DOJ Amping Up Crypto Scrutiny; Names Head of New Enforcement Team

Source: American Banker

The Justice Department named a veteran cybersecurity prosecutor to lead a new team dedicated to investigating and prosecuting illicit cryptocurrency schemes carried out by cyber criminals and nation states including North Korea and Iran.

Eun Young Choi will be the first director of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which will serve as the focal point for efforts to identify and dismantle the misuse of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced Thursday.

“If we’re going to see — as I think we will — cryptocurrency gaining more traction and gaining wider adoption, we’ve got to make sure that the ecosystem that they operate in can be trusted and, frankly, can be policed,” Monaco said in an interview. “We’re going to make it our business to go after them and get those proceeds back and make it clear to them that they can’t hide.”

The $2 trillion market for cryptocurrencies has boomed as companies and investors look to reap higher returns and get a foothold in a technology seen as still in its early days.

Prosecutors and regulators are rushing to determine how to police that space -- as well as the market for other digital assets such as nonfungible tokens — which has become a new frontier for criminals and rogue nations to steal and launder billions of dollars through anonymous avenues like blockchain transactions, encryption and digital wallets.