Moscow’s Largest Shadow-Trade Hub Caught Fire
How is Moscow’s Sadovod market linked to drug trafficking and the ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5?
A fire broke out in Moscow in the morning on 18th of June at Sadovod, the Russian capital’s largest clothing market, after debris from a drone fell on the site.
TriTrace Investigations, an investigative bureau, examines why Sadovod is widely regarded as one of the symbols of Russia’s shadow economy.
Image: Sadovod in the financial scheme of the A7 group from the leaked internal documents // TriTrace Investigations.
Grey imports and cash
Sadovod is part of the business empire of billionaire God Nisanov. His assets include the Evropeysky shopping mall, the Ukraina Hotel, the Food City agro-cluster, and markets in Moscow’s Lyublino district: Sadovod, the Moskva shopping centre, and Yuzhnye Vorota.
These markets are key hubs for grey imports of goods from China. Chinese imports enter through the Eurasian Economic Union, meaning that once goods clear customs in Kazakhstan, they are no longer subject to full inspection in Russia.
Grey imports refer to the unofficial import of goods through distorted documentation and reporting, designed to bypass tax, customs, and currency controls. One example is the import of goods under an incorrect HS customs code.
Such import schemes involve significant cash turnover. As early as 2018, Russia’s Central Bank identified the Moskva shopping centre, the Sadovod trading complex, and Food City as Moscow’s largest cash-handling operators. According to the Central Bank, around RUB 600 billion (roughly €8.1 billion in 2018) in cash passed through these markets every month at the time.
This made Sadovod a source of cash for A7A5, a sanctioned Russian crypto exchange, according to internal exchange documents reviewed by TriTrace.
Moreover, large cash flows from Moscow to China have become increasingly sought after amid sanctions pressure. “You hand over the money at Sadovod, then it is transferred to cards belonging to various individuals in China, and you receive the goods in Russia — as for the paperwork, you figure something out yourself,” IStories quoted a major electronics importer as saying in 2024.
Unrecorded cash turnover is closely linked to the conversion of money into cryptocurrency. As a result, Sadovod’s crypto exchangers have already become part of Moscow’s urban folklore.
On March 11, 2019, Russia’s Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry’s economic crimes unit carried out raids at the Moskva and Sadovod markets. Officials later reported that 19 administrative protocols had been drawn up for violations of migration law. According to Novaya Gazeta, however, the real reason for the raids was linked to shadow cash turnover and cryptocurrency exchange points.
The illicit drug trade connection
In autumn 2025, BBC Eye released an investigation into Russia’s drug market, featuring Ilia Shumanov, managing partner at TriTrace Investigations. The investigation showed that China remains the largest supplier of precursors to the Russian market — legal or controlled chemicals used by underground chemists to produce narcotics.
Precursors enter Russia from China through the Eurasian Economic Union and arrive at Yuzhnye Vorota. The BBC Eye film features a young drug dealer named Dan, who runs a darknet drug business. This is how he described the import of precursors into Russia: “Completely legal logistics companies are used. A truck carrying precursors from China can also be transporting anything else — from sneakers to vibrators.”
Protection
Sadovod’s owner, God Nisanov, is a long-time friend of Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, according to the investigative outlet Proekt. Journalists found that Naryshkin visited the swimming pool at Nisanov’s Ukraina Hotel almost every day.
Another notable figure linked to Nisanov’s markets, and to Sadovod in particular, is Ilgam Ragimov, Vladimir Putin’s former classmate at the law faculty of Leningrad State University. Since 2017, Ragimov has owned around 15% of Sadovod through the company Flora i Fauna LLC.
As a result, the direct beneficiaries of shadow cash flows and the import of raw materials used in drug production include a friend of Russia’s intelligence chief and a former university classmate of the president.
