Russia Paying Teenage and Untrained Spies Using Bitcoin: Report

Russian intelligence services have used Bitcoin To pay teenage and untrained spies, according to one Reuters Research conducted in collaboration with Blockchain Analytics Firms Global Ledger and Recoveris.

A report Reuters Detailed the recent case of Laeken Pavan, a Canadian National who was sentenced in December to 20 months in prison in Poland after being guilty of helping Russian intelligence service.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) had recruited Pavan at the end of April 2024, after the Canadian Die was when he was 17 years old to Donetsk to do volunteer work for the pro-Russian interbrigades, after he had been radicalized online in the course of 2023.

In Donetsk, FSB agents Pavan held a few days, with the help of threats to recruit him as a spy and then assign him a handler, only known as ‘Slon’ (Russian for ‘Elephant’).

The FSB agents had told Pavan that he would travel to different places in Europe, including Ukraine, to collect information that would be shared with Slon.

Van Donetsk traveled Pavan to Istanbul and then to Copenhagen, where he received Bitcoin from Slon worth just over $ 500.

On May 22, a day after receiving the Bitcoin payments, Pavan traveled to Warsaw, where he lodged himself in the Polish authorities.

This is where Pavan’s short life ends like Russian spy, but Global Ledger and Recoveris were able to trace the $ 500 in Bitcoin on two intermediary BTC portfolios, which in turn received hundreds of thousands of dollars in BTC made of a large address in June 2022.

The research also showed that transfers to and from the portfolios took place during office hours in Moscow, while analysis showed that the largest wallet has processed BTC worth a total of $ 600 million.

The largest wallet had also sent money to punish the Russian Exchange Garantex, while Global Ledger reported that it seems to be financed by a “large mining pool and storage service.”

Although neither Global Ledger nor recoveris could definitively identify the ownership of the large wallet (or the two intermediary portfolios), both tend to the conclusion that it is linked to the FSB.

“Transactions of portfolios linked to the FSB followed a structured money laundering, in which the funds split, mix with larger amounts and routing by non -bound deposit portfolios,” explained Global Ledger in his report for Reuters.

Russian Crypto Spy -Network

While Laeken Pavan is only one case, Recoveris says Decrypt that it has observed how the Russian intelligence and security agencies use “Constant Finance” agents Cryptocurrency.

“This method was uncovered on several occasions; in 2023, for example, a group of young white Russians and Ukrainians were founded in Poland financed by the Gru in Cryptocurrency,” said Recilis CEO Marcin Zarakowski.

According to Zarakowski, the young spies were responsible for installing cameras on a large train route from Poland to Ukraine, tagging city walls with political propaganda to increase divisions in Polish society and publish fake news.

Since then, many other cases of Gru and FSB payments in cryptocurrency have been discovered in Poland, with Some assets are even paid to commit arson.

“From the current recovery -we can see that Gru/FSB portfolios are regularly active,” Zarakowski explained. “If an example is an address that has been identified as FSB-related, to the cluster of 161 Bitcoin addresses with hundreds of outgoing transactions-bijna all within the Moscow office hours until 6 p.m.”

The use of Cryptocurrencies from Russia also extends to the financing of private mercenaries fighting in the Donbas region on the Russian side of the war in Ukraine, and Even paying off politicians in Europe To spread pro-Russian and anti-ukraine messages.

And given the extensive range of sanctions placed on Russia and Russian entities, it is likely that the FSB and other agencies will continue to use cryptocurrency for some time.

“The advantage of using Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency to pay agents or assets is that an amount in Cryptocurrency (even millions of USD) can be moved directly throughout the world without any government barriers, except the crypto-to-fiat gateway,” said Zarakowski, “said Zarakowski,” “

Moreover, the Russian intelligence device has extensive use for the transparency that is offered by cryptocurrencies.

“Handlers and higher ranked intelligence officers can follow the crypto stream,” Zarakowski added. “Everything spent by agents can be checked to ensure that it is spent on operational purposes.”