New York, Oct 12 (AP) Crypto exchange Bittrex was fined USD 24 million by US authorities on Tuesday for helping clients evade US sanctions in places such as Syria, Iran and Crimea.

It is the largest penalty ever levied against a crypto currency exchange by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency said.

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The Treasury Department said that Bittrex allowed customers in Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan and the disputed region of Crimea to trade approximately USD 263.5 million worth of digital currencies between 2014 and 2017.

In its statement, the US said that Bittrex should have been aware these customers were in sanctioned parts of the world due to their physical addresses as well as their IP addresses.

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In one case, a customer in Iran gave a physical address in Iran and uploaded an Iranian passport to verify identification.

“When virtual currency firms fail to implement effective sanctions compliance controls, including screening customers located in sanctioned jurisdictions, they can become a vehicle for illicit actors that threaten US national security,” said OFAC Director Andrea Gacki in a statement.

The sanctions violations were quite extensive, with OFAC finding 116,421 apparent violations of US sanctions programmes over the three years. The company did not apparently have any internal controls in place for sanctions until October 2017.

Bittrex, based in Washington State, said it was “pleased” to settle these charges with US authorities, and noted that regulators were not asking for Bittrex to make any additional changes to its money laundering systems, which had been updated after 2018. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)