Naples – “In Italy the market of cryptocurrency has already reached a volume of over 2 billion euros last year and there are only 1.800 or slightly more reports" said Giovanni Melillo, national anti-mafia and anti-terrorism prosecutor, at the conference on 'The system for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism: the role of notaries, accountants and lawyers' in Napoli'.
“The new risk area” in the anti-money laundering system comes from the cryptocurrency market, a challenge that tests “the stability” of this system as it has been conceived up to now. This is underlined by the anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, who in Naples participates in a Bankitalia initiative, 'The system for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism'.
Melillo highlights that "ours is a money laundering prevention system that the world envies us, it is a system with very high capacity for analysis, processing and intervention". But, warns the head of the DNA, once "this authoritative condition has been claimed", it must also be said that "it is a system that suffers a bit from loneliness".
“One could say not the solitude of prime numbers, because it is a system that would be called upon to operate on the basis of information coming from an extraordinarily large audience of subjects, a few hundred thousand considering all the categories of the so-called obligated subjects”, he explains.
The reference is to different categories of professionals and "it is precisely in this condition of solitude, a condition of limited participation, even of indifference in the system, called to cooperate in the performance of very delicate functions, such as, precisely, prevention and anti-money laundering, that some unresolved issues reside, which will continue to be unresolved despite any new regulatory maneuver, in the absence of a process of cultural growth and social responsibility".
Melillo highlights that "80% of the reports come from banking and financial operators. Among these, the banks themselves and Poste Italiane produce more than half of the reports of suspicious financial transactions".
Non-financial obliged entities represent only 5% or so in the shareholding system and among the professionals who transmitted just over 2024 reports in 8.000, the lion's share, so to speak, is held by notaries, who transmitted "almost 7.700" reports.
“Think that the entire world of accountants, accounting experts and labor consultants has sent just over 200 reports in a year – he highlights – lawyers have sent 24”. Then “a new area of risk is born, of worsening the condition of solitude of the information system of the Italian anti-money laundering system – adds Melillo – because virtual currency operators have sent just over 1.000 reports, equal to 0,8%”.
The world of virtual currencies, still thought of as a limited world in Italy, in reality is not. The cryptocurrency market has already, last year, reached a volume of over two billion euros. There are only 1800, slightly more, reports coming from this system”.
In fact, cryptocurrencies are the real challenge for the implementation of the new anti-money laundering package launched by the European Union, AML Package, "because cryptocurrencies challenge the very stability of the anti-money laundering system, as it has been conceived up to now", concludes Melillo.
Article published on 24 February 2025 - 14:47
