The IRS predicts billions in cryptocurrency seizures from fraud schemes next year after taking $3.5 billion this year | Currency News | Financial and Business News

• Billions of {dollars} value of cryptocurrency may very well be seized once more subsequent yr, the IRS stated.
• For fiscal yr 2021, the company retrieved $3.5 billion value of crypto, in keeping with a report.
• The high-profile case associated to Silk Highway led to a $1 billion seizure of 1000’s of bitcoin this previous yr.

The Inner Income Service stated cryptocurrencies value billions of {dollars} may very well be seized once more subsequent yr.

That is after it retrieved $3.5 billion value of crypto in fiscal yr 2021, making up 93% of all property seized by the company that yr, in keeping with the IRS annual report.

Throughout a name reported by Bloomberg, the IRS Legal Investigation Chief Jim lee stated he expects the development of crypto seizures to proceed in fiscal yr 2022.

The IRS stated in its annual report that cybercrimes affecting the US tax and monetary methods are seeing “exponential development” and added that it has prioritized coaching on prison schemes associated to cryptocurrency and blockchain.

As a part of that prioritization, the prison investigation unit is launching an Superior Collaboration & Knowledge Middle in Northern Virginia in 2022, in keeping with the report.

One of many high-profile crypto instances this previous yr was the $1 billion seizure of 1000’s of bitcoin associated to Silk Highway, the web market for medicine that was shut down by law enforcement in 2013.

A federal jury convicted Silk Highway creator Ross Ulbricht in 2015 of distributing narcotics and laundering cash. However investigators had but to trace down all the cash from the scheme till they found beforehand unnoticed bitcoin transactions and adopted the path.

In the meantime, crypto buying and selling platforms are actually required to report transactions to the IRS, because the infrastructure bundle signed into legislation on Monday additionally consists of new necessities for the sector, Bloomberg stated. However lawmakers have launched bipartisan legislation to loosen some of the law’s reporting rules.