Two Russian speaking networks, which enabled payments for cyber-criminal groups, taken down
Networks which supported and laundered millions of dollars in ransomware payments have been disrupted by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
Named Operation Destabilise, the international effort exposed and disrupted Russian money laundering networks, including laundering over $2.3 million of suspected ransoms paid in crypto by victims of the Ryuk ransomware group.
The NCA named the groups as ‘Smart’ and ‘TGR’, and its activity has so far led to 84 arrests, as well as the seizure of over £20m in cash and cryptocurrency.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
