Feds Expand Forfeiture of Cryptocurrency

The Department of Justice (DOJ) plans a dramatic expansion in the federal government’s ability to seize and keep cryptocurrency, often wrongly-assumed impervious to government confiscation, hoping to broaden the most abusive form of civil forfeiture that property owners currently have little protection from, reports Nick Sibilla for Forbes. Crypto is often wrongly-assumed impervious to government confiscation. The Attorney General wants to raise that $500,000 cap on forfeitures specifically for cryptocurrency and other digital assets, something that the Secretary of the Treasury could choose to adopt without approval from Congress.

Administrative forfeitures accounted for almost 80 percent of all forfeitures conducted by the DOJ and 96 percent of the Treasury Department’s forfeiture activity. The DOJ is also seeking amendments to criminal forfeiture that takes place after a conviction for fraud or manipulation, which would further aid in the crackdown on scammers.