US Charges Two Men With $389 Million in Bitcoin and Dark Web Cryptocurrency Laundering Scheme
Philadelphia prosecutors charged two men Wednesday with running a bitcoin and crypto-money laundering operation that netted nearly $400 million over five years, part of a major law enforcement crackdown that dismantled the group’s criminal infrastructure on multiple continents.
Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk, 37, of Ukrainian origin, and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, 25, of Russian origin, were arrested in Batumi, Republic of Georgia, where they both live, according to U.S. Attorney David Metcalf of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Each is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of money laundering – charges that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors alleged that the two men were senior members of an organization that called itself “AudiA6,” which operated a cryptocurrency pooling service and ran a cybercrime platform known as Dark2Web, where users could negotiate commissions of cybercrime for payment. Since its launch in 2021,
$389 million in bitcoin
AudiA6 accepted approximately 10,333 Bitcoins – worth an estimated $389.7 million at the time of the transaction – to its wallets, earning at least $10 million in commission fees by charging clients up to 5% per transaction.
Of those funds, approximately 393 Bitcoins, with an estimated value of $19.2 million, were traced directly to known darknet markets, ransomware groups, and other illegal sources, with additional funds coming in indirectly from criminal actors.
Despite AudiA6’s promises to customers that mixed funds are untraceable, investigators say blockchain analysis reveals that transactions can be tracked directly through exchange records.
The case, built in part on six undercover operations conducted between December 2022 and May 2026, involved FBI and Secret Service agents posing as criminals seeking to launder the proceeds of racketeering and drug trafficking.
At one point, the operator of the AudiA6 responded to an agent asking if the stolen Bitcoin was acceptable by saying, “you don’t care.” In another, when asked if the money available for selling drugs posed too much risk, a colleague replied, “Everything like that needs to go through the mix.”
The arrest was part of a coordinated international crackdown involving the US Secret Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, Europol, Eurojust, and law enforcement partners from Australia, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Poland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Authorities searched three buildings, seized digital devices, froze cryptocurrency assets, blocked related Telegram accounts, and replaced the AudiA6 and Dark2Web websites with law enforcement arrest banners.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said it will seek the extradition of Tkachuk and Ledenev in the eastern district of Pennsylvania. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant US Attorneys Benjamin D. Traster and Sima Kazmir.
