Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, working with HM Revenue & Customs and the Metropolitan Police, issued cease-and-desist letters at three London premises running unregistered peer-to-peer crypto trading. The regulator says no P2P crypto business is currently registered in the UK, and the raid follows an earlier sweep in April as the country's full crypto framework approaches.
The FCA, HMRC and the Metropolitan Police visited three London premises on September 10 and ordered traders there to stop running unregistered peer-to-peer crypto businesses. The action follows a first sweep in April, whose evidence the FCA says is now supporting criminal investigations.
No registered P2P operators exist
Peer-to-peer trading happens when individuals buy and sell crypto directly with each other, and anyone doing so as a business in the UK must register with the FCA. Yet there are currently no FCA-registered peer-to-peer crypto businesses operating in the country, the regulator said, meaning every such operator sits outside its anti-money laundering controls by definition.
That leaves enforcement as a matter of finding operators rather than separating compliant ones from the rest. According to the FCA, its executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Steve Smart, said: "Anyone running an unregistered peer-to-peer crypto business should assume we are looking at them."
Framework tightens ahead of 2027
The raids came days after the FCA issued guidance clarifying how the incoming cryptoasset regime's perimeter applies to firms, covering stablecoin issuance, running exchanges, dealing, safeguarding assets and staking. Caroline Black, a consultant at Gherson Solicitors LLP, said the operation confirms the FCA's shift from warnings toward active disruption of unregistered P2P businesses.
Firms can apply for FCA approval from September 30 through February 28, 2027, with the full regulatory framework taking effect on October 25, 2027. Until then, these raids run under the 2017 money laundering regulations rather than crypto-specific law, since Britain's crypto sector remains otherwise largely unregulated.
The FCA has pursued this ground before, securing a four-year sentence against an operator of an illegal crypto ATM network.
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