Investigating and Prosecuting a Crypto Case
TRM Talks with the Honorable Zia M. Faruqui, IRS-CI Special Agent Chris Janczewski and Senior Assistant United States Attorney Jessica Brooks
Streaming here on:
Thursday, November 19th 2020 05:00pm ET / 2:00pm PT
How in the world did the Department of Justice and the IRS just seize $1 billion in Bitcoin? What happens now to the largest seizure of cryptocurrency in history? How do the very best agents and prosecutors conduct these complex investigations into webs of financial transactions that span the globe?
Please join us for the November TRM Talks with former Assistant United States Attorney Zia Faruqui, IRS-CI Special Agent Chris Janczewski, and other special guests! They are the dream team that investigated and prosecuted the most important cryptocurrency cases in recent history. They disrupted North Korean cybercriminal hacking team Lazarus Group, took down the largest darknet marketplace for child exploitation Welcome to Video and seized millions of dollars in cryptocurrency headed to terrorist groups Hamas, al-Qaeda and Isis.
This team will provide some inside baseball on what it takes to investigate and prosecute the biggest cryptocurrency cases.
Panelists
Zia Faruqui
U. S. Magistrate Judge and former Assistant US Attorney
Zia Faruqui previously worked as a federal prosecutor in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office. While there, he prosecuted cases involving terrorists use of cryptocurrency, North Korean weapons proliferation via cyrpto and fiat money laundering, darknet sites dedicated to child exploitation, and the theft of antiquities. He was one of the founding members of the D.C. Cyrptocurrency Strike Force and Threat Finance Unit, both of which targeted the inersection of national security and fiancial crime. Currently, he is serving as a U. S. Magistrate Judge in Washington D.C.
Chris Janczewski
Special Agent, Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation’s Cyber Crimes Unit (IRS-CI CCU)
Chris Janczewski is a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation’s Cyber Crimes Unit (IRS-CI CCU) in Washington, D.C. Since joining IRS-CI in 2009, Special Agent Janczewski has investigated cases involving international money laundering, child exploitation, terrorism, state sponsored hacks, darknet markets, virtual currency, stolen identity and tax refund fraud, and organized crime. Specifically, Special Agent Janczewski has led the most important money laundering and cryptocurrency cases in recent history including the recent hack that affected Twitter users, "Welcome to Video," the largest darknet site for images of child exploitation, and the investigation of the North Korean hacking team known as Lazarus Group, which resulted in a seizure of $250 million in cryptocurrency raised by Hamas, Al
Chris is currently assigned as the IRS-CI Liaison to the National Cyber Forensic Training Alliance (NCFTA). Prior to becoming a special agent, Chris conducted audits for the IRS – Small Business/Self-Employed division for three years.
Jessica Brooks
Senior Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia
Jessi Brooks is a Senior Assistant United States Attorney in the National Security Section in the D.C. United States Attorney’s Office. She focuses on terrorist financing cases, specifically involving cryptocurrency and money laundering. In her most recent case, she worked with law enforcement partners to dismantle three terrorist financing cyber-enabled campaigns related to the al-Qassam Brigades, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. Prior to joining the National Security Section, Jessi prosecuted sex offense cases, leading almost two dozen jury trial teams, including the first ever online “revenge porn” prosecution in Washington, D.C. Before joining the Department of Justice, Jessi clerked for the Honorable Richard Seeborg in the Northern District of California and worked at Bingham McCutchen in San Francisco. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2011, and earned her law degree from Stanford Law School in 2011.
Ari Redbord
Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs
Ari Redbord is Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, a blockchain analytics company that helps organizations detect, assess and investigate crypto-related fraud and financial crime. Prior to his role at TRM, Ari was the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary and the Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the United States Treasury. In that position, he worked with teams from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and other Treasury components to deploy sanctions and other regulatory tools against threat actors, including terrorist financiers, weapons of mass destruction proliferators, drug kingpins, and other rogue actors, including Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela. In addition, Ari worked closely with regulators, the Hill and the interagency on issues related to the Bank Secrecy Act, cryptocurrency, and anti-money laundering strategies.
Prior to Treasury, Ari was an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia for eleven years where he investigated and prosecuted terrorism, espionage, threat finance, cryptocurrency, export control, child exploitation and human trafficking cases.