Russia pays teens and untrained spies using bitcoin: Report

Russian intelligence agency is in use Bitcoin a Reuters A survey conducted in collaboration with Blockchain Analytics Firms Global Ledger and Recoveris.

Report from Reuters He detailed the recent incident of Laken Pavan, a Canadian national sentenced to 20 months in Poland after pleading guilty to support the Russian intelligence news in December.

The Russian Federation Security Services (FSB) recruited Pavan in late April 2024 after going to Donetsk to volunteer with Russian mutual brigade volunteers after becoming radical online in the 2023 course.

In Donetsk, the FSB agent detained Pavan for several days, recruiting him as a spy using the threat, and assigned a handler known only as “Shron” (Russian for “elephant”).

The FSB agent told Pavan he would travel to various parts of Europe, including Ukraine, to gather intelligence shared with Thron.

From Donetsk, Pavan traveled to Istanbul, then to Copenhagen. Copenhagen received Bitcoin from Slon, which exceeded $500.

On May 22, the day after receiving his Bitcoin payment, Pavan traveled to Warsaw, where he relied on the authorities.

This is where Pavan’s short life as a Russian spy ends, but Global Ledger and Recovery was able to track $500 of Bitcoin sent by Thron to two intermediate BTC wallets.

The investigation revealed that a transfer between the wallet and the wallet occurred during Moscow’s opening hours, but analysis revealed that the largest wallet processed a total of $600 million worth of BTC.

The largest wallets also sent funds to approve Russian exchange Garantex, but Global Ledger reported that it appears to be funded by “major mining pools and custody services.”

Neither the global ledger nor the recovery could clearly identify ownership of the large wallet (or two intermediary wallets), but leaned towards the conclusion that both are linked to the FSB.

“Transactions from FSB-linked wallets followed a structured washing pattern, including fund splits, larger amounts and mixing, and routing through unconnected sediment wallets,” the report explained. Reuters.

Russian Crypto Spy Network

Laken Pavan’s is just one case, Recoveris says Decryption Observing how Russian information and security agencies use it to “continually raise funds” agents; Cryptocurrency.

“This method has been discovered on multiple occasions. For example, in 2023, we found that a group of young Belarusians and Ukrainians based in Poland was funded by the cryptocurrency GRU.”

According to Zarakowski, the young spy was tasked with setting up cameras on major train routes from Poland to Ukraine, tagging city walls with political propaganda to increase the division of Polish society, and publishing fake news.

Since then, many other instances of GRU and FSB payments have been discovered in Poland, with some assets being even paid for arson.

“We can see that the GRU/FSB wallet is regularly active from the ongoing Recoveris Intelligence,” explained Zarakowski. “As an example, one address identified as FSB-related belongs to a cluster of 161 Bitcoin addresses with hundreds of outgoing transactions.

The use of Russian cryptocurrency also extends to funding civilian mercens who are fighting in the Donbas region on the Russian war side in Ukraine, paying European politicians to spread the message of pro-Lucia and anti-Uraine.

And given the widespread sanctions imposed on Russian and Russian entities, the FSB and other institutions could continue to use cryptocurrency for a while.

“The advantage of paying an agent or asset using Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is that the amount of cryptocurrency (even millions of US dollars) can be moved instantly across the world without government barriers, except for gateways between cryptos,” Zarakowski said.

In addition to this, the Russian intelligence agency has made many uses for the transparency provided by cryptocurrencies.

“Handlers and senior intelligence agents can monitor the flow of the code,” added Zarakowski. “Everything that an agent uses can be audited to be spent for operational purposes.”