The US Treasury has moved on three fronts against the A7 Network, a Russia-linked payments operation that it says Iran has used to dodge sanctions. On 1 October 2026, under its Operation Economic Outcast campaign, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed a rule to prevent US financial institutions from sending or receiving funds for the network's front companies. FinCEN also issued an alert to help banks spot A7 activity, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned A7 as a significant transnational criminal organisation.
According to the Treasury press release, the network claimed that as of January 2026, it had handled more than 2,000 transactions per day. Its claimed total volume was more than 7.5 trillion rubles, about $91.5 billion, or roughly 13 percent of Russia's foreign trade transactions in 2025.
"Treasury is dismantling the financial infrastructure that allows Iran and other adversaries to evade sanctions, move illicit funds, and undermine the integrity of the global financial system," by Scott Bessent of the US Treasury
How A7 hides who is paying
Treasury describes A7 as a parallel financial system serving customers in Russia and other jurisdictions under heavy sanctions. Its leader, Ilan Mironovich Shor, is sanctioned and has a fraud conviction. Its core consists of three Russia-based companies, A7, A71, and A7 Agent, all registered as limited liability companies, which FinCEN says are jointly owned by Shor and the sanctioned Russian state defence bank Promsvyazbank (PSB).
According to the US Treasury and FinCEN, A7 employs a tripartite corporate structuring strategy that involves creating new entities, acquiring existing shelf companies, or entering into joint arrangements predominantly in transit jurisdictions outside Russia. The advisory specifically highlights the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Seychelles, and the Kyrgyz Republic.
FinCEN notes that while these intermediaries are ostensibly owned or directed by non-Russian third-country nationals, ultimate beneficial ownership and operational control remain with A7.
The FinCEN alert puts the scale at hundreds of front companies by June 2026, banking with roughly 435 institutions in at least 83 countries. FinCEN classifies the scheme as trade-based money laundering: the paperwork behind each payment, from invoices to shipping records to the stated goods, is faked or doctored so that sanctioned money passes as ordinary trade.
By FinCEN's count, money flowing through the Sub-Agents topped $17 billion across all markets in the 18 months to June 2026. Treasury points to two Iran cases. The bigger case involves nearly $140 million received by one Sub-Agent and an affiliated company from counterparties linked to Iranian sanctions evasion. Treasury says the same Sub-Agent also dealt directly with Iran's shadow fleet of oil tankers and the front companies around them. In the other, a Sub-Agent paid around $1.6 million to a company connected to Iranian sanctions evasion and weapons buying.
The stablecoin side
Alongside the fiat payments, FinCEN says A7 created A7A5, a ruble-backed stablecoin that runs on the Tron and Ethereum blockchains. It is issued by Old Vector LLC, a Kyrgyz Republic company that OFAC designated on 14 August 2025, and OFAC treats the token as blocked property. FinCEN tallies at least $179.1 billion of A7A5 transfers from February 2025 to June 2026, spread across more than 180 entities. Historically, almost all of it went through sanctioned venues such as Garantex and Grinex, the latter of which replaced the former.
A7A5 serves mainly as an internal ledger that mirrors the network's international payments and as a bridge to more widely used assets such as Tether (USDT). FinCEN says the token has gathered in self-hosted wallets since Grinex was allegedly hacked in April 2026, a sign that the network may be turning away from the sanctioned exchanges it relied on. US institutions are unlikely to see A7A5 directly, the agency says, but they may meet wrapped versions pegged to it on other blockchains, often through decentralised finance applications. Treasury also ties A7 to Nobitex, the largest digital asset exchange in Iran, which was designated by OFAC on 2 June 2026. The same pattern of Iran-linked crypto rails ran through OFAC's recent actions against the Shelbit and Aban Tether exchanges and Iran's crypto-for-oil network.
What the proposed rule would require
The notice of proposed rulemaking uses section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act. Its legal finding treats dealings with any overseas company under A7's control as a top-tier money laundering risk linked to Russian illicit finance. Covered financial institutions would then be barred from any transmittal of funds, including convertible virtual currency, to or from an A7 Sub-Agent or an account or wallet run on its behalf.
Six companies are listed by name in the proposed rule text: Galadriel Trading FZCO, Gimli Trade LLC-FZ, Hydrofusion Resources FZ-LLC, Pearl Bridge, Power Sphere LLC-FZ and Sigizmund FZCO. Institutions would have to notify affected customers when a transfer is stopped, keep records of that, and take a risk-based view of what extra due diligence they need. Because incoming crypto often cannot be refused before it arrives, an institution that blocks or returns Sub-Agent funds upon discovery would not be in breach. Comments close 30 days after the notice appears in the Federal Register, under docket FINCEN-2026-0265.
FinCEN asks institutions to use the key term FIN-2026-A7NETWORK in suspicious activity reports filed under alert FIN-2026-Alert007. Treasury notes that the action follows the UK National Crime Agency's 31 August 2026 alert on A7.
