In the last year alone, IRS-CI identified more than $10 billion in financial crime, executed over 1400 warrants, seized hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and maintained one of the highest conviction rates in federal law enforcement. But how do they amass these groundbreaking stats? In this episode, Matt Wilson (Director, Product Strategy, Chainalysis) speaks with Trevor McAleenan (Acting Supervisory Special Agent, IRS-CI) and he provides unique insights into the division’s accomplishments.
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Public Key Episode 176: Breaking Blockchain: Real-Life Stories from the War on Drugs and Darknets
In the last year alone, IRS-CI identified more than $10 billion in financial crime executed over 1400 warrants, seized hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and maintained one of the highest conviction rates in federal law enforcement.
But how do they amass these groundbreaking stats? In this episode, Matt Wilson (Director, Product Strategy, Chainalysis) speaks with Trevor McAleenan (Acting Supervisory Special Agent, IRS-CI) and he provides unique insights into the division’s accomplishments and their recent Annual Report.
The team discusses the evolving landscape of financial crime as cryptocurrency becomes a significant player, while shedding light on huge cases, including Armenian narcotics networks, and Chinese nationals peddling fentanyl precursors. The discussion also touches on the future of crimefighting in the world of AI and cryptocurrency, emphasizing the agency’s global partnerships and strategic innovations.
Quote of the episode
” From the perspective of that trial, you know, Chainalysis testified, which is terrific and super beneficial for us to validate and verify what we utilize as our strong contract resource and our strong partner, gave us further verification that the tool that we use daily is valid.” – Trevor McAleenan (Acting Supervisory Special Agent, IRS-CI)
Minute-by-minute episode breakdown
2 | Inside IRS Criminal Investigations and Major Cryptocurrency Seizures
4 | Trevor McAleenan’s Dynamic Career in IRS Criminal Investigation
7 | The Evolution of Cryptocurrency in Criminal Investigations
10 | Major Crypto Cases and Successes for IRS-CI
14 | Seizing Cryptocurrency: Challenges and Unexpected Discoveries
18 | Cracking Down on Darknet Drug Trafficking Through Cryptocurrency
23 | AI and Cryptocurrency in Modern Criminal Investigations
27 | IRS-CI’s Global Impact and Career Opportunities
Related resources
Check out more resources provided by Chainalysis that perfectly complement this episode of the Public Key.
- Website: IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) serves the American public by investigating potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code
- Publication: IRS-CI 2025 Annual Report
- Press Release: U.S. Attorney Announces Historic $3.36 Billion Cryptocurrency Seizure And Conviction In Connection With Silk Road Dark Web Fraud
- Press Release: Bitfinex hacker sentenced in money laundering conspiracy involving billions in stolen cryptocurrency
- Press Release: Bitcoin Fog Operator Sentenced for Money Laundering Conspiracy
- Blog: North Korea Drives Record $2 Billion Crypto Theft Year, Pushing All-Time Total to $6.75 Billion
- Blog: $35 Million in Crypto Drained in 15 Minutes: How Exchange Hacks Are Evolving and How to Prevent Them
- YouTube: Chainalysis YouTube page
- Twitter: Chainalysis Twitter: Building trust in blockchain
Speakers on today’s episode
- Matt Wilson *Host* (Director, Product Strategy, Chainalysis)
- Trevor McAleenan (Acting Supervisory Special Agent, IRS-CI)
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Transcript
Matt W.
Welcome everyone. Today’s guest comes from one of the most effective law enforcement organizations in the world, the IRS Criminal Investigations Division, irsci, just released its annual report, and the numbers speak for themselves. In the last year alone, the agency identified more than 10 billion in financial crime executed over 1400 warrants, seized hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and maintained one of the highest conviction rates in federal law enforcement. This is the team behind some of the most consequential financial takedowns of the past decade, from recovering more than 120,000 Bitcoin tied to the BitFinex hack, to dismantling dark net markets, sanction evasion networks, cartel money laundering operations and massive pandemic era fraud schemes. The irsci sits at the intersection of financial expertise and enforcement. They don’t just chase headlines, they follow money, unwind years of deliberate obfuscation and dismantle criminal networks at the infrastructure level. Today’s guest, Trevor micalinen is an acting supervisory special agent with irsci, and exemplifies exactly what makes this agency so formidable. A trained accountant, Trevor has worked on some of the most significant cryptocurrency investigations in history, including one case that led to the seizure of more than 3 billion in Bitcoin, one of the largest financial seizures ever executed by the US government. His team cracked the Jimmy Zong case trading over 50,000 bitcoins stolen from the Silk Road, dark net market in 2012 by analyzing 10s of 1000s of crypto transactions, there’s a saying in law enforcement, other agencies arrest you, but the IRS convicts you. Trevor, welcome to the show. Thanks, Matt, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So Trevor, after starting your career in accounting, you’ve now spent the better part of 17 years with IRS in various capacities. Can you share a little bit about what drew you to the IRS and your career progression at the agency?
Trevor M.
Yeah, so I started public accounting, and I moved from public accounting to the large business and international Section of the Internal Revenue Service, which is the civil side, where we operate with the voluntary compliance of the American taxpayer. It’s funny, I was at a stage in my life where I wanted to be more active, and I approached my manager, probably within the first couple days of working in large businesses and international and notified him that I wanted to work in the Criminal Investigation Division, because I had a partner that had worked in my public accounting firm who went to work in the Criminal Investigation Division and noted to me, like, this is probably more your speed. And so when there’s a hiring opportunity that came up to join CIA, I joined immediately took the lead from there. I’d spent a roller coaster ride. I’ve had amazing, amazing opportunities to work great things with great people, and we’ll talk a little bit about that. Today, I spent time in different field offices. So I’ve been in the Los Angeles field office, I’ve been in Detroit field office, been in the Charlotte field office. I’ve been in and out of headquarters in different capacities. I worked in our eastern Cyber Crimes Unit the first time I touched cryptocurrency, which is one of things we’re going to talk about today. I was in the eastern Cyber Crimes Unit, doing a detail. And then eventually I ended up in the western Cyber Crimes Unit. I also spent time in our innovations group, which is more of a think tank, if you will, to develop and make new processes and tools that we can benefit from using internally. And then I’ve also spent time working with the j5 which something we’ll talk about a little bit today as well.
Matt W.
That’s awesome. And when you said CI and criminal was a little bit more your speed. What is that speed like? Like? What does it feel like on a day to day basis,
Trevor M.
no two days are ever the same? One of the things that we’re tasked with the new administration is supporting the immigration enforcement, which has been terrific. I’ll be and I work teams call potentially and then conducting an arrest, potentially, within minutes of one to the next. The No two days are the same anymore, which is fantastic. That never happened since I might be up at 330 in the gym, and then I might be going to do an arrest. After that, I might be in another city doing search warrants. It never changes like It’s always fascinating to do the work that we do here,
Matt W.
and some of the dynamicism that’s clearly led to some of the biggest takedowns that the US has ever seen. Can you share a little bit about when you started noticing cryptocurrency intersecting with investigations. Was it at the time criminal, or was it civil?
Trevor M.
So it was when I was working at a criminal investigation in the Los Angeles field office around 2013 This is an individual named rusty Lee. He was a long time CI employee who has since left the agency, but he and I were sitting at our desks one day, and he started talking about Bitcoin. He’s very technical, and so he got started talking about it, and he was realizing that the Los Angeles sheriffs and LAPD were experiencing an uptick in cryptocurrency transactions related to money laundering and narcotics trafficking. So he and I dug in on the technology and the potential financial impacts of what that looks like from a criminal investigation and money laundering, and we hosted our first quasi training, I think, in 2013 at the 300 North Los Angeles Street at the IRS offices in Los Angeles, California, and
Matt W.
we’ve noticed that at least the first wave of crypto investigators tended to be self taught. It was something that, like they naturally had a personal interest in and gravitated towards. What was that like for you and your journey?
Trevor M.
So for me, it’s one of those things where, if I’m going to conduct an investigation, and I think this is where I have so many partners into analysis and other crypto tracing companies, where we really want to dig into the weeds on what the technology means, what it’s doing, how it interacts with other things, and how it acts. So for me, I bought and sold my first Bitcoin in 2013 within a couple hours. I was, like, panicked about it, but I wanted to see how the transaction played out, right? So I bought it, held it for literally a couple hours, and sold it in. Instantaneously, big mistake on my part. I know shame on me, but it was one of those things where it is a personal onus, right? You have to understand what the technology does to really investigate and understand where you’re going and what the criminals are doing. You know, one of the things I tell a lot of people when I do different conferences and different meetings is, look at what your teenage son or daughter is doing. Look at what your child is looking at from a technology perspective. Because if there’s money involved in it, Roblox, whatever, Roblox, whatever, there’s somebody trying to exploit that mechanism to where they can money laundering that platform or protocol, right? So you have to really be engaged with what people are doing and what they’re seeing, and stay up to speed on it. It is a personal onus,
Matt W.
I think, on our on our side. You know, over the years, as crypto has become more more mainstream, chainalysis has built out old training modules, courses on everything from like tracing, account based chains, utxos, asset seizure, but that real spark of self learning, I think, still holds true with crypto, because there is always something new, always something new to learn and explore. And I think at least from our side on the chain analysis team, that’s part of what makes it so exciting to work on? Yeah, no,
Trevor M.
you’re right. So in 2018 I had the opportunity to do a detail to the eccu, and, you know, names like Tierney gambarian, Chris chantchesky, Jeremy Haney, Jason failing, were all there. And they’d been there for a minute. They took me in and helped me, you know, grow clean the role. And that’s when I experienced my first meeting with Jonathan Levin, across the river there from in DC Metro. You guys hosted an event, and that was the first time I got indoctrinated into what is chainalysis. How does it operate? What do I use it for? How can I get more information? And it was fantastic. I’ve been hooked ever since, and with crypto
Matt W.
tracing, my previous role, I was at Palantir, doing kind of similar work to what we do at chainalysis, but for a traditional Fiat and I remember speaking to Jonathan, and he said, Listen, you’re going to disrupt and solve so much more criminal activity that will occur over crypto networks than if you’re focused on doing this in banks and really over the past, I guess, for me, eight years now, like that has absolutely held true, that as value has transitioned onto blockchains, that so has criminal activity and the impact that organizations like IRS CI are able to make it. Reading through your annual report, it’s just astounding how much intersection it has with cryptocurrency, some of the biggest cases in the world. Now, can you tell me a little bit about the the agency’s mandate? Yeah, so
Trevor M.
IRS criminal investigation, we just released our 2025 report, and one of the things that we noted in there is IRS criminal investigation. The law enforcement arm of the IRS is the only federal agency with the authority to investigate potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue while enforcement of US tax codes remains our core priority. IRS Criminal Investigation plays a critical role in satisfying border national security, combating narcotic trafficking, terrorist financing, sanctions violations and cyber crime. Of know, we have attaches in Ottawa, London, The Hague, Frankfurt, Dubai, Canberra, Sydney, Mexico City, Panama City, the Bahamas, Bogota, Barbados, Singapore and Hong Kong. We also have the j5 which we partner with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. We also have separate attaches that sit in some of those attache locations as well. 2025 we started supporting the Immigration and Customs with immigration enforcement, including facilitating arrest detention. Arrest, detention, deportation efforts focusing on identifying transnational gang members and affiliates. In August of this year, we began doing operations safe and beautiful DC. In September, we began some storing law and order in the Memphis Task Force. We’re also an active partner in the Homeland Security Task Force, so we’re in everything that we can be right now with respect to a whole of government approach. So we’ve got various partners on the DoD side involved with their investigations to the extent that it’s necessary. We partnered with everyone and their mother treasury. So we were very involved in a one government whole approach.
Matt W.
And some of the successes coming out of the agency over the past couple of years have been truly remarkable. One of the trends that we at chainalysis noticed very early was the adoption of stable coins. First it was stable coins like, I think in 2017 when the price of Bitcoin transaction fees, it got to be 20 $30 to make a simple send a lot of activity, graduated to Ethereum. And then as the Ethereum fees rose, it graduated to Tron. And even a few years ago, we noticed there was a huge amount of value that was flowing on the Tron network in the form of stable coins, predominantly. And it wasn’t big payments, it was small payments, retail individuals moving $50 $20 $100 between foreign exchange and and other cryptocurrency exchanges. And one of the trends that I think we’re seeing now, what do you feel the nexus to cryptocurrency has been and will continue to look like, even if it’s just the facilitator for money laundering.
Trevor M.
I mean, I think in my day to day activities, in the group that I sit with, the Western Cyber Crimes Unit, generally, across the board, with other cyber crimes investigators, it’s 100% Nexus. You know, anything we touch, anything we look at, any stone. We turn over, look under is going to involve cryptocurrency. 100% of my inventory, or, as investigations are concerned, go with cryptocurrency. You know, whether it be stable coins, Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever that looks like, decentralized finance, all the above it all touches cryptocurrency, and that goes towards our traditional mantra, which is, we follow the money, right? Generally, no crime is going. In it without money, unless it’s one of passion, like murder, but even then, there’s probably money involved. And so every crime that we touch generally involves cryptocurrency, and also, further to that point, most crimes are cyber enabled, which is a phrase I borrowed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. So it’s either cyber enabled and or cryptocurrency.
Matt W.
For us, one of the trends that I think we’ve been seeing recently is stable coins being used for international payments. Someone importing 100 motorcycles from China and connecting with a vendor on Alibaba. The use of stable coins is really starting to, in many ways, take over from these international wire transfers, especially to countries which are not super connected with the global banking market. So I think we’ll we’ll definitely see much more cryptocurrency where it’s just being used as a facilitation mechanism for traditional crime. And was curious to hear from you, what makes irsci so well versed in fighting crime in both traditional and cryptocurrency cases?
Trevor M.
Well, all of our investigators have a general awareness of accounting, and then they’re all challenged or tasked, I should say, with going to six months of training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. We have what we call the add on for IRS criminal investigation on top of the Federal Law Enforcement Training aspect of it. And in addition to that, we built on a two week add on to the end of it, which is specifically, specifically focused on cryptocurrency investigation. So we’re really setting our investigators off to be extremely successful with traditional financial crime, tax, tax violations, but also money laundering investigations and those involving cryptocurrency. So you get a lot of time down at FLETC to learn how to do the job appropriately and correctly before you even hit the field. Running. Once you get into the field, you’re generally put in a group with senior agents, and those senior agents will help teach you and train you as to what the job looks like and how to come across in a successful investigation. We’re also well connected with the US Attorney’s offices in every city, main justice as well to understand what our attorneys are looking for when we go through the investigation, whether that be an administrative case or a grand jury. So we do. We have great partners in our federal law enforcement agencies as well to further develop our skill sets and partner with them as well.
Matt W.
Going back to your initial comment of you were drawn to the speed it seems like the agency really has been fast to learn, fast to adopt and in turn, fast to close some of these massive cases. And just skimming through the irsci annual report, there are some crazy big cases and high profile crypto successes from prison sentences for Bitcoin fog operator. Individuals behind the BitFinex hack, and some of them, have had some massive seizures. Can you share just a little bit about the challenging aspects of seizures and what it’s like when you’re in these high pressure moments? Yeah, having been
Trevor M.
in a few of them myself, is quite intense. You’re going through person’s devices. You’re going through a residence looking for a treasure, or some form of a hardware wallet that might have the proceeds of the yoga and gains that you’re looking for related to your point, Bitcoin fog, a massive hack, things of those natures. And from that perspective, you want to make sure that there’s a lot of pre planning that goes into it. We have certain operating procedures with respect to making sure that we have the correct type of crypto wallet that might need to be availed to transfer the funds at the time of the Sargeant seizure, we had to make sure that we have the private keys. That’s necessary. We had to be able to make sure that we have the only access to those funds, and that’s why we transfer them. So someone doesn’t recreate their wallet proceed to take the Elgin gains, if they are released from the scene, or they’re released from custody, and they’re able to reconstitute the wallet, and we lose custody of those funds. So there’s a lot of different things that get rolled into a search and seizure effort, whether it be in person or remote, right? Because we could have a search and seizure order for a an exchange, someone’s accounting an exchange, and there’s no face to face. Only want to make sure, again, that we are speaking the same language with the exchange, to make sure that we understand this is what’s in the account. This is what we’re taking, whether it be Bitcoin, Ethereum, tether on Tron circle, we want to make sure that we have the appropriate mechanism to receive those funds, if that makes sense. And it can be very stressful, especially if you’re operating on someone else’s device. Single keystroke could wipe that device, and then you could foreseeably lose the cryptocurrency altogether. So there’s a lot of different planning aspects that go into a search and seizure for cryptocurrency digital devices. We have great teams that work here. We call them Ciss or computer investigative specialists. They go through a lot of rigorous training. They have annual certifications. They have to do we are continuing to keep up speed with respect to all different releases of new technology, with respect to what types of cryptocurrency we might receive, what types of devices we might see, what type of tools we might need to use, what type of applications we might need to use. It’s a great question, Matt. There’s a lot of planning that goes into that, and it is very stressful.
Matt W.
It is very stressful. Yeah, I imagine the handful of moments where that first test transaction goes across for that $5 $10 and just waiting to see right before an entire massive wallet is swept. And we did a separate podcast series and webinar on on asset seizures, and some of the responses from the audience for like, where they find seed phrases are just absolutely crazy, toilets, flower pots, etc, the creativity of trying to hide multiple billions of dollars inside a home is like something that just doesn’t occur in traditional finance. And I understand in one of yours there was some value hidden in a fun place. I was wondering if you could tell me about that one.
Trevor M.
Yeah, so the day. To the warrant. We went through Mr. Song’s house, and we’re looking for certain devices. We knew what they were putting a Raspberry Pi, which is a self operating computer, a small motherboard, if you will. And we looked all over the house, looked all over the house, looked all over the house. And lo and behold, in a closet upstairs in the bathroom with a popcorn tent full of towels, which is normally where I would keep my towels, and it was one of the giant, multi gallon size things of popcorn that you get at the holidays. It has like caramel cheese and plain, or whatever your flavors of the order are. And there was no popcorn, just towels in it. So one of the great investigators went through the towels, and lo and behold, there was a Raspberry Pi, which did have a mountain of Bitcoin on it. It’s fantastic for the case and for the day, because to your point, when you’re prepping for these cases, and we’re talking about seizures, and you throw out the number 50,000 Bitcoin, people’s eyes kind of glaze over where they’re like, that’s $3 billion the chances of us finding that and that residents in our area is remote, if possible. And then when they see it happen, they realize what’s happening. It’s just pure euphoria, because it’s years of investigative efforts, right? It’s a whole team approach when everybody’s doing a search warrant, making sure that everybody’s safe. Everything’s going well, everything’s going smoothly. It’s a great moment for everybody to have a sigh of relief and success so the team is able to win, if you will. So yeah, there’s a lot of planning goes into it, and one of the things you mentioned that I wanted to follow up on the test transaction, additionally layering the stress is if that test transaction takes a long time to transition from one wallet to another wallet because of the blockchain you’re using, depending upon the value of that trust transaction, it could take 510, 20 minutes, an hour, and you’re not sure if it’s going to happen. You’re not sure if you got the addresses. While you’re checking, you’re checking, refreshing the blockchain to make sure you’ve got the most updated speed. And so when that does go through, that’s a huge sigh of relief, because it’s like, Okay, we’re on the right track. We’re going to be able to move these funds from the bad person’s wallet to the government’s Wallet. So there is a lot of stress that goes into it, and there is a lot of euphoria, but I can it can also go south fast.
Matt W.
Must be awesome to be in the room in some of those key moments. Lot of fun. That’s cool, and I understand that you’ve got some some recent cases that we have the opportunity to talk through today. Let us in a little bit, what have been some of the wins of from irsci.
Trevor M.
Yeah. So I was in the Los Angeles field office, and I work for the Western Cyber Crimes Unit. So as the acting supervisor, special agent for the Western Cyber Crimes Unit, we work all kinds of cases, whether it’s narcotics, terrorist financing, money laundering related to those two investigations, mixers, tumblers, decentralized finance. We’ll take it all. Matt, you know, one of the things that’s become prevalent is AI, how that’s going to be utilizing criminal enterprises as well. We’re taking a look at that from how does that impact us on a day to day basis, go forward plan things of that nature. And so a couple of the cases we want to highlight today were some case involving group of Armenians selling narcotics, MDMA, methamphetamine, cocaine and ketamine on different dark net markets, how they were able to be captured. And also a group of Chinese individuals who were working for a pharmaceutical company out of China, they were utilizing cryptocurrency to accept payment to self in all precursors.
Matt W.
Wow, both sound crazy interesting. Where should we start?
Trevor M.
Let’s start with the Armenians. So these individuals, and I gotta grab one document real quick. These individuals were operating independent of the darkened markets, and then they decided to dabble. And one of the communications they put on their website was, we represent a small part of a big trafficking ring. Recently found out about the dark web, decided to expand our operations. So what they did was they operated across multiple different dark net markets, and they were able to utilize different monikers on those dark net markets to operate a large drug trafficking organization or ring, I should say. And in that, they were paid, were using cryptocurrency, and that’s how we got involved. You know, we were looking at the dark, dark net markets they were operating on, and we were working with the other agencies, Federal Bureau of Investigations and Drug Enforcement Agency and others. And so we decided we take a look at what the money was doing, and that’s how we ultimately got onto them, and really got into them.
Matt W.
That’s amazing. In a group like that, where there are multiple interconnected people and personas over multiple years. Where do you usually see the breakdown or the leak of information? First, is it the crypto hygiene, the communications, physical fulfillment, so a little bit of everything in this instance?
Trevor M.
So we’re utilizing the postal system, or they were utilizing the postal system, I should say, and we got into that as well. And if the Postal Service is great to work with, from a law enforcement perspective, I can’t appreciate them enough. And you’re able to track and trace, you know, whether it’s certified mail or things of that nature, where the sender, the drug vendor, wants to make sure that their product gets to their client because they want a high ranking on the different drug net markets they’re operating on, so they get more clients, no different than any business model. And so from that perspective, you’re able to track, trace where the criminals are operating, where they’re sending from, where they’re sending, to try to build out their life cycle, as to where they might live, what they’re doing with their finances, whether they pay for Stans and posters with cash, where they pay with their credit card, you can trace that aspect. You know, you look at, how are they receiving payment? With respect to cryptocurrency? To your point, the blockchain is a treasure trove of information. That’s why chainaly is a great partner for us, because we can look at, where is that money coming from? Where is it going to look at attribution on the blockchain through chain analysis to see, is it dream market? Is it alphabet? You know, what marketplace is it going from, and who’s receiving it, and where are they cashing out at? And you can look at the off ramp and the cryptocurrency perspective to see whose account is that at. Pick an exchange, and then you can go, certainly go to process on that exchange, and you go backwards to figure out the life cycle of that individual, where they offer. Who they sell to. You know how they got to market, build out who that person is. So that’s generally the two different approaches we would take, and we generally took in this investigation. But to your point, you know, when you look at traditionally, people don’t change their stripes, or zebras don’t change their stripes in this instance. So if I’m John Doe on one exchange, I might be John Doe one on another exchange, there might be John Doe three on another exchange, but I’m not going very far off. I’m generally staying pretty close. There’s other digital fingerprints that vendors will lead, whether it’s at a dark net market that was taken down or an email address who subpoenaed based upon other financial records that they have. There’s more than one way to skin a cat in this approach, and we will definitely get into who that person is as fast as we possibly can. And the agent did a terrific job of working with other federal partners in building that out from the cryptocurrency perspective and the dark net market
Matt W.
perspective, that’s amazing what an impact to have it was multiple convictions in this case. Is that correct?
Trevor M.
Yes, there are four targets in the investigation, and all pled guilty to count one of the indictment, which was read it to make sure I get it correct. Count one of the indictment is title 21 United States Code section 846, conspiracy to knowingly and intentionally distribute and possess with the intention to distribute the following controlled substances, methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA and ketamine. None of them, none of them, went to trial. All, all the defendants pled guilty of that case,
Matt W.
that’s amazing. Just speaks to the amount of investigative work that you must have done leading up to that. And in a case like this, if it had gone to trial, it’s presumed that a company and like you’re using chainalysis, that chainalysis reactor would end up being a core part of what is the argument for conviction. And we saw in the Bitcoin fog case, the defense heavily challenged blockchain analytics and specifically chainalysis reactor under the Daubert hearing, which was a really high bar for chainalysis as a company, and coming out the other side, where reactor was accepted as reliable evidence. What did that mean for irsci and law enforcement for cases that do go all the way to trial going forwards?
Trevor M.
It’s couple things, right? So from the perspective of that trial, chain analysis testified, which is terrific and super beneficial for us to validate and verify what we utilize as our strong contract resource and our strong partner, it also gave us further verification that the tool that we use daily is valid, right? The heuristics that you guys design, the tools that you guys create, the platforms you guys make, chain analysis, data solutions, all the different things that you bring to market are tremendously beneficial to our our investigations, and it helps show the partnership that we have with you is a tremendous value add multiplier effect, if you will, because there’s only so many federal agents, but to the point that you raised earlier, the certifications that you offer, the trainings that you offer, the resources that you offer, all of those things are extremely beneficial to the IRS Criminal Investigation community as well as the United States government.
Matt W.
Oh, thanks for that, Trevor and I also from family members that have been personally affected by fentanyl. I’d love to hear about the precursor chemical case, and sort of like how irsci is leading the charge to disrupt these networks.
Trevor M.
So one of the cases I want to talk about, too was a case involving multiple Chinese nationals out of the Central District of California was recently indicted involving the Chinese company was selling precursor chemicals regarding fentanyl. Four individuals are actually arrested by the People’s Republic of China, and we are in coordination with them currently to figure out what the next steps are there. But they’re using cryptocurrency to accept payment for those precursors and fentanyl, and they were selling into over 100 countries, including the United States. We’re very happy to have successfully guided that case. Stay tuned more to come.
Matt W.
For sure, what an incredible, incredible win, disrupting these networks and and the people facilitating them is just such an admiral thing to do.
Trevor M.
And Matt, if I might, for a second, you know, one of the things I know that you do with your commercial partners is you guys do data sprints to evaluate things such as precursor phenol related cases. I do want to say we, we are recipients of some of that data, and we really appreciate the efforts that gene analysis is making with our commercial partners
Matt W.
on that front. Thanks. That’s that’s really great to hear as well. Was curious, if thinking a little bit forward in the future of investigations, how do you view AI changing the work of IRS, CI and cryptocurrency investigations AI is
Trevor M.
going to make it extremely difficult, in my opinion, in some respects, dependent upon what the scam might be. I know that a late notoriety in the past week or two, the FBI sent on a huge media push on the altering of social media images for ransom, individuals being kidnapped. You know, changing face, facial expressions, things of that nature to social media engineer people to think people in their family have been kidnapped. I think that’s going to be par for the course. Coming forward, I think there will be many more scams like that. I think that we’re going to see a whole new evolution of criminal activity. But at the end of the day, the great news about this is, as we talked about earlier, all crime involves money in some form or fashion. AI is generally a technology led and driven area of industry, and so from that perspective, cryptocurrency will probably be hand in hand. But doesn’t matter what the currency is, the IRS criminal investigation will figure it out in five will figure it out and follow it. I think that’s gonna be paramount to us being successful in those investigations. But I do think it is gonna be very
Matt W.
problematic from my seat. In my opinion, from the chain analysis perspective, we’ve also seen huge opportunities for use of AI kind of across our technology stack, from quick address triage, where we can provide a simple. Set of information to an untrained officer for what is this crypto address and how much activity has gone through it? Are there any things that you should look for all the way through to collection of data at scale, where AI has been just an incredible tool to gather up and Hoover big sets of information and process it. So you know, although yet certainly sounds like it has already been leveraged as a tool by scammers for some pretty atrocious activity. We also view it as a tool where we’re able to leverage our product suite and move it forward at an increasing velocity.
Trevor M.
I think that’s a good point too. The positive side of AIS will potentially improve our efficiencies. So I’m looking forward to that aspect of it as well.
Matt W.
It’s been really great for a number of internal applications as well. I guess as we sort of wrap up, we saw some of the core themes from irsci around the global impact and cross border collaboration. What are some of the things you think will play out for the agency in 2026 I think we’ve
Trevor M.
got some big things in the hopper. I think we’ve got some great things coming forward. The agency is adapting great with everything coming through with technology and change. We’ve had the benefit of, you know, several chiefs that have given us great opportunities to be successful. You know, Treasury is being a great partner as well, and a great monitor, if you will, to make sure that we’re successful in doing what we do and what we need. I think, as I started out this podcast with you, you know, one of the things that’s hugely beneficial for us in the area of 2026 is that from where I sit again, in my opinion, but the people I’m exposed to on a day to day basis, we view all of our investigations holistically, from the US government’s perspective, but also globally, getting into the international partnership aspect of things. I’m partnering with more international partners now than I have historically. And everyone’s all hands in. Everyone’s after, you know, wanting to go after transnational organizations, DTO, drug trafficking organizations, terrorist financing. Everyone really wants to take these people out to make sure that everyone’s safe at the end of the day, like there’s a very concerted effort, I should say. So I think 2026 from my perspective, will be hugely successful for the US government because of those efforts being, you know, reached across the aisle, if you will, from law enforcement perspective, not only domestically, but also internationally.
Matt W.
And if someone wanted to follow in your footsteps with a career in IRS CI what would be some of the things that that you’d advise
Trevor M.
them, I’d say, first and foremost, make sure you can pass a background check, because the best part about our job is probably getting a top secret SCI clearance, subject, compartmentalized clearance, because that’s where you’re really able to have massive impact, not that you’re not with other clearances. But I really want people to be successful in this job and this role in this function to that end, you know, I want them to make sure that they have a wide variety of experience. You will focus on accounting heavily for this agency, but you will also be doing a lot of things, like we talked about, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, Child Sexual Abuse material. You will be doing a whole host of different types of investigations. You will get your eyes open to things you never thought you would do. You get to work with great partners, like chainalysis. Your career is what you make of it, essentially. But I would say, make sure that you study hard, you make sure you get focused, and you make sure you’re ready to
Matt W.
do on a FLETC. Amazing. And as we wrap up, what are some of the methods for listeners to follow along with your agency and connect and continue this learning journey for
Trevor M.
them, we have social media. We have irs.ci irs.gov and then within there, there’s criminal investigation. I do know that we’re working on different social media feeds, which I can send to hopefully attach to this podcast. We have lots of different resources. We’re at every US Attorney’s Office in the country, lots of different press releases.
Matt W.
And also, please check out that amazing annual report detailing some of these epic wins. There’s some really great stuff in there, and I’ve really enjoyed reading through them. And so, Trevor, thanks so much for joining us today. I hope as you wrap up the year and head into the holiday season, you’re able to enjoy some really delicious caramel salty popcorn, and think about some of the great wins from the past years and look forward to some awesome years to come. Thanks for being a great partner from chainalysis.
Trevor M.
I appreciate it, Matt. Thank you and all that you do. Happy holidays.