Key Points
- The National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) reports that criminals are creatively leveraging cryptocurrencies to launder money.
- Cryptoassets are now the third priority in a list of nine economic crime focuses established with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Treasury.
- A report from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) suggests that banning privacy tools in crypto would be counterproductive.
According to the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), a unit of Britain’s National Crime Agency tasked with addressing economic crime, there is a notable trend of criminals utilizing "innovative" crypto asset products to conceal their activities and transfer illicit funds on a large scale. This finding is part of the agency's annual report, released this week.
The report includes a threat assessment that outlines how laundering networks are increasingly operating across borders, utilizing both "novel and traditional" methods to navigate through both legal and illegal financial systems. The NECC notes that many organized crime groups have shifted away from laundering their own proceeds, opting to outsource this task to specialized networks for a fee.
Additionally, the NECC draws parallels between artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, mentioning the use of synthetic identities and automated processes to exploit banking systems.
Enhancing Crypto Oversight
In its recent findings, the NECC has ranked cryptoassets as the third most critical area among nine economic crime priorities established in collaboration with the FCA, the Home Office, and the Treasury, as of July 2025. This prioritization guides where regulated firms should focus their compliance efforts, placing cryptocurrencies ahead of traditional criminal cash and money laundering schemes.
The agency is developing "a more proactive and intelligence-led crypto capability" aimed at improving its response to pressing cross-cutting issues, indicating a shift from merely managing referrals to actively identifying its own targets, though specific details on this strategy remain undisclosed.
In a recent initiative called Operation Atlantic, conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Secret Service and major crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, and Tether, the NECC identified 20,000 victims of phishing scams and froze assets totaling $12 million in March.
Operation Destabilise, focused on Russian-speaking networks converting cash into cryptocurrencies, has resulted in 129 arrests and the seizure of over £25 million in the UK, marking one more arrest than reported in a previous update last November.
The NECC plans to extend its Operation Destabilise strategy to target other high-risk money laundering networks that pose significant threats to the UK’s financial system.
The report also includes a study on Privacy-Enhancing Technologies in the crypto sector, published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). This paper, based on discussions from a July 2025 roundtable hosted by the NECC, cautions against banning privacy tools, arguing that such prohibitions could drive illicit activities towards unregulated platforms, thereby complicating investigations. RUSI associate fellow Allison Owen emphasized to Decrypt that fostering trust through compliance features would ultimately promote broader acceptance of these technologies.