reveals a key enforcement gap: token-level freezes don’t work when exchanges move assets across ecosystems. Garantex shows how sanctioned entities can:

Consolidate reserves quietly across chains
Use mixers like Tornado Cash to obfuscate origins
Exploit “less-regulated” or technically shielded blockchains.

What's next

Garantex’s continued access to $15M+ in crypto shows that freezing assets on one chain or token is not always enough. As funds move across different blockchains, mixers, and switch between stablecoins, traditional enforcement methods can fall short.

In this regard, proper tools can improve how risks are managed by enabling earlier detection rather than relying solely on reactive measures.

The solutions developed by Global Ledger make it easier to spot risks before they escalate. Using advanced blockchain visualization and AML risk scoring, you can gain insights that might otherwise go unnoticed. Learn more about how it can benefit your team.

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