Zondacrypto tied to Russian Tambov gang; withdrawals halted

Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) says Zondacrypto has been controlled since 2018 by the Russian Tambov crime group. The exchange stopped processing withdrawals earlier this month after it lost access to a wallet holding 4,500 BTC, and authorities estimate roughly 30,000 users may be affected with more than $95 million potentially missing.

The ABW memorandum circulated to officials reports that the syndicate acquired a controlling stake when the platform operated as BitBay and faced financial trouble. The purchase was arranged through a Polish intermediary and financed through companies registered in the United Arab Emirates. The memo states the criminals paid ‘tens of millions of euros’ on two occasions to take control of the exchange, while official ownership was recorded under companies led by a BitBay co-founder.

Zondacrypto later moved its legal base to Estonia and obtained a Baltic license but continued to serve mainly Polish customers. Market intelligence flagged that the platform’s reported reserves had fallen by more than 99 percent, prompting the suspension of withdrawals. Zonda’s chief executive, Przemysław Kral, initially disputed reserve estimates but later acknowledged the executive team did not have access to the wallet containing 4,500 BTC, blaming former executive Sylwester Suszek for ‘never handing over the keys.’

Suszek is believed to have disappeared in February 2022. Kral has been out of contact since mid-April. Multiple resignations have left the company with limited management, the exchange’s website is largely unavailable, and some user data may have appeared on darknet forums, according to reports. Polish prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the platform’s collapse.

The case has prompted a political dispute in Warsaw. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused Zondacrypto of financing events and organizations that lobbied against a government crypto bill. The draft law from the ruling coalition was returned twice by President Karol Nawrocki and the government recently failed to override his veto. Poland must align national rules with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework by July, and the episode has intensified debate over the timing and content of regulation.

The Tambov group, known in Russian as Tambovskaya Bratva, emerged in the late 1980s and grew into one of Russia’s largest organized crime networks. One of its founders, Vladimir Kumarin, was sentenced in 2019 to 24 years in prison for creating and leading the organization. The ABW characterizes the syndicate as having extensive ties and financial resources, which the agency says enabled the 2018 takeover.

Investigators are tracing the ownership structure, the flow of funds used in the acquisition, and the current status and location of the missing cryptocurrency. Authorities are seeking to determine whether criminal or regulatory breaches occurred during the ownership transfers. Affected customers face uncertainty about recovering assets while the probe continues.