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Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department is partnering with the University of Hong Kong to make a integer instrumentality to way cryptocurrency transactions utilized successful suspected wealth laundering schemes.
On June 12, Assistant Commissioner Mario Wong Ho-yin said customs officials would grow collaboration with academics, determination concern professionals, and instrumentality enforcement to counteract progressively analyzable and borderless fiscal crimes.
“These wealth laundering threats are characterized by a transnational and borderless nature, and nary azygous bureau tin tackle this occupation alone,” Wong said during a media briefing, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.
Per the report, the authoritative declined to uncover further details astir however the instrumentality operated, citing confidential elements related to the department’s work.
Wong Ho-yin delivering his concluding remarks astatine the closing ceremony. Source: HK GovRelated: Hong Kong to usage Chainlink protocol successful CBDC aviator project
HK sees emergence successful crypto-related wealth laundering cases
Between 2021 and May 2025, Hong Kong customs recorded 39 large wealth laundering cases, 7 of which progressive cryptocurrencies. Most were trade-based laundering operations disguising illicit funds arsenic regular transactions.
One lawsuit progressive implicit 1,000 suspicious transactions worthy 1.8 cardinal Hong Kong dollars (around $229 million), spanning 5 companies and 18 section slope accounts. Three individuals were arrested, with 2 accused of moving 760 cardinal Hong Kong dollars done a crypto platform.
The section and assemblage besides hosted a three-day store this week, bringing unneurotic instrumentality enforcement and consulate unit from 8 jurisdictions, including China, India, Iran, New Zealand, Thailand and Singapore, to fortify cross-border practice successful combating integer fiscal crimes.
Related: Jack Ma’s Ant International eyes stablecoin licenses successful Singapore, Hong Kong
Crypto exec charged for laundering $530 million
Iurii Gugnin, laminitis of crypto payments level Evita Pay, was precocious arrested successful New York and indicted connected 22 national charges for allegedly laundering implicit $530 million into the US from sanctioned Russian banks.
According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Gugnin utilized stablecoin transactions to assistance Russian clients tied to blacklisted institutions, including Sberbank and VTB, entree restricted American technologies.
The DOJ claims the strategy ran from June 2023 to January 2025, with Gugnin accused of ligament fraud, wealth laundering, and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. If convicted, helium faces the anticipation of beingness imprisonment.
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