{"id":100297,"date":"2026-01-14T18:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/100297\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:33:16","slug":"bragg-names-crypto-crime-as-a-top-target-of-his-second-term-amnewyork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/100297\/","title":{"rendered":"Bragg names crypto crime as a top target of his second term \u2013 amNewYork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Manhattan\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg<\/p>\n

Photo by Max Parrott<\/p>\n

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took a public speaking engagement at New York Law School Wednesday morning to outline three of his second-term priorities \u2014 two familiar, one high-tech: guns, shoplifting and crypto.<\/p>\n

Bragg targeted the blockchain currency in his presentation, raising grave concerns over its role in facilitating illicit payments for other types of crime in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wanna alarm anyone, but\u2026 we need systemic accountability on steroids here. In fact, I actually want you to be a little scared,\u201d Bragg said to the audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The overarching theme of Bragg\u2019s talk was that his office is taking a \u201csystemic\u201d approach to prosecution that goes beyond holding individual bad actors accountable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For guns, Bragg said that meant cracking down on the so-called iron pipeline, or the path that gun smugglers use to illegally move guns throughout the U.S. He also has advocated for legislation to criminalize the manufacture of 3D-printed ghost guns. For shoplifting, it means focusing on operations that go after \u201cfencing networks\u201d that resell stolen merchandise to consumers.<\/p>\n

Crypto enforcement, Bragg said, is what\u2019s needed to root out other forms of criminal activity.\u00a0 Lack of regulation of crypto financial markets leads to billions of dollars of crypto pouring into a manifold of criminal enterprises, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2024, around $51 billion in crypto transferred to known criminal addresses or people affiliated with criminal actions, according to Chainalysis <\/a>a blockchain analysis firm<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the infrastructure that allows the other crime to happen. So getting our arms around this is key for systemic accountability,\u201d Bragg said.\n<\/p>\n

Bragg noted that cryptocurrency is a \u201cperfect way to launder money\u201d because there\u2019s nothing akin to the regulations in traditional banking that require crypto companies to file suspicious activity reports about their customer base.<\/p>\n

To ramp up his crypto enforcement, Bragg said he has started to work with members of the Legislature on new tools. He wants a bill that would require crypto companies in New York to abide by the same \u201cknow your customer\u201d standards as banks, and other legislation that would create criminal penalties for people who are transferring crypto to other forms of currency without a license.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need unambiguous authority to do more of it, and to do it in a more streamlined way. Eighteen other states have done this,\u201d Bragg said. \u201cWe are the center of capitalism, and so doing it here is important.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following his presentation, a civil litigator in the audience who has taken on crypto scam cases that often target the life savings of elderly New Yorkers asked Bragg what type of solution the DAs office could offer people like her clients.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spend a lot of time trying to help people get stolen crypto back. It\u2019s very hard,\u201d Bragg said, before promoting a new piece of legislation by state Senator Zellnor Myrie that would crack down on white collar crimes by increasing penalties, broadening definitions for fraud, including crypto scams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving my office the tools is very important,\u201d Bragg said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Photo by Max Parrott Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took a public speaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-100297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}