Overview

• Elliptic reports that wallets tied to A7 and allied entities processed more than $8 billion in stablecoin transactions over the past 18 months.
• Leaked chats show a 2 million USDT treasury request that exposed a wallet with about $677 million in flows, with the handle “athena1098” identified as Maria Albot.
• A7 is reported to be 49% owned by Russia’s Promsvyazbank, and both entities are under U.S. sanctions.
• After Tether froze funds linked to the Garantex exchange, A7 reworked its wallet setup in August and promoted its ruble‑pegged A7A5 token, which holds roughly $496–500 million in value with at least $2 billion in USDT used for market‑making.
• Coverage links the network’s crypto funding to operations tied to Moldovan politics, with Elliptic citing flows connected to entities controlled by Ilan Shor.