The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia to develop a mechanism for the seizure and confiscation of cryptocurrencies

Russian law enforcement agencies, together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to prepare proposals for the arrest of cryptocurrencies by 2021.

A representative of Group-IB confirmed the information that such a measure is being discussed together with other proposals to combat IT crimes.

"Cryptocurrency must be recognized at the legislative level as either a product or a cash equivalent so that it can be confiscated further", said Konstantin Golikov, the co-owner and CEO of the platform Dailyrich.ru.

"If the law enforcement agencies begin to discuss the confiscation of cryptocurrency, they actually launch a mechanism for the legalization of cryptocurrency in Russia. But, in my opinion, the Bank of Russia will seriously resist this," said Golikov.

However, in international practice, there are already many precedents for the confiscation of cryptocurrency by a court decision, despite the fact that the regulation of cryptocurrency is not legislatively introduced.

Even now, Russian courts and investigators have to deal with cryptocurrencies, despite the fact that virtual money does not have official status. For example, the Central Bank insisted that the hidden income from the Russian markets can be withdrawn to other countries through cryptocurrencies. In addition, in February 2019, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation extended the punishment for the legalization of criminal proceeds to electronic assets.

Recall that in 2018, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia should "carefully and cautiously" monitor the sphere of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the position of the Central Bank of Russia was that electronic money can not be a means of payment. An interesting fact is that in Belarus, in 2017, a decree “On the Development of the Digital Economy” was adopted, which recognized cryptocurrency as property.

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