The Campaign for Accountability (CfA), a non-profit ethics organization, has written a letter to U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown, providing information on alleged money laundering through cryptocurrency. The focus of the letter is on the Tron blockchain and the stablecoin issuer Circle.
In the letter signed by CfA executive director Michelle Kuppersmith, it is claimed that USD Coin's issuer, Circle, has extensive connections with Justin Sun’s Tron Foundation and major Wall Street investors, including Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, and BlackRock. The letter questions Circle's ties to Wall Street, especially considering the alleged lack of oversight and Tron's purported associations with terrorist financing. The letter points out that TRON is currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for unregistered securities sales and has been linked to the alleged funding of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and potentially Hamas and Hezbollah. Additionally, it mentions an estimated $400 million worth of USDC in the Tron ecosystem.
The letter refers to recent enforcement action research and reporting, suggesting that a prominent U.S. cryptocurrency company backed by a major Wall Street investment firm (Circle) may have been negatively impacted by its integration with Asian trading platforms and cryptocurrency networks, particularly the Tron network. Tron has been implicated in multiple international law enforcement actions involving significant transactions with suspected organized crime groups and sanctioned entities, according to the letter.
Coopersmith expressed concerns beyond those raised in a letter from senators and over 100 other lawmakers sent to the national security adviser and Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence on October 17. In that letter, lawmakers raised issues related to cryptocurrency companies and their potential involvement in illicit activities. However, cryptocurrency advocacy groups have disputed some of the claims made in these letters.
