Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bill Cassidy are proposing a crackdown on those who use crypto to buy and sell child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bill Cassidy want to make sure that government organizations are prepared to investigate cryptocurrency transactions connected to the sale of content related to child abuse.
Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice (DOJ) were urged to disclose their present technical capacity to end CSAM.
The senators brought up a January 2024 Chainalysis research that indicated a rise in the use of Bitcoin in the CSAM criminal trade within the research.
Chainalysis discovered that vendors of child abuse materials are hiding their earnings and avoiding law enforcement by using “mixers” and “privacy coins” like Monero.
U.S. senators requested information on the DOJ’s and DHS’s present capacity to identify and prosecute these offenses in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
“Existing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules and law enforcement methods face challenges in effectively detecting and preventing these crimes.”
Three of the six inquiries in the letter were meant to gauge the impartial conclusions of the federal agencies regarding the relationship between cryptocurrencies and CSAM. The others were to point out the necessity of new instruments for identifying and prosecuting purchasers and sellers.
Senators asked that answers to the inquiries be sent by May 10.
The indictment of cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and two of its founders resulted from the DOJ’s present technical ability to investigate crypto transactions.
The DOJ charged KuCoin and its two founders on March 26 with breaking the Bank Secrecy Act, or BSA, and “conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.”
“In failing to implement even basic Anti-Money Laundering policies, the defendants allowed KuCoin to operate in the shadows of the financial markets and be used as a haven for illicit money laundering.”
The Justice Department claims KuCoin transferred and received over $4 billion in “suspicious and criminal funds.”
