Rosfinmonitoring told Putin about the universalization of shadow financial platforms

Shadow platforms are changing their structure

Rosfinmonitoring is recording the universalization of shadow platforms in Russia, said the head of the agency Yuri Chikhanchin at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin; the contents of the meeting were reported by RIA Novosti (the article was published by Gazeta.Ru). According to Chikhanchin, such platforms previously specialized only in moving money abroad or only in cashing it out, but now they have begun to take on a network character.

Network structure makes it harder to identify links

The head of Rosfinmonitoring emphasized that a single scheme may simultaneously involve up to a dozen or more different financial organizations, both large and small. In his assessment, identifying their affiliations is very difficult. This essentially describes a new quality of the problem: whereas previously the agency could track platforms by a narrow profile of operations, now a single chain combines several functions at once and involves many participants, which requires a different approach to oversight.

Context of the meeting and earlier statements

The meeting took place against the backdrop of two recent statements by the president. The day before, Putin stated the importance of improving the work of Rosfinmonitoring and continuing its technological modernization in light of external threats. He paid separate attention to social protection: according to him, criminals are increasingly trying to involve minors in their schemes, and the president named protecting citizens — both young people and the older generation — from financial threats as the service's main task. Earlier, Putin also called for tighter control over suspicious financial transactions. Thus, the report on the universalization of the platforms came within an already declared line of strengthening financial control, while no specific new measures resulting from the meeting were cited in the publications.