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Slashdot: CNN: 'Financial Sanctions are Easier Than Ever for Russians to Evade. Thank Bitcoin'

CNN: 'Financial Sanctions are Easier Than Ever for Russians to Evade. Thank Bitcoin'
Published on February 27, 2022 at 03:04AM
Financial sanctions are easier than ever for Russians to evade. Thank Bitcoin CNN: 'Financial sanctions are easier than ever for Russians to evade. Thank Bitcoin' The senior editor of CNN Business writes: The West's initial salvo of financial sanctions against Russia failed to deter President Vladimir Putin from launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now the United States is taking a punitive approach, announcing another round of sanctions meant to tighten the screws on Russian banks and "corrupt billionaires." But some experts say those measures, which so far do not target Putin himself, are becoming increasingly easy to evade, thanks in part to a surge of cryptocurrency adoption in Russia. The U.S. and EU sanctions rely heavily on banks to enforce the rules. If a sanctioned business or individual wants to make a transaction denominated in traditional currencies such as dollars or euros, it's the bank's responsibility to flag and block those transactions. But digital currencies operate outside the realm of standard global banking, with transactions recorded on a public ledger known as the blockchain. "If the Russians decide — and they're already doing this, I'm sure — to avoid using any currency other than cryptocurrency, they can effectively avoid virtually all of the sanctions," said Ross S. Delston, an expert on anti-money laundering compliance. The U.S. Treasury is well aware of this problem. In an October report, officials warned that digital currencies "potentially reduce the efficacy of American sanctions" by allowing bad actors to hold and transfer funds outside the traditional financial system. "We are mindful of the risk that, if left unchecked, these digital assets and payments systems could harm the efficacy of our sanctions."

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