Dem senators' accusation: 'Trump company sells tokens to buyers from North Korea, Iran and Russia'
At the centre of the letter sent by two democrats, World Liberty Financial, a crypto company owned by the US president's family
The ease with which the Trump family does business around the world is now well known. The predilection for cryptocurrencies of funds and companies linked to the American president as well (in the first six months of 2025, Donald Trump earned a billion dollars between bitcoins, memecoins, tokens and investments from foreign funds). It was only a few days ago that news broke of the agreement between the Trump Organisation and the Saudi Arabian Dar Global for a resort in the Maldives - 80 extra-luxury villas - to be financed with blockchain technology. But if doing business with the Saudis is a matter of opportunity (even if there is always a conflict of interest), it is a very different story if Russia and North Korea are on the other side. This is what two US senators, Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed, claim, calling for an investigation into a crypto company, the Trump family's World Liberty Financial (the two co-founders are Eric and Barron Trump, sons of the president who is listed as co-founder emeritus) for alleged links to illicit buyers in North Korea, Russia, Iran. This was reported by the CNBC website.
In a letter sent on 18 November, Senator Warren of Massachusetts and Senator Reed of Rhode Island, both Democrats and minority members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, expressed concern that World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company owned and operated by the Trump family, may pose a national security risk.
The letter, obtained exclusively by CNBC and addressed to Justice Secretary Pamela Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, alleges that World Liberty Financial does not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent wrongdoers from moving funds or gaining influence over its governance. The two senators cited a September report by a non-profit monitoring body called Accountable.US, which claimed that World Liberty Financial had sold its $WLFI tokens to 'various highly suspect entities'.
These entities include traders with links on the blockchain to Lazarus Group, a notorious North Korean hacker organisation, a 'sanctions-avoidance tool financed with Russian rubles', an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange, and Tornado Cash, a notorious money-laundering platform, according to the watchdog.
World Liberty Financial denied any charges, as well as conflicts of interest 'between a private crypto company that has no political power and the US government' and assured that it conducts numerous anti-money laundering and identity checks on buyers before sales. However, the Accountable.US investigation, mentioned in the two senators' letter, questioned the identity of the token holders. The group's report found that World Liberty Financial sold $10,000 worth of $WLFI tokens in January to traders who had transacted with a wallet now sanctioned for association with the North Korean hacker group Lazarus.
