Law360 (December 10, 2021, 3:56 PM EST) — The Biden administration has deemed global corruption a key national security threat, marshaling the full power of the federal government to combat the flow of dirty money. Cybercrime enforcement is a plank of these efforts and a priority in its own right, as ransomware attacks, crypto-aided money laundering and data breaches sow chaos.
U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division chief Kenneth Polite during an interview with Law360. (U.S. Department of Justice)
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division is central to both efforts, with triple-threat firepower in its foreign corruption, computer crime and money laundering sections. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite told Law360 that his office will soon unveil a new national cryptocurrency enforcement team, bringing lawyers from the division’s computer crime and money laundering sections together with prosecutors from U.S. attorney’s offices around the country.
During a wide-ranging interview, Polite also said the pipeline of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases remains strong despite a pandemic-induced slowdown of in-person investigation. The Criminal Division’s expertise will be critical in fulfilling the Biden administration’s anti-corruption strategy, which calls for unprecedented coordination between scores of federal agencies to root out graft.
This is the second of three excerpts from the exclusive sit-down at Main Justice. Part one can be read here. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Travel and in-person investigation are seen as particularly important in the FCPA context, and there’s been a lot of chatter about how pandemic restrictions may have slowed the pipeline pretty significantly. Do you think that’s an accurate perception?
I view that as a challenge, not just to the FCPA docket but frankly to a host of aspects of the work our folks are confronting and overcoming. I can tell you we’ve got boots on the ground out here in D.C. and across the country with health care fraud investigations and prosecutions, for example. And even on the FCPA side, they’re traveling abroad to continue to leverage those partnerships that are required for us to get the witnesses, get the documents, get the data and make those investigations actually a success. The protocols make it more time-consuming. We have to ensure that people are as safe as possible. But my view is things are very well at this point.
Let’s talk about Biden’s national security directive on corruption, which comes as the administration seems to be placing particular emphasis on corruption in Latin America and the Northern Triangle. Do you see that as an area of emphasis for the FCPA unit? Are there any geographic areas where you’d like to see greater enforcement?
Historically, some Latin American countries have been the focus of a number of high-profile FCPA resolutions, and I think that that will certainly continue to be a significant part of our profile. As you said, that work related to public corruption has been lifted up by the leadership of the administration.
I would simply add that it is not limited to just the work of FCPA. It’s connected to our work in other areas, like our human rights and human smuggling work, and operations against actors who are engaging in arms trafficking, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking and utilizing public corruption to fuel some of that criminality. It cuts across multiple parts of our portfolio here at the moment. It’s high-priority.
Biden’s national security memo on corruption directed agencies to break down silos between their activities. In discussions since then, have there been any particular areas that stand out as areas for improvement?
We’ve tried to lean in more on cooperation and coordination on the international side, but even domestically, when we talk about an area such as human trafficking, that’s work that can’t be done exclusively from Washington, D.C. I’m thinking specifically about Task Force Alpha, which involves representatives and AUSAs from all the border U.S. attorney’s offices. We’re working with law enforcement agencies and partners that are based both here in the U.S., as well as in some of those Latin American countries where we’re seeing the most activity, and bringing all of those resources together on a regular basis to ultimately bring cases that will have significant deterrent effect.
On the China front, tensions have been rising, and the relationship has been pretty strained for a long time. How does that affect your work at the department in terms of your ability to work with China or go after criminals based there? Is that really possible at this point?
I think the challenges that we have with a country like China are not limited to just that one nation: access to witnesses, access to data and documents, and ultimately being able to extradite individuals and bring people to justice. We’re always leaning into opportunities to have better coordination with our foreign enforcement partners. That is a challenge with China. But again, it’s not exclusive to China.
Some of the most high-profile work the DOJ has been doing recently is related to cyber enforcement, particularly with DAG Lisa Monaco, who has a lot of experience there. What’s the Criminal Division’s role?
Front and center. It’s another one of the pieces of this division that I’ve been amazed by: the expertise and the quality of the lawyers, but also all the supporting resources that we have within our Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. That’s the group of individuals that the rest of the country — in terms of U.S. attorney’s offices — turns to for expertise in making these cyber cases work. But they’re also at the front lines of breaking some of the most significant and high-profile cases oftentimes that require international cooperation for getting access to data and witnesses and documents.
Some sections like CCIPS and the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section have been in that space for a really long time. But we’ve decided to lean in even more by establishing a National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which will be made up of individuals from both of those sections. It will include a new leadership position that will report to me in the front office, and that person will be a prosecutor with a lot of experience in making these types of cases.
Just as importantly, it will include a team of leaders from other U.S. attorney’s offices because there are folks out in the field who are doing these kinds of cases. We’re starting to see that type of misconduct, the misuse of cryptocurrency, creep into cases across the country. So, the hope is that we have folks come from various U.S. attorney’s offices for a detail, and then take that expertise and experience back out to their offices so that they can make those cases more effectively.
That work will be supported by dedicated agents and resources from some of our law enforcement partners, whether they’re talking about the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission], or [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission], or FBI. We’re getting close to standing that team up very soon by the end of this year or beginning of next year.
What are your top priorities for the Criminal Division, both white collar and non-white collar?
Corporate enforcement is a very high priority, not just for me, but for the overall DOJ leadership. Individual accountability is a very high-profile priority for me and for the leadership as well. Some of the work that we’re doing in health care fraud is particularly sensitive, too.
I’ve got a number of connections to that space, including my wife, who’s a physician, so I care deeply about ensuring the integrity of our health care system, particularly during the pandemic, where we’re seeing the types of despicable schemes taking advantage of folks who are trying to get treatment or medication or testing and being defrauded during that process.
I think the same thing about combating opioid distribution. One aspect of that in particular that I’m trying to learn more about is misconduct in places like L.A. and Miami with sober homes, where you’re seeing patient-runners being compensated to bring people in and those people are getting re-addicted. They’re being trafficked in and out of that cycle, being brought in for treatment and then getting re-addicted. That type of activity is despicable.
That goes to one of the additional priorities for the department’s leadership, which is trying our best to protect some of the most vulnerable portions of our populace. On the child exploitation side, for example, we’re making some pretty incredible cases. The elderly are oftentimes subjected to some of the worst economic scams that we have out there, as well as some of the criminal activity on the health care fraud side that I already highlighted.
Violent crime is also important for me to highlight, and it’s something that will always be a priority for me personally and professionally. Here at the Criminal Division, we’re trying to be as creative as possible in how we can support that work, primarily from our Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Section and our Organized Crime and Gang sections. But the other big piece is the work of our International Unit.
That’s probably been the biggest surprise for me: how significant the investment that we’ve made in terms of building international relationships and capacities with law enforcement partners and prosecutors outside the United States — it’s been just breathtaking.
–By Jack Queen; Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.
Read more at: https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1447705/corruption-cybercrime-in-crosshairs-for-doj-crime-chief?nl_pk=ee91858d-8ba2-47bd-9ccc-92b22f95f103&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=compliance?copied=1