Kazakhstan’s financial authorities have targeted at least five online platforms that exchange cryptocurrency outside the law. Documents, computer equipment, and cryptocurrency wallets were seized during searches in the northern part of the country.
Kazakhstan’s financial watchdogs target unlicensed crypto exchange services
The Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) of the Republic of Kazakhstan has dismantled a group involved in the illegal exchange of cryptocurrencies. Its members organized transactions through several websites, such as kzobmen.com, 1wm.kz, kazobmen.ru, wm007.kz, and kz-exchange.com.
As part of the operation in the Kostanay region, inspections were conducted at six locations and items were seized that provided evidence of the platform’s operators, the watchdog said in a press release. Its employees seized a number of laptops, cell phones, flash memory sticks, and banking and accounting documents.
Authorities claimed that the organizers of the online exchange had a “particularly large” income from their business, but did not reveal the amount. They also did not reveal the number or identity of the group.
Investigators were able to establish that they had two crypto wallets on Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, with a combined balance of $6,000 in digital assets. Access to these wallets is temporarily restricted, the FMA noted. In wallets with other exchanges, coins worth more than $200,000 were found.
A pretrial investigation is underway, according to the announcement. The Financial Surveillance Agency also recalled that this type of activity is only allowed under the special legal regime of the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC
The Kazakhstan government has taken steps to regulate the country’s growing crypto market since the Central Asian country became a bitcoin mining hotspot following a Chinese crackdown on the industry in 2021.
To legally operate an exchange platform, crypto companies must obtain regulatory approval and register with Kazakhstan’s financial hub In October 2022, Binance was approved as a crypto exchange and storage service provider. Earlier the same month, it agreed to share information on crypto-related crimes with authorities in Nursultan.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons