Cryptocurrency supporter Cynthia Lummis, who represents Wyoming in the U.S. Senate, has called on the U.S. Department of Justice to consider charges against cryptocurrency exchange Binance following an attack by terrorist group Hamas on Israel.
In an Oct. 26 letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Lummis and Arkansas Representative French Hill urged DOJ officials to "make charging decisions against Binance" and "quickly end" investigations into alleged illegal activities involving Tether. investigation. The two lawmakers' comments came after Hamas launched a coordinated attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which they said was partly caused by illegal cryptocurrency trading that "provided significant amounts of terrorist financing."
“We urge the Department of Justice to carefully evaluate the extent to which Binance and Tether provide material support and resources to support terrorism in violation of applicable sanctions laws and the Bank Secrecy Act,” Lummis and Hill said. “To this end, we strongly Support the Department of Justice in taking swift action against Binance and Tether to cut off the funding of terrorists currently targeting Israel." The letter from Lummis, a Bitcoin enthusiast and backer of crypto legislation in Congress, and Hill, who chairs the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion, echoes efforts by Senator Elizabeth Warren and other lawmakers to link crypto payments to terrorist activity. the opinion of. Unlike Warren, however, two Republican lawmakers directed the Justice Department to focus on “bad actors” — in this case, including Binance and Tether.
“We must be careful not to view all crypto-asset intermediaries as suspect when a few bad actors use them for nefarious purposes,” the letter said. “Many crypto-asset intermediaries seek to comply with U.S. sanctions and countermeasures. money laundering laws, and rightly view these regulations as necessary to unlock the promise of cryptoassets and distributed ledger technology.” Cryptocurrency exchange Binance froze accounts linked to Hamas at the request of Israeli law enforcement following the Oct. 7 attack. However, Loomis and Hill later argued that the action was insufficient because the exchange allowed the terrorist group to operate or "willfully turned a blind eye" while doing so. They made similar accusations against Tether, saying it "knowingly facilitated violations of applicable sanctions laws."
“While some reports claim that Binance is now cooperating with Israeli law enforcement, this is not material for criminal liability as Binance was only knowingly allowing its exchange to be used by terrorist groups, and only after the terrorist group was captured. Will do it.”
On October 25, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic released a statement to U.S. lawmakers and media saying there was “no evidence” that Hamas received large cryptocurrency payments to fund its attacks on Israel. Elliptic said a Hamas-linked campaign raised just $21,000 since the Oct. 7 attack, compared with the millions other media outlets claimed.
