Some Russian Banks May Have Swapped Gold for Dollars, Report Says

Some Russian banks appear to have maneuvered around a ban on shipping dollars and euros to the country by trading gold in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, according to research from a financial-intelligence company.

The sanctions on the export of banknotes were introduced after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The report compiled by Sayari found that in the first quarter of 2023, the financial institutions — which include Lanta Bank JSC, whose owners control gold miner GV Gold, and at least one lender that is not sanctioned — imported more than the equivalent of $82 million in euros, dollars and UAE dirhams. The data shows that several of the same entities used to ship cash to Russia also imported gold from Russia within similar timeframes.