The UK’s National Crime Agency yesterday announced that it had disrupted a multi-million dollar Russian money-laundering network with links to drugs and espionage. Jersey law enforcers had a role to play in the operation, as outlined in this special report.
MUHIDDIN Umurzokov, Anvarjon Eshonkulov and Batsukh Bataa disembarked the ferry in St Helier and immediately went on a shopping spree.
Umurzokov and Eshonkulov, Uzbek nationals, and Bataa, from Mongolia, bought iPads, watches, and clothes, and changed Jersey banknotes into US dollars and euros in October 2021. Then they upped the ante, attempting to buy expensive gold watches and even vehicles with cash.
It was to be their undoing.
“They’d been very busy,” recalls Faith Shalamon, the Jersey officer in charge of the case. “They had been going into jewellers and trying to buy jewellery for thousands of pounds in cash, going into the iQ shops and trying to buy electronic items for £10,000 and £20,000.
“It was all very suspicious and so it was reported [to us]. They weren’t able to do it because people in Jersey are switched on. We’re such a small community here, so it was reported.”
The trio were arrested as they tried to leave Jersey, and found to have tried to launder as much as £60,000 in local banknotes.
The States police were not able to find out where the local currency had come from, but given that it was not legal tender in the UK – and was difficult to change into British pounds in large quantities – travelling to the Island to launder it was their only option.
They were charged under the Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law 1999 and pleaded guilty to money-laundering and working for a UK organised crime group. In 2022, they were sentenced to a combined ten years in prison. Umurzokov was jailed for four years and Eshonkulov and Bataa each received three-year sentences, after which they would be deported from the Island.
What the Jersey authorities did not know then was that Umurzokov, Eshonkulov and Bataa were the tip of a very large iceberg, bit players in a global criminal conspiracy that brought together Colombian cartels, Russian sanctions-evaders, and British drug gangs to launder tens of millions of pounds using legitimate businesses and shady cryptocurrency exchanges.
That criminal enterprise was revealed for the first time yesterday, with news that the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) had disrupted a multi-billion-dollar Russian money-laundering network with links to drugs, ransomware and espionage and resulting in 84 arrests, the seizure of £20 million in cash, and the sanctioning of high-profile Russian businessmen and women.
Operation Destabilise
Operation Destabilise, as it was dubbed, was made public to coincide with sanctions against a coterie of Russian-speaking men and women at the head of the networks, as well as those associated with two networks at the heart of the scheme, Smart and TGR. These networks helped launder money for crime groups such as the Kinahans, the family-run crime syndicate that has trafficked firearms into the UK and other states and was sanctioned by the US in 2022. They also helped Russian clients bypass sanctions imposed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It was spearheaded via two Russian networks, Smart and TGR, the former headed by Ekaterina Zhdanova, who worked closely with Khadzi-Murat Magomedov and Nikita Krasnov to facilitate money-laundering. TGR is run by George Rossi, his second-in-command Elena Chirkinyan, and Andrejs Bradens (also known as Andrejs Carenoks). All six have been sanctioned by the US.
Under the scheme, crime networks collected funds in one country and made the equivalent value available in another, often by swapping crypto-currency for cash. For example, if a UK street gang needed to wash £1m, it would swap the money for crypto currency. The “clean” cash would be smuggled out of the UK and laundered before making its way to Russia, or would be smuggled back into the UK by Russians looking to evade sanctions.
Those couriers, the foot soldiers of the wider conspiracy, were people like those arrested in Jersey in October 2021.
At a briefing in London, attended by the JEP, Rob Jones, director general of operations at the National Crime Agency, said: “For the first time, we have been able to map out a link between Russian elites, crypto-rich cyber criminals, and drugs gangs on the streets of the UK. The thread that tied them together – the combined force of Smart and TGR – was invisible until now.
“The NCA and partners have disrupted this criminal service at every level. We have identified and acted against the Russians pulling the strings at the very top, removing the air of legitimacy that enabled them to weave illicit funds into our economy.”
Far bigger things
While Jersey police did not know about Smart, TGR and Russian sanctions evaders in 2021, it was clear to investigators even then that Umurzokov, Eshonkulov and Bataa were involved in far bigger things than just laundering £60,000. On their mobile devices, police found pictures of them counting wads of cash as well as messages between them and other criminals.
They also found evidence that included documentation, receipts and lists that showed their involvement in sub-letting UK properties paid for in cash from drug trafficking or prostitution. On their mobile phones, the trio had the identities of Uzbekistanis, Hungarians, Latvians and Romanians, that had entered the UK illegally to be housed in the sublet properties.
Critically, they also found huge sums of money moving in and out of their bank accounts, and substantial amounts transferred to and from UK business bank accounts. One company, ISM Scaffolding, had £4.31m passed through it in the ten months between 2021 and 2022. All the information was subsequently passed on to the UK authorities.
“We looked at the transactions and you’ve got lump sums of £500 in cash being paid into these bank accounts on a daily basis, and they’re being paid in at various places around the UK,” Ms Shalamon recalls. “We found out from the Sat Nav from the vehicle that they had travelled all around the UK, Manchester, all the main cities in the UK, collecting this cash.”
Jersey plays a role
For Ms Shalamon there is a satisfaction that Jersey police have played a role – however small – in Operation Destabilise. It was the first investigation that she had played a role in, and the information gathered from the electronic devices seized ultimately helped lead the British authorities to individuals that helped expose the wider conspiracy.
“I was really pleased, because the Jersey police and especially the joint financial crimes unit, put in a lot of work. We worked with so many agencies in the UK, the Met, the NCA and it was nice to see that some of the evidence we collated was used for the conviction of a bigger OCG network,” she said.
“Ultimately money-laundering is at the heart of organised crime. It underpins most organised crime in the UK.”
As for Umurzokov, Eshonkulov, and Bataa the trio have since been released from prison and deported from the Island. Two of them, Eshonkulov and Bataa, have British citizenship and – as far as Jersey police know now – are back on the streets. Umurzokov, although not a British citizen, is still in the United Kingdom. All three could, potentially, be back in the game.
“They’re back in the UK now, I suppose, probably doing what they were doing then. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop, does it?” she says.
“We just have to keep doing what we’re doing. Doing the best we can.”
