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Reyner Villaseñor, co-chair of the ICT Committee at the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, said that unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges, operating without regulatory oversight, have fueled kidnappings, human trafficking, large-scale scams, as well as drug and illegal gambling operations.
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MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines need to clamp down on unlicensed cryptocurrency platforms that serve as the financial backbone of organized crime syndicates operating within and beyond the country’s borders.
Reyner Villaseñor, co-chair of the ICT Committee at the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, said that unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges, operating without regulatory oversight, have fueled kidnappings, human trafficking, large-scale scams, as well as drug and illegal gambling operations.
“Criminal syndicates are exploiting regulatory gaps to carry out diverse illegal activities, using unlicensed and unregulated cryptocurrency platforms as their tools,” Villaseñor said.
These shadow platforms, he said, are enabling criminals to move millions in illicit funds with little to no trace — and the consequences are now surfacing in deeply alarming ways.
Citing data from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Villaseñor noted that Filipinos lost an estimated P460 billion to online crime in 2024, equivalent to 1.9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. This figure, however, represents only a portion of a much broader ecosystem of digitally enabled crimes that extend beyond purely online activity.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas likewise recorded P5.82 billion in losses in cybercrime incidents among supervised financial institutions in 2024, up by 2.6 percent from P5.67 billion in 2023.
“These numbers paint a grim picture: the Philippines is now in the midst of a digitally enabled crime epidemic - one that calls for immediate public vigilance, private sector safeguards, and proactive regulatory intervention and law enforcement action,” Villaseñor said.
Without properly audited know your customer and anti-money laundering controls — standards mandated on licensed platforms — these rogue exchanges offer near-total anonymity.
He cited for instance the case of businessman Anson Que, whose P200-million ransom was converted to cryptocurrency to make tracing efforts difficult.
Some platforms even provide advanced obfuscation tools, such as coin mixers and privacy-centric tokens, deliberately designed to erase digital trails and evade detection.
According to Villaseñor, while local virtual asset service providers routinely comply with court orders and freeze illicit wallets, foreign-based unlicensed exchanges routinely reject such requests — hiding behind jurisdictional loopholes and offshore privacy laws. Their non-cooperation stalls investigations and enables criminals to operate with impunity.
