Donald Trump Signs Executive Order to Create Task Force for Crypto Crime Investigations

The crypto industry is seeing a lot of illicit activities following its explosion on the mainstream market. As such, Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that would focus its attention on crypto crime investigations, Coindesk reported.

Called Task Force on Market Integrity and Consumer Fraud, this investigative body will be overseen by the Justice Department. It will coordinate its efforts with other government agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

While this new task force will take over crypto crime investigations in general, Donald Trump’s executive order gave a slight emphasis on digital currency fraud. This may imply that this particular case of crypto scam is becoming more and more prevalent. Indeed, earlier this year, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that they’re focusing their attention on market fraud.

"A lot of these schemes involve bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies which do not flow through the traditional financial system," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at the time. "What we're working on now with our cybercrime task force is a comprehensive strategy to deal with that."

Rosenstein spoke again in Washington outlining the impact that fraud has brought to American citizens, with sectors like the financial market and health agencies taking the biggest hits. He added that companies should cooperate with the government on crypto crime investigations to avoid miscommunication like getting fined for the same violation.

It can be recalled that the Obama administration formed a similar task force back in 2008 when the financial crisis exploded. With Donald Trump’s executive order, he can directly steer the group’s focus on crypto crime investigations, while ensuring that different government sectors coordinate with each other to achieve the task force’s goals. This is good news for the crypto ecosystem as a whole because decreasing the occurrence of crypto scams will increase the industry’s reputation to the general public.