The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is strengthening its grip on criminal organizations harnessing cryptocurrency for their crimes. The multinational organization Tren de Aragua (Aragua’s Train), which has Venezuelan origins, has been recently added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List for its criminal actions across the South American continent.
According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the organization has been involved in several criminal activities, focusing its actions on desperate migrants abandoning Venezuela and hoping to find a safe haven in other nations of the continent. The department lists illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, and the trafficking of illicit drugs such as cocaine and MDMA as part of the crimes attributed to Tren de Aragua’s action across the continent.
In its press release, OFAC states that Tren de Aragua “infiltrated local criminal economies in South America, established transnational financial operations, and laundered funds through cryptocurrency,” without specifying the methods or channels used to this end.
The links between Tren de Aragua and cryptocurrency are not new. In September, when the Venezuelan government executed a massive raid on the Tocoron penitentiary center, a stronghold of the organization, a bitcoin mining farm with an undisclosed number of miners was found at the complex.
Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson stressed that they will “deploy all tools and authorities against organizations like Tren de Aragua that prey on vulnerable populations to generate revenue, engage in a range of criminal activities across borders, and abuse the U.S. financial system.”
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