In the US, for the first time, a crypto exchange was accused of circumventing sanctions

A court in Washington began considering a case on the transfer of more than $ 10 million through a crypto exchange in circumvention of US sanctions, reports The Washington Post. This is the first such criminal case that signals to exchanges that they are responsible for users who evade sanctions, whether the platform knowingly facilitates it or not.

The name of the crypto exchange, the name of the citizen who made illegal transactions, as well as the violation of the sanctions policy against which country in question, were not disclosed. It is only noted that this case is about transferring more than $10 million worth of bitcoins through a crypto exchange, bypassing restrictions against one of the sanctioned countries (this could be Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria or Russia).

The judge concluded that the transactions were conducted through a sham platform designed specifically to circumvent financial restrictions. It is confirmed that the exchange had no information about the circumvention of the sanctions by the user, but still bears responsibility. Also, the memorandum of the judge equated digital assets with traditional ones in terms of circumventing sanctions.

The judge's ruling made it clear that transactions using cryptocurrencies are monitored and will not help avoid sanctions, one expert told WP. “We see that the Department of Justice is going to actively prosecute those who are trying to use cryptocurrency [to circumvent sanctions and money laundering],” he added.

Experts interviewed by RBC note that in this case, there is an insufficiently high-quality due diligence procedure, since when registering on the platform of legal entities, the exchange must identify all the beneficiaries and directors of the company and make sure that they are not included in the sanctions lists. At the same time, even large crypto exchanges do not always pay enough attention to verification procedures, not to mention medium and small ones.