Qatar and senior EU officials may be involved in money laundering
2022.12.19 10:18
Qatar and senior EU officials may be involved in money laundering
Budrigannews.com – Prominent players in the blockchain industry have characterized Eva Kaili’s arrest as a blow to the ecosystem. She is a member of the European Parliament and advocates for cryptocurrencies.
Kaili, one of 14 European Parliament VPs, was captured and charged on Dec. 10 by Belgian examiners that are exploring claims of defilement, illegal tax avoidance and criminal association including Qatar and senior strategy creators in Europe.
According to reports, Kaili’s computers and cellphones, along with those of three other people who were involved in the investigation, were seized by Belgian police along with €600,000 in cash. Since then, Kaili has been expelled from the European Parliament, where she has served since 2014.
In the European Parliament, Kaili has been an outspoken advocate for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. In recent years, she has been crucial in guiding the body’s approach to the sector.
Erwin Voloder, senior strategy individual at the European Blockchain Affiliation, let Cointelegraph know that the claims against Kaili can’t be made light of yet concedes that her capture eliminates a truly necessary voice to help the digital money space.
Voloder also emphasized Kaili’s leadership of the DLT Pilot Regime and the 2016 Blockchain resolution, as well as her work as a Shadow Rapporteur advocating for blockchain technology in the 2020 InvestEU proposals.
In addition, Kaili took charge of an independent effort to investigate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) within the scope of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations that were recently adopted by the European Union. According to Veloder, Kaili’s efforts to investigate NFTs from a financial services and industrial application standpoint were beneficial to the blockchain industry.
At the German Bundestag in the middle of December, Voloder went on to talk about what he called “negative and uninformed arguments” against blockchain and Web3 technology. The economist is of the opinion that this negative sentiment is widespread throughout the continent:
“I think we have a similar problem at the EU level in that ideology can play an outsized role in driving how a certain technology or industry is perceived, especially in today’s hyper-partisan climate.”
Voloder also questioned whether the branding of the cryptocurrency ecosystem as “industry non-grata and guilty by association” was influenced by macro-events such as the implosion of FTX.
Because Kaili was kicked out of parliament, there is now room for another cryptocurrency advocate who is just as outspoken and enthusiastic to lead regulatory research. Voloder did offer an optimistic perspective, citing a recent workshop at the European Parliament in which representatives from the Commission and industry experts presented a variety of perspectives on the sector.
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Voloder also suggested that the Directorate-General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship, and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (DG GROW) might take on the responsibility of creating a framework for the NFT and Decentralized Finance industries.
