Victorian police to get ‘greater power’ to seize crypto assets from criminals

Victorian police in Australia will soon be given new powers to seize cryptocurrency and digital assets from criminals, as well as compel platforms to hand over information about suspects.

According to a statement released by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on August 2, new laws were introduced to Parliament on Tuesday under the Major Crime and Community Safety Amendment Bill 2022, aimed at cracking down on organized crime in the state.

The new bill is expected to give authorities “greater powers” to identify and seize digital assets, in response to the growing use of digital cryptocurrencies by organized crime.

The laws will uphold also require crypto exchanges to disclose information to assist in criminal investigations in the same way that banks would.

“They will be able to force cryptocurrency platforms to hand over information about suspects that banks must, and seize digital ‘wallets’.”

It would also give police greater search powers to obtain electronic data when executing search warrants and make the criminal’s “consumed property” more readily available to compensate victims of the crime.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Michael Bacina, digital asset specialist at Piper Alderman, said that since the wording of the bill has yet to be released, one of the challenges he sees around digital asset legislation is when it crosses state and federal borders. .

“One challenge in legislating digital assets is that state jurisdiction often stops at the border, so it is critical to ensure there is consistency in approach between different states and countries.”

Bacina also noted that police will need “proper training in the technology for seizing and securing private keys for digital wallets”, but also noted that criminals dealing in digital assets “provide a valuable tool for police in fighting crime, as transactions leave a immutable trace. evidence of a public ledger that is extraordinarily difficult to change afterwards.”

The Victorian Police Minister, Anthony Carbines, acknowledged that criminals are evolving their strategies, noting that “we must be just as quick to empower our police to respond to new ways of offending.”

Related: 74% of Government Agencies Feel Underequipped for Crypto Investigations: Report

Earlier this year, the popular crypto monitoring tool, Chainalysis estimated that at least $10 billion in cryptocurrency was held by wallet addresses linked to illegal activity as of early 2022.

However, Bacina noted that the research firm also reports that illegal use is at its lowest in the crypto-asset ecosystem, “so further reduction of illegal use of digital assets can only instill greater confidence in the digital asset and the cryptocurrency ecosystem.”