Anton Shkurenko, founder of Bitzlato, was detained in Moscow on February 6 at the request of Interpol, local media reported on Monday. However, according to a report by CoinDesk on February 10, Shkurenko was stopped and detained by local police, conducted a true identity check, and was released immediately after communication.

Shkurenko said he was not involved in all criminal cases in Russia, but did not disclose small details of the investigation:

"I wish I could convince the prosecutor that I was innocent."

He did not specify the law enforcement agency that detained it, but he mentioned that he had signed a contract to appear in court when required by the investigator. As a result, Shkurenko received an arrest warrant prohibiting detention in order to prevent future arrests.

When arrested, Shkurenko confirmed that the man was a "technical engineer" of Bitzlato. However, it is reported that he has the keys to encrypt the exchange data wallet, although they were later handed over to other team members.

Despite recent attacks from authorities around the world, Bitzlato still has about 100 active employees. Shkurenko told CoinDesk that the exchange could be released again in the near future and that the industrial base would be based in Russia.

"I can run the business in my apartment."

According to the founder, the team preserved most of the client's assets. Shkurenko shows that he can resume operations "quickly".

Prior to that, there had been a series of upgrades to Bitzlatow's operations. On January 18, US authorities took action against the exchange, accusing it of money laundering and on suspicion of circumventing the ban on Russia.

According to the US Justice Department, the exchange has resolved nearly $700m in illegal assets.

With the smooth progress of the investigation and analysis of the exchange, a number of well-known companies in the field of login passwords have been exposed to have links with Bitzlatow. One of them is Binance, which is named by the US Financial Crime Inspection Network as an important recipient of the exchange's BTC (BTC).

Another digital money service platform, Localbitcoins, was shut down on Feb. 9 and became a big sender of BTC linked to Bitzlato.

January twenty _ third Police in the European region reported that these people seized 19.5 million dollars in login passwords during law enforcement operations against Bitzlatow. More than a week later, on February 2nd, Italian authorities detained the top chief executive of the exchange.