QIWI wallets turned into a shadow conveyor: 24 thousand accounts siphoned 30 billion rubles abroad

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has uncovered a mechanism that turned QIWI electronic wallets into an infrastructure for large-scale capital outflow. According to "Kommersant", in 2022–2023, more than 30 billion rubles were transferred abroad through 24 thousand accounts created using stolen personal data. Three defendants have been arrested in Moscow — the leaders of the "Intercom" group, Grigory Kisilgof, Denis Li, and the owner of the terminal business, Alexander Mikhalchuk. The alleged organizers are hiding abroad.

The scheme relied on two technical solutions. The first was mass fragmentation: one wallet with large turnovers would quickly be blocked, while thousands of small ones allowed the flow to be distributed and, if some were stopped, to continue working through the remaining ones. The second was payment terminals, which served as entry and exit points for cash. Unlike bank transactions, terminal transactions leave significantly less digital footprint, which allowed the money movement routes to be blurred.

Droppers personally came to the defendants' offices and verified the wallets, creating the appearance of legality. This infrastructure was used for settlements for illegal gambling, betting services, crypto exchange, and other shadow operations. The Bank of Russia revoked the license of Kiwi Bank back in February 2024 precisely because of its servicing of shadow counterparties, and in December 2025, the organization was officially liquidated.