UK Sanctions Cryptomus and Three Payment Platforms Over Russia-Linked Crypto Flows
On 8 October 2026 the United Kingdom added the cryptocurrency payment processor Cryptomus and several related payment businesses to its Russia sanctions list. According to the official sanctions notice, Cryptomus is listed as a variation name of Xeltox Enterprises Ltd, which the UK suspects of supporting the Russian government through its ownership of Cryptomus and related activity via the Heleket service in the Russian financial services sector. TokenSpot CJSC and Tsunami Payments LLC were also designated for operating in that sector, while OJSC Processing KG, a Kyrgyz entity whose website is associated with the VexPay platform, was listed for carrying on business of economic significance to the Russian government. The designations freeze any assets held in the UK and bar British persons and firms from dealing with the listed entities.
KrebsOnSecurity, which investigated the operation in 2024, reported that Cryptomus has also traded under names such as Certa Payments and, more recently, Heleket, and that it processed payments for Russian crypto exchanges and for sites selling cybercrime services. Canada fined the platform CAD 176 million in 2025 for anti-money-laundering violations, but the operator reportedly appealed and kept processing transactions under the new brand. Blockchain analytics firms have published figures supporting concerns about the platform: TRM Labs estimated in April 2026 that it handled more than $7 billion since 2022, and Chainalysis said this month that Cryptomus and Heleket received more illicit funds in tracked categories than the mixing services in its dataset. These figures come from the analytics firms and have not been independently verified here.
Analyst Richard Sanders, quoted by Krebs, described the move as significant because sanctions can cut off the business in a way the unenforceable Canadian fine could not, and said it appears to be the first sanction by one Five Eyes country on a crypto operation incorporated in another. Krebs reported that a Cryptomus support bot said on the day of the listing that the platform could not process transactions, while a Heleket support agent denied any affiliation with Cryptomus.