Online fraud: can banks and cryptoasset exchange platforms be held criminally liable in Switzerland?
Daniel Trajilovic addressed this issue at AIJA’s French-speaking conference in Luxembourg on January 9, 2026.
In particular, he pointed out that the FATF and FINMA have issued several guiding recommendations on the transfer obligations of banks and cryptoasset exchange platforms, one of the fundamental principles of which is technological neutrality. The applicable requirements in terms of money laundering prevention or transaction monitoring will be identical, regardless of the technology platform involved. Thus, the standards applicable to banks will also be applicable to crypto-currency exchange platforms. More specifically, the Travel Rule will apply, requiring financial intermediaries to ensure that any transaction includes all information relating to the originator and beneficiary, as soon as a transaction reaches or exceeds CHF 1,000.00. In addition, financial institutions must monitor payments or transfers to detect those that do not include sufficient information, and block beneficiaries under sanctions (UN, EU, etc.).
Application of the Travel Rule is, however, more delicate in the context of blockchain, which is governed by the principle of anonymity. The only data required to make a transfer is the public address of the recipient’s wallet and the crypto-currency value to be transferred.
In addition, issues relating to anti-money laundering obligations were discussed, both when entering into a business relationship (KYC) and during the business relationship, and more specifically the verification of transactions.
One of the most important aspects of online fraud remains the traceability of cryptoassets, and the possibility of sequestering them once the offence has been committed. The need to act quickly, with the help of the prosecuting authorities, remains the top priority. As far as traceability is concerned, there is also software that enables all transactions on the blockchain to be traced, as long as all entries are immutable and irreversible on the blockchain(https://etherscan.io/; https://blockscan.com/), by means of the public address of the wallet used. However, it is not known who the beneficiary of the public address is. However, if the public address has been used several times, it may be possible to trace the history of this public address, in the hope that it has been used on an exchange platform which has carried out a KYC check on this public address. In a probabilistic approach, authorities can correlate transactions on the blockchain with external metadata (timestamps/IP addresses), even if the blockchain does not directly trace the IP address used.
The question of criminal liability mainly concerns the application of art. 305ter of the Swiss Penal Code (failure to exercise due diligence in financial transactions and failure to report) and art. 305bis of the Swiss Penal Code (money laundering). With regard to financial institutions, the question of money laundering by omission has been raised, particularly when anti-money laundering standards have not been respected, since intermediaries assume a guarantor position under the MLA (ATF 136 IV 188). In this respect, the Federal Court recently reiterated that failure to comply with the obligations of investigation and clarification (art. 6 MLA) does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the subjective element of the offence, i.e. awareness and willingness to accept assets derived from a crime, has been fulfilled, even from the point of view of possible fraud (ruling 6B_1180/2023 of November 24, 2025).
