The U.S. Secret Service, which is charged with protecting U.S. political figures, such as the President of the United States, has released a list of “Most Wanted Fugitives.” The list contains several individuals who used digital currencies for their crimes. In fact this should’t come as a surprise, as part of the Secret Service’s mission is to protect the US currency and investigate financial crime:

“We also protect the integrity of our currency, and investigate crimes against the U.S. financial system committed by criminals around the world and in cyberspace.”

One of the top 10 most wanted, Allan Garcia, a 36-year-old Costa Rican, is wanted for allegedly managing the daily operations of Liberty Reserve, a company that “operated in digital currency.” According to Secret Service:

“The company grew into a financial hub of the cybercrime world, facilitating a broad range of online criminal activity, including credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, and narcotics trafficking.”

Russian citizen, Danil Potekhin, is another crypto-related criminal on the Secret Service’s top 10 list. Between June 2017 and April 2018, Potekhin and his colleague Dmitrii Karasavidi launched a phishing campaign targeting users of several digital currency exchanges. According to the Secret Service, the duo was able to withdraw some of the victims’ holdings, and manipulate the digital currency markets.

A 33-year-old American citizen, Rashawd Lamar Tulloch, is accused of acting as a third-party money launderer that helped defraud victims out of millions of dollars. Allegedly, Tulloch ran an operation that converted payments into Bitcoin (or cash).

Growing concern over crypto crime

The presence of crypto-related criminals on the Secret Service’s “Most Wanted Fugitives” is an indication that crime coming from the crypto world is recently receiving much more government attention than earlier.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced that ransomware, a crime that is commonplace in the crypto industry, would be prioritized along the same lines as terrorism. The announcement came amidst the high-profile ransomware attack that targeted the Colonial Pipeline.

The G7 echoed the Department of Justice several days later, committing to fighting cryptocurrency-fuelled ransomware attacks.

Source: Several Crypto Fraudsters in US Secret Service’s ‘Most Wanted’ List – Fintechs.fi