BitRiver Founder Igor Runets Moved to Pretrial Detention on Large-Scale Fraud Charges

A Russian court transferred BitRiver founder Igor Runets from house arrest to pretrial detention on July 30, 2026. Runets faces large-scale fraud charges for allegedly failing to fulfill an $8 million equipment contract in 2023, causing $12.5 million in damages to En+ subsidiary Infrastructure of Siberia. Runets, who also faces tax evasion charges, has seen his crypto mining firm destabilized by a six-year regional mining ban and insolvency proceedings against its parent company.

Runets pretrial detention transfer

• ▪Igor Runets was previously detained and placed under house arrest in February 2026 on three charges of tax evasion.
• ▪A Russian court transferred BitRiver founder Igor Runets from house arrest to a pretrial detention facility on July 30, 2026.

Large-scale fraud charges

• ▪Igor Runets faces charges of large-scale fraud in Russia related to an alleged failure to deliver cryptocurrency mining equipment.
• ▪Investigators allege Igor Runets entered into an equipment supply contract worth $8 million in 2023 that was never fulfilled.

Unfulfilled equipment contract damages

• ▪Investigators allege Igor Runets caused more than 1 billion rubles, or approximately $12.5 million, in damages to Infrastructure of Siberia.
• ▪Infrastructure of Siberia, the counterparty to the unfulfilled contract, is a subsidiary of the multibillion-dollar industrial conglomerate En+.

Regional crypto mining ban

• ▪BitRiver faced financial difficulties following the closure of several mining centers due to a six-year government ban on crypto mining across 10 regions.
• ▪The six-year regional ban on cryptocurrency mining in Russia was imposed by the government citing energy use.

BitRiver insolvency proceedings

• ▪A regional arbitration court in Russia opened insolvency proceedings in February 2026 against Group of Companies Fox.
• ▪Group of Companies Fox is the controlling shareholder of BitRiver, owning 98% of the company's authorized capital.

BitRiver Siberian data centers

• ▪Igor Runets founded BitRiver in 2017 and began building a cryptocurrency mining data center in Siberia that same year.
• ▪Igor Runets expanded BitRiver's operations to encompass 15 data centers with more than 175,000 servers.

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