Insights from Leaders and Experts on Fighting Financial Crimes in the Digital Age: Webinar Recap
Last week, IVIX and Carahsoft co-hosted a webinar panel on “Crypto: Unmasking Tax Non-Compliance and Other Financial Crimes in the Digital Age,” featuring a powerhouse trio of industry veterans who have played an instrumental role in successfully tackling financial crime: former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, former IRS-Criminal Investigation Chief Don Fort, and Head of Global Investigations for TRM Labs, Chris Janczewski.
The conversation centered on recent high-profile financial crime investigations in which the three panelists were instrumental in solving. The team also discussed the pivotal role of crypto in financial crimes and hidden economic activity, as well as crypto’s contribution to the tax gap, the role of open source intelligence (OSINT) and blockchain analysis, and tools federal and state tax authorities can use to detect hidden crypto activity.
Transforming Enforcement Strategies for the Modern Threat Landscape
Chris Janczewski, Charles Rettig, and Don Fort each helped modernize financial crime enforcement by championing the use of technology, collaboration, and innovation to expose hidden assets and hold bad actors accountable in an increasingly digital world.
During his tenure as IRS Commissioner from 2018 to 2022, Charles Rettig prioritized the modernization of IRS enforcement efforts, with a sharp focus on combating financial crime in the digital age. He championed the agency’s investment in data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrency tracing tools, recognizing that tax evasion and financial fraud were increasingly occurring through complex, tech-enabled channels. Rettig also expanded the IRS Criminal Investigation division’s capabilities to target cybercrime, money laundering, and illicit use of virtual currencies—supporting high-profile takedowns of darknet marketplaces and digital asset abuse.
As the lead virtual currency expert on the Welcome to Video case, then-IRS Special Agent Christopher Janczewski played a pivotal role in unraveling the financial infrastructure of one of the largest child exploitation networks ever uncovered on the dark web. When a tip revealed that the site was accepting bitcoin to facilitate the download of illicit content, it was Janczewski’s expertise in blockchain analysis that enabled the investigative team to trace cryptocurrency transactions to specific users and ultimately to the site’s administrator. His work, alongside that of his partners, directly contributed to the identification and arrest of hundreds of offenders, the rescue of 25 exploited children, and the dismantling of a global network built on anonymity and digital currency.
As Chief of IRS-Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI) from 2017 to 2020, Don Fort expanded the agency’s reach into cybercrime, cryptocurrency enforcement, and global money laundering, while continuing to pursue high-impact cases involving tax evasion, public corruption, and transnational crime. Fort spearheaded efforts to integrate cutting-edge technologies—like blockchain analytics and open-source intelligence—into the agency’s investigative toolkit, enabling IRS-CI to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated criminal networks.
Bringing Criminal Investigations into the Digital Age: Key Takeaways
The panelists’ discussion and reflection on recent high-profile cases such as the Welcome to Video case revealed three key takeaways:
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning have revolutionized how financial crimes are detected and investigated. The rapid growth of the Internet has led to an unprecedented expansion of individual’s digital footprints, often without their awareness or intent. As our daily activities have increasingly shifted online —from shopping and social media to generating additional income – each click, search and interaction leaves behind a digital trail. otherwise known as open source intelligence (OSINT). However, the sheer volume of publicly available data through OSINT sources would make manual analysis incredibly challenging, if not impossible. Advanced AI tools like IVIX can help tax authorities analyze this publicly available business data to uncover tax noncompliance and generate high-impact leads.
- Public-private partnership models are key to modern investigations. Solving today's most complex cases requires a holistic approach that combines the legal authority and jurisdictional reach of government agencies with the resources, cutting-edge technologies and specialized industry knowledge of the private sector. These partnerships have proven particularly effective in addressing cybercrime and financial fraud investigations—areas where threats move rapidly across traditional boundaries. Tax authorities that embrace public-private partnership models will position themselves to navigate an increasingly sophisticated digital economy with greater resilience and effectiveness.
- Technological advances will elevate – not replace – human resources. Within the last 20 years, tax authorities like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have made significant strides in modernizing its technology infrastructure and taxpayer services, including the expanded availability of online services. These tools serve as an extension of human teams, taking on mundane and time-intensive tasks so that employees can focus on higher-value work. As stretched as many current agency resources are, this is a welcome addition that empowers authorities like the IRS to keep pace with the sophistication of illegal activity in the digital age, efficiently work criminal investigations, and better serve their communities.
To watch the webinar replay, go to Carahsoft’s IVIX microsite events page. Learn more about IVIX and our role in helping authorities gain complete visibility into hidden activity at https://www.ivix.ai/.
