Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she plans to take to tackle money laundering through cryptocurrencies, in the context of the National Crime Agency's Operation Destabilise investigations.

Cryptoassets can be used illicitly or to launder the proceeds of crime. In April 2024, new powers came into force to search, seize and detain cryptoassets from criminal conduct or terrorist activity or cryptoassets that will be used in criminal conduct or terrorist activity.

Directed by the Economic Crime Plan 2 (and supported by an Economic Crime Levy funding) law enforcement are investing in improving both their capacity and capability in relation to the investigation of the criminal use of cryptoassets. This includes:

· Investing in specialist capability in the NCA and partner agencies, including the recruitment of an additional 475 Financial Crime investigators (280 currently in post) and developing improved crypto track and trace capability which will go live in December 2025.

· Funding public-private crypto collaboration teams in police forces and ROCUs through the Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme

· New training and upskilling that has been rolled out to improve law enforcement officers' understanding of cryptoassets, supported by the provision of specialist tooling (i.e. blockchain analytics tools).

· Building a new crypto-specific public/ private partnership within the existing Joint Money Laundering Taskforce structure in order to understand the threat and enable various joint initiatives (including around data sharing). Developing a multi-agency operational crypto cell to ensure that knowledge and abilities in investigating cryptoassets are pooled together, and that all available tools and powers are exploited efficiently.

Designing a system-wide strategy, with an accompanying roadmap of activities required to prevent and disrupt digital asset-enabled crime impacting the UK. The focus is on ensuring system co-ordination and collaboration, keeping the public / consumers safe, effectively disrupting criminals through robust enforcement and building global cooperation to effectively share information and improve consistency in regulatory standards.