Kleptocracy, Data, and Oxford commas. ex-usg
London
Joined September 2022
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Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
NEW: Russian payment firm A7 processed at least $14bn USD in raw cash rubles from Moscow markets - in bank and other payments bound predominantly for Chinese banks, according to exclusive documents obtained by @ICIJorg.
icij.org/news/2026/10/kremli…
Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
With leaked internal records, ICIJ identified a handful of wholesale markets and other businesses around the Russian capital that made up a significant share of the cash U.S.-sanctioned payment firm A7 processed. buff.ly/kqE6nkZ
Huge story from @te_rowley with the @ICIJorg! Thomas broke the first A7 story and is back with another massive finding with all new data! Grateful for the opportunity to contribute
icij.org/news/2026/10/kremli…
Everyone is chasing the the billion-dollar sanctions stories. Instead, I looked at €360,000 through an EU bank. #A7's Dubai-based treasury paid a Seychelles agency for buses and 35 tons of shrimp. The small payments are what makes it interesting.
evidenceofabsence.substack.c…
Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
🔎 #BabakovLeaks: InformNapalm exposes French intermediary Geoffroy Doly’s ties to sanctioned Russian official Alexander Babakov’s network.
informnapalm.org/en/alexande…
Special thanks to @256CyberAssault
Share, comment & tag those who should see this!
#Russia #France #EU
Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
Last week @TheBanker ran my story exposing growing money laundering and sanctions evasion risks in the US banking sector, due to a loophole allowing valid payment cards to be issued online without identity checks.
In A7’s promotional video for USDT→SWIFT, Shor boasted that AI processes 2000 transactions daily.
As of mid-2025, A7 was using US-based frontier llms to process transactions. For more on that check out my earlier findings
Chat-KGB over on substack: evidenceofabsence.substack.c…
Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
The Kremlin’s faction in the European Parliament: Meet the MEPs still traveling to Russia to meet politicians, officials and even spies
@ezhovs found that one in 10 current members of the EP has visited Russia since the annexation of Crimea.
theins.press/en/inv/298273
Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
Russia’s Leading Sanctions Evasion Tool Is a New Kind of Illicit Finance Threat
New FDD Policy Brief from @FDD_CEFP's @angela__howard: bit.ly/4yopSZJ
A7 announcing USDT 2 SWIFT offering. I’m skeptical, is it as an attempt by A7 to save face?
Are there so many Russians with USDT sitting that can’t get it into foreign currencies? A7 has maintained their own USDT wallets, is it more of that?
Waiting to see how @tether reacts
Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
Russian payment network A7 - recently designated a "transnational criminal organisation" by the US - is about to launch a... USDT-to-SWIFT service. Upload an invoice, connect your crypto wallet, and it will pay via bank transfer to your counterparty.
a7.biz/
Great piece on #CZCB, an institution I’ve referenced a few times over on substack. The prevalence of CZCB in the #A7 data should show that our current approach to correspondent banking is broken
nytimes.com/2026/10/09/busin…
check out a piece I previously wrote ref'ing CZCB: evidenceofabsence.substack.c…
Zachary Tvarozna retweeted
Three articles related to the same story about Kyrgyz financial instruments (Processing KG's Vexpay) helping Russia evade Western sanctions:
(1) A leaked briefing note apparently prepared for Putin ahead of his 31 August 2026 meeting with Xi at the Bishkek SCO summit reveals that Russia is seeking to use the Kyrgyz payment platform Vexpay - wired into China's CIPS system with Beijing's blessing - as an insulated intermediary to evade Western sanctions and keep financing its war against Ukraine. shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/l…
(2) A British payments executive, Michael Donald, was given a senior role at VexPay - a Kyrgyz state-owned company linked to the sanctioned, Kremlin-tied money-laundering network A7 run by fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor - according to leaked documents, though Donald denies ever having been hired by or working for the company. ft.com/content/b3c46770-f6c2…
(3) Drawing on domain registrations, registry filings, client paperwork and A7's own chat logs, this piece argues that the Kyrgyz payment company Processing KG and its Vexpay platform fit a recurring pattern in which Kyrgyzstan repeatedly builds new state-backed financial corridors to replace each one the West sanctions or shuts down, giving Russia fresh dollar and yuan access despite marketing itself as a SWIFT alternative. evidenceofabsence.substack.c…
Appreciate the huge callout from the #FT in their latest piece for #Alphaville. Last weeks changes from the US go a huge way in confronting #A7's expansion and operations and grateful for the opportunity to weigh in on that!
FT piece here: ft.com/content/372d018c-df75…
& with that, check out my new post on Substack discussing some new developments in Kyrgyzstan
"Ala-Too Familiar" here:
evidenceofabsence.substack.c…
