Houston Defendant Pleads Guilty to Operating Unlicensed Crypto Exchange.

June 7, 2022:

 In response to President Binden's Executive Order on Digital Assets, the DOJ has released their comprehensive report. Link

Key takeaways from the DOJ's Report in Response to the President's Executive Order on Digital Asset Regulation. TLDR: Strong international coordination and swift action on intel are critical to fighting digital asset crime (1) Strengthen & Expand U.S. Law Enforcement Operational Capacity-Building Efforts with Foreign Law Enforcement Partners: DOJ believes that "U.S. law enforcement abilities would be significantly improved by expanding its overseas operational capacity (as opposed to training) to combat malicious criminal threats, particularly related to cybercrime and illicit misuse of digital assets." DOJ also reports that "efforts to enhance the United State's ability to detect, investigate, prosecute and otherwise disrupt the illicit use of digital assets would be more effective if funds for international capacity building were allocated to international law enforcement partners including those that the DOJ, as lead domestic law enforcement agency, has identified based on specific operational needs. 

June 14, 2022:

A father and son who ran a multimillion-dollar illegal marijuana business in sentenced to five-year prison terms today, on drug and money laundering charges. Gov. charged they laundered money from drug sales using bitcoin and the dark web. This case provides an interesting roadmap for how federal prosecutors may use KYC and money exchanger reporting laws in connection with digital asset money laundering investigations. DOJ Link

June 17, 2022:

The workshop, organized by the DOJ and Eurojust, brought together more than 100 prosecutors, law enforcement representatives and experts from the private sector and nongovernmental organizations, representing 27 countries. Assistant Attorney General Polite said: “Only by working together with key law enforcement and prosecutorial partners in the EU can we effectively combat the threat that ransomware poses to our society." Link

"I am confident that the U.S.-EU ransomware workshop will spur greater coordination and collaboration to address the ransomware threat.” Eurojust President Hamran said: “There is no doubt that the scale, sophistication and impact of ransomware attacks is significant, affecting all sectors of the economy and society at large."

June 27, 2022:

“As alleged in the indictment, the defendants participated in a violent plan to break into a family’s home in the middle of the night and force its residents to provide the code to what the defendants believed was tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin currency." Defendants are charged with are e with conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison. Twitter Link