Turkey adds crypto firms to money laundering, terror financing rules
A presidential decree published Saturday added cryptocurrency exchanges to a list of firms covered by Turkey’s terror financing and money laundering. The move came after a ban on using cryptocurrencies for making payments, which was introduced in response to claims that such transactions are too risky, took effect in Turkey on Friday.
- Economy
- Reuters
- Published Date: 11:25 | 01 May 2021
- Modified Date: 11:28 | 01 May 2021
Turkey added cryptocurrency trading platforms to the list of firms covered by anti-money laundering and terrorism financing regulation, it said in a presidential decree published early on Saturday.
The Official Gazette said the country's latest expansion of rules governing cryptocurrency transactions would take immediate effect and cover "crypto asset service providers", which would be liable to the existing regulations.
Last month Turkey's central bank banned the use of crypto assets for payments on the grounds such transactions were risky. In the days that followed two Turkey-based cryptocurrency trading platforms were halted under separate investigations.
The probe into one of them, Thodex, led to the jailing on Thursday of six suspects including the siblings of its chief executive, Faruk Fatih Özer, who Turkish authorities are seeking after he travelled to Albania.