Two US Senators are writing a bipartisan letter to federal agencies about the potential use of crypto assets by child molesters.
According to a new press release, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, say in the letter that digital assets are the “payment of choice” for explicit material involving children.
The letter was sent to both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In the letter, the senators describe their concerns about the anonymity of crypto assets and their illegal use in such a way.
“We are writing to express our concerns about the use of cryptocurrency in the illegal trafficking of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) and to obtain information about the tools used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS) to put an end to this illegal trade.
The pseudonymity offered by cryptocurrency has allowed CSAM payments to “rapidly enter the crypto space,” and we want to ensure that Congress and the Administration have the full suite of tools necessary to implement a to end CSAM and punish sellers of this material.”
To strengthen their position, the senators cite data from The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and market intelligence platform Chainalysis.
In 2020-2021, FinCEN published a report finding that the use of crypto assets to purchase CSAM is increasing and financial institutions are filing thousands of suspicious activity reports related to human and child trafficking involving Bitcoin (BTC).
According to the IWF, the number of websites accepting crypto assets as payment for CSAM has doubled every year between 2018 and 2022.
In January 2024, Chainalysis published that crypto assets are the “dominant choice for buyers and sellers of commercial child sexual abuse content.”
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Featured image: Shutterstock/IgorZh/WindAwake