Overview

• Elliptic reported on Sept. 26 that wallets tied to Ilan Shor’s A7 group and related Russian-linked entities moved roughly $8 billion in stablecoins, chiefly Tether’s USDT, over the past 18 months.
• A7 is described as partly owned by Russia’s state-linked Promsvyazbank and overseen by Shor, a U.S.-sanctioned Moldovan oligarch who has claimed vast cross‑border payment volumes.
• Leaked messages show heavy operational dependence on USDT, including a 2 million‑USDT treasury request that exposed a wallet with about $677 million in flow.
• After USDT freezes tied to the shutdown of the Garantex exchange, A7 promoted a ruble‑pegged token called A7A5 as a workaround, though the token’s public float is about $500 million and broader uptake appears limited.
• The documents and on‑chain traces link transfers to Moldovan politicians, activist networks and polling groups, and outline a hybrid scheme using cash, promissory notes and companies in Kyrgyzstan to obscure settlement paths.