As it grows, the crypto industry and its sectors attract more attention from regulators and political actors. In the United States, this industry seems poised for more hostility from the current administration as it is increasingly compared with illegal activities.
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Per a recent Bloomberg report, criminal investigators from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are seeing “mountains and mountains of fraud” allegedly related to crypto and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Illegal activities include tax evasion, money laundering, and market manipulation.
Special Agent Ryan Korner with the IRS’s criminal investigation division of the Los Angeles area made these affirmations on an event from the USC Gould School of Law. Korner referred to these concerns and talked about the recent involvement of high-profile individuals in the crypto space. The federal agent said:
We’re not necessarily out there looking for celebrities, but when they make a blatant or open comment that says ‘Hey, IRS, you should probably come look at me,’ that’s what we do.
Data shared by Bloomberg indicates that the IRS managed to seize around $3.5 billion in cryptocurrencies due to criminal activities in 2021. This number represents 93% of “all the assets seized by the division” in that fiscal year.
Korner claimed the federal agency still left around 80 open cases suspected…
