UK Seizes $32M in Russian Money Laundering Crackdown

The UK’s National Crime Agency has escalated its crackdown on Russian-linked money laundering through Operation Destabilise, which has now resulted in 128 arrests and the seizure of $32.6 million in cash and cryptocurrency. The operation, first publicized in 2024, has expanded significantly from its initial December 2024 tally of 84 arrests and $25.5 million in seizures. The latest phase has yielded an additional 45 arrests and over $6.6 million in cash seizures, revealing the extensive reach of these criminal networks across at least 28 British towns and cities.

According to NCA findings, suspected couriers operate by collecting illicit cash generated from drug trafficking, firearms sales, and human trafficking, then converting these proceeds into cryptocurrency. These funds ultimately finance organized crime and military equipment for Russia’s operations in Ukraine. The operation has specifically identified two collaborating networks—Smart and TGR—that have been laundering money for international crime organizations while assisting Russian individuals in evading sanctions and investing money in the United Kingdom.

Operation Destabilise has uncovered sophisticated international connections, particularly through the TGR network headed by George Rossi. Investigations revealed Rossi’s links to the sanctioned Luxembourg-based company Altair Holding SA, which purchased a 75% stake in Kyrgyzstan’s Keremet Bank on Christmas Day 2024. This acquisition provided a crucial financial conduit for Russian interests, as Keremet Bank has been enabling cross-border payments on behalf of Russian state-owned Promsvyazbank.

Promsvyazbank’s role extends beyond traditional banking, as the institution is one of the entities behind A7A5, a rouble-pegged stablecoin that has been used extensively to evade sanctions. This digital currency reached a significant milestone in July of this year, passing $40 billion in total transaction volume. The connection between traditional banking institutions and cryptocurrency platforms demonstrates the evolving complexity of sanctions evasion tactics employed by Russian-linked networks.

While the NCA claims Operation Destabilise has made Russian-linked networks hesitant about operating in London and significantly restricted their access to legitimate banking services in Western Europe, independent assessment presents a more nuanced picture. Slava Demchuk, CEO of AMLBot, told Decrypt that private-sector firms primarily rely on open data and cannot confirm a measurable decline in Russia-related laundering in London or the rest of the UK. “The crypto-related activity we can observe shows no clear change linked directly to Operation Destabilise,” Demchuk explained, noting this likely reflects that only a small subset of transactions would be visible without additional classified context.

Ari Redbord, VP and Global Head of Policy and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, offered a slightly more optimistic assessment, suggesting that while it’s difficult to quantify a specific decline in laundering in London, a more general decline in sanctions evasion can be detected. “Following coordinated actions by the NCA, OFAC, and other partners, exchanges and OTC platforms tied to Russian money-laundering networks saw sharp and immediate drops in activity,” Redbord explained. “Across three key platforms—NetEx24, Bitpapa, and Cryptex—inflows fell more than 80% on average in the three months after designation compared with the period before.”

Redbord noted that a similar pattern is observable with Garantex and Bitzlato, both of which experienced considerable volume declines after being sanctioned by authorities in the U.S., the UK, and the EU. However, he cautioned that flows tend to reroute to other high-risk exchanges, OTC brokers, and alternative rails rather than disappearing altogether.

The case of Garantex—which appears to have rebranded as Grinex—highlights the persistent challenge of completely eliminating money laundering networks. Rather than disappearing, these operations often relocate or transform. “What we don’t see is a neat, long-term collapse in Russian-linked laundering overall,” Redbord explained. “Blockchain data isn’t granular enough to say ‘this dollar was laundered in London versus somewhere else.'”

Slava Demchuk emphasized the global nature of these operations, noting that the groups exposed under Operation Destabilise, including Smart and TGR, “function across Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of Asia, using a mix of cash couriers, crypto OTCs, payment processors, and shell companies.” Russia-linked laundering is “deeply embedded” in over 30 countries, forming a “global ecosystem” that moves billions across borders for laundering dirty cash and evading international sanctions.

While Operation Destabilise has undoubtedly disrupted specific networks and restricted their operations in key UK financial centers, the transnational scope of Russian crime networks means that success in one jurisdiction often simply displaces the problem to another. The operation’s impact, while significant in terms of arrests and seizures, represents just one battle in a much larger, global fight against sophisticated financial crime networks with virtually unlimited resources and adaptability.