Russian founder of sanctioned exchange Garantex starts Tether desk
Exved is a Russia n firm that announced its launch yesterday, December 7th. The firm intends to enable exchange s between Tether (USDT), rubles, and the dollar. Sergey Mendeleev’s InDeFi Bank, a Russia n bank, appears to have launched the project in collaboration with Exved. Mendeleev is also the found er of Garantex with Stanislav Drugalev, an Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned entity. Exved purports to only work with legal and compliant entities and is focusing its efforts on importers and exporters. In a since-deleted article from CoinTelegraph, Mendeleev claimed that the Exved’s mechanics have been approved by the Bank of Russia. One of the largest counterparties of the Hydra darknet market was Garantex, the other cryptocurrency exchange that Mendeleev founded. The announcement from OFAC details how Garantex lost its license in Estonia after review by the authorities found “critical AML/CFT deficiencies and found connections between Garan...