The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has conducted multiple raids across London, disrupting illegal peer-to-peer crypto trading in the capital city.

 

According to a press release from the regulatory watchdog, the crackdown was not conducted alone, as it involved collaboration with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Metropolitan Police Service.

 

“Working with partners, we continue to track and disrupt illegal crypto activity. Anyone running an unregistered peer-to-peer crypto business should assume we are looking at them,” said Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA.

 

 

Following raids at three locations where these illegal crypto trading activities were being carried out, the FCA said it issued cease and desist letters ordering the operators of these trading activities to stop.

 

Although peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency trading is not entirely banned in the UK, P2P trading is only allowed if it is conducted on a registered platform. However, the agency warns against P2P trading activities conducted directly between two users due to their potential to facilitate illicit activities such as money laundering.

 

The raid by the FCA is not the first of its kind this year. In April, the agency conducted a more intense crackdown on illegal crypto trading businesses, raiding eight locations across the UK where these illegal crypto trading activities were being carried out.

 

Similar Crackdowns Outside the UK

 

Outside the UK, several other regulatory agencies have also been going hard on illegal crypto businesses, with Australia, the United States, and India being in the news recently.

 

In Australia, the Australian financial intelligence agency (AUSTRAC) recently suspended or cancelled the registrations of 45 virtual asset service providers (VASPs), shutting down 96 CryptoLink ATMs across the country due to compliance and regulatory violations.

 

In the United States, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in collaboration with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Secret Service, coordinated action against Xinbi Guarantee, a large Chinese-language Telegram-based illicit marketplace reportedly linked to scams, money laundering, and other cyber-related crimes.

 

A U.K. court has sentenced three men for impersonating police officers and defrauding eight victims of more than £4 million ($5.4 million) worth of cryptocurrency.

 

According to the Metropolitan Police, the criminals called their victims, falsely claiming to be police officers and telling them that their crypto assets were at risk. They then persuaded the victims to provide their private credentials, which the trio used to transfer the funds to what the victims believed was a secure police account.

 

The Metropolitan Police also said the gang was highly organized and even created convincing police websites to deceive victims into believing they were legitimate. After receiving complaints from the victims in January 2025, officers launched an investigation into the case.

 

During the investigation, authorities identified common aliases, telephone numbers, websites, cryptocurrency wallets, and spending patterns that linked the gang together. Investigators also found that the suspects lived lavish lifestyles, despite one of them reporting an annual income of just £444.

 

Describing the investigation as highly complex and orchestrated by a group of calculated manipulators, Detective Inspector Geoff Donoghue of the Metropolitan Police's Cryptocurrency Unit said the team painstakingly traced the stolen funds while combining a range of investigative techniques to dismantle the criminal network.

 

The three men, Anthony Ikenwe, Hamza Bashir, and Kevin Nwamma, were convicted and sentenced at Southwark Crown Court.

 

Ikenwe, a resident of East Tilbury, was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to commit fraud and five years for money laundering, with the sentences to run concurrently. Bashir, a resident of Wimbledon, was sentenced to three years and nine months for conspiracy to commit fraud and three years for money laundering, with the sentences to run concurrently.

 

Nwamma, a resident of Watford, was sentenced to six years for conspiracy to commit fraud and five years for money laundering, both sentences to run concurrently.

 

The sentencing comes around the same time that a court in Taiwan sentenced the founder of the Bitshine cryptocurrency exchange to 22 years in prison for using the platform to carry out a fraud scheme and launder money.