It’s said that the European Commission and other governments are working on a plan to have a group of financial watchdogs look into illegal transactions at crypto companies.
Groups in the European Union led by Germany plan to include crypto companies under the purview of an anti-money laundering group that was first proposed in 2021. This group is thought to be led by the European Commission’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority that was first proposed in July of that year.
The group is said to start working in 2024 and be „fully functional“ by 2026.
An EU diplomat is said to have said that the inclusion of crypto firms in the AML watchdog’s agenda was meant to make sure that crypto transactions were covered more clearly by EU rules about financial services.
The unnamed official wanted the group to focus on high-risk cross-border transactions that were done by crypto service providers, as well as by banks and other financial institutions.
It hasn’t been talked about by EU member countries yet.
A member of the European Parliament said that it is important that the scope of the new EU authority include crypto-assets, because this is one of the fields that is more likely to be used for money laundering.
La Ley de Servicios Digitales protegerá a los consumidores europeos, pero la UE sigue rezagada en las transformación digital.
Necesitamos más inversión en innovación y un sistema universitario a la altura de EEUU y Asia.
Mi discurso en pleno pic.twitter.com/yZ0bYqcRD6
— Luis Garicano (@lugaricano) January 21, 2022
If this law is passed, the AML watchdog would be one of the first regulatory bodies in Europe that could keep an eye on money laundering across large parts of Europe.
Report: Chainalysis found that people laundered $8.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2021, which is up 25% from 2020.
Lisa Monaco, the U.S. Deputy Attorney General, said on Feb. 17 that the FBI would be forming a „specialized team dedicated to cryptocurrency“ called the Virtual Asset Exploitation Unit, which could help the FBI track down and seize money that was used illegally.
Team: The team was formed more than four months after the Justice Department started its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. It was led by Eun Young Choi, a former senior counsel to the former Deputy Attorney General.
