Five crypto exchanges are helping Russia evade sanctions, filling Garantex's void: Elliptic

A network of Russia-linked cryptocurrency exchanges is enabling the circumvention of international sanctions through high-volume crypto transactions, according to a new report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic published Saturday. The report identifies five platforms, most of them unsanctioned, that continue to provide Russian entities with financial pathways shielded from traditional banking oversight.

The findings come as the European Union considers a blanket ban on all crypto transactions with Russia, aiming specifically to prevent the emergence of copycat entities spun out of already-sanctioned platforms.

Of the five exchanges profiled, only one, Bitpapa, has been sanctioned. OFAC designated the peer-to-peer exchange in March 2024 for facilitating potential sanctions evasion. Elliptic found that roughly 9.7% of Bitpapa's outgoing crypto flows to OFAC-sanctioned targets, and that the exchange constantly rotates wallet addresses to evade monitoring systems.

ABCeX, the largest unsanctioned exchange in the report, facilitates ruble-to-crypto trading from Moscow's Federation Tower, the same office location previously used by Garantex before its domains were seized by U.S. law enforcement in March 2025. Elliptic said the exchange has processed at least $11 billion in crypto, with significant volumes flowing to Garantex and another profiled exchange, Aifory Pro.

Perhaps the most striking finding involves Exmo, which claimed to have exited Russia after the 2022 invasion by selling its regional business to a separate entity, Exmo.me. Blockchain analysis shows the two platforms continue to share the same custodial wallet infrastructure, with deposits pooled into identical hot wallets. Exmo has conducted more than $19.5 million in direct transactions with sanctioned entities including Garantex, Grinex, and Chatex, according to Elliptic.

The report also profiles Rapira, a Georgia-incorporated exchange with a Moscow office that has transacted more than $72 million directly with sanctioned exchange Grinex. Russian authorities reportedly raided Rapira's Moscow offices in late 2025 over suspected capital flight to Dubai.

Aifory Pro, the fifth exchange, operates cash-to-crypto services across Moscow, Dubai, and Turkey. It explicitly facilitates the bypass of Western service restrictions by offering virtual payment cards funded by USDT, allowing Russian users to pay for blocked services like Airbnb and ChatGPT. The firm has also sent nearly $2 million in crypto to Abantether, an Iranian exchange, per the report.

The findings underscore a pattern identified by multiple analytics firms: the Garantex takedown dispersed Russian sanctions evasion infrastructure across a broader set of platforms rather than eliminating it. TRM Labs previously found that ABCeX and Rapira both saw volume increases after Garantex's March 2025 shutdown.

Illicit crypto activity tied to sanctions evasion has accelerated sharply. Chainalysis reported in January that illicit crypto addresses received a record $154 billion in 2025, with Russia's ruble-backed A7A5 stablecoin alone facilitating over $93.3 billion in transactions. TRM Labs separately estimated illicit crypto volume at $158 billion for the year.

A senior Russian official acknowledged last year that sanctions cannot fully block Russians from the crypto market. Russia is also preparing a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework expected this July that would establish licensed domestic trading platforms.