US, UK Investigate $20 Billion of Crypto Transfers To Garantex Russian Exchange

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. and U.K. are investigating more than $20 billion worth of USDT transactions that have passed through Garantex, a Russia-based crypto exchange. Milk Road reports: If confirmed, the $20 billion in transactions would represent one of the most significant breaches of the sanctions imposed on Russia since the conflict began. However, the sources cautioned that the inquiries are ongoing and that it is too early to draw conclusions given the complexity of crypto transactions. They also noted that there was no immediate suggestion of wrongdoing by Tether.

Key points:

- The transactions under scrutiny were conducted using Tether (USDT).
- The US and UK sanctioned Garantex on suspicion of facilitating financial crimes and illicit transactions in Russia.
- The $20 billion USDT transactions would represent one of the biggest breaches of sanctions imposed on Russia since the start of the war.
- Tether froze assets of entities on the U.S. sanctions list.

Silver lining

[Powercntrl]

Tether froze assets of entities on the U.S. sanctions list.

Somebody at Tether just breathed a sigh of relief as $20 billion worth of USDT no longer have to be backed by any real assets.

Re:Silver lining

[hdyoung]

It’s never been backed by real assets. Not many of them, anyways. If they were actually backed 1:1 by fiat currency, they would be flashing the hard cash on every website and every advertisement for their token.

They totally pinky-swear that it is, but you should read up on it’s history. Not quite as shady as FTX, but if their wikipedia page doesn’t cause major alarm-bells on your BS detector, I have a basket of totally-for-real-stablecoins-tm that I can sell you.

Re:

[jythie]

I think that is the joke. Tether makes a big deal about how they are backed by real assets, but how well backed they are is a unknown.. so having 20 billion of their coin frozen means they can breath a sigh of relief that no one can try to cash that in.

When it comes to crypto

[quonset]

This is completely normal. Nothing to see here [youtube.com].

Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss

"Just"

[virtig01]

Yeah, the 47th time they ban it should do the trick.

Only $20 Billion?

[cusco]

Only $20 billion? The US already stole the $300 billion that Russia had in the SWIFT dollar exchange, this is peanuts.

Re:

[diffract]

are you really glad that your country actually robbed another country?

Re: Only $20 Billion?

[diffract]

Russia did not do any damage in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine, Libya. You're confusing Russia with a different country

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia murdered civilians and fought wars in all those countries you idiot.

Re:

[jythie]

I am glad there are more options in a conflict than bombing someone.

Re:

[cusco]

Are you really that uninformed?

Re: Only $20 Billion?

[Malc]

Spot the Russian troll. It hasnâ(TM)t been stolen, itâ(TM)s just frozen: Russia can get it back by withdrawing their military and restoring Ukraineâ(TM)s territorial integrity back to its 2014 borders. Itâ(TM)s peanuts compared with what Russia has stolen from Ukraine.

If crypto cannot bypass law enforcement

[khchung]

who would still be using it? US investigating crypto transactions will kill crypto more effectively than any bans.

How much is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

In oil alone China imported 107 million metric tons from Russia, I'm sure that's several billion dollars. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/22... [cnn.com]
That's just a drop in the bucket of total trade between the two.
https://www.reuters.com/market... [reuters.com]

Re:

[Opportunist]

That's about 2.5 billion barrels. Considering that China is buying oil at a heavily discounted price from Russia and the official trading price for Ural Oil is roughly 75/bbl, it's unlikely that this really netted them the 150 billions the "official" course would get. My estimate is closer to 80-100 billions.

In other words, the whole cryptocrap is responsible for 20% more income for Russia, considering that oil is pretty much the only relevant thing Russia is currently able to export.

Where's the story?

[Opportunist]

Cryptocrap used to fund terrorism. That's news? That's par for the course.

why the risk?

[diffract]

Tether can be frozen by a simple order from the US government. Why bare the risk of moving this much money using an asset that can be frozen instead of, say, Bitcoin?

Re:

[ledow]

Here's the thing:

- Government will always regulate currency to combat things like this, and money-laundering (because it can facilitate things like this), and avoidance of tax.
- To do that, they need to identify users or require them to identify themselves. That's the rules that pretty much all EU and US banks operate under.
- Cryptocurrencies that don't allow that automatically fall foul of money-laundering and these identification rules. So banks in the EU and US are stopping transactions to cryptocurren