The Other Side Has Crypto: Finding Digital Assets with Bank Records, Subpoenas, and Blockchain Tracing

Geoffrey Berg, Founding Partner | Berg PC

Geoff Berg founded Berg PC and has spent three decades handling business, employment, civil, and cryptocurrency litigation at every stage, from filing suit through appeal, in courts across Texas. His practice today includes a dedicated crypto litigation group focused on fraud recovery and blockchain-related business disputes. He approaches every matter as a trial in the making, building strategy from a case’s inception rather than positioning for the fastest settlement, and he has compiled a record of significant trial results against major regional and national commercial trial firms.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Berg earned his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center in 1994 and holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Journalism from New York University, both completed in 1992. He is licensed in Texas (1995), with prior admissions in Colorado (2007) and Pennsylvania (2009) now inactive. He is admitted before the United States District Courts for the Southern, Northern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas and the District of Colorado, and before the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Tenth Circuits.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Berg has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation for ten consecutive years and holds an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell. He was selected to Texas Super Lawyers from 2004 to 2023, named among the Best Lawyers in Texas by The Wall Street Journal, and received the Who’s Who Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. The 151st Judicial District Court of Harris County, Texas appointed him Special Commissioner to rule on eminent domain matters, and he is a Texas Bar Foundation Life Fellow.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Berg is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Colorado Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and the Houston Bar Association’s Commercial and Consumer Law Section. His civic commitments include prior board service with the Anti-Defamation League, life membership in the NAACP, board membership with Atlas Scholars, and service on the Harris County Democratic Party’s Judicial Screening Committee.

• Experience

Mr. Berg’s results include representing Samsung Electronics in a royalty contract dispute against Texas Instruments that settled after three weeks of trial, and representing plaintiffs in a mass action against the Marriott Corporation that settled for $425 million. He led the Texas end of multi-state litigation that vacated two confessions of judgment totaling nearly $20 million, and he obtained a $5.4 million declaratory judgment, including attorneys’ fees, in a $5 million escrow ownership dispute. His current crypto litigation work spans fraud recovery matters as well as the firm’s investigations concerning Meta crypto scam advertisements and the Coinbase data breach.

Andrew C. Adams, Partner | Steptoe LLP

Andrew C. Adams is a partner in Steptoe’s New York office, where he advises companies and individuals on government and internal investigations, corporate governance, and white collar and regulatory matters. His practice concentrates on anti-money laundering compliance, U.S. economic countermeasures, and national security crisis response, informed by his service as the inaugural Director of the Department of Justice’s Task Force KleptoCapture, the multi-agency group formed to enforce the sanctions and export controls imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Adams earned his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2008 and his B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. He is admitted to the New York bar. He clerked for the Hon. John M. Walker, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for the Hon. Mary A. McLaughlin of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

• Recognition & Leadership

At the Department of Justice, Mr. Adams served as the inaugural Director of Task Force KleptoCapture within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and as acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, overseeing the Division’s sanctions, export control, and national security cyber investigations. At the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, he rose to Co-Chief of the Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit after serving as Deputy Chief of the Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Adams speaks frequently on sanctions, digital asset enforcement, and cross-border investigations, with recent engagements for ACAMS, the American Conference Institute’s New York Forum on Economic Sanctions, the Federal Bar Association, Lex Mundi’s Cross-Border Investigations Practice Group, and The Digital Chamber. He is a regular contributor to Steptoe’s blockchain and international compliance publications.

• Experience

As a federal prosecutor from 2013 to 2023, Mr. Adams investigated, charged, and tried cases centered on the integrity of financial institutions, transnational organized crime, and sophisticated money laundering operations moving through both traditional and crypto platforms. His matters included the first criminal case charged under the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act and prosecutions involving looted antiquities and cultural property fraud. He also served as one of the Southern District of New York’s asset forfeiture coordinators, advising prosecutors across the office on civil and criminal forfeiture. Before his government service, he practiced as a litigation associate at an international law firm headquartered in New York.

Session 1 – Crypto Tracing Fundamentals: Wallets, Exchanges, and the Blockchain Paper Trail | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Opens with why every litigator needs a working knowledge of crypto, addressing the growth of cryptocurrency in litigation and asset recovery, common scenarios spanning divorce, fraud, judgment enforcement, and asset recovery, and the challenges posed by pseudonymous transactions. The session then turns to crypto tracing fundamentals: public blockchains and transaction records, custodial vs. self-custody wallets, the bank records to blockchain tracing workflow, and evidentiary and admissibility considerations.

BREAK | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

Session 2 – Discovery, Subpoenas, and Court Orders That Reach Hidden Digital Assets | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

Covers discovery strategies for hidden digital assets, including interrogatories, document requests, depositions, Rule 45 subpoenas to exchanges, tax returns and financial records, and overcoming discovery objections. The session then addresses freezing and recovering cryptocurrency through TROs and preliminary injunctions, turnover orders and post-judgment remedies, and jurisdictional issues, Civil RICO, and forfeiture considerations, closing with practical takeaways: red flags of undisclosed crypto holdings, a tracing workflow checklist, and when to retain forensic experts.