Senior Russian police officers sentenced for embezzling funds from Garantex crypto exchange

On August 24, 2026, the Butyrsky District Court of Moscow sentenced three senior Moscow police officers—Antonina Shakina, Renat Bakhtiev, and Leonid Golubev—to prison terms of 12 to 14 years for embezzling over 30 million rubles ($350,000) from clients of the sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. The officers used fake complaints and fabricated court orders in 2022 to freeze and transfer client assets to their associates. The court ordered them to pay 31 million rubles in compensation.

Garantex embezzlement convictions

• ▪On August 24, 2026, the Butyrsky District Court of Moscow sentenced three senior Moscow police officers to prison terms ranging from 12 to 14 years for embezzling over 30 million rubles from Garantex customers.
• ▪The Butyrsky District Court of Moscow sentenced former senior investigator Antonina Shakina and former senior detective Leonid Golubev to 12 years in prison, and former senior detective Renat Bakhtiev to 14 years in prison.
• ▪The Butyrsky District Court of Moscow ordered Antonina Shakina, Renat Bakhtiev, and Leonid Golubev to jointly pay over 31 million rubles in compensation to three victims and fined each officer 6.5 million rubles.
• ▪The Butyrsky District Court of Moscow found Antonina Shakina, Renat Bakhtiev, and Leonid Golubev guilty of accepting bribes, producing forged documents, and abuse of office, with Shakina and Bakhtiev also convicted of large-scale fraud.

Fake complaint fraud scheme

• ▪The Moscow police officers Antonina Shakina, Renat Bakhtiev, and Leonid Golubev were linked to the withdrawal of 6.2 million rubles from the Garantex accounts of Mikhail Korniychuk and Agakerim Gamzabekov.
• ▪The criminal investigation against the Moscow police officers began in spring 2023 after St. Petersburg resident Alexander Sazonov reported an attempted theft of 24.8 million rubles from his Garantex deposit.
• ▪The embezzlement scheme was implemented in 2022, and all participants, including the three Moscow police officers who were subsequently stripped of their ranks, were detained in October 2023.
• ▪The perpetrators used fake complaints filed against the victims by accomplices Denis Potapkin and Liliya Eleshova to access the Garantex customer funds.

Forged court order tactics

• ▪The fabricated court ruling secured the transfer of frozen Garantex client money, including cryptocurrency, to accounts controlled by friends of the perpetrators.
• ▪The Moscow police officers Antonina Shakina, Renat Bakhtiev, and Leonid Golubev employed a fabricated court ruling to freeze the assets of Garantex clients.

International sanctions on Garantex

• ▪Grinex, a cryptocurrency exchange registered in Kyrgyzstan believed to have succeeded Garantex, was also sanctioned by Western governments.
• ▪Garantex, originally registered as Garantex Europe in Estonia and headquartered in Moscow, was hit with international sanctions over Russia's military invasion of Ukraine.
• ▪In August 2025, the United States offered $6 million in bounties for executives of the Garantex exchange after sanctioning one of its founders, Sergey Mendeleev.

U.S. seizure operations

• ▪The website of the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange was seized in a U.S.-led operation in March 2025.
• ▪In March 2025, Tether froze $27 million worth of USDT in wallets on the Garantex platform.