Exodus Movement, Inc., a financial technology company based in Omaha, Neb., settled with the U.S. Department of the Treasury on Tuesday for allegedly providing services to customers in Iran and advising them on how to obscure their locations to work around restrictions imposed by American sanctions.
Exodus, which facilitates digital asset exchanges, agreed to pay over $3.1 million to settle its potential civil liability for 254 apparent violations of sanctions on Iran administered by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, according to the department.
Treasury further alleged that Exodus customer service agents had actively provided tips on how Iranian users could mask their location by using altered IP addresses and virtual private networks to obtain service, despite the company being prohibited from selling goods, technology or services to Iran under the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations.
“On 12 occasions, Exodus customer service staff were at least generally aware of applicable U.S. sanctions or U.S. laws in place to restrict users in Iran from engaging with, and conducting transactions through, Exodus’ exchange partners,” the settlement agreement states.
“Despite this awareness, Exodus customer service staff recommended steps to help users access their Exodus Wallet, resulting in the circumvention of the sanctions control measures employed by the exchanges,” per the agreement.
The settlement agreement also states that Exodus lacked proper compliance procedures. Of the 254 violations detected, few were self-reported, according to Treasury.
“Reflecting its broader lack of a compliance program, Exodus did not notify or train its employees regarding the sanctions-related prohibitions in the Terms of Use and did not provide any other comprehensive mechanism to prevent the use of Exodus Wallet by persons in sanctioned jurisdictions,” the agreement reads.
From the total penalty, Exodus will invest $630,000 in improving its sanctions compliance controls.
