Crypto Exchange Poloniex Fined $7.59 Million for OFAC Violations
Crypto exchange Poloniex has agreed to remit $7.59 million as part of a settlement over sanctions violations claims made by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). According to OFAC, Poloniex allowed customers from Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria to engage in cryptocurrency trades worth up to $15 million between January 2014 and November 2019. Although Poloniex had launched in January 2014, a sanctions compliance program was not introduced until May the following year. The Poloniex spokesman did not provide any comment on the report.
Crypto Violations and Sanctions Watchdog
Nearly 66,000 violations of varying sanctions programs were reportedly made by Poloniex according to OFAC. Non-utilisation of proper compliance mechanism is claimed in the report. As a result returning customers across various regions subject to OFAC’s specifics regarding cryptocurrencies involving sanctions were permitted. In calculating the penalty, OFAC stated that the startup nature of Poloniex at the time along with the efficiency of Circle’s uplifting inspection met mitigating characteristics taken into account.
Poloniex is currently owned by a group of entities which includes support from controversial tech figure Justin Sun of Tron. Previously to this, Circle was the proprietor of Poloniex until having sold the business off after just two years. As alluded to herein growth avenues aplenty radiating outwards from a fellow crypto exchange platform in Huobi, Sun would find himself in the advisory wing of this latest advancement.
This particular report comes hot on the heels of other stories which had surfaced earlier in April. Those articles such as eToro and IMF strove onwards through concept polishing albeit of a seemingly softer historical background. OFAC is an authority in the US which monitors, analyses and will draw implications forged via the interplay between cryptocurrencies trading with others abroad, economic burdens domestically along with sanction breaking vectors. Under these conditions strikes are launched against any unwitting gaming of the rules gleaned over the eight decades of OFAC history over cryptocurrency and raw bureaucratic supremacy.
[h/t Nikhilesh De]