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FinCEN Needs More Data To Combat Illicit Cryptocurrency ATMs, Watchdog Warns

By Valentina Pasquali

U.S. officials have observed a dramatic rise in the use of cryptocurrency to move the proceeds of human and drug trafficking since 2017 but still lack full visibility into the increasingly mainstream, entirely digital method of payment, a federal oversight agency reported Monday. The often complex, even scattered transactions involving cryptocurrency ATMs and decentralized-finance platforms, or DeFi, are proving hardest to track, the Government Accountability Office found in a report that details recent efforts by the government to regulate and enforce against the illicit use of bitcoins and other digital tokens. In 2020, financial institutions submitted 1,432 suspicious activity reports...

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