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Decentralized Cryptocurrency Markets Threaten U.S. Security, Treasury Says

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Decentralized Cryptocurrency Markets Threaten U.S. Security, Treasury Says

WASHINGTON—The burgeoning decentralized cryptocurrency market threatens U.S. nationwide safety and desires better oversight and enforcement towards money-laundering, the U.S. Treasury Division mentioned on Thursday.

The warning, in a brand new Treasury report assessing the danger of the so-called DeFi markets, lays the inspiration for harder laws and punitive motion by federal businesses.

DeFi platforms allow crypto buyers to transact with one another by software program working on-line, with out a central middleman overseeing transactions. With out the intermediaries of conventional finance akin to banks, regulators at present have little perception into DeFi transactions. 

Ransomware hackers, rogue states and different nationwide safety threats have seized upon the market’s opaqueness to maneuver cash around the globe with out detection, facilitating the financing vital to their operations, the Treasury Division report mentioned.

“Illicit actors, together with criminals, scammers, and North Korean cyber actors are utilizing DeFi providers within the strategy of laundering illicit funds,” mentioned Brian Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and monetary intelligence. “Capturing the potential advantages related to DeFi providers requires addressing these dangers.”

The report sketches out how the Treasury Division plans to carry the market beneath better federal oversight, suggesting that platforms that fail to ascertain ample vetting insurance policies threat enforcement motion.

Picture illustration: Tammy Lian/WSJ

The non-public sector ought to use the division’s findings to tell their very own threat mitigation methods, the Treasury undersecretary mentioned. Corporations have to take clear steps, consistent with laws to counter cash laundering, terror financing and sanctions-evasion, to forestall illicit actors from abusing DeFi providers, Mr. Nelson mentioned.

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Amongst its suggestions, the Treasury Division mentioned the federal authorities must bolster its current supervision and enforcement of the market by requiring platforms to stick to the identical anti-money-laundering guidelines that banks and different monetary establishments should observe. Federal businesses additionally have to develop their regulatory powers to cowl potential gaps in oversight of the markets, it mentioned, and work with different governments to ascertain worldwide requirements.

Write to Ian Talley at Ian.Talley@wsj.com

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Firm, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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FBI finds $8.3 million embezzled by ‘pure evil’ Kansas banker in a cryptocurrency account in the Cayman Islands

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FBI finds .3 million embezzled by ‘pure evil’ Kansas banker in a cryptocurrency account in the Cayman Islands

Sobs of relief broke out in a federal courtroom in Kansas on Monday as dozens of people whose life savings had been embezzled by a bank CEO learned that federal law enforcement had recovered their money.

“I just can’t describe the weight lifted off of us,” said Bart Camilli, 70, who with his wife Cleo had just learned they’d recover close to $450,000 — money Bart began saving at 18 when he bought his first individual retirement account. “It’s life-changing.”

In August, former Kansas bank CEO Shan Hanes was sentenced to 24 years after stealing $47 million from customer accounts and wiring the money to cryptocurrency accounts run by scammers. Prosecutors said Hanes also stole $40,000 from his church, $10,000 from an investment club and $60,000 from his daughter’s college fund and lost $1.1 million of his own in the scheme. Deposits were “jettisoned into the ether,” said prosecutor Aaron Smith.

Hanes’ Heartland Tri-State Bank, drained of cash, was shut down by federal regulators and sold to another financial institution. Customers’ savings and checking accounts amounting to $47.1 million were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which paid off their losses.

But there were still 30 shareholders of the community-owned rural bank Hanes helped found — including his close family friends and neighbors — who thought they lost $8.3 million in investments: well-planned retirements were upended, funds for long-term eldercare gone, education funds and bequests for children and grandchildren zeroed out.

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On Monday the shareholders stood to cheer federal Judge John W. Broomes in Wichita after he told them, one at a time, that they’d be paid back in full. The FBI recovered the funds from a cryptocurrency account held by Tether Ltd. in the Cayman Islands.

During an earlier sentencing hearing, these victims had called Hanes a “deceitful cheat and a liar,” and “pure evil.”

Margaret Grice came to court Monday figuring she’d get $1,000 back. Instead, she learned she’d be recovering almost $250,000, her entire 401(k).

“I’m just really thrilled,” she said. “I can breathe.”

Prosecutors said Hanes, who was the CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas, lost the money in a scam referred to as “pig butchering,” or the way pigs are fattened before slaughter. In the scam, a third party gains a victims’ trust and, over time, convinces them to invest all of their money into cryptocurrency, which immediately disappears. U.S. and U.N. officials say these schemes are proliferating, with scammers largely in Southeast Asia increasingly taking advantage of Americans.

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Hanes started buying what he thought was $5,000 in cryptocurrency in late 2022, communicating with someone who had reached out on WhatsApp, according to court records. A few months later he transferred over his church and investment club funds. Records show the scam accelerated in the summer of 2023, when Hanes wired $47.1 million out of customer accounts in 11 wire transfers over just eight weeks. Each transfer, he thought, was necessary to end the investment and cash out, court records said. He watched, on a fake website, as the money appeared to grow to more than $200 million.

“He was to take some of the money, and the rest of the money was supposed to go back to the bank,” his attorney John Stang explained. “Now it’s fiction, it didn’t exist. We all know that now … It failed big time.”

Hanes, who was not in court Monday, apologized at an earlier sentencing hearing.

“From the deepest depth of my soul, I had no intention of ever causing the harm that I did,” he said. ”I’ll forever struggle to understand how I was duped and how what I thought was just getting the money back was making it worse.”

Prosecutors said Hanes wasn’t just the victim of a scam, he crossed a line when he began taking customers’ money and violating banking regulations. He pleaded guilty to embezzlement by a bank officer in May.

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His prominent standing in his hometown of 2,000 made it easier for him to get away with it, a Federal Reserve System investigation found; he had been on the school board, volunteered as a swim meet official, and served on the Kansas Bankers Association.

He also was a banking leader beyond his rural community. In recent years, he testified to Congressional committees about the importance of local banks in farming communities, and he served as a director for the American Bankers Association, which represents almost all banking assets in the U.S.

On Monday, prosecutors said the FDIC wanted to be paid back for the insurance claims it reimbursed to bank customers. But Judge Broomes said the economic circumstances of shareholders “who became insolvent because of a fraud scheme” justified paying them back first, before the FDIC recovers anything.

Hanes, 53, may be in his late 70s when he is released and is unlikely to be able to pay the FDIC the $47.1 million still owed.

In a court filing, Hanes and his attorney tried to explain what had happened.

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“Mr. Hanes made some very bad choices after being caught up in an extremely well-run cryptocurrency scam,” they said. “He was the pig that was butchered.”

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$3M Bitcoin Forecast: Vaneck's Model Sees Central Bank BTC Adoption – Markets and Prices Bitcoin News

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M Bitcoin Forecast: Vaneck's Model Sees Central Bank BTC Adoption – Markets and Prices Bitcoin News
Bitcoin could reach $3 million, according to asset manager Vaneck, with a model showing its potential as a reserve asset held by global central banks. Bitcoin as Central Bank Asset? The $3M Target Driving Big Conversations Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at asset management firm Vaneck, analyzed bitcoin’s recent rise in an interview […]
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Malign interference and cryptocurrency: A new frontier in disinformation and national security

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Malign interference and cryptocurrency: A new frontier in disinformation and national security

This content was written by Chainalysis.

In a world where nearly half the population will participate in national elections in 2024, the stakes for securing democratic processes have never been higher. Disinformation campaigns—especially those funded through crypto—have become a potent tool for states like Russia, China, and North Korea to destabilize democratic institutions, influence public sentiment and erode trust in governance. Chainalysis’ Malign Interference and Cryptocurrency report sheds light on the pivotal role of crypto tracing in identifying and countering these threats.

In spite of their pseudonymity, the transparency of the blockchain provides investigators a powerful tool to investigate how malign actors abuse cryptocurrency. Each transaction leaves a permanent, traceable record, allowing analysts to connect the financial dots across complex networks of accounts. This traceability was crucial in identifying the funding behind Russian disinformation efforts in recent U.S. elections. The funds used to purchase web domains and social media accounts were traced back to Kremlin-affiliated actors, highlighting crypto’s role in the infrastructure of disinformation.

Sanctions are among the most effective countermeasures against malign actors using crypto for disinformation. For example, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned multiple crypto addresses associated with Russian disinformation entities. These sanctions disrupt financing and make it difficult for actors to raise, transfer, and off-ramp their funds. However, these actors adapt quickly, finding new means of funneling funds and evading detection.

Looking ahead, as AI amplifies the reach and sophistication of disinformation, crypto tracing must continue to evolve. The ongoing development of blockchain analytics tools promises to meet the challenge of tracing disinformation funding in a world where deepfakes, bots, and AI-generated profiles are becoming the norm. The findings from the Malign Interference and Crypto report underscore the importance of collaboration across the public sector, private companies, and international organizations to safeguard democracies from crypto-fueled disinformation threats.

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