As New Crypto Sanction Screening Tool Launched, Tornado Cash Keeps Mixing and FBI Chimes In
As the West is trying close all crypto loopholes that help evade sanctions against the aggressor state, Russia, and its ally, Belarus, Chainalysis is rolling out a sanctions screening tool, while crypto mixer Tornado Cash said they are powerless to or don't need to comply with Washington’s wishes. In either case, American law enforcement and intelligence agencies claim that Russians hoping to evade sanctions by using cryptoassets will be thwarted in their efforts.
At a Senate Select Committee hearing on worldwide threats to the United States, attendees including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray gave testimony to lawmakers. The latter responded directly to a Senator’s question about how the agency might respond to attempts to use crypto to bypass sanctions.
Wray answered that the intelligence community had “built up significant expertise” on digital assets. He noted that the FBI had created what it has previously named a “specialized team dedicated to cryptocurrency” – its new Virtual Asset Exploitation Unit.
The unit, the FBI stated last month, comprises a number of crypto experts equipped with blockchain analysis tools. The FBI has previously used these tools to find suspected ransomware distributors and track down what it finds to be part of the tokens hacked from the 2016 Bitfinex raid.
And Wray downplayed the role crypto could play in sanctions evasion, stating that Russia’s “ability to circumvent sanctions with cryptocurrency” was “probably highly overestimated on the part of maybe them and others.”
He added that the American “intelligence community” and its “partners overseas” were “far more effective” on the crypto front than many “appreciate.”
Wray said:
“There is a lot of expertise in
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