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SICCFIN: Anonymity is particularly sought-after by criminal

organisations by Milena Radoman

As the central authority in charge of the fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism and
corruption, the SICCFIN Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is keeping a close eye on the development
of crypto assets.

“For the international system, cryptocurrencies A dedicated crypto assets centre comply with international standards for the
represent an additional challenge. Virtual assets Faced with this risk, this Mon gasque anti- fi ght against money laundering in terms of

can constitute the preferred potential support for money-laundering warrior is getting into battle customer identification, which facilitates the
money laundering and terrorist financing practices mode. “When I arrived in 2018, one of my first transfer of illegal funds”; hence the interest in

and can obscure financial flows, making it difficult actions was to create a centre dedicated to using tracing tools like Chainalysis, a leading
to trace the link between the transaction and its crypto assets, which makes SICCFI one of provider of blockchain investigative tools and

authors,” warns the Director of SICCFI , Michel the first FIUs in the world to have taken this services for law enforcement in the US and
unault, back from the Financial Action Task initiative,” says Michel unault. In concrete Europe, to track down criminal crypto use and
Force, where this hot topic was at the heart of terms, the dedicated centre delivers training recover funds.
discussions. open to other state services, from the police
On the radar: the number of terrorist attacks linked to judiciary, via the Commission for the Control New monitoring tool coming soon

to or financed by cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin of Financial Activities, to become familiar with It is, for example, thanks to Chainalysis that the
has quadrupled in “a few years”, now accounting crypto technology, understand the habits of FBI was able to trace and recover a 2.3 million
for around 20% of attacks, according to the U . A criminals, including on the dark web, and how ransom in cryptocurrency paid by the company
U Security Council resolution calls on member to trace an operation. Colonial Pipelines; and also thanks to them
states to combat the risks associated with crypto Cryptos involve having monitoring tools. Today, that the American tax authorities, the Internal

and the financing of terrorism. Even if cash does “when a party subject to anti-money-laundering Revenue Service, were able to seize the equivalent
remain the preferred method of financing for laws, such as a banking establishment, receives of 3.5 billion in 2021 in cryptocurrencies: “We

terrorist organisations, “some terrorists post funds from raken, for example, resulting from a had contacts at Chainalysis and Ciphertrace.
Bitcoin addresses on their networks to appeal crypto euro conversion, he or she must question SICCFI will have to equip itself with a powerful
for donations and avoid regulated financial of the origin of the funds. We systematically analysis tool,” says Benjamin Aouizerat. For the
players,” notes Benjamin Aouizerat, head of the look at the files concerning these operations time being “no case of terrorist financing linked to

Crypto Assets Division at SICCFI . “Anonymity is as part of the control missions,” explains cryptocurrencies has been detected in Monaco.
particularly sought-after by criminal organisations, Benjamin Aouizerat. Why such vigilance “One Until now, there were no providers for digital assets
who favour networks that make it possible to can very easily download a crypto wallet and and associated transactions in the Principality
anonymise the origin of the funds,” adds Michel gain access to the crypto asset market. Apart but the situation may change with the new legal
unault, for whom “the risk is significant.” from the big platforms, many operators do not framework,” remarks Michel unault.

Depositphotos © HayDmitriy

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