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Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

theguardian.com

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Re: Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

#11

Post by amix »

bmelton wrote: post #8
gizi wrote: post #6

What would be the problem if he were Satoshi Nakamoto? He'd rather deserve the Nobel prize.

I think the possible reason for raiding him is to catch up on tax obligations from having accrued so much undeclared wealth. I don't know if there are other crimes for which they intend to charge him, but that's the first one that pops to mind. Also, they've obviously had meetings in advance of "what do we do if we determine the identity of Satoshi", because this raid was FAST.

The person(s) who leaked the documents to the media, could also have leaked them to the Australian authorities.

Re: Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

#12

Post by Mtinie »

From the article:

> Guardian Australia understands the raids are not related to the claims that Wright may have been involved in the creation of bitcoin, but are related to an Australian Tax Office investigation.

So the story is that the Australian Tax Office just happened to be running an investigation looking into some facet of Craig Wright's finances. An investigation that apparently revealed some sort of abnormality, resulting in a raid on a property connected to Mr. Wright...

...18 hours after a major technology publication "outed" him as the possible person behind "Satoshi Nakamoto".

Welp, that looks completely coincidental to me. /s

Re: Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

#14

Post by credit_guy »

obilgic wrote: post #4
amix wrote: post #3

The bitcoins that Satoshi Nakamoto own are worth about ~400 million USD. There are also a ton of coins missing from Mt. Gox and Silkroad. Maybe it’s all related somehow? Anyhow, it's clear why the authorities would be interested: potentially there are hundreds of millions of USD on the line. This said, this is horrible for Craig Wright if he is innocent...

well he is (innocent), until proven guilty...

I guess you mean to say he is presumed innocent, at this point.

Re: Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

#15

Post by daurnimator »

shiado wrote: post #13

Wasn't it the case that Satoshi Nakamoto published PGP keys early in the days of Bitcoin? Shouldn't the issue of an individual claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto be trivial to solve?

It sounds like in this case he doesn't want to be Satoshi, but the ATO investigators think he might be.

Re: Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

#16

Post by bro-stick »

tlrobinson wrote: post #10

> Guardian Australia understands the raids are not related to the claims that Wright may have been involved in the creation of bitcoin, but are related to an Australian Tax Office investigation. Seems like a hell of a coincidence for these two things to happen on the same day...

There is a strong incentive for SN to stay anonymous now: extortion, GBH threats, kidnapping, tax evasion, etc.

This could be some guy feigning humblebragging to fool prospective customers, or the vaguest individual Wired decided to hoist the label onto because it garners eyeballs in a Daily Mail way that's hard to repute.

The raid is explained because many governments want evidence for tax evasion and evading the conventional banking system... control SN = control BTC.

Re: Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

#19

Post by snewk »

bro-stick wrote: post #16
tlrobinson wrote: post #10

> Guardian Australia understands the raids are not related to the claims that Wright may have been involved in the creation of bitcoin, but are related to an Australian Tax Office investigation. Seems like a hell of a coincidence for these two things to happen on the same day...

There is a strong incentive for SN to stay anonymous now: extortion, GBH threats, kidnapping, tax evasion, etc. This could be some guy feigning humblebragging to fool prospective customers, or the vaguest individual Wired decided to hoist the label onto because it garners eyeballs in a Daily Mail way that's hard to repute. The raid is explained because many governments want evidence for tax evasion and evading the co…

Many governments are interested in finding Satoshi. They need a scapegoat to pin this bitcoin thing on. They still believe finding him/her might be effective method of getting rid of bitcoin. It's like trump wanting to go ask bill gates about locking up the internet.

Re: Reported Bitcoin 'founder' Craig Wright's home raided by Australian police

#20

Post by imron »

tlrobinson wrote: post #10

> Guardian Australia understands the raids are not related to the claims that Wright may have been involved in the creation of bitcoin, but are related to an Australian Tax Office investigation. Seems like a hell of a coincidence for these two things to happen on the same day...

Not really. Let's say he was under investigation by the ATO for a host of different matters and let's say that the ATO suspected/was hoping there was interesting evidence at his house and while they would like to get their hands on it they were waiting until the right opportunity to do so, without hindering/alerting the subject of the investigation.

Then these new claims are made in the media and they risk not only Wright himself moving the evidence, but also hordes of potential 'treasure hunters' breaking in and stealing things like hard drives in the hope of finding bitcoin - hard drives that also contain things the ATO might want to look at.

And so a pre-emptive raid to take the evidence, before it gets taken by others.

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