Senator Warren Urges DOJ Action Towards Crypto as the “Payment of Preference” for Boy or girl Sexual Abuse

Greetings, everybody! A current collaboration among US senators Elizabeth Warren and Bill Cassidy aims to tackle the unlawful trafficking of youngster sexual abuse product (CSAM). They have penned a letter to the US Section of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) addressing concerns about the potential use of cryptocurrency in aiding these activities.

Connecting Cryptocurrency to Child Sexual Abuse

In their formal conversation, Warren and Cassidy shed light on the anonymity presented by cryptocurrencies, suggesting that it has expedited the circulation of transactions for CSAM inside of the crypto realm.
Both senators are devoted to equipping Congress and the Administration with the required means to beat CSAM and to guarantee accountability for those included in its distribution.

Their apprehensions are fueled by a recent report from Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics firm, from January 2024, identifying a surge in cryptocurrency-linked transactions involving CSAM.
The use of virtual currency has emerged as the favored mode of payment among both equally consumers and sellers of business kid sexual abuse materials. Additionally, a Economic Trend Assessment by FinCEN reveals an uptick in perpetrators exploiting convertible digital currencies to evade detection.
Highlighting troubling conclusions from FinCEN, hundreds of suspicious activity reports connected to online child sexual exploitation and human trafficking offenses associated with Bitcoin have been unveiled, with CSAM featuring prominently in 95% of cases.

Senators’ Call for Duty

The senators emphasised Homeland Safety investigators’ pivotal purpose in indicting a South Korean nationwide and numerous US customers for functioning a dim world-wide-web pornography web-site financed through Bitcoin.
Nevertheless, they observe a rise in cryptocurrency utilization in just the illicit trade of CSAM.
According to the Chainalysis report, despite the fact that the crypto-dependent CSAM industry has diminished in measurement, sellers have tailored by turning out to be a lot more complex and resilient against detection and takedowns. Bitcoin stays the major cryptocurrency for CSAM transactions.
To handle these troubles, Senators Warren and Cassidy submitted inquiries to the DOJ and DHS seeking clarity on the alleged job of cryptocurrency in facilitating CSAM, the evolving techniques of CSAM sellers, and the inherent issues posed by crypto payments in these crimes.
They also pressed for info on the agencies’ approaches to fight the use of cryptocurrency, privateness cash, and obfuscation techniques by CSAM sellers.

Senator Warren’s efforts include things like proposing the Electronic Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, a bipartisan evaluate aimed at deterring illegal functions and malpractices involving digital currencies.