US Treasury Punishes Russian Crypto Firms Over Cybercrime Ties, Sanctions Evasion

The US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control punished a Russian crypto exchange on Thursday, according to its statement, a sign that some federal authorities continue to investigate digital asset companies, despite the guidelines of US President Donald Trump to illuminate industry.

The exchange, Garrantex Europe OU, “Directly facilitated Ransomware actors and other cyber criminals,” Process more than $ 100 million in transactions bound by illegal activities since 2019, orac said Thursday in the statement. The agency added that it also punishes the successor to the trading platform, Grinex, in addition to putting three Garrantex managers and six companies connected to the stock market throughout Russia and the Kyrgyz Republic.

“The exploitation of cryptocurrency exchanges to facilitate money white and to facilitate ransomware attacks, threaten not only our national security, but also the reputation of legitimate virtual power services providers,” said the secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial information.

The bid of the watchdog of the foreign assets to curb crypto-related crime contrasts with the movements of other federal agencies to dismiss enforcement actions against cryptocurrency platforms under the pro-web3 administration of the US President Donald Trump.

In April, the Ministry of Justice dissolved its unit for investigating fraud with digital assets. And earlier this year, regulators made effects and raw materials a whole series of things fall against various high-profile crypto exchanges, including Binance.us, Coinbase and Kraken.

The blacklist of Garrantex also comes as geopolitical tensions between Moscow and Washington DC about the radical tariff threats of the US and the continuous military conflict in Ukraine. President Trump is planning to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday to negotiate peace and discuss international trade conditions.

Blacklisting platforms that offer services aimed at bypassing sanctions is crucial for the mission of OFAC, Tom Robinson, co-founder of Blockchain Analytics company Elliptic, told Decodeer.

We have seen that Stablecoins are becoming an increasingly important tool for Russian companies that want to avoid sanctions, Robinson said, adding that these both dollar-supported stablecoins such as alternatives from USDT and Rable-backed alternatives include.

“If the US is serious about maintaining the sanctions it has already imposed, it must tackle this crypto solutions,” he added.

OFAC previously sanctioned Garantex in April 2022 for its ties with the Russian financial sector, shortly after the Ukraine war started. The sanctions were tailored to broader efforts of American companies to break ties with Russian companies and banks about the invasion of the Eastern European power of its neighbor in the West.

This latest designation contributes to the list of sanctioned crypto companies of the desk, including Russian language fairs Cryptex, Bitpapa and Chatex.