Handbook on Countering the Misuse of Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers for Terrorism Financing Purposes
The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), the Federal Financial Monitoring Service of the Russian Federation (Rosfinmonitoring), and the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG) launched, on 9 September 2024, a joint knowledge product, titled: “Countering the Misuse of Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers for Terrorism Financing Purposes: Handbook Based on EAG practices.”
The context
The emergence of Virtual Assets (VAs) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) has brought significant positive changes to our world, driving innovation, enhancing efficiency, and promoting financial inclusion. However, certain characteristics of VAs also make them attractive to criminals, especially with the development of sophisticated digital tools such as mixers, tumblers, and anonymizers, which are designed to obscure transactional links to the original currency owners.
Facing varying levels of risk posed by the exploitation of VAs and VASPs by terrorist entities, Member States of the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG) have made considerable and commendable progress in integrating digital financial technologies into their domestic systems, demonstrating a strong commitment to enhance their financial systems while ensuring compliance with relevant international standards.