The Monetary Motion Activity Drive (FATF) revealed steering for presidency investigation groups to get well bitcoin (BTC) and different digital belongings utilized in felony actions. This, bearing in mind that greater than 80% of jurisdictions present low effectiveness in seizures.
The Asset Restoration Information and Finest Practices particulars fast steps, from insurance policies to sufferer returns. “Public blockchains present immutable, real-time ledgers that assist speedy tracing and restoration,” the FATF states in its publication.
With the brand new set of suggestions, bitcoin seizures might be made extra successfully and shortly than conventional high-value items, as Chainalysis notes in its report revealed as we speak, November 13, 2025. Its analysis lately revealed that greater than 90,000 bitcoin stay illicit, awaiting seizure by governments.
The information urges prioritizing digital belongings to guard international monetary methods. And relating to this, the FATF calls for deal with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a definite asset class. It additionally requires accelerating legal guidelines that add readability to attain velocity in seizures.
The information insists that coaching ought to start from preliminary contact with the suspect or crime scene. It recommends coaching not solely cash laundering and terrorist financing specialists, but in addition non-financial personnel, similar to law enforcement officials, to determine bitcoin and cryptocurrency instantly. This consists of seizing {hardware} wallets throughout raids, seed phrases in paperwork or digital recordsdata, accounts on exchanges, and cryptoasset wallets on units linked to crime.
Nevertheless, the FATF information, though exhaustive in elements similar to monitoring, preliminary seizure and safe storage utilizing chilly wallets or multi-signature wallets, presents a notable omission in particular suggestions to forestall inner theft throughout judicial custody of digital belongings.
This omission turns into significantly evident when contemplating actual circumstances such because the one which occurred in Spain in April 2025. In that nation, an worker of the judicial administration in Marbella was arrested for the theft of roughly 17 million euros in seized crypto belongings, in what turned the biggest operation of this kind within the nation thus far.
The incident, investigated by the Nationwide Police, revealed vulnerabilities in inner custody protocols. It is because the suspect accessed the personal keys of digital asset wallets below judicial management, transferring the funds to private accounts after ready three months to keep away from instant detection.
In direct response to the April 2025 theft, the Spanish Ministry of the Inside awarded Prosegur on November 11, 2025 a contract for two.8 million euros (about $3.24 million) for the cloud administration and custody of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies seized in police raids, as reported by CriptoNoticias.
If something, the hole within the FATF steering—which doesn’t explicitly tackle insider threats similar to background checks, periodic audits, or entry segregation for judicial employees—underlines the necessity for nations to enhance these international suggestions with extra strong native insurance policies.
Whereas the doc emphasizes preserving the worth of belongings via transfers to nationwide custody applications (similar to Peru’s Nationwide Seized Belongings Program), doesn’t supply detailed methods to mitigate corruption dangers or inner neglect in extended custody phases, which may encourage future updates based mostly on classes from incidents similar to Spanish.
