The Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force held a regional workshop in Cairo on virtual assets and the laundering of illicit proceeds from trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants. Organized with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa, the Egyptian Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Combating Unit, and Egypt’s national coordinating committee on illegal migration and trafficking in persons, the event focused on risks linked to virtual assets and virtual asset service providers, the implementation of FATF Recommendation 15, and emerging criminal typologies involving organized criminal groups. Around 50 representatives from law enforcement authorities, prosecution offices, Financial Intelligence Units, international and regional organizations, and blockchain analytics platforms from the Middle East and North Africa region and beyond attended. Sessions covered cryptocurrency-based money laundering methods, blockchain investigations, digital wallets, blockchain tracing techniques, and practical investigative approaches, and examined how Web3 gaming environments, decentralized finance, stablecoins, decentralized exchanges, and other blockchain-based ecosystems can facilitate illicit financial flows and organized criminal activity.

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