Tag: Promsvyazbank

Grinex, the Russia‑linked “crypto‑ruble” exchange born from the carcass of sanctioned laundromat Garantex, has halted operations after reporting a 1 billion ruble ($13–14 million) breach and pointing the finger at Western spy agencies. Blockchain traces and sanctions records instead paint Grinex as a central node in an industrial‑scale sanctions‑evasion network built to move dirty Russian money out of the reach of regulators – and this “hack” may be the final extraction, not the first attack.

European regulators have already closed the European subsidiary of state-owned Russian Sberbank. The US, the UK, EU, and Canada agreed to expell seven Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system. The ban does not include Sberbank and Gazprombank. They were exempted because they handle most of the payments related to gas and oil exports, on which the EU heavily depends to produce energy. Around 40% of the gas consumed by the bloc comes from Russia.