The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is set to launch a pilot program that will see four agents specialized in cyber and crypto crimes sent to four countries around the world. The countries chosen for the pilot program, set for a 120-day duration between June and September 2023, are Australia, Colombia, Germany, and Singapore. The goal of the program is to combat the use of crypto and decentralized finance products in global financial and tax crimes.

In the report, Carissa Cutrell, an IRS spokesperson, stated that the success of the pilot program will “hinge on the attachés’ ability to work cooperatively and train our foreign law enforcement counterparts, and build leads for criminal investigations”. Chris Janczewski, a former special agent in the IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit, believes the increasing presence of the U.S. revenue collector abroad will help simplify international investigations.

Agents of the IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit have already brought to book the alleged criminal that ran the criminal services marketplace Alphabay, as well as help in the takedown of a black-market site for stolen social security numbers. However, before this pilot program the IRS has only had one investigator stationed abroad, in The Hague, Netherlands. With four agents being sent out to multiple countries, it will help the agency further in their duty to combat cybercrime.

The four agents will take part in gathering research, conducting interviews, and providing training in data analysis regarding financial movements, alongside finding innovative approaches to tackle the ever-growing issue of global financial and tax crimes facilitated by cryptocurrency. The pilot program is sure to be a great success for the IRS and will hopefully result in them permanently placing agents in those countries in the near future.



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