Ft: 6.9 billion ‘laundered’ by Moscow via global banks
According to the business newspaper, Standard Chartered, Citigroup and other international banks have handled billions of dollars from a Kremlin-backed fintech company, which infiltrated the global financial system through a vast document forgery operation
A system of forgery backed by Kremlin has channelled $6.9 billion through global banks. This is according to the Financial Times.
According to the business newspaper, Standard Chartered, Citigroup and other international banks have handled billions of dollars from a Kremlin-backed fintech company, which infiltrated the global financial system through a vast document forgery operation.
Hundreds of thousands of documents obtained by the Financial Times from within A7 – a group set up as an alternative to the Western payment system – reveal how it used traditional money-laundering methods to channel more than $6.9 billion through the international banking system, despite the sanctions imposed on Russia.
Some of the leaked payments related to highly sensitive war-related goods, including military equipment and purchases made by the Russian security services. Although A7 touted its financial innovations, it relied on a network of shell companies and pre-existing firms to access the SWIFT system and make payments.
To conceal the use of these intermediaries, it carried out an industrial-scale forgery operation to produce counterfeit invoices. A7 was originally founded in Russia and Kyrgyzstan by Ilan Shor, a Moldovan oligarch. The Kremlin has presented A7 as the country’s main provider of cross-border payment services for imports since Russian banks were excluded from the SWIFT system following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
