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DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

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Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#241

Post by sangel21 »

Reason077 wrote: post #62

Wow. $15 billion is an astronomical, nearly unfathomable amount of money in Cambodia. This must have been a huge operation. It's almost 1/3 of the country's entire GDP! Well done DOJ. Hopefully the victims get their money back.

Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia thailand also catched a few. I would not be surprised if they take advantage of westerners as well. 15Billion++ is a big incentive.

I heard an agent got court for opening bank accounts for them in Pattaya, over 500 accounts. We have had crackdowns on banking here in Thailand ever since.

Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#242

Post by homakov »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #148
mrtksn wrote: post #111

It'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 :)

This is why crypto could never be considered a currency, even the earliest news about BTC (value, theft, pizza purchases, etc) was always reported in USD values. But then again, so do big Eve Online battles.

No such thing as "crypto". You're intermixing form (BTC Jurisdiction state machine) with particular instance (BTC token, USDC token, whatever fungible or not)

Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#243

Post by HPsquared »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #223
HPsquared wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it even count in there though? Fraud isn't a normal transaction. It's the same as theft, which is simply a transfer from one person to another. An act of fraud or theft doesn't represent creation of value the way profit from legitimate transactions do for "black market" goods/services (even if the goods/services are illegal).

If we're just talking about the formula of GDP = gov spend + investment + consumption + net exports, then scamming foreigners would be captured under the "net exports" category. Similar to remittances, which are quite significant components of GDP for some countries. Admittedly it's doubtful whether this kind of activity would be captured by official statistics.

Remittances aren't counted towards GDP either. The funds can contribute indirectly, as consumption or investment, if spent locally. This $15B didn't make it that far, though.

Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#244

Post by qwertytyyuu »

reactordev wrote: post #203
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably a computer hack of some sort that led to accessing the wallet password etc. I bet somebody wrote down their password, too scared of what would happen to them if they were to forget it.

Nah, you know he had his wallet backed up to his My Documents folder as json…

not a sticky note on the desktop?

Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#245

Post by newyankee »

gordonhart wrote: post #172
yhager wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cambodia's specifically 30-50% of the economy can be directly attributed to scamming plus casinos Are you saying that 30-50% of Cambodia's economy can be directly attributed to scamming and casinos? I find that shocking and hard to believe. Do you have a source for that statement?

My first experience stepping off the plane in Cambodia was being scammed by the official issuing visas. It was $20, I gave him $50, and he didn't want to give any change back. Scams were the defining part of the tourist experience there.

Haha, it reminded me 20+ years back when I was a kid travelling by train in India where the ticket dispenser did not give me 8 Rs back on a 152 Rs ticket when I paid 160, sounds small but is a big deal for poor. Tangential but that is one thing I really thank digital payments and digitization of ticket dispensing for.

Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#246

Post by jonbiggums22 »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #171
kevinak wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't appear to be how they seized the funds though, the criminal hasn't been caught so they must have hacked his devices to gain access to the private keys. No $5 wrench involved.

It’s probably a computer hack of some sort that led to accessing the wallet password etc. I bet somebody wrote down their password, too scared of what would happen to them if they were to forget it.

I assume by wrote down you mean they saved it in a file somewhere. Amusing to think it would have been safe from that kind of hack if they'd written it on a post it node and stuck it on the bottom of their keyboard.

Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#248

Post by alephnerd »

bugbuddy wrote: post #239
timtom123 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spent significant time in Vietnam & Cambodia & Thailand. Cambodia is a sad country full of desperate people. "less-policed" is the entire country. ~50 years since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide . Vietnam was by far my favorite of the three and the contrast between the three countries is stark.

[flagged]

My SO's family is from the portion of Gia Lai neighboring Cambodia. Gia Lai itself is fairly poor, but ime the neighboring half of Cambodia is even poorer and desperate.

It's the same story in the Mekong Delta as well (having had to go to extended family weddings in rural An Giang).

And calling out the relative lawlessness in Cambodia is not racism in any shape or form. Based on your comment history, it seems you are reflexively defensive about Cambodia to a startling degree.

Cambodia was dealt a bad hand, but so was Vietnam and Laos as well, yet neither have the same degree of institutionalized criminality that you see in Cambodia.

The problem at the end of the day lies with the country's leadership, and a quasi-reformed Khmer Rouge member like Hun Sen just isn't the right leader to help Cambodia develop out of the LDC category.

Heck, Bangladesh (historically a peer of Cambodia) was also formed due to a tumultuous history and severe instability in the 1970s-90s, but concentrated on state capacity development - something which Cambodia's leadership thumbed their nose at in the 2010s.

Re: DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

#249

Post by auntienomen »

pantalaimon wrote: post #216
JKCalhoun wrote: post #214

I would love to see a new take on "James Bond" (or similar franchise? new franchise?) — one that is realistic and instead sees our spy move through these modern domains of illegal money instead of battling the clichéd Cold War villains with their Persian cats.

China did it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Bets

That's more of a crime film than a spy film. Worth watching though!
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