During the 2016 US presidential campaign, there were Russian attempts to influence the outcome. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed this in 2018, and the Federal Grand Jury in the District of Columbia indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for hacking into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the presidential campaign of Hilary Clinton.

2016 winner Donald Trump could not be bothered. At the US-Russia summit held in Finland's capital, Helsinki, right after the Columbia indictment in 2018, Trump had no qualms telling the world that he trusted Russian president Vladimir Putin more than the FBI.

Five years later, in 2021, one of the first things Trump's successor Joe Biden did was to issue an Executive Order (EO), 14024, on the basis of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 1977. This Act empowers the US President to act against perceived foreign threats.

'EO 14024' was Russia-specific and its function was "blocking properties with respect to specified harmful foreign activities of the Government of the Russian Federation". In simple terms, the EO allowed the US Administration to blacklist individuals or entities doing Russia's dirty job in America. This was Biden's national emergency declaration against Russia's virtual war.

The US's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) then prepared what is called the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List). Aleksej Besciokov, the 46-year-old Lithuanian national who was nabbed from Varkala on March 12 and his company Garantex were included in the SDN List in 2022. Thanks to a Biden order, the Trump Administration has no choice but to indict Besciokov for allegedly employing Garantex to destabilise America.

Here are some of the 'dirty jobs' that persons and entities included in the SDN List, like Besciokov and Garantex, have allegedly done. One, undermine the conduct of free and fair democratic elections and democratic institutions in the United States and its allies and partners. Two, engaging in and facilitating malicious cyber-enabled activities against the United States and its allies and partners.

Three, fostering and using transnational corruption to influence foreign governments. Four, pursuing extraterritorial activities targeting dissidents or journalists. Five, undermining security in countries and regions important to United States national security. And six, violating well-established principles of international law, including respect for the territorial integrity of states.

It is still not clear whether Garantex has indulged in election fraud or influenced foreign governments or targeted dissidents. Besciokov and Garantex, nonetheless, stands accused of the rest.

Those in the SDN List are prohibited from carrying out any commercial activity in the US. It is this prohibition, brought in by Biden to prevent Russia-sponsored sabotage, that Besciokov and his co-conspirators have violated for nearly three years.

Garantex changed its system for managing its operational wallet infrastructure to prevent virtual currency exchanges, including US-based exchanges, from detecting that they were transacting with Garantex.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ), in its indictment of Garantex on March 7, says that in early 2023, "instead of storing its funds in the same wallets for extended periods of time, Garantex administrators moved the exchange's operational wallets storing Tether (a cryptocurrency linked to the US dollar) to new virtual currency addresses on a daily basis. By changing virtual currency addresses on a daily basis, Garantex was able to evade detection by blockchain analytics services that identify and would allow exchanges to block transactions with known Garantex addresses".

(A 'virtual currency wallet' stored a user's public and private keys, allowing a user to send and receive virtual currency stored on the blockchain, which is a digital ledger run by a decentralized network of computers referred to as 'nodes'. Multiple virtual currency addresses could be controlled by one wallet.)

Since April 2019, Garantex has processed at least $96 billion (Rs 8.35 lakh crore) in cryptocurrency transactions. Garantex was blacklisted by the OFAC on April 5, 2022, for its role in facilitating money laundering of funds from ransomware actors and darknet markets, and these included groups that profited from terrorism, child sex abuse and narcotics.

According to the DoJ indictment, between March 2021 and December 2023, Garantex processed at least $1.2 million from, and to, three different darknet markets that specialized in drug sales and child sexual abuse material.

('Ransomware' is a software program that locked or encrypted the contents of a victim computer or network. For decryption, ransom has to be paid. Black Basta, one of the ransomware groups Garantex worked with is said to have extorted over 500 companies in North America, Europe, and Australia.)

Significantly, the US government had indicted Garantex just a week after top cyber officials of the Trump administration had played down the Russian threat.

For instance, Liesyl Franz, the deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the state department, did not take the name of Russia before a United Nations working group on cybersecurity held in the last week of February. Her worry was limited to China and Iran.

The Guardian had on March 1 reported that a new memo issued by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and monitors cyber threats against US critical infrastructure, had set out priorities that included China and protecting local system. "It did not mention Russia," the Guardian report said. A week later Garantex was indicted by the US Department of Justice.