Kremlin-backed fintech A7 moved $6.9 billion through Citigroup and Standard Chartered using forged documents.

Kremlin-backed fintech firm A7 moved money through Western banks using forged documents despite sanctions imposed in March 2022. The Russian firm routinely sent fake trade records to global lenders, including Citigroup and Standard Chartered, to clear transactions. Hundreds of thousands of leaked files revealed the scheme. The Financial Times reviewed the files.

The files show the platform was built to evade SWIFT (a Belgian cooperative coordinating cross-border payments across more than 11,000 institutions globally, barring disconnected lenders from world trade). Western allies cut off major Russian banks from SWIFT in March 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine. Moscow then directed state-backed fintech firms to build parallel payment conduits. These groups used layered middlemen to re-enter Western clearing systems.