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Updated May 7, 2026
A new trove of leaked internal documents has exposed how A7, a Moscow-based financial services firm, became one of the most powerful tools for Russia to evade Western sanctions. The files, reviewed by the New York Times, show how the company moved more than $500 million in restricted payments in just the first four months of 2025 using shell companies, cryptocurrency and an AI-powered forgery system.
A7 does not build weapons. It builds access. For Russian businesses that need to buy everything from drone parts and industrial machinery to luxury holidays, A7 has become the go-to channel for getting dollars and euros moving again.
One story from the leaked files sets the tone. The Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic, a state body, was recorded as paying $1 million for a large order of car floor mats, body polish and rope. In reality, the money was payment for drone components used on the front lines in Ukraine.
That pattern repeats across thousands of transactions. A7 sets up shell companies across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. These firms have no real business purpose except to hide Russian purchases. Money moves from Russia to these companies, then on to suppliers in China, Europe and elsewhere. Banks see innocuous payments; Russia gets sensitive goods.
The company also relies heavily on cryptocurrency. It converts rubles into dollars and euros through digital tokens, making it harder to trace where the money is coming from. And it has built an in-house app powered by OpenAI’s large language models to generate fake invoices and shipping documents, turning restricted deals into what look like routine trade.
The scale is enormous. An intelligence think tank called Open Source Center estimates that tens of billions of dollars have passed through the A7 network. The company itself claims to handle roughly a fifth of Russia’s annual foreign trade — around $130 billion.
A7 needed a foothold in the global financial system. It found one in Kyrgyzstan, the small Central Asian republic with close economic ties to Moscow.
After Russia’s frozen out of Western finance following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan became a key transit hub for goods headed to Russia. Bank profits in the country jumped from $42 million in 2021 to $354 million in 2024. Imports rose from roughly $8 billion to nearly $23 billion — far too fast for a country of only seven million people, noted Robin Brooks, an economist at the Brookings Institution.
The leaked records show A7’s shell companies opened at least six accounts with Kyrgyz banks and moved more than $100 million through them. A central player was the Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic, a state entity created to monitor trade and prevent sanctions evasion. Instead, internal A7 chat logs show company employees were soon discussing how to install their own software on the official Kyrgyz website and use it to process orders. Within months, A7 was producing doctored invoices that made sensitive shipments look like ordinary purchases for Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyzstan’s economy minister, Bakyt Sydykov, said the country takes the problem seriously and has taken concrete action against sanctions evasion. Still, the leaked files suggest the system was built to be exploited from the start.
A7 was founded by Ilan Shor, an Israeli-Moldovan oligarch with a long record of shady dealings. Three Western intelligence officials say he reports directly to Sergei Kiriyenko, a top deputy in Vladimir Putin’s administration.
Shor was convicted in absentia for his part in the theft of $1 billion from Moldova’s banking system, a scandal known there as the “theft of the century.” He now lives in Russia with his wife, pop star Jasmin, and their children. Social media posts show a life of luxury vacations and high-end shopping.
Western sanctions against Shor and his wife have been in place since 2022, but they have not slowed him down. In 2024, the Russian government allegedly routed hundreds of millions of dollars through a nonprofit linked to Shor to push Moldovans to vote against joining the European Union. That effort failed when Moldova voted to join the bloc.
Shor founded A7 in September 2024 with Promsvyazbank, a state-owned Russian bank tied to the military. The goal, according to a Russian-language statement, was to “develop foreign trade” and strengthen Russia’s economy in defiance of sanctions.
He has not hidden his intentions. “We have no particular problems transferring funds anywhere in the world,” Shor told the Russian newspaper Kommersant. He has also said he gets “personal satisfaction” from beating the sanctions system.
A7 handles plenty of ordinary goods: frozen beef from Uruguay, lighting fixtures from Italy, children’s toys from China. More than $2 million went to a travel agency in the Maldives, a favorite destination for wealthy Russians.
But a significant share of the business is military-related. The Times analysis found that over $130 million of the $500 million in transactions brokered in early 2025 involved products that could support Russia’s military-industrial base.
Xi’an Heavy Equipment, a Chinese state-owned machinery maker, received more than 30 payments from A7-linked shell companies, totaling over $27 million, for steel manufacturing equipment that could help produce artillery shells and vehicle armor.
Insight Global Technology, a Hong Kong seller of Nvidia AI servers, received nearly $1 million from a Russian shell company. The technology is exactly the kind of advanced hardware Western nations have tried to keep out of Russia. Another $4 million went to Walksnail, a Chinese company that makes radio and video components for drones used in Ukraine.
None of the three companies responded to requests for comment.
Western governments have started to push back. The European Union, Britain and the United States have imposed sanctions on A7-linked companies and individuals, as well as on the ruble-pegged cryptocurrency the firm controls. Kyrgyzstan also shut down parts of the network, including the Trading Company, earlier this year.
But A7 is designed to adapt. When one door closes, it opens another. After the Kyrgyz crackdown, internal records and corporate filings show A7 expanded through new shell companies and subsidiaries in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Mongolia and other jurisdictions. The Times identified 71 shell companies around the world connected to the firm.
The fight is far from over. Every new sanctions package pushes A7 to change tactics, creating a game of whack-a-mole for regulators. Elina Ribakova, director of international affairs at the Kyiv School of Economics, says the West has effectively created a creature it can no longer fully control.
“We’ve created a monster,” she said.
That monster is not just one company. It is the entire enterprise of sanctions evasion — a growing industry that keeps evolving every time the West tries to wall Russia off. The leaked documents show exactly how the machine works.
