The U.S. Secret Service is targeting the masterminds behind the Russian crypto exchange Garantex for their role in an alleged money laundering operation. In a press release, the Secret Service says it is going after Garantex for allegedly facilitating the transaction of hundreds of millions of dollars in criminal proceeds, some of which was used […]
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The French financial regulatory authority has begun accepting applications for authorization as a crypto asset service provider under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation, ahead of its implementation in December 2024. This regulation mandates prior authorization for market participants offering crypto asset services in the EU, with strict adherence to anti-money laundering, cybersecurity, and […]
U.S. senators have introduced legislation to empower the Secret Service to combat cybercrimes involving digital assets. This legislation addresses the growing use of cryptocurrencies for illicit activities and mandates the Government Accountability Office to evaluate law enforcement’s effectiveness in tackling money laundering in cyber crimes. New Bill Targets Cybercrime and Money Laundering with Digital Assets […]The resignation underscores the urgent need for the Secret Service to rebuild trust and enhance security measures amid heightened political tensions.
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Stablecoin issuer Tether (USDT) is preparing to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) access to its platform soon after onboarding the U.S. Secret Service. In a new letter addressed to Senator Cynthia Lummis and Representative James French Hill, Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino says that the crypto firm is onboarding law enforcement agencies as […]
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Agents from the U.S. Secret Service San Francisco Field Office have answered a burning question about its NFT collection. What does it do?
The United States Secret Service has finally shed more light on its bizarre nonfungible token (NFT) collection sitting on OpenSea.
The NFT collection was first revealed during a Reddit AMA on May 16, where agents answered questions from members of the r/cryptocurrency subreddit about their involvement in crypto and blockchain tech. Until this time, not much of an explanation was provided about the NFT collection or why it exists.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, agents from the Secret Service’s San-Francisco field office, known as the “Digital Asset Technology Alliance” (DATA) Squad, said they wanted to better understand how NFTs worked.
Forensic financial analyst Andrew Frey, the agent who spearheaded the Reddit AMA, said it also serves as a forward-facing example of the agency’s interest in the broader crypto ecosystem.
The DATA squad is a subunit of the Secret Service San Francisco Field Office, which deals specifically with crypto-related crimes.
Special Agent Alfonso Speed said that everyone from the DATA squad had their own unique NFT, each one being specifically personalized to each field agent.
“Everyone who owns an NFT had the opportunity to submit where they wanted themselves to be represented across Northern California, specifically the San Francisco bay area.”
The team shared a laugh as Special Agent in Charge Shawn Bradstreet pointed out that Speed was depicted standing on top of the notorious prison Alcatraz.
“You really do see people's personalities or things that they enjoy doing,” Speed said.
While some of the NFTs have received multiple offers, ranging from 0.0028 ETH ($5) to around the 0.02 ETH ($37), none of which have been accepted.
The agents said NFTs were never created to be offered for sale. Overall, the agents on the DATA taskforce take a positive approach to crypto, with many of them owning crypto and NFTs in a personal capacity.
Frey shares that while the NFT collection was a fun and creative outlet for the team, it also stands as a serious symbol of their involvement in and dedication to the broader crypto landscape.
“Overwhelmingly, there is a ‘not wrong’ belief that law enforcement doesn't know what they're doing in the crypto space,” said Frey. “I think that our NFTs are a neat way to show that we do have a seat at the table and that we're really invested in crypto and the investigation of digital assets.”
Related: Former US Secret Service asst. director: Keep personal info of FTX users private
Frey reiterated that the NFT collection was also made to highlight the agency’s accessibility and to make them more approachable by the public, and particularly, crypto enthusiasts.
“The spirit behind them is public education,” said supervisory Special Agent Ryan Cole.
Being able to interact directly with members of the crypto community by way of social media platforms such as Reddit has proven essential to solving crimes and returning funds to victims in the past, Frey added.
“It was through those interactions that we learned that there was this whole community that was kind of griping and warning about all these different types of scams,” Frey said. “The cases that we see most of are specifically victim-based crimes and one of the main goals of our investigative work is to make these victims whole again.”
The Secret Service is tasked with two main directives: protecting key political leaders and safeguarding the financial and critical infrastructure of the U.S.
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In a crypto-themed AMA session on Reddit on May 15, the U.S. Secret Service answered a wide range of questions and revealed their little-known NFT collection.
The United States Secret Service owns crypto, has its own NFT collection and has praised blockchain technology’s ability to fight financial crime, Reddit users learned during a recent ask-me-anything (AMA).
On May 15, representatives from the United States Secret Service San Francisco Field Office and the Bay Area Regional Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) opened themselves to questioning from members of the subreddit, r/cryptocurrency.
While some regulators still see crypto as a tool for fraudsters and scammers, the REACT task force applauded the public and transparent nature of blockchains as an “amazing opportunity” for crime fighters to track the flow of money.
The Secret Service has previously made the point that the immutable nature of the blockchain ledger means that illicit financial activity can be more easily monitored and tracked than fiat in some cases.
An upcoming Netflix-featured Bitfinex story involving some unlikely criminals made this point very clear: it’s quite hard to launder money using blockchain.
Answering a follow-up question about how best to hide shady behavior on the blockchain, the Secret Service said that if people want to do dodgy things financially, it’s best to take the money in cash than crypto.
Another Redditor asked whether or not the Secret Service itself held cryptocurrency, to which the authority said they were “definitely holders of crypto” and described themselves as crypto “enthusiasts” in later responses. The agency said that by owning crypto, it helps them better understand the deeper mechanisms of the crypto world.
“Pretty much most cases require a certain level of ELI5’ing. It’s somewhat of a running joke around here,” the agency explained, with the acronym “ELI5” referencing the popular subreddit r/explainlikeimfive.
Related: Crypto is not criminal: US Secret Service launches ‘crypto awareness hub’
When asked if they see any significant differences between crypto crimes and illicit activity in the world of traditional finance, the Secret Service noted that the “vast majority” of calls and reports received by their office usually involves crypto in some fashion.
"They vary in a lot of ways to fiat investigations, both in good ways and bad ways, but most notable is that crypto transactions are irreversible and immutable."
While the agencies responded to a wide range of serious questions, there was also some fun to be had during the session. When one redditor asked whether the Secret Service would consider launching its own “memecoin”, the agency responded by plugging its own NFT collection on OpenSea.
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The U.S. Secret Service has seized cryptocurrency worth more than $102 million in 254 fraud-related investigations. “What criminals want to do is sort of muddy the waters and make efforts to obfuscate their activities,” said the assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Investigations. “What we want to do is to track that as […]
The U.S. Secret Service says the immutable and transparent aspect of the blockchain ledger allows the agency to track transactions made by criminals easier than cash in some cases.
A top official from the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) says the agency can track the flow of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in a similar manner to email addresses, and it has seized more than $102 million in crypto across 254 cases since 2015.
USSS assistant director of investigations David Smith told CNBC that the transparent and immutable aspect of blockchain ledgers means investigators can trace transactions easier than fiat in some cases.
“One of the guiding principles of the blockchain is that it is a public ledger that’s shared and everyone with a little bit of computing power has access to it, including law enforcement,” said Smith.
“So the secret service hasn’t been doing anything that wasn’t the original intent of the blockchain. We’re just using the same tracking and tracing mechanisms that were intended.”
Agent Smith said more than $100 million in cryptocurrency has been seized by the Secret Service in international operations targeting cyber-fraudsters since 2015, with agents and analysts conducting investigations out of the Global Investigative Operations Center (GIOC) at the Secret Service headquarters in Washington D.C.
Crypto is seized in a variety of scenarios. Around $1.7 million in Bitcoin was seized in a case from March, in which an Estonian man was sentenced to 66 months in prison for his role in at least 13 international ransomware attacks. Another operation saw the fall of an international money laundering operation in Romania, and another involved a Russian-speaking cybercriminal ring again involved in ransomware.
Protecting the next generation of currency: Learn how we are combating the illicit use of #crypto. Read more: https://t.co/mXhkdPuaii https://t.co/B03ingyr40
— U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) April 19, 2022
Smith likened tracing crypto to tracing an email address:
“When you follow a digital currency wallet, it’s not different than an email address that has some correlating identifiers. Once a person and another person make a transaction, and that gets into the blockchain, we have the ability to follow that email address or wallet address, if you will, and trace it through the blockchain.”
Smith said that criminals often attempt to obscure their trail from law enforcement by making as many transfers as possible, which he likened to as a “house of mirrors”. Stolen Bitcoin and other digital currencies are often converted into stablecoins as a means to avoid volatility.
“Because, you know, the criminals, they’re humans too. They want to avoid some of that market volatility associated with some of the major coins,” he said.
The U.S. Secret Service is one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies in the country initially created to safeguard the nation’s financial infrastructure. Founded as a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1865, its sole purpose at the time was to combat the counterfeiting of U.S. currency.
Today, the agency falls under the Department of Homeland Security and often conducts joint investigations with other federal agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity & Infrastucture Security Agency (CISA) as well as international agencies to achieve their objectives.
On Tuesday, the CISA, FBI and the US Treasury issued an alert about North-Korean funded cyber threats targeting blockchain companies in response to a $650 million Ronin Bridge hack.
Related: What the launch of the FBI crypto task force means for the digital asset space
In February, the USSS launched a cryptocurrency awareness hub aimed at raising public awareness about digital asset security and to feature the agency’s work in clamping down on the illicit use of digital assets.
On the website, the agency said that digital assets have been increasingly used to facilitate a growing range of crimes, including various fraud schemes and the use of ransomware. However the agency also noted that the use of cryptocurrencies was not inherently criminal.
The educational website shares the Secret Service intends to combat the “illicit use of digital assets” and provide “public awareness information.”
The tide is turning on the way in which law enforcers discuss cryptocurrencies and treat crypto users. The United States Secret Service has launched a cryptocurrency awareness hub featuring a cheesy public service announcement video.
The educational tool seeks to combat the “illicit use of digital assets as well as provide public awareness information on digital asset security and how to ensure it remains secure.”
Watch the video here:
U.S. Secret Service Office of Investigations Assistant Director Jeremy Sheridan said that the hub focuses on "investigating financial crimes." It aims to "identify, arrest, and prosecute those engaging in crimes involving digital assets." Nonetheless, it's critical to note that the language and tone used regarding cryptocurrency are positive.
The launch website concedes that “digital and cryptocurrencies continue to become more popular forms of payments,” hence the need for the Secret Service to be at the top of its game.
The launch of the cryptocurrency awareness hub comes two years after the Secret Service founded the Finance-Related Cybercrime Task Force. The first iteration of cryptocurrency-related activities merely showed concern for the ways in which cryptocurrencies could be used to make illegal online transactions.
In what could be a small win for the cryptocurrency community, the industry may finally be shedding its reputation as being a haven for cybercrime and illicit activity. Cryptocurrency used to be reserved for Silk Road criminals and drug users.
Related: 4% of crypto whales are criminals, and they hold $25B among them: Chainalysis
However, in 2022, the Secret Service admits that:
“Investments and transactions using cryptocurrencies and digital assets are not inherently criminal.”
Broadly speaking, using cryptocurrencies on a transparent, backdating blockchain makes little sense for illicit financial activity due to the way in which blockchains can be easily monitored and tracked. The Netflix-worthy Bitfinex story involving unlikely criminals made this point very clear: it is very hard to launder money using blockchain.
Ultimately, if people want to get paid to do bad things, it’s still best to take the money in cash.
