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Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

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Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#211

Post by a4isms »

ForHackernews wrote: post #198
bflesch wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he was arrested for travelling with fake documents

Our randian cryptoheroes have no use for your trifling government-issued "fiat" documents. My transit visa exists forever on the eternal blockchain!

Keep up, What we actually do when travelling is use a Tornado Mixer. We slice ourselves into thousands of pieces and those pieces are semi-randomly mixed with the pieces of other crypto heroes, who travel by different routes. Only after reaching our final destination are we un-mixed, and sometimes not even that.

By the way, I love having one brown arm and one pink arm.

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#212

Post by kelnos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #168
notch898a wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But yet not evidence he was convicted of anything but non-violent internet crime.

> not evidence he was convicted of anything but non-violent internet crime I'm not sure where one is supposed to find sympathy for someone convicted of a crime, and looking likely to have attempted violent crimes, having their sentence strengthened on the latter's basis (within the confines of the primary sentence's guidelines). Should Al Capone have been treated like a usual tax dodger? Of course not. He's a high ri…

That seems to be a pretty weird view to me.

If you're convicted of crime X, you should be sentenced base on crime X, not on what other things everyone believes you actually did, but for which sufficient evidence can't be found to convict.

You seem to be advocating for a legal system where it's fine to punish people for things they haven't actually been convicted of doing. Regardless of what we may think of Al Capone, or "know" that he did, I think I would much rather let an Al-Capone-type off with the comparatively light sentence of a tax-dodger, than risk a harsh sentence for someone who didn't do the unproven things that people nevertheless "know" they did. Because of course that will happen.

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#213

Post by kelnos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #179
notch898a wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should Al Capone have been treated like a usual tax dodger? Of course. Al Capone being cited so often is precisely why I believe he should have been treated like a usual tax dodger for the tax crimes and treated like a murderer for any murder convictions. I would much rather Al Capone go free than short-circuit justice in this way.

> short-circuit justice in this way I'm failing to see the short circuiting. Tax dodging sentencing guidelines have a range. Capone was sentenced within that range. Same as Ulbricht. We don't re-hear a trial in front of a jury every time someone is sentenced because the jury has already rendered the verdict. Sentencing is a complicated subject which balances not only justice, but also the safety of the prisoner and t…

> Tax dodging sentencing guidelines have a range. Capone was sentenced within that range.

Presumably the implication here is that he was sentenced at the high end of that range. Was his sentence appropriate for the severity of his tax dodge, or was it pushed to the higher end of the range because of his other crimes, that he was never convicted of?

If the latter, then that's a real problem!

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#214

Post by TacticalCoder »

steveBK123 wrote: post #183

What is the point of having a zillion magic internet moneys if you can't get yourself off the financial grid and living in a non-extradition country? Cmon. What a bunch of jokers. I think it's a hugely bearish case for crypto that none of the crypto guys have been able to use it to avoid authorities for more than a few weeks/months. That's literally one of its alleged use cases. "The government can't control it". SBF…

> That's literally one of its alleged use cases. "The government can't control it". > > SBF, Do Kwon, the Bitmex guys, how's that worked out for everyone?

Well the government still, so far, cannot make it so that there's more than 21 million Bitcoins.

So in that sense they cannot control Bitcoin.

Those you mentioned and the likes of Justin Sun (now charged for fraud), Mark Karpeles (from MtGox fame, who server prison time), the Quadriga guy, Crypsy, etc. have all one thing in common: they "exit scammed" / "rug pulled" / ponzi'ed and whatnots.

The government collect taxes on realized gains honest people make selling cryptocurrencies they legally bought? The government send the likes of SBF to jail.

As simple as that.

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#215

Post by ChainOfFools »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #204
SECProto wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> despite widespread accusations and suspicions of corruption, nepotism, and even drug trafficking, he is our ally... and hence not a dictator Being a dictator means [1] to have absolute power. There are dictators that are friendly with the west and others that are not so much. Use of the term is orthogonal to whether or not a given country is an ally (other than that word choice can have ramifications) Montenegro is…

ChatGPT? Is that you?

Just because text has a rather Brainy Smurf tone to it does not necessarily mean it was generated by ChadGPT

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#216

Post by ganbatekudasai »

kelnos wrote: post #203
SECProto wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> despite widespread accusations and suspicions of corruption, nepotism, and even drug trafficking, he is our ally... and hence not a dictator Being a dictator means [1] to have absolute power. There are dictators that are friendly with the west and others that are not so much. Use of the term is orthogonal to whether or not a given country is an ally (other than that word choice can have ramifications) Montenegro is…

The point that the parent was making was that "dictator" has a very negative connotation, and the cynical take is that if the West likes you, they wouldn't call you something negative, even when that's what you are. So he's wink "not a dictator" wink .

Right, but the point of the comment you answered to, is that this cynical take does not work if Montenegro does not actually happen to be a dictatorship, friendly to the west or not.

Note that I have absolutely no idea whether Montenegro is or isn't a dictatorship, but the intention of all commenters here was clear.

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#217

Post by kelnos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #185
notch898a wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you truly see nothing wrong with creating a generic conspiracy charge, showing beyond a reasonable doubt that some element of that conspiracy was true, and then saying "sentence him for any element the judge finds true by preponderance of the evidence, no matter if that was the element(s) on which the jury convicted him." I can't say I'm thrilled that the standard is guilty beyond reasonable doubt, unless we find…

> the standard is guilty beyond reasonable of a doubt, unless we find you guilty of some other element, in which case murder-for-hire magically becomes preponderance of evidence You're dodging the fact that the sentence was given for the convicted crime within that crime's sentencing guidelines. Juries don't give sentences, judges do. What if not looking at additional factors do you think the judge is supposed to be…

But I think the people in this subthread believe that the judge's possible belief that Ulbricht had committed other, violent crimes influenced his sentencing decision.

That is, in the absence of suspicion of other crimes, he would have gotten a much less severe sentence.

I get that judges have to use all sorts of discretion when doing sentencing, and despite the "points system" around that, still have some leeway. My view is that judges should not be looking at other crimes that they may believe the defendant has committed -- even if they were not charged or not convicted -- and include that information in their sentencing decisions. I can't say for certain, of course, that's what happened here.

Maybe in Ulbrict's case, justice actually was served. Maybe he did those other things, and in a perfect world, sufficient evidence would have been found, and he would have been convicted of more serious charges. But we don't live in that perfect world, and for every Ulbricht who gets this "correct" treatment, there are certainly several others who get an overly-harsh sentence (still within guidelines, but harsher than is warranted) because people believe they did other stuff that couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#218

Post by kelnos »

vkou wrote: post #127
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that actually happened, why didn't they prosecute him for it?

Because the other stuff he did was also enough to put him away forever. The better question is: "Why are people so insistant on whitewashing him?" Do they not think that hiring a contract killer is, like, no big deal? Do they regularly pretend to hire them? Are they just closing ranks around him because they think he's part of their in-tribe?

I think the point is that justice shouldn't be arbitrary like that.

If you are convicted of certain crimes, your sentence -- even within the range appropriate for those crimes -- should not take into account other crimes that the person was suspected of committing, but it couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

That's the entire point of evidentiary standards: in the first place, it's to avoid putting people in jail at all if we can't prove they did it to a particular level of confidence. But we should also not be inflating sentences (again, even if the end result is still within the guided range for the convicted crimes) just because we think they did other, worse things too.

Maybe Ulbrict did deserve a much longer sentence. But the prosecution apparently could not prove the more serious crimes. His sentence should not be influenced by things the prosecution could not prove. I'm sure there are other defendants who were convicted of crimes, but suspected of worse crimes that they didn't actually commit in reality. Maybe Ulbricht got what he deserved, but these other people got worse than they deserved.

> Do they not think that hiring a contract killer is, like, no big deal?

To sum up: what people think about this is entirely irrelevant. He was not convicted for hiring a contract killer, so that should have zero bearing on his sentence. Even if his sentence was in the range appropriate for what he was convicted for, it's a range, and if his sentence was pushed higher in that range because of other things the judge believed he did, that's not justice.

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#219

Post by jongjong »

consumer451 wrote: post #37
notch898a wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been in a jail cell? Almost every day in the US you see someone who decides to go out with guns blazing rather than go back.

This sounds like Hollywood reality for white collar. Here is actual reality: > "Hey Do, I just want to let you know, jail is not that bad," Shkreli said. "So don't fret – I hope it doesn't happen. If it does happen ... it's not that bad." - Martin Shkreli https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/08/pharma-bro-mart...

I suspect that a lot of decent people go to jail nowadays. That would explain why jails aren't so bad and why different facilities are so inconsistent. I can imagine a day when good people will be in jail and bad people will be outside running them. I think in some countries, this is not far from reality.

Re: Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro: Interior Minister

#220

Post by 0x457 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #208
touisteur wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in France? In Germany, Poland, Portugal (for example) power is mostly concentrated in PM role.

Russia post-2000 is another example, though in that case it is probably more accurate to say power is mostly concentrated in Putin whether he is PM or President, not a particular office.

Russia didn't have PM at all until Putin decided to work around the constitution.
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