One of the operators of sanctioned Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex was arrested in India on Tuesday, according to two recent news reports.

Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov, 46, was reportedly arrested by police in the Indian state of Kerala, while vacationing on the country’s southern coast with his family, Techcrunch and KrebsonSecurity reported.

Last week, a coalition of international law enforcement agencies from the U.S., Germany and Finland seized Garantex’s domains and servers and froze nearly $28 million in crypto tied to the exchange with the help of stablecoin issuer Tether. The exchange was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) in 2022, for knowingly facilitating money laundering for ransomware actors, including Conti and Black Basta, and darknet markets like Hydra, the largest such market in the world before its closure in 2022.

In addition to allegedly facilitating money laundering for criminals, including North Korea’s in-house hacking squad the Lazarus Group, which was behind the massive $1.5 billion Bybit heist last month, Garantex reportedly played a large role in sanctions evasion. Upscale sanctions evasion services like the TGR Group, which cater to Russian oligarchs, have been connected to the exchange.

Read more: Sanctioned Russian Crypto Exchange Garantex Seized, Operators Charged With Money Laundering

In conjunction with the seizure, U.S. prosecutors charged Besciokov and another of Garantex’s operators, 40-year-old Russian Aleksandr Mira Serda, a resident of the United Arab Emirates, with money laundering conspiracy. Besciokov is currently listed on the U.S. Secret Service’s Most Wanted list.

Neither the Kerala police nor the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment about Besciokov’s reported arrest.

A majority of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to overturn an IRS rule treating crypto entities as brokers and requiring them to collect certain taxpayer and transaction information, including decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

With a 292-132 vote, a bipartisan majority in the House joined the U.S. Senate in advancing the Congressional Review Act resolution overturning the rule finalized in the closing days of former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Missouri Republican Jason Smith, urging his fellow lawmakers to vote for the resolution earlier in the day, said the IRS rule risked harming U.S. businesses and disincentivized innovation.

“There are real questions that the rule can ever even be administered,” he said. “DeFi exchanges are not the same as centralized crypto exchanges or traditional banks or brokers. DeFi platforms do not and cannot even collect the information from users needed to implement this rule.”

Last week, 70 Senators voted to overturn the rule, and President Donald Trump’s senior advisers have already recommended he sign the provision. However, the Senate will need to approve the resolution again due to budget rules, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) noted. If it approves the resolution and Trump signs it, the IRS will be barred from ever bringing a similar rule again.

Illinois Democrat Danny Davis pushed back against the resolution, noting that it stemmed from the 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and comparing crypto to stocks.

“When you sell stock with a stock broker, the broker reports the proceeds of the sale to both you and the Internal Revenue Service,” he said. “Probably to no one’s surprise, when there is independent reporting on these sales, taxpayers are more likely to report their income to the Internal Revenue Service.”

North Carolina Republican Tim Moore said the rule “goes far beyond” Congress’s intention with the 2021 law.

“This rule has placed impossible burdens on software developers threatening American leadership in digital asset innovation,” he said.

Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett called the resolution “special interest legislation,” adding that it could be “exploited by wealthy tax cheats, drug traffickers and terrorist financiers,” and add $4 billion to the national debt, conflicting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s stated goal of cutting the debt.

Tuesday’s vote was preceded by the House vote on a continuing resolution to fund the U.S. government through Sept. 30, 2025, which passed with 217 votes in favor to 213 votes against. That funding resolution now heads to the Senate.

Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange popular with ransomware gangs and darknet markets, has been taken down in an international law enforcement operation, according to a Friday announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

On Thursday, a coalition of law enforcement agencies from the U.S., Germany and Finland seized Garantex’s domains and servers, and froze nearly $28 million in crypto tied to the exchange with the help of stablecoin issuer Tether.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned Garantex in 2022, accusing the exchange of knowingly facilitating money laundering for ransomware actors, including Conti and Black Basta, and darknet markets like Hydra, which, before its 2022 shut down, was once the largest darknet market in the world.

The sanctions had little to no effect on Garantex – according to data from blockchain sleuthing firm Elliptic, which aided the U.S. in its investigation, the exchange processed more than $60 billion in crypto transactions after being sanctioned. In total, the exchange has transacted over $96 billion.

According to court documents, Garantex collected virtually no know-your-customer (KYC) information about its clients, allowing criminals to use its services unchecked, and accounts were registered to customers using names like “Drug,” “hacker,” “taliban,” “Cashout, cleancoins” and “God.”

In addition to ransomware actors and darknet markets, Garantex’s clientele allegedly included North Korea’s state-sanctioned hacking squad, the Lazarus Group, which was behind the massive $1.5 billion Bybit heist last month, as well as Russian oligarchs, who used the service to evade international sanctions tied to the war in Ukraine. Sophisticated international sanctions evasion companies, like TGR Group, which cater to Russian elites, have been tied to Garantex.

Following the seizure of Garantex’s servers and domains, two of its operators have been criminally charged in the U.S. for their connections to the exchange.

Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov, 46, has been charged with money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to violate sanctions, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Aleksandr Mira Serda, 40, a Russian citizen currently residing in the United Arab Emirates, has been charged with money laundering conspiracy.