A sprawling international money laundering network operating across the UK purchased a bank to channel funds towards Russia’s military campaign, the National Crime Agency (NCA)
has disclosed.
According to investigators, the billion-dollar enterprise serves criminals worldwide — from Russian-speaking cyber gangs moving millions in cryptocurrency to UK street groups seeking to clean cash profits from drug deals.
The NCA says couriers linked to the network are active in at least 28 towns and cities across Britain, collecting physical cash and converting it into digital assets to obscure its origins.
The agency has now uncovered that a company connected to one of the network’s senior figures acquired a bank that has been used to process payments ultimately supporting Russia’s war effort.
The revelations form part of Operation Destabilise, an ongoing NCA investigation targeting Russian-linked money laundering systems that underpin serious and organised crime across the globe.
Since the operation began, UK authorities have made 128 arrests and seized more than £25 million in cash and cryptocurrency.
An NCA spokesperson said the investigation highlights the chain linking everyday drug purchases in the UK to “geopolitical events that are causing suffering across the world”.
Sal Melki, the agency’s deputy director for economic crime, said:
“Today we can reveal the sheer scale at which these networks operate and draw a line between crimes in our communities, sophisticated organised criminals and state-sponsored activity.
The networks disrupted through Destabilise operate at all levels of international money laundering — from collecting street cash to purchasing banks and enabling global sanctions breaches.”
Last December, the NCA exposed two interconnected groups — TGR and Smart — which were laundering money for transnational crime organisations involved in cyber offences, drug trafficking and firearms smuggling. Both networks were also helping Russian clients bypass financial restrictions to invest illicit money in the UK, the agency said.
