UK and foreign law enforcement agencies say networks laundered cash and cryptocurrencies for organised crime gangs across the west

Operatives said to be behind a billion-dollar Russian money-laundering network – used by drug dealers, financial criminals and foreign spies – have been sanctioned and arrested in a coordinated international investigation led by the National Crime Agency.

The UK law enforcement body, which tackles serious and organised crime, said the actions constituted the “most significant money laundering operation” it had undertaken in the past few years. The operation involved America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation, France’s Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire and Ireland’s Garda.