JPMorgan has frozen the accounts of two Y Combinator-backed stablecoin startups Blindpay and Kontigo over links to Venezuela, a country currently under heavy U.S. sanctions.
According to The Information, both startups had connected to JPMorgan through Checkbook, a U.S.-based payments company. But the association with high-risk jurisdictions set off alarm bells inside the bank.
JPMorgan insists it’s not cracking down on stablecoins. “This has nothing to do with stablecoin companies,” a bank spokesperson allegedly said. “We bank both stablecoin issuers and stablecoin-related businesses, and we recently took a stablecoin issuer public.”
Still, the startups’ activity in Venezuela triggered concerns tied to U.S. financial rules, especially sanctions enforcement.
Banks like JPMorgan are required to know who they’re dealing with and where their money is coming from, or else the SEC will come knocking. Trump isn’t known to have a forgiving nature.
Trump seizes tankers and calls Venezuela oil a U.S. asset
While JPMorgan was shutting off access, President Donald Trump was going full steam ahead with new actions against Venezuela. 2 weeks ago, Trump’s administration has intercepted two tankers full of Venezuelan oil, with a third one now being tracked.
Speaking to reporters, the president said, “Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it. Maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves. We’re keeping the ships also.”
At the center of the crackdown is Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, already blacklisted under Executive Orders 13850 and 13884 since 2019. Trump’s Treasury department claimed in their official notice that oil sales are keeping Nicolás Maduro’s regime afloat.
Earlier this month, they officially labeled fentanyl (which they allege flows through Venezuela) a “weapon of mass destruction.”
The U.S. Treasury Department on December 11 sanctioned six shipping companies that have been moving oil out of Venezuela using shady location tactics and fake data transmissions.
The first company is Myra Marine Limited, based in the Marshall Islands. Next is Arctic Voyager Incorporated, also from the Marshall Islands. Then there’s Poweroy Investment Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Ready Great Limited, also from the Marshall Islands, was also sanctioned along with Sino Marine Services Limited, a UK-registered company that runs the TAMIA (IMO: 9315642), which was flagged in Hong Kong.
Lastly was Full Happy Limited, also registered in the Marshall Islands, and its ship took on oil in late May and sent it to Asia. Just like the others, it got hit with the same designation: E.O. 13850.
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