As the new Global Head of Capacity Building, Lee will work closely with tax authorities, law enforcement, financial institutions, and regulators to provide advice on how to use Chainalysis’ data and technologies to increase their ability to combat cryptocurrency criminality. After leading IRS-CI for three years and working for the IRS for a total of 29 years, Lee retired from the IRS in March.He oversaw IRS-CI’s shutdown of the darknet marketplace Hydra and the seizure of cryptocurrency from Hamas.The removal of Welcome to Video, a darknet marketplace that sold child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) and took cryptocurrency payments, was also led by Lee.23 children were saved and 337 child abusers were taken into custody following the shutdown.
Chainalysis also played a role in each of those three cases.
“Crypto is the future of finance, which also means it’s the future of crime,” Lee wrote in a Monday blog post on Chainalysis’ website. He added that each of the cases were “reflective of the fact that cryptocurrency is, at least in part, being used for a wide range of nefarious activities.”
“But by equipping law enforcement agencies with the best-in-class tools and data to fight this activity, we can ensure that the crypto ecosystem remains as safe as possible, so that people around the world can realize its many benefits without fear of being targeted by criminals,” Lee said.