Yesterday US OFAC updated its sanction list with 22 individuals and 104 entities, including a crypto wallet linked with Russia.
Russia is a very big space for the crypto market. After March 2022, the Russian government agencies showed significant inclination toward the crypto sector, to explore the decentralised payment system to easily bypass the Western financial & trade sanction.
On 19 May 2023, The Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) updated the sanctions list with 22 individuals and 104 entities against Russia.
In the new sanction list, there is a 48 years old John Desmond Hanafin from UAE.
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The OFAC agency noted that John was using a crypto wallet on behalf of his firm and he received nearly $5.2 million worth of stablecoin between Feb 2022 to the date. He used those funds to prepare passports for Russians from other countries.
According to the OFAC investigation, this guy helped to move the funds from Russia to UAE, which was a type of violation of the Western sanction.
So far it is still unclear why this guy helped a high amount of funds from Russia to the UAE against the sanction but it’s clear that he violated sanction measures.
Russia vs Ukraine
In Feb 2022, Russia vs Ukraine war started because of their geopolitical conflict. Because of the support from several countries, Ukraine is still strongly striking against the Russian military attacks.
In this conflict, the majority of the Western countries supported Ukraine. To slow down the war efforts from the Russian military, almost all the Western powers imposed financial & trade sanctions against Russia.
Over the 12 months, the Russian government agencies held several meetings & discussions to drag a path to bring a decentralised payment solutions, where they also considered Bitcoin & Ethereum as a medium of fund transactions.
Read also: US presidential candidate Kennedy Jr. will accept Bitcoin donation
Russia-Linked Crypto Wallet Processes $5M, against sanction: OFAC
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https://bitcoinik.com/russia-linked-crypto-wallet-processes-5m-against-sanction-ofac/feed/
