Capital Economy, Business and Finance
A British-led police operation arrested 84 suspects yesterday accused of using stolen crypto to turn cash from drug gangs into laundered funds for Russian oligarchs. The head of operations at the UK’s National Crime Agency – not known for its ambition or results – said the scheme mixed McMafia and Narcos with elements of Le Carré. It centred on a 38-year-old Russian businesswoman, Ekaterina Zhdanova, whose “concierge” service for the very rich appears in reality to have been focused on helping Russians evade sanctions to move money to the Gulf. She has a loose connection to Trump via his nominee for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, whose Wall Street brokerage owns a 5 per cent stake in Tether, her preferred cryptocurrency. She’s in custody in France. £20 million in cash and crypto has been seized, but that’s not much next to the £100 billion laundered through the UK each year.
