While cryptocurrencies become a lever of choice for money launders, Tunisia is moving towards a specific law to frame and sanction these emerging practices. A legal and economic issue at the heart of a conference organized this June 4 in Tunis.
Faced with the rapid development of financial crime techniques, Tunisia is preparing to cross a new legislative cap to better supervise the crimes linked to the use of cryptocurrencies in money laundering operations. A necessity that has become urgent according to Tunisian legal experts, gathered this Wednesday as part of a conference organized by the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies (CEJJ) of the Ministry of Justice.
Zied Dridi, head of the criminal science unit within the CEJJ, recalled, in a declaration reported by the TAP agency, that money laundering today represents a systemic threat to national economies, on a global scale. He stressed that Tunisia has set up in 2015, then through the 2019 amendment, with a strict legal framework to fight this scourge, especially when it is linked to criminal or terrorist activities.
But the challenges evolve. The emergence of digital currencies has changed the operating modes of criminal networks. To deal with it, the center provides for the development of a multisectoral approach, involving the judicial, financial and control authorities, in order to identify suspicious capital flows and improve the traceability of virtual transactions.
During the conference, Inès Youssef, master assistant at the Faculty of Legal, Political and Social Sciences in Tunis, alerted to the growing role played by cryptocurrency in the money laundering circuits. It specified that in the absence of specific legislation, cases linked to the use of digital currencies are currently processed according to the general law in force, which limits the means of action of the judicial system.
Several bills are under study in order to adapt the Tunisian legal arsenal to the realities of digital technology and to anticipate the future forms of financial crime. The objective is double: better protect the national economy and strengthen international cooperation in the fight against cross -border crime.
