The A7 crypto network, led by fugitive oligarch Ilan Șor, as well as the Russian company Inter RAO, which owns the Moldovan power plant in Cuciurgan (MGRES), are targeted in the 21st package of European Union sanctions against Russia.
The new package includes four new mentions related to the A7 network, among which are recently identified connections of it with Africa, reports IPN. The network is associated by European institutions with support given to Moscow in evading international sanctions through crypto platforms.
The measure comes in parallel with the expansion of the trading ban for 14 cryptocurrency platforms registered in Georgia, Panama, the United Arab Emirates, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. At the same time, a tool was introduced for the first time that allows the EU to impose a total ban at the level of a third country for crypto asset services used by Russia to evade sanctions.
At the same time, the EU Council has included the Russian company Inter RAO, which has owned the power plant in the Transnistrian region since 2005, in the new sanctions list. According to an investigation previously published by Rise, over 20 million dollars from the electricity bills paid by consumers in the Republic of Moldova ended up in the accounts of companies in offshore areas. The money was withdrawn from the accounts of a company in Tiraspol at a bank in the Republic of Moldova. The company has mediated the delivery of energy to the right of the Dniester for several years.
The 21st package of sanctions against Moscow, as a result of the initiation of the war of aggression in Ukraine, was adopted on Thursday by the EU Council and targets the sectors with the highest impact on the Russian economy: energy, financial services, and cryptocurrencies. It contains the most extensive expansion of the list of sanctioned entities, 218 in total, of which 48 are individuals and 170 are companies, including refineries in Russia and Belarus, as well as companies related to the production of drones and drone components. The final sanctions list now includes 250 individuals and over 660 companies.