FinCEN Director: Anti-Money Laundering Laws To Be Enforced In Crypto

The United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has recently stepped up to the topic of crypto and is in the latest cryptocurrencies news. According to the FinCEN director Kenneth Blanco, the anti-money laundering (AML) laws will be strictly enforced in the world of cryptocurrencies.

Reuters came with reports about this on November 15, noting that Blanco made it crystal clear that cryptocurrency companies engaged in money service businesses need to comply with the AML laws as well as share information about their customers.

The FinCEN director spoke at a conference hosted by Chainalysis, a New York-based blockchain analysis company. While speaking about the AML laws, he said that the so-called travel rule also applies to digital currencies and that the government expects cryptocurrency firms to comply.

“It [travel rule] applies to CVCs [convertible virtual currencies] and we expect that you will comply, period. […] That’s what our expectation is. You will comply. I don’t know what the shock is. This is nothing new,” the FinCEN director noted.

In what has become known as the travel rule, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines require regulators and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to collect as well as share personal data of transactions. This recommendation imposes the same standards in the crypto industry as the ones normally shared by the banking industry.

The FinCEN director was also in the news on crypto regulation for pointing out that FinCEN has been conducting various investigations which include compliance with the travel rule since 2014, also adding that this is the most commonly cited violation among money service businesses which are engaged in digital currencies.

Before this, the FinCEN director Blanco was a guest at the University of Georgetown where he said that AML laws apply to everyone:

“There is a reason you want to know … the person on the other side of that transaction — they might be dealing in some kind of illicit activity. Whether it’s opioids … or human smuggling on the other side … you want to know who that person is.”

At the event, Blanco told the audience that it is not that hard to obtain this information. All we’re asking for is name, address, account number, transaction, recipient, and amount,” he concluded.