The US government has named entities and individuals allegedly responsible for providing crypto products and services that helped evade sanctions against Russia.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) says it has sanctioned “thirteen entities and two individuals for operating in the financial services and technology sectors of the economy of the Russian Federation.”
According to the agency, many of the designated individuals and entities “facilitated transactions or provided other services that helped OFAC-designated entities evade sanctions.”
The designated entities include Moscow-based fintech company B-Crypto, which OFAC accuses of working with Rosbank to enable Russian exporters to make cross-border payments using crypto assets. Rosbank is a Russian commercial bank that is also under US sanctions.
Other designated entities include Moscow-based fintech companies Masterchain, Laitkhaus and Atomaiz. Peer-to-peer crypto exchange Bitpapa and centralized digital asset exchange Crypto Explorer were also sanctioned.
Companies based outside Russia that were sanctioned include Eastern European companies such as Cyprus-based Tokentrust Holdings and Estonia-based Bitfingroup.
Blockchain technology companies Veb3 Integrator and Veb3 Tekhnologii, as well as fintech company TOEP, which operates a crypto exchange, were also placed on the list of entities supporting sanctions evasion by Russian companies and individuals. The two companies are based in Moscow.
The two sanctioned individuals are Igor Veniaminovich Kaigorodov, the majority shareholder of Veb3 Integrator and Veb3 Tekhnologii, and Timur Evgenyevich Bukanov, the owner and director of TOEP.
While some U.S. economic and trade sanctions against Russia have been in place for decades, some of the most severe were imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Last year in May, it was reported that the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance was being investigated by US authorities for possible violation of sanctions against Russia.
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