Cryptocurrency

"US brings first-of-its-kind criminal charges of Bitcoin-based sanctions-busting"

2022-05-16 [vendor] Jason Vorhees charged [chain] bitcoin
Primary Source ↗
Blockchain(s) Bitcoin

Incident Details

An unidentified US citizen transferred more than $10 million in Bitcoin to a cryptocurrency exchange in a “comprehensively sanctioned” country where they were running a payments platform. They advertised that transactions through the platform were untraceable, and described the platform as designed to evade U.S. sanctions. Despite this, law enforcement was able to obtain information from U.S. and foreign cryptocurrency exchanges — including KYC information provided by the individual — to help identify and trace the individual behind it.Though the country is as yet unnamed, the limited number of countries sanctioned in the way described in the decision allow us to deduce that it was either Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, or Russia. This case marked the D.O.J.’s first criminal prosecution involving alleged use of crypto to evade sanctions.U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui wrote in the opinion: “Virtual currency is traceable. Yet like Jason Voorhees the myth of virtual currency’s anonymity refuses to die. See Friday the 13th (Paramount Pictures 1980).”

Technical Details

Initial Attack Vector
Regulatory / legal action
Vendor / Product
Jason Vorhees charged

Timeline

  1. 2022-05-16 Breach occurred
  2. 2022-05-16 Publicly disclosed