Russians seek help in darknet to recover banned cryptocurrency assets

A growing number of service providers on the darknet offer to unblock Russian investors’ funds on foreign cryptocurrency exchanges, according to East-West Digital.

Moving money to an unblocked account, renewing accounts with fictitious KYC information, etc., are some techniques employed. Between 35% and 85% of the value of the assets that need to be freed may be charged for these services.

The so-called “service providers” claim to be able to conduct business on prominent exchanges like Binance, Huobi, Kraken, and KuCoin. Some of them allegedly have ties to the exchange security service.

However, according to industry insiders consulted by Kommersant, these offerings frequently turn out to be false.

The European Union reinforced its cryptocurrency sanctions against Russia in October.

The new regulations included a total ban on offering Russian citizens and residents wallet, account, or custody services for cryptocurrency holdings. The ninth set of sanctions imposed by Brussels said that the action was intended to be applicable regardless of the worth of these assets.

While some exchanges, like Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken, limited their interactions with Russian users entirely, others, like BitMEX, Bitstamp, Gemini, and WhiteBit, prohibited access to Russian users.

While some cryptocurrency exchanges choose not to implement the sanctions because they do not want to lose access to the lucrative Russian market, compliance risks continue to rise as additional sanctions packages from Western and other nations could be implemented at any time.

Sanctions are not the primary cause of restrictions on cryptocurrency exchanges. Users could be prohibited based on where their money came from. The business can only freeze the funds if they adhere to AML regulations. According to a sector expert, the case should be reported to Interpol or the police.