Fear The Legal Creep: US Blacklists BTC Address Used in Ransomware

[PRIBO247]

Shortly after the attacks of September 11th, the United States
passed legislation giving the federal government sweeping
powers. The Patriot Act was designed to be a temporary
measure to prevent terrorism in the new age that America
found itself in. It passed the House of Representatives and the
Senate easily and has been renewed every time its time limit
has come up, without much debate by our legislators.
Since its initial passage, the tools codified in the Patriot Act
have been used to justify actions not only against alleged
terrorists, but also run-of-the-mill criminals, political activists
and virtually every US citizen, even those never accused of a
crime (likely including you.)

Today, the United States Treasury announced that it is
blacklisting two bitcoin addresses associated with Iranian
nationals. The two Iranians are accused of helping launder and
convert bitcoins, some of which were allegedly obtained
through the infamous SamSam Ransomware virus.

“Treasury is targeting digital currency exchangers who have
enabled Iranian cyber actors to profit from extorting digital
ransom payments from their victims. As Iran becomes
increasingly isolated and desperate for access to U.S. dollars,
it is vital that virtual currency exchanges, peer-to-peer
exchangers, and other providers of digital currency services
harden their networks against these illicit schemes,” explained
Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence Sigal Mandelker in a press release posted on the
Treasury website

 “We are publishing digital currency
addresses to identify illicit actors operating in the digital
currency space. Treasury will aggressively pursue Iran and
other rogue regimes attempting to exploit digital currencies
and weaknesses in cyber and AML/CFT safeguards to further
their nefarious objectives.”

The two accounts have been active since 2013 and have
processed more than 7,000 transactions, interacted with over
40 exchanges and sent over 6,000 bitcoins according to the US
Treasury.

Source : https://coinjournal.net