Recently, the United States Department of Justice released a report published by the Attorney General’s Cyber-Digital Task Force, entitled, “Cryptocurrency; Enforcement Framework,” (“Report”) The Report can be read here. In the Report there are multiple examples of crimes committed by terrorist agencies, hostile nations, and individuals that involved the use of cryptocurrencies or at some point had some intersection or even tangential involvement with cryptocurrencies.
SUMMARY OF DOJ REPORT
The benefit of the DOJ Report is that is enumerates the regulatory framework that can be used to prosecute crimes involving virtual currencies in terms of what authorities within in the United States Criminal Code the DOJ will utilize and what government agencies the DOJ views as partners in its prosecution of crimes involving cryptocurrencies.
Among the federal regulations are:
- Wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1343
- Mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1341.
- Securities fraud, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78j and 78ff.
- Access device fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1029.
- Identity theft fraud 18 U.S.C. § 1028.
- Fraud and intrusions in connection with computers, 18 U.S.C. § 1030.
- Illegal sale and possession of firearms,18 U.S.C. § 921 et seq
- Possession and distribution of counterfeititems,18 U.S.C. § 2320.
- Child exploitation,18 U.S.C. § 2251 et seq.
- Possession and distribution of controlled substances, 21 U.S.C. § 841 et seq
- Money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1956 et seq.
- Transactions involving proceeds of illegal activity, 18 U.S.C. § 1957.
- Operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, 18 U.S.C. § 1960
- Failure to comply with Bank Secrecy Act,31 U.S.C. § 5331 et seq
- Criminal Forfeiture, 18 U.S.C § 982; 21 U.S.C. § 853
- Civil Forfeiture, 18 U.S.C. § 981
Among the enumerated enforcement partner agencies in the federal government are:
- Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“finCEN”)
- Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”)
- Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”)
- The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”)
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”)
- Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”)
And Internationally:
- The Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”), which sets the standards for enforcing anti money laundering efforts between governments.