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Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

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Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#521

Post by buryat »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #163
wcoenen wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mixing is not laundering. The difference is that laundering provides you with an explanation for wealth and/or income. Example of laundering: buy a business (with clean or borrowed money), have fictional customers "spend" their cash money at your business every day, then report your income and pay taxes. Now if anybody asks about where you got your money, you have a seemingly legit explanation. Mixing does none of th…

tornado.cash puts your crypto in a completely fresh account (using smart contracts). You can claim that you earned this crypto mining it back in 2010. You can definitely come up with a decent excuse for this. Then you can convert those crypto (in new account) into fiat money. Everyone will know you are lying, but they will never be able to prove it.

you would need to show crypto addresses from 2010 and prove that you still have access to them

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#522

Post by giaour »

Miner49er wrote: post #360
hungryforcodes wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny! But really there are loads of ways to store your keys physically that are human readable.

Yeah, and then they could be fairly trivially memorized, even.

This plan doesn't really scale to the 2000 wallets mentioned in the OP. But maybe that scenario only comes up when you're looking to launder billions of dollars worth of BTC?

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#523

Post by TacticalCoder »

So Bitfinex is worth at least $3.6bn or is it all customers BTCs?

Were people made whole back then? Is it some MtGox thing where people who lost money back then will now have it? In BTC? Or in USD at the worth of BTC back then? Or in USD at today's BTC valuation?

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#524

Post by scotty79 »

smt88 wrote: post #235
paulpauper wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just unreal. this guy was living a double life of being the greatest criminal ever. So among our community was a $4 billion hacker, just nonchalantly posting. I don't think he will be commenting anytime soon again if this really is him https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=il like your neighbor being a serial killer or something

I'm really amused that he is currently listed as a mentor for 500 Startups. I wonder how good his advice has been?

Don't get caught.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#525

Post by baq »

yupper32 wrote: post #462
brightball wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, listening to enough stories on Darknet Diaries about how people get caught it’s pretty crazy. Honestly makes working in the groups that catch people like this sound very interesting.

I imagine it's very very very boring for a while, with relatively brief moments of satisfaction.

Sounds like the usual $DAYJOB for basically everybody here

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#526

Post by beebmam »

localhost wrote: post #299
pdog wrote: post #215

Ilya Lichtenstein (YC S11) is the co-founder of YC-backed MixRank. Heather Morgan, his wife, is apparently a serial entrepreneur, investor, and "contributor" to Forbes.

She's also a rapper, and not a very good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DIuPPmY9mw

This is absolutely incredible. Wow.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#528

Post by dracodoc »

Page 15 of statement_of_facts The only other significant deposit to the account was an approximately $11,000 U.S. Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan advance provided in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

So they also applied for PPP.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#529

Post by nobody9999 »

tptacek wrote: post #416
sdenton4 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument around plea bargains is pretty simple. You have someone over a barrel: "Take the deal and go to prison for two or five years, or take a risk on a trial where you'll be put away for life. And btw, our conviction rate is 99.96%." You'd be crazy not to take the deal, even if you're innocent. Thus, the conviction rate doesn't actually tell us much about how strong the federal cases actually are.

That's not the structure of most plea bargains ("2 years vs. life") but more importantly, you don't have enough information in that hypothetical to determine how fair the system is, because you're not accounting for how liberally federal prosecutors bring cases. If they tend only to bring cases when they have overwhelming evidence --- which is the rap on federal prosecutors (not so much state) --- then you get the sa…

>A good reason not to take a case to trial is your knowledge that you'll be destroyed at trial.

Another good reason not to take a case to trial is potentially spending years in pre-trial detention, destroying your life -- losing your house, your kids, your job and anything else that requires your presence outside of a detention facility.

Which is why so many cases end up as plea bargains -- get sentenced to "time served" for a lesser offense and then try to pick up the pieces of your shattered life, or fight (assuming you have the money/resources to do so) and potentially never get the chance to pick up those pieces.

So yes, the system is quite coercive.

Let's say for the sake of argument that the DoJ (or state prosecutors) determine (by whatever means) that tptacek has committed criminal acts.

You are arrested, arraigned and bail is either denied or set high enough that you can't afford to pay.

How long could you sit in jail before you lose your job, your house, possibly your spouse and your kids and anything else important to you?

It could be years before a trial. And given that most folks can't afford an unexpected $500 expense, sitting in jail waiting to be tried isn't all that unusual.

Given those circumstances, how long could you sit in jail awaiting trial before your life is a complete shambles? Given the make up of folks here on HN, I'd expect that you may well be able to last longer than most.

High bail and pre-trial detention are absolutely used as cudgels that attempt to force even the innocent to accept plea agreements. Especially when indictments tend to include a lot of overcharging -- another cudgel to force a plea agreement.

Which is why I don't believe that plea agreements should be used at all. But that's a much larger discussion and beyond the scope of this comment.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#530

Post by mikeyouse »

300bps wrote: post #263

The hack occurred 5.5 years ago. The Federal statute of limitations on Grand Theft/Larceny is 5 years. Is this why they are charged with Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundring and not charged with the actual theft? Lichtenstein and Morgan are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering If so, this means that (outside tax obligations) they may have gotten away with it essentially by sitting on the money doing not…

It's definitely not that easy... They would be sued in Civil Court for the entire amount, the Feds have a variety of options for 10-year statutes that could be implicated when they transfer the funds to a bank (wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud) and they would have to pay taxes on the funds lest they are implicated in tax fraud. It's hard work being a criminal.
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