A 17-year-old British boy’s whistleblowing on a purported Russian-backed money laundering network has reached the Kremlin and landed him on a new list of sanctioned individuals.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry sanctioned Alexander Browder on Wednesday over what it called “defamatory speculations and false information”. The adolescent will now be prohibited from entering Russia, along with four other British nationals.
Browder’s research, “Confronting the Illicit-Finance Hydra in Crypto Markets: Protecting Retail Investors and Disrupting Hostile Government Exploitation,” was published in March by the Henry Jackson Society think tank. In it, Browder exposed alleged illicit crypto laundering operations, stating that some $350 billion had been laundered by numerous regimes like Russia, Iran and North Korea.
A Ruble-backed stablecoin a sort of digital currency designed to keep a stable value by pegging to fiat currencies — known as A7A5 was “one of the most prevalent issues facing the West” in the fight against laundering, he claimed.
The UK Foreign Office believes Russia has been using tokens like A7A5 to try to dodge western sanctions and assist fund its military by moving money through crypto exchanges.
In May, the British government issued a raft of fines against individuals associated with the network behind A7A5, which it said claimed to have moved more than $90 billion last year.
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