Iqbal "Iggy" Azad

He built the foundation of his career through a decorated 20-year tenure at Scotland Yard with the Metropolitan Police Service (Met) in London, where he developed a deep, practitioner-level understanding of how illicit networks operate and how they can be disrupted.

Iggy began his policing career walking the beat before moving into the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), where he honed his investigative skills tackling gang crime in South London. In 2011, he joined the National Cyber Crime Unit, serving there until 2019 and establishing himself as an experienced financial investigator across a wide spectrum of criminality, including gang crime, drug supply, cybercrime, money laundering, and fraud. It was during this period (in 2014) that he first began investigating the illicit use of cryptocurrency, positioning him at the leading edge of digital-asset investigations well before crypto crime became a mainstream concern.

In 2019, Iggy moved into the private sector, joining Coinbase, where he rose to the position of Senior Director of Global Intelligence. He led a dedicated team of investigators targeting illicit crypto activity, spanning fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, account takeovers, and child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and oversaw the connected domains of investigations, intelligence gathering, and law enforcement relations. In that role, he developed deep expertise in threat-actor disruption, financial crime investigations, and incident response at scale within the crypto space. Iggy also managed Coinbase's relationships with law enforcement and regulatory agencies internationally.

Iggy's career uniquely bridges the worlds of traditional law enforcement and emerging digital finance, allowing him to translate frontline investigative experience into the tools, processes, and partnerships needed to keep the crypto ecosystem safe. He is a globally recognized industry voice who has presented at international conferences and contributed to ACAMS UK Chapter panels on digital-asset policy, risk typologies, and mitigations. He has served as a board member for the ACAMS UK Chapter as well as a faculty member, and has developed cryptocurrency qualifications in the anti-money laundering (AML) space, helping to shape the next generation of financial crime professionals working at the intersection of crypto and compliance.