FT investigation exposes $6.9B Russian sanctions evasion through global banks

A Kremlin-backed fintech company called A7 used forged invoices, shell companies, and an industrial-scale document forgery operation to funnel more than $6.9 billion through the international banking system despite Western sanctions on Russia, according to a Financial Times investigation published on September 21 based on hundreds of thousands of leaked internal files.ft+1

The investigation found that A7, established in late 2024 by sanctioned Moldovan fugitive Ilan Shor with backing from Russia's state-owned Promsvyazbank, exploited controls in the SWIFT payment network that depend on sending banks performing adequate checks on customers. Once A7 beat the controls of any single member bank, it could send payments through the entire system.finextra

How the Scheme Worked

A7 relied on a network of front companies in jurisdictions including the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, and Kyrgyzstan to access banks connected to SWIFT. When banks questioned transactions, A7 staff produced counterfeit invoices and other documents to create a legitimate-looking paper trail. Employees altered descriptions of goods, customs codes, and other transaction details to avoid triggering sanctions checks. In one case, documents for 500 night-vision scopes destined for a Russian client were disguised as unrelated goods.africa.businessinsider

The network also attempted to remove what employees internally called the "Russian trace" from documents, including by eliminating Cyrillic characters. About 100 fictitious companies were identified making payments during the period covered by the leaked data.albeu+1

Banks Caught in the Web

Standard Chartered accounts in Hong Kong alone received $1.1 billion from A7-linked entities between late 2024 and August 2025. First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest bank in the UAE, opened accounts for 17 A7-linked entities that made more than $1.8 billion in outbound payments. DBS in Hong Kong received $273 million, while Citigroup ↘ 0.41% clients received $74 million and Deutsche Bank ↘ 4.50% clients in Europe were sent about $18 million. JPMorgan Chase ↘ 0.73% also had accounts used by the network.europeanbusinessmagazine+1

First Abu Dhabi Bank told the Financial Times that all A7-linked accounts had been identified and closed. Standard Chartered, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Deutsche Bank noted their commitment to anti-money laundering reporting but declined to comment further.finextra

A Wider Network

Most of the money eventually flowed to Chinese bank accounts, while A7 also used Tether, a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, to facilitate transactions. A joint investigation earlier this year by the Open Source Centre and TRM Labs found that A7 had likely moved tens of billions of dollars through international banking, with on-chain analysis linking its cryptocurrency activity to Iran's IRGC, North Korean hackers, and Hamas. The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 3.58% reported in August that A7 claims to handle nearly 20 percent of payments in Russian foreign trade, or more than $100 billion annually.wsj+3

The revelations raise pointed questions about the effectiveness of the sanctions regime imposed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — and about the ability of major international banks to detect state-backed evasion schemes operating through their own systems.