Previously, for those held criminally liable, physical assets such as gold-silver, property, vehicles, etc., were confiscated.
Now the times have changed.
STB has announced that cryptocurrency, which is the subject of the crime, has been seized. And it has been directed to international virtual asset service providers for enforcement based on a court decision.
Although it did not specify which cryptocurrency or which global exchange, it is presumed that the discussion is about Bitcoin or Ethereum, as well as the Binance or BitGet exchanges popular in our country.
Global exchanges also usually execute requests received by court order immediately.
I wonder what the motive was?
The STB's statement does not provide information about this.
It can be assumed that while investigating a certain organized group’s cybercrime, STB identified that cryptocurrencies were used in committing this crime.
The legislation also envisages confiscation of all property obtained during the criminal process, including intangible assets, namely virtual assets.
This is the first such incident in the history of Azerbaijan where cryptocurrency has been seized and confiscated by court order in a criminal case.
I think this step creates an important precedent in strengthening the legal status of virtual assets in our country and marks the beginning of a new phase in combating digital crime.
I remind you that so far a law on virtual assets has not been adopted in our country. Some time ago, during a meeting at the Central Bank, the institution's leadership stated that the mentioned draft law was being prepared.
So what will be the fate of the confiscated cryptocurrency?
In international practice, confiscated cryptocurrencies are usually either sold at auction or directed to state reserves.
From this, we can conclude that soon if we see any state institution putting cryptocurrency up for sale on the Ministry of Justice's herrac.gov.az portal, we should not be surprised.
Osman Gündüz,
Head of the Azerbaijan Internet Forum, Director of Multimedia Center
