OFAC and CoinList reach $1.2M settlement over Russian sanctions violations

Dec. 13, 2023

By Mike Dalton

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced a settlement with the crypto exchange CoinList on Dec. 13.

Over a two-year period ending in May 2022, CoinList processed 989 transactions worth $1.25 million from users who ordinarily resided in Crimea. The agency called this an “apparent violation” of its sanctions related to Russia and Ukraine.

OFAC said that although CoinList had compliance procedures in place during the relevant period, its screening procedures did not recognize users who identified themselves as a member of a non-embargoed country but provided a different address. Some users chose Russia as their country of residence but provided an address in Crimea, a disputed region of Ukraine that was annexed by Russia in 2014, leading to U.S. and international sanctions.

OFAC listed several mitigating factors that led to the current settlement. It noted that CoinList did not receive an OFAC notice in the five years before the first violating transaction. OFAC added that CoinList cooperated with its investigations, noted that the amount involved in the violations represented a small percentage of all transactions, and said that CoinList took remedial measures.

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