Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 92 posts

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#51

Post by ryanlol »

Media outlets claiming that the arrested guy is also a suspect for MtGox theft. https://twitter.com/coindesk/status/890256080965599232

I've personally looked at BTC-e's trade histories and am not inclined to believe this. BTC-e's weak security track record also doesn't exactly support this theory either.

EDIT: I guess wizsec came through http://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html

>To be clear, this investigation turned up evidence to identify Vinnik not as a hacker/thief but as a money launderer; his arrest news also suggests this is what he is being suspected for. He may have merely bought cheap coins from thieves and offered a laundering service. He is, however, a crucial piece of the puzzle, as he will have likely known who he was dealing with and laundering for, and so represents a major breakthrough in the case. We assume that law enforcement will now be taking the appropriate next steps to pursue all the remaining angles and hopefully identify the other individuals involved as well.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#54

Post by 0xbear »

nannal wrote: post #27
r721 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Alexander Vinnik" comes from updated Reuters article (with photo): http://www.reuters.com/article/us-greece-russia-arrest-idUSK...

Worth noting that BTC-e owner's name was Alexander and he was supposedly Russian.

Vinnik is an Ukrainian last name. This by itself doesn't mean anything, he could still be Russian, but I wouldn't automatically assume so.

Update: never mind, Russian press says he's Russian, a former employee of Skolkovo techno park.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#55

Post by nthcolumn »

wongarsu wrote: post #19
nthcolumn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why the above fact is being discredited or not deemed as a worthy contribution to the conversation?

The fact is fine, the comment is bad. Starting comments with 'LOL!' doesn't fit with the usual style of hacker news (why is he even laughing???). Stating "another" and then immediately stating why it isn't "another" (an arrest is no conviction) sounds really manipulative. And the fact (that HSBC was involved in money laundering) was already heavily implied by the parent comment, making it less interesting as the only…

Heavily implied? I thought OP had merely chosen an unfortunate example which coincidentally turned out to be one of the biggest money-launderers and then was minded to state that the individual had not yet been convicted of that offense unlike HSBC. I'm not sure how it is manipulative - to what end? But I take it that I rather ruined the joke.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#56

Post by nthcolumn »

joosters wrote: post #21
nthcolumn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why the above fact is being discredited or not deemed as a worthy contribution to the conversation?

Because two wrongs don't make a right? Murders are news, people don't generally say "so what? someone has been murdered before" when there is a killing.

Who was saying 'so what'? Certainly not me. I was amused by what was, apparently, an obvious joke.

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#58

Post by ringaroundthetx »

ryanlol wrote: post #45
vocatus_gate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not wrong, Monero is the only crypto (currently) enforcing fully private transactions by default. In a reddit thread about the AB bust someone pointed out that they weren't able to determine the amount of Monero he had, vs. listing exact amounts of his Eth, zcash, etc. edit for clarification: I wasn't saying he wouldn't have been caught, only that Monero offers additional benefits beyond some of the other coins…

Monero doesn't help if the FBI manages to get a copy of your DB with trade histories etc. With BTC-e being hosted on unencrypted servers in Germany, it's hard to believe they wouldn't have been able to get it.

What scenario are you describing exactly? What exact problem are you trying to thwart?

A server containing a user's trade histories would show amounts deposited with Monero. But it would not contain the addresses those deposits came from, the Monero daemon doesn't know this.

Similarly, the user's withdrawals wouldn't be to an actual address that they could cross reference. RingCT gives people one time use addresses. But even if you were somehow not using RingCT addresses the Monero user experience had a best practice. Since you cannot follow transactions to that address over the blockchain, you cannot guarantee that it was the real destination at all. Any user should just have two wallets and transfer to one, which would have the address in the exchange's database, and then in wallet B, transfer to wallet C. I believe RingCT removes that marginal inconvenience, as the addresses themselves are one-time (but feel free to correct me here).

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#59

Post by placeybordeaux »

nubela wrote: post #26

This is the inherent problem with Bitcoin. It's just not anonymous! Imagine a dollar that has a history of every transaction written on it. Monero is the coin you want.

Monero, dash and zcash are the big three that have anonymity right? Any other big coins in the space?

Re: Officials arrest suspect in $4 billion Bitcoin money laundering scheme

#60

Post by kirse »

nubela wrote: post #26

This is the inherent problem with Bitcoin. It's just not anonymous! Imagine a dollar that has a history of every transaction written on it. Monero is the coin you want.

Imagine a dollar that has a history of every transaction written on it.

Sounds perfect for government and public business accounting.

Post reply on HN