Moscow Bitcoin Selloff: Russia ‘Begins to Sell’ Coins Seized in BTC 1,032 Infraud Haul
Russia has initiated the sale of the Bitcoin that was confiscated during a 2023 investigation into the Infraud hacker group. This action suggests that Moscow intends to exchange over 1,000 BTC for fiat currency.
According to the state-run news agency TASS, the Russian Treasury has started transferring the funds.
The news agency confirmed that Moscow will initially sell nearly $10 million worth of BTC that was seized from Marat Tambiev, a former investigator with the Russian Investigative Committee.
Tambiev was found guilty last year of accepting a bribe from the hacker group. Prosecutors discovered hundreds of Bitcoin tokens on his computer and storage devices.
Tambiev was found guilty of taking 1,032.1 BTC from the group and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
However, the process of liquidating the entire 1,032.1 BTC has been complicated by legal obstacles.
It appears that Tambiev divided the coins into several smaller amounts, requiring separate court rulings to grant Moscow access to the coins.
Bailiffs have successfully obtained permission from the court to sell the initial $10 million worth of coins. They claim that Tambiev stored these coins on a Ledger Nano X hardware crypto wallet.
The news agency quoted an anonymous source familiar with the case as stating that prosecutors also wish to sell an additional cache of Bitcoin worth several million rubles.
They also intend to sell several real estate properties in the Moscow region and a Honda motorcycle, according to the source.
Legal Challenges
Prosecutors have faced legal hurdles in their attempt to sell the entire Bitcoin haul, as well as suggestions that Tambiev may have transferred some assets to family members.
In November 2024, the Prosecutor-General filed a case against Tambiev and his uncle Shagaban Kubanov, seeking permission from the courts to sell much of their property for the benefit of the state. A second case was launched on December 20, 2024.
In 2023, a court in Nikulinsky ordered bailiffs to seize a total of 1,032.1 BTC from Tambiev’s computers and other hardware devices.
Tambiev is currently serving his sentence in a maximum-security penal colony. He was also fined 500 million rubles (almost $5 million) and stripped of his rank as a major.
His former colleague Kristina Lyakhovenko was also found guilty of accepting a bribe and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Dmitry Gubin, the former deputy head of the investigative department for Moscow’s Tverskoy District, is currently in hiding, and the police have yet to locate him.
Last year, prosecutors informed the court that Tambiev had accepted a series of Bitcoin bribes between 2020 and 2022. In return, he assisted in diverting police investigations into the group and allowed the hackers to hide crypto funds worth 14 billion rubles ($137 million).
In July last year, Marina Odintsova, the head of the Kirov branch of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, spoke about the significant increase in “non-cash” bribery involving crypto and other assets.