Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia charged two men on Wednesday with running an international bitcoin and cryptocurrency money laundering operation that processed nearly $400 million in illicit funds over five years, part of a sweeping, multinational law enforcement takedown that dismantled the group’s criminal infrastructure across multiple continents.
Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk, 37, a Ukrainian citizen, and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, 25, a Russian citizen, were arrested in Batumi, Republic of Georgia, where the two men reside. According to To U.S. Attorney David Metcalf of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
They each face one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and one count of money laundering – charges that carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors allege that the two men were senior members of an organization calling itself “AudiA6,” which ran a cryptocurrency mixing service and operated a cybercrime forum known as Dark2Web, where users could negotiate to commit cybercrimes for pay. Since its launch in 2021,
$389 million Bitcoin
AudiA6 accepted approximately 10,333 bitcoins — worth approximately $389.7 million at the time of the transactions — into its wallets, earning at least $10 million in commission fees by charging customers up to 5% per transaction.
Of these funds, approximately 393 bitcoins, worth approximately $19.2 million, were traced directly to known darknet markets, ransomware groups, and other illicit sources, with additional funds flowing indirectly from criminal actors.
Although AudiA6 promises customers that Mixed funds Blockchain analysis revealed that transactions could be followed directly through exchange records, investigators said.
case, Partially built In six undercover operations conducted between December 2022 and May 2026, FBI and Secret Service agents appeared posing as criminals seeking to launder the proceeds of fraud and drug sales.
In one exchange, an AudiA6 operator responded to an agent who asked if stolen bitcoin was acceptable by simply saying: “I don’t care.” In another case, when asked whether the proceeds from the sale of drugs posed too much of a risk, the worker replied: “Everything like that needs to go through a blender.”
The arrests were part of a coordinated international takedown operation involving the US Secret Service, the 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 properties, confiscated digital devices, froze cryptocurrency assets, blocked associated Telegram accounts, and replaced the AudiA6 and Dark2Web websites with law enforcement seizure signs.
The US Attorney’s Office said it will seek the extradition of Tkachuk and Ledenev to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin D. Traster and Sima Kazmir.
