US Tax Authorities Seize $3.5B Worth of Cryptos In Fiscal Year 2021
Massive cryptocurrency seizures are the new normal in the United States, performed by the tax authorities – in this case, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
According to the report of the fiscal year of 2021, the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit seized almost $3.5 billion, which belonged to 93% of its criminal investigation operations.
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The report detailed that around $1 billion were seized in the context of an operation related to Silk Road, a now-defunct major darknet marketplace whose action is known as the largest crypto seizure ever made in the country.
Crypto Crimes To Rising: IRS
Watchdogs noted that the trend in seizures could keep rising as crypto adoption remains to gather steam across the board. “I expect a trend of crypto seizures to continue as we move forward into fiscal year ’22. We’re seeing crypto involved in a number of our crimes as we move forward,” Jim Lee, IRS Criminal Investigation Chief, commented on the matter via BNN Bloomberg.
Moreover, another prosecution was launched within the seizures against a former Microsoft software developer who relied on cryptos to hide the tech giant’s $10 million he misappropriated.
As can be seen, the IRS has enough legal power to launch such kinds of actions against crypto crimes that could fall into tax-related wrongdoings.
Strengthening Government’s Crypto Units
In fact, US President Joe Biden granted the agency more abilities to oversee crypto transactions to tackle any tax-related crimes. Also, the US government seems to be poised to strengthen the proper units to track cyber crimes.
“CI has committed to staying ahead of these developments, and we have made significant investments in training our employees in the latest tactics and techniques to be successful in a digital financial world,” Lee added.
Recently, the US government punished a Russian crypto exchange for its alleged involvement in facilitating ransomware payments, becoming the first crypto company sanctioned by the US Treasury. The action was part of the efforts from Biden’s administration to crackdown ransomware attacks involving crypto transactions.