Research On The Crime Of Money Laundering By Using Virtual Currency

With the increasing popularity of computer networks and e-commerce,the use of virtual currency has become more widespread.The virtual currency represented by Bitcoin and Litecoin has not yet been included in the scope of supervision of China's Anti-Money Laundering Law.The legal status of virtual currency is not clear,and it is easy for money launderers to commit criminal activities.This paper starts with the definition and characteristics of virtual currency and the process and mode of washing money in virtual currency,combines and contrasts the criminal law provisions and theoretical theory of money laundering crime,and analyzes the judicial identification problem in the crime of money laundering using virtual money.This article is composed of three chapters:The first chapter is an overview of virtual currency.First,the author briefly describes the definition and main features of virtual currency.Secondly,the author analyzes the legal nature of virtual currency and electronic money.Although the public easily confuses virtual currency with electronic money,electronic money is a digital form of legal currency,and virtual currency is currently only defined as special in China.Virtual goods,this is the essential difference between the two.In addition,the author analyzes the definition of the legal nature of China's virtual currency.There is no law in China to determine the legal nature of virtual currency.Only normative documents regulate the risk prevention of virtual property and virtual currency,but the number of normative documents is small and only for a certain type of virtual property or virtual currency.In addition,the current normative document merely denies that virtual currency is not a currency and cannot be used in the market,but it does not explicitly deny the legality of virtual currency,nor does it positively respond to the legal nature of virtual currency.The second chapter is about the process and characteristics of money laundering using virtual currency.Virtual currency has three main characteristics: the anonymity of the transaction subject,the diversity of the capital injection method and the complexity of the transaction model.As far as ordinary money laundering crimes are concerned,a complete money laundering process includes: placement,segregation and integration.When virtual money is combined with money laundering crimes,these three stages increase the occultist and increase the investigation difficulty.The means and process of money laundering are constantly updated and complicated.At present,there are two main modes of crime.The first is to directly use the convenience,anonymity,high liquidity and irrevocable nature of virtual currency to clean money.The second is to use the virtual currency dealer to participate in money laundering.It can be seen from the above analysis that the use of virtual currency money laundering crime makes it easier for money launderers to conceal their identity,to make it easier to blur the source of funds,and to make money laundering more efficient.In addition,the global liquidity of money laundering crimes using virtual currency also poses difficulties and challenges for the determination of jurisdiction.The author combines China's "Criminal Procedure Law" and "Several Provisions on Public Security Organs Handling Economic Crime Cases” and compares the jurisdictional determination rules of general money laundering crimes and the jurisdictional determination rules in the use of virtual money laundering crimes.In view of the fact that virtual currency exists in digital form,its creation,distribution and transaction are inseparable from the network environment.It is necessary to clearly define the scope of implementation of the crime of money laundering in virtual money.In fact,it is to define the scope of the implementation of cybercrime;When the virtual money laundering behavior is issued through the network,whether the transmission of the instruction passes through the place where the crime is committed is the main issue.The third chapter discusses the judicial determination in the crime of money laundering using virtual currency.The use of virtual currency money laundering crimes has serious social harm and should be regulated by criminal law.However,the use of virtual currency money laundering is different from the traditional money laundering crime.Based on careful analysis of the characteristics of using virtual currency to launder money,combined with the legal provisions of money laundering,judicial interpretation and criminal law theory,the author analyzes washing money in virtual currency from objective,object,and subjective aspects.Regarding the identification of the crime of virtual currency laundering,the author combines the objective aspects of money laundering crimes with Article 191 of the Criminal Law of China and the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in the Trial of Money Laundering and Other Criminal Cases.The regulations put forward the basis and standard of identification;from the difference between the use of virtual money laundering and traditional money laundering methods,explored and proposed the multiplicity and variability of the criminal object of money laundering in virtual currency;analyzed the relationship between the misunderstanding of the use of virtual money launderers and the criminal intention.