Elliptic: Five Cryptocurrency Exchanges Helped Russia Evade Sanctions, Filling Gap Left by Garantex Shutdown

BlockBeats News, February 22nd, Blockchain analysis company Elliptic reported that after the U.S. seized the sanctioned Russian exchange Garantex in March 2025, at least five cryptocurrency exchanges related to Russia continued to provide funding channels for sanctioned entities, most of which have not been sanctioned.

The report mentioned that only the peer-to-peer platform Bitpapa was previously listed on the U.S. Treasury Department's OFAC sanctions list in March 2024. Elliptic stated that about 9.7% of its outflowing funds went to sanctioned entities, and it frequently changed wallet addresses to evade monitoring.

The unsanctioned exchange ABCeX was found to operate in the Moscow Federation Tower (the former location of Garantex), processing at least $11 billion in cryptocurrency transactions and having significant financial interactions with Garantex and Aifory Pro. Another platform, Exmo, claimed to exit the Russian market after the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict, but on-chain data showed that it still shared custody wallet infrastructure with the Russian platform Exmo.me and engaged in over $19.5 million in direct transactions with sanctioned entities such as Garantex, Grinex, and Chatex.
In addition, Rapira was found to have conducted over $72 million in direct transactions with the sanctioned platform Grinex; Aifory Pro provided cash-to-crypto services in Moscow, Dubai, and Turkey and helped users bypass Western service restrictions through a USDT virtual card.

Elliptic pointed out that after Garantex was shut down, the related sanctions evasion activities did not disappear but instead spread to more platforms. A previous report by Chainalysis stated that in 2025, cryptocurrency addresses involved in illicit activities received a total of $154 billion, with the A7A5 stablecoin supported by the Russian ruble having a transaction volume exceeding $93.3 billion; TRM Labs estimated that the annual scale of illicit cryptocurrency transactions was about $158 billion.