Procuratorate Daily: Criminal Law Regulation of Cryptocurrency Money Laundering Faces Threefold Real-World Dilemmas

On July 12, *Procuratorate Daily* recently published an article titled **“Systematically Addressing the Dilemmas in Criminal Law Regulation of Cryptocurrency Money Laundering.”** The article provides a systematic analysis of the multiple challenges that current judicial practice faces in cracking down on cryptocurrency money laundering crimes.

The article notes that, in current judicial practice, when combating cryptocurrency money laundering crimes, the main predicaments are **threefold: the characterization of conduct, evidence collection, and recovering illicit proceeds and mitigating losses**. These predicaments constantly obstruct judicial authorities from effectively punishing cryptocurrency money laundering crimes.

First, in terms of **characterization of conduct**, because Article 191 of the Criminal Law still limits the money laundering offense to **7 categories** of predicate offenses, many cases can only be handled as **“concealment offenses.”** In judicial practice, concealment offenses show a clear tendency toward **“pocketing.”**

Second, at the level of **evidence collection**, the anonymity and cross-border nature of virtual currencies pose systematic challenges to traditional rules of evidence. These two features are like solid barriers, providing a shield for criminals.

Specifically, criminals use **mixers**, **privacy coins**, and **decentralized exchanges** to carry out multi-layer splitting and cross-chain transfers, thereby constructing a complex criminal network spanning multiple jurisdictions. This makes it difficult for traditional investigative methods to penetrate.

At the same time, the existence of the **public and private key mechanism** makes it difficult to establish **consistency in the identity of the criminal parties**. To link on-chain addresses with real identities requires **de-anonymization**, but this process has a high technical threshold, further increasing the difficulty of identifying the criminal parties.

In addition, data barriers between **trading platforms** and **payment institutions**—like **“information silos”**—make it difficult for investigative authorities to reconstruct a complete chain of funds. Coupled with the fact that updates to technical tools lag behind the iterative evolution of crimes, this leads to difficulties in obtaining evidence and conducting follow-up tracing.

Third, in terms of **recovering illicit proceeds and mitigating losses**, conflicts arising from the **legal nature of virtual currencies** create bottlenecks in disposal. A vacuum in procedural rules causes fragmentation across stages, and cross-border cooperation barriers hinder the recovery of assets.

At the end, the article calls on judicial authorities to build a systematic response plan in multiple dimensions—including **law, technology, and international cooperation**—so as to effectively address these real-world dilemmas.

#虚拟货币洗钱 #Money-laundering criminal law regulation