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Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compliant with money laundering laws.

Ok that much I get, but what is a mixer?

Blockchains transactions are public, which makes tracking individuals and the parties they conduct those transactions somewhat straightforward. Mixers take coins from various wallets, "mix" them through various methods, then transfer them to another wallets. This is meant to obscure the link between the original source of the coins and their ultimate destination.

Crypto coin laundries.

Re: Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

#33

This is very alarming and a very overreaching thing by the government. These men wrote an open source protocol (smart contract) which was used by random folks to "also" launder money. Its like arresting Tor developers because people host illegal content on it. Leaving this here for more details and reference: https://rnikhil.com/2022/08/09/tornado-cash-block.html

Doesn’t your use of scare quotes around “also” imply that they were, in fact, laundering money?

Re: Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

#34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shredders have legitimate uses, this is more like a ghost gun. It's pretty much only used for breaking the law.

Curious, what do you think about breaking the laws of authoritarian countries to save people's lives? Do you think people should be allowed to do that or not?

I think you're both ignoring one key factor here: intent.

If this was simple service for moving/spending money privately. Sure, probably nothing wrong then. But the indictment specifically states that they knew the service was being using by sanctioned entities and didn't try to prevent it. That's makes a big difference.

Re: Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false narrative made pretty clear by the indictment: https://www.justice.gov/media/1311391/dl?inline If you start a company and take investment and rake in money without AML controls then you're going to have a bad time. Don't want to be arrested? Pretty simple: Either live in Russia or don't start a company to make money off of money laundering. Or just build the open-source software without trying to make…

> or don't start a company to make money off of money laundering Funny because real estate agencies across the western world rake it in without fear.

To the best of my knowledge, most real estate agencies don't deal in cash transactions (as in "bags of"). Money is transferred from bank to bank. The banks have the responsibility to uphold KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering) rules. By the time a real-estate agent and vendor get it, the money has already been washed.

Re: Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

#38
post #3

> Authorities allege that Storm and Semenov knowingly allowed the Lazarus Group to launder money on behalf of the North Korean government in the spring of 2022. Hard to have any positive viewpoint on these guys if this turns out to be true.

the 'knowingly allowed' wording suggests LG literally asked them for permission to launder money on behalf of NK and these guys were like of course sure here you go, we've enabled money laundering for your account. pretty hard to believe by my standards.

it's more likely LG simply used Tornado Cash just like any other user.

Re: Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

#39
post #19

I smell a swap. Roman Storm for Evan Gershkovich and Snowden?

No, they definitely don't want to be in Russia because Tornado cash was used to make donations to Ukranian army (because the donators don't want to go to jail, since it's illegal). So Russia would be happy to jail the developers of that service.

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Re: Men charged by U.S. with laundering more than $1B in cryptocurrency

#40
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Allowed” by whom? The police employed by authoritarian countries? Yes, though I don’t think corrupt officials should take bribes. The judges employed by those countries who recognize necessity as an excuse for what is otherwise a crime? Yes, though now the law seems less authoritarian. INTERPOL? Depends on the law. ———————————- How does this relate to the topic a hand?

"Allowed" by a technology in this case, I guess. Like should they be allowed (i.e., have a possibility) to financially support opposition, journalists, etc.? Should the persecuted minorities (LGBT, etc) be able to hide their actions that may reveal them? Or should they be able to leave the country without revealing such plans to authorities in advance? And so on. It's relevant because a privacy in finance (i.e., "bre…

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