Rosneft Fuelled Ilan Shor's Sanctions-Busting Network with Over $2 Billion

A massive data leak from A7, a financial platform used by Russian companies to circumvent Western sanctions, has revealed that it handled foreign transactions worth up to $500 million per day. The platform, founded by fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor with Russian state support, was designed to allow Russian companies to continue making payments abroad after Russia's access to the international banking system SWIFT was restricted.

The leaked data shows that traders connected to oil giant Rosneft provided the network with more than $2 billion. This money was then used for strategic imports and expenses related to Russia's war in Ukraine, through a system that combined hundreds of shell companies, SWIFT payments, cryptocurrencies, and forged commercial documents.

The A7 platform also hosted the A7A5 cryptocurrency and was used by both small and medium-sized businesses and large conglomerates controlled by people close to the Kremlin. The network allegedly developed an internal mechanism called 'legend creation' designed to mask the origin and destination of transactions, involving falsifying commercial documents accompanying operations.