Swedish police classify illegal cryptocurrency exchanges as professional money launderers

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the Swedish Police Authority and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) recently released a report classifying certain cryptocurrency exchanges as "Professional Money Launderers (PML)" and identified four typical money laundering patterns.

The report categorizes these illegal exchanges into node trading providers, Hawala trading providers, asset trading providers, and platform trading providers. Node trading providers are deeply integrated into criminal networks, facilitating two-way transactions; Hawala trading providers are connected to underground banking systems, with extensive influence in the Middle East; asset trading providers systematically use crypto assets, with large transaction volumes; and platform trading providers operate on public P2P platforms, primarily serving small-scale drug buyers and fraudsters.

The Swedish FIU emphasizes that these illegal cryptocurrency service providers represent an emerging money laundering threat and are crucial to the expansion of organized crime. Authorities are calling for strengthened regulation of cryptocurrency trading platforms while also recognizing the role of legitimate platforms in combating money laundering, urging them to closely monitor suspicious transaction patterns.