The UK government has unveiled long-awaited legislation designed to tackle money laundering cases via UK properties and give British authorities more power to seize crypto assets used in facilitating them.
In a new report by the Financial Times on Monday, the government noted that the proposed legislation, the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill, will strictly address the use of crypto assets in hiding the origin of ill-gotten wealth.
The bill also seeks to strengthen anti-money laundering protocols to boost the confidence of UK-based companies and businesses to report any cases of money laundering and other economic crimes.
According to the report, the contents of this bill are explicitly targeted at restricting the in-flow of "dirty money" into the UK by supporters of the Russian government amid its invasion into Ukraine.
Commenting on the new legislation, British Prime Minister Borris Johnson said, "There is no place for dirty money in the UK. We are going faster and harder to tear back the façade that those supporting Putin’s campaign of destruction have been hiding behind for so long… Those backing Putin have been put on notice: there will be nowhere to hide your ill-gotten gains."
The government has also proposed several reforms to the Companies House, the U.K.'s registrar of companies. Per the proposals, every applicant setting up, running, or owning new companies must verify identities with the Companies House, which will be given more power to challenge any information that appears questionable.
These changes will be introduced as part of an additional Economic Crime Bill, which will assign new powers to seize crypto assets and bring them within the scope of civil forfeiture powers, tackling the growing threat from ransomware operators.
Additionally, it will include a register of overseas entities that mandates owners of international companies to reveal their identities to prevent criminals from concealing funds behind shell companies.
The meteoric rise in popularity of cryptocurrencies has boosted the influx of large institutional investors. Unfortunately, it has also attracted several bad players that seek to leverage its features to promote their criminal activities.
Earlier in January, UK law enforcement agencies seized bitcoin worth more than £300 million from criminals.
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