UK businessman given senior role at group linked to Kremlin money-laundering operation

{"text":[[{"start":8.2,"text":"A British businessman was given a senior role at a company linked to Kremlin-backed money-laundering operation A7, according to new documents from a vast leak seen by the FT."}],[{"start":19.25,"text":"Minutes of an August 12 2025 meeting from inside A7 show Ilan Shor, the fugitive Moldovan oligarch behind the secretive company, having discussions with Michael Donald, an experienced executive in the payments industry."}],[{"start":35.35,"text":"The FT reported last month that A7 had funnelled $6.9bn of payments through the conventional banking system using a series of front companies armed with forged documents. "}],[{"start":47.1,"text":"A7 was established to enable Russian importers to settle bills, circumventing the web of sanctions imposed on the country since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "}],[{"start":57.6,"text":"Last week, A7 was subjected to extensive new US sanctions, including designation as a “transnational criminal organization”. The network was described as a “money laundering service with ties to Russia, leveraged by a wide range of illicit actors, including Iran and its terrorist proxies”."}],[{"start":75.75,"text":"Shor started the meeting last year by introducing “the new heads of the VexPay platform”, one of whom he said was “Michael Donald, CEO of VexPay”."}],[{"start":85.85,"text":"VexPay is a separate payments company, owned by the Kyrgyz state. But chat logs, emails and minutes of a series of meetings from March until August reveal the extent to which Shor and A7 were involved in setting up VexPay and how much the company relied on A7’s systems. "}],[{"start":103.14999999999999,"text":"In April, they indicate that Shor chaired a meeting where A7 staff sold the already under way plan to establish VexPay to senior officials from the country, calling the company an “alternative to Swift”. "}],[{"start":115.49999999999999,"text":"Other documents indicate that Shor directed who should build Vexpay’s systems and who should set up its bank accounts. They suggest his staff discussed where Vexpay should locate its call centres, drew up personnel plans and arranged its legal status in Kyrgyzstan."}],[{"start":132.25,"text":"The minutes from the August meeting indicate that Donald and another new joiner asked Shor how dealings with sanctioned countries such as Venezuela would be handled. The minutes report that Shor replied: “It is a matter of legally calibrated deal structuring.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":147.4,"text":"At the time of the meeting, Shor was already on the UK, US and EU’s sanctions lists and had been convicted in absentia in Moldova for his role in a billion-dollar bank fraud. "}],[{"start":159.1,"text":"A7, in whose Moscow offices the minutes say the meetings took place, had also been sanctioned both by the UK and EU and would be sanctioned by the US within days."}],[{"start":170.25,"text":"Donald has a strong background in payments. According to his own posts on LinkedIn, since 2018 he has been running ImageNPay, a UK-based payments app used to “create almost instant virtual cards”."}],[{"start":182.65,"text":"The 64-year-old is also a regular attendee at industry conferences and awards. He serves as an adviser to a company backed by Quantum Group, the UK fintech company."}],[{"start":193.8,"text":"Donald told the FT that he had neither met nor spoken to Shor, that he was never chief executive of VexPay, was never hired by the company and did not consent to work for it. Donald told the FT that he was only ever an adviser to the Kyrgyz government and Processing KG, VexPay’s parent company. "}],[{"start":214.15,"text":"He said: “My remit was specifically to advise the team in Bishkek on the international payments landscape, the development of PSP environments, merchant acquiring, Apple Pay enablement and Visa principal membership.” He said he also looked for talent willing to move to Bishkek."}],[{"start":230.9,"text":"Donald acknowledged that he attended a meeting in Moscow on August 12, but said it had been “with Kyrgyz representatives before travelling onwards to Kyrgyzstan to meet with line ministers and the chairman of the board of Processing KG”. "}],[{"start":245.65,"text":"There is no evidence in the minutes seen by the FT that any Kyrgyz representatives were present at the Moscow meeting. However, the minutes show that a trip to Bishkek may have taken place that day, at Shor’s suggestion. "}],[{"start":258.55,"text":"They report him asking Donald whether he “could join the trip to the Kyrgyz Republic taking place today to meet with the Republic’s government”. Donald “supported the proposal and agreed to go”. "}],[{"start":269.95,"text":"The minutes of the meetings show A7’s broader preoccupation with finding new avenues through which to make payments. Staff mooted setting up a new payments company in the UK and buying banks in Belarus and Puerto Rico."}],[{"start":284.4,"text":"A7’s undercover operations were sometimes costly. In 2025, one minute reports that Shor responded to an FT article about A7’s crypto token, known as A7A5, by proposing that they stop pretending that their crypto team was from Kyrgyzstan, where, according to one of his lieutenants, the staff were “insufficiently competent”."}],[{"start":306.2,"text":"The document notes Shor saying: “After the Financial Times article about the A7A5 crypto project, published on 25 June 2025, there was no longer any need to camouflage the team as Kyrgyz citizens. Russian citizens with the necessary skills should be recruited.”"}],[{"start":323.65,"text":"Processing KG told the FT that any suggestion it was “owned, controlled or directed by any third party is categorically untrue”. It added: “The company is governed solely by its management bodies, in accordance with Kyrgyz law and the mandate of its sole shareholder, the Ministry of Finance”."}],[{"start":342.7,"text":"Kyrgyzstan, whose government is a firm ally of Moscow’s, has been a beneficiary of the war in Ukraine as a hub for Russian trade and a key ally for A7. "}],[{"start":352.95,"text":"The publicly owned Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic, which has now been shut down, was one of the most important entities used by A7 to make international payments. "}],[{"start":363.05,"text":"The Kyrgyz ministry of finance did not respond to a request for comment."}],[{"start":368,"text":"A7 told the FT that there was “no point in commenting on invented facts and nonexistent correspondence. Far more interesting are real facts: in just a couple of years, A7 has become the largest Russian international settlements network with partners in 100+ countries”."}],[{"start":393.6,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1791184122_5899.mp3"}