Crypto

OFAC designated more than a dozen individuals and entities linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, targeting two separate networks accused of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, including one that allegedly converted bulk U.S. drug cash into cryptocurrency for transfer to cartel leadership in Mexico.

Bitcoin Depot, formerly the largest operator of cryptocurrency ATMs in the United States, filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy Sunday and took its roughly 9,700 kiosks offline.

Iran has launched a bitcoin-backed insurance service for shipping companies seeking to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has moved billions of dollars across two blockchains whose founders are among the most prominent backers of a digital currency venture co-founded by U.S. President Donald Trump and his family.

Hackers widely believed to be linked to North Korea appear to have used artificial intelligence to pull off two crypto heists in April that netted nearly $600 million. That more can be on the way is rattling the $130-billion decentralized finance sector.

Polish lawmakers on Friday approved a bill regulating cryptocurrencies as a scandal over the collapse of the country’s biggest crypto exchange widened and questions deepened over whether President Karol Nawrocki, who has twice vetoed similar measures, will sign it into law.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday issued an alert urging financial institutions to step up their detection of money laundering, sanctions evasion, and digital-asset transfers tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Australia’s financial intelligence agency on Friday launched two supervisory campaigns targeting the country’s virtual assets sector, stepping up oversight of crypto businesses ahead of sweeping AML reforms, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) said in a statement.

Lawyers for Bittrex, the shuttered U.S. cryptocurrency exchange that paid $24 million to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit in 2023, are asking a federal judge to throw out the agreement and order the agency to return the money.

Thousands of seemingly legitimate UK high street shops are being used by organized-crime groups to launder illicit cash, sell illegal goods, and feed wider criminal networks, with at least £47 billion a year drained from the British economy by the schemes.