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Cashing in cryptocurrencies falls under the norms of the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on money laundering, TACC reports.
This was explained by the plenum of the Supreme Court of Russia, which amended the ruling of July 7, 2015 with explanations of the legislation on the application of articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the legalization of property acquired by criminal means (Article 174 and 174.1).
As explained by the judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, Alexander Chervotkin, the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF), of which Russia is also a participant, “noted the urgent need for all member countries to take coordinated measures of virtual assets used for criminal purposes.”
This rule is also contained in the Council of Europe Convention on Money Laundering, Detection, Seizure, and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Criminal Activities, adopted on May 16, 2005, which Russia ratified in 2017 (for the Russian Federation it entered into force on January 1, 2018).
In addition, Alexander Chervotkin noted that in Russia’s court practice there are already examples of cases on the illegal use of virtual currencies.
“We have specific convictions that have established that criminal revenues in cryptocurrency, including from the sale of narcotic drugs, were later transformed into monetary funds by means of a number of financial transactions and were transferred into circulation by withdrawing it to bank accounts,” Chervotkin said.
The resolution of the plenum was supplemented with an explanation that “the subject of the crimes provided for by articles 174 and 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation may also include funds converted from virtual assets (cryptocurrency) acquired as a result of the crime.”