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Title: America's Justice Department Shuts Down Its Cryptocurrency Fraud Unit

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/12/1722...

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. "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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