For the first time, the Treasury Department has added digital currency identifiers on its sanctions blacklist. It has also crafted new guidance on how those connections and transactions should be identified and reported.
On Nov. 28, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control acted against two Iran-based individuals, Ali Khorashadizadeh and Mohammad Ghorbaniyan. They allegedly helped exchange digital currency ransom payments, from Bitcoin into Iranian rial, on behalf of Iranian cyber-criminals involved with the so-called SamSam ransomware scheme that targeted more than 200 known victims.
