Project Update
OSCE delivers hands-on training on crypto-related financial crime investigations for Armenian financial institutions
- Issued on:
- Issued by:
- Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, OSCE Secretariat
- Fields of work:
- Economic activities, Good governance
From 2 to 3 June, the OSCE organized a two-day intensive workshop on investigating illicit finance in cryptocurrency for the representatives of Armenia's Financial Monitoring Center, the Central Bank of Armenia, and commercial banks. The training brought together analysts and investigators from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) alongside anti-money laundering (AML) compliance staff from the Central Bank of Armenia and commercial banks, fostering cross-institutional collaboration on one of the most rapidly evolving challenges in financial crime.
Built around real-world case studies, the workshop covered a range of criminal typologies - including fraud, ransomware, drug trafficking, and sanctions evasion - and walked participants through end-to-end investigative workflows and methodologies. Practical sessions introduced key techniques such as transaction tracing, wallet clustering, and risk scoring.
Dedicated modules addressed the specific operational context of financial institutions, with a focus on investigating transactions involving Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) as bank clients, as well as considerations for filing Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs).
The workshop underscored the critical importance of public-private partnerships in combating crypto-related financial crime, and contributed to building the mutual trust that underpins effective information exchange between the FIU and the banking sector.
Organized as part of the OSCE's ongoing technical assistance to Armenia, the workshop also aligns with the country's newly adopted Law on Crypto Assets - a landmark step in Armenia's efforts to regulate the digital asset space. By strengthening the capacity of both the FIU and the banking sector, the training directly contributed to Armenia's broader AML/CFT compliance efforts and supports the effective implementation of the new legislative framework. The workshop was organized as part of the OSCE extra-budgetary 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.