Russia moves to formally fold crypto into its anti-money-laundering toolkit, officials said this week — a step intended to make digital-asset flows easier to trace and criminal proceeds harder to hide. What happened - On Nov. 6, TASS reported that the Investigative Committee of Russia proposed adding cryptocurrency assets to the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) infrastructure. The proposal was raised at the 20th session of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Asset Recovery in Vienna. Anna Starzhinskaya, a department head at the Committee’s Main Investigative Directorate, represented the agency at the meeting. - The working group operates under the Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption and focuses on cross-border cooperation to identify, recover and return assets tied to crime. Why it matters - The Investigative Committee says its teams already use Rosfinmonitoring — Russia’s financial intelligence agency — and the agency’s specialized tools to analyze cryptocurrency transactions and develop evidence in criminal cases. According to the Committee, that access “makes it possible to track cryptocurrency transactions and obtain significant information to prove criminal activity.” - The new proposal would formalize crypto assets as part of Russia’s AML infrastructure, although officials did not provide a timetable or implementation details. Asset recovery and international cooperation - Starzhinskaya also outlined recent asset-recovery work: investigators, together with operational services, financial intelligence units and regulators, identified and seized more than $486 million in property tied to corruption cases during 2026. Investigators issued roughly 2,500 information requests to Rosfinmonitoring this year; data from those requests helped locate assets that were later frozen or seized. - Over the past four years, the Investigative Committee has executed more than 6,000 requests for legal assistance in a range of criminal matters. Starzhinskaya urged that international cooperation on asset recovery be driven by legal obligation, equality and reciprocity — and insulated from political considerations. Regulatory backdrop - The proposal comes amid major regulatory moves this year as Russia builds a supervised market for crypto trading and custody. A comprehensive framework that took effect Sept. 1 allows regulated trading, custody services and certain cross-border settlements under Bank of Russia supervision. The law introduced separate rules for qualified and non-qualified investors, including annual retail purchase limits and required assessments before retail participants can access eligible cryptocurrencies. - In October the central bank registered the first crypto operators: four exchange operators and five digital custodians. Major banks including Sberbank and VTB were admitted into the regulated system. Registered firms must follow transaction-recording and accounting requirements. Broader AML tightening - Financial-monitoring requirements have tightened alongside market rules. In September, Rosfinmonitoring required customers opening accounts with digital depositories to provide their taxpayer identification (INN), enabling authorities to link crypto accounts to identifiable individuals. For crypto transfers exceeding 60,000 rubles, covered institutions must collect and transmit detailed payer and recipient information, including account identifiers and personal data. - Russia bars digital depositories from opening accounts for anonymous customers or those using fictitious identities. Enforcement in action - Regulators have already targeted suspect wallets and schemes. In August the Bank of Russia blacklisted about 2,600 cryptocurrency addresses after detecting over 1 billion rubles in inflows to those wallets during the first half of 2026. Those addresses were added to a monitoring system accessible to banks and law enforcement. - The central bank also flagged 929 entities showing signs of financial pyramid schemes and another 379 suspected of illegally attracting investments. According to the regulator, cryptocurrencies were used in more than 74% of the pyramid schemes it identified. What to watch - Formal incorporation of crypto into Russia’s AML architecture would codify tools and reporting lines investigators are already using and could increase data sharing and enforcement against illicit flows. Watch for follow-up announcements detailing how the proposal will be implemented, which agencies will gain new powers or access, and how compliance obligations for exchanges, custodians and depositories will be operationalized. Read more AI-generated news on: https://app.chaingpt.org/news