Bank of Montreal senior manager Joseph Mari yesterday presented the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) with an overview of the role crypto-currencies play in money laundering.

He also explained blockchain's potential in the money-laundering and slavery fight.

Pope Francis has made slavery a top priority of his pontificate and helped inspire the recent PASS efforts, according to an internal document provided to CoinDesk.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) says forced labour including human slave trading generates annual profits of approximately US$150 billion.

The profits are gleaned from more than 21 million men, women and children in forced labour, commercial sexual exploitation and forced economic exploitation.

The slaves are mostly engaged in domestic work, construction, manufacturing, mining and utilities, agriculture, forestry and fishing.

PASS has held workshops, seminars and plenary meetings and has a "core" recommendation to resettle slaves where they are found, if they so choose, rather than repatriate them.

"Blockchain and cryptocurrency need to be on their [PASS's] radar, it needs to be recognised as something that is current, is being utilised and, the quicker the learning curve is surmounted, the quicker we can start working towards the risks that are presented," Mari says.

Mari also presented PASS with the most recent results of Project Protect.

Project Protect was founded in 2015 to teach anti-money laundering (AML) officers how to identify transaction patterns that might suggest evidence of human trafficking.

It identified an increase in the use of crypto-currencies by slave traders in Canada and other regions.

The Project has worked with blockchain data startup Chainalysis and other financial institutions to create new methods to identify patterns in crypto-currency transactions that might indicate a slave has been purchased or is being advertised.

"... I'm just really stressing from an AML standpoint that this is something that has been going on for the better part of 10 years," Mari says.

"And its [bitcoin's] uses are diversifying across the board, in terms both positive and negative."

Mari described the potential impact the PASS event could have on jump-starting the fight against slavery transacted in crypto-currency:

"The quicker we can start coming to terms with the fact that this is something that is most likely going to be here for the foreseeable future, the quicker we can start getting towards mitigating the risk."

Source

• Coindesk
• Ethereum World News
• Image: bravda.bg

Bitcoin is an online form of money that has seen its use and value skyrocket in the past year is a "cryptocurrency".

Jeremy Wight, Connections executive pastor since January 2013, said accepting Bitcoin can only help the small church - or for that matter, any business.

"Why not?" he said.

"Why would any business who understands Bitcoin not give people more options to pay for their services?"

Bitcoin is by far the most widely used cryptocurrency and Wright likes the idea of a global currency, like Bitcoin, which is not regulated by any government.

Wight said the church is also accepting litecoin, and will soon accept dogecoin.

Connections church accepted $6,500 donations in January and has not yet received any Bitcoin donations.

Wright says he has subdued expectations for Bitcoin donations, and says while Bitcoin has a long way to go, it is creeping into the the mainstream.

An online Bitcoin account does not have any personal information attached to it, can be transferred or cashed anywhere in the world that has access to the Internet. It is an non-government regulated currency.

Bitcoin is best known for shadowy business, most famously for its use as the tender for the Silk Road.

Sources

• Idahostatesman
• Image: Connections church