A7, a Moscow‑based financial services firm, has built a sprawling web of shell companies across Asia and Africa to launder funds and orchestrate prohibited payments for Russian businesses. Leaked internal documents, software used to falsify trade records, and interviews with current and former employees reveal that A7’s custom AI‑powered app helps forge invoices and obscure the origin of money, often using cryptocurrency to convert rubles into dollars and euros. In the first four months of 2025 alone, the firm brokered over $500 million in prohibited transactions, with more than $130 million directed toward products usable by Russia’s military‑industrial base. The company’s influential owner, Ilan Shor, an Israeli Moldovan oligarch linked to the Kremlin, claims A7 handles a fifth of Russia’s annual foreign trade—roughly $130 billion. Western sanctions intended to cripple Russia’s war financing have instead spurred increasingly sophisticated evasion schemes, prompting officials to label A7 a “monster” in the global effort to bypass financial restrictions.

A7’s operations illustrate how Russia sidesteps the dollar‑based financial system, leveraging shell firms in Kyrgyzstan, cryptocurrency exchanges, and AI‑driven falsification tools to keep its war machine supplied despite sweeping Western restrictions.

The leaked documents, first disclosed by the Open Source Center and later cited by the Financial Times, estimate that tens of billions of dollars have flowed through A7’s network, underscoring the scale of the evasion and the challenges facing international regulators.

Elina Ribakova of the Kyiv School of Economics notes that the sanctions regime has inadvertently created a sophisticated underground financial infrastructure, with A7 at its core, enabling Russia to continue importing both consumer and military goods despite severe economic pressure.