FT: Citi, Deutsche, and other banks processed $7 billion in Russian payments in defiance of sanctions

Standard Chartered, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and other international banks have conducted transactions worth billions of dollars for the Russian-backed fintech company A7, the Financial Times has learned. Some of these payments are linked to sensitive military goods, including purchases by Russian intelligence agencies, the newspaper reports. It claims to have examined hundreds of thousands of A7’s internal documents, which show how the company used forged documents and money-laundering schemes to gain access to the global financial system and funneled more than $6.9 billion through it, in defiance of sanctions against Russia.

Although A7 was created as an alternative to Western payment systems and actively promoted its financial innovations, it relied on a network of shell companies and existing businesses to access the SWIFT international banking information exchange system, according to the FT. The use of these intermediaries was concealed through a large-scale operation to forge invoices, the publication reports.

According to the FT, from the end of 2024—when A7 was established—through August 2025, $1.1 billion was transferred to accounts at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong from entities affiliated with A7. During the same period, $273 million was sent to DBS Bank in Hong Kong, and Citigroup clients received $74 million. About $18 million was transferred to Deutsche Bank clients in Europe, the FT reports.

The newspaper also found that A7 had opened accounts at First Abu Dhabi Bank, the UAE’s largest bank, for 17 different entities, which made outgoing payments totaling more than $1.8 billion. The company also opened accounts at JPMorgan Chase.

A7, by its own account, processes nearly 20% of Russia’s foreign trade payments—totaling more than $100 billion a year, The Wall Street Journal reported in August. It called A7 “Russia’s hottest startup,” challenging efforts by the U.S. and the European Union to isolate Moscow from the global financial system.

A7 was originally established in Russia and Kyrgyzstan by Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor with the support of Promsvyazbank (PSB)—a state-owned bank closely tied to the Russian defense industry, according to the FT. PSB described A7 as the leading operator of cross-border payments for imports after Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT.

The FT found evidence of payments made by 100 A7 shell companies during the period covered by the documents. The documents mention at least 100 more such entities, including at least 61 in the UAE, 87 in Hong Kong, 16 in Kyrgyzstan, and 14 in Indonesia. Although most of these companies were shell firms controlled by A7, the largest payer turned out to be a now-defunct Kyrgyz state agency—the Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic—according to the newspaper. At least three entities were based in the United Kingdom, where A7 was hit with sanctions in May 2025. One company in Hungary appears to have been a key channel for making payments to the EU, the FT reports. In July 2025, A7 was hit with EU sanctions.

Under Scheme A7, shell companies arranged for funds to be deposited into banks connected to SWIFT, after which those funds could be used to pay foreign invoices for Russian companies. The FT found that just over half of the cash flows were ultimately directed to bank accounts in China.

The FT claims that A7 went to great lengths to deceive banks’ anti-money-laundering systems: its shell companies prepared forged documents in advance to create a paper trail designed to conceal the actual transactions. For example, the network had a library of thousands of corporate seals at its disposal: some were counterfeit, while others were copied from genuine documents belonging to unsuspecting companies, the publication claims. The shell companies also received instructions on how to describe the goods they were purchasing so as not to arouse suspicion. For example, employees were instructed to replace the customs codes for sanctioned goods with codes for unrestricted goods that were as similar as possible, the FT reports.

The fintech company exploits a vulnerability in the Swift monitoring system, which assumes that the bank sending the payment has properly verified its customers, the FT concludes. In the early stages of the scheme, in late 2024 and early 2025, A7 processed large volumes of transactions through three Kyrgyz banks: Eldik, Aiyl, and Eurasian Savings Bank (ESB), the publication reports. A7’s documents show that in February 2025, the transactions raised suspicions at Standard Chartered, which has no direct correspondent relationships with these Kyrgyz banks. Shortly thereafter, the accounts of A7’s recipients at Standard Chartered were closed, the FT reports.

After that, A7 changed its operating model and began routing more payments through the UAE, according to the FT. The bulk of the funds flowed through First Abu Dhabi Bank: A7’s shell companies opened more than a dozen accounts there, from which they made outgoing payments totaling $1.3 billion and conducted transactions among themselves worth approximately $500 million, according to data obtained by the FT.

At least one A7 entity also opened an account at the Hong Kong branch of Singapore’s DBS, the publication reports: The entity received $60 million and made payments totaling $207 million, although it is impossible to determine exactly how much of these funds passed directly through the bank, the FT notes.

The actual scale of the scheme may well have been even greater: the data mentions an additional 17,500 payments, though the FT was unable to determine their total amount. The leaked data also allowed the FT to identify A7 accounts from which billions of dollars’ worth of Tether tokens were sold to Russian buyers. Tether is a dollar-pegged stablecoin used for international payments.

First Abu Dhabi Bank told the FT that, in accordance with its policy, it does not comment on specific cases. If circumstances that could raise concerns are identified, the bank takes the necessary measures and cooperates with the relevant authorities as required, the bank stated. At the same time, it confirmed to the publication that all identified accounts linked to A7 had already been detected and closed. FAB also stated that it strives to comply with U.S., U.K., EU, and UN sanctions.

DBS told the FT that it had no direct relationship with A7. The bank confirmed that one of the entities identified by the FT did indeed have an account with it, “regarding which DBS took appropriate measures in accordance with its control procedures.”

Standard Chartered, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Deutsche Bank emphasized their commitment to anti-money laundering requirements and related reporting obligations, but declined to comment further. A7, Eldik, Aiyl, and ESB did not respond to the FT’s requests for comment.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor