Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has found that a multibillion-dollar money-laundering network operating in Britain bought a bank in Kyrgyzstan to help Russia circumvent Western sanctions and move funds to the war in Ukraine. According to an AFP report on Friday, the British police informed about it on Thursday.
- The UK’s NCA has uncovered a multibillion-dollar money-laundering network.
- The network bought a bank in Kyrgyzstan to circumvent sanctions.
- The international operation Destabilise arrested 128 people and confiscated property.
- The networks involved laundered money for criminal and Russian organizations.
- The NCA has launched an information campaign to raise awareness of the risk of involvement.
According to the NCA, the network used hundreds of couriers to transport cash from crime, including drug trafficking and arms smuggling, in at least 28 British cities and towns. The money was then quickly converted into cryptocurrencies and moved around the world.
International operation
The international operation Destabilise has so far led to 128 arrests and the seizure of more than £25m in cash and cryptocurrencies in Britain. In the past year, a further 45 suspects have been arrested and £5.1m seized. At the same time, the investigators’ findings helped foreign partners to obtain 24 million dollars and 2.6 million euros abroad.
At the center of the transfers, according to the NCA, are two Russian-speaking networks, known as Smart and TGR, which laundered money for transnational criminal groups involved in cybercrime, drug and arms smuggling and helped Russian clients circumvent financial restrictions on investing money in Britain.
Kyrgyz Bank
During the second phase of Operation Destabilise, which began in December 2024, authorities discovered that some of the laundered money was passing through Kyrgyz bank Keremet.
This bank was secretly bought by Altair Holding SA, associated with TGR and its boss George Rossi, on December 25, 2024. Keremet Bank then helped move money for the Russian state-owned Promsviazbank (PSB), which supports firms involved in Russia’s military-industrial sector.
“For the first time, we are linking the drug trade in our community to the highest levels of organized crime, geopolitics, sanctions circumvention, the Russian industrial and military complex and state-linked activity,” said NCA Deputy Director of Economic Crime Sal Melki.
Courier system
The network operated on a “staggering scale” and most of the activity in Britain was carried out by couriers collecting bags of cash and exchanging them for cryptocurrency, sometimes in motorway car parks.
Given the scale of the crime, the NCA launched a campaign with posters and online messages in English and Russian warning that even relatively small rewards could lead to more than five years in prison.
