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Doing Business Online May Mean OFAC Penalties, Say Compliance Consultants

By Brian Monroe

Online transactions tied to sanctioned countries could lead to monetary fines for individuals, businesses and banks, even when it's unclear that the Web sites involved are blacklisted. That seems to be the message of two fines released last month by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in which two unnamed individuals were penalized more than $1,200 for buying digital currency from a Web site located in Iran. Me-Gold.com, which allows users to anonymously purchase electronic currency purportedly backed by real gold, currently states that it is incorporated in Singapore with an affiliate Web site stating the...

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