IRS Deploys Attachés as Countries Acknowledge Global Need for Crypto Crime Regulation

Last year alone, the IRS seized $7 billion in cryptocurrency

article-image

T. Schneider/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

The Internal Revenue Service is ramping up its purported fighting of international cyber crime — a move that has extended to the US tax watchdog’s oversight into cryptocurrencies. 

The IRS’ move came via a pilot set up by the agency to amp up its oversight of “tax and financial crimes that use cryptocurrency, decentralized finance, peer-to-peer payments and mixing services.” The initiative involves the US agency sending multiple attachés to different countries for investigative purposes.

The program officially starts in June, with IRS attachés primed to deploy to Germany, Colombia, Australia and Singapore. 

The positions, however, are not permanent – attachés will end their detail in September. 

“This summer, four of our most-skilled special agents will deploy to strategic locations on four continents to ensure that we can continue to build relationships and effectively combat cybercrime on a global scale,” IRS-CI chief Jim Lee said in a statement

Aside from tax crimes, the attachés will focus on cryptocurrency, peer-to-peer payments and mixing services financial crimes. 

Four agents will be deployed, according to the statement: 

Stacey Perez, who specializes in money laundering; Peter Dickerman of the IRS’ Digital Forensics Program; David Strager, tasked with cryptocurrency tax evasion cases; and Cuong Ly, who has experience with crypto exchange fraud.

On US soil, the IRS has warned that crypto crackdowns are coming when it comes to digital assets and perceived tax avoidance measures. A number of the cases the IRS has been linked to have been not made public since Lee highlighted the crackdown in November 2022. 

Last year, Lee said that the Criminal Investigations Department seized around $7 billion in crypto.

Crypto’s broker-dealer debate may be coming to close 

The IRS is expected to update tax regulations under Sections 6045 and 6045A — both of which cover the reporting of digital asset information by brokers. 

It’s not the first time that the IRS has worked to help countries overseas monitor or crack down on crypto crimes. Earlier this month, the IRS helped to train Ukraine Law Enforcement to track and trace Russian crypto moves. 

The move is in partnership with Chainalysis and both will provide donated blockchain analysis tools to the Ukrainian government — the IRS-CI donated 15 licenses for Chainalysis Reactor while 20 investigators in Ukraine received in-depth training on crypto and blockchain tracing. 

As countries across the world look to crack down on regulations and laws surrounding cryptocurrencies, politicians and top regulators — including the International Monetary Fund — have called on countries to unite in order to regulate crypto.


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

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Ethena Labs is leaping from its flagship synthetic dollar, USDe, to a full product suite—USDtb, iUSDe, and the Arbitrum-based Converge Chain—designed to marry crypto-native yields with TradFi-grade compliance. Our analysis shows how expanding into CME, ETF options, and tokenized Treasuries could lift protocol revenue from sub-$500 million in a bear case to several billion dollars if favorable regulation and institutional adoption align.

article-image

Around 150 Solana validators would lose their foundation stake under the new rule, perBlockworks Research estimates

article-image

The official website promoting a “Dinner with President TRUMP” pitches the opportunity as “The most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World”

article-image

The discussion draft is expected to be released by the end of the month

article-image

“It pushes the entire stablecoin ecosystem forward,” said a Coinbase representative

article-image

It might be time to get out of US-denominated assets, writes Forward Guidance