Visa and Mastercard have been accused of serious cases against their role in facilitating payments linked to illegal content on the adult website, OnlyFans.
According to allegations, by a compliance-experienced whistleblower, these two credit card giants did nothing to prevent the illicit activities happening on the platform, such as child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking.
A senior compliance expert in the banking and credit card industries has filed a whistleblower complaint against Visa and Mastercard with the financial crimes unit of the U.S. Treasury, known as FinCEN, citing that both card companies continue to process payments for illegal content on OnlyFans despite repeated warnings. The whistleblower, Reuters reports, knew as of 2021 that such activities were being done.
The complaint reveals that payment networks deliberately avoided implementing proper anti-money laundering technology to detect illegal monetary transactions—they "willfully failed" in such implementation.
Three US government departments including the Justice Department and Homeland Security Department and the US Treasury filed the complaint in January 2023.
The said complaint referenced a conversation between the federal agents and the credit card companies. It stated that the agents verified that there was child sexual abuse material existing on the said platform and showed them evidence of suspected sex trafficking.
The complaint...
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