The UK crypto regulations are about to come into full force as the National Crime Agency (NCA) launches a crypto division, allowing them to fight those using the crypto industry for scams. This unit will have some responsibility for fighting crimes that are happening in the crypto industry.
According to what was shown in the job advertisement for roles in the new unit, those working within the unit will be fighting crimes related to the crypto and other virtual currency industries.
Part of the job advertisement read, "This role will be part of a new project that will form a specialized cryptocurrency and virtual assets team. The team will sit within NCCU Op Support. The role will support existing and new investigations where specialist cryptocurrency experience is required, along with taking a proactive lead in identifying targets for further development."
For many, establishing such a unit for crypto crimes was long overdue as the United Kingdom has suffered more than $3 billion loss because of crimes traced to the crypto industry. Because of these huge crimes, the UK crypto regulations were forced to stop further crimes.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) also investigated and discovered that the crypto industry had been a major contributor or enabler of most financial sector crimes. So, the UK crypto regulations will reduce the rate of financial crimes recorded. The Financial Conduct Authority discovered that from March 2021 to April 2022, more than 443 major scams were recorded in the crypto industry.
The UK Financial Market is a Cesspool of Crimes
Investigations by government agencies have shown that crime in the country has grown with the help of the crypto industry. The crypto industry serves as a breeding ground for most of the crimes recorded in the financial sector.
Most of the crimes committed here are money laundering from other parts of the financial industry. The positions for this regulation unit will ensure that the increasing rate of crypto crimes in the United Kingdom reduces.
As part of the plan to reduce the number of crimes recorded in the crypto industry, the people taking these roles will bring out plans and strategies to make this stop. Also, those filling up these rules must have substantial experience handling and curtailing increasing crimes.
For the roles being advertised by the newly created unit, they are willing to take about five officers for the time being. However, the number of personnel in this unit will increase as time goes on.
The hike in strict UK crypto regulations is because of an increasing crime rate. Apparently, the government is trying to react accordingly to the surging crime. Chris Lewis-Evans, a manager at the NCA, confirmed that the crypto industry sector was increasingly accepting more crimes and enabling criminals.
"Cryptocurrency and virtual assets are widely viewed as specialist areas of knowledge, and [the new roles are] key to supporting NCA investigations in which these are used to enable serious criminality," Chris Lewis-Evans said.