Kyrgyzstan Crypto Hack Exposes How Russia Has Been Dodging Western Sanctions

A cyberattack on Grinex, a Kyrgyzstan-based cryptocurrency exchange under US sanctions, has exposed what investigators describe as a shadow financial network used to circumvent Western restrictions on Russia.

The firm said the hackers stole approximately $15 million from Grinex in an attack that also appears to have hit TokenSpot, a closely linked platform. Both exchanges showed overlapping wallet activity and simultaneous downtime, suggesting a single attacker targeted an interconnected network rather than two separate platforms.

What Is Grinex

Grinex was incorporated in Kyrgyzstan in December 2024, weeks before US authorities dismantled Garantex, a Russia-linked exchange that had been sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control since April 2022. 

• According to OFAC, which sanctioned Grinex in August 2025, the exchange was a direct continuation of Garantex, same owners, same clients, same infrastructure.
• When Garantex was shut down, Telegram channels affiliated with it immediately directed users to migrate their frozen assets to Grinex.
• Before its takedown, Garantex had processed over $100 billion in transactions despite being under sanctions, with 82% of its volume linked to sanctioned entities globally.

How The Attack Unfolded

Blockchain analysts identified several features of the attack. More than 70 wallets were linked to the theft, exceeding the number Grinex publicly disclosed. Stolen funds, mostly in USDT on the TRON network, were swapped into ETH and TRX via the SunSwap decentralised exchange before being routed to a single consolidation address. 

TokenSpot was found routing funds to the same wallet while briefly going offline, pointing to shared infrastructure between the two platforms. Trading activity on Grinex also involved A7A5, a ruble-backed stablecoin, raising additional concerns about the nature of transactions being processed.

Russia’s Response

Grinex blamed the attack on what it called the special services of unfriendly states, describing it as a systematic attempt to destabilise Russia’s domestic financial sector. The exchange framed the hack as an act of financial warfare rather than a criminal breach. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said it had not verified that claim.