The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it will double the number of staff on its crypto crime team established in 2021. The unit will add to its number of acting prosecutors and get a new leader.
On July 20, the DoJ published the remarks made by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In her speech, Argentieri announced the merger of two DoJ teams: the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET).
After joining the CCIPS, NCET will continue its activities in investigating and prosecuting criminal offenses involving the abuse of cryptocurrency. Calling the NCET “an enormously successful startup,” Argentieri emphasized that the merger with a larger structure would provide it with new additional resources.
The number of criminal division attorneys available to work on criminal cryptocurrency matters will “more than double,” as any CCIPS attorney could potentially be assigned to work an NCET case. The NCET will also gather access to computer crime and intellectual property work.
The agency will also get a new acting director. Argentieri thanked the inaugural Director of NCET, Eun Young Choi, for her work and named Claudia Quiroz as the new head of the team. Quiroz, a former assistant attorney from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, has been a deputy director of NCET since its inception.
An immediate task for the new “super-charged” unit will be to combat ransomware crimes. The NCET will focus on tracking criminals through their crypto payments, freezing or seizing them “before they go to Russia and other ransomware hotspots.”
Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield has resigned from the Labour Party.
The 53-year-old MP is the first to jump ship since the general election and in her resignation letter criticised the prime minister for accepting thousands of pounds worth of gifts.
She told Sir Keir Starmer the reason for leaving now is “the programme of policies you seem determined to stick to”, despite their unpopularity with the electorate and MPs.
In her letter she accused the prime minister and his top team of “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” which are “off the scale”.
“I’m so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party,” she said.
Since December 2019, the prime minister received £107,145 in gifts, benefits, and hospitality – a specific category in parliament’s register of MPs’ interests.
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Ms Duffield, who has previously clashed with the prime minister on gender issues, attacked the government for pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies as she resigned the Labour whip.
She criticised the decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and means-test the winter fuel payment, and accused the prime minister of “hypocrisy” over his acceptance of free gifts from donors.
“Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous,” she said.
“I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.”
Ms Duffield also mentioned the recent “treatment of Diane Abbott”, who said she thought she had been barred from standing by Labour ahead of the general election, before Sir Keir said she would be allowed to defend her Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat for the party.
Her relationship with the Labour leadership has long been strained and her decision to quit the party comes after seven other Labour MPs were suspended for rebelling by voting for a motion calling for the two-child benefit cap to be abolished.
“Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister,” she said.
Ms Duffield said she will continue to represent her constituents as an independent MP, “guided by my core Labour values”.