The Russian Prosecutor-General, Igor Krasnov, called “criminal use of cryptocurrencies in the country” a serious challenge and said that amendments to confiscate digital assets that have become sources of income from crime are being prepared. He said this at a conference of prosecutors-general of European states, TASS reports.
“Work is currently underway to amend the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Law. This will allow the use of restrictive measures and confiscation in relation to virtual assets”, Krasnov said.
According to him, cryptocurrencies are also used for corrupt purposes:
“The latent nature of these criminal acts has recently been aggravated by the use of crypto assets as bribes and by cryptocurrency exchange operations as a means of laundering stolen budget funds”.
Last year Krasnov said that criminals widely used cryptocurrencies for illicit activities.
Russian law enforcement authorities regularly speak about cryptocurrencies in the same vein, says Mikhail Tretyak, a partner at the law firm Digital Rights Center:
“From their point of view, ‘crypto’ is evil and must be fully regulated, ideally banned under the threat of serious criminal liability”.
He noted that such a radical stance by law enforcement will only drive crypto business to other jurisdictions. There are also questions about how exactly criminal transactions will be tracked and criminals identified.
“Finally, I don’t rule out that, once again, very vague formulations will be proposed that will allow bringing almost any cryptocurrency-related offense within the scope of the law,” added Tretyak.
According to Chainalysis, in 2020, criminal-related cryptocurrency transactions accounted for 0.34% of total volume.
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