FinCEN Director Reminds Casinos to Follow Guidelines Regarding Cryptocurrencies

The Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Kenneth A. Blanco, has insisted casinos to observe the office’s guidelines concerning suspicious CVC (convertible virtual currency) activity.

While addressing the twelfth Annual Las Vegas Anti-Money Laundering Conference on 13th August, Blanco imparted casinos to comply by the FinCEN’s regulatory guidance released in May.

With their direction, the FinCEN considered specific business models, including CVC financial foundations to enable them to adhere to their current commitments under the BSA (Bank Secrecy Act). However, the guidelines did not set up any new regulatory requirements or expectations.

Blanco indicated two regions where CVC crosses with gambling clubs and card clubs, which are online CVC gambling clubs just as physical gambling clubs and card clubs that acknowledge CVC for gaming.

Blanco noticed that gambling clubs dealing with cryptocurrencies should think about how they will lead due diligence on convertible virtual currency exchanges and blockchain analytics and how they will consolidate equivalent virtual currency-related pointers into their SAR filings.

He added FinCEN had offered different types of guidance to gambling clubs for meeting their extending compliance commitments. Also, gambling clubs must set strategies, methods, risk assessments, internal controls, which are identified with crypto resources.

FinCEN Director Blanco stated that the office had not received any SARs (suspicious activity reports) as anticipated.

In the broader sense, Blanco’s subject was the association with the financial framework and how reliability and transparency are the keys to battle against illegal tax avoidance and other financial crimes around the world and in the U.S. The information that casinos have the power to encourage into the framework under Banking Secrecy Act detailing requirements in the report form like SARS (suspicious activity reports ), can accomplish something beyond legal gambling an adaptable and transparent space. Blanco added,

In the case of using ‘big data,’ FinCEN is able to apply machine learning and other tools to all the reports and other information available to us to identify and build out illicit finance networks and identify new financial crime trends, which we can share with law enforcement, our OFAC colleagues, regulators, and the private sector.

A month ago, Steven Mnuchin, United States Treasury Secretary shared President Donald Trump’s worries on the utilization of cryptocurrency to illegal backup activity and focused on the role of authorizing FinCEN guidelines for organizations dealing with cryptos.

Roxanne Williams

Roxanne Williams has recently joined as a market reporter for CryptoNewsZ - the 24/7 crypto news site, where she produces recent stories, technical analysis and price updates on world's leading cryptocurrencies.

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