Russia moves BitRiver founder into pre-trial detention over undelivered mining rigs

A Moscow court has taken Igor Runets, founder of Russia's largest bitcoin mining company, out of house arrest and put him in a pre-trial detention facility, escalating a case that began as a tax matter and a civil debt and has now been recast as organized-group fraud.

The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow granted the stricter measure on Wednesday, July 29, according to Russian trade outlet Bits Media, whose report The Block relayed. Runets must remain in custody at least two months while investigators work. A separate account from the Russian legal news service Pravo.ru, reported by CoinDesk on Thursday, described the same transfer and the same underlying allegation.

What investigators say happened

The core allegation is straightforward and old: equipment that was paid for, or contracted for, and never delivered.

Per Pravo.ru via CoinDesk, Runets in 2023 entered an $8 million equipment supply contract with Infrastructure of Siberia, a subsidiary of the industrial conglomerate En+ — a company CoinDesk describes as producing roughly 5% of the world's aluminum and also running digital, technology and crypto mining infrastructure projects. The contract was never fulfilled. Investigators put the resulting damages at more than 1 billion rubles, about $12.5 million.

The Block, citing Bits Media, gives the same ruble and dollar figures but attributes the deal to En+ itself rather than to a named subsidiary. The two accounts are best read as the same transaction described at different levels of corporate detail. Neither report states the exchange rate or date behind the $12.5 million conversion; 1 billion rubles at roughly 80 to the dollar produces that number.

On the charge, The Block is the more specific of the two: Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code — fraud on an especially large scale committed by an organized group, the heaviest tier of that article. CoinDesk says only "large-scale" fraud. Neither report names co-defendants, gives a case number, quotes the court's written order, or states the sentence Runets faces.

Bits Media, via The Block, adds that how the case proceeds will depend on the investigation, on examinations of the equipment itself, and on witness testimony from En+.

How he got here

The custody decision is the fourth step in a sequence, not a standalone event.

BitRiver was founded in 2017, the same year Runets — a Stanford MBA graduate, per CoinDesk — began building a mining data center in Siberia. CoinDesk puts the operation at its peak at 15 data centers and more than 175,000 servers.

That footprint was then cut into by policy. CoinDesk reports a six-year government ban on crypto mining across 10 Russian regions, which closed several of BitRiver's centers and, in CoinDesk's account, is what pushed the company into financial difficulty. The Block does not mention the ban at all.

Then came the insolvency. CoinDesk says a regional arbitration court opened insolvency proceedings in February against Group of Companies Fox, which holds 98% of BitRiver's authorized capital. The Block dates the same event to late January 2026, calls it bankruptcy monitoring, and ties it to an unresolved $9.2 million debt from an unfulfilled equipment supply contract with an En+ subsidiary. The outlets differ by a few weeks on timing, and by $1.2 million on the money — $8 million contract value per CoinDesk, $9.2 million outstanding debt per The Block.

The tax charges land in the same window. The Block says Runets was charged with tax evasion and placed under house arrest at the time of the bankruptcy filing in late January; CoinDesk says he was detained and placed under house arrest in February on three counts of tax evasion. Those charges appear to be separate from the fraud case now sending him to a detention center.

Key facts

• Igor Runets transferred from house arrest to pre-trial detention, minimum two months in custody — Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow, Wednesday July 29, per Bits Media via The Block; corroborated by Pravo.ru via CoinDesk.
• Charge: Part 4, Article 159 — fraud on an especially large scale by an organized group (The Block/Bits Media); "large-scale" fraud (CoinDesk/Pravo.ru).
• Alleged damages: more than 1 billion rubles, roughly $12.5 million — both outlets agree.
• Underlying contract: $8 million, signed 2023, with Infrastructure of Siberia, an En+ subsidiary, never fulfilled (CoinDesk/Pravo.ru). The Block/Bits Media attribute the deal to En+ without naming the subsidiary.
• Prior insolvency: proceedings opened against Group of Companies Fox — 98% owner of BitRiver's authorized capital — in February (CoinDesk), or bankruptcy monitoring in late January 2026 over a $9.2 million debt (The Block).
• Prior charges: three counts of tax evasion, house arrest, February (CoinDesk) or late January (The Block).
• BitRiver scale: 15 data centers, 175,000+ servers; founded 2017 (CoinDesk).
• Six-year mining ban across 10 Russian regions closed several BitRiver sites (CoinDesk only).

The real-world read

The arithmetic is never explained. Three numbers circulate for what looks like one dispute: an $8 million contract, a $9.2 million outstanding debt, and more than $12.5 million in claimed damages. Investigators' damage figure exceeds the contract's own value by more than half, and neither report says what the extra is — penalties, lost output, interest, something else. That gap is doing real work, because it is what pushes the case into the "especially large scale" bracket.

A non-delivery is being run twice. The same failure to ship equipment underpins both a civil insolvency against the parent company and a criminal fraud prosecution of its founder. Nothing in either account describes new conduct discovered in July; the contract dates to 2023 and the bankruptcy to the winter. What changed is the severity of the measure, not the disclosed facts.

The complainant is also the witness pool. Per Bits Media, the investigation's progress depends partly on testimony from En+ — the counterparty claiming the loss. That is normal in a fraud case and worth stating plainly rather than reading past.

The state is on both sides of the ledger. CoinDesk's own causal chain has the government banning mining across 10 regions, BitRiver's economics deteriorating, insolvency following, and criminal charges after that. The Block omits the ban entirely, so a reader of that account alone would see fraud without the policy shock that preceded it. Neither outlet asserts a connection between the two, and neither should be read as doing so.

What nobody says. Whether any equipment was partially delivered. Whether money changed hands and where it went. Whether export controls or import restrictions on mining hardware into Russia in 2023 bore on the delivery — an obvious question for a rig contract of that vintage that neither report raises. Whether BitRiver's remaining data centers are still running, and what happens to third-party machines hosted in them. And, notably, no comment from Runets, from any defense lawyer, from BitRiver, or from En+ appears in either account.

Thin attribution. Both English-language stories rest entirely on Russian outlets — Bits Media and Pravo.ru — with no court document quoted directly by either. That is not a reason to dismiss the reporting; it is a reason to treat the specifics as the state's version, relayed at two removes.

Opinion, and whose

There is no forecast here to attribute. Neither report carries a named analyst, lawyer, or executive offering a view on the outcome, and no one is quoted predicting a conviction, an acquittal, or a resolution.

What is present is framing. CoinDesk characterizes Runets as "a crypto mining pioneer in Russia" and describes BitRiver as under "mounting pressure" — the outlet's own reading, not a sourced claim. The damages figure, the organized-group characterization, and the account of the 2023 contract are all allegations from Russian investigators, unproven in court, presented via the prosecution's side of the file.

Sources

• The Block, Danny Park (July 30, 2026) — the court, the date, the specific criminal sub-article, the two-month custody minimum, the January bankruptcy monitoring and $9.2 million debt figure, and the note on equipment examinations and En+ testimony. Sourced to Bits Media. The Block discloses that Foresight Ventures is its majority investor and that Bitget is an anchor LP of Foresight; its published page also carried promotional units for LMAX Digital and Polymarket, which are advertising and were not used here.
• CoinDesk (July 30, 2026) — the named subsidiary Infrastructure of Siberia, the $8 million 2023 contract, En+'s scale, the six-year ban across 10 regions, the February insolvency against Group of Companies Fox and its 98% stake, and BitRiver's 15 data centers and 175,000 servers. Sourced to Pravo.ru. CoinDesk's page also ran a sponsored Binance "case study," unrelated to this story and not used.
• Not obtained: the court's order, the indictment, any BitRiver, En+, or defense statement. No primary document was available to either outlet.

Nothing here is investment advice.