How Sanctioned Entities are Weaponizing Stablecoins and Blockchain to Build a Shadow Financial System

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• Russian state-linked entities bypass sanctions using stablecoins for international trade and political financing.
• Moldovan political operations used USDT and a Telegram bot for illegal voter payments and campaigning.

Russian financial networks with state connections are using cryptocurrency to conduct international trade despite Western sanctions. Investigative firm Elliptic reports these groups employ public blockchain ledgers, which permanently document all transactions, for cross-border money movement, trade settlement, and political financing.

In 2024, Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor, who is wanted in connection with a one-billion-dollar bank fraud, established the A7 Group inside Russia. The group’s stated purpose is to assist its clients in moving money past international restrictions.

Almost 50% of A7 is owned by Promsvyazbank, a Russian state bank that was already under U.S. sanctions for its role in financing military needs. United States authorities placed A7 on its sanctions list in August 2025.

During September, Shor stated that A7 moved 89 billion dollars over a ten-month period, with over half of the total connected to business partners in Asia. Internal company communications refer to transfers of USDT.

The transparent nature of blockchain technology allowed investigators to connect at least eight billion dollars in transactions to known A7 addresses since the start of 2024. The complete total is probably larger due to unidentified wallets. A7 engineers reportedly updated the group’s core technical systems in August 2025 following signs of a security compromise.

These networks depended on the Tether stablecoin, known as USDT, for its steady value tied to the U.S. dollar and its availability across many trading platforms. A central point of failure became apparent in March 2025 when U.S. action closed the Garantex exchange and froze 26  million dollars. A7 then introduced a new digital token called A7A5, which is pegged to the Russian ruble.

This token is issued by a company in Kyrgyzstan named Old Vector LLC and is supported by deposits of the same value at Promsvyazbank. Reported transaction volume for the A7A5 token has reached 68 billion dollars. The group also directed 2 billion dollars in USDT to various exchanges to be converted into the new A7A5 token, aiming to establish its wider use.