Blocked, chained

How a Lithuanian crypto criminal was nabbed from a beach town in Kerala

- NIRMAL JOVIAL

Once March 10, police in Varkala—a scenic coastal retreat in south Kerala— launched an unusual manhunt. A passport-size photo and a name that twisted the tongue were their only leads. A provisional arrest warrant from a Delhi CBI court had arrived, ordering the capture of Lithuanian national Aleksej Besciokov. Just four days earlier, a US court had indict- ed the 46-year-old and his Russian accomplice, Aleksandr Mira Serda, on charges of money laundering via their crypto platform Garantex.

With pressure mounting, the Kerala Police combed the winding lanes of the beach town. Jojin Raj, a civil police officer assigned to the Varkala tourism police, was in the search party. “A large section of international tourists in Varkala now prefers homestays—mostly run by foreigners—over hotels or resorts,” he said. “Many tourists take proper- ties on long-term leases, paying well, while the original owners move into rented houses. So, our focus was on homestays.”

In the afternoon of March 11, Raj headed to Kakkodu Mukku, near the famous Varkala Cliff. He saw an old foreign woman supervising the re- furbishing of a homestay. “I showed her the picture, and she immediately said she had seen him,” Raj said. En- couraged, he began checking houses in the neighbourhood. His eyes landed on man in a hammock on the first floor of a nearby homestay.

“The moment he saw me, he bolt- ed inside,” said Raj. He knocked the door and a foreigner answered. “I asked for his name, but his thick ac- cent made it hard to catch,” he said. “Then I asked his country of origin. When he said Lithuania, a light bulb went off in my head.”