Crypto cybercrime is sweeping throughout the world, but don’t think that authorities are taking it lying down. Recently the FBI announced that it had 130 live crypto crime cases, which shows the scale of the issue and how seriously US authorities are taking the problem. Now, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is also picking up the fight, as it’s launching a joint task force with similar enforcement authorities from around the world. The brand-new coalition is “The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement” (or “J5” for short), with it bringing together tax enforcement bodies from Canada, Australia, the UK, the Netherlands, and the United States.
For the Collective Good
The purpose of the J5 is to pool together knowledge in the hope of increasing cross-country knowledge of cybercrime. In an official statement, it was revealed that the J5 will work to target money laundering and cross-nation tax crime. It’s goal is “to reduce the growing threat to tax administrations posed by cryptocurrencies and cybercrime.” The decision to form the J5 came in the response to rising cybercrime numbers. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a call to action to address spreading cyber tax crimes – the J5 presents the answer.
Don Fort (IRS Criminal Investigation Chief) has spoken of his eagerness to work alongside the other countries in the J5. He believes that that collectively it “can pressurize the global criminal community in ways we could not achieve on our own.” The IRS Criminal Investigation unit has been pushing through new measures to fight back against crypto-related tax crime. It recently recruited 10 extra investigators as a means to share the workload.
Banishing Backpage.com
This isn’t the first joint venture that the IRS has announced, as it’s also working with the FBI and US Department of Justice in crypto-related criminal cases. The success of this working relationship became clear during the case against controversial listings website Backpage.com back in April. The site – which already had well-known links to the cybercrime underworld – was charged with laundering $500 million dollars in illegal revenue, in part via cryptocurrency.
The Cybercrime Battle Rages On!
Tracking, controlling, and stamping out cryptocurrency crime is a huge challenge. The IRS finds itself at the front of the fight, with it not being afraid to explore new measures as means to battle back. On top of chasing down crypto-enabled crimes by utilizing blockchain intelligence tools like Chainalysis, the introduction of the J5 presents another interesting development.
Joining forces for the greater good, the formation of the J5 could prove to be a masterstroke in the long-standing war between cybercriminals and the authorities.
