EUN YOUNG CHOI

Eun Young Choi currently serves as the inaugural Director of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) at the U.S. Department of Justice. As NCET Director, Choi leads a team of subject matter experts drawn from across the Justice Department to identify, investigate, support, and pursue the department’s cases involving the criminal use of digital assets; set strategic priorities regarding digital assets technologies; and coordinate with domestic and international law enforcement partners, regulatory agencies and private industry to combat the criminal use of digital assets. Choi previously served as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, where she was responsible for coordinating and advising on cyber and cryptocurrency-related issues across the Justice Department and representing the department in the development of interagency policy and strategy. Choi began her career at the Justice Department as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where she was the office’s Cybercrime Coordinator and investigated and prosecuted cyber, fraud, and money laundering crimes, with a particular focus on network intrusions, digital currency, the dark web, and national security investigations. She served as the lead prosecutor in a variety of cases, including the investigation of a transnational organization responsible for hacking over a dozen financial companies (including J.P. Morgan Chase) and the theft of over 100 million customers’ data; an unlicensed Bitcoin exchange and the bribery of a former CEO of a credit union in furtherance of the Bitcoin exchange’s operations; a business email compromise scheme that targeted two U.S.-based multinational Internet corporations resulting in the loss of over $100 million; and the only U.S. prosecution brought in connection with the “Panama Papers.” Choi has represented the United States at numerous trials and appeals, including arguing the appeal before the Second Circuit in the case against Ross Ulbricht, the founder and chief administrator of the Silk Road underground website, which was responsible for the sale of over $200 million worth of illegal narcotics and other contraband over the Internet, using the Tor network and Bitcoin. Prior to her time at the Justice Department, Choi was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP, and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the Honorable Reena Raggi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Choi is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.