Buying cocaine on a Friday night in Britain could be inadvertently funding Russia’s war in Ukraine, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has revealed.

A Russian-led money laundering network worth £760 million, operating in 28 towns and cities across the UK, has been linked to street gangs in the UK.

Couriers collect the ‘dirty’ cash – some of which generated from ‘bumps’ on the weekend, others from firearms and immigration gangs – and then turn it into cryptocurrency.

The NCA warned that these transactions have a direct link to ‘geopolitical events causing suffering around the world’.

Sal Melki, deputy director for economic crime at the NCA, described it as a ‘vast criminal ecosystem that is funding some really bad things all around the world’.

He added: ‘Today we can reveal the sheer scal

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