US bill proposes 21st-century privateers to take on cybercrime

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The projected measure included a database of targetable offenses, including the theft of cryptocurrencies, ransomware attacks, and pig butchering scams.

US measure  proposes 21st-century privateers to instrumentality     connected  cybercrime

Arizona lawmaker David Schweikert introduced “The Scam Farms Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025” successful August, which proposes neo-privateers — state-sanctioned pirates — to combat cybercriminals engaged successful threats against the United States.

The bill authorizes the US president to issue letters of marque to “privately equipped and equipped persons” contracted by the authorities to “employ each means reasonably necessary” to prehend spot and detain oregon “punish” cybercriminals deemed a menace by the president.

These threats see crypto theft, pig butchering scams, ransomware attacks, individuality theft, accessing computers without authorization to stitchery delicate idiosyncratic oregon classified information, online password trafficking, and compromising computers with malicious code. The measure read:

“Criminal enterprises that employment cybercrimes and coerced labour contiguous an antithetic and bonzer menace to the economical and nationalist information of the United States.”

The measure characterized the scams arsenic “acts of war” perpetrated by individuals, organized criminals, and overseas governments against the US and is simply a revival of an 18th-century instrumentality that could person implications for the aboriginal of cybersecurity and plus seizure if passed.

Cybercrime, HacksThe Scam Farms Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025. Source: US Congress

Related: Crypto transgression portion with $250M successful seizures expands with Binance

US could funnel seized assets into Bitcoin reserve and nationalist crypto stockpile

Over $142 cardinal successful crypto was lost to hackers successful July, and the full magnitude of crypto stolen truthful acold successful 2025 exceeds $3 billion. Stolen crypto seized by US instrumentality enforcement officials successful investigations could aboriginal beryllium forfeited to the authorities successful tribunal proceedings.

US President Donald Trump signed an enforcement bid successful January establishing a Bitcoin and crypto reserve, which could lone accumulate crypto done budget-neutral strategies oregon plus forfeiture.

In July, the US national authorities filed a civilian ailment to claim implicit 20 Bitcoin (BTC), valued astatine implicit $2.3 million, seized by the Dallas, Texas, part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during an cognition against the Chaos ransomware hacker group.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) besides seized $1 cardinal successful crypto from the BlackSuit ransomware radical during the aforesaid month.

In August, the DOJ authorized the seizure of $2.8 cardinal successful crypto from a wallet controlled by Ianis Aleksandrovich Antropenko, who was charged with targeting individuals and businesses with ransomware attacks.

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