A profile of Jarod Koopman, who leads IRS Criminal Investigation's cybercrime unit, which has returned $12B+ to victims and the US Treasury in the past 10 years
these tireless, dedicated people, working all hours, shutting down suppliers of fentanyl, saving kids, disrupting terrorists — sort of a nerdy SEAL Team Six.” @postopinions https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Rachel / @maddowmaddow : What I wouldn't give to hear Geraldine Brooks herself narrate this incredible, incredible story (instead of the AI creepy voice)... https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Bluesky: @sjscentraltx.bsky.social : This “opinion” piece is really a long-form article about how the IRS fights crime (BIG crime) by following the money. — www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ int... X: Carol Leonnig / @carolleonnig : A delight to read this striking profile of a heroic IRS agent - yes heroic. A surprise gift 🎁 in The Post today from friend @GeraldineBrooks . https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... KittyKatGirl / @mary1kathy : Don't much like WAPO these days but love this story! https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... @economicsecproj : Cutting IRS funding isn't a win for taxpayers—it's a win for criminals. Modernization efforts funded by the IRA give agents like Koopman tools to stop terror financing, crypto crime, & exploitation. Now, these efforts are being threatened by funding cuts. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Craig Newmark / @craignewmark : From seizing $3M+ in stolen Bitcoin to leading one of the largest international crime busts in history, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist @GeraldineBrooks shares the stories of the dedicated #IRS agents who are fighting cybercrime. Read on @PostOpinions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Dana Hedgpeth / @postmetrogirl : Such a great lede on this who is government story. Nothing but readers https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
The profile puts Jarod Koopman at the center of an IRS Criminal Investigation unit whose cybercrime work spans victim restitution and Treasury recovery. It extends a visible history of IRS investigators using digital traces in complex cases, including an earlier IRS-DEA investigation that traced Silk Road activity through online records.
Related coverage also shows why financial investigation is consequential in cybercrime: a child-exploitation takedown demonstrated that bitcoin transactions could be traced with specialized analytics, even as accounts of FBI cybercrime reform point to persistent institutional gaps.
First-order effects
- Victims and the U.S. Treasury are the immediate beneficiaries of the unit’s reported $12B-plus in returns over the past decade; Koopman’s team is the named operational center for that work.
- The profile raises the visibility of IRS Criminal Investigation as a cybercrime actor whose remit reaches beyond tax enforcement into money trails connected to other offenses.
Second-order effects
- Criminal groups that depend on digital payments, exchanges, or other traceable financial infrastructure face greater pressure to move or obscure funds, increasing the value of cross-agency financial intelligence.
- The account strengthens the case for pairing cyber investigations with asset tracing and recovery, rather than treating disruption of an illicit service as the endpoint.
Third-order effects
- If this model continues to produce recoveries, cybercrime enforcement is likely to become more financially integrated: specialist investigators, analytic tools, and agencies will compete to follow and reclaim illicit flows.
- The broader constraint is institutional capacity. The related record of unmet FBI cybercrime reform needs suggests strong individual units do not by themselves resolve coordination and resourcing gaps.
The trend: Cybercrime enforcement is increasingly organized around tracing, seizing, and returning digital-era financial flows alongside traditional disruption operations.