(Bloomberg) -- Mikhail Nadel, a Russian banker once accused of looting Kyrgyzstan’s biggest bank, has stepped down from the board of a UK financial technology firm that was recently censured by regulators for processing fraudulent payments.

Nadel left the board of Dzing Finance Ltd. on Nov. 20, according to filings with Companies House. Emails to his Dzing address bounced back, while an unsigned message from the London-based firm stated that “the individual for this email address no longer works for the company.” 

Dzing has faced a series of questions about its operations since Nadel helped to establish it in 2018, adding to broader concerns about the booming but lightly-regulated industry of electronic-money institutions. 

The Financial Conduct Authority imposed restrictions on the company in October, preventing it from adding new retail customers or funds. An arm of the FCA stated in an Oct. 31 report that nearly one in five transactions Dzing received last year were linked to a kind of scam, more than any other institution. 

In a statement last month, the company said that its business model and controls were now “very different.”

Nadel didn’t respond to requests for comment made through LinkedIn. He has always denied any wrongdoing in Kyrgyzstan and suggested that claims against him were politically motivated. Nadel was convicted in absentia for defrauding AsiaUniversalBank, once the biggest bank in Kyrgyzstan before it was seized in 2010 amid a political crisis in the Central Asian country. 

Bloomberg revealed Nadel’s prominent role at Dzing last year. The firm has also borrowed millions of pounds from a company backed by Oleg Boyko, a Russian mogul under Western sanctions and accused by the US of having “concerning ties” to the Kremlin.

The FCA has been trying to improve standards among EMIs and other kinds of payment firms that process more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) per day. The regulator authorized hundreds of them to operate in the UK in recent years but is now concerned that the sector is rife with fraud and poor anti-crime controls. 

A spokesperson for the FCA declined to comment on Nadel’s departure. 

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