US Treasury’s FinCEN bans money transfers tied to A7, citing $91.5 billion in activity

The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has announced a ban on money transfers connected to A7 and its partners. For PSPs and banks, the important part is not the geopolitical theater — it is that FinCEN is explicitly telling institutions to file suspicious activity reports on A7-linked flows.

1. According to the US Treasury, A7’s activity created channels for moving funds through the international financial system to the Central Bank of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iran-backed terrorist organizations. The Treasury also said A7 subagents moved money for cybercriminals, including ransomware operators and buyers of restricted-export goods.
2. By January 2026, A7 was processing more than 2,000 transactions a day, with total transaction volume exceeding 7.5 trillion rubles ($91.5 billion), or roughly 13% of the Russian Federation’s total foreign trade volume in 2025, according to the Treasury’s statement. That is not a side business; it is infrastructure.
3. FinCEN said that from January last year through June this year, A7 and related entities processed more than $17 billion in transactions. It also recommended that banks and other financial institutions report suspicious activity connected to A7 to US authorities.
4. The Treasury’s announcement comes after Financial Times and The New York Times reported last week that the A7 network had laundered billions of dollars through banks in Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, and Europe. The current US action follows the same pattern regulators tend to care about: a payment network that touches multiple jurisdictions, then starts showing up in sanctions and correspondent-banking reviews.
5. In August, Binance stopped processing transactions for 16 crypto platforms, including some linked to A7. Shortly before that, the European Union’s 21st package of anti-Russian sanctions restricted the operations of 17 crypto companies, including Rapira, ABCeX, and some A7-affiliated entities.