A Moscow court has moved BitRiver founder Igor Runets from house arrest to a pre-trial detention center, escalating a fraud investigation tied to an alleged $7.9 million cryptocurrency-mining equipment deal with an En+ subsidiary.
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow approved the tougher preventive measure on Wednesday, Russian local media reported. Runets must remain in custody for at least two months while investigators continue examining the case.
Prosecutors argued that house arrest left Runets with sufficient ability to interfere with witnesses involved in the investigation. The court accepted those concerns, according to the reports, shifting the BitRiver founder into detention before trial rather than allowing him to remain confined at home.
Runets faces an accusation under Part 4 of Article 159 of Russia’s Criminal Code, covering fraud on an especially large scale by an organized group. A criminal charge is an allegation and does not establish guilt.
Equipment contract sits at center of fraud case
The case centers on a 2023 contract for the supply of Antminer mining machines. Court records cited by local media say that Infrastructure of Siberia, an En+-linked company, made a $7.9 million advance payment under an agreement requiring delivery within 32 days.
The equipment was reportedly never delivered, and the buyer did not receive a refund, according to the same accounts. Investigators have linked the alleged failure of the contract to damages of roughly 1 billion rubles, or about $12.5 million based on the exchange-rate estimate in the reports.
Antminers are application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, machines designed to mine Bitcoin. Large orders of such hardware can be central to a mining operator’s expansion plans, especially when paired with access to long-term industrial power capacity. A missed delivery can therefore create costs beyond the upfront payment, including delayed data-center deployment and unused electricity arrangements.
The reported dispute places the investigation at the intersection of Russia’s large-scale mining sector and its energy-intensive infrastructure business. BitRiver built its profile by operating data centers intended for cryptocurrency-mining clients, including sites in Siberia and other power-rich regions.
Investigators are expected to continue reviewing the equipment, contractual documentation and witness testimony connected to En+, local media said. The allegations have also extended beyond the supply dispute: Runets was previously reported to have been charged with tax evasion.
Bankruptcy case adds pressure on BitRiver’s parent company
The detention decision follows financial and legal problems involving Fox Group, described in Russian reporting as BitRiver’s parent company. In late January 2026, a Russian court placed Fox Group under bankruptcy monitoring over a reported $9.2 million unpaid obligation related to an unfulfilled equipment supply contract with an En+ subsidiary.
Bankruptcy monitoring is an early stage of Russia’s insolvency process in which a court-appointed manager assesses the debtor’s finances and seeks to preserve assets. It does not by itself mean liquidation, but it can limit management’s freedom to dispose of assets and gives creditors a formal route to pursue their claims.
The combination of a criminal fraud investigation and bankruptcy monitoring raises the stakes for suppliers, customers and energy companies with contracts tied to BitRiver-related entities. Mining operators depend on a chain of commitments involving equipment procurement, data-center space, electricity supply and machine hosting. Disputes at one part of that chain can trigger claims across the others.
Russian reports have also identified unpaid electricity liabilities connected to the wider business group. These include 640 million rubles reportedly owed to the Irkutsk Electric Grid Company and 168 million rubles due to NTEK. The reports did not establish whether these amounts have been recognized by final court judgments or remain subject to disputes and collection proceedings.
A strain on a once-large mining operator
BitRiver previously operated or managed 15 data centers and had access to 533 megawatts of electricity capacity, according to the supplied reports. At that scale, disruption would affect a meaningful industrial mining operation, although the available information does not establish how much capacity remains active or whether any sites have reduced operations.
Reports from late 2025 also said that nearly 80% of Fox Group’s senior managers had left the company. Management departures can complicate an already stressed restructuring process, particularly where a business must maintain technical operations while handling creditor claims, equipment disputes and regulatory scrutiny.
The allegations do not indicate a direct threat to Bitcoin’s global mining network. Bitcoin’s hashrate is distributed across mining pools and operators in many countries, and one company’s potential disruption would ordinarily have a limited effect on network-wide computing power. The more immediate exposure lies with counterparties dependent on BitRiver-linked facilities, hardware deliveries or regional power agreements.
Detention intensifies the personal legal case
The court’s decision to place Runets in a detention center marks a sharper personal constraint than the house arrest imposed earlier in the case. Pre-trial detention can make it more difficult for an executive to coordinate legal, operational and creditor responses, although companies can continue acting through other managers and authorized representatives.
For En+ and its subsidiary, the investigation and insolvency process offer parallel avenues to seek recovery: criminal proceedings may address alleged wrongdoing, while bankruptcy monitoring can identify assets and creditor claims within Fox Group’s financial structure.
The next stages will depend on evidence gathered by investigators and decisions from the courts overseeing the criminal and insolvency matters. For BitRiver, the immediate challenge is no longer limited to an equipment-delivery dispute; it now includes the custody of its founder, creditor pressure, reported power debts and questions over the operating continuity of a major Russian mining infrastructure business.
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