Europol creates dedicated unit to combat Bitcoin money laundering

Introduction: The European Commission is still working on regulating digital currencies, and EU authorities announced on Friday that they plan to set up a dedicated unit in Europol to combat money laundering crimes represented by Bitcoin. The three parties will coordinate the daily operation of the organization, including Europol, ...

The European Commission is still working on regulating digital currencies, and EU authorities announced on Friday that they plan to set up a dedicated unit within Europol to combat money laundering crimes involving digital currencies such as Bitcoin.

The three parties that will coordinate the day-to-day operations of the organization include Europol , Interpol and the Basel Institute. They released an updated set of operational plans in the wake of the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks.

In order to regulate digital currencies such as Bitcoin, the EU authorities came up with an initial plan in February 2016 and approved it in July 2016. At the end of July, the European Commission proposed to create a database to store users' real identities and wallet address information.