Bitcoin could be causing a regulatory nightmare for officials across Europe. Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, is calling for greater powers in order to tackle money laundering schemes that involve the digital currency.
The EU law enforcement organization argues that it doesn’t have its own policing powers, but noted that local authorities are having a difficult time identifying and charging criminals who are conducting their illicit operations on the “dark web.”
“We’re seeing that virtual currencies are being used as an instrument to facilitate crime, particularly in regard to the laundering of illicit profits,” said Rob Wainwright, director at Europol, at a nuclear security conference in The Hague, Netherlands. “Criminals are abusing those freedoms and damaging society and threatening the security of millions.”
For the past year, authorities worldwide have urged governments to impose stricter regulations on the virtual currency so they can tackle illegal transactions, but the lack of clarity and insufficient resources have made it quite difficult for law enforcement.
It’s no secret that bitcoin has garnered negative publicity in the past year, particularly in October when the FBI shut down Silk Road, an underground marketplace, and arrested its founder Ross William Ulbricht. A couple of months later, Charlie Shrem, vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, was detained by United States prosecutors.
We reported Monday that the European Central Bank (ECB) has noted that bitcoin is too unimportant right now to cause any great deal of harm to policy decisions by officials. It has also confirmed that it is examining bitcoin and other virtual currencies.
