On October 6, 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its establishment of:

The NCET was created to address complex investigations of criminal misuse of cryptocurrency and is an extension of the efforts around DOJ's October 2020 Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework (CEF) (see Legal Update, DOJ Releases Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework). NCET will work with the DOJ Criminal Division's Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS), Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS), and other sections in DOJ, and with experts detailed from US Attorneys' Offices across the country to assist with tracing and recovering assets lost to fraud and extortion.

NCET is also charged with investigating and prosecuting cases against cryptocurrency exchanges, infrastructure providers, and other entities that enable the misuse of cryptocurrency and related products. NCET is expected to be a source of expertise in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies for DOJ, as well.

The civil cyber-fraud initiative announced by DOJ is designed to thwart cybersecurity-related fraud. Under this initiative, the False Claims Act (FCA) will be the primary tool used to pursue claims against actors that put "US information or systems" at risk. There are three ways in which the FCA can be breached in this context, by knowingly:

Viewed in conjunction with the CEF, the NCET and cyber-fraud initiative are designed to bolster the efforts of DOJ to combat cybersecurity breaches and cryptocurrency abuses.