A Moscow court has moved BitRiver founder Igor Runets from house arrest to pretrial detention as investigators examine an alleged fraud involving nearly ₹100 crore in mining equipment. According to reports from Pravo.ru, the Zamoskvoretsky District Court approved the change on July 22 and ordered Runets to remain in custody for two months. The new charge became public on July 29 through reports based on court records and sources familiar with the investigation. Runets faces an accusation under Part 4 of Article 159 of Russia's Criminal Code, which covers fraud on an especially large scale. Latest reports indicate Runets is charged with large-scale fraud and investigators allege he caused damages exceeding 1 billion rubles ($12.5 million) by failing to deliver equipment to Infrastructure of Siberia, a subsidiary of the multibillion-dollar En+ industrial conglomerate.
Investigators allege that Fox Group, a company controlled by Runets, signed an equipment-supply contract with Infrastructure of Siberia in 2023. As reported by Forbes Russia, citing RBC and case materials, the contract covered more than $8 million of cryptocurrency-mining machines. According to the allegations, the buyer transferred more than $7.9 million as an advance and expected delivery within 32 days. However, prosecutors allege that the equipment was not delivered and the payment was not returned. The disputed machines were identified as Antminer S19k Pro units, with the buyer sending a formal demand for delivery or repayment before cancelling the agreement. Latest reports confirm that Runets caused damages exceeding 1 billion rubles ($12.5 million) by failing to fulfill the contract with the En+ subsidiary.
The dispute developed from an earlier commercial relationship between BitRiver and En+. In November 2020, the companies announced the creation of Bit+, a joint venture intended to operate cryptocurrency-mining facilities using hydropower in Russia's Irkutsk region. According to official En+ company releases, BitRiver was described as the operator of Russia's largest data centre offering colocation services for Bitcoin miners, with En+ responsible for supplying electricity while BitRiver managed mining operations. However, the relationship later led to several civil claims, with the Arbitration Court of the Irkutsk Region reportedly ordering Fox Group to pay Infrastructure of Siberia ₹954.4 million over the disputed advance payment in April 2025. En+ is a multibillion-dollar corporation that produces 5% of the world's aluminum and also manages digital, technology and crypto mining infrastructure projects.
The criminal investigation comes as BitRiver and related companies face financial and insolvency proceedings. According to Forbes, Fox Group entered bankruptcy monitoring in February 2026, with a court opening liquidation proceedings in late May after Infrastructure of Siberia sought repayment connected to the equipment contract. Runets had already been placed under house arrest in late January concerning allegations that BitRiver-related entities concealed funds for tax collection. A Moscow court also froze Runets's ownership interests in Fox Group and several BitRiver-related entities in June. Following the closure of several crypto mining centers due to a six-year government ban across 10 regions, a regional arbitration court opened insolvency proceedings against Fox, which owns 98% of BitRiver's authorized capital.
The company remains a privately held entity with no verified publicly traded token linked to its operations, preventing direct crypto-market reaction to Runets's detention. BitRiver also remains subject to U.S. sanctions, with the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioning BitRiver AG and ten Russian subsidiaries in April 2022. The company faces ongoing bankruptcy proceedings over unpaid debts related to equipment, electricity and data-centre services, with restrictions placed on several accounts and the company under court-supervised financial review. Runets, a Stanford University MBA graduate, began building the crypto mining data center in Siberia in 2017 and later expanded the operation to 15 data centers with more than 175,000 servers.
