Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to prevent Russian crypto assets being purchased in Britain.

Since 2020 UK cryptoasset firms have been subject to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations, requiring strict supervision, customer checks and suspicious activity reporting. Since 2023, these firms have also been required to collect, verify and share information about the sender and receiver of transfers.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (2023) gave law enforcement new powers to seize criminal cryptoassets. These powers, alongside the 475 new financial investigators funded by the Economic Crime Levy, new crypto track-and-trace technologies, and public-private working, empower law enforcement to tackle crypto crime, including peer-to-peer transactions between self-hosted wallets.

In addition, Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) works alongside other government agencies to tackle the threats posed to sanctions by illicit cryptoasset activity. OFSI’s recent Cryptoassets Threat Assessment informs how UK cryptoasset firms can combat breaches. OFSI is fully prepared to pursue any sanctions offences, and continues to scale up its enforcement capacity.