Find a way to regulate Crypto currencies- FIA tasks Government

The Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) has come out to request the Ministry of Finance to come up with a structure in which crypto currency performance can be managed.

Mr Sydney Asubo the FIA executive director said this while speaking to a group of non profit organisations and non governmental organizations over the weekend. He said they have been asking crypto currency operators to register but few have heeded to the call. Most of these have continued to work illegally a thing that is dangerous for the business.

Virtual assets service providers are now in category 16 of the most vulnerable to terrorism financing and money laundering.

“Last year we gave them one month to register but only a few responded,” Asubo noted.

He explained that crypto currency operators have defied this order and continued to engage in illegal activities. This in turn makes makes regulating them difficult.

Many people have been scammed by pyramid and cryptocurrency companies. These affirm to provide out-of-the-world returns on investment. Mr Asubo however said there is a desire to understand people and organisations that run virtual asset companies. This will in turn help to safeguard users and the larger economy.

Non-government organisations we’re led by the Defenders Protection Initiative in this meeting. They went ahead to dispense a policy brief to FIA. It appealed to be disrestricted from the list of an accountable person under the second schedule to the Anti-money Laundering Act.

Mr Yona Wanjala the Defenders Protection Initiative chief executive officer, said the Anti-Money Laundering Act, groups not for the profits sector as the fifteenth most vulnerable institution to be used as a channel for the transferral of terrorism financing and money laundering.

However, in the three separate risk assessments undertaken by FIA to understand the institutions which are highly vulnerable. Non-government organisations were not mentioned among these.

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