In short
- Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg urged New York lawmakers to strengthen crypto enforcement, warning that crypto now underpins cash laundering and arranged crime.
- He referred to as for obligatory licensing, KYC guidelines, and prison penalties for unlicensed crypto companies, saying present legal guidelines depart prosecutors wanting authority.
- Consultants say harder guidelines might curb large-scale scams, however success will hinge on regulation enforcement’s technical capability and authorized readability.
Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg urged state lawmakers Wednesday to criminalize unlicensed crypto operations, warning {that a} $51 billion prison economic system is flourishing in regulatory blind spots that allow criminals launder gun, drug, and fraud proceeds with impunity.
Talking at New York Regulation Faculty on Wednesday, Bragg laid out crypto enforcement as a second-term precedence alongside weapons and shoplifting, demanding legislators shut loopholes that enable unlicensed operators to evade prosecution regardless of facilitating large cash laundering operations.
"We want systemic accountability like on steroids right here," Bragg stated. "In actual fact, truly, I would like you to be a little bit scared. After which to jot down your meeting individual or senator in regards to the repair, the prescription we’ve."
Bragg zeroed in on unlicensed crypto ATMs that cost 20% charges to transform soiled money into digital property.
"They know you're laundering gun proceeds," he stated. "And so they do it with out essentially asking you."
Whereas Manhattan prosecutors have cracked instances, together with a $5 million unlicensed Bitcoin ATM operation and terrorism financing schemes, Bragg stated investigators can't depend on criminals making errors.
"We shouldn't want somebody to slide up and use a standard financial institution," he stated. "There are individuals far wiser than the one who bragged on Fb Messenger."
Bragg referred to as for obligatory licensing and know-your-customer necessities for all crypto companies, backed by prison penalties.
"If you’re working a crypto enterprise, if you’re transferring, buying and selling, transferring, no matter verb you wanna use, digital forex, try to be licensed," Bragg stated. "It's that easy."
The proposal would make New York the nineteenth state to criminalize unlicensed crypto operations, he stated.
Through the Q&A session, civil litigator Margo Hoppen raised issues about not too long ago widowed aged New Yorkers having fallen sufferer to pig butchering schemes.
"We spent a whole lot of time attempting to assist individuals get stolen crypto again. It's very onerous," he stated, pointing to Senator Zellnor Myrie’s R.I.P.O.F.F. act as a possible resolution that "would give us extra instruments to assist individuals get stolen crypto again."
Simply this week, the U.S. Legal professional's Workplace in Massachusetts filed a civil forfeiture motion on Monday searching for $200,000 in USDT stablecoin from a Tinder-based pig-butchering rip-off focusing on a Massachusetts resident.
"When prosecutors like Alvin Bragg say crypto crime will likely be a precedence, an important query is whether or not regulation enforcement has the instruments and experience to show that focus into actual outcomes,” Ari Redbord, a former Treasury Division official now serving as international head of coverage at blockchain intelligence agency TRM Labs, advised Decrypt.
Citing the TRM Labs Crypto Crime Report, which reveals 2025 was a document 12 months for illicit exercise, with roughly $158 billion in illicit crypto flows and about $2.7 billion misplaced to hacks, and an increase in violent “wrench assaults”—a stage of exercise, he stated that underscores why crypto is “now not a distinct segment subject” however firmly embedded within the broader prison ecosystem.
Redbord framed “prosecutorial give attention to crypto crime” as a query of “capability, not simply intent,” saying the true outcomes rely upon “investing in blockchain forensic instruments,” constructing “technical fluency” amongst investigators and prosecutors, and making certain courts are “snug with digital-asset proof”—utilizing the know-how’s “transparency” to “maintain criminals accountable at scale.”
