The Treasury Department issued economic restrictions on Thursday against A7, a Russian company that has helped to circumvent Western sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a statement, the department described how A7 had developed a web of companies to help businesses, people and governments subject to sanctions, including Iran, buy goods from around the world — for both domestic and military purposes.
The agency called A7 a “significant transnational criminal organization,” a designation that the United States has used for Mexican drug cartels, Italian mafia groups and other entities.
“Today’s action targeting A7 continues Treasury’s unprecedented efforts to isolate Iran and its financial enablers and sends a clear message that if you facilitate illicit finance for America’s adversaries, you will lose access to the U.S. financial system,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
Last week, The New York Times detailed how A7 used more than 70 shell companies around the world to move funds on behalf of restricted Russian businesses. A recent investigation by The Financial Times found similar illicit activity.
A7 built a custom app, powered by artificial intelligence, that allowed the shell companies to create fraudulent trade records, The Times found. The firm has also relied on cryptocurrencies to help launder money on behalf of clients, allowing some to buy sensitive components used in weapons and drones.
The new restrictions on A7 stop short of direct sanctions on every company in the network. Instead, the Treasury Department proposed a rule that would require U.S. financial institutions to screen transactions against a confidential list of shell companies controlled by the A7 network. The financial institutions would be prohibited from processing transactions involving companies on the list.
A7 was created in 2024 by Ilan Shor, an Israeli Moldovan oligarch who, according to three Western intelligence officials, reports directly to the Kremlin.
During the first four months of the next year, A7 brokered more than $500 million in prohibited transactions on behalf of Russian businesses and individuals, according to a Times analysis of thousands of internal A7 documents. More than $130 million of that was for products that could be used by Russia’s military-industrial base.
The U.S. government issued sanctions against A7 in August 2025, and several shell companies were forced to shut down. Soon after, shell companies and subsidiaries sprang up across Bahrain and Nigeria and elsewhere, The Times found.
Many of A7’s shell companies have been based in the United Arab Emirates, a hub for Iranian sanctions evasion.
In a separate announcement on Thursday, the Treasury Department also moved to tighten economic restrictions on Iran, targeting elements of the country’s industrial base, including automotive, rail and mining sectors.
The announcements were the latest signs of how efforts to use economic penalties to combat armed conflicts are increasingly converging.
The Treasury Department imposed Iran-related sanctions this year on VTB, a major Russian bank. On Tuesday, the department announced similar Iran-related sanctions on Yakovlev Design Bureau, a Russian aircraft marker that had previously been restricted in connection to the war in Ukraine.
