UK’s Financial Conduct Authority Leads London Crackdown on Crypto Traders

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority said Wednesday that it conducted its archetypal coordinated raids targeting amerciable peer-to-peer crypto trading, hitting 8 London premises alongside taxation authorities and organized transgression units.

The Tuesday greeting cognition saw FCA officers contented cease-and-desist letters astatine each location, ordering traders to instantly halt unauthorized activities. The raids were conducted nether the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017.

Evidence obtained during the on-site inspections is present supporting transgression investigations, the regulator said. The coordinated enactment progressive HM Revenue & Customs and the South West Regional Organized Crime Unit moving alongside FCA enforcement teams. Senior officials from the agencies emphasized the transgression risks posed by unregistered operators.

"Unregistered peer-to-peer crypto traders operating successful the UK are doing truthful illegally and airs a fiscal transgression risk," said Steve Smart, enforcement manager of enforcement and marketplace oversight astatine the FCA, successful a statement. "We volition usage our powers and enactment with partners to disrupt them."

Detective Inspector Ross Flay of the South West Regional Organized Crime Unit highlighted concerns astir wealth laundering channels.

"By moving with our colleagues astatine the FCA and HMRC, we are capable to efficaciously people and disrupt unregistered peer-to-peer crypto traders operating illegally," Flay said. "As instrumentality enforcement, we privation to halt these traders providing a way for criminals to move, disguise, and walk amerciable money."

The raids correspond a important escalation successful UK crypto enforcement. The FCA presently has zero registered peer-to-peer crypto traders oregon platforms operating legally successful the country, meaning each P2P trading enactment operates extracurricular regulatory oversight.

P2P platforms typically let users to speech integer assets directly, often utilizing currency oregon slope transfers. These characteristics person drawn accrued scrutiny from fiscal regulators globally acrophobic astir wealth laundering vulnerabilities. Tuesday's coordinated raids people the FCA's archetypal carnal enforcement enactment targeting the assemblage aft years of issuing warnings astir unregistered crypto businesses.

Earlier this month, the FCA launched a consultation connected regulated crypto activities, covering areas specified arsenic stablecoin issuance, trading platforms, custody, and staking. Crypto firms tin statesman applying for authorization from September 2026, with the afloat regulatory authorities taking effect successful October 2027.

The consultation closes June 3, with last rules expected successful summertime 2026. DeFi and distributed ledger resilience rules volition beryllium addressed successful abstracted consultations aboriginal successful the year.