FCA Targets Three More London Sites Over Unregistered P2P Crypto Trading

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority conducted a second enforcement operation against suspected peer-to-peer crypto trading on September 10, visiting three London premises alongside HM Revenue & Customs and the Metropolitan Police and issuing cease-and-desist letters to the operators. The exercise used powers under the 2017 money laundering regulations and comes after an earlier sweep in April; the FCA says material gathered in that first round is now supporting criminal investigations. The FCA has emphasised that any entity buying and selling crypto directly with others as a business in the UK must be registered with the regulator. Because the FCA currently has no registered P2P crypto businesses on its books, it regards every such operation as unregistered and therefore outside the anti-money-laundering controls registration would impose. The regulator warned operators to assume they are under scrutiny, with Steve Smart, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, saying those running unregistered P2P crypto businesses “should assume we are looking at them.” Metropolitan Police representatives highlighted investigative difficulties tied to crypto’s complexity and the rapid cross-border movement of funds. Detective Sergeant Sathish Alalasundaram said those factors complicate enquiries and that the force is evolving its disruption tactics as criminals change their methods. The FCA has previously supported criminal cases in this area, including a prosecution that resulted in a four-year sentence for Olumide Osunkoya over an unlawful crypto ATM network and backing the arrest of two people suspected of operating an illegal exchange. Currently, crypto activity in the UK is regulated mainly through money-laundering rules and financial promotions restrictions rather than a crypto-specific regime. That is set to change when the FCA’s new regulatory regime for crypto takes effect on October 25, 2027; applications for authorization under the new framework are scheduled to open on September 30, 2027, according to the FCA. The recent joint visits and cease-and-desist letters underscore regulators’ active enforcement approach to unregistered P2P crypto trading while the sector remains largely covered by existing anti-money-laundering law rather than dedicated crypto regulation.