The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said Tuesday it’s
adding a “Chief Digital Currency Advisor” to its ranks.
Michele Korver, who joined the U.S. Department of Justice as its first
“Digital Currency Counsel” in late 2017, will consult with FinCEN Acting
Director Michael Mosier on cryptocurrency’s role in financial crime.
The hire offers another sign that FinCEN is re-upping its
crypto focus.
“Ms. Korver will advance FinCEN’s leadership role in the digital
currency space by working across internal and external partners toward
strategic and innovative solutions to prevent and mitigate illicit financial
practices and exploitation,” FinCEN said in a press statement.
Although this is the first position of its kind at FinCEN, it’s not the
first time the agency has hired someone with crypto experience. Mosier
himself used to work at
blockchain sleuthing firm Chainalysis as its chief technical officer.
Earlier this year, Korver wrote a section explaining how
cryptocurrencies may be used by criminals in the Department of Justice’s
Journal of Federal Law and Practice.
Alongside co-author Alexandra Comolli, Korver wrote that crypto will
likely be decreasingly associated with money laundering as it becomes more
widely accepted.
“In the early days of cryptocurrency, a great deal of activity was tied
to illegal conduct on the dark web, which is why the shuttering of dark web
marketplaces could impact the value of bitcoin,” she wrote. “But as mainstream
adoption of cryptocurrency has grown, the percentage of transactions used to
promote or conceal crime has also decreased.”
Source: Coindesk
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