AFP takes additional measures to prevent money laundering using cryptocurrencies.
Australian Federal Police (AFP), the principal and federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government, opened a cryptocurrency unit to target money laundering by tracing crypto transactions.
According to the news report shared by the Australian Financial Review, the decision was largely influenced by the fact that criminals started using cryptocurrency more prominently in their financial crimes.
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The national manager of the AFP’s criminal asset confiscation command, Stefan Jerga, noted that due to this reason, AFP decided that a specialized unit will be more valuable than officers picking up the skills as they go.
Jerga highlighted that although the unit will focus on tracing digital assets, it will also provide valuable insights about tracing transactions in other investigations.
It’s targeting assets, but it’s also providing that valuable, investigative tracing capability and lens for all of our commands across all of our businesses, whether they’re national security-related, child protection, cyber – or the ability to trace cryptocurrency transactions across the relevant blockchains is really, really important.
On September 5th, Australian Federal Police reported that they managed to seize more than $600 million in criminal assets. The AFP received the order from Commissioner Reece Kershaw to collect the specified amount in five years. However, AFP managed to do it in three years.
Based on the report, the AFP-led Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce (CACT) has collected $380 million in residential and commercial properties, $200 million in cash and bank accounts, and $35 million in cars, boats, aircraft, cryptocurrency, artwork, and other luxury items.
Although the seized assets in cryptocurrencies are only the minority, Australian Federal Police expects the newly established crypto unit to provide more insights into the amount exploited in cryptocurrencies.
In other news, The Australian Treasury is taking action to impose crypto regulations. The Parliament members Jim Chalmers and Dr. Andrew Leigh stated that the Government is ready to take action to create a framework for crypto regulations and expects to launch it by the end of 2022.
