Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg formed the Corporate Crime and Antitrust Task Force, an initiative that will focus on investigating corporations for complex fraud and misconduct.
The task force will target antitrust violations, health care and other consumer fraud to hold organizations fully accountable. It is being led by Matthew Bogdanos, a 40-year veteran and one of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s most experienced lawyers. He has litigated and overseen teams focused on both violent and complex white-collar crimes.
The team will be staffed with approximately five assistant D.A.s and two investigative analysts. The team has deep white-collar experience, including prosecution and defense of a broad array of crimes, including financial services fraud, securities fraud, and antitrust matters. The task force will draw upon the broad resources of the office, including career investigators, forensic accountants, and the Office’s Financial Intelligence Unit, which does FinCEN analysis.
“One of my top priorities since taking office is protecting everyday New Yorkers by prosecuting those who take advantage of them through wage theft, tenant harassment, and other targeted crimes. But at the Manhattan D.A.’s Office, we recognize that corporate entities often inflict equal or greater harm than individuals. We do not stop, therefore, at an individual landlord or employer – our goal is systemic accountability. Our Task Force will doggedly pursue the big picture: the high-level actors, corporations, and structures that enable and profit from crime at the expense of New Yorkers,” Bragg said.
The task force will be looking “upstream” to identify the structures and entities that enable and profit from crime. An example of looking upstream recently occurred with a case involving ghost guns. To address this issue upstream, the office helped secure safety standards for 3D-printers sold in New York and increased criminal penalties through partnership with Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature. The office has also called on 3D-printer manufacturers and technology companies to adopt safeguards to prevent the production and distribution of these weapons.
The office also seizes websites that act as conduits of crime, interrupting criminal operations even when an arrest cannot or has not yet been made. In September, the Office seized 12 domain names of websites that were illegally disseminating and selling non-consensual, AI-generated celebrity “deepfake” videos.