U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Roger Marshall have sent a letter to the Biden Admininstration regarding the threat posed by the Tether cryptocurrency (USDT), the value of which is pegged to the U.S. dollar.
The senators state that Tether helps Russia, Iran, and North Korea circumvent financial sanctions.
“Tether has become the cryptocurrency of choice for sanctions evaders and other bad actors,” wrote the senators.
“Russia is using crypto to move funds and conduct transactions in dark web marketplaces,” the senators continued.
The letter was addressed to Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Treasury, Janet Yellen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, and FinCEN Director, Andrea Gacki.
In the letter, the senators asked the following questions:
- What additional authority would Treasury require in order to stop Tether and other
cryptocurrencies from being traded through Garantex and other sanctioned entities?
a. Are those necessary authorities enumerated in Treasury’s November 2023 letter to
Congress requesting additional counterterrorism tools? - Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (FinCEN) 2019 guidance on the application of
the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to crypto entities applies traditional BSA principles to the
crypto ecosystem.26 Would the additional authorities detailed in Treasury’s November
2023 letter assist FinCEN in identifying and stopping bad actors, including sanctions
evaders like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, from processing crypto transactions? - Are the Department of Defense and the White House supportive of Treasury’s request for
additional enforcement authorities to counter the national security risk posed by
cryptocurrency? - Since the October 7th attack on Israel, how many times have DoD, Treasury, the White
House, and FinCEN leadership met, both jointly and individually, to address the threat
crypto poses to our national security? Please provide an unclassified listing of any
internal reports or memoranda related to crypto illicit financing that DoD, Treasury, the
White House, or FinCEN has produced since October 7th, 2023.
