Supreme People's Procuratorate Issues Document: Systematically Resolving the Triple Dilemma of Criminal Law Regulation on Money Laundering Using Virtual Currencies

According to reports from the Procuratorial Daily, the People's Procuratorate of Yuhu District, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province and researchers from the Faculty of Law, Xiangtan University jointly authored an article proposing a systematic response plan regarding the dilemmas of criminal law regulation on money laundering crimes involving virtual currencies. The article points out that current judicial practice faces three major dilemmas: characterization of conduct, evidence acquisition, and recovery of illicit assets and loss mitigation. First, the money laundering crime under Article 191 of the Criminal Law still limits predicate offenses to seven categories, leading to a large number of cases only being prosecuted as the "crime of concealment." Second, methods such as mixers, privacy coins, and cross-chain transfers cause fragmentation of the chain of evidence, making traditional investigation methods difficult to penetrate. Third, conflicts regarding the legal attributes of virtual currencies, vacuums in procedural rules, and barriers to cross-border cooperation create difficulties in enforcing asset recovery. To address this, the article suggests promoting "one case, two investigations," establishing the principle of self-authentication for blockchain data, constructing a tiered standard of proof, and establishing a national-level custodial disposal platform for involved virtual currencies, while actively promoting the signing of special agreements on international criminal judicial assistance for virtual currency crimes.