British schoolboy has been hit by russian sanctions

Novaya Gazeta Europe reports on this in an in-depth article about a 17-year-old teenager who exposed schemes to launder russian funds via cryptocurrency.

In his report for the Henry Jackson Society think tank, published in March, Browder described illegal schemes for transferring funds via cryptocurrency and emphasised that the rouble-backed stablecoin A7A5 is “one of the most serious problems facing the West” in the fight against money laundering within the framework of sanctions regimes.

He pointed out that a number of states, including russia, Iran and North Korea, had ‘laundered’ approximately $350 billion in this way.

Following this, London imposed sanctions on a whole group of companies — including crypto platforms, banks and financial networks in russia, the UK, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, the United Arab Emirates, Panama and El Salvador — which, according to a statement by the UK Foreign Office, were being used as “shadow financial systems” to circumvent anti-russian sanctions.

Moscow, in turn, added Alexander Brauder to its sanctions list — on 2 June, he was banned from entering russia for ‘publishing disinformation’.

He thus became the first schoolboy in history against whom the Kremlin has imposed personal sanctions.

Brauder, however, says he does not regard Moscow’s decision as a punishment.

“I am proud to be the world’s first schoolboy to be placed on a sanctions list by an authoritarian regime for exposing corruption. /…/ I have exposed their Achilles’ heel. Without A7A5, they wouldn’t have been able to finance their war of aggression,” the publication quotes Alexander as saying.

In a video published on the DW Golovne Telegram channel, Browder emphasises that he devotes most of his time to investigating, and that for him it is “like a job”.

“Most people, especially high-ranking politicians, have no idea how all this works. They don’t even know what cryptocurrency is. Illegal networks funnel billions of dollars to russia, Iran or North Korea, and they get away with it because it happens in the shadows,” says Browder.

He also stated that the sanctions imposed on him by russia do not scare him.

“It means I’ve hit a nerve,” he remarked.

Alexander Browder is following in the footsteps of his father — the renowned British financier William Browder, the main architect of the Magnitsky Act, passed in the US in 2012, which imposes visa and financial restrictions on high-ranking russian officials implicated in human rights abuses.

Source: NV