GARDAÍ WERE INVOLVED in an international operation targeting a billion-dollar money laundering network that was used to support Russian military efforts.

The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) launched Operation Destabilise in 2021, an international investigation into Russian money laundering networks supporting serious and organised crime around the world.

The NCA said it has identified that a billion-dollar money laundering network active in the UK had purchased a bank in Kyrgyzstan to facilitate sanctions evasion and payments in support of Russian war efforts.

This network was also used by international drugs gangs, including the Kinahan cartel.

Operation Destabilise involved close collaboration with gardaí, US law enforcement such as the FBI, and partners across France, Finland, the Netherlands and Spain.

Through the operation, the NCA and its partners, such as the gardaí, targeted money launderers who work for this network.

The NCA said launderers collect “dirty” cash generated from the drugs trade, firearms supply, and organised immigration crime, and convert it to “clean” cryptocurrency.

As a result of Operation Destabilise, over 128 people have been arrested.

Over £25 million has been seized in cash and cryptocurrency in the UK while international law enforcement partners have seized over $24 million and over €2.6 million from the network.

Gardaí seized close to €1.4 million in cash and made seven arrests as part of its Operation Destabilise work.

On 9 April, the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau seized €342,000 in cash and arrested a man and a woman in their 60s at Dublin Airport.

Later that month, on 23 April, the GNDOCB intercepted a vehicle, seized €638,000 in cash and arrested a man in his 30s in West Dublin.

And on 14 October, the GNDOCB conducted searches of four residential premises in North Dublin and Co Leitrim, seized €383,000 in cash and arrested two men and two women, all aged in their 30s.

All seven arrested persons currently remain before the courts in Ireland.

Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis remarked that An Garda Síochána “fully recognises” the international nature of transnational organised crime and “continues to work closely and effectively with national and international partners”.

She said gardaí will continue 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”.

Who runs this network?

The NCA said two crime networks, TGR and Smart, were both identified as being at the centre of this criminal network.

Last year, the NCA said both TGR and Smart “used their global reach to launder money for transnational crime groups such as the Kinahans”. 

Smart is run by Ekaterina Zhdanova and in the summer of 2023, people associated with the Russian Intelligence Services attempted to use the Smart Group to provide funding to individuals based in the UK and Europe.

This included a UK based group of Bulgarian nationals who have since been convicted of a spying operation across Europe on behalf of Russia.

TGR meanwhile is headed up by George Rossi, his second in command Elena Chirkinyan, and Andrejs Bradens (also known as Andrejs Carenoks).

They have been sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The NCA said Smart and TGR collaborated to launder money for transnational crime groups involved in cybercrime, drugs and firearms smuggling.

They also helped Russian clients to illegally bypass financial restrictions to invest money in the UK.

Rossi is linked to a company called Altair Holding SA and it purchased a 75% stake in Kyrgyzstan-based Keremet Bank on Christmas Day 2024.

The bank has subsequently been identified as facilitating cross-border payments on behalf of Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned bank, which supported companies involved in the Russian military industrial base.

The UK’s Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the complex operation has exposed the “corrupt tactics Russia used to avoid sanctions and fund its illegal war in Ukraine”.