Australian police will be allowed to confiscate cryptocurrency

Police in the Australian state of Victoria will be given more powers to seize crypto assets from criminals. The new bill will oblige cryptocurrency exchanges to transfer information that can help law enforcement in criminal proceedings.

The law is expected to give the authorities more powers to identify and seize digital assets in response to the use of cryptocurrencies by organized crime.

The law will also require cryptocurrency exchanges to disclose information to facilitate criminal investigations:
«The police will be able to force cryptocurrency platforms to hand over information about suspects, as banks do now, and confiscate digital wallets.

It will also give the police more power to obtain electronic data when executing search warrants and make the property confiscated from the attacker available to compensate victims of the crime.

Earlier this year, Chainalysis, a popular cryptocurrency monitoring tool, estimated that as of 2022, at least $ 10 billion worth of cryptocurrency is stored on wallets associated with illegal activities.