Friday-night drug deals helping Russian war machine, UK crime agency warns
The National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned that purchasing cocaine on a Friday night in the United Kingdom could indirectly support Russian arms factories. According to the NCA, a man connected to a Russian-led money laundering network operating in the UK had purchased a bank in Kyrgyzstan that was used to make payments on behalf of the Russian war machine. It was a
Sal Melki, the agency's deputy director for Economic Crime. The NCA is attempting to destabilize the network from top to bottom, from placing advertisements in UK motorway service station toilets to alert couriers carrying cash for the money-launderers of the long prison sentences they face.vast criminal ecosystem that is funding some really bad stuff all around the world,
Operation Destabilize is the investigation into Russian money laundering. Last year, the NCA reported that it had two networks TGR and Smart that collaborated to process cash for opioid gangs, illicit weapon dealers, and people smugglers. Investigators have now discovered that George Rossi, the current TGR chairman, has bought a bank in Kyrgyzstan.
Rossi bought the bank through his company Altair Holding SA. Altair Holding SA acquired a 75% stake in Keremet Bank on Christmas Day 2024. Further research revealed that Keremet Bank was facilitating payments for a RUSsian state-owned bank named Promsvyazbank (PSB), which is described by the US Treasury as a
Russia's military-industrial base,sanctions evasion hub. According to the NCA, Keremet Bank was assisting PSB in making payments for
full range of money-laundering services. They enable people like opioid dealers and manufacturers of illegal weapons to trade their cash for cryptocurrency. According to investigators, the money-laundering network was operating in at least 28 towns and cities across the United Kingdom, "supporting an entire architecture that encourages crime to flourish in our country.i. E. , for the weapons factories that manufactured weapons for the Ukraine war. The NCA said that TGR and Smart provide a
Sal Melki of the North Carolina said, We can't ignore the sheer size of this threat.
We can draw a thread between someone buying cocaine on a Friday night in the United Kingdom, all the way to geopolitical events that are causing suffering around the world.
We can say with certainty that laundering street cash is extremely important to underpinning how serious crime in our world.It's not as straightforward as 'OK, I pay my drug dealer, and that's the end of it. This is really a huge criminal network that is funding some really bad stuff all around the world.
He also announced that his investigators had discovered that Ekaterina Zhdanova's Smart network had been assisting in the encoding of spies led by Bulgarian Orlin Roussev, who followed Russia's enemies around Europe, was discovered by his investigator. Zhdanova is currently in France, waiting for a hearing. Operation Destabilization began by tracking the activities of the ransomware company Evil Corp, but the NCA found eye-watering amounts
of money laundering, which eventually revealed eyewatering scales.
Billions of pounds of criminal wealth
stash houses" and taken out of the country to be laundered abroad. Occasionally, the cash was smuggled out of boxes of washing powder and baby formula.were traded by Smart and TGR. The money was lootied through cash-rich companies such as building, or bundled up in
Former Hibernian footballer James Keatings, as well as Semen Kuksov and Andrii Dzektsa, who, according to the NCA, laundered money for the Irish Kinahan drugs cartel. Valeriy Popovych and Vitaliy Lutsak, two men who were convicted this year, were buying cars in the United Kingdom and driving them to UKraine, where they sold the cars for cryptocurrency. One spreadsheet suggested they had laundered £6. Just between August 2022 and June 2023, there were 63 million pounds in dirty British cash between August 1920 and 2023.
'Walls closing in'
The money-launderers on the bottom of the ladders need couriers to move criminal funds around the country. The couriers typically get a 0. 5 percent commission. 5%. So moving £100,000 earns them £500. However, prisoners can receive prison sentences of up to five years in prison. You own all the risk,
Mr Melki told them. In Russian and English metro stations, adverts have been placed above urinals, alerting that
. Mr Melki of the NCA said,moving money for organized criminals might seem to be straightforward work. But it ends with hard time
To say, the walls are closing in. "We know who you are and we're coming for you.We're speaking directly with them in their own words.
