Cryptocurrency as an Enabling Instrument of Transnational Organized Crime: A Criminological Analysis

Abstract

Transnational organized crime now has new structural capabilities as a result of the rapid development of digital financial technologies. Instead of treating cryptocurrencies as a separate cause of crime, this article sees them as a tool that promotes illegal financial ecosystems. The study identifies the main ways to include digital assets in drug trafficking, cyber fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing schemes through doctrinal analysis, criminological interpretation and the study of 56 court decisions related to cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. According to the study, cryptocurrency primarily serves as an accumulation and transaction tool that complements traditional illegal financial mechanisms and improves cross border financial concealment. Although it accounts for a relatively modest percentage of illegal financial flows in the world, the technological flexibility of cryptocurrency-related crime increases the complexity of investigations and the fragmentation of regulations. A study of Ukraine's case demonstrates how institutional weakness and legal ambiguity create weaknesses that transnational criminal networks can exploit. The article proposes specific institutional and regulatory changes, such as improved international cooperation in blockchain analytics, stricter AML/KYC requirements, and clarification of the legality of digital assets. The ability of cryptocurrencies to reorganize the international logistics
architecture of illegal financing gives them criminological relevance.