$13.74M Hack Shuts Down Sanctioned Grinex Exchange After Intelligence Claims

Grinex, believed to be a rebrand of the U.S.-sanctioned Garantex, announced suspension of operations after a reported April 15, 2026 theft of over 1 billion rubles (~$13.74M). Blockchain analytics firms (Elliptic, TRM Labs, Chainalysis) traced the stolen USDT being quickly swapped to TRX/ETH to evade freezing and linked roughly 70 addresses to the incident; a Kyrgyz exchange TokenSpot was also briefly affected. Analysts note high technical sophistication suggesting possible foreign intelligence involvement and warn the breach disrupts infrastructure used for Russian sanctions evasion, while also considering the event could be a false-flag.