The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury has added Suex, a Russian crypto broker to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list.
Following the announcement on Tuesday, Sept. 21, all U.S citizens have been prohibited from having any dealings with the platform just as some crypto addresses linked to the platform were also published.
Suex OTC s.r.o. is an entity registered in the Czech Republic but operates mainly from branches in the Russian Federation — Moscow and Saint Petersburg. There are suggestions the firm maintains a presence elsewhere in Russia, the surrounding region, and possibly the Middle East as well.
According to a report by blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis, which supported the U.S. government-led investigation, Suex (“Successful Exchange”) offers users conversion of their cryptocurrency into cash and other assets at its physical locations.
These services have attracted ransomware actors, scammers, and darknet market operators who have allegedly sent over $160 million in bitcoin (BTC) to the over-the-counter (OTC) crypto broker.
Suex, which launched in 2018, received a total of more than $481 million in BTC alone, according to exchange rates at the time of transfer, while also accepting Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT) among other coins. Of this amount, almost $13 million is said to have come from ransomware operators such as Ryuk, Conti, and Maze.
Over $24 million was sent by crypto scams including the Finiko Ponzi scheme, more than $20 million originated from darknet markets like the Russian Hydra Market, and another $20 million came from mixers, Chainalysis adds.
The OTC broker also got more than $82 million from “high-risk” digital asset trading platforms. According to the investigation, Suex received over $50 million worth of cryptocurrency from addresses associated with the now-defunct BTC-e.
Although BTC-e exchange was shut down four years ago for facilitating large-scale money laundering on behalf of cybercriminals, the funds were sent to the crypto broker after that, likely by former administrators, associates, or users.
