US DOJ Recasts Crypto as Fraud Infrastructure in New Review
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is signaling a serious shift in its strategy to crypto enforcement.
Authorities body digital belongings not as standalone “crypto scams” however as a central device in trendy, industrial-scale fraud operations.
DOJ Recasts Crypto as Fraud Infrastructure as AI Turns Scams into Industrial Operations
In its 2025 Year in Review, the DOJ highlighted three high-profile circumstances that illustrate how crypto has turn into embedded in conventional crimes, citing:
- Medicare fraud
- Multi-million-dollar funding schemes, and
- Asset laundering.
According to the DOJ, prosecutors charged 265 defendants in 2025 with an mixture supposed loss exceeding $16 billion. This is greater than double the earlier yr.
The Fraud Section operates by specialised items, together with the Health Care Fraud Unit, which oversees seizures of crypto alongside money, luxurious autos, and different belongings.
Medicare Fraud: Elderly Targeted in $1 Billion Graft Fraud, Crypto Seized
One of probably the most placing circumstances concerned Tyler Kontos, Joel “Max” Kupetz, and Jorge Kinds, charged with a $1 billion amniotic wound allograft fraud.
The scheme focused aged and terminally unwell sufferers with medically pointless grafts, producing over $600 million in improper Medicare funds.
Authorities later seized greater than $7.2 million in belongings, together with crypto.
Wolf Capital CEO Sentenced in $9.4 Million Crypto Investment Scam
In one other case, Travis Ford, former CEO of Wolf Capital, was sentenced to five years in prison for a $9.4 million crypto funding fraud promising 547% annual returns to roughly 2,800 traders.
These circumstances illustrate a broader DOJ technique: crypto is more and more handled like conventional types of illicit worth like money, vehicles, or luxurious items, moderately than as a novel, speculative asset.
Enforcement is now not centered on worth manipulation or retail hype however on asset restoration and dismantling legal infrastructure.
It aligns with a current DOJ transfer to charge a Venezuelan national over alleged $1 billion crypto laundering spanning the US and high-risk jurisdictions.
AI Turns Crypto Schemes into High-Speed Crime Networks
This industrialization of fraud has aligned with broader US coverage priorities. The DOJ’s “America First” enforcement posture dovetails with the just lately introduced bipartisan SAFE Crypto Act, which might set up a federal process power inside 180 days to coordinate efforts to fight crypto scams.
“To set up a process power for recognizing and averting cryptocurrency scams, and for different functions,” read a textual content in the invoice.
Meanwhile, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has urged states to criminalize unlicensed crypto operations. He warned {that a} $51 billion legal economic system is flourishing in regulatory blind spots.
The DOJ and different regulators are more likely to deal with AI-driven schemes starting from artificial tokenized investments to scams constructed round AI buying and selling narratives.
Crypto’s regulatory trajectory is more and more formed by its function as systemic monetary plumbing moderately than by market volatility. This brings digital belongings nearer to the compliance, oversight, and enforcement expectations lengthy related to TradFi.
As the DOJ recasts crypto as core infrastructure for contemporary fraud, regulatory and enforcement consideration will more and more goal the pace, scale, and operational sophistication of crypto-enabled crime.
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