UK has sights on Kyrgyz banks and crypto in latest Russia sanctions crackdown

The UK government said, 20 August, that in its efforts to crack down on Russian sanctions circumvention it had sanctioned Kyrgyzstan-based Capital Bank and its director Kantemir Chalbayev.

It has also sanctioned the Grinex and Meer cryptocurrency exchanges, which it described as the ‘infrastructure behind a new rouble-backed cryptocurrency token A7A5,’ which, it said, had moved $9.3bn on a ‘dedicated crypto exchange in just four months’ and had been intentionally created to evade sanctions.

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said that as sanctions continue to bite, Russia is using the Kyrgyz financial sector to channel money through ‘opaque financial networks, including through the use of cryptocurrencies,’ and that such networks had created ‘a convoluted scheme to evade sanctions imposed by the UK and its partners.’

The FCDO statement quoted Sanctions Minister, Stephen Doughty as saying, ‘If the Kremlin thinks they can hide their desperate attempts to soften the blow of our sanctions by laundering transactions through dodgy crypto networks – they are sorely mistaken. These sanctions keep up the pressure on Putin at a critical time and crack down on the illicit networks being used to funnel money into his war chest.’