- The purpose of cooperation is to improve the exchange of information between the United States and Ukraine
- IRS to Fund Ukrainian Investigators’ Access to Chainalysis Tool
IRS Criminal Investigation Division expands cooperation with foreign bodies. The IRS said it was working with analytics firm Chainalysis and Ukrainian investigators to track Russian individuals. It is assumed that Russians can violate sanctions and use digital assets to hide their wealth.
The IRS will fund Ukrainian investigators’ access to the Chainalysis tool, which helps conduct crypto investigations. Also, investigators were offered virtual and face-to-face trainings on tracking transactions in the blockchain.
The head of the IRS Criminal Investigation Department, Jim Lee, stated:
“The exchange of instruments not only protects the US financial system, but also the global economy. These efforts are expected to improve information sharing and case development between the US and Ukraine.”
Regulators warn that countries under sanctions (Russia and Iran) may use cryptocurrencies to circumvent international sanctions. Binance recently faced an investigation into whether it allowed Russians to illegally access its platform. However, representatives of the exchange denied this information.
Chainalysis co-founder and CEO Michael Gronager stated:
“Cryptocurrency is still too illiquid to support massive Russian sanctions evasion, but this is happening on a smaller scale. It is difficult to accurately estimate how much Russian oligarch money is passing through Ukraine as work continues to identify these transactions.”
