Russia to combat illegal cryptocurrency exchange

The Bank of Russia, along with Rosfinmonitoring, has embarked on the development of a platform to monitor suspicious transactions by individuals and to facilitate information exchange between credit organizations. This was reported by the head of the Financial Monitoring and Currency Control Service of the Central Bank, Bogdan Shablya, as conveyed by RBC.

The initiative is being developed to combat drops that provide their cards for shadow payments. Shablya noted that the clients of these drops are the largest online casinos, whose sites have been blocked, as well as Russian and foreign crypto exchanges, piracy sites, and darknet shops. According to recent data, around 10 million Russians have made transfers to dropper cards.

"This is typically not criminals, but ordinary people — some are purchasing bets in online casinos, some are buying cryptocurrency. But the involvement figure is impressive," added Shablya.

The platform being developed will allow banks to coordinate efforts to block the activities of such clients and prohibit them from opening new accounts.