The Criminal Investigation (CI) of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is taking a courageous initiative in the fight against cybercrime by sending cyber attachés across four continents. Earlier on Thursday, the regulator provided this update.
The most recent plan focuses on preventing tax and financial crimes involving cryptocurrencies, decentralised finance, peer-to-peer payments, and mixing services; the CI hopes to improve global cooperation in the struggle against these illegal practises.
The effort highlights the IRS's dedication to always being one step ahead of cybercriminals in the rapidly changing digital environment.
Beginning of the global cyber showdown
A pilot programme run by the IRS CI will begin in June and place cyber attachés in key sites throughout the world. Sydney, Singapore, Bogota, and Frankfurt were selected as the cities for deployment, representing Australia, Asia, South America, and Europe, respectively.
These attachés will use their specialised expertise in close cooperation with regional law enforcement organisations to combat tax evasion, financial fraud, and other illegal actions made possible by digital currency.
The IRS CI seeks to foster a seamless interchange of knowledge, information, and resources with foreign counterparts by stationing cyber attachés abroad. This proactive strategy is aware that a unified worldwide front is necessary to effectively battle cybercrime.
Jim Lee, Chief of the CI, emphasises the significance of providing international partners with the same level of expertise and resources as those available within the United States. To address the global scope of cyber threats, this programme will need to forge powerful multinational coalitions.
The use of cyber attachés expands on the CI's prior international cooperation initiatives. A permanent cyber attaché from the CI has been based at the Europol headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, since 2020.
To promote collaboration and coordination with European law enforcement authorities, this role was created. With the expansion of the attaché programme, the CI is now able to reach more people and have a greater influence in areas that are known to be hubs for cybercriminal activity.
An emphasis on crypto-inspired crimes
Cybercriminals are using cryptocurrency for different illegal activities as the world becomes more digitised. The IRS's decision to give tax and financial crimes involving cryptocurrencies top priority shows how determined it is to confront these new dangers head-on.
The CI attempts to safeguard people, businesses, and the economy by focusing on criminal activity such as tax fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, and healthcare fraud.
U.S. authorities are increasingly going after cybercriminals, especially those who use cryptocurrencies or decentralised finance (DeFi) to do their crimes. In a recent development, the IRS seized two domains connected to the notorious mixing service, ChipMixer, which is notorious for its involvement in hacking schemes, fraud, cryptocurrency heists, and ransomware operations.
Such measures strongly suggest that law enforcement organisations are aggressively going after persons who use digital currencies for illegal purposes.
Nevertheless, despite the ongoing cybercrimes in the sector, the cryptocurrency market has remained calm. With a valuation firmly above $1 trillion, the global cryptocurrency market has lost 1.1% during the last 24 hours.