MiddleAsiaTrade House, Ilan Shor, and the Kyrgyz Proxy – Hungary Is Playing Host to Russia’s Sanctions

A multi-billion-dollar, supposedly “sanctions-proof” international payment system backed by the Kremlin and sanctioned by the West has been associated with a business in downtown Budapest—staffed by a Latvian go-karting enthusiast—since December 2024. Leaked documents with open-source reporting suggest there is a risk that Hungarian company MiddleAsiaTrade House kft, whose address is opposite Budapest’s majestic Keleti train station, could have been used to facilitate euro payments by Russian importers as part of the sanctioned Russian payment system A7. The same network that the West has been desperately trying to dismantle. The same network that helped swing elections and move billions for the Kremlin. MiddleAsiaTrade House kft did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Its director, a Latvian citizen in his 50s who represented Latvia in an international pickleball competition and is also a go-karting hobbyist, did not return multiple requests for comment via phone and email. One does not need to be a Kremlinologist to wonder: how does a pickleball-playing, go-karting enthusiast end up running a Budapest-based company linked to a multi-billion-dollar Russian sanctions evasion network? The A7 Network, Billions in Payments, Sanctions, and a Moldovan Oligarch By its own account, A7 has moved billions of dollars for Russian clients [...]

The post MiddleAsiaTrade House, Ilan Shor, and the Kyrgyz Proxy – Hungary Is Playing Host to Russia’s Sanctions appeared first on Luxembourg Herald.