U.S. Senate Targets El Salvador Officials Over Alleged Use of Crypto to Skirt U.S. Laws

• A US Senate Bill called the “El Salvador Accountability Act of 2025” seeks to impose sanctions on El Salvador and its key officials over a possible use of crypto to facilitate corruption and evade US sanctions.
• El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele scoffs at the legislative move as one from angry Democrats.

The “El Salvador Accountability Act of 2025,” a bill that sanctions Salvadoran officials and the country for alleged use of cryptocurrency for corrupt practices and evasion of U.S. sanctions, has recently surfaced online. However, President Nayib Bukele appears unbothered by the bill, which he considers laughable and a desperate Democratic initiative.

El Salvador Accountability Act of 2025 Surfaces

S. 2058 was introduced into Congress on June 12 by Senator for Maryland Chris Van Hollen (D) and has been referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. The bill proposes sanctions on Salvadoran officials over alleged human rights violations in the country and within the US, as well as using crypto and other technologies to finance such activities.

Among the targets of these sanctions are President Bukele, the Vice President of El Salvador, the Minister of Foreign Relations, the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Economy of El Salvador, and the Minister of Finance.

ADVERTISEMENTThe Democrat lawmakers have called these sanctions for findings, based on credible information, about any of the mentioned people who have engaged in abuses of internationally recognized human rights. Such violations include the “state of exception”—a legal provision that enables the government to temporarily pause certain civil rights under dire circumstances.

The punitive actions will also affect anyone who has accepted US taxpayer dollars to deprive American residents of their constitutional rights or used crypto or any other means to finance such anti-human-rights activities. Consequently, the bill demands a comprehensive report from the US government on El Salvador’s use of crypto as a vehicle for corruption and sanctions evasion.

Lawmakers Demand El Salvador’s Full Bitcoin and Crypto Footprint In Corruption Probe

The Accountability Bill requires the Secretary of State to submit to some designated Committees a “report on the actions of officials of the Government of El Salvador, including President Nayib Bukele,” to use cryptocurrency as a “mechanism for gross corruption, graft, and sanctions evasion.”

ADVERTISEMENTThe report is expected 90 days from the enactment of the bill and will include an estimate of how much funding the Salvadoran government spent on buying Bitcoin and other crypto assets. It would also contain the list of exchanges through which the government purchased these cryptocurrencies.

Also, the US Secretary of State would report the deposit addresses of these cryptocurrencies, those with access to them, and an assessment of possible gaps in the country’s crypto strategy that are being exploited for corruption. The report will equally assess the use of Bitcoin and other cryptos in El Salvador as a “vector to evade financial sanctions imposed on other countries.”
Rather than issue a formal statement, El Salvador’s President Bukele laughed off the US Senate’s sanctions bill, while describing the Democrats as “just salty.” The Salvadoran government has successfully stacked 6,232 BTC through its purchase of 1 Bitcoin per day since 2021.

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