
Ex-MS engineer convicted of 18 felonies after stealing $10M in digital currency - United857
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/ex-microsoft-engineer-convicted-18-felonies-stealing-10m-digital-currency/
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AVTizzle
Key points:

>>Volodymyr Kvashuk, a 25-year-old software developer and Ukrainian citizen
who worked for Microsoft from 2016 to 2018, took advantage of a testing
program for Microsoft’s online retail sales platform. He made test accounts to
obtain “currency stored value” such as Microsoft gift cards and then resold
them online.

>>Kvashuk will be sentenced June 1 in U.S District Court and faces up to 20
years in prison.

Ouch.

~~~
jdmichal
I was amazed that that _long_ list of charges only results in a 20-year
maximum.

~~~
anong
I hope he gets the maximum to teach/deter others to not utilize their
position, talents in a wrong way. He lived in a free country, smarter than
millions, yet he betrayed the trust of his employer and the country that
embraces him. I am an immigrant from Thailand, grateful to the opportunity
this country giving me every single minutes.

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alekseynyc
The PDF of the complaint with some details is at
[https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/07/17/us_v_kvashuk.pdf](https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/07/17/us_v_kvashuk.pdf)

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deckar01
> he stole $10 million worth of ... gift cards ... and then resold them online
> ... [for] about $2.8 million.

He sold stolen goods for about 28% of their retail value. Is Microsoft is able
to cancel the cards if they haven't been spent?

~~~
alekseynyc
Yes, and they did cancel $1.8m worth of them. $8.3m has been redeeemed.

~~~
just_myles
Seconded. Based on my previous jobs working in retail fraud, most retailers
are able to track and cancel gift cards when they can confirm them.

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stuff4ben
looks like he was concealing his tracks pretty well. Other than spending
extravagantly, I wonder where he screwed up?

~~~
avgDev
He did not conceal his tracks. He would pop up on IRS radar just for moving a
lot of bitcoin. I owned some bitcoin and was a bit worried because many
exchanges were forced by the government to release information of people,
coinbase for example. Even, if he did not use one of those exchanges,
depositing large amounts of cash and buying 1 mil lakefront property will
raise some eyebrows.

On his tax returns he said bitcoins were a gift from a relative....unless his
relative is ultra rich, no uncle is just going to gift you 3 million bucks.
Plus, I am pretty sure you need to present documentation, the IRS will not
just take your word for it. Honestly, any deposit over I think 10k is reported
to the IRS by the banks, and IRS knows how much this guy is making, what he
owns, etc.

Crypto currencies are not really as anonymous as supporters would like you to
believe, and IRS will crush this guy.

~~~
andrewla
The IRS really doesn't care where the money came from if it is reported. The
money that he received was reported on his tax returns, so the IRS would not
look further at this, as long as the numbers matched up.

In this case it appears that the IRS was brought in to it to correlate the
individual's finances with the expected windfall, rather than instigating the
investigation. That is, the investigators (in MS and law enforcement) knew who
did it, and they were gathering further evidence.

~~~
avgDev
You are correct the IRS doesn't but the US government does. This would fall
under suspicious activity.

"Under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), financial institutions are required to
assist U.S. government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering,
such as:

Keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, File reports of cash
transactions exceeding $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and Report suspicious
activity that might signal criminal activity (e.g., money laundering, tax
evasion)"

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jmpman
Is there any way to exchange bitcoin for cash anonymously? Burner phone with
in-person Craigslist arranged trades (where you hope the other person isn’t
FBI)?

~~~
fbrncci
There are a few p2p exchanges like localbitcoins or Bisq where some anonymity
can be achieved. But those type of trades don't scale far without risk.

