The Swedish Police Authority and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) have identified some cryptocurrency exchanges as “professional money launderers” (PMLs) based on the support they have given to organized crime. This conclusion was reached after comparing an assessment of unrecorded and unlawful crypto service suppliers.
The FIU identified four distinct profiles of PMLs operating in Sweden: the node exchange provider, the hawala exchange provider, the asset exchange provider, and the platform exchange provider. Regarding this, the FIU pointed out that these groups are involved in systematic money laundering for criminals and criminal organizations.
Rising threat for licensed services as Crypto services expand
These cross-border conducts are a nuisance to the Swedish authorities with the FIU concluding that such transaction formations are some of the components of organized criminal activities.
They also pressed that the authorities and particularly law enforcement agencies should engage in the trading platforms and monitor them closely in order to curb these illicit actions. This, they said is needed in their local context in order to reduce the growth of criminal markets in Sweden.
Nevertheless, previously, genuine, licensed cryptocurrency exchanges were recognized for their efforts to fight money laundering. For instance, these exchanges were urged to maintain awareness and report any suspicious trading taking place within this business, and where necessary take appropriate action against such illicit trades.
Tax evasion of the crypt mining business in Sweden
Besides targeting the crypto exchanges, Sweden also aimed its crusade at Bitcoin mining. Stockholm-based Swedish Tax Agency recently conducted the investigation and discovered that among 21 investigatory targets, all 18 firms reported irregular or incomplete tax information between 2020 and 2023.
In this investigation, people were found to be involved in tax evasion and what was found to be that, about 90 million was unpaid.
Even though many of the mining companies managed to challenge the tax claims, the action by Swedish authorities is indicative of the country’s rising concern regarding the operations of the blockchain companies especially in the areas of mining and trading of the cryptocurrencies.
The report signals a clear message from Sweden: Every unauthorized operation to operate in the crypto market will attract legal and regulatory consequences.
