An FT investigation has uncovered a massive money laundering scam conducted by Kremlin-controlled fintech A7 that tricked international banks into handling billions of dollars in sanction-busting payments to Russian state companies.
Set up as an alternative to the western payments system, A7 funnelled more than $6.9bn through the international banking system despite sanctions on Russia.
While A7 has trumpeted its financial innovations, it depended on a network of front companies and existing businesses to access the Swift system to make payments. It obscured the use of these agents with an industrial-scale forgery operation to produce counterfeit invoices.
The fintech company exploited controls in Swift that depend on the sending bank performing adequate checks on customers. Beating the controls of any member bank cleared the way for A7 to send payments through the system.
The Kremlin has touted A7 as the country’s flagship provider of cross-border payments for imports since Russian banks were cut off from the Swift system after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Accounts held at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong alone received $1.1bn from A7-linked entities between late 2024, when A7 was established, and August 2025. Over the same period, DBS in Hong Kong was sent $273mn and Citigroup clients received $74mn.
Clients of Deutsche Bank in Europe were sent about $18mn.
A7 opened accounts at First Abu Dhabi, the largest bank in the United Arab Emirates, for 17 different entities, which made more than $1.8bn of outbound payments. It also had use of accounts at JPMorgan Chase and DBS.
The UAE bank told the FT that all of the A7-linked accounts had already been identified and closed, adding that it seeks to apply US, UK, EU and UN sanctions.
Standard Chartered, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank all noted their strong commitment to anti-money laundering reporting but otherwise declined to comment.
Source: Finextra
