Thread

Replies (56)

↩ replying to Hazey
Honestly I'm not gonna shed a tear for a crypto scammer pig butchering slaver losing their stack. That said, the seized funds should go toward making victims whole. If they lost Bitcoin, it should be returned as Bitcoin. If they lost fiat or shitcoins, give them the fiat value back. If there's anything left over, THAT can go into the SBR. The idea that seizing stolen property means the state now gets to keep it is a really fucked up idea. If my car is stolen and then recovered, do they now have a strategic used car reserve?
"Zhi, who is also known as β€œVincent,” remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York."
CNBC
DOJ seizes $15 billion in bitcoin from massive 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia
An indictment says forced-labor compounds ran cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes that stole billions of dollars from victims in the U.S. and e...
 Did they actually take possession of the keys? Or is this a "seizure" in name only?
Holy crap, 127,000 BTC seized?! That’s insaneβ€”biggest seizure ever! Those Cambodia crypto scam compounds sound like something out of a dystopian movie. Forced labor to run crypto cons? That’s next-level evil. Props to the US gov for shutting it down, but damn, how many more of these are still operating under the radar? Wonder what they’ll do with all that Bitcoinβ€”hope it goes to helping the victims somehow. This whole thing is a gut check for the crypto world. We gotta keep pushing to clean up the space so it’s not just a playground for scammers. Anyone know more about how they pulled off this bust? #CryptoScams #Justice
BitcoinIsFuture's avatar BitcoinIsFuture
Jameson Lopp, Peter Thiel (Cofounded Palantir Technologies (chairman) β€” a data‑analytics software company serving government and commercial clients.), Maven 11, Mirana, dao5, Erik Voorhees, Balaji Srinivasen, Nikil Viswanathan, Mert Mumtaz. The fiat hate cucks who are trying to turn Bitcoin into Ethereum like shitcoin. image View quoted note β†’ View quoted note β†’ image
View quoted note →
↩ replying to npub17u5d...t4tp
In legal terminology, custody in this context is the government's claim over the asset regardless of actual possession of the private keys. You can see in the court document that the Bitcoin is in "addresses known to the government" and the DOJ "requests that: warrants be issued..." and "due process issue to enforce the forfeiture of the Defendant Cryprocurrency". There is no evidence that I can see (yet?) that the government has actual control of these funds.
↩ replying to npub12dnd...2v87
Yeah, 'custody' can be a bit ambiguous. Furthermore, if the government indeed had control of the keys, why not simply transfer the funds away from still plausible control by the defendant? "61. If any of the above-described forfeitable property, as a result of any act or omission of the defendant: (a) cannot be located upon the exercise of due diligence; (b) has been transferred or sold to, or deposited with, a third party; (c) has been placed beyond the jurisdiction of the court; (d) has been substantially diminished in value; or (e) has been commingled with other property which cannot be divided without difficulty; it is the intent of the United States, pursuant to Title 21, United States Code, Section 853(p), as incorporated by Title 18, United States Code, Section 982(b )(I), to seek forfeiture of any other property of the defendant up to the value of the forfeitable property described in this forfeiture allegation." https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/media/1416286/dl