Zia M. Furuqui

Judge Faruqui has been serving as a federal magistrate judge for the District of Columbia since September 2020.  During that time, he has presided over hundreds of cases related to the January 6th Capitol Breach.  He has also issued several opinions of note about a range of toping including: applying U.S. sanctions law to cryptocurrency; authorizing the seizure of a Russian oligarch’s superyacht; and compelling Facebook to produce de-platformed records relating to the genocide of the Rohingya.  He also supervises the Reentry Court, which seeks to bring support services and resources to high-risk persons who have completed their terms of incarceration, and supports numerous prison education programs including a coding class taught by MIT.

Prior to his judicial appointment, Judge Faruqui was a federal prosecutor, first in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri and then in the District of Columbia. Over the span of over twelve years, he prosecuted numerous centered on the nexus between financial crime, cybercrime, and national security.  His case work included counter terror-finance actions, including by implementing denial of service attacks against, and site takeovers of, websites used by ISIS and Al Qaeda to collect cryptocurrency.  Additionally, he lead the takedown of the largest ever darknet site dedicated to child exploitation which was funded by cryptocurrency.  Prior to serving as a federal prosecutor, Judge Faruqui worked at a corporate law firm where he focused on government investigations and general commercial litigation. Judge Faruqui has been an adjunct professor at Harris-Stowe State University where he taught classes on criminal rehabilitation and Georgetown University where he teaches Constitutional Law. He received his J.D. and undergraduate degree from Georgetown University.