US Department of Justice Launches Strike Force to Combat Crypto Scams

The U.S. Attorney also tied the initiative to President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda, arguing that as the president has pushed for Americans to embrace the novel sector, consumers should feel safe to trust it, and not fear scams when transacting with crypto online. There are no tricks that can be a part of cryptocy,” Pirro said.

At Wednesday’s press conference, a Treasury Department official also announced sanctions against a militant group it said operates at a cyber scam compound in Burma, and inflicts violence against human trafficking victims forced to work in the scam center against their will. Treasury also sanctioned two companies and a Thai national tied it said were linked to the Burmese militant group and Chinese organized crime.

Leading crypto security experts have long argued that the U.S. government has failed to tackle pig butchering scams—dubbed as such because scammers build trust slowly with victims, “fattening them up” before stealing their money—with a coordinated inter-agency approach. Instead, agencies like the Treasury Department and the FBI have focused on different elements of these crimes without acknowledging their shared root in the Chinese black markets that facilitate most crypto crime, experts at blockchain intelligence firm TRM told Decrypt earlier this year.

TRM’s leadership welcomed today’s announcement as a much-needed shift in approach for the federal government—one that will allow the U.S. government to play a coordinated offense against global crypto crime networks, as opposed to piecemeal defense. The Scam Center Strike Force is the clearest statement yet that the United States intends to fight back with the full power of the state,” TRM Head of Global Policy Ari Redbord told Decrypt. “Not in isolation, but in coordination: DOJ prosecuting, Treasury sanctioning, FBI investigating, FinCEN analyzing, State pressuring, and industry tracing.”