Is the Latin American Crypto Market Paying the Price for Lax Security and KYC/AML Norms?Latin American economies are in turmoil, and among the saving measures, have adopted cryptocurrencies to tide over their challenges. Venezuela, the country that made news for its inflated currency, even rolled out the first sovereign crypto coin, the Petros (PTR). The Latin American region counts the largest number of users of cryptocurrencies in the world. All of this sounds good for crypto, but all is not well.
Latin America is “a ripe environment for financially motivated hackers, persistent fraudsters, and even drug cartels working with cybercriminals,” says a recent report, ‘The Dark Side of Latin America’ published by the IntSights, a threat intelligence firm.
Five among the top ten crypto friendly countries are from Latin America: Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Chile. There are several reasons for this popularity, a big one being remittances. The migrant workers send back money easily using cryptocurrency platforms. Another factor is that only about half of the population is banked.
With cryptocurrencies widely used, the money laundering market is also huge. Lax regulation means criminal enterprises, cartels, hackers and money laundering enterprises are blooming, and crypto is just the right medium. The crypto platforms do not have strict KYC and AML norms, nor are there regulations to govern them.
For instance, P2P exchanges are quite popular for money laundering. The report names LocalBitcoins where AML measures are weak, with the exchange suspending user accounts for security reasons. The recent scam involving Crypto Capital is also a warning signal, as it was able to deceive Bitfinex, a reputed and large bitcoin exchange.
It’s no wonder that illicit crypto funds from around the world, estimated as much as 97 percent, get diverted to Latin American crypto exchanges. The report cites the case of a big money laundering scam worth $ 350 million involving Panama based Crypto Capital, which was in the payment business. The funds were reportedly tied to Colombian drug cartels.
In brief, weak and unenforced KYC/AML norms in Latin America have attracted criminal and threat based organizations to operate carefree using local crypto and P2P exchanges. A region that could have been a leading use case for adoption of cryptocurrencies now stands tarnished, becoming the exact opposite case for why not to adopt cryptocurrencies.
One way out for Latin America is to involve the government for regulation and monitoring. For instance, Brazil has passed a rule to require citizens to report their cryptocurrency transactions.
The role of standardized and impeccable KYC/AML processes can’t be exaggerated. There are today third party KYC services with standard norms and compliance procedures that can identify and validate crypto users, and share the KYC profiles with governments and online partners.
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