The number of Russian court sentences in economic cases related to cryptocurrencies rose by nearly 5,000% between 2017 and 2021. This was reported by сообщил Alexander Volevodz, the head of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at MGIMO under the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Сюда относятся хищения, мошенничество, финансовые пирамиды, скам-ICO. The range of such crimes is continually expanding, including through bribery, financing of terrorism and other forms of illicit activity.
The first offenses in the cryptocurrency sphere were recorded in Russia as early as 2012. Most of them were tied to drug trafficking.
From August 2012 to October 2017, Russian courts handed down 71 convictions for paying for drugs with digital assets. One more case concerned another illicit use of cryptocurrency.
According to the expert, around 60–70% of such crimes remain hidden, due to the absence of regulation and difficulties in international cooperation in investigating cases.
In November, Rosfinmonitoring recorded двукратный рост подозрительных операций с криптовалютами. These transactions are most often linked to the sale of drugs, fraud and corruption offenses, though there are also cases of financing terrorism.