Russia's money laundering watchdog monitoring crypto to ruble transactions

Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, or Rosfinmonitoring — the country’s Anti-Money Laundering body — is policing crypto to fiat transactions.

The federal executive body responsible for AML oversight made this known while addressing the members of parliament on Tuesday, according to a report by Russian news agency Regnum.

In a meeting with members of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Herman Neglyad, deputy chief of Rosfinmonitoring revealed that the AML watchdog was working with commercial banks to police crypto to fiat transactions, stating:

“Banks have already begun to pay attention to exchange operations, that is, when they see that an operation has come after the exchange of virtual assets for hard currency, they have already begun to evaluate them and actually inform us about these operations.”

According to another Rosfinmonitoring spokesperson, the AML agency and the central bank are developing a framework to track suspicious crypto to fiat transactions.

As a federal executive body, Rosfinmonitoring reports directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Indeed, the agency’s remarks before parliament are coming on the heels of President Putin urging Rosfinmonitoring to pay special attention to illegal cross-border cryptocurrency transfers.

Investigations into the nature of crypto to fiat transactions in Russia are only the latest in a string of tightened cryptocurrency laws in the country. Following a December 2020 decree signed by President Putin, public officials have to declare their crypto holdings by June 30, 2021.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, some public officials have to sell their cryptocurrency holdings by April 1.

Russia’s major crypto law enacted in January 2020 created some legal foundation for cryptocurrencies in the country. While virtual currency ownership is permitted in Russia, Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets cannot be used as a medium of exchange since the law only recognized the ruble as legal tender within the Russian Federation.

Back in February, the State Duma announced that it was considering a new legislative proposal that will introduce crypto taxation in the country.