Swift State Actions

There are reports that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSS) and the Investigation Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs have cracked down on an alleged organized criminal community. 

The FSS announced in a statement to the media that it carried out a raid on a group of hackers known as “REvil” or “Ransomware Evil” at the request of American authorities after a long time of investigations. The statement further stated that the raid led to a recovery of up to $5.5 million in fiat money and cryptocurrencies.

In addition, it said 14 arrests were made while they seized a number of computer hardware and equipment along with crypto wallets used in committing various crimes.

The statement read that in order for the arrested people to carry out their criminalities, they had built different malware, they had organized the theft of money from the bank accounts of foreign nationals by buying expensive commodities on the web.

Ransomware attacks that have to do with cryptocurrency wallets are done by hijacking a computer system by breaking encryption and locking out the victims out of their computer systems. To gain control of the system again, victims are asked to pay in cryptocurrencies into certain wallets.

The alleged criminals have since been charged under the Illegal Circulation of Means of Payment article under the Russian Criminal Code. The charge was carried out after all members of the group had been sufficiently investigated to have a proper assessment of their roles in the activities of illegally circulating means of payment.

Aside from the American request, there was a call by the National Financial Association of Russia for the government to regulate crypto assets. Although they oppose banning the usage and trading of crypto, the National Financial Association is currently seeking amendments to the proposal that guides cryptocurrency usage.

Russians Like Crypto

It is reported that the Federal Council of the Russian Duma was working to create a committee to assess and come up with decisive decisions on how to handle digital currencies. Nevertheless, in spite of the Federation’s strict position, a lot of Russians and businesses in the country are far gone in the cryptocurrency space.

Not long ago, Russian finance and lending company, TCS Group acquired Aximetria, a Swiss-based cryptocurrency services company. This was after Russia-based Tinkoff Investments announced that it has a crypto-related business in the works though companies are yet to offer such service by law.