Over €1.36m seized as gardaí help expose billion-dollar Russia-linked laundering ring
The enterprise has benefited criminals all over the world, from Russian-speaking hackers with millions in cryptocurrency that they needed to turn into cash and assets, to street gangs in Britain who had physical money they needed to launder. Picture: An Garda Siochana/PA Wire
More than €1.36m has been seized in Ireland as part of an international operation targeting a billion-dollar money laundering network that purchased a bank to fund the Russian war against Ukraine.
The National Crime Agency in the UK has identified a money laundering network there which it says bought a bank in Kyrgyzstan to facilitate sanctions evasion and payments supporting Russian military efforts.
The agency has worked with gardaí and other international agencies in an operation codenamed “Destabilise.”
Gardaí say that as part of investigations supporting the National Crime Agency and other international partners, the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau carried out several interdictions in Ireland, resulting in over €1.36m in cash being seized.
On April 9, the bureau joined the Revenue Customs Service in an operation at Dublin Airport which resulted in two people being arrested and €342,000 in cash being seized.
On April 23, a vehicle and €638,000 in cash were seized, and a man was arrested in another operation in west Dublin.
The most recent operation was on October 14, when searches of four residential premises in north Dublin and in Leitrim led to the seizure of €383,000 in cash and the arrest of two males and two females, all aged in their 30s.
Each of the seven people arrested in the three operations are currently before the courts, according to gardaí.
Details of the connection between the three incidents and the National Crime Agency’s Operation Destabilise were revealed on Friday by gardaí.
Angela Willis, assistant commissioner organised and serious crime, said: "An Garda Síochána, fully recognising the international nature of transnational organised crime, continues to work closely and effectively with National and International Partners including a close working relationship with the National Crime Agency in the UK.
"An Garda Síochána, through the bureaus within Organised and Serious Crime, including the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, will continue to carry out interdictions in this jurisdiction 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.”
Other law enforcement agencies cooperating with the National Crime Agency include the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of the Treasury in the US, Dutch and Spanish police, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, and the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire in France.
According to a statement from the National Crime Agency, the UK-based network involves money launderers being paid a fee to collect ‘dirty’ cash generated from the drugs trade, firearms supply and organised immigration crime, and convert it to ‘clean’ cryptocurrency.
The statement continued: “These ‘cash to crypto’ swaps are an integral part of a global criminal ecosystem that spans offending in our communities, sanctions evasions and the highest levels of organised crime, including providing money laundering services to the Russian state.
“Together with our partners we are actively combatting this threat and have significantly restricted this network’s operations. In the second phase of the operation, a further 45 suspected money launderers have been arrested and over £5.1m in cash seized in less than 12 months.
“Using the intelligence gained on Operation Destabilise, the NCA has supported its international law enforcement partners in seizing $24m and over €2.6m from the network. Since its inception, there have been a total of 128 arrests as a result of the operation, with over £25m seized in cash and cryptocurrency in the UK alone.”
Last December, the US Treasury announced sanctions on members of the groups identified in the operation, TGR and Smart, which it said helped elite Russians use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions imposed after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The NCA said TGR was linked to the purchase of a majority stake in Keremet Bank, a Kyrgyzstani lender sanctioned by the United States. The US Treasury said in January that the sale by the Kyrgyzstani finance ministry was intended to "create a sanctions evasion hub" for Russian trade payments.
Keremet Bank has said it would challenge the decision.
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