While the number of crimes the cryptocurrency is the subject and means of is growing in Russia, criminal cases and convictions are still negligible, and lawyers believe that the problem can be solved by clarifying the terminology in the framework of both existing and future norms, as well as by creating a specialized law enforcement agency – the “digital prosecutor’s office”.
This conclusion was reached by the participants of the round table held on August 28 as part of a meeting of the commission on the legal support of the digital economy of the Moscow branch of the Russian Bar Association.
Experts noted that they experience difficulties in assessing criminal acts related to new digital entities, hence the negligible number of criminal cases. The deputy chairman of the commission, the lawyer of Asnis & Partners Ekaterina Ippolitova explained:
“More often we are talking about crimes, where cryptocurrency is a means, for example, of money laundering or the purchase of drugs. Cases related to cryptocurrency as the subject of a crime almost never open. Most cases where victims want to protect their rights result in refusals to initiate criminal proceedings due to lack of regulation. ”
According to the associate professor of the Russian State University of Justice, Mikhail Prostoserdov, of the three classic features of the subject of the crime (material, economic and legal), cryptocurrency has only economic, therefore it is not recognized as a crime subject.
“Nobody canceled the subject of proof, and there may be problems,” a representative of the Moscow prosecutor’s office, Roman Shalimov, agreed with him.
The participants in the discussion were in favor of establishing “general rules of the game,” namely, to distinguish between the terms “digital” and “virtual” assets (in accordance with the FATF approach ).
The problem is that the concept of “virtual asset” now includes not only a cryptocurrency token , but also an item in a computer game, for example, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. In the relevant laws that are under consideration in the State Duma, the concept of “digital financial asset” is used, which does not include a significant number of existing cryptocurrencies and a number of other objects of digital property rights. According to the chairman of the commission, managing partner of the EBR law firm Alexander Zhuravlev, if the concept is not differentiated, then various interpretations of law enforcement will arise and, as a result, a violation of rights is inevitable.
The other side of the problem is the lack of modern methods to investigate cases related to cryptocurrencies. An expert at the Internet Development Institute, Boris Yedidin, proposed in this connection to create special investigative units specializing in the investigation of criminal cases in the field of digital projects, something like a “digital prosecutor’s office”.
Most of the panellists agreed with this proposal.
Publication date 08/30/2019
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