UK Urged to Beef Up Seizures of Criminal Crypto

The United Kingdom should augment its cryptocurrency asset seizure abilities as part of an effort to combat ransomware and other cybercrime, a parliamentary panel heard.

See Also: Live Webinar | Education Cybersecurity Best Practices: Devices, Ransomware, Budgets and Resources

Lagging seizure abilities is a roadblock to identifying and disrupting activities of ransomware hackers who launder extortion payments through cryptocurrencies, Aidan Larkin, CEO of Asset Reality, a London-based asset recovery firm testified Monday before Parliament’s Joint Committee on National Security Strategy.

The committee in October opened an inquiry into ransomware (see:UK Companies Fear Reporting Cyber Incidents, Parliament Told).

British law enforcement such as Metropolitan Police and the National Crime Agency have seized cryptocurrency during criminal investigations but the rate of seizures is not commensurate with the level of crypto adoption in the country, Larkin said at the hearing.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in April 2022 – when he was serving as chancellor – vowed to turn the U.K. into “a global hub for cryptoasset technology.” Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis says the country has the largest digital asset sector in Western Europe by transaction volume but also that “there has been little progress” toward Sunak’s goal.

John Carlin, a former acting U.S. deputy attorney general, attributed U.S government’s successful seizure of cryptocurrency paid by Colonial Pipeline as ransomware extortion to the government’s classification of the incident as a threat to national security and public safety. “This supercharged the U.S. efforts, the creation of the international task force on ransomware, increased resources throughout government,” he said.