Poloniex to pay $7.6 million for sanctions violation

Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex will pay a fine of $7.59 million for violating sanctions to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). This was announced in a press release of the agency.

According to OFAC, from January 2014 to November 2019, the platform committed 66,000 sanctions violations, allowing customers from Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria and Crimea to make cryptocurrency transactions of up to $15 million.

Poloniex began operating in 2014, but the sanctions compliance program was not implemented until middle of 2015. Publication​ from project cryptodefix.com. But the program allowed customers from sanctioned countries to continue using its services.

In 2021, the exchange already had to settle the issue with the SEC in pre-trial proceedings. At that time Poloniex paid $10.3 million to the SEC for accusations of illegal sales of unregistered assets.