US Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) says the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) should press criminal charges against Binance crypto exchange and Tether over their alleged involvement in financing illicit activity.
Lummis says that she is asking the DOJ to conclude its investigation on Binance and USDT-maker Tether and to “consider criminal charges” against the two entities after reports they served as intermediaries for Hamas.
Citing a Wall Street Journal report that appeared earlier this month, Senator Lummis says that even though “subsequent reports have highlighted that the level of funding reported in the article is likely not accurate,” the DOJ should take action nevertheless.
The Wall Street Journal article claimed that the Palestinian militant group Hamas had received $130 million in crypto donations. However, the blockchain analysis and compliance firm Elliptic pushed back on those numbers, saying that there was no evidence that Hamas had received significant donations in cryptocurrencies.
On the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries, Lummis says,
“Crypto assets and distributed ledger technology have the potential to drive responsible innovation in US financial markets, therefore we must be careful not to paint all crypto asset intermediaries as suspect when a small handful of bad actors use them for nefarious purposes.
Many crypto-asset intermediaries seek to comply with US sanctions and money laundering laws, correctly viewing the regulations as necessary to unlock the promise of crypto assets and distributed ledger technology.”
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