Russian President Vladimir Putin orders crackdown on illegal cross-border transfers of digital assets

Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of developing additional measures to combat illegal cross-border transactions in digital financial assets at a meeting of the Prosecutor General’s Office on Wednesday.

Putin said that criminals are increasingly deploying digital financial assets, which requires special attention from the government. Additional measures should be taken to stop the illegal cross-border transfer of digital financial assets. Putin ordered local law enforcement agencies as well as the Federal Financial Supervision Service (Rosfinmonitoring) to give their full attention to the issue.

Since Putin did not elaborate on the context of illegal cross-border transactions in digital assets, it is unclear what he meant specifically. Russia passed its main cryptocurrency law in January 2020, officially banning the use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin for payments in the country.