US designated the Russian A7 network as a transnational criminal organization.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against the A7 network, a Russian shadow banking system that Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) allegedly used to evade retaliatory measures; the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) listed it as a high-level transnational criminal organization on Thursday with locations in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, while CENFin introduced rules prohibiting money transfers involving "Sub-Agents", which are companies whose use of their networks makes them appear to be regulated financial services.

The measure was taken under Section 9714 of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, which contains six special provisions. FinCEN chose Article 6 to prohibit money transfers after finding that Article 5, which restricts correspondent accounts, would still have loopholes as A7A5 businesses operate outside all representative banking systems and are seen by FinCEN as an important part of a business model.

The proposed rule covers "virtual convertible currency", not just fiat money.

FinCEN has identified more than 180 individuals who moved at least $3 million in ruble-backed A7A5 tokens between February2025 and June.2026 In the past, almost all of these flowed through crypto exchanges such as Garantex and Grinex. The token was often used as an uncrackable bridge,USDT then converted into fiat currency following a hack on GrineX in April.

What is A7A5 and how does it work?

The A7A5 is a ruble-backed token issued by Old Vector, registered in Kyrgyzstan. It operates on the TRON and Ethereum networks with funds deposited at Promsvyazbank, Russia's state defense bank. FinCEN describes it as a shadow mirror system wherein tokens are moved while inside Russia to represent foreign payments while substitutes make corresponding fiat transfers in dollars, yuan, dirhams, and euros, leaving both sides completely separated from each other.

On the fiat side, A7 has created or acquired hundreds of sub-agents holding accounts at some 435 financial institutions in at least 83 countries, processing more than 17,000 million dollars between January 2025 and June 2026 The staff operated these accounts from Moscow through VPN customizations that made activities appear to have originated in Dubai, Hong Kong or Bishkek.

Connections to Iran and North Korea.

The Treasury Department noted that one of the sub-agents was in direct contact with individuals connected to Iran's shadow navy, and when combined with affiliates received nearly $140 million from companies involved in evading Iranian sanctions,1.6 another sent about $1 million to a company linked to arms purchases, while the Treasuries also tied this network to Nobitex, an Iranian exchange listed in June, and to counterfeiting money obtained by hacking North Korean exchanges.

The origin and size of the network.

The network was launched in September2024 by the escaped Moldovan influencer Ilan Shor and Promsvyazbank, and within January claimed to be operating more than 2,000 trades per day. The transaction volume as previously stated stood at 7.5 billion rubles or about 91,500 million dollars, which would equate to approximately one-eighth of Russia's foreign trade last year.

Treasury Secretary and the next scheduled

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that if you illegally provide financial facilities to America's enemies, "you will lose access to the United States financial system". However, hearings on this proposed rule will close within 30 days of publication in the Federal Register.

Something the reader should notice.

Significantly, the measure is not limited to fiat money but also covers "convertible virtual currencies", meaning that cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the U.S., or affiliated with a U. S. financial institution, may be subject to customer due diligence and business filtering processes related to A7A5 including,USDT which translates from this tone; the choice of using clause 6 instead of clause 5 suggests that regulators see crypto-currency as being at the heart of their business model rather than just an ancillary channel.