U.S. cuts off money laundering for Russian elites and cybercriminals
Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson (Getty Images)
The United States announced sanctions against Russian citizen Ekaterina Zhdanova and her accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges. She assisted Russian oligarchs and cybercriminals in laundering and moving hundreds of millions of dollars abroad, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The sanctions against Zhdanova align with the G7 commitments to crack down on sanctions evasion and closing loopholes that allow the Russian state, its elites, proxies, and oligarchs to leverage virtual currency to offset the impact of international sanctions.
“Through key facilitators like Zhdanova, Russian elites, ransomware groups, and other illicit actors sought to evade U.S. and international sanctions, particularly through the abuse of virtual currency,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.
According to the department's information, in March 2022, Zhdanova assisted a Russian client in obfuscating their source of wealth in order to transfer over $2.3 million into Western Europe through a fraudulently opened investment account and real estate purchases. In another instance, a Russian oligarch sought out Zhdanova to move over $100 million in wealth to the United Arab Emirates.
Russia is trying to circumvent Western sanctions
Recently, the foreign ministers of Central Asian countries expressed their readiness to strengthen sanctions against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also stated that Russia must be cut off from the ability to bypass sanctions through intermediaries in order to dismantle its belief in impunity.
Previously, a court in the Netherlands sentenced a Russian entrepreneur to one and a half years in prison and a fine of 200,000 euros for supplying microchips to Russia, bypassing sanctions.
