The UK government has introduced into Parliament the  Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill which seeks to, amongst other things, give additional powers to seize and recover suspected criminal cryptoassets.  If entered into force, it will be interesting to see whether UK law enforcement agencies will use this power to seize and recover cryptoassets which are the proceeds of crime or associated with illicit activity such as money laundering, fraud and ransomware attack.

It is understood the Bill will principally amend both criminal confiscation powers in Parts 2, 3 and 4 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) and civil recovery powers in Part 5 of POCA to enable enforcement agencies to more effectively tackle criminal use of cryptoassets.