Crypto Mixer AudiA6 Shut Down, Two Charged in US Sting

A crypto mixing service that authorities say laundered over 10,000 Bitcoin was taken down this week in a coordinated international operation. Two men are facing U.S. charges.

The U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania charged Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, both residents of the Republic of Georgia, with money laundering and conspiracy. The criminal complaint alleges they operated AudiA6, a service that promised to conceal the origin of cryptoassets.

Between late 2022 and early 2026, undercover agents based in the U.S. ran several transactions through the service, telling the operators the assets were proceeds of crime, the complaint said. AudiA6 was advertised on the cybercrime forum Dark2Web and charged a commission based on the amount of crypto processed and the risk it could be traced, authorities alleged.

Blockchain analysis showed roughly 10,333 Bitcoin – worth about $389.8 million at the time of the transactions – had been deposited into AudiA6 wallets since the service launched in 2021. Law enforcement traced some of those deposits to known darknet markets, ransomware groups, and other illicit sources.

The complaint describes Tkachuk and Ledenev as senior members of both AudiA6 and the Dark2Web forum. Alongside the arrests, authorities dismantled the service's servers, domains, and websites on both the clear and dark web. Telegram accounts were blocked and crypto assets seized.

The operation involved the U.S. Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service, Europol, Eurojust, and agencies in Australia, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Poland, Switzerland, and the U.K. Tkachuk, a Ukrainian, and Ledenev, a Russian, were arrested in Georgia and face extradition to the U.S.

The allegations have not been proven.