The UK’s National Economic Crime Centre, a National Crime Agency unit coordinating the country’s response to economic crime, has ranked cryptoassets third among nine priorities agreed with the Financial Conduct Authority, the Home Office and the Treasury. The agency said criminals use crypto products to evade detection and transfer illicit value at scale, often through cross-border laundering networks that blend digital and conventional methods. It is developing a proactive, intelligence-led crypto capability focused on sanctions evasion, ransomware payments and traditional money laundering. Operation Atlantic identified 20,000 approval-phishing victims, froze $12 million and removed more than 120 scam domains in March, while Operation Destabilise has resulted in 129 arrests and the seizure of more than £25 million in cash and cryptoassets since 2022. The NECC plans to expand Destabilise and has resisted a blanket prohibition on crypto privacy tools.