Cyberspace Police Focuses on Virtual Currency

“It is necessary to create a framework for sales and purchase of virtual currencies in online and physical bureaux de change,” Colonel Ali Mohammad Rajabi also told ILNA.

He noted that in addition to preparing the grounds to raise public awareness regarding virtual currencies, establish the infrastructure for identification, supervision and punishment must be put in place as the type of crimes are changing and cryptocurrencies may become a platform for committing crime in the future.

According to Rajabi, cyberspace police have two fundamental roles to play when it comes to virtual currencies, Financial Tribune reported.

“The first is that as the executor of judicial verdicts, it has to prevent the occurrence of crime concerning cryptocurrencies and evaluate challenges presented by these currencies for public security because cryptocurrencies can become instruments for crime and incentives for new crimes,” he said.

The official also likened the situation of virtual currencies in Iran to the ongoing case of illegal credit institutions that mainly spawned during the tenure of the former administration and robbed many people of the money they had deposited in hopes of gaining high interests.

“Platforms must be created so that such a thing will not happen in the case of Bitcoin as well,” Rajabi concluded.

However, Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali, who heads the Passive Defense Organization, called for adopting a harsher stance on virtual currencies.

“Virtual currencies pose the most important threat to the banking system and reduce the supervisory role of the central bank and the government in the monetary regime,” he was quoted as saying by IBENA.

Jalali believes that cryptocurrencies may be able to serve the country vis-à-vis international transactions and restrictions put in place by the US.