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The purpose of this study is to exploration potential money laundering crimes with virtual currency facilities in Indonesia. Money laundering using crypto is the process of disguising the origin of money obtained illegally. Then, the perpetrator transfers it to a legitimate business. Virtual money then started to become a phenomenon in society since the emergence of cryptocurrencies as a form of technology development of e-commerce activities.

This research method is normative law which is prescriptive. The data collection technique used is document study or literature study by collecting primary and secondary legal materials.

The results of this study show that the bitcoin virtual currency has the potential to act as a means of money laundering. There are technologies and online platforms that are moving with more sophisticated methods. Through bitcoin exchanges, it has the greatest potential for money laundering. The usage of virtual currency (cryptocurrency) by those who commit money laundering offenses is responsible for the actions’ severe negative effects on the State of Indonesia.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study conducted in Indonesia that explores potential money-laundering crimes using virtual currency facilities.

To explain and draw conclusions from six recent bitcoin and virtual currency regulatory and law enforcement developments.

Discusses and draws conclusions from six recent, important developments: two administrative rulings from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), recent remarks by New York State Department of Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky, remarks by Mark Wetjen of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) informational sweep of crowdsales of crypto-equity, and the US Department of Justice proceedings against Trendon Shavers.

Rather than trying to stifle or control virtual currencies, US governmental entities recognize the long-term value of virtual currencies and are trying to create a regulatory regime to foster growth and development, and an atmosphere where institutional and retail investors are protected.

Provides an overview of the key United States regulatory issues facing companies engaged in Bitcoin-related businesses.

There is a clear consensus of opinion that virtual environments and virtual currencies pose a money laundering and terrorism financing threat. What is less clear, however, is the level of risk that they pose. This paper aims to clarify the suitability of virtual environments for conducting money laundering and terrorism financing activities.

A number of experiments were conducted to estimate the quantity of funds that could be moved through these environments. These experiments took into account a number of factors such as the number of accounts that would need to be opened to launder/raise a specific amount of funds, the amount of funds that could be placed within a certain timeframe and the transaction limits imposed by each of the massively multiplayer online games and online financial service providers involved in the money laundering and terrorism financing scenarios.

The findings of this research show that money laundering and terrorism financing can take place inside virtual environments. Virtual money laundering and terrorism financing offer high levels of anonymity, potentially low levels of detection, and remove many of the risks associated with real-world money laundering and terrorism financing activity. However, this comes at the cost of ease, time and, in some cases, the amount of funds laundered. Large sums (millions of dollars) can be laundered in virtual environments, but this exponentially increases the level of effort involved in setting up accounts and placing, layering and integrating funds.

A number of authors have described potential virtual money laundering scenarios, but some of these are out-of-date due to closed loopholes, all are rudimentary and make no attempt to discuss the practicality or feasibility of using these scenarios. This research addresses those issues.

The innovation of cryptography technique and blockchain has made cryptocurrency an alternative medium of exchange due to its safety, transparency and cost effectiveness. But its main feature cannot be separated from the users who use cryptocurrency for their illegal transactions. There are several arguments related to the legality of cryptocurrency. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nature of cryptocurrency based on characteristics of money, legal perspective, economic perspective and Sharia perspective.

In this study, the methodology used is descriptive with a qualitative approach. The object of this research is cryptocurrency. The data are secondary data obtained from peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers review, working paper and Sharia consultant reports addressing the legality of cryptocurrency. The literature review analysis includes the following steps: material collection, descriptive analysis, discussion with people in Sharia competency and intuitive-subjective material evaluation.

Regarding the characteristic of money, cryptocurrency is acceptable. But in terms of the legal perspectives, cryptocurrency does not meet the criteria as currency. From the economic perspective, cryptocurrency does not fully meet the characteristic currency due to high price volatility, and from the Sharia perspective, cryptocurrency can be considered property (mal) but not as a monetary value (thamanniyah).

The research findings are based on the journal articles, working paper and Sharia consultant report, and it may lack Sharia’s opinion. Any further discussion related to Sharia perspectives will be a great input to enrich the study.

This study also includes the implications related to the opportunities and the risks of cryptocurrency that can be discussed for the development of the cryptocurrency in the future.

This study includes the implication cryptocurrency is using as nature of money and not as speculative instrument.

This study argued the legality of cryptocurrency in four perspectives such as the nature of money, legal, economy and Sharia perspective.

This paper aims to illustrate how virtual assets are used in such criminal offenses as money laundering and seeks to study the role of financial intelligence (monitoring) of transactions with virtual assets effectively in combating money laundering.

This research methodology includes system and structural methods that help analyze the theoretical, organizational and legal bases of the financial intelligence (monitoring) of transactions with virtual assets. The authors use the doctrinal legal research approach to analyze and describe the legislation connected to the financial intelligence (monitoring) operations with virtual assets. To identify critical issues of understanding the “virtual assets” and “cryptocurrency” essence, the peculiarities of the scientific community views on the given definitions, the authors use the method of terminological analysis and concepts operationalization. The authors use the extrapolation method to determine the possibility of implementing the analyzed best practices of foreign countries in the domestic practice of financial intelligence (monitoring) of transactions with virtual assets as an effective way in combating money laundering.

This study demonstrates the role of financial intelligence (monitoring) of transactions with virtual assets as an effective way to combat money laundering.

The article is devoted to comprehensively studying “virtual assets” and “cryptocurrency” concepts. The authors carried out a comparative analysis of these two concepts with the definition of their features and the main characteristics and features that separate them from each other. The authors also stressed the need for countries to strengthen the requirements for situations and activities with virtual assets, where there is a high level of risk in a risk-based approach.

This chapter attempts to clarify and describe the legal and regulatory framework for cryptocurrency with special focus on Malaysia and the threats that it poses from the anti-money laundering perspective. Currently, very few countries have legislations that regulate cryptocurrency. Nonetheless, the crazy surge in prices (to more than 20-folds at some point) has sent both legitimate investors and criminals flocking to cryptocurrencies. This chapter analyses and compares the official reports from various governments, writings of government officials, experts and scholars in journals and newspapers, interviews and draws conclusions on the legal framework of cryptocurrency, and money laundering challenges. The study notes that the decision of the US regulators in allowing Bitcoin futures to trade on major exchanges to be one of the reasons behind the sudden surge. The study also finds that the South Korean regulators’ approach in banning its financial institutions from dealing with virtual currency is a positive one. The chapter stresses that it is not adequate for regulators to warn the public to act with extreme caution and increase their understanding on the risks they take on if they choose to invest in cryptocurrencies. Instead, it is necessary to have comprehensive international and national laws and regulations for the control and management of cryptocurrencies. In addition, the anti-money laundering legal framework must be improved to cater to the new threats posed by cryptocurrency.

This study aims to explain how cryptocurrency is leveraged for illicit purposes across the global financial system. Specifically, it establishes how cryptocurrency has been changing the nature of transnational and domestic money laundering (ML). It then assesses the effectiveness of conventional anti-money laundering (AML) policy and legislation against the proliferation of crypto laundering, using Canada as a critical case study.

Data was collected from court cases and secondary sources to build cross-case trends of cryptocurrency use in ML. Illicit International Political Economy forms the theoretical foundation for this study, whose contribution is situated in the current literature on crypto-ML.

This study finds that Bitcoin is common among crypto-money launderers, though most also use some form of alt-coin, and that the use of third-party currency exchanges is a prevalent method to create illicit funds and conceal proceeds of crime. The findings validate two hypotheses that illicit use of crypto is prevalent in the first two stages of ML, and that crypto is most often used in conjunction with other fiat currencies. Although law enforcement is improving on monitoring and understanding popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, alt-coins pose a significant challenge for criminal intelligence. New regulations for third-party currency exchanges are having a positive impact on curtailing crypto-laundering but are shown to be insufficient per se to contain the use of crypto in criminal activity.

This study contributes to a more robust understanding of the use of virtual currency in transnational and domestic ML. It contributes to an emerging body of literature on the role of technological change in enabling the global flow of illicit funds. It also informs public policy on virtual currency in general, and on AML regulation in Canada in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect of the issuance, adoption and use of digital currencies on economic sanctions with the focus being on the increasing risk of sanction evasion. The research sought to answer three key questions: What is the effect of digital currencies on economic sanctions? To what extent does the adoption and use of digital currencies increase the risk of sanction evasion? What remedial measures can be taken to enforce compliance with sanctions in the wake of increased adoption and use of digital currencies?

The research relied on secondary sources of data, using secondary research to collect archival data in the form of documents. Content and thematic analyses were used to synthesise the collected data.

It was found that digital currencies have significantly increased the risk of sanction evasion. This is because they facilitate the anonymous or pseudonymous conduct of international commercial transactions, which are hard or impossible to detect and track.

This research is the first to explore the different ways in which digital currencies as whole – and not just cryptocurrencies – affect compliance with economic sanctions.

The purpose of this paper is to define and characterize peculiarities of countering the legalization of criminal income with the help of virtual assets.

The analysis of the legislative delineation and the realities of the practical implementation of the features of combating the legalization of criminal proceeds with the help of virtual assets in Ukraine was carried out with the help of general scientific methods of cognition. The systematic method helped identify the main ways to legalize criminal proceeds with the help of virtual assets. Using legal techniques, proposals will be formulated to amend draft legislation on legislative regulation of the concept of “virtual assets”. The generalization method was used to develop ways to combat the legalization of criminal proceeds with the help of virtual assets. The method of legal forecasting was used to substantiate the proposed areas of combating money laundering with the help of virtual assets. The method of extrapolation will be used to determine the possibility of implementing foreign experience in domestic practice to combat money laundering with the help of virtual assets.

One of the relatively new and increasingly popular ways of money laundering is to commit this act with the help of virtual assets. Methods of money laundering through virtual assets include services for the conversion of virtual assets, P2P exchange, gambling sites, virtual asset mixers and the use of fictitious internet sites selling digital goods. The difficulty of counteracting the legalization of criminal proceeds with the help of virtual assets is primarily due to the lack of legislative regulation of the concept of “virtual assets” in Ukraine. Yes, the draft law is currently being finalized. Besides, even the current edition is not evaluated by the authors as perfect. After all, the issue of the content of the concept of “virtual assets” and its relationship with virtual securities, cryptocurrency and virtual property remains unresolved.

One of the relatively new and increasingly popular ways of money laundering is to commit this act with the help of virtual assets. Methods of money laundering through virtual assets include services for the conversion of virtual assets, P2P exchange, gambling sites, virtual asset mixers and the use of fictitious internet sites selling digital goods. It is essential to intensify financial monitoring by financial control bodies over the activities of conversion service centers. Moreover, given the transnational nature of legalizing criminal proceeds, especially those committed through virtual assets, international cooperation in combating this crime is vital. The authors have proposed specific measures to ensure that a coherent consolidation of efforts can be built.