DOJ Fraud Directive: Tax Scrutiny in Every Case, Early Asset Seizures
Directive 26-13 tells National Fraud Enforcement Division prosecutors to combine tax, securities, consumer and cybercrime authorities, screen every case for tax offenses, and move early on cooperators, flight risk and asset freezes.
On Oct. 7, 2026, AAG Colin M. McDonald issued Directive 26-13 to DOJ's National Fraud Enforcement Division, created earlier this year. DOJ calls it a "significant operational shift": prosecutors must combine the Division's tax, securities fraud, consumer fraud and cybercrime authorities, and must consider in every case whether internal revenue law violations — failure to report or failure to pay — accompanied the suspected fraud.
The memo also prioritizes developing proactive cooperators, with the caution that they "will not get a free pass"; directs earlier assessment of flight risk, arrest and detention; and tells the Asset Recovery Section to pursue pre- and post-indictment restraint: freezing orders at banks and crypto exchanges, in rem forfeiture before charges, warrants against websites and domains, civil injunctions aimed at government fraud, banking law and healthcare offenses, and prejudgment attachment and garnishment. Sentencing papers must "vividly recount" the offense, with upward departures and appeals where sentences appear too lenient.
Why it matters: for corporate clients in healthcare, government contracting, tax and trade, a defense posture now travels with tax exposure in the same file, while cooperation credit remains live. Watch for the anticipated enforcement wave and the first matters generated by the new data-correlation intelligence function. The directives apply only to Fraud Division-supervised matters; the analysis is BakerHostetler's.