Speaker details

Biography

Puneet V. Kakkar has extensive international prosecutorial and diplomatic experience in cross-border cyber, corporate, and financial-crime and cryptocurrency investigations. A former US federal prosecutor and diplomat, Puneet has worked in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, advising on and pursuing matters involving cybercrime, corruption, sanctions, money laundering, cryptocurrency, and transnational criminal enforcement. His career spans leadership roles within the US Department of Justice and includes long-term engagement with US and foreign prosecutors, investigating judges, regulators, and law enforcement agencies. Puneet worked at the US Embassy in Paris, where, as Justice Attaché to France and Monaco, he was the principal liaison between US prosecutors and French and Monegasque judicial authorities, including the Prosecutor of Paris, the Parquet National Financier (PNF), National Anti-Organized Crime Prosecutor (PNACO), National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor (PNAT), and Public Prosecutor of Monaco. In this capacity, he advised on a substantial portfolio of cross-border matters, including extraditions, regularly counseled senior Embassy leadership on high-profile subjects, and was a frequent speaker on panels involving US legal policy. He also served as the DOJ’s Resident Legal Advisor to the Gulf Region, working with counterparts in the Middle East on terror finance and cybercrime enforcement. Prior to this, Puneet was an Assistant United States Attorney in Los Angeles, where he tried cases to verdict, argued appeals before the Ninth Circuit, and supervised large, multi-defendant investigations with international dimensions. As a Deputy Chief, he oversaw and served as first-chair for complex prosecutions involving cryptocurrency money laundering, darknet marketplaces, cybercrime, international drug trafficking, tax fraud, customs and trade fraud, and sanctions-related conduct, including some of the Department of Justice’s earliest cryptocurrency-money-laundering cases. Puneet began his career representing clients in business litigation, such as intellectual property infringement matters, then clerked for a federal judge. He is fluent in French and proficient in Hindi.