A Moscow court sentenced three former police officers to between 12 and 14 years in prison for stealing more than 30 million rubles, worth over $350,000, from customers of the now-defunct Garantex crypto exchange. Renat Bakhtiev received 14 years, while Antonina Shakina, a senior investigator with the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD, Russia's Interior Ministry), and senior detective Leonid Golubev each received 12 years. All three were convicted of accepting bribes, producing forged documents and abusing their offices; Shakina and Bakhtiev were also convicted of large-scale fraud. Each was fined 6.5 million rubles, and the Butyrsky District Court of Moscow ordered them to jointly pay more than 31 million rubles in compensation to three victims. The scheme used fabricated complaints and a fake court ruling to freeze customer assets and transfer money, including cryptocurrency, to accounts controlled by associates. The defendants were stripped of their ranks, and their lawyers are expected to appeal. Garantex was a major Russian crypto exchange that provided trading and cross-border transfer services before international sanctions and a U.S.-led seizure of its website. Tether froze $27 million worth of USDT on the platform in March 2025, while the United States offered $6 million in bounties for executives in August of last year. Grinex, a Kyrgyzstan-registered exchange believed to have succeeded Garantex, was later sanctioned by Western governments.