Partner
Miami
New York
+1.786.918.4120
wnorkin@akrivislaw.com

Spanish Profile


Education:

J.D., With Honors, New York University

B.A., Economics & Hispanic Studies, Northwestern University

Admissions

Florida

New York

Southern District of New York (SDNY)

Eastern District of New York (EDNY)

Southern District of Florida (SDFL)

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (DDC)

Northern District of Illinois (NDIL)

Second Circuit Court of Appeals

Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

Languages

Spanish (fluent)
Russian (conversant)

Walter M. Norkin is a partner in Akrivis Law Group’s Miami and New York offices and the Head of firm’s International Crime Defense practice. After a successful and distinguished career in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that spanned nearly 20 years, Mr. Norkin’s practice focuses on representing individuals and corporations in international criminal and white-collar matters before the federal government and courts.

Mr. Norkin’s current representative matters include:

  • Counsel for Michael Kane, former CEO of the Hydrogen Technology Corporation, who was charged with securities and wire fraud in a four-count indictment related to a cryptocurrency minted by his company (U.S. v. Kane, et al., 23 CR 20172-KMW (SDFl));
  • Counsel for a Forex trader in parallel investigations by the U.S. Commodities and Futures Commission (CFTC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into a Forex investment firm’s alleged participation in a fraud scheme;
  • Counsel for Miguel Gutierrez Diaz, a former congressman and businessman from the Dominican Republic accused of narcotics trafficking and money laundering (U.S. v. Gutierrez Diaz, et al., 21 CR 20151-RKA (SDFl));
  • Counsel for a Central American politician and businessman named on the Specially Designated National (SDN) list by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and in connection with an FBI investigation of money laundering and foreign bribery allegations;
  • Counsel for a cryptocurrency trader related to DOJ’s criminal investigation of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s political contributions though a “501c” entity;
  • Counsel for an investment fund executive in parallel investigations by a U.S. Attorney’s Office, with FBI and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) into a possible valuation fraud by a corporation that became publicly listed through a SPAC merger;
  • Counsel for multiple foreign persons being investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seeking to resolve their potential criminal exposure through negotiation with the U.S. government; and 
  • Counsel for a former executive of a cryptocurrency investment fund charged by the SEC with violations of the Securities and Exchange Act (SEC v. BKCoin Management, LLC, et al, 23 CV 20719-RNS (SDFl)).

As a prosecutor at both the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn) and the Southern District of Florida (Miami), Mr. Norkin led numerous high-profile investigations and prosecutions, including:

  • the indictment and prosecution of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman-Loera;
  • the investigation and convictions of a Guatemalan ex-presidential candidate, an ex-Economy Minister and a director of a Guatemalan bank in a money laundering scheme;
  • the investigation and successful prosecution of an international money laundering operation in the precious metals and refining industry that involved wire fraud, customs violations, illegal mining and bribery;
  • the investigation and prosecution of multiple South American drug cartels, including the convictions after trial of their Central American cartel liaisons;
  • the conviction of 10 registered brokers and lawyers across the U.S. in a stock market manipulation scheme that also resulted in the guilty plea of a CEO of a publicly traded company;
  • the conviction of the former CEO of a California savings bank for engineering sham transactions during the mortgage crisis; and
  • the investigation of a large global bank for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for conduct in Asia, which led to a guilty plea and significant financial penalty for the bank 

In recognition of his outstanding skills both in the courtroom and in managing challenging cases involving multiple U.S. agencies, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn appointed Mr. Norkin as the Chief of the International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section and later the Deputy Chief of the Business and Securities Fraud Section, where he oversaw some of the Office’s most significant prosecutions of fraud and securities violations. In the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Norkin was entrusted with the Office’s most sensitive and complex investigations and prosecutions, including those involving major international corporations, political figures and other matters with particular media or ethical concerns and intricacies.

Mr. Norkin’s extensive trial and appellate experience includes serving as first-chair onover a dozen trials in Brooklyn and Miami and arguing multiple times before the Second and Eleventh Circuits. He has also worked closely with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of Treasury, the SEC, and a variety of foreign governments conducting parallel investigations and necessitating interactions through Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs). His work targeting Colombian and Mexican drug cartels earned him multiple Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) awards and accolades.

Prior to joining the DOJ, Mr. Norkin began his career as an associate at Cravath, Swaine and Moore, LLP, where he handled complex civil matters including shareholder class action defense for Hugo Boss, anti-trust litigation for Time Warner Inc., and patent litigation for IBM and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He also clerked for the Honorable Richard J. Holwell, United States District Court in the Southern District of New York.