Judicial authorities and law enforcement in both Turkey and Russia have decided to join hands in order to fight against cybercrime.
This includes criminal activities that involve the use of cryptocurrencies. The Prosecutor General of Russia visited Ankara during which they agreed to collaborate.
New program
Bekir Bozdag, the Turkish Minister of Justice, and Igor Krasnov, the Russian Prosecutor General, have signed a new program aimed at cooperation between the departments for two years.
The meeting of the two high-ranking officials took place in the Turkish capital of Ankara. According to a report, the two sides agreed to coordinate their efforts in a number of areas.
One of these was fighting against cybercrime and this included cases that involve the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit purposes as well as other virtual assets.
Once the agreement was sealed, Krasnove talked about the experience that the Russian Federation has had in the field.
He said that the relevant investigative and judicial practice had been developed in Russia and they were making updates to the legislation applicable to digital assets.
He also said that they were running a pilot of the digital ruble, so they had something to share.
Russian activities
Krasnov also highlighted the draft convention that had been submitted last year to the United Nations, which was aimed at countering the utilization of advanced technology in criminal activities.
He added that Russia’s aim was to label a wide range of activities as criminal because these technologies are often used for influencing the minds of ordinary people, influencing political regimes, and promoting extremist perspectives.
The Russian Prosecutor General also added that Western nations only want to limit the understanding of cybercrime to only a small range of computer crimes and they do not believe that it addresses the problem.
Russian sanctions
There has been an increasing number of sanctions imposed against Russia by Western countries because of its ongoing invasion of Ukraine that began in February this year.
The sanctions limited Moscow’s ability to access the global finance market and others, which prompted Russia to use crypto for circumventing them.
However, these activities have also become the target of the latest round of sanctions, due to which authorities in Russia are not looking into legalizing crypto payments for international trading.
A number of jurisdictions had also restricted the use of Russian Mir cards, but there were some Turkish banks that continued to process their transactions.
But, there were two Turkish banks that chose to suspend Mir activities because of pressure from the United States.
Turkish media has reported that the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes that a new payment system could be developed with Russia to work as an alternative.
The two countries appear to be in agreement in this respect and it is possible that the new collaboration program could eventually lead to that.
Crime-related crypto activities are on the rise and they have become a global concern for authorities and governments.
