3 | 18/02/2021 – 3:24 PM (GMT -4)

The US Treasury has fined BitPay, a private company based in Atlanta, Georgia, for facilitating the processing of Bitcoin payments to Cubans residing on the island.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which applied the penalty, indicated Thursday in Prof. Release That the company must pay more than half a million dollars ($ 507,375) to “settle its potential civil liability” for violating the embargo against Cuba.

This is the first penalty imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control in relation to Cuba since then Joe Biden He took office on January 20.

BitPay allowed people who appear to have been located in the Crimea region of Ukraine, CubaThe statement said North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Syria will deal with merchants in the United States and elsewhere using digital technology.

“BitPay has allowed people in these jurisdictions to conduct transactions of up to $ 129,000 in digital currency,” explains OFAC.

According to the official report, between June 10, 2013 and September 16, 2018, BitPay processed 2102 transactions on behalf of people who, according to IP addresses and information provided on invoices, were in Cuba.

The post highlights “This behavior resulted in clear violations of Executive Order No. 13685 of December 19, 2014,” including the Cuban Asset Control regulations.

It is reported that the amount of the civil monetary penalty applied for these violations amounts to $ 2,255,000, but given some mitigating factors, an amount of $ 507,375 was agreed upon.

The latest sanctions that were applied to American companies for preferring to trade with Cuba are also related to cryptocurrency transfers, and they occurred last December, when the Treasury Department imposed a fine on Technology company BitGo, From Palo Alto, California, which provided digital wallet service to people in Cuba.

A month earlier, the Office of Foreign Assets Control forced Western Union to close its operations on the island after 21 years of service, as it delivered remittances to Cubans.

The Donald Trump administration’s punishment against FINCIMEX, attached to CIMEX and under the control of the GAESA Army, officially took effect on November 27, and represented a severe financial blow to the Cuban regime, which it referred to as an assault. .

Recreating the last service will depend on President Joe Biden’s decision to reinstate Transfer services By Western Union to Cuba, but the administration hasn’t yet judged it.

However, the day before Cuban-American leaders joined a bipartisan petition to Biden so that his administration would not ease politics or open negotiations with Cuba so that democratic progress was made on the island.

Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, currently the most senior Cuban-American politician in Washington, Republicans Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, as well as Congressmen Carlos Jimenez, Mario Diaz Ballart, Maria Elvira Salazar, and mayors of Miami, Hail, Coral Gables, and Dural. The president called for maintaining the policy of sanctions against Havana and for an end to human rights violations in the Caribbean country.