Warren prods drug agencies over link between fentanyl trafficking and cryptocurrency.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is demanding updates from drug agencies on recent findings and efforts to address the use of cryptocurrencies in the illicit fentanyl market.
“(We) provide an update on the Biden administration’s actions to crack down on the misuse of cryptocurrencies by drug traffickers to grow their businesses and launder their ill-gotten gains,” Senators Warren and William Cassidy wrote in a May 29 letter. “We are looking into it,” he wrote.
The letter, sent to Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Rahul Gupta and Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Melissa Milgram, said cryptocurrencies are playing “an increasingly important role in fentanyl trafficking.” They repeated their long-standing claim that “a significant portion of them ended up going out of business.” Consumed in the United States.
By June 14, Warren and Cassidy have outlined how significant a role cryptocurrencies play in drug trafficking, what new plans will be implemented in the next 12 months and what metrics will be used to measure the success of the fight against illicit cryptocurrencies. I want the agency to respond. Used to trade fentanyl.
The two senators asked, “What challenges does your office face in its efforts to prevent the use of cryptocurrencies in the illicit drug trade?”
The senators cited a May 2023 investigation that found about 80 Chinese companies supplying fentanyl precursors had received nearly $30 million in cryptocurrency payments.
“(This is) enough to purchase the precursors needed to produce $54 billion worth of fentanyl pills.”
Related: Cryptocurrency users fooled by fake Elizabeth Warren letter suggesting cryptocurrency tax
Warren has previously been criticized for citing misinterpreted data in her anti-cryptocurrency agenda.
In her letter addressing illicit cryptocurrency activity, Warren cited an October 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal, which stated that Hamas was using cryptocurrency to finance terrorist activities related to the Israel-Palestine war. I misquoted the extent to which it was used.
Warren has not publicly responded to the misquoted data, although the WSJ later corrected it.
American lawyer and XRP advocate John Deaton is seeking to take Warren’s seat in the Massachusetts Senate in the coming months.
“I love every day I get to stand on stage with her and talk about income inequality and the opioid problem,” Deaton told Consensus.
magazine: OPINION: GOP Cryptocurrency Maxis Is Just as Bad as Democrats’ ‘Anti-Crypto Army’
