Project Update
OSCE workshop strengthens Moldovan agencies' cooperation and skills in virtual asset standards and investigations
- Issued on:
- Issued by:
- Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, OSCE Secretariat
- Fields of work:
- Economic activities, Good governance
The OSCE organized a workshop on Virtual Assets Investigation and International Standards on 28 and 29 July in Chisinau, Moldova.
The workshop brought together participants from seven agencies, including the Central Bank of Moldova, the National Anticorruption Centre of Moldova, the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency within the National Anticorruption Centre of Moldova, the National Commission for Financial Markets of Moldova, the Office for Prevention and Fight against Money Laundering of Moldova (FIU Moldova), the State Tax Service of Moldova, and the Ministry of Finance of Moldova.
The workshop covered core virtual asset and blockchain concepts and the technology behind them, criminal typologies involving virtual assets, and the tracing, freezing and seizing of virtual assets. It also included a practical session on blockchain explorers and analytical tools, featuring a group exercise analyzing bank-to-exchange transfers and transactions routed through multiple wallets.
The workshop also provided the Central Bank of Moldova with an opportunity to present the Law on the Crypto-Asset Market, which is a comprehensive legal framework for crypto assets that recently passed its first reading in Parliament, following the approval of draft legislation transposing the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) into national law, as well as to discuss how different agencies can support its implementation.
"The progress made by Moldova in developing its legal framework for crypto-assets creates important strategic momentum to prepare all competent authorities for its effective implementation once the new legislation enters into force. By strengthening technical expertise and inter-agency co-operation now, the OSCE is helping ensure that institutions are ready to translate the new legal framework into effective action from the outset," said Zurab Sanikidze, Senior Project Officer/Project Manager at the OSCE Secretariat.
Overall, the workshop helped strengthen inter-agency cooperation in Moldova and deepen understanding of virtual asset investigations, including criminal typologies and the intersection of virtual assets and corruption, as well as of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) international standards and MiCA-inspired frameworks.
The workshop was organized as part of the OSCE extrabudgetary project “Innovative policy solutions to mitigate money-laundering risks of virtual assets,” implemented by the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, with support from Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom and the United States.