America Leads the World in Cryptocurrency Crime: What the McAfee Institute

is Doing to Help

Bitcoin crime is running rampant in the U.S., and new data shows America has, by far, the most
perpetrators of cryptocurrency crime in the world. This year, though, law enforcement appears to be
girding its loins for combat with an IRS crackdown and the provision of a new, accredited
certification program for cryptocurrency investigation training.

Chesterfield, MO, August 20, 2018 --(PR.com)-- Bitcoin has arguably confounded investors and
speculators throughout the 2010s thus far because there's no consensus on how it has managed to retain
value. As of last year, researchers from the University of Cambridge published a study that found
anywhere from 2.9 to 5.8 million different cryptocurrency users worldwide, most of them in Bitcoin, but
some pundits call it a crypto bubble, predicting it has to crash sometime like the dotcom bubble of the late
'90s or the subsequent housing bubble of the mid-aughts. Now, though, new research published this
month has produced data that shows the U.S. alone accounts for over half of the entire world's
cryptocurrency crime.

The year 2018 marks the year that law enforcement in the U.S. appears to be getting serious about this,
and an imminent crackdown seems to be mounting almost exactly as one pundit predicted last year would
be necessary. Jason Bloomberg is a world-renowned expert on trends that cause upheaval in digital
transformation and enterprise technology, and his perspective on cryptocurrency is multifaceted but
perhaps best synopsized by his reference to Bitcoin as the “blood diamonds of the digital era.” He's
written about the real, unspoken reason why Bitcoin stays afloat. He wrote in Forbes in March 2017, “the
underlying value of Bitcoin really has little to do with its artificial scarcity or popularity as a medium of
speculation. On the contrary - the only reason Bitcoin has value to anyone is because of the underlying
value as a medium of exchange for lawbreakers. If we could flip a switch and eliminate all illegal uses of
Bitcoin, there would be nothing left of the cybercurrency.”

Cryptocurrency is the new tool of choice for money launderers, tax evaders and contraband transactions.
Russian cybersecurity firm Group-IB - ranked the seventh cyber threat intelligence vendor in the world
by Gartner in 2015 - conducted the new study in which they illustrated the global distribution of
cryptocurrency exchange user accounts, and 56.1 percent were found to be in the U.S. compared to
France's 2.6 percent, Germany's 3.2 percent and Russia's 2.6 percent. The only country even comparable
to the U.S. in this regard is the Netherlands with 21.5 percent. American law enforcement, however, has
been outpaced by this innovation as criminals flock to it because cryptocurrency crime is such a new
phenomenon that there's never been a such thing as a certified cryptocurrency crime investigator until
now.

Bloomberg more recently wrote that “cryptocurrencies have actually led to a massive cat and mouse
game with law enforcement,” which he says has culminated in “the increasing recognition that law
enforcement requires its own technological innovation in order to keep up.” Since Bloomberg published
those words, however, a new cryptocurrency investigation training program has been established for
investigators to become certified specifically for investigating cryptocurrency crime. The IRS is

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reportedly attempting to take a new approach to at least dealing with tax evasion via cryptocurrency,
having subpoenaed Coinbase (major Bitcoin exchange) and since ramped up cryptocurrency
investigations, but one of the biggest law enforcement needs across multiple sectors and departments is
for cryptocurrency investigation training. From police detectives to assistant U.S. attorneys to fraud
investigators in both private and public sectors, investigators are overwhelmed by cryptocurrency crime.

The only prospective solution on the horizon is the technological innovation to which Bloomberg referred
as the new mandate for U.S. law enforcement across the board, which is why the new Certified
Cryptocurrency Forensic Investigator (CCFI) program meets an increasingly dire need. McAfee Institute,
one of the world's leading, international purveyors of professional certification in investigation and
intelligence gathering, has stepped to the plate by offering this new certification program just this year -
the first significant step in public or private sectors toward the optimal solution Bloomberg mentioned.

McAfee Institute's governing board approves the certification curriculum of their specialized investigative
programs, and the board is staffed by 32 practitioners and subject matter experts in various fields of
investigation - police chiefs, military threat intelligence analysts, CIA operatives, district attorney
investigators and private sector investigators from Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, eBay, Amazon and
more. They're now training and certifying eligible professionals in the intelligence and investigative
sectors as CCFIs. Students can complete their coursework via a self-study, online program with
video-based tutorials, live instruction and live investigation exercises for hands-on experience.

What Bloomberg was advocating in December 2017 in his role as a Forbes contributor, therefore, is now
happening. “If the criminals choose to leverage innovative technology to facilitate their activities, then
law enforcement must do the same.” Not only is law enforcement innovating but it's also presenting a
new means of career advancement for all kinds of investigators all over the country, which means
workers in investigation fields, including IRS professionals even, are incentivized to join what amounts to
a race to the front lines. Cryptocurrency crime, for that matter, will only continue to proliferate until law
enforcement catches up, so it's beyond reasonable to anticipate that cryptocurrency forensic investigation
is the next frontier in the investigation space.

Sources:

Avan-Nomayo, O. (August, 2018). United States is #1 in Cryptocurrency Crime. Retrieved from

https://bitcoinist.com/united-states-is-number-one-in-cryptocurrency-crime-data-shows/

Bloomberg, J. (March, 2017). Bitcoin: Blood Diamonds of the Digital Era. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2017/03/28/bitcoin-blood-diamonds-of-the-digital-era/#64
0cb05492a5

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Contact Information:
McAfee Institute
Ashley Perry
888-263-1650
Contact via Email
https://www.mcafeeinstitute.com

Online Version of Press Release:

You can read the online version of this press release at: https://www.pr.com/press-release/762504

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