Criminals laundering money via social media, crypto deals, says expert
PUTRAJAYA : Regulators must 'up their game' to combat emerging money laundering methods involving unlicensed money changers and social media platforms, a regional financial crime expert said today.
Jessica Chuah, vice-president of Growth (Asia Pacific) at Crystal Intelligence, said criminals were increasingly using Telegram, Facebook and Instagram to promote peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency trades that masked illegal fund flows.
'These days, people say 'I want to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum', but a lot of those funds are illegitimate,' she said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Governance and Integrity 2025.
'They'll look for unlicensed money changers, often advertised as P2P traders on Telegram or Facebook. The commission is slightly higher, but the appeal is that you can't trace them.
'It's like I want to sell to you, and you want to buy, (it looks) just like I'm selling to my mother,' she said.
Chuah said these informal transactions were deliberately structured to avoid licensed crypto exchanges, which were bound by Malaysia's anti-money laundering (AML) laws.
'They will not go to the licensed ones. The moment they do, AML kicks in. So, they go to the silent players. Technically, it's quiet under the law. There's no record. That's the biggest threat. You're facilitating money laundering and disrupting the financial system,' she said.
Corporates complicit in silence
Also speaking at the conference, Joshua James, regional cybercrime and counter-fraud coordinator for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said businesses such as banks and telcos were ignoring fraud risks because enforcement could hurt their profits.
'Some of the companies are making a lot of money off of scams and fraud. And they don't have a strong incentive to be able to detect it,' he said.
James said even strong local laws might not be enough, as international criminal networks operated beyond national borders.
As such, he urged the country to lead by example in tightening domestic standards and demanding the same from its trade partners.
'That forces others to improve too,' he said.
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