Lithuanian citizen, Aleksej Besciokov, a wanted criminal in the USA for charges of conspiracy of laundering proceeds of unlawful activities, who was arrested by the Kerala police, allowed transactions of dirty money linked to cybercriminals and fraudsters although he personally identified them, shows court documents of the US Department of Justice. He was handed over to the CBI on Saturday. Kerala police, in a coordinated operation with the CBI, arrested him from a homestay in Varkala on March 12.

The court document of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia shows that Besciokov and Aleksandr Mira Serda are indicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate International Emergency Economic Powers Act and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money service business. Besciokov and Serda collected little to no information about their customers, according to the court documents. Many individuals were allowed to operate without providing verified basic information about identities, location and business.

According to the court document, they used Garantex, a cryptocurrency exchange to launder the proceeds of criminal activity including ransomware, computer hacking, narcotics transactions and profited from the laundering. Some accounts of Garantex were registered to customers using the names 'drug', 'God' and 'Taliban'. He even identified two different accounts to be transferring funds originating from a North Korean cyber threat gang believed to be run by the North Korean government and was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets control in 2019.

While Besciokov told Kerala police that he was only a staff, the court document identifies him as an administrator of Garantex and his responsibilities involved obtaining and maintaining critical Garantex infrastructure as well as reviewing and approving transactions. They had processed millions of dollars from Russian-speaking online criminal forum utilized by elite cybercriminals, from darknet markets that specialized in drug sales and child sexual abuse material.

During the interrogation, Besciokov told police that he has no business in India and never set foot in the US. Regarding criminal charges against him, Besciokov said that he was only a staff and only did what his boss asked him to do. He reportedly pleaded ignorance about the serious criminal activities he is accused of and maintained that everything was done at the direction of his boss, referring to Mira Serda. He was planning to leave for Goa to meet a friend in the evening on the day of arrest. Besciokov did not reveal details of the person he was supposed to meet that day in Goa. His wife and 10-year-old son left for Moscow in the morning on March 12, a senior police official associated with the arrest said.

He told police that he had been coming to Kerala for the last fifteen years on leisure trips. Passport details however showed that his visits to Kerala began five years ago. He had also been to Chennai and Kochi, police said. He initially entered into an annual contract with a home-stay owner in Varkala at Rs 1 lakh and the latest contract was renewed at Rs 5 lakh. Kerala police seized two mobile phones, two laptops and a set of documents from the rented residence.

The cops are looking at source of his financial transactions in a bank account he had opened in Varkala. Kerala police have also collected names of people who frequented the homestay at Varkala. Two names; Alexander and Romanov are also being probed by the cops. It also needs to be found out if it was the same Alexander who is indicted of conspiracy in the USA along with Besciokov. While police have identified three Keralites who have provided place to stay, a SIM card and other help to Besciokov, the officials said that they did not seem involved in any illegal activities.

Residents of Varkala said that they remember Besciokov by his unique hairstyle. "All of them, his wife, his boy and himself, maintained their heads like a football. They often travelled in a rented two-wheeler and you could always identify them with their hairstyle," said Dhanya, who stays close to the homestay from where Besciokov was arrested.