The United States cryptocurrency enforcement chief has stated that the country is increasing scrutiny of cryptocurrency exchanges in order to target unlawful behaviour on the platforms.
According to the Financial Times, The Department of Justice is targeting crypto firms that commit crimes or facilitate crimes such as money laundering, according to Eun Young Choi, director of the agency’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.
“… they’re allowing all the other criminal actors to easily profit from their crimes and cash out in ways that are obviously problematic for us,” she explained.
In March, the DOJ charged Vietnamese national Minh Quoc Nguyen with money laundering and identity theft in connection with the activities of the crypto platform ChipMixer, alleging that Nguyen blatantly violated financial regulations.
The DOJ’s innovative attack on crypto firms aims to increase this scrutiny, sending a “deterrent message” to organisations that have avoided anti-money laundering or customer identification rules and have not invested in good compliance and risk mitigation measures, according to Choi.
The Justice Department will also focus on crimes involving decentralised money, specifically “chain bridges” where users can swap various sorts of digital currencies, or embryonic initiatives with susceptible programming, she noted.
