The US Treasury has imposed sanctions against 13 crypto companies for working with Russian banks
The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on 13 organizations for using cryptocurrencies when interacting with sanctioned Russian companies.
OFAC noted that many of these crypto companies made transactions with sanctioned Russian banks, exchanges and darknet platforms using cryptocurrencies. In particular, B-Crypto, a Moscow—based fintech company that cooperates with Rosbank to facilitate international settlements for Russian exporters, has been blacklisted by the Ministry of Finance. There is also the Atomize platform, a registered operator of digital financial assets (CFA), which specializes in the tokenization of precious metals. The company is a partner of Rosbank and Sovcombank, which are also included in the OFAC list.
The Ministry of Finance also mentioned the Bitpapa P2P platform. According to the agency, the platform conducted cryptocurrency transactions worth millions of dollars with the Russian darknet platform Hydra and the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange. In October, Garantex denied an article in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which claimed that the company was involved in financing Palestinian militants. The OFAC list also includes the Crypto Explorer company, also known as AWEX. She is the operator of a virtual currency exchanger in Russia and the UAE, offering the conversion of digital assets, rubles and dirhams. AWEX transfers funds to the credit cards of Sberbank and Alfa-Bank, the Ministry of Finance noted.
"Russia is increasingly turning to alternative payment mechanisms to circumvent US sanctions. Therefore, we will continue to expose companies that help sub—sanctioned financial institutions from the Russian Federation to interact with the international financial system," said Brian Nelson, Deputy Minister of Finance for Combating Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
