An international investigation involving the gardaí, the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) and other European and US law enforcement agencies has established that a billion-dollar money laundering network bought a bank in Kyrgysztan to evade sanctions and facilitate payments to support Russia's military efforts.
Operation Destabilise was set up to target money launderers working for the network which was also used by drug traffickers including the Kinahan Organised Crime Group.
The gardaí have been working with the NCA which is leading the investigation in targeting the Irish nexus of the Russian money laundering network and have seized almost €2m in cash in three seizures between 2023 and 2025, €1.36m of that this year.
On 9 April this year, the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GDOCB), with colleagues from Ireland’s Revenue Customs Service, seized €342,000 in cash, and arrested a male and a female in their 60s at Dublin Airport.
On 23 April, the GDOCB intercepted a vehicle, seized €638,000 in cash and arrested one male in his 30s in west Dublin.
On 14 October, the GDOCB conducted searches of four residential premises in north Dublin and Co Leitrim, seized €383,000 in cash and arrested two males and two females, all aged in their 30s.
In all, seven people have been arrested and charged and are currently before the courts.
An eighth person, Igor Logvinov, who was a courier for the network, was sentenced to three years in prison in July 2023 and €57,200, the proceeds of drug trafficking, was forfeited to the State.
The gardaí said today they fully recognise the international nature of organised crime and "continue to work closely and effectively with National and International Partners".
Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis said they "will continue to carry out interdictions" here "to disrupt, degrade and dismantle transnational criminal organisations and their criminal activity which impacts not just on communities in Ireland, but across the UK and Europe".
The NCA said that 'dirty’ cash generated from the drugs trade, firearms supply and organised immigration crime was converted to ‘clean’ cryptocurrency for "the highest levels of organised crime" and "sanctions evasions" which included "providing money laundering services to the Russian state".
Over 128 people have been arrested, 45 in the last year.
Over £25m has been seized in cash and cryptocurrency in the UK while international law enforcement partners seized over $24m and over €2.6m from the network.
"The networks disrupted through Destabilise operate at all levels of international money laundering, from collecting the street cash from drug deals, through to purchasing banks and enabling global sanctions breaches," said Sal Melki, the Deputy Director for Economic Crime at the NCA.
The US Office of Financial Assets Control, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the French Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire along with authorities in the UAE were also involved to disrupt related money laundering activities.
Investigators say they identified two Russian-speaking networks collaborating at the centre of the criminal enterprise, Smart and TGR, which operated out of Moscow, Dubai and London.
They say Smart is headed up by Ekaterina Zhdanova, who worked closely with Khadzi-Murat Magomedov and Nikita Krasnov to facilitate money laundering, while TGR is run by George Rossi, his second in command Elena Chirkinyan, and Andrejs Bradens (also known as Andrejs Carenoks).
All six have now been sanctioned by OFAC in the US.
Ms Zhdanova is currently being held in pre-trial detention in France.
The NCA says the UK-led investigation discovered that the network enabled Smart, TGR and criminals based in the UK and elsewhere to launder money for transnational crime groups such as the Kinahans, and bypass the US sanctions imposed on them three and a half years ago.
The family-run crime syndicate, responsible for trafficking drugs and firearms into the UK and around the world, was sanctioned by the US in 2022.
The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also announced sanctions against the Russian-speaking men and women at the head of these networks, as well as four businesses linked to TGR.
The NCA says the networks helped Russian clients to illegally bypass financial restrictions to invest money in the UK, threatening the integrity of the UK economy.
It also says that from late 2022 to summer 2023, the Smart network was also used to fund Russian espionage operations.
Last August, a company linked to George Rossi, Altair Holding SA, was sanctioned in the UK as part of a wider crackdown on Russia’s attempts to exploit Kyrgyz financial systems and crypto networks.
Altair was identified as owning a controlling stake in Kyrgyzstan-based Keremet Bank which was utilised for sanctions evasion.
Altair Holding SA purchased their 75% stake of Keremet on Christmas Day 2024.
Keremet has subsequently been identified as facilitating cross-border payments on behalf of Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned bank, which supported companies involved in the Russian military industrial base.
The NCA also says that Ilan Shor, a Russian-Moldovan oligarch, was involved in the sanctions’ evasion scheme linked to Keremet.
Shor was arrested in 2014 for the theft of $1 billion from Moldovan banks and has since been identified as engaging in interference in Moldovan elections on Russia’s behalf.
The NCA says payment service providers such as Ilan Shor’s A7 company, which is now sanctioned by the UK and EU, were used to enable both money laundering and malign activity.
A7 and Promsvyazbank announced the launch of the A7A5 token, promoted as the world’s first rouble-backed cryptocurrency stablecoin.
The NCA, however, says networks linked to A7 are likely designed to allow cross-border payments to circumvent sanctions.
