UK financial watchdog announces inspections against sites with suspected illegal crypto ATMs

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The Unit­ed Kingdom’s Finan­cial Con­duct Author­i­ty, or FCA, has announced the inspec­tion of sites across the coun­try “sus­pect­ed of host­ing ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed cryp­to ATMs.”

In a May 5 announce­ment, the FCA said it had coor­di­nat­ed with local author­i­ties in the cities of Exeter, Not­ting­ham and Sheffield to raid facil­i­ties sus­pect­ed of oper­at­ing unreg­is­tered cryp­tocur­ren­cy ATMs. The enforce­ment action fol­lowed sim­i­lar oper­a­tions from March in East Lon­don and Feb­ru­ary around the city of Leeds, where the FCA said it had issued warn­ings or cease-and-desist requests to sus­pect­ed cryp­to ATM operators.

“The action we’ve tak­en over the past few months and wider work shows that we will act to stop ille­gal activ­i­ty,” said Therese Cham­bers, exec­u­tive direc­tor of enforce­ment and mar­ket over­sight of FCA. “Besides dis­rupt­ing unreg­is­tered cryp­to busi­ness­es, the joint efforts have helped raise aware­ness of ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed cryp­to ATMs in the UK among the public.”

Relat­ed: FCA offi­cials tell UK par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee cryp­to reg­u­la­tion is unavoidable

FCA author­i­ties cit­ed its pow­ers under the U.K.’s Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Reg­u­la­tions from 2017 in con­duct­ing the inspec­tions. Accord­ing to the finan­cial watch­dog, it planned to review evi­dence gath­ered and “con­sid­er tak­ing fur­ther action where necessary.”

Accord­ing to data from CoinATM­Radar, there were more than 15 cryp­to ATMS in the U.K. at the time of pub­li­ca­tion by oper­a­tors includ­ing Big Sea Coins, BD ATMs, Cryp­to­bite­coin and Com­put­er House. It’s unclear whether any were reg­is­tered under the FCA. 

Mag­a­zine: US enforce­ment agen­cies are turn­ing up the heat on cryp­to-relat­ed crime



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