Gardaí have identified the Irish cell of an international money-laundering network being used to help Russians evade financial sanctions imposed due to the invasion of Ukraine.
The network, which stretches across the globe, was also providing money-laundering services to high-end organised crime, including the Kinahans.
The Irish cartel, which remains headquartered in Dubai and controls a large part of the European cocaine trade, was using the money-laundering network to evade financial sanctions imposed on it by American law enforcement three years ago.
The UK’s National Crime Agency said the money-laundering network active in Britain and Ireland had purchased a bank in Kyrgyzstan to facilitate sanctions evasion and payments in support of Russian military efforts in Ukraine.
RM Block
As part of the Irish end of the international inquiry – Operation Destabilise – eight people have been arrested in the Republic and cash seizures made.
A total of €1.36 million has been confiscated and in one of the operations, in west Dublin, €638,000 was seized, which is one of largest sums of cash taken from organised crime in the Republic in recent years.
Two of those detained in the Republic were a Ukrainian couple working as travel agents. Two of the three Irish search-and-arrest operations took place in April, when a couple in their 60s were arrested at Dublin Airport carrying €342,000 in cash. Also in April, €638,000 in cash was seized when a car was stopped in west Dublin by gardaí and a man in his 30s was arrested.
Last month, two men and two women, all in their 30s, were arrested when four properties were searched in north Dublin and Leitrim and €383,000 was seized.
Two years ago Igor Logvinov (63) – a Lithuanian carpenter living in Stepaside, Dublin – was sentenced to three years in prison following the seizure of €57,200. The money was treated as the proceeds of drug dealing and he was working as a low-level courier.
The investigation into the Irish-based people involved in the money-laundering network is being led by the Garda’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, whose members carried out the arrest and search operations resulting in the cash seizures in Dublin and Leitrim.
Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis, Organised and Serious Crime, said the Garda’s role in the Operation Destabilise underlined how the force “fully recognises the international nature of transnational organised crime” and was working closely with international law enforcement.
“[Garda specialist units] will continue to carry out interdictions in this jurisdiction 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,” she added.
One of the key services being offered by the international criminal network was a cash-to-cryptocurrency swap, which enabled anyone with large sums of money to effectively hide and invest it in a range of virtual currencies.
As well as the Garda and Britain’s NCA, the international investigation has also involved US law enforcement, including the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which sanctioned the Kinahans and their associates three years ago.
Law enforcement in United Arab Emirates has also been working on the inquiry as well as the FBI, US Drug Enforcement Agency and France’s Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire.
In Britain alone over the past 12 months, the UK authorities have arrested 45 money launderers and seized more than £5.1 million in cash. Overall, under Operation Destabilise, cash and cryptocurrency valued at more than €50 million has been seized.
Smart and TGR are the two Russian-speaking networks at the centre of the money laundering ring. They specialised in stealth conversions of cryptocurrency to cash, at the heart of a global money-laundering conspiracy. They also provided a prepaid credit card service, allowing for criminal wealth to be spent in a manner that was untraceable and concealed the location of criminals globally.
America’s OFAC confirmed last year it had sanctioned five people and four commercial entities linked to the TGR and Smart Russian networks.
Britain’s NCA said on Friday the latter network was “run by Ekaterina Zhdanova, who worked closely with Khadzi-Murat Magomedov and Nikita Krasnov”.
“In summer 2023, individuals associated with the Russian Intelligence Services attempted to use the Smart Group to provide funding to individuals based in the UK and Europe,” the NCA added.
“This included a UK-based group of Bulgarian nationals, led by Orlin Roussev, who have since been convicted of a spying operation across Europe on behalf of Russia. TGR is headed up by George Rossi, his second in command Elena Chirkinyan, and Andrejs Bradens – also known as Andrejs Carenoks.”
