US Internal Revenue Service plans to collect $ 3.5 billion in crypto from criminals in 2021

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that $ 3.5 billion worth of cryptocurrencies were seized in fiscal year 2021. The agency is expected to seize billions of dollars more in cryptocurrency over the next year.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation (CI) Unit, the law enforcement arm of the task force, released its 2021 annual report on the criminal investigation last Thursday.

The report describes the key law enforcement statistics, partnerships, and actions of the IRS-CI for the final fiscal year, which began October 1, 2020 and ended October 30, 2021. Among several Bitcoin cases highlighted in the report, “the longest running a Bitcoin money laundering service on the darknet called Bitcoin Fog was.

The criminal investigation department’s 49-page annual report states that cryptocurrencies worth $ 3.5 billion were seized in fiscal year 2021. This corresponds to 93% of all CI seizures during this period.

The agency has announced that it will raise billions of dollars more in crypto in the next fiscal year. Jim Lee, director of the IRS Criminal Investigation Department, told reporters on Thursday:

“I predict that the trend towards seizure of cryptocurrencies will continue as we move into fiscal year 2022 … We are seeing more and more crime related to crypto.”

Jarod Koopman, acting executive director of the IRS Cyber ​​and Forensic Services Division, commented that large-scale cryptocurrency seizures have become the new normal for IRS criminal investigations.

“That’s a huge number. We are certainly seeing a change in our investigative work. I believe the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit may be able to seize even more cryptocurrencies in the coming fiscal year, ”he said, adding:

“We’d expect that number to stay in this range based on some of the research we’re doing now, which is quite large and range in scope, it could hit a new high next year.”

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Sun Quan

According to NewsBitcoin

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