By ABC News
Publication Date: 2025-11-21 01:21:00
A multibillion-dollar money laundering ring operating across the United Kingdom bought a bank in Kyrgyzstan to funnel funds into the Ukraine war, British police said.
The network used criminal money obtained in the United Kingdom to help Russia evade Western sanctions.
He used hundreds of couriers in at least 28 towns and cities across the UK to collect money from drug and firearms trafficking, among others.
The money was then quickly converted into cryptocurrency and moved around the world, Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said, sharing an update on the latest phase of the UK-led “Operation Destabilize.”
Police say the network is known to operate in at least 28 cities and towns across the UK. (Supplied: UK National Crime Agency)
The international effort has led to 128 arrests and the seizure of more than £25 million ($51 million) in cash and cryptocurrency in the United Kingdom, the NCA said.
Last year, a further 45 suspected launderers were arrested and £5.1 million seized.
Intelligence from the investigation has also helped foreign partners seize $24 million and €2.6 million abroad.
Two Russian-speaking networks, called Smart and TGR, are at the center of many of the transfers, the NCA said.
They launder money for transnational criminal groups involved in cybercrime, drug and firearms smuggling and help their Russian clients illegally circumvent financial restrictions to invest money in Britain.
Kyrgyzstan Connection
During the “second phase” of “Operation Destabilize,” which began in December last year, authorities discovered that some of the laundered funds were funneled through Kyrgyzstan’s bank, called Keremet Bank.
This was secretly bought on Christmas Day 2024 by Altair Holding SA, a company linked to TGR boss George Rossi.
Keremet then helped move money for Promsvyazbank (PSB), a Russian state bank that supports companies involved in Russia’s military-industrial sector, the NCA said.
The US Treasury also accused Keremet in January of helping the Kremlin evade sanctions.
“For the first time, we are linking… drug trafficking in our community to the highest levels of organized crime, geopolitics, sanctions evasion, the Russian military-industrial complex and state-linked activity,” said NCA deputy director of economic crimes Sal Melki.
The networks operated at “dazzling scales,” he added.
Most of the UK’s activity depended on couriers traveling around the country collecting bags of cash and exchanging them for cryptocurrency payments, sometimes in car parks next to motorways.
In an effort to deter them, the NCA has launched a campaign with posters and online messages in English and Russian posted across the country, including at motorway service stations.
These posters have been displayed at motorway service stations across the UK. (Supplied: UK National Crime Agency)
The signs warn couriers that they face long prison terms for relatively little pay.
“For a few hundred pounds, there’s a good chance you could go to prison for more than five years,” Melki said.
“Easy money leads to hard times.“
The NCA believes that emails are a weak point that they can attack. But the threat from networks like these remains high.
“The NCA has caused a serious injury to these organizations,” Melki said.
“But there are others like them, too, and we know we have to keep up the pressure. We have to keep arresting, prosecuting and sanctioning people.”
AFP
