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BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

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Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#141

Post by megous »

modeless wrote: post #114
kadavero wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ridiculous overreach. It sets a dangerous precedent where any online trader must be mindful of all legislation of all possible jurisdictions on the world. Otherwise, sell porn, have one customer from Saudi Arabia, go for a vacation in Turkey, and here comes your flogging extradition trip. At the same time, US has a "Hague invasion act" authorizing military action against international prosecution of their off…

You missed the part where he personally transferred stolen money into the US, and hosted his service in the US.

You missed the part where he personally sold porn to someone in Saudi Arabia.

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#142

Post by joosters »

Dolores12 wrote: post #51

1) Arresting btc-e admin made all US customers to lose their balances on btc-e exchange. I highly doubt btc-e will come back online. 2) If you run online exchanger and have a single US customer, then you have to register your operation in USA. I find it ridiculously stupid.

Why would they lose their balances? Any decent company holds customer funds in a separate account from their own. I'm sure BTC-e cared enough about their customers that they did this! :)

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#143

Post by floatboth »

ue_ wrote: post #24

Interesting, I have been using BTC-E for a while, I had no idea this sort of thing happened. Was it knowingly assisted by someone at BTC-E, or did BTC-E just act as a dumb machine? BTC-E was one of the eastiest ways for me to change BTC and LTC in day trading. Are there comparable websites with small fees? I'm not interested in buying with fiat money.

If you're "not interested in buying with fiat money" there's no reason to use an exchange that supports it. You can just use e.g. https://shapeshift.io

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#144

Post by juandazapata »

openmosix wrote: post #22

The question for me is: why US? He is a Russian citizen, the company is based in Bulgaria, servers in Russia, legal HQ in Cyprus and all the services operated from Seychelles - arrested in Greece. The MtGox hack affected a Japanese company. I'm not debating the nature of the crimes, etc - I am just wondering, when does it become a US case? I can get the "there were US customers" - but why not Europe? Or Japan? Or Rus…

He used the US banking system to launder money. That's exactly the same reason why European FIFA executives and Brazilian Odebretch executives were arrested as well.

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#146

Post by conanbatt »

MichaelGG wrote: post #64
olalonde wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that money came from sources in the US What I meant is I've been to a restaurant which turned out to be a money laundering front but I can't seriously describe myself as a victim. In fact, the food there was cheap and delicious! But I appreciate your clarification. To rephrase what you are saying: it falls under US jurisdiction because some US persons were victims of a crime and some of that crime money ended up be…

Yeah my favourite pharmacy just closed - pretty sure it was a money laundering op. Huge warehouse, fully staffed, inventory from pharmacy to electronics, hardware to perishable goods (but just random retail packages). In a couple years I've never seen more than 1 other car in the 50-space parking lot. Amazing service. And of course there's no victims in money laundering. It's a victimless crime that has the sole purp…

Money laundering is almost certainly tax evasion. On that regard, it is effectively a crime.

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#147

Post by stepik777 »

They are boasting about how they caught the guy who robbed Mt. Gox but they just did the same - a lot of people just lost access to their money on BTC-e. They are not all criminals, BTC-e was a convenient way to exchange bitcoins to/from rubles and was used by many people in Russia who were interested in cryptocurrencies.

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#148

Post by Nursie »

ubernostrum wrote: post #96
lettergram wrote: post #16

I still don't understand, the U.S. is charging a Russian with a white collar crime? The crime was committed outside the U.S., he didn't come to the U.S., the servers weren't in the U.S., Mt.Gox was based out of Japan, and Greek police arrested him. I've seen this enough to know this is common, but what is going on with this world?

As others have noted, the US didn't just make up jurisdiction here or declare that they can prosecute anything anywhere -- the charges include an allegation that he transferred stolen BTC to a US-based company. That creates a crime the US has jurisdiction to prosecute. It really is time for people to stop being gobsmacked at the idea that once you get entangled with an entity in a particular country, anything you do…

I still find it bizarre though - they may never have left their bedroom and suddenly we have a country on another continent getting involved.

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#149

Post by conanbatt »

reitanqild wrote: post #89
mirimir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's criminal to be evading disclosure and tracking requirements even if all the money was obtained legally. It was criminal to help fuel a nuclear arms race that put everyone at risk of nuclear holocaust. It was criminal to destroy Iraq for bullshit reasons. It's criminal to kill people with drones based on metadata. But criminalizing money laundering? That's just power tripping.

I've answered this elsewhere but basically money laundering is responsible for keeping the wheels turning in a lot of real criminal activities like human trafficing and illegal weapons trade.

Not to go down the rabbit hole with this line of reasoning, because I would always argue that money laundering is tax evasion, but the fact that criminal activities is incidental to another activity, doesnt make the other one criminal.

As another user said, cars and guns are used for robberies, if you banned them, then you would also be curbing criminal activity.

Re: BTC-e and its founder charged in 21-count indictment over hack of Mt. Gox

#150

Post by skj »

megous wrote: post #141
modeless wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the part where he personally transferred stolen money into the US, and hosted his service in the US.

You missed the part where he personally sold porn to someone in Saudi Arabia.

Yeah that sounds pretty risky too. Fortunately in that case most countries won't extradite, but I'd avoid visiting Saudi Arabia after that move.
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