Spanish Ministry of Finance seeks to increase control of suspicious transactions with bitcoins

Recently it was learned that the Ministry of Finance and Public Function of Spain will monitor transactions with cryptocurrencies made by Spanish citizens (specifically with bitcoin) in order to prevent money laundering and tax evasion.

According to the Spanish newspaper Vozpópuli, the Ministry of Finance and Public Function will have knowledge of the banking data of all Spaniards who carry out operations with cryptocurrencies, information that will be granted by the financial entities that work with the digital currency exchange houses. This work will be much easier with the implementation of legislation prepared by the European Commission for next year.

Spokesmen of the government authority assured the mentioned Spanish newspaper that they suspect that the growth of the price of bitcoin in the last months has turned to the cryptocurrency in object of interest of those who look for to wash money. "Its high price and the upward movements of recent times make us think that it is being used for money laundering," they said. Therefore, determining who are the Spanish citizens who perform suspicious transactions with bitcoin (this is transactions of very high amounts or continuous movements of cryptocurrencies) is of interest to the Ministry of Finance.

In Spain, the Law for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, approved in 2010, obliges economic agents to identify their clients, detect and report suspicious transactions, as well as abstain from them. Although it does not currently have a specific legal framework for digital currencies, regulation is underway from the European Parliament and is expected to come into force - after adaptations of each member country of the European community - in 2019.

With this law, exchange houses will be obliged to alert the Public Treasury of each member country of the European Union of atypical situations such as "purchases of frequent virtual currency or large volume movements of those who operate", as the objective of said legal instrument is that "virtual money is adapted to the new times," said Pablo Fernández, lawyer specializing in bitcoin and member of the group of experts of cryptocurrencies of Europol.

For the Spanish case, Fernandez added that with the future European legislation, exchange houses will be under the obligation to "monitor and investigate their users and notify eye-catching operations without notifying the client, alerting SEPBLAC, the Financial Intelligence Unit of Spain, "he said. Fernandez added that it will be an arduous task, so they will also go to the banks.

All the transactions of the exchange house to a user, or of a user to an exchange, will be made available to the haciendas of each one of the countries of the EU, and of course also of the Spanish. From Europol and the European Commission it is known that it is very complicated to know who makes a transaction in bitcoin, hence the banks are called to know.

In addition, transactions with cryptocurrencies to finance new projects through Initial Currency Offers will also be available to Spanish authorities, Fernandez told the newspaper. Meanwhile, during this first quarter of the year, the Ministry of Finance and Public Function of the Government of Spain will be conducting an approach to everything concerning cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin.

The aforementioned regulation is already being developed by the European Police Office (Europol), who since July 2017 have been studying cryptocurrencies as a method of payment. On the other hand, it highlights the fact that the Minister of Finance of France is willing to propose at this year's meeting the regulation of bitcoin among all members of the G20, a group that includes the European Union.