DOJ 2015 Awards to Many

For John, BLUF:  Just bragging.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

So, there are a lot of words here, but that is just so we can get to Mr Clifford R R Krieger and his award from the Attorney General, Ms Loretta E Lynch.

The sixth Distinguished Service Award is awarded to the multi-agency team responsible for their exemplary performance in the shutdown of the Silk Road website and the subsequent sale of bitcoins.  The multi-agency effort to dismantle the Silk Road website was a landmark event in the department’s fight against cybercrime.  These efforts brought the owner and operator to justice through a cutting-edge criminal investigation and subsequent trial and pioneered the first-ever government-sponsored sale of bitcoins.  Silk Road was a sprawling, black market bazaar which operated on the “dark web” and required all transactions to be paid for in bitcoins, enabling its users to anonymously buy and sell illicit goods and services, including drugs, counterfeit IDs, computer hacking tools, pornography and weapons.  The team, which was nominated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Marshals Service, led this extraordinary and groundbreaking effort by successfully navigating uncharted government territory and dismantling a notorious criminal enterprise of unprecedented scope and sophistication.  The case not only serves as a model for others to follow in conducting complex cybercrime investigations, prosecutions and asset dispositions in the future, but it also demonstrates that law enforcement is capable of rising to the challenge in the growing shift of criminal activity on the Internet.

Award recipients include, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Timothy Howard and Serrin Turner; from the FBI’s New York Field Office, Special Agent Vincent D. D’Agostino and Computer Scientist Thomas Kiernan; from the U.S. Marshals Service-Southern District of New York, Acting U.S. Marshal Eric B. Timberman; from the U.S. Marshals Service’s Office of General Counsel, Associate General Counsel Clifford R.R. Krieger; from the U.S. Marshals Service’s Asset Forfeiture Division, Assistant Program Manager Kyle T. Bateman; from the Criminal Division’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, Assistant Deputy Chief for Policy John W. Vardaman III and Attorney-Advisor Joseph F. Mignano; from the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, Intelligence Analyst Catherine Diane Pelker; from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sharon Cohen Levin and Christine I. Magdo; from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, Special Agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan; and from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Special Agent Gary L. Alford.

Taking down the Silk Road, out on the Dark Web, is a big deal.

I add my congratulations to all the recipients of this award and to the other award recipients, and especially to my youngest son.

Regards  —  Cliff