FBI forms special unit against BTC hackers
2 min readLike it in one Reuters report means that the US Department of Justice wants to deploy heavy artillery against cybercrime. A “seasoned prosecutor” has taken charge of a new national cryptocurrency enforcement team. Moreover, last Thursday, February 17, the Justice Department announced that the FBI would set up a blockchain analysis and virtual asset seizure unit.
The creation of this FBI unit called Virtual asset exploitation comes shortly after the largest-ever seizure of funds by the Justice Department earlier this month. A New York couple has been accused of laundering over $4.5 billion worth of BTC. In 2016, BTC disappeared in a hack of the Bitfinex digital currency exchange.
US President Biden wants to curb cybercrime
US regulators under President Joe Biden have tightened their scrutiny over the crypto industry. The government apparently felt compelled to take this step after a series of high-profile cyber attacks last year. The largest US fuel pipeline network and the world’s largest supplier of beef were two of the prominent victims. The ransomware groups often demanded their ransom in BTC. In some of these cases, the FBI has managed to track down and recover some of the ransom money.
In a speech at the Munich Cyber Security Conference Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced that Eun Young Choi will lead the cryptocurrency intelligence team. Choi is a prosecutor who led the case against a Russian hacker who helped steal information on more than 80 million JPMorgan & Chase Co. customers. Choi worked according to her LinkedIn profile for almost ten years as the Cybercrime Coordinator and Assistant US Attorney in New York of the US Attorney’s Office in New York.
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