The White House under the Biden-Harris administration has presented a five-pronged anti-corruption strategy as part of the key national security interests of the United States. The strategy includes creating a new target group to combat potential illegal activity on cryptocurrency exchanges and other services that could serve as a vehicle for money laundering.
In an effort to strengthen enforcement of anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, as well as criminal and civil law, the federal government plans to introduce new tools to investigate and prosecute money laundering crimes. The document “Frame Three: Bringing Corrupt Officials to Justice”, especially for cryptocurrencies, emphasizes the following:
“The Ministry of Justice (Ministry of Justice) will use a newly established working group, the National Cryptocurrency Task Force, to focus on complex investigations and prosecutions related to criminal crypto-abuse.”
The White House stated that the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Group will have a special responsibility to monitor “crimes committed by virtual currency exchanges, scramblers and those involved in money laundering infrastructure.”
The Ministry of Justice has also expanded summons powers for certain financial data kept offshore, at the same time as it has introduced new disclosure requirements for real owners. The ministry also plans to encourage whistleblowers to share information that leads to the identification and seizure of illegal dividends.
Related: The House Committee announces that CEOs of cryptocurrency will testify during the Digital Asset Hearing on December 8.
In parallel with the recent White House initiative, Representative Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, invited CEOs of eight major crypto firms to discuss digital assets and the future of financing on December 8.
The panel hearings will include CEOs from Circle, FTX, Bitfury, Paxos, the Stellar Development Foundation, Coinbase, Coinbase Global CFO and Cointelegraph Reports.
