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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