The Council of Europe's Economic Crime and Cooperation Division (ECCD) organised a three-day training for the Polish Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) on operational and strategic analysis of crypto-asset related cases, to further contribute to the effectiveness of the FIU’s operational and strategic analysis function and the Polish Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework.

Participants used the opportunity to actively take part in several practical exercises on blockchain monitoring, tracing of crypto assets and related investigations, and they were fully engaged in fruitful discussions with the Council of Europe experts, who presented complex technical topics in a practical way with many examples and visualisations, highlighting that the ultimate goal of all AML/CFT efforts is depriving criminals of the proceeds of crime in all its forms, including crypto assets.

The training provided additional insights to participants on incorporation of blockchain intelligence in operational and strategic analysis, and their feedback echoed that they gained additional practical knowledge and skills on following the trail of crypto assets across the blockchain. The trainers encouraged the participants in focusing on weak points of money launderers and terrorism financiers, particularly regarding converting crypto to fiat currencies and vice versa. Furthermore, achieving mutual trust, cooperation, and effective sharing of information in the form of public-private partnership with the virtual asset service providers (VASP) is another avenue leading to successful preventing of ML/TF. Finally, it is worth noting that several participants in the training were representatives of the Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and the Polish Financial Supervisory Authority (UKNF). 

As a follow-up, having in mind that the ECCD is supporting the Polish FIU through a series of workshops and trainings activities aiming to further improve their approach to development of useful and practically applicable strategic analysis products, the FIU will be able to further refine and finalise the Sectoral Risk Assessment of VASPs in Poland, as well as to incorporate blockchain intelligence in its strategic and operational analysis products.

The event was organised within the framework of the Technical Support Instrument initiative “Strengthening the risk assessment mechanisms and the AML-CFT strategic analysis function of the Polish financial intelligence unit”, co-funded by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.