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A British 17-year-old’s exposé of an alleged Russian-backed crypto laundering network has made its way all the way to the Kremlin, landing him on a fresh list of sanctioned individuals.
Alexander Browder was sanctioned by Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday over what it called “defamatory speculations and false information”.
The teenager, along with four other British nationals, will now be banned from entering Russia.
Browder’s report, titled “Confronting the Illicit-Finance Hydra in Crypto Markets: Protecting Retail Investors and Disrupting Hostile Government Exploitation,” was published by the Henry Jackson Society think tank in March.
In it, Browder lifted the lid on alleged illicit crypto laundering operations, writing that around $350 billion had been laundered by various states including Russia, Iran and North Korea.
He added that a Ruble-backed stablecoin – a type of digital currency designed to hold a stable value by pegging to fiat currencies – known as A7A5 was “one of the most prevalent issues facing the West” in the fight against laundering.
The UK Foreign Office says Russia uses tokens like A7A5 in an effort to evade western sanctions and help fund its military, moving money through crypto exchanges.
The British government announced in May a series of sanctions against individuals linked to the network behind A7A5, which it said claimed to have moved more than $90 billion last year.
Browder is one of the youngest people to have been sanctioned by Moscow.
In a series of posts on X, the teenager called it “a badge of honour” and said he was “proud to be the first high school student in the world to ever be sanctioned by an authoritarian regime for uncovering corruption”.
“I have exposed their Achilles’ heel,” he wrote. “Without A7A5 they would not be able to fund their war of aggression”.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned in its statement announcing the sanctions that “any efforts by the British political elites to escalate Russophobia, intentionally damage the international of our country, and ratchet up anti-Russian sanctions” would be met with “resolute response measures”.
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