‘All’ Russian Civil Servants Told to Declare Crypto Holdings

Russian public officials will be obliged to declare how much crypto they own, said the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office.

Per an official release, the Prosecutor General has introduced the changes in line with the country’s first crypto law, which was approved earlier this year and promulgates on January 1, 2021.

Although some believe that the law is a mere “glossary of terms” and a precursor to a more comprehensive bill that is still very much in progress, the new law will outlaw payments in cryptoassets and gives a legal footing to the crypto industry.

As such, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, yesterday stated that cryptoassets will soon have the same sort of “property rights” as other asset classes, such as real estate, vehicles and securities – and as such must be declared.

Krasnov added that all civil servants will be obliged to report their cryptoasset holdings as of 2021 with crypto to be considered “on an equal basis with other assets.”

Under Russian law, public officials who conceal or providing incomplete or misleading information about their income and assets can be prosecuted by the judiciary under anti-corruption regulations.

In the past three years, the Prosecutor General’s Office said it has seized or confiscated USD 441m worth of undisclosed assets from civil servants who have attempted to hide their earnings.

The office did not disclose how it would identify potential offenders, but solutions such as a Federal Financial Monitoring Service (known locally as Rosfinmonitoring)-developed crypto de-anonymizing platform, details of which were revealed earlier this year, may well play a part.
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Learn more:
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Declare Your Bitcoin or We’ll Take 30% of it – Draft Russian Law