UK Operation Destabilise Hits 128 Arrests, Seizes $32.6M in Russian Sanctions Evasion Crackdown

Investigators uncovered connections between two collaborating networks, Smart and TGR, that launder money for international crime organizations while helping sanctioned Russian individuals invest in the UK. George Rossi, who heads the TGR network, has ties to Luxembourg-based Altair Holding SA, which purchased a 75% stake in Kyrgyzstan’s Keremet Bank on Christmas Day 2024.

That bank purchase matters because Keremet has been enabling cross-border payments for Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned institution that finances suppliers to the Russian military. Promsvyazbank also backs A7A5, a rouble-pegged stablecoin designed specifically to evade sanctions. A7A5 passed $40 billion in total transaction volume by July 2025, making it one of the largest sanctions-evasion tools in the crypto space.

The Kyrgyzstan connection shows how these networks layer legitimate-looking business purchases over money laundering infrastructure. Buying a 75% stake in a functioning bank provides access to international payment rails that direct cash transfers can’t achieve, especially when those transfers would trigger sanctions monitoring systems.

The NCA’s latest update claims Russia-linked networks now have “reservations over operating in London” and that their ability to access legitimate banking services in Western Europe “has been significantly restricted.” Whether that’s accurate depends on who’s measuring.

Slava Demchuk, CEO of blockchain analytics firm AMLBot, told reporters his company can’t confirm a measurable decline in Russia-related laundering in London or the wider UK. “Private-sector firms primarily rely on open data, and without the intelligence held by law-enforcement agencies, the crypto-related activity we can observe shows no clear change linked directly to Operation Destabilise,” Demchuk explained.

Ari Redbord, VP and Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, sees evidence of disruption at the service level rather than in overall volumes. Following coordinated actions by the NCA and the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, three key platforms tied to Russian money laundering networks saw sharp drops in activity.

“Across three key platforms—NetEx24, Bitpapa, and Cryptex—inflows fell more than 80% on average in the three months after designation compared with the period before,” Redbord said. Similar patterns appeared at Garantex and Bitzlato after they were sanctioned by authorities in the US, UK, and EU.

Garantex’s apparent rebrand as Grinex highlights the core challenge with targeting individual platforms or networks. Shutting down one service doesn’t eliminate the demand or the infrastructure supporting it. “What we don’t see is a neat, long-term collapse in Russian-linked laundering overall,” Redbord explained. “Flows tend to reroute to other high-risk exchanges, OTC brokers, and alternative rails rather than disappear altogether.”

Blockchain data can show when a specific platform’s volume drops, but it can’t tell you whether those transactions moved to another city, another country, or another service entirely. The Smart and TGR networks operate across Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of Asia, using cash couriers, crypto over-the-counter desks, payment processors, and shell companies.

Demchuk noted that Russia-linked laundering is “deeply embedded” in over 30 countries, forming a “global ecosystem” that moves billions across borders for laundering and sanctions evasion. Disrupting operations in 28 UK cities matters, but the networks have infrastructure in dozens of other jurisdictions where enforcement is weaker or nonexistent.

Operation Destabilise has clearly disrupted some percentage of UK-based operations. The question is whether 128 arrests and $32.6 million in seizures represent a major blow to these networks or just the cost of doing business at scale.

For context, A7A5 alone processed $40 billion in volume by mid-2025. Seizing $32.6 million from an ecosystem moving tens of billions annually isn’t going to fundamentally alter the economics. The networks can absorb those losses, especially if they’re successfully rerouting operations to jurisdictions with lighter enforcement.

The 128 arrests matter more for operational disruption than financial impact. Each arrested courier or network operator creates gaps in the system that take time to fill. Recruiting and vetting new couriers carries risk, and arrests make potential recruits more cautious about joining. That friction adds costs and reduces efficiency, even if it doesn’t stop the laundering entirely.

No Easy Solutions

Britain’s Operation Destabilise represents serious enforcement work backed by real resources. The NCA has mapped networks across 28 cities, traced money flows through Luxembourg to Kyrgyzstan, connected those flows to Russian military financing, and made over 100 arrests. That’s not nothing.

But the structure of these networks—decentralized across dozens of countries, using a mix of traditional banking and crypto rails, operating through multiple shell companies and legitimate-looking business purchases—makes complete disruption nearly impossible without coordinated international enforcement at a scale that doesn’t currently exist.

Redbord’s observation that flows “reroute to other high-risk exchanges, OTC brokers, and alternative rails rather than disappear altogether” captures the fundamental problem. As long as there’s demand for sanctions evasion and money laundering services, and as long as multiple jurisdictions offer a haven for these operations, enforcement actions will disrupt individual networks without eliminating the underlying infrastructure.

The NCA’s work forces these networks to adapt, increases their operational costs, and makes London a riskier place to operate. Whether that translates to less total laundering or just laundering happening somewhere else remains an open question.