National Crime Agency exposes billion-dollar money laundering network | UK | News

Middle-class drug users buying cocaine for a Friday night dinner party could be helping supply Russian weapons to the front lines in the war in Ukraine. The direct link between the street drug trade and the Russian state was revealed as it emerged that a multi-billion dollar money laundering network operating across the UK had purchased a bank in Kyrgyzstan to facilitate sanctions evasion and provide payments to support Vladimir Putin’s military efforts.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) warns money launderers working for this network operate in at least 28 cities and towns in the UK but face the risk of long prison sentences for small rewards. For a small fee, launderers collect ‘dirty’ money from drug dealing, firearms supply and organized immigration crime and convert it into ‘clean’ cryptocurrency. These ‘cash-to-crypto’ exchanges are an integral part of the global criminal ecosystem that encompasses crime in British communities, sanctions evasion and organized crime at the highest levels, including providing money laundering services directly to the Russian state.

However, the NCA believes they have significantly restricted the network’s operations through Operation Destabilization, which saw 45 suspected money launderers arrested and over £5.1 million in cash seized in the last 12 months. Intelligence obtained by investigators in the United Kingdom has enabled international law enforcement to seize a further $24 million since its inception. There were 128 arrests in total, resulting in the seizure of more than £25 million in cash and cryptocurrency in the UK alone.

NCA Deputy Director of Economic Crime, Sal Melki, said: “We can now reveal the full scale at which these networks operate and draw a line between crime in our societies, sophisticated organized criminals and state-sponsored activities. Networks disrupted through destabilization operate at all levels of international money laundering, from drug dealing and the collection of street money to the acquisition of banks and enabling global sanctions breaches.”

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said: “This complex operation exposed the corrupt tactics used by Russia to evade sanctions and fund its illegal war in Ukraine.

“We work tirelessly to detect, disrupt and prosecute anyone operating on behalf of a hostile foreign state. This will never be tolerated on our streets.

“I want to thank every police officer for their work to uncover this criminality and disrupt the dirty money networks that fund serious organized crime.”

A new campaign has been launched to directly communicate with money launderers acting as couriers of criminal money and reach them in locations where they are known to operate; with posters and messages – in English and Russian – highlighting the risks they take by moving money linked to the most harmful crimes in our societies.

Melki added: “Cash couriers play a key role in this global money laundering scheme. They are in our society and keep the criminal ecosystem running, because if you can’t profit from your crimes, why bother? They get paid little for the risks they take and face years in prison, while the people they work for enjoy huge profits.”

“Millions of Britons will have seen these messages at service stations, but rest assured they were not for you. For the money launderers who will see them, your choice is simple: stop this or prepare to come face to face with one of our officers and the reality of your choices. Easy money leads to hard times.”

In December 2024, the NCA exposed two networks, TGR and Smart, as part of Operation Destabilization, the NCA-led international investigation into Russian money laundering networks supporting serious and organized crime worldwide.

Smart and TGR collaborated to launder money for transnational criminal groups engaged in cybercrime, drug and firearms trafficking. They also helped Russian clients illegally bypass financial restrictions to invest money in the UK, threatening the integrity of our economy.

Smart is managed by Ekaterina Zhdanova, who works closely with Khadzi-Murat Magomedov and Nikita Krasnov. In the summer of 2023, individuals linked to Russian Intelligence Services attempted to use Smart Group to provide financing to individuals based in the United Kingdom and Europe. These included a group of Bulgarian citizens based in Britain, led by Orlin Roussev, who has since been found guilty of a Europe-wide espionage operation on behalf of Russia.

TGR is led by George Rossi and Andrejs Bradens (also known as Andrejs Carenoks), whose co-captain is Elena Chirkinyan.

Smart and all six senior members of TGR were sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in December, and Zhdanova is currently in pre-trial detention in France.

In August, a Rossi-affiliated company, ‘Altair Holding SA’, was sanctioned in the UK as part of a wider crackdown on Russian attempts to exploit Kyrgyz financial systems and crypto networks. It was determined that Altair owned a majority stake in Kyrgyzstan-based Keremet Bank, which was used to evade sanctions.

Altair Holding SA acquired a 75% stake in Keremet on Christmas Day 2024. It was later determined that Keremet was facilitating cross-border payments on behalf of Promsvyazbank, the Russian state bank that supports companies located in the Russian military industrial base.

Ilan Shor is a Russian/Moldovan oligarch who is also involved in a Keremet-related sanctions evasion scheme. Shor was arrested in 2014 for stealing $1 billion from Moldovan banks and has since been found to be interfering in Moldovan elections on behalf of Russia.

Currently approved by the UK and EU, payment service providers such as Ilan SHOR’s A7 are being used to enable both money laundering and malicious activity. A7 and Promsvyazbank announced the launch of the A7A5 token, billed as the world’s first ruble-backed cryptocurrency stablecoin. Networks connected to A7 were likely designed to allow cross-border payments to bypass sanctions.

In April, following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police, two men were jailed for a total of 13 years for laundering £6 million. Valeriy Popovych and Vitaliy Lutsak exploited the Russia-Ukraine war to launder criminal profits, using money obtained from crime to buy vans and trucks in the UK before selling them in Ukraine. The profits were then converted into cryptocurrency. The pair admitted receiving money from Semen Kuksov, who was previously jailed after being found guilty of money laundering offenses following an NCA investigation. Kuksov was receiving instructions from Nikita Krasnov of Smart Group. A search of Popovych’s home when he was arrested revealed £130,000 in cash. Popovych’s criminal scheme enabled him to buy a second home in South West London worth around £1 million.

A month before Popovych and Lutsak were sentenced, cash courier Giorgi Tabatadze was sentenced to three years in prison for helping the networks launder £2.2 million. Tabatadze was arrested by NCA officers in April 2024 and over £750,000 in cash was seized from his car and home address.

As with the couriers used by these networks, Tabatadze was directed to travel around the UK collecting and distributing criminal money so that it could be funneled into sophisticated laundering schemes.

Operation Destabilization did not go unnoticed by the criminal community. Members of the network were believed to have reservations about operating in London, and by the summer of 2024 Russian-speaking laundering networks in the capital were demanding significantly higher commission rates, admitting that it was difficult to operate in the city. As a result of the actions taken on Op Destabilize and the work carried out with private sector partners, the ability of these networks to access the legitimate banking sector, especially in the West, has been significantly restricted.