Just curious, how will you sieze bitcoin?
Get the private key and send a transaction transferring the sum to a new wallet for which you are sure only your agency knows the private key.
DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
191–200 of 421 posts
Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um maybe because the government isn't supposed to work for profit but to enforce the law and do the right thing for victims and society? If they're going to be only prosecuting crimes where there's something in it for them it's going to be a very unsafe society.
Welcome to the world
Welcome to the US maybe. Here in Europe it's not like that, though there's certainly stuff going wrong. But not this, really.
Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#193Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#194Sounds like good news but the press release doesn't detail how the FBI managed to trace, positively identify and then seize such a huge pile of crypto ($15B) from a suspect they say took extensive steps to launder and hide the source and ownership of the crypto. I'm curious because this guy is clearly very experienced, highly sophisticated and located in a country where the government and law enforcement are obviousl…
I am also curious how the US government obtained possession of the bitcoin if the defendant is still at large. Doesn’t that defeat the whole point of bitcoin?
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Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#195From this article they got $15B ( https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/bitcoin-doj-chen-zhi-pig-but... ). At what point do you say, "That's enough money?" Did they think the scam was going to go on forever?
At that scale, you have massive influence within the Cambodian government, so you're not worried about "getting caught" in the traditional sense.
You still have to worry about falling out with the government or then caving to foreign pressure and selling you off to appease a foreign power.
Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
China only began executing those pig-butcherers when the EAO that was providing protection to Chinese pig-butchering gangs in that region of Myanmar (Kachin Independence Army) re-flipped towards India recently [0] and had begun to ignore China [1] and rerouting rare earths and other goods to India [2] Meanwhile, China never cracked down against similar scams in Cambodia. Most notably, Prince Group remains unsanctione…
> the EAO that was providing protection to Chinese pig-butchering gangs in that region of Myanmar (Kachin Independence Army) Kachin is not a relevant location of scam centers. You can find articles that claim otherwise, e.g. https://www.ctol.digital/news/inside-worlds-largest-scam-emp... but from the fact that they mention the Thai border and the city of Myawaddy, which is in Kayin/Karen State, it's clear that they'r…
The MNDAA is a close ally of the KIA as both are members of the Northern Alliance, and all the Northern Alliance members saw their relations with China tank after Chinese brokered talks with the Tatmadaw failed [0] last December.
As a result of that failure, all the Northern Alliance members began trying to pivot to other states or in the case of the MNDAA faced the brunt of the Chinese crackdown.
[0] - https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/juntamndaa-peace-talks-doo...
Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
In theory the court should give them back the actual bitcoin, not the monetary equivalent at the time. In a just world, anyway. Based on current judicial trends, they’ll probably get Coinbase coupons worth 50% of a different coin or something.
> In theory the court should give them back the actual bitcoin, not the monetary equivalent at the time. Why? Most of them didn't care about bitcoin, they bought it solely to give to the scammer.
Because they bought Bitcoin and gave it to the scammer, and that Bitcoin is even worth more now, so that’s the ‘most fair’ recompense.
After all, if someone stole $1k of gold from someone a decade ago, is giving them (now deflated) $1k USD fair, or is giving them the same physical amount (now worth) $3k in gold fairer? Even if they bought the gold because the scammer asked them too.
The ‘fair enough’ treatment would be to give them the dollar equivalent at the time they gave the bitcoin to the scammer, and the rest goes… to the gov’t? As ‘payment’ for recovering it all and making the payment happen? Or to penalize the scammers? But actually the victims lost a lot of monetary value due to inflation, and lost gains from bitcoin price increasing.
The ‘meh, won’t get anyone run out of town with pitchforks’ is the gov’t seizes the bitcoin, punishes the offenders (how?), and somehow gives warm fuzzies to the victims without actually giving them anything to make their financial pain any better. Aka business as usual. Bonus points if you make them give more money to another party to do it (aka the ‘class action shuffle’ that has gotten popular in the last few decades).
Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#198It's 127,271 Bitcoins. Interesting choice not to mention the number of Bitcoins but use its current market value in USD. I feel like this says something about Bitcoin but not sure what exactly. Edit: Wow, people really don't want to know how many Bitcoins were seized :)
While the USD value is important, this puts the number in perspective, since only 21M BTC can ever exist (and a good number of them are out of circulation for various reasons).
Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#199The point of bitcoin was that it can't be taken off you by the state. So either this was severe user error, to the tune of why aren't the keys somewhere secure when there's a billion dollars behind them, or the nominal reason for bitcoin existing is nonsense. We thinking user error or crypto is nonsense? On the forum I expect the former.
Reminds me of this XKCD: https://xkcd.com/538/ With bitcoin you can't even just rely on memory for the keys, you need something physical that can be taken away from you.
Not really. Hardware makes it easier to manage, but anyone with the private key can access the coins at a given address.
Of course, private keys are practically unmemorizable, but you can restore a Bitcoin wallet with your seed phrase.
Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
#200The point of bitcoin was that it can't be taken off you by the state. So either this was severe user error, to the tune of why aren't the keys somewhere secure when there's a billion dollars behind them, or the nominal reason for bitcoin existing is nonsense. We thinking user error or crypto is nonsense? On the forum I expect the former.
Unless you are suggesting that the encryption algorithms underlying Bitcoin have been broken (which would be absolutely huge news with all sorts of far reaching consequences), then it's clearly the former.