Lithuania just slapped a massive fine of EUR9.3 million on the crypto firm Payeer for not following Russia-related sanctions and for some serious money laundering issues.
According to the Financial Crimes Investigation Service (FNTT), Payeer was letting Russian users make transactions in roubles with EU-sanctioned banks. They also provided crypto wallets and account management for Russian individuals and businesses.
In about 18 months, Payeer racked up over 213,000 customers and pulled in more than EUR164 million in revenue.
The FNTT pointed out that Payeer intentionally failed to verify the identities of its users, likely to avoid losing out on a chunk of profits.
Payeer, which moved to Lithuania after losing its license in Estonia, got hit with EUR8.2 million for the sanctions violations and another EUR1.1 million for the AML problems.
I believe the 'record' is based on the country that imposed the sanction, this is the largest they have ever imposed on a crypto service, because Binance settled with the DOJ, paying a sum as large as $4.3b for violating kyc laws and allowing customers from sanctioned zones to use their service, KuCoin was also charged for a similar offence.
Now we will wait and see if Payeer are going to appeal this decision or if they are going to accept the alleged wrongdoing and pay the fine.
The company management will laugh at this fine and pay. If only you knew how such companies make huge money on such opportunities, allowing gambling and other similar companies to use their ecosystem..
I guess so, there will be no need appealing if they know they are guilty, just the same way binance knew they were guity when the DOJ charged them, and they simply settled and paid $4.3b. However, after paying they'll have to fix things and comply with the sanctions, but i am sure they must have made so much money from it already.
Binance made $10 billion on hamster haircuts and paid $4.3 billion in fines. It's a good deal. Now Binance's place will be taken by other influential companies that will do the same thing, only more carefully.
If the fine is too much for them, they can move to another country just as they left Estonia after their license was revoked. Many countries will be willing to give them operational permits for less than what they will pay as a fine in Lithuania.
Binance is a big player and knows how to make a profit from the crypto community. So they are willing the pay fines to have access to the biggest crypto market, the US.
I don't think a company can start a business in another country without paying a fine in Lithuania.
What is Binance's share of the US market now?
They took a bite of someone else's share of the pie, so they paid very large fines.
Maybe Binance will still operate in the US market, but it won't be the way they used to operate.
Maybe this can apply to European nations or countries that have healthy diplomatic relationships with Lithuania. Payeer can easily get registered in countries like Russia because they are unfriendly with most European nations. However, it will be better to pay the fine to have access to larger markets.
I think that such companies as Payeer will gladly work in the Russian market through their subsidiaries, but there are risks of getting under sanctions, because their payment system will be used to circumvent anti-Russian sanctions. That is the paradox.
Isn't that something that these pro-US governments have been doing against anyone or any entity supporting Russia? Such news has become normal for the world and only a few countries are not getting targeted by those Western/European countries who are fighting a war in the disguise of Ukraine war. I think we will see more articles related to it and I want to highlight another one wherein the US wants India to ban the Russian official media outlet RT News. The US has now got impatient and has been asking the allies to do anything to hurt Russia. I believe this is what led to the Lithuanian government putting a heft fine in this case.
The Russians have a saying: "To some it's war, and to some it's mother."Companies care about war, because all wars end in peace, but war provides huge opportunities for making money.
In the Russian Federation, the military industrial complex is mainly state-owned companies, and the U.S. military industrial complex is private companies that need profit, and if you look for owners, many of these companies have large shareholders BlackRock, Vanguard and other business sharks who own shares of all major world companies.
The military expenditure of each side per day is hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes a billion dollars. And the news says 164 million euros. These are not comparable figures and the fine is small.
I guess Russia is paying for itself whereas the Zelenski getting paid for himself while the rest of Ukranian suffer. They are still getting military equipments from the west which is worrying for the global community. I don't want to start a political debate on this thread but it is now evident how far the US and allies will go to stop Russian companies from operating freely.
I have recently received very interesting information from a person who has been providing transport services for more than 10 years and bringing goods to Russia from different countries of the world.
He personally named the top 5 European countries which do not prevent the importation of sanctioned goods into Russia at all. Formally, they do not notice forged documents, because this is business
I also came across a news about Uranium related to Russia and the US. It seems the US still imports Uranium from Russia as it is still one of the biggest exporter of enriched Uranium in the world. What hypocrisy by the US they have sanctioned the country so heavily but are still not stopping themselves from purchasing it from the Russian government.
[1] They come up with a ban now on the export of enriched Uranium - Source
[2] Why they came up with a ban now after more than 2 years of conflict - Source.
This proves everything that is suddenly happening against Russia is all being done by the CIA. Moreover, this war is benefiting the US military and those producing military hardware as the money they are paying to the Ukrainian government is going back to the US military-industrial complex. There are many articles that can be found on by doing a Google search which support my statement.
Not against Russia, but against Europe.
Look at the statistics on the economies of the countries. Russia is very big and routes bypassing Russia are very expensive. For these reasons European companies that are deprived of cheap resources become unprofitable and move to the US.
There are no claims to Russia in the US. Russia strictly observed the agreements and all the profits from the sale of raw materials ended up in the accounts of American and European banks.
The USA wants to become a high-tech industrial giant, and many European countries will lose part of their business because it will be unprofitable without friendship with Russia.
This is proof that the US is deceiving the European Union. EU nations and the Russian economy are connected it might take decades to make them function independently. But this war has forced these nations to sever these economic partnerships through sanctions. The biggest beneficiaries of this war are the US, India and China. China and India are exploiting the strained relationship and secretly acting as middlemen. They are helping Russia invade sanctions and also assisting EU nations to covertly buy sanctioned Russian products.
They are disposing of outdated military hardware in Ukraine and ramping up research and manufacturing of weapons. More jobs are been created in the US, while more people die in Ukraine.
People are dying in Ukraine not because the US is increasing its weapons production, but because Russia has been attacking Ukraine for three years with all possible weapons, except nuclear weapons, and Ukrainians have to defend themselves.
Russia, which unleashed the largest and bloodiest war since World War II in the very center of Europe, has caused a response in European countries and beyond in the form of rearmament and the buildup of their own armed forces. This is quite natural, since the danger of military invasions into other countries has increased sharply from Russia.
Poland, for example, has given Ukraine its old Soviet MIG aircraft, receiving F-16s from the US, as well as Soviet tanks, receiving more advanced British armored vehicles in return. The same thing is happening with other European countries. This is also beneficial to Ukraine, because they are familiar with Soviet equipment and do not need to waste time retraining for NATO equipment. Now most of the Soviet weapons are transferred from European countries to Ukraine, in exchange they receive more precise and more advanced equipment from NATO countries.
This process is also beneficial to the US military-industrial complex. Their products are in high demand on the world market, including because Russian military equipment has not shown its best side on the battlefield in Ukraine. So Russia's attack on Ukraine has caused a rapid arms race.