Trump Task Force to Aid Crypto Crime Investigations
President Trump has signed an executive order establishing a new task force that targets consumer fraud, including those involving "digital currency."
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday creating a task force that will focus in part on developing guidance for cryptocurrency fraud investigations.
It's not clear in what form the guidance will take, but the task force may ultimately produce some kind of report for the Trump administration on this front.
Yet it's not surprising that the administration would move in this direction. Earlier this year, the U.S. government indicated that it was working toward a "comprehensive" strategy around cryptocurrencies, with a focus on market fraud. In February, the U.S. Department of Justice formed a cybersecurity task force that includes cryptocurrencies as part of its mandate.
"A lot of these schemes involve bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies which do not flow through the traditional financial system," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at the time. "What we're working on now with our cybercrime task force is a working on a comprehensive strategy to deal with that."
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