“We can draw a line from someone buying cocaine on a Friday night in the UK to geopolitical events causing suffering around the world.”
Buying cocaine in the United Kingdom could indirectly help arms factories in Russia, warns the British National Crime Agency (NCA).
The organization claims that a man linked to a money laundering network led by Russia, operating in the United Kingdom, bought a bank in Kyrgyzstan, used to make payments on behalf of the Russian war machine.
According to the agency’s deputy director of Economic Crimes, Sal Melki, this is a “vast criminal ecosystem which finances very negative actions around the world.”
The NCA has been trying to dismantle the network from top to bottom, even placing advertisements in the toilets of service areas on British motorways, warning couriers who transport money for money laundering organizations about the heavy prison sentences to which they are subject.
The investigation into Russian money laundering was named Operation Destabilize. Last year, the NCA announced the identification of two networks, TGR and Smart. They worked together to launder money from drug trafficking gangs, suppliers of illegal firearms and human smuggling networks.
Researchers have now discovered that George Rossihead of TGR, bought a bank in Kyrgyzstan, through his company Altair Holding SA On Christmas Day 2024, the company took over 75% of the shares in Bank Keremet.
Further investigation concluded that Bank Keremet facilitated payments to a Russian state bank called Promsvyazbank (PSB), described by the US Treasury Department as a “sanctions evasion center”.
The NCA claims that Bank Keremet helped the PSB make payments to “Russia’s military industrial base”, that is, to factories that produce weapons for use in the war against Ukraine.
On the streets, TGR and Smart provide “a full spectrum of money laundering services”, according to the NCA. They allow people like drug traffickers and illegal weapons suppliers to exchange their money for cryptocurrencies.
Investigators claim that the money laundering network operated in at least 28 cities in the United Kingdom, “supporting an entire structure that allows crime to pay off in our country”. Melki warns that “we cannot ignore the immense scale of this threat”.
“We can draw a line from someone buying cocaine on a Friday night in the UK to geopolitical events causing suffering around the world.”
“It’s not something as simple as ‘OK, I pay my dealer and that’s it,’” he continues. “In fact, we are facing a vast criminal ecosystem that finances very harmful actions on a global level.”
“We can say with certainty that money laundering on the streets is truly fundamental to sustaining the functioning of serious crime in the country.”
He also highlights that his investigators discovered that the Smart network, run by Ekaterina Zhdanova, provided financial services to a network of spies led by Bulgarian Orlin Roussev, who tracked Russia’s enemies across Europe.
Zhdanova is currently detained in France, awaiting trial.
The operation began by investigating the activities of the Evil Corp ransomware group, but ended up exposing a “impressive scale” of money launderingaccording to the NCA. Smart and TGR laundered “one billion pounds in criminal assets”.
The money collected was laundered through companies with large amounts of cash, such as the construction sector, or accumulated in hiding places and taken out of the country for laundering abroad.
Sometimes the money was smuggled in boxes of detergent and powdered milk. Among those involved in the groups, James Keatings stands out, a former football player who played for several Scottish clubs.
Furthermore, the NCA claims that Semen Kuksov and Andrii Dzektsa laundered money for the Irish Kinahan drug cartel. Two men convicted this year, Valeriy Popovych and Vitaliy Lutsak, bought vehicles in the UK and took them to Ukraine, where they were sold in exchange for cryptocurrencies.
A spreadsheet indicates that they laundered £6.63 million of illicit British money between August 2022 and June 2023 alone.
Tightening siege
At the lowest level of the chain, people who practice money laundering need couriers to move criminal money around the country.
These couriers usually receive a commission of 0.5%. In other words, for transporting 100 thousand pounds, they receive 500 pounds, but can be sentenced to five years in prison or more.
“The risk is all yours”, warns Melki to the couriers. Announcements were placed above urinals in service areas on British roads, in Russian and English, warning of prison sentences for those transporting illegal money.
“We are communicating directly with themin their own language, warning that the siege is tightening,” says Melki. “We know who they are and we are on our way.”
