Igor Runets, founder of Russia's largest crypto mining firm BitRiver, has been charged with large-scale fraud and moved from house arrest to a pretrial detention facility. The charges allege $12.5 million in damages from a failed equipment deal with an En+ Group subsidiary. This adds to prior tax evasion charges and comes as BitRiver faces insolvency proceedings and the impact of US sanctions.
Runets fraud charges
- ▪On July 22, 2026, Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky District Court ordered Runets to be transferred from house arrest to a pretrial detention facility
- ▪Igor Runets is expected to spend at least two months in pretrial detention while the investigation continues
- ▪The charge is under Part 4 of Article 159 of Russia's Criminal Code for "large-scale fraud committed by an organized group."
- ▪Igor Runets, founder of Russian crypto mining firm BitRiver, has been charged with large-scale fraud
- ▪The fraud charges allege damages of approximately 1 billion rubles, equivalent to about $12.5 million
- ▪Before the fraud charges, Runets was placed under house arrest in early 2026 for separate tax evasion allegations
Mining equipment dispute
- ▪In 2023, a company controlled by Runets signed an $8 million contract to supply the equipment to Infrastructure of Siberia, an En+ subsidiary
- ▪The fraud charges stem from an alleged failure to deliver crypto mining equipment to a subsidiary of the En+ industrial conglomerate
- ▪Prosecutors allege Igor Runets did not intend to fulfill the agreement and used the funds for personal spending
- ▪The buyer, Infrastructure of Siberia, paid $7.9 million upfront for the equipment, which was allegedly not delivered within the 32-day period
BitRiver financial collapse
- ▪BitRiver's controlling shareholder, Group of Companies Fox, is facing insolvency proceedings initiated by Infrastructure of Siberia
- ▪Group of Companies Fox, which owns 98% of BitRiver's capital, has an estimated debt of approximately $9.2 million
- ▪In February 2026, Russia's Federal Tax Service filed for the bankruptcy of a BitRiver subsidiary tied to a failed 100 MW project
Company founding history
- ▪The company is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, with its main mining operations based in Siberia
- ▪BitRiver is described as Russia's largest crypto mining company, at one point operating 15 data centers with over 175,000 servers
- ▪Igor Runets, a Stanford University MBA graduate, founded BitRiver in 2017
US sanctions impact
- ▪The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on BitRiver in 2022
- ▪Following the U.S. sanctions, BitRiver reportedly began cutting its budget and scaling back operations in late 2024
- ▪The company's operations were also destabilized by a six-year government ban on crypto mining across 10 regions in Russia
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