Donald Trump wants to tackle fraud with the creation of a new task force to look at market integrity and combat financial crimes including those connected with digital currencies.

As Donald Trump begins his visit to the UK this weekend, an executive order was issued yesterday in which the president has given orders to the Attorney General to create a Department of Justice task force composed of a number of different governmental departments which will attempt to combat attacks on ‘market integrity’. The executive order specifically identifies digital currency as requiring special attention, investigation, and prosecution where necessary. Money laundering and health care fraud are also named.

The new executive order replaces the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, created in 2009, and will involve a number of different figures including Director of the FBI, the Justice Department and various assistant Attorney Generals of criminal, civil, tax and anti-trust divisions.

The Deputy Attorney General will have autonomy in convening the task force where appropriate. It will essentially provide guidance at every stage through the investigation and prosecution process regarding crimes involving markets, consumers or government fraud.

This effort to combat fraud comes set against the backdrop of America’s joining of the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement, a five-country alliance consisting of the UK, US, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands which will work together to combat tax evasion through information sharing and inter-agency cooperation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not taken a liberal view of cryptocurrencies and fears over negative regulation are a constant worry for entrepreneurs. Its ambiguity over classification has left many in the space with a headache; tokens which the SEC decides are securities which are listed on exchanges may be seen as breaches of the law, and could create big problems for exchanges and issuing firms.

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