Exclusive: Russia Recruits Teenage Spies—Pays Them in Bitcoin to Evade Sanctions
The Kremlin''s latest espionage playbook reads like a cyberpunk thriller—hiring untrained teens and paying them in untraceable crypto. Forget vodka diplomacy, Russia''s new cold war weapon is Bitcoin-denominated spycraft.
How to launder your geopolitical ops? Just add blockchain.
While Wall Street hedge funds chase the next meme coin, Moscow''s cutting checks to digital-native recruits. No Swiss bank accounts needed—just a burner wallet and plausible deniability. The ultimate side hustle for Gen Z: get paid in volatile crypto to dodge international sanctions.
One question remains: when these amateur agents inevitably leak their transaction histories, will the blockchain snitch on them first?
Russia’s crypto spy network
While Laken Pavan’s is only one case, Recoveris tells Decrypt that it has been observing how Russia''s intelligence and security agencies are “constantly financing” agents using cryptocurrency.
“This method has been uncovered on multiple occasions; for example, in 2023, a group of young Belarusians and Ukrainians based in Poland was found to be funded by the GRU in cryptocurrency,” said Recoveris CEO Marcin Zarakowski.
According to Zarakowski, the young spies were tasked with installing cameras on a major train route from Poland to Ukraine, tagging city walls with political propaganda to increase divisions in Polish society, and publishing fake news.
Since then, many other instances of GRU and FSB payments in cryptocurrency have been discovered in Poland, with some assets even being paid to commit arson.
“From the ongoing Recoveris intelligence, we can see that GRU/FSB wallets are active on a regular basis,” Zarakowski explained. “As an example, one address identified as FSB-related belongs to the cluster of 161 Bitcoin addresses with hundreds of outgoing transactions—almost all within the Moscow business hours 6am till 6pm.”
Russia’s use of cryptocurrencies also extends to financing 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’s likely that the FSB and other agencies will continue using cryptocurrency for some time to come.
“The advantage of using Bitcoin or cryptocurrency to pay agents or assets is that any amount of money in cryptocurrency (even millions of USD) can be moved instantly throughout the globe without any government barriers, except for the crypto-to-fiat gateway,” Zarakowski said,
On top of this, the Russian intelligence apparatus has plenty of use for the transparency afforded by cryptocurrencies.
“Handlers and higher-ranked intelligence officers can monitor crypto flow,” Zarakowski added. “Anything spent by agents can be audited to ensure it is being spent on operational purposes.”
