Justice department plots personnel boost for crypto enforcement team

The move comes more than a year after the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team was first formed

article-image

CHRISTOPHER E ZIMMER/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

The US Department of Justice will soon double the number of prosecutors who handle crypto-related crimes.

The DOJ is set to merge the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) and the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS), according to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri.

Claudia Quiroz will serve as the new acting head of the NCET, replacing former director Eun Young Choi. Quiroz is a longtime US attorney and was a deputy director of the NCET from its founding in 2021.

The NCET, under Choi’s leadership, contributed to the apprehension of Mango Markets attacker Avraham Eisenberg, who allegedly drained $110 million from the exchange in October 2022. 

The team also busted a little-known crypto exchange called Bitzlato in January 2023, charging founder Anatoly Legkodymov for allegedly processing more than $700 million of illicit funds. 

The way crypto exploits often involve cybercrimes, including the Mango Markets case, was cited as a major factor in the combination of the two teams.

“It’s become obvious to everyone in the cybercrime field that cryptocurrency work and cyber prosecutions are intertwined, and will become even more so in the future,” Argentieri said in her speech.

Argentieri further explained that this approach “will multiply the entire Department’s ability to trace cryptocurrency, to charge cases involving the criminal use of cryptocurrency, and to seize legally forfeitable cryptocurrency as a way to get those funds back to victims.”


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Unlocked by Template (7).png

Research

Union’s improvements upon Tendermint consensus through CometBLS, coupled with ZK proving through Galois, allow for a broadly scalable, cost efficient, and low latency IBC implementation that is feasibly scalable across every existing blockchain, virtual machine and runtime. The implementation offers modular crosschain interoperability without the need for trusted intermediaries.  

article-image

Ripple is eyeing ways to boost its financial profile, on top of social usefulness

article-image

Hal Finney joined the Bitcoin network in its first seven days

article-image

Bill Gates expects that within a decade, humans will no longer be needed “for most things”

article-image

A newly submitted SEC pilot proposal aims to tokenize US equities

article-image

As Schwab plots crypto trading upon “more clarity in the regulatory environment,” Morgan Stanley is reportedly interested too

article-image

Over 50 countries, including 8 of the 10 largest gaming markets, aren’t allowed to access the upcoming crypto game