The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plans to send four cybercrime investigators to Australia, Singapore, Colombia, and Germany this summer to combat crimes involving cryptocurrency, decentralized finance and crypto laundering services. The expansion follows the success of landmark international operations in the last several years, including the shutdown of the drug and hacking services marketplace AlphaBay, the bust of the internet’s biggest child abuse website, and the takedown of a marketplace for stolen Social Security numbers, among others.
Until now, the IRS only had one cyber investigator abroad in The Hague, Netherlands, who worked mostly along Europol since 2021.
The four new positions are part of a pilot program that will last 120 days, from June to September 2023.
IRS spokesperson Carissa Cutrell said the aim was to “combat the use of cryptocurrency, decentralized finance and mixing services in international financial and tax crimes.” After the pilot, the IRS will evaluate whether to continue having the agents in the new countries.
Chris Janczewski, who worked as a special agent in the IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit, said that growing the IRS’s presence abroad was an important step towards streamlining international investigations.
Janczewski explained that depending on which country the IRS is working with, there may be different legal procedures to obtain evidence, “but often informal information in real-time is needed in fast-moving investigations.” He added that “in these situations, it comes down to professional relationships, knowing who to call and what to say.”
Apart from the five cyber investigators, the IRS has 11 attaché posts around the world, including Mexico, Canada, Colombia, Panama, Barbados, China, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.
These partnerships give the IRS the ability to develop leads for domestic and international investigations with an international nexus.
