Crypto Exchange Bittrex to Pay a $29M Fine

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Crypto exchange Bittrex has been imposed a $29 million fine by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and FinCEN for repeated violations of sanctions policies and AML procedures.

According to the press release:

“Bittrex failed to prevent individuals apparently located in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria from using the platform to transact $263,451,600.13 in virtual currency between March 2014 and December 2017.”

Representatives of the department have stressed the sanctions regime prohibits US citizens from “dealing with these jurisdictions.” At the same time, the trading platform did not verify the relevant information and did not report suspicious activity.