Gold exports remain effectively unregulated, work ongoing with Finance Ministry, Central Bank of Russia to resolve issue - Rosfinmonitoring head

Tue July 08 2025

The export of gold by individuals has effectively fallen outside of regulatory oversight, the head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) Yury Chikhanchin said during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

The agency is working with the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank of Russia to address this issue.

Gold is actively being used in cross-border financial flows, Chikhanchin said. "I understand that there has been a substantial increase in the use of gold bullion for settlements? Somewhere over twofold growth?" Putin asked. "It has decreased slightly now, but remains actively used," Chikhanchin said.

"There is complete lack of regulation regarding gold transactions. We are working very closely with the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank to amend legislation, and I believe we will manage to correct this. Essentially, the current free export of gold produces these results. It's profitable to buy here for rubles, export it, sell for foreign currency, and then reconvert. This is the scheme being exploited. The price of gold is very high today, and the difference yields profit," Chikhanchin said.

Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said in mid-June that gold exports by individuals might be restricted to an equivalent of $10,000, similar to the rules for foreign currency. "We've generally received support from almost everyone. One agency is still opposed," Moiseyev said. "The issue is that gold is now facilitating flows that were previously handled using foreign currency. This includes money laundering, drug trafficking and other [illegal] activities."

Through presidential decree no. 81 issued in March 2022, the president, among other measures, prohibited the export of currency or monetary instruments exceeding the equivalent of $10,000 from the country.

"When the president imposed restrictions on non-cash transfers and cash exports, the intention was clearly to limit and monitor capital outflows under sanction pressure. And we're now seeing capital outflows occurring through gold. Essentially, people who need to move something out are casually transporting gold, almost in suitcases, to Customs Union countries," Moiseyev said.

Source: https://interfax.com/