Authorities target Russian criminal gangs who used crypto to move cash
U.S. and U.K. authorities on Wednesday targeted a money-laundering network that they said enabled Russian elites to evade international sanctions through the use of cryptocurrency, particularly the stablecoin tether.
The Wall Street Journal chronicled one of the network’s leaders, a glamorous Russian businesswoman called Ekaterina Zhdanova, in an article earlier this year about tether’s emergence as a favored tool of the financial underworld.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Zhdanova’s organization, called Smart Group, worked with other money launderers to convert bulk deliveries of cash into cryptocurrencies for clients. It said Russian members of…
