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A financial technology company set up with Kremlin backing moved more than $6.9bn through the international banking system despite sanctions on Russia, using an industrial-scale forgery operation to disguise payments to Russian state companies, according to a Financial Times investigation based on hundreds of thousands of leaked internal files.

A7 was established in late 2024 by Ilan Shor, a sanctioned Moldovan oligarch, with the backing of Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned lender with close ties to the defence industry. The Kremlin has touted the company as the country's flagship provider of cross-border payments for imports since Russian banks were cut off from the Swift system after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Although A7 has trumpeted its financial innovations, the documents show that it depended on an old-fashioned network of front companies and pre-existing businesses to gain access to Swift, the Belgian messaging network that underpins most international payments.

To conceal the use of those agents, A7 ran what the FT described as an industrial-scale forgery operation to produce counterfeit invoices. Employees altered descriptions of goods, customs codes and other transaction details so that payments would not trigger sanctions screening. In one case, documents relating to the purchase of 500 night-vision scopes for a Russian client were disguised as transactions involving other goods.

A7 also tried to remove what its own staff called the "Russian trace", including by stripping Cyrillic characters from the paperwork.

The scheme exploited a structural feature of Swift: the system relies on the sending bank to carry out adequate checks on its customers and on the underlying trade. Beating the controls of any single member bank was enough to clear the way for A7's payments to travel through the network.

Accounts held at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong alone received $1.1bn from A7-linked entities between late 2024, when A7 was established, and August 2025. Over the same period, DBS in Hong Kong was sent $273mn and Citigroup clients received $74mn. Clients of Deutsche Bank in Europe were sent about $18mn.

A7 opened accounts at First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest lender in the United Arab Emirates, for 17 different entities, which made more than $1.8bn of outbound payments. It also had the use of accounts at JPMorgan Chase.

The leaked files identify at least 100 to 200 shell companies or similar vehicles used to make payments. At least 87 were registered in Hong Kong, 61 in the UAE, 16 in Kyrgyzstan and 14 in Indonesia.

Chinese bank accounts were the ultimate destination for a little more than half of the flows, the FT found. A7 also used Tether, the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, to facilitate some transactions. Some of the payments related to highly sensitive war-related goods, including military equipment and purchases made by Russian security services.

First Abu Dhabi Bank told the FT that all of the A7-linked accounts had already been identified and closed, adding that it seeks to apply US, UK, EU and UN sanctions. Standard Chartered, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank all noted their strong commitment to anti-money-laundering reporting but otherwise declined to comment.

Zach Tvarozna, a former US government banking analyst who published a report on A7 based on an earlier leak from the company, said the new data showed that "the true scale of A7's money-laundering network is much bigger than anyone had previously realised". The material, he added, "should make us think again about how hard it is to keep traditional correspondent banking clean".

Chinese gold imports are at record levels this year, helped by a slump in international prices and a firmer yuan.

Purchases through August topped 1,000 tons, surpassing the total posted for the whole of 2025, according to the latest customs data, which goes back to 2017.

Strong investment demand has kept onshore prices at a slight premium to world benchmarks, enticing imports, said Zijie Wu, an analyst at Jinrui Futures Co.

"The yuan has remained strong since the beginning of this year, creating favorable conditions for gold imports and enabling regulators to grant more generous approval quotas," said Wu.

Chinese exchange-traded funds added around 44 tons through August, an increase of 18% from the start of the year, according to the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Global ETFs were largely flat over the period.

The large import volumes of recent months continue the momentum of earlier in the year, when gold's slump from an all-time high in January prompted investors to buy the dip.

Purchases were also likely lifted by a new licensing regime from June that would have encouraged banks to exhaust existing import quotas, which are handed out by the People's Bank of China.

China is the world's biggest gold buyer, and demand has been supported both by economic uncertainty and more limited investment alternatives than in other countries.

The central bank's ramp-up of gold purchases in recent months has also lifted sentiment among retail buyers, said Wu. The PBOC bought the most bullion since 2023 in August, extending its buying streak to nearly two years.

The People's Bank of China added 20.2 metric tons of gold to its reserves in August, its largest monthly purchase since October 2023, bringing total official holdings to roughly 2,387 tons, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

The valuation of China's gold reserves rose from $306.35 billion at the end of July to $350.08 billion by the end of August — an increase of roughly $43.7 billion in a single month.

U.S. diesel prices broke another record last week, topping $6.50 per gallon. In Europe, fuel prices are soaring, and shortages are looming over already struggling economies. There is simply not enough refining capacity in the world to make up for the loss of Middle Eastern and Russian barrels. And there is no quick fix.

Last week, Russia said it would extend a ban on diesel exports until the end of October, as Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries continued, despite President Donald Trump's call on the Zelensky government to stop attacking energy infrastructure, blaming the diesel price surge solely on those attacks. The latest attack came on Sunday, targeting one of Russia's largest refineries.

However, the loss of fuel supply from the Middle East is much larger, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing figures from the International Energy Agency showing the amount of diesel output lost in the Middle East was three times as high as lost Russian supply.

Now, there are calls in Congress for a U.S. ban on diesel exports. Rep. Tim Burchett tabled a bill to that effect last week, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has backed the proposal.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum oppose it as a bad idea that would ultimately backfire, but the very fact that some legislators considered an export ban suggests the supply situation is pretty grim even for the world's largest oil producer.

Diesel prices underpin the price of pretty much everything else. When they rise, other prices follow, notably food prices, to which people are particularly sensitive. This is of particular concern in Washington ahead of the midterm elections in November, hence the idea of an export ban.

A ban could bring down prices at home, but it would push prices even higher elsewhere, aggravating an already quite grave fuel supply crisis. It is a crisis that no one could have foreseen, but also one that might have arguably been less grave had there been more refining capacity in the world.

The fact is that over the past decade or so, a lot of refineries have been shut down under pressure from the net-zero movement that has come to dominate energy policies, mainly in Europe, but also in the U.S. under Democratic administrations. Refining had become a losing game for many, so they either shut down or converted their capacity to biofuels.

"We've seen the oil majors effectively reduce their exposure to that sector because the returns on actual capital employed have been poor," Wood Mackenzie senior VP for refining, chemicals, and oil markets Alan Gelder told the Wall Street Journal. "The classic phrase we used was: 'How do you make a small fortune? Take a large fortune and build a refinery.'"

While refineries closed in Europe and the United States, however, Middle Eastern petrostates built new ones, coming to account for a bigger portion of global refining capacity. Profit, per the experts cited by the WSJ, was not the primary motivation. Employment and domestic fuel supply security were.

Now, that capacity has been compromised — and some of it has been damaged by Iranian strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure — and there is no one to pick up the slack, with U.S. refiners already operating at rates as high as they can.

To add insult to injury, there is one refinery in Europe sitting idle because it is the property of Russia's Lukoil, which the Trump administration sanctioned last November, prompting the company to put its international business up for sale.

According to a recent report by the Financial Times, a deal between Lukoil and Carlyle Group for the latter's acquisition of the business had become "bogged down in an inter-agency process involving the National Security Council, State Department and Department of Energy," leaving urgently needed refining capacity offline.

"There is significant underutilised refining capacity across Lukoil's European assets that could help bring additional refined-product supply to market and ease pressure on fuel prices," Carlyle said, as quoted by the FT, referring probably to the Romanian Petrotel refinery, which has been idled since the U.S. sanctions went into effect. Petrotel has a capacity of about 50,000 barrels daily. This is not a huge amount of fuel, but in the current crisis, every barrel matters.

There is no solution to the world's fuel problem in sight. Tanker traffic via the Strait of Hormuz remains severely depressed, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries continue, and if the U.S. bans diesel exports, according to the WSJ, China and India may follow its example, plunging the rest of the world into hitherto unseen levels of fuel shortages.

The UK government borrowed a higher-than-expected £18.3bn last month, increasing the pressure on John Healey as he attempts to calm jittery bond markets before next month's budget.

Some economists said it was "inevitable" that the chancellor would need to raise taxes on 28 October if he is to meet demands for extra spending on defence without further borrowing from investors on international money markets.

Official figures released by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday said public sector net borrowing – the difference between government spending and income – was £2.9bn higher last month than in August 2025.

It meant that borrowing jumped by £3.5bn above the level expected by the government's independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), taking the deficit over the financial year so far to £77.3bn – £8.1bn above forecast.

The £18.3bn borrowed in August was also more than the £15.6bn City analysts had forecast.

Healey, the chancellor, has promised to stick within the government's spending limits, which restrict the amount the Treasury can borrow as a proportion of national income.

The August figures come after the government ran a larger-than-expected £1.8bn deficit in July, when analysts had expected the figure to be zero.

Thomas Pugh, the chief economist at the consultancy RSM UK, said: "The jump in borrowing in August compared to last year sets the stage for what is likely to be a much trickier budget than Burnham or Healey anticipated when they came to power just a few months ago. Another round of tax rises in October now looks inevitable."

The UK has been among the countries hardest hit by the rise in the interest rate on government bonds amid turmoil in financial markets.

While the cost of financing UK bonds has eased in the last week, the Treasury remains under pressure to show it can reduce its reliance on heavy borrowing to maintain welfare spending.

On Tuesday, the yield – or interest rate – on 10-year UK bonds rose three basis points (bps) to 5.232%, while 30-year bond yields were also 3bps higher at 5.729% in early trading.

Chris Beauchamp, the chief market analyst at IG, said: "The PM and chancellor will be feeling quite claustrophobic today as the walls close in around them. Borrowing costs keep climbing, while borrowing itself is outpacing the teeny rise in tax receipts."

The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a thinktank, said that since April, the government had spent £50bn on debt interest, £2bn more than forecast by the OBR in March.

"On those forecasts – made before the most recent hikes in government interest rates – debt interest was set to be more than £100bn every year over the next five years," said Nick Ridpath, an IFS research economist.

Central government spending on social security benefits and pensions climbed by almost £10bn more than in the same period last year – from £135.3bn to £145bn – mostly in response to rising inflation.

The consumer prices index rose last month to 3.1% and, while the Bank of England held interest rates at its latest meeting last week, the central bank warned that the cost of borrowing may need to rise in the coming months if inflationary pressures persist.

Martin Beck, the chief economist at the consultancy WPI Strategy, said: "Today's public finance figures are another unwelcome setback for the government ahead of next month's budget."

The International Monetary Fund has urged western governments to gain greater control over their public finances to reassure financial markets that they remain safe havens for lenders.

Emma Reynolds, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said the government was committed to improving the UK's economic growth, "but we can only deliver that growth with fiscal discipline".

She added: "At a time when debt interest costs billions of pounds that could otherwise be spent on improving lives, we must always know where the money is coming from to pay for public services."

The Conservative party Treasury spokesperson, Andrew Griffith, accused Labour of losing control of the public finances. "They are borrowing so much they've overshot the OBR forecast by an extra £8bn of debt," he said.

"It takes a rare fiscal incontinence to both have the highest tax take in history and see borrowing still shoot up."

However, the OBR has said estimates of government borrowing published early in the financial year should be considered provisional and they are likely to be revised.

Apple Inc is developing a screenless health and fitness tracker similar to Whoop Inc's wrist-worn device, part of an effort to rethink its smartwatch lineup and add new wearable technologies.

The company has been exploring the category for several months and is now developing prototypes, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The effort has support from top executives, but Apple hasn't decided whether to release the product, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work is confidential.

The project remains in a preliminary phase known internally as a technology investigation. If Apple proceeds with a release, the device likely won't debut before 2028. A spokesperson for the Cupertino, California-based company declined to comment.

Shares of Garmin Ltd, a seller of fitness bands, fell as much as 2.5% to a session low after Bloomberg reported on the plan. Apple was up about 1% at $342.29 as of 12.26pm in New York trading.

The prototypes feature a thin fabric band with a sensor-equipped computing module. The absence of a screen would distinguish the device from the Apple Watch, a display-centric product that combines fitness tracking with apps, notifications and other functions.

The potential Whoop rival has drawn particular interest from Apple executive chairman Tim Cook and services chief Eddy Cue, the people said. The latter executive took over the company's health efforts late last year.

Though Apple remains a top seller of smartwatches — especially in the US — competitors such as Whoop and smart ring maker Oura Inc are growing quickly, with millions of users each. Their rise is prompting Apple to reconsider its approach to health and fitness tracking.

At the same time, a leadership transition is underway at Apple's watch and health businesses. Jeff Williams, the former chief operating officer who oversaw both areas, retired at the end of last year. Stan Ng, who led marketing for the Apple Watch and health, and Jay Blahnik, who ran Apple's fitness strategy, have also left the company.

Cue has pushed Apple's health team to adopt features from the newer rivals, whose products offer simpler interfaces focused squarely on fitness and health tracking. The Apple Watch serves a broader range of purposes.

Apple has already begun incorporating Whoop-style features into its latest Watch and revamped Health app. Those include more advanced heart-rate tracking and metrics that assess users' readiness for the day. And the technology can estimate a person's biological age based on health data.

The new app also has a cleaner, easier-to-understand interface, reflecting the influence of rival offerings.

Oura filed for an initial public offering this month, and Whoop — now valued at about $10 billion — has told Bloomberg News that it is considering an eventual IPO.

Alphabet Inc's Google has also entered the screenless wearables market with the recent launch of the Fitbit Air. Garmin, a pioneer of location-tracking and fitness devices, offers smart bands without displays as well.

Members of Apple's Vision hardware team have participated in the new tracker's early engineering work. That group developed the Vision Pro headset and is working on other wearables, including Apple's first smart glasses and AirPods with cameras, both targeted for a 2027 release.

Apple has also been working on an artificial intelligence pendant with a camera, though that project has been postponed. The device was conceived as something users could wear as a necklace, attach to clothing or place elsewhere on the body, gathering visual data for processing by the new Siri AI assistant.

Apple is making other efforts to weave AI into its products. Earlier this month, the company introduced a watch that can record audio throughout the day and use AI to generate summaries of a wearer's conversations and activities.

The company is also working on a major update to its smartwatch lineup for release as early as late 2027. This redesign would follow years of more incremental changes. Apple made its main watch thinner with the Series 10 two years ago, but the larger Ultra model has retained the same look since its debut four years ago.