Illegal transportation of cash across the border in 2025 broke a record

In January–June 2025, 6314 cases of illegal movement of cash by citizens were identified in Russia, the Federal Customs Service (FCS) told Izvestia.

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Criminals take the goods apart or hide the items in their underwear.

This is a record number of violations by individuals, the highest since the beginning of the relevant statistics. For comparison, 5,449 such cases were recorded in the same period of 2024. Then, on the contrary, there was a decrease: in the first six months of 2023, there were 5,915 of them.

According to the results of the first half of 2025, the Federal Customs Service initiated 6,277 cases of administrative offenses and 37 criminal ones. Of the total number of violations, the majority are still related to the export of currency from Russia - 5,125 facts, follows from the materials of the department. During the year, their number increased by 13%. The remaining cases relate to the illegal import of money into the country — 1,189 cases (an increase of 31%), the report says.

The amount of illegally transferred funds has also increased significantly. In the first half of 2025, it reached 1.2 billion rubles in criminal and administrative cases (about $15.2 million at the average current exchange rate), according to the FCS data. This is 30% more than in the same period of 2024. The bulk of the amount — 784.1 million rubles — is accounted for by the export of foreign currency.

According to the Federal Customs Service, US dollars and euros are most often illegally moved. The most popular export routes are Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, China and Uzbekistan. At the same time, illegal cash imports into Russia are most often carried out from the same countries, as well as from Serbia.

According to experts, the increase in the number of violations is due to the difficulties of international transfers against the background of sanctions. In addition, Russians are increasingly trying to move cash to buy real estate abroad. An additional factor was the increase in currency volatility: the weakening of the dollar to 81 rubles in April 2025 increased interest in cash as a way to protect against inflation.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

On cash business: illegal export of money from Russia broke a record