Britain sanctions Cryptomus owner and Kyrgyz crypto firms it suspects of helping Russia dodge sanctions

Britain has put the company behind the crypto payments service Cryptomus on its Russia sanctions list. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced 38 new designations on Thursday, October 8, including three crypto exchanges, two payment platforms and one linked individual that it suspects of helping Russia get around financial sanctions.

The sanctions notice names Xeltox Enterprises, a company with a Vancouver, Canada address, over its ownership of Cryptomus, and also lists it under the name Heleket. It names TokenSpot and Tsunami Payments, which share a building in Bishkek, and Processing KG, a Kyrgyz company whose listed websites include vexpay.net, along with its director, Ulan Bukabaev. The notice gives Kyrgyzstan's Ministry of Finance as Processing KG's parent.

The four companies face asset freezes and internet services sanctions, which require social media platforms, internet providers and app stores to take reasonable steps to keep UK users off their sites and apps, Decrypt reported. Bukabaev faces an asset freeze and a travel ban.

Two of the firms processed or facilitated transactions with the A7 network, the government said, without naming them. It describes A7 as a Kremlin-backed network for getting around sanctions that claimed to have moved more than $90 billion last year, about half of Russia's annual military spending.

The package also hit two Russian oil companies and 12 more tankers. The government said that "if you help Russia fund or equip this war, you will face the consequences."

What to watch: whether the European Union follows. It named the exchange HTX in its own Russia sanctions two months after Britain did in May, according to Decrypt.