The EU Council and the EU parliament have agreed a new set of anti money laundering (AML) rules known as AMLD6.
These rules aim to protect EU citizens against money laundering and terrorist financing. At least according to the bureaucrats at the EU.
Zbynek Stanjura, the Finance Minister of The Czech Republic said that there were loopholes in the existing rules that ‘criminals’ were taking advantage of. He said the the new rules would close these loopholes.
He also set his sights on crypto transactions, saying “Trying to stay anonymous when buying or selling crypto-assets will become much more difficult. Hiding behind multiple layers of ownership of companies won’t work any more. It will even become difficult to launder dirty money via jewellers or goldsmiths.”
New Anti Money Laundering Rules to Go After Crypto Transactions
The new rules are to be expanded to the entire crypto sector. All crypto service providers will be obliged to conduct due diligence on their customers. These new due diligence measures will be applied to transactions of over €1,000. They al so plan to ‘mitigate risks’ in relation to transactions with self hosted walles. It’s not clear what this means in practice.
The new rules will also apply to anyone who trades in precious metals, diamonds and other precious stones. It’ll apply to jewellers and watchmakers too.
A maximum limit of €10,000 will be set on cash payments in every EU country. Individual countries will be free to set lower limits.
Secrecy Abolished
The EU is also putting new rules in place regarding to the transparency of ownership and control of legal entities. All natural owners of legal entities will have to be identified.
The EU council are ordering member states to make sure that any authority with a ‘legitimate’ interest can access ownership registers. They say that such legitimate persons should include journalists and civil society organisations. This is a defeat for the recent victory in the ECHR on privacy.
A final version of the new rules needs to be agreed with the European Parliament before these tyrannical new rules come into effect. They’re likely to be implemented at some point in 2023.
Conclusion
These new rules from the EU are nothing short of tyrannical. Financial privacy already barely exists. This update of the EU’s anti money laundering rules makes things much worse. Many solutions exist to use offshore companies and bank outside the EU. There are plenty of crypto exchanges outside the EU who won’t be subject to these rules too. It’ll take a few months for these rules to come into place. Anyone with assets in the EU should take advantage of this time to put structures in place to protect themselves. The EU has some great places to live or get a second citizenship. But best keep your money elsewhere.
Liberty Mundo helps high net worth clients structure their affairs to protect their assets and increase their freedom. We can establish offshore structures in any jurisdiction worldwide. We help clients obtain second citizenships and residencies to increase their flexibility and personal safety. Contact us here to discuss your situation.
