Russian billionaire and ally of President Vladimir Putin, Arkady Rotenberg, on Monday denied allegations that he used Barclays Bank to launder money and bypass sanctions. Reports of "suspicious transactions carried out through London-based Barclays Bank by the Russian businessmen Arkady and Boris Rotenberg are nothing more than nonsense," a spokesperson told Russia's RBK business news newspaper. Brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg are childhood friends and former judo sparring partners of Putin. They became rich during Putin's rise to power by winning government construction contracts, particularly ahead of the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Arkady Rotenberg's companies also built a bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, to the Russian mainland. The two were hit the same year with sanctions that essentially prohibit Western banks from doing business with them. An investigation led by 108 international media outlets from 88 different countries has alleged that Rotenberg might have used Barclays to launder money and dodge the sanctions. The investigation is based on thousands of suspicious activity reports (SARs) submitted to the US Treasury Department's financial law enforcement agency, FinCEN, by banks from around the world. The documents relate to $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017. The investigation also names other Russian tycoons close to the Kremlin including Oleg Deripaska and Alisher Usmanov. apo-jbr/as/wai