The FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia will be able to make a decision to block money transfers from Russians for ten days. Moreover, they will be able to do this without a court decision. Draft law with relevant amendments developed Rosfinmonitoring.
As explained in the explanatory note to the bill, these changes were required, since a number of crimes use accounts or e-wallets, opened for a short period of time for dummies.
The document specifies that transfers from cards and electronic wallets will be blocked if transactions are made for the purpose of paying for drugs, financing terrorism and extremist activities. The document also says that a decision can be made “in cases that do not tolerate delay, and in the presence of sufficient information” on the use of funds to organize a rally.
ten
days
the maximum period of validity of blocking operations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the FSB
The explanatory note to the document states that the extrajudicial blocking of operations will be valid for only 10 days, “since the suspension of operations entails a restriction of the rights of citizens related to the use and disposal of their funds.” After this period, the blocking may continue to operate, but only by a court decision.
The main criterion for an illegal money transfer will be “possible harm, the likelihood of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of illegal acts”. About it informs RBC with reference to the press service of Rosfinmonitoring.
Emergencies include preparation for a terrorist act or the sale of a large consignment of drugs.
The decision to block operations can be made by the heads of the Federal Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring, as well as their deputies and individual heads of territorial divisions of these departments.
It is clarified that the security forces will have to transmit messages about the blocking to the General Prosecutor’s Office within 24 hours. The department will be able to challenge the decision to block transactions if it was made in violation of the law. The term for consideration of such a protest is 48 hours.
To block transactions or cancel it, the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs or Rosfinmonitoring will have to transfer their decisions to banks. This mechanism will work by analogy with providing banks with a list of organizations and individuals in relation to which there is information about their involvement in extremist activities or terrorism, in order to block money or other property belonging to them.
In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that allows individuals to transfer money to other individuals through so-called anonymous wallets, while conducting simplified identification. We are talking about amending the law “On the National Payment System”.
Simplified identification assumes that the user provides their passport details on the website or in the wallet’s mobile application. Now the law allows transfers using “non-personalized electronic means of payment” only in favor of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, also subject to simplified identification. From August 2020, e-wallets can be replenished only if the person is identified. We are talking about such systems as Yandex.Money, QIWI-Wallet, WebMoney, PayPal and VK Pay. The introduction of measures is associated with the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.