NCA launches new ‘Crypto Cell’ team to combat rising digital assets fraud

The National Crime Agency has launched a new unit aimed at countering crypto-crime amid a wave of digital asset fraud.

A team of five people is recruited to join a team within the National Cyber ​​Crime Unit targeting crypto criminals.

In a job posting published on the Civil Service Careers website, the NCA said those applying to work in the NCCU “Crypto Cell” must have extensive knowledge of complex crypto-currency probes.

They should also have significant experience overseeing blockchain forensics in serious and organized crime cases.

Successful candidates will receive an annual salary of between £40,200 and £43,700, with those in London receiving an additional salary to reflect the higher cost of living.

Police forces and financial regulators are increasingly concerned about the harm being done to Britons by crypto scams, which have boomed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chris Lewis-Evans from the NCA said: ‘This is a really exciting opportunity where you get to work in a team that is at the forefront of protecting the UK from cybercrime.

“Cryptocurrency and virtual assets are widely regarded as specialist areas of knowledge, and this role is essential to supporting NCA investigations where they are used to enable serious crime.”

A total of £226 million was lost to cryptocurrency scams between October 2021 and September 2022, according to recent figures from Action Fraud, the national hotline for fraud and cybercrime.

This amount was almost a third higher than the previous year and included losses of £33 million in May when the so-called ‘algorithmic stablecoin’ Terra and its sister coin Luna collapsed.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are theoretically tied to a reserve asset, often a fiat currency such as the dollar.

Some investors remain highly skeptical of such products and the wider crypto industry, many of whom question the inherent value of currencies like Bitcoin.

Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffet, investor and The Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates are among prominent critics of cryptocurrencies.

Virtual currencies have been in the spotlight following the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that filed for bankruptcy in November.

US prosecutors have accused the entrepreneur, whose net worth was once estimated at $26.5 billion, of defrauding customers by using their money to buy homes, make political donations and pay off debts with a separate company that he owned.

Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to all charges against him in a New York court on Tuesday. If found guilty, he could face up to 115 years in prison.