Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Ireland’s financial watchdog just dropped a multimillion-dollar hammer on a major crypto exchange, alleging that coding errors left billions in transactions unmonitored and potentially exposed the platform to serious criminal activity ranging from drug trafficking to child exploitation. Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) saw its Irish subsidiary slapped with a 21.5 million euro ($25 million) fine on Oct. 6 after ...

Core Points - The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Europe Limited €21,464,734 for breaching anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations from April 2021 to March 2025 [1][3] - Coinbase Europe failed to monitor over 30 million transactions, valued at over €176 billion, which accounted for approximately 31% of all transactions during the fault period [2] - The settlement included a monetary penalty and a reprimand, with a 30% discount applied to the original penalty amount [3] Transaction Monitoring Failures - Coinbase Europe did not fully monitor 30,442,437 transactions and failed to adopt necessary internal policies to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing [4] - The company took almost three years to complete the monitoring of impacted transactions, leading to the submission of 2,708 Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) [2][4] - The STRs reported suspicions related to various criminal activities, including money laundering, fraud, drug trafficking, cyber-attacks, and child sexual exploitation [2] Regulatory Importance - Effective transaction monitoring and timely reporting of suspicious activities are crucial for the AML/CFT regulatory regime [2][5] - The Central Bank emphasized that failures in monitoring systems create opportunities for criminals to evade detection, particularly in the crypto sector [5] - It is essential for firms in the crypto services industry to have robust controls in place to identify and report suspicious transactions [5]