Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury: “Crypto companies are not doing enough to combat the financing of terrorism”

Article Reading Time:
2 minutes.

The U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury accused cryptocurrency companies of not all of them being ready to assist the authorities in the fight against terrorist financing and money laundering through digital assets.

Speaking at an event in London, Wally Adeyemo said the vast majority of financial institutions are ready to help law enforcement to root out the injection of money into terrorism.However, according to him, there are many companies in the digital asset industry that want to innovate but are oblivious to the consequences.One of which is the use of cryptocurrencies by terrorists.Adeyemo admits: right now, crypto assets do not yet constitutemost of the financing of terrorist groups.

"We expect that financial companies working with digital assets and other participants in the virtual currency spacewill take action to prevent terrorists from gaining access to resources.measures have been taken to prevent illicit financial flows, this will be done by the United States and our partners," Adeyemo threatened.

The topic of financing terrorism through cryptocurrencies has once again come under the scrutiny of the US government, in connection with the military conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.Last week, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden declared cryptocurrency mixers to be money laundering centers that threaten the country's national security.

However, industry companies are freezing cryptocurrency addresses associated with illegal activities in Israel and Ukraine.This month, Tether has blocked 32 wallets with USDT stablecoins.Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, has also frozen more than a hundred addresses that canbe associated with Hamas.