In Romania, the government is set to conduct to its auction off digital currencies confiscated from criminal activities for the first time. The state agency in charge of vending off seized properties, ANABI, revealed on October 2, the auctioning of held bitcoin and ethereum in its upcoming auction event. However, the authority did not tell the specific amounts of BTC or ETH that will be auctioned.
ANABI demands full regulatory compliance
The announcement by ANABI noted that the opening price for 0.97 ethereum tokens will be $ 401 and for 0.6 bitcoin tokens will be $7347, as per the authority.
Furthermore, ANABI highlighted the winning bidder’s cryptocurrency address must be from a legally approved crypto exchange firm. Furthermore, the exchange of choice must be an entity that complies with Romania’s financial instruments’ legal enactments and policies. The exchange should implement know your customer (KYC) measures for its account holders and conform with all the local and international anti-money laundering regulations.
The Romania government was invited earlier to the European Court of Justice for holding up in thoroughly implementing the full set of policies laid down in the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Directive into law. The court recently penalized both Romania and Ireland as a consequence of delaying the implementation. Romania paid up to $3.5 million in fines, which was $1 million less than what the court was seeking due to the current economic climate.
First Romania crypto auction event
Governments across the have hosted auctioning events for confiscated cryptocurrencies connected to fraudulent events. However, this is the first time Romanian authorities are holding such an event. Three years ago, the Australian law enforcement confiscated 24,518 BTC as proceeds of fraud, which the Australian government ordered to be auctioned by Ernst and Young. Moreover, the Bulgarian government auctioned approximately 213,000 BTC seized by law enforcement. The United States government often conduct bitcoin auctions through the U.S. Marshalls.
