AG’s Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit
In early 2023, Florida’s Attorney General established the Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit (CFEU). The CFEU consists of criminal and civil attorneys in the Florida Attorney General’s Office who work with Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) analysts and other law enforcement agencies to make arrests in high-tech cybercrime and seize cryptocurrency and other property.
The CFEU’s mission is to prosecute, protect, and prevent cybercrime that targets Floridians.
In 2024, the Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit opened 70 new cases involving criminal investigations and cryptocurrency forfeitures. The CFEU reported:
- arresting and filing charges against more than criminal defendants
- freezing $8.5 million in illicit cryptocurrency from transnational criminals in nine different countries
- seizing dozens of scam domain names (websites)
- providing educational presentations to hundreds of law enforcement officers.
According to the 2024 Statewide Prosecution Annual Report:
CFEU also has an internationally recognized cryptocurrency asset recovery procedure wherein the unit recovers stolen funds obtained via cryptocurrency and returns those funds to their rightful owners. CFEU is able to do this by partnering with civil forfeiture attorneys and implementing a very specific combination of criminal and civil proceedings that work only due to the nature of the OAG and our specific organizational layout.
Through this process we have secured $10.6 million since the inception of our unit with $8.5 million worth of illicit cryptocurrency being frozen in 2024. This number is increasing at an exponential rate as we become more familiar to our law enforcement partners around the State and work to increase the efficient of the process in order to get the money back to the victims as soon as possible.
Our cryptocurrency cases mostly include elderly victims who are tricked into sending US dollars via cryptocurrency to bad actors, albeit via an investment scam, a fake popup, or grandparent scam.
Members of the cyber fraud enforcement unit work closely with the FDLE Cybercrime Office (FCO). The FCO investigates complex cybercrimes, protects technological and telecommunication systems in support of criminal investigations, helps local technical investigations, and trains investigators.
Read more about FDLE’s efforts to seize cryptocurrency through civil and criminal asset forfeiture.
The attorneys at Sammis Law Firm defend clients in criminal and civil asset forfeiture cases, including those involving the seizure of cryptocurrencies.
This article was last updated on Friday, June 13, 2025.