Federal Prosecutor Kathryn Haun On How Criminals Use Bitcoin — And How She Catches Them

These are the show notes for the Unchained podcast. Listen to my whole interview with Kathryn here or on Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio.
The first time federal prosecutor Kathryn Haun heard about Bitcoin was when someone asked her if she’d like to prosecute it.
The assistant U. S. attorney for the U. S. Department of Justice in San Francisco, who had previously focused on organized crime, prison gangs and murders, very quickly realized that wouldn’t be possible – that it would be like ‘trying to prosecute cash,’ but it set her off on a path of discovery. She is now also DOJ’s digital currency coordinator, teaches Stanford Law School’s first class on digital currency and cybercrime, and, last year, put away two federal agents who tried to steal more than $800,000 in bitcoin.
In the latest episode of my podcast, Unchained (Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio), Haun, who was on my show in her personal, not professional capacity, tells the tale of how she unraveled that case – which begins with her being tipped off by an investigative journalist about one of those agents. ‘When the tip is, ‘You’ve got a dirty agent on your payroll,’ you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt,’ she says. ‘I thought I had to put this, what I called, rumor to rest. So when I started looking into this matter, I was doing it from the perspective of, I want to clear this person’s name, but I quickly learned that wasn’t going to be the result.’

This post was published at Forbes on NOV 1, 2016 @.