In an apparent government crackdown on corruption and money laundering, Brazilian cryptocurrency exchanges have been given a 14-point survey to fill out detailing a number of areas in their operations.
Local news outlet Portal do Bitcoin covered the incident in an exclusive piece after obtaining a copy of the document that was served to the exchanges, despite the message being signed by the prosecutor Ana Paula Bez Batti warning that the dissemination of the message is prohibited by law.
The questionnaire covers a number of topics that will supposedly contribute to the study of combating corruption and money laundering in Brazil, and covers topics including compliance issues, limits offered to customers in relation to declared income, control over the number of operations, control over the originator’s identification, hashes of the portfolios and data of the partners themselves.
Question 10, for example, reads: ”Does the Crypto-Exchange trade popular crypto-coins for their anonymity, such as Monero, Dash and Zcash?” most likely querying these coins in particular as they are notably more difficult to trace ownership of. Other questions were more direct, such as number six: ” What measures, if any, does Crypto-Exchange take to mitigate risks related to money laundering and terrorist financing?”
The Ministry of Finance supposedly issued the questions as part of a stealth dossier “to protect the integrity of the financial system”. Each brokerage was notified they had five days to respond, with the data promised to be kept entirely confidential.
What do the exchanges say?
Portal do Bitcoin contacted three of the countries top 10 exchanges by trading volume, each giving a different response to how they are handling the situation and each wished to remain anonymous. One has been fully compliant, answering each question and has already sent its response. Another claims they do not know if they have received it but are looking onto all possible communication channels.
The final exchange to comment said they do not have any plans to respond to the survey, as it was not sent as an official document from the Brazilian government but rather sent through its contact form. As most inquiry forms on similar platforms send an automated reply, it is unlikely they will be able to claim they never received the survey when the government approaches them.
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