Illegal Currency Transactions and Their Promotion on the Internet Declared a Crime

The committee for determining criminal definitions, or the committee for filtering illegal currency transactions and their promotion on the internet, has declared it a crime.

According to IDEA, based on the decision of the committee for determining criminal content definitions of the country’s attorney general’s office, ‘any form of illegal currency transactions in the virtual space, such as buying and selling, transfers, futures currency transactions, currency brokerage, and advertising such activities in the virtual space without the Central Bank’s authorization’ has been included in the list of criminal content definitions.

According to the public relations of the Central Bank, this decision was made in the 138th meeting of the committee for determining criminal content definitions. Accordingly, ‘any form of illegal currency transactions in the virtual space, such as buying and selling, transfers, futures currency transactions, currency brokerage, and advertising such activities in the virtual space without the Central Bank’s authorization’ has been approved as item ‘h.12’ in the list of criminal content definitions. This item expands the scope of criminalization, leading to a computer-related crime.

List of Criminalized Content

Among other cases, the committee for determining criminal definitions has also criminalized the publication or distribution and making available data or software that is solely used for committing computer crimes. Additionally, the sale, publication, or making available of unauthorized passwords and data that enable unauthorized access to governmental or public computer and telecommunication systems has been determined as a crime by this committee.

Providing instruction and facilitating other computer-related crimes, promoting unauthorized securities market activities, creating virtual gambling centers in cyberspace, and using irrelevant keywords (Tags) on websites or abusing software such as pop-ups, which force the opening of unrelated pages to the visitor’s request, resulting in a waste of time and expenses for visitors and increasing rankings and income for site owners, have also been recognized as crimes.

Forgery of online databases of banks, organizations, governmental and public institutions, and any unauthorized use of military, law enforcement, and governmental symbols is also considered a crime in the virtual space.

As per this decision, the promotion of illegal currency transactions in the virtual space, often carried out under the guise of ‘exchange offices,’ is criminalized. Following the announcement by the Central Bank, necessary measures will be taken by the country’s attorney general’s office against these activities.