A billion-dollar money laundering network that operated across Britain bought a controlling stake in a Kyrgyzstani bank to facilitate sanctions evasion and support Russia's war in Ukraine, Britain's National Crime Agency said on Friday.

In an update to an international investigation into Russian money laundering networks, dubbed "Operation Destabilise", the NCA said it was highlighting the scale of networks it was disrupting that convert cash from street crime into cryptocurrency and tie the local drugs trade to organised and state-sponsored crime. The NCA and the U.S. Treasury Department last December cast a spotlight on TGR and Smart, two networks they said were used by rich Russians to evade sanctions and which London said laundered cash for drug traffickers, criminals and spies in a "

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