New type of crime in virtual finance spreading throughout world - Russian prosecutor general

RIO DE JANEIRO. Oct 22 (Interfax) - Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov has said at the First Summit of Heads of Prosecution Services of the G20 countries in Rio de Janeiro that a new type of crime in the area of finance has appeared in the world and urged the G20 member states to foresee and suppress these crimes.

"Currently, other types of virtual assets, along with digital currency, have become actively used around the world to commit crimes, for example, such as laundering of criminal proceeds. This allows us to talk about a new type of so-called DeFi-crime, which has already emerged and which must not only be curbed, but also predicted, including with the use of neural networks," Krasnov said.

He said that joint efforts are needed for more effective practical cooperation and unified legal regulation for countering cybercrime.

In July, the founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Changpeng Zhao, said in a letter in honor of its sixth anniversary that investment by major investment companies such as BlackRock , Citadel, Fidelity, and new wallet technologies in decentralized finance, and clarity in the regulation of the industry will set the major trends in developing the crypto market in the years to come.

Zhao said in the letter that DeFi will continue to develop, and new wallet technologies will make it easier for users to keep their crypto assets on their own. More people will use DeFi products and interact directly with blockchains.

Krasnov said in November 2023 that for the first time at the interstate level, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office initiated interim measures against cryptocurrency on the virtual addresses of the Binance crypto exchange, where the assets of members of the criminal community who stole individuals' money were accumulated.