DOJ Flags Three Crypto Instances in 'America First' Push Towards Fraud – Decrypt

Briefly
The Justice Division's Fraud Part highlighted three main crypto-related prosecutions in its 2025 Yr in Assessment, showcasing digital belongings' function in fraud schemes.
Instances ranged from a $1 billion Medicare rip-off with crypto seizures to a $9.4 million funding fraud that promised 547% annual returns.
AI-enabled fraud has surged 500%, with prison operations now transferring at unprecedented pace and scale, an knowledgeable informed Decrypt.
The U.S. Division of Justice highlighted three high-profile fraud circumstances the place cryptocurrency performed a cloth function in its 2025 Yr in Assessment, launched Thursday, noting heightened enforcement as digital belongings grow to be embedded in conventional fraud schemes.The circumstances emerged from a record-breaking yr the place prosecutors charged 265 defendants with an combination supposed fraud loss exceeding $16 billion, greater than double final yr's whole, based on the DOJ's Felony Division Fraud Part report.The Fraud Part operates by means of 4 specialised items: the International Corrupt Practices Act Unit, the Market, Authorities, and Client Fraud Unit, the Well being and Security Unit, and the Well being Care Fraud Unit, which oversees well being care fraud circumstances which have included seizures of crypto.The report highlights the rising function of crypto in large-scale fraud operations.In a single such case, Tyler Kontos, Joel “Max” Kupetz, and Jorge Sorts have been charged over a $1 billion amniotic wound allograft fraud scheme that allegedly drove greater than $600 million in improper Medicare funds.Prosecutors say the defendants focused aged and terminally sick sufferers with medically pointless grafts, and authorities later seized over $7.2 million in belongings, together with financial institution accounts and crypto.The Justice Division additionally famous final yr’s Nationwide Well being Care Fraud Takedown, the most important in Division historical past, the place 324 people have been charged in schemes involving over $14.6 billion in supposed loss. Throughout that operation, authorities “seized over $245 million in money, luxurious automobiles, cryptocurrency, and different belongings.”Final November, Travis Ford, former CEO of Wolf Capital, was sentenced to 60 months in jail for a $9.4 million crypto funding fraud that focused about 2,800 buyers, after promising “1–2% every day returns” and diverting funds for private acquire, the DOJ stated.The enforcement actions come as Congress strikes to deal with crypto fraud. Final month, Senators Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) launched the bipartisan SAFE Crypto Act, which might set up a federal process pressure inside 180 days aimed toward decreasing crypto scams by means of cross-sector coordination.Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg additionally urged state lawmakers this month to criminalize unlicensed crypto operations, warning {that a} $51 billion prison financial system is prospering in regulatory blind spots. “Crucial shift proper now's pace. We have seen roughly a 500% improve in AI-enabled fraud, and that improve is not nearly quantity—it is about how briskly prison operations can now transfer,” Ari Redbord, VP and World Head of Coverage at TRM Labs, informed Decrypt.Redbord warned that prison teams are “not improvising” however as an alternative “working extremely optimized, industrial operations that may steal and launder funds in hours somewhat than weeks.”That pace has pushed what Redbord referred to as the “industrialization of cash laundering,” the place skilled laundering networks now function as “shared infrastructure for rip-off networks, ransomware teams, drug trafficking organizations, North Korean cyber actors, and sanctions evaders.”“Trying forward, AI-enabled fraud will proceed to drive enforcement priorities, from scams constructed round AI buying and selling narratives to artificial and tokenized funding schemes designed to fabricate belief,” he added.Every day Debrief NewsletterStart every single day with the highest information tales proper now, plus authentic options, a podcast, movies and extra.