The files, reviewed by the Financial Times, describe a network that opened accounts for front companies at banks across the world and used falsified invoices to give the transfers a legal appearance.
A7 was set up in late 2024 with support from the state-owned Promsvyazbank (PSB) as an alternative to SWIFT, from which Russian banks were cut off after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The company says about a fifth of Russia's foreign-currency transactions pass through it.
Agentstvo and The Moscow Times, citing the same documents, detailed the largest channels. Accounts at Standard Chartered's Hong Kong branch received $1.1 billion from A7-linked entities between late 2024 and August 2025. DBS in Hong Kong received $273 million, Citigroup clients $74 million and Deutsche Bank about $18 million.
The biggest single channel was First Abu Dhabi Bank in the UAE, where A7 opened accounts for 17 legal entities that moved more than $1.8 billion. Network structures also opened accounts at JPMorgan Chase.
The FT found confirmation of payments through 100 intermediary companies, with at least another 100 mentioned in the documents: 61 in the UAE, 87 in Hong Kong, 16 in Kyrgyzstan and 14 in Indonesia. More than half of the traced money flows ultimately settled in accounts at Chinese banks.
To clear bank compliance checks, A7 industrialized the forgery of documents. The company kept a library of thousands of corporate seals, both fake and copied from genuine documents of companies that were unaware of it. Staff were instructed to replace customs codes for sanctioned goods with similar codes for products not subject to restrictions and to remove the "Russian trace" from paperwork, including Cyrillic script.
Some payments involved military-purpose goods. In February 2025, A7 processed a payment of 3.6 million yuan ($510,000) for 500 night-vision devices for a Russian client. Documents prepared for the bank described the purchase of tempered glass; employees discussed changing it to "footwear" but decided to keep the original wording so as not to diverge from earlier invoices.
The Moscow Times cited another episode: computer numerical control metalworking machines worth 1.77 million euros were bought for Interconsult, a company placed under British sanctions in 2026 and, according to the outlet, part of a GRU-controlled group engaged in equipment smuggling.
Standard Chartered grew suspicious in February 2025, after which A7 recipients' accounts were closed. The network stepped up payments through the UAE. First Abu Dhabi Bank and DBS told the FT they had closed A7-related accounts. Standard Chartered, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the substance, saying they were committed to anti-money-laundering requirements.
Ilan Shor and PSB head Pyotr Fradkov presented the system to Vladimir Putin in September 2025. According to Shor, A7 handled more than 7.5 trillion rubles in transactions over ten months. This September, Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed a "Russian-Indian payment system" with Fradkov at the A7 stand in New Delhi.
A7 is under sanctions from Britain, the EU and the United States. In July, the EU imposed restrictions on A7A5 project head Leonid Shumakov, payment agents A7 Agent and A71, and Promsvyazbank deputy chairman Mikhail Dorofeyev. Asked by Kommersant about the possible lifting of sanctions against Russia, Shor said he did not think it would happen and that a hypothetical removal of restrictions would not affect demand for the service.
Britain has also issued a national warning about the A7 network, and in April Proekt reported that at least 25 Russian companies under US and EU sanctions were among the system's clients, including five manufacturers and suppliers of combat drones.