U.S. Eyes More Kleptocrat Sanctions in Crackdown on Corruption

The U.S. Treasury plans to expand its efforts to crack down on kleptocrats in a bid to promote “systemic change” in countries fighting corruption.

Additional steps would build on the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016, which has been employed to punish Russian oligarchs and Turkish officials, Marshall Billingslea, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, told a conference in Tallinn, Estonia. There is a need to target wealthy individuals, who have used the advent of crypto-currencies to act as “professional third-party money launderers,” he said.