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The Almighty Buck Crime Government United States

America's Justice Department Shuts Down Its Cryptocurrency Fraud Unit (usatoday.com) 64

Posted by EditorDavid from the magic-internet-money dept.
America's Justice Department "has shut down its unit that investigates cryptocurrency fraud," reports USA Today.

A Monday night memo from U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the shut down was "effective immediately." Blanche directed the closure of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and ordered prosecutors to pivot to investigating transnational criminal organizations and terrorist groups that use crypto to engage in illicit transactions... In his four-page memo, Blanche said the new order was meant to bring the Justice Department in line with Trump's own Executive Order 14178, which decreed that clarity and certainty regarding enforcement policy "are essential to supporting a vibrant and inclusive digital economy and innovation in digital assets." Blanche, one of several Trump criminal defense lawyers at the top ranks of DOJ, said the president "has also made clear that '[w]e are going to end the regulatory weaponization against digital assets'..."

Consistent with that narrowing of its cryptocurrency enforcement policy, the DOJ Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit will also cease cryptocurrency enforcement to focus on other administration priorities, including immigration and procurement fraud, Blanche said.
The Washington Post got this assessment from Yesha Yadav, a Vanderbilt University law professor who closely follows cryptocurrency and financial markets. "It's hard to underestimate the importance this task force has had ... in pursuing some really huge crypto hacks and cases."

More from USA Today: Public corruption and transnational crime experts warned that shutting down the unit could divert critical resources from efforts to stop criminals and corrupt regimes from using cryptocurrency for illicit gain, even as Trump claims he wants to crack down on them. "Dangerous US adversaries rely on cryptocurrencies to launder money and evade sanctions," said Nate Sibley, an anti-corruption expert and director of the Kleptocracy Initiative at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., in a post on X. "If this is accurate, hard to see how it squares with — for example-cracking down on cartel finances or maximum pressure sanctions on Iran...."

Trump's so-called "memecoin" surged from less than $10 on the Saturday before his inauguration to as high as $74.59 before eventually giving up some of its gains. The token, branded $TRUMP, has been criticized by ethics experts as a conflict of interest for the president since the company could likely benefit from his pro-crypto policies...

Last month, Trump signed an order to create a federal Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, signaling new federal support for cryptocurrency in general and Bitcoin in particular.
Since the first-ever White House crypto summit in March, America's Securities and Exchange Commission "has dropped more than a dozen cases against crypto firms," notes the Washington Post: Last month, both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency pledged to stop evaluating banks based on "reputational risk" — a practice that some venture capitalists have claimed unfairly "de-banked" founders of cryptocurrency start-ups.
In other news, executives from cryptocurrency exchange Binance "met with Treasury Department officials last month," reports the Wall Street Journal, asking them to remove a U.S. monitor overseeing their compliance with anti-money-laundering laws, according to people familiar with the talks.

The article adds that Binance is also concurrently "exploring" a deal with the Trump family to list its new dollar-pegged stablecoin which "could catapult it into a huge market and potentially bring in billions in profit for the family. "

America's Justice Department Shuts Down Its Cryptocurrency Fraud Unit More | Reply

America's Justice Department Shuts Down Its Cryptocurrency Fraud Unit

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  • In short (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @04:52PM (#65301277)

    Money laundering is no longer illegal.

  • Tt might be a conflict of interest for real (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @05:02PM (#65301301)

    For the President to operate his own un-traceable bribe machine and then shut down the people who are there to regulate said machine. I don't know, maybe I'm out on a limb here in saying that any President but especially the already wealthy President has no practical use for a crypto-coin. We the people get exactly zero for this, in fact our lives are likely being made worse for it. Art of the deal baby!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's not a crime if the President does it!

    • I don't know, maybe I'm out on a limb here in saying that any President but especially the already wealthy President has no practical use for a crypto-coin.

      You're saying Trump doesn't need the money? Perhaps, but that's hardly the point. People don't think they're "rich enough" -- especially people who are rich already. They are more driven than most to keep acquiring more and more. That's how they got rich in the first place.

      • I'm close to the point where I would make it practically illegal to acquire a billion dollars for their own good, it seems to fuck with people's brains more than not. Like that's not an attitude good for society, it should be discouraged, heavily.

        • I often think along the same lines , that basically you need a dampening mechanism somewhere in the overall system... its always tempting to pick a number and say , that has got to be big enough , buttttt .. its a slippery slope... I think inflation and electronics really accelerates expectations , i.e. greed. So how long is a piece of string?

    • Re: Tt might be a conflict of interest for real (Score:5, Informative)

      by tchdab1 ( 164848 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @09:09PM (#65301781) Homepage

      Heâ(TM)s got that handy pardon power, and the Roberts Court to free him from jams. He thinks heâ(TM)s golden, and heâ(TM)s still walking free despite convictions & charges. Tariff madness lets him take favors from around the world for cut-outs. Heâ(TM)ll stick anyone in a Squid-games prison for disagreeing. Heâ(TM)s squeezing the world economy for no reason whatsoever, and threatening to just take areas, islands, even countries also for no reason. Heâ(TM)s shutting down medical research, university funding, Medicare, all federal employment, any government reference to any history not performed by white people. He claims heâ(TM)s going to stay president forever, end voting, give himself a $200 million party on our dime for his birthday. Heâ(TM)s a one-man international disaster in several dimensions. This isnâ(TM)t even a complete list, by a lot.

      Shutting down cryptocurrency fraud enforcement is pretty consistent with the mess heâ(TM)s making.

    • For the President to operate his own un-traceable bribe machine and then shut down the people who are there to regulate said machine. I don't know, maybe I'm out on a limb here in saying that any President but especially the already wealthy President has no practical use for a crypto-coin. We the people get exactly zero for this, in fact our lives are likely being made worse for it. Art of the deal baby!

      And what exactly would the American people be getting by collecting or printing another $100 billion to send to Ukraine under Democrat rule?

      Ukraine is down to sending grandfathers to the front lines due to bloody attrition. What exactly would have the Democrats sent other than money? Peace sure as shit wasn’t coming, so they were going to eventually be forced to send American lives instead.

      In short, FUCK your pathetic crypto concerns.

      • 1. The leadership and privilege of living up to it's reputation (deserved in recent decades or not) of the defender of the free world. We get to keep our national morals. Our allies expect us to take the leading role and we have an obligation as the hegemon since well, if not us than who? I was raised on the concept of "we do these things because they are hard", that is what made America what it is.
        2. A ton of jobs for Americans
        3. A ton of weapon building capacity that we had lost in previous decades
        4.

    • It's a stupid meme-coin. A collectible NFT for people who think that's fun.

  • Trump supporters (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12, 2025 @05:17PM (#65301331)

    Feel free to speak up and defend this. I thought you liked being tough on crime?!

    • It's reality vs ideals.

      Convictions are supposed to be based on sufficient competent evidence, proving a crime. Badgering or impoverishing a suspect into confession is not acceptable.

      If the investigators can't prove a crime, either
      A) there was no crime
      B) the investigators aren't very good at proving this particular type of crime

      Either way, tax payer money is being wasted. Time to move on to crimes that can be proved.

    • I have lots of Trump supporters in my family. When confronted with logic like this, they just shrug and say they don't know about such things, there must be more to the story. If they don't hear the news on Fox News, to them it's just Fake News.

    • You didn't read the article.

      Instead, Blanche wrote, the DOJ will focus its investigations and prosecutions involving digital assets on going after individuals "who victimize digital asset investors" and those who try to use crypto to further criminal schemes like terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, organized crime, hacking, and cartel and gang financing.

  • If you have parents and grandparents (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @05:32PM (#65301355)
    That are still alive, and this is a website full of old farts so you might not, but if you do you need to set them down and explain to them what cryptocurrency is and how to spot scams involving it.

    Not just for their protection but for yours. Because when your dipshit parents get tricked by a cryptoscam they saw on Fox News or the equivalent then they're going to have to come running to you for help.

    At least the next 4 years possibly indefinitely we are going to be inundated with crooks scamming us out of our money looking to take us for everything we own and who know that so long as they can take a few tens of millions out of their ill-gotten gains and hand them to the head of state as a bribe they'll get a pardon and off the hook.

    • and this is a website full of old farts so you might not

      On behalf of the old farts, LOL. It's funny because it's true!

    • At least the next 4 years possibly indefinitely we are going to be inundated with crooks scamming us out of our money looking to take us for everything we own and who know that so long as they can take a few tens of millions out of their ill-gotten gains and hand them to the head of state as a bribe they'll get a pardon and off the hook.

      As opposed to sending another $100 billion in warmongering funds to a country that hires dishonorably discharged cokeheads to serve on executive energy boards? Don’t forget about the Bahamian crypto orgy fund that was in place to help launder some of that back to the DNC to secure 2022 wins. SBF served his purpose. Not unlike Diddy Epstein. And US American warfighters that would have been forced to replace the Grandfathers dying on Ukranian front lines today had a US President not stepped in to ch

    • Re:If you have parents and grandparents (Score:4, Informative)

      by AntisocialNetworker ( 5443888 ) on Sunday April 13, 2025 @07:10AM (#65302371)

      If you have children or grandchildren, you need to set them down and explain to them what cryptocurrency is and how to spot scams involving it. 'Cos statistics show they're much more likely to fall for snake oil than us suspicious old farts. Heck, I still use paper money.

      To quote Google's AI summary: "Yes, generally, more younger people (ages 16-34) fall for scams than older individuals (55 and over). Studies indicate that a significant percentage of younger adults have been scammed, especially in the realm of purchase scams. For example, in the Spring/Summer of 2024, 86% of individuals who lost money to purchase scams were under 55. ". (Assuming that's not me infringing copyright at some level or another.)

    • you need to set them down and explain to them what cryptocurrency is and how to spot scams involving it

      "Mom, Dad, here's how to spot a cryptocurrency scam: If it involves cryptocurrency, it's a scam." Feel free to use this lesson with your own parents.

      (The pedants and fanboys will quickly jump on the "It's not *all* a scam!" defense. To a first-order approximation yes, it is, especially if you're someone who needs to be told what cryptocurrency is in the first place.)

  • Here's why (Score:5, Informative)

    by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @05:40PM (#65301367)

    "The Trump family is going all-in on crypto projects"

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]

  • Serious question here (Score:3)

    by jrnvk ( 4197967 ) on Saturday April 12, 2025 @06:22PM (#65301447)

    How effective was this unit to begin with?

  • it's legal if the president does it

    • it's legal if the president does it

      * Glances over at a former Speaker of the (Insider Trading) House *

      Gee, can’t imagine who he got the fucking idea from..

  • Read past the parts that bury the lede. It’s a shift in strategy, not a “shut down”. The JD is directed to concentrate on the criminal organizations using crypto instead of going after the exchanges themselves as “presumed guilty”. Who knows? Maybe that’ll work better.

  • For FTX the sequel

  • "The article adds that Binance is also concurrently "exploring" a deal with the Trump family to list its new dollar-pegged stablecoin which "could catapult it into a huge market and potentially bring in billions in profit for the family."

    So, what is Trump going to do when he leaves office and the new Democratic president reassembles the crypto fraud unit? Trump will have to try extra hard to override the Constitution and stay in office past 2029.

  • The wolves are guarding the hen-house.
  • Even if you think cryptocurrency is some great thing there really isn't any reason to want no one checking fraud. Good lord the corruption is off the charts.
  • Read the damn article. The excerpts here are intentionally misleading, skipping over the sections dealing with the reasoning and new focus of the agencies to completely change the meaning of the article.

    For example, this could have been included:

    Instead, Blanche wrote, the DOJ will focus its investigations and prosecutions involving digital assets on going after individuals "who victimize digital asset investors" and those who try to use crypto to further criminal schemes like terrorism, narcotics and h

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