In The Wall Street Journal a reportThe US Department of Justice is redesigning its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), a unit created nearly two years ago to investigate cryptocurrency-related crimes.
According to a senior DOJ official, Nicole Argenieri, NCET will become a stable part of a division within the ministry’s criminal division that handles a range of computer-related investigations and will also get a new leader, Claudia Keyrouz, following the departure of its current director, Eun Young Choi.
Criminal Division prosecutors will also work with other government agencies to address the ransomware issue.
The Department of Justice is stepping up encryption enforcement efforts
NCET was launched in 2021 to investigate and prosecute criminal offenses involving the misuse of cryptocurrency, particularly offenses committed by virtual currency exchanges, mixing and minting services, and money laundering infrastructure actors.
Since then, the team has played a role in several DOJ-related cryptocurrency cases, including investigating Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and filing charges against the founder and majority shareholder of Hong Kong-based exchange Bitzlato.
According to the announcement, the merger will double the number of attorneys available to work on criminal cryptocurrency matters and raise the profile of cryptocurrency work within the criminal division by giving it equal standing to computer crime and intellectual property work.
The Director of NCET will personally have authority to approve indictments and other steps in investigations and litigation.
Moreover, the reorganization will put prosecutors working on cryptocurrency-related cases on an equal footing with those working on computer and intellectual property cases. The renovation of the National Information Technology Center follows the Department of Justice’s creation of the National Cyber Security Division, which will focus on cyberattacks by nation-state actors and other cyber threats to the national security of the United States.
According to Nicole Argenieri, the regulatory changes reflect the Department of Justice’s leadership’s recognition that expertise in digital assets and other emerging technologies is critical to staying ahead of the criminal and national security threats facing the United States.
The merger announcement is an important step in the fight against cybercrime. It shows the Department of Justice’s commitment to avoiding emerging threats posed by emerging industry and other emerging technologies.
As the digital asset industry continues to grow, the Department of Justice’s efforts to combat cryptocurrency-related crime will play a critical role in preserving the integrity of the financial system and protecting the public from criminal activity.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView.com