
Operators of Coin.mx arrested by the FBI - fru2013
https://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2015/manhattan-u.s.-attorney-announces-charges-against-two-florida-men-for-operating-an-underground-bitcoin-exchange
======
pash
Interestingly, these charges are published on the same day that the first
decentralized Bitcoin exchange opens its public beta [0]. And, yes, the whole
point of a decentralized Bitcoin exchange is to circumvent the laws that the
FBI accuses Coin.mx of breaking:

 _Coinffeine takes advantage of the P2P model to avoid accepting deposits in
bitcoins or fiat money, making it unnecessary to identify users or fulfill
costly money laundering laws in each country. ... “Not having to identify
users or enforce KYC laws has allowed us to design a much more scalable
exchange model. [...]”, said Alberto Gómez Toribio, CEO of the company._

For good and for ill, one of Bitcoin's core value propositions will always be
its promise to vitiate governments' attempts to control their citizens' money.
It's hard to tell who's winning so far, and harder to tell who's likely to win
in the end.

0\. [http://blog.coinffeine.com/2015/07/21/coinffeine-launches-
wo...](http://blog.coinffeine.com/2015/07/21/coinffeine-launches-worlds-first-
decentralized-bitcoin-exchange-70-countries/)

~~~
jrcii
The government is likely to win in the end. It's not yet regulated because of
it's small circulation and young age. If it were the first thing in history
the government could not figure out a way to regulate I would be surprised.
[http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1326)

~~~
kuschku
The things most bitcoin proponents dream about are... crazy.

* No, you’re still going to pay taxes on your bitcoins.

* No, if you fraud someone, you’ll still have to give them their money back.

* No, bitcoin is totally meaningless if you can’t pay for food in it.

~~~
jMyles
* Presumambly there are political solutions to tax problems.

* Do "bitcoin proponents" dream about defrauding people at a disproportional rate? This has been the opposite of my experience.

* It's already pretty easy to buy food with bitcoin.

~~~
joosters
_Do "bitcoin proponents" dream about defrauding people at a disproportional
rate? This has been the opposite of my experience._

The levels of fraud in Bitcoin are vastly higher than in other money systems
like credit cards. Even if you count just one incident, Mt. Gox, the % of
bitcoins that have been stolen is immense.

So, yes there are definitely lots of Bitcoin proponents dreaming about (and
actually carrying out) fraud!

~~~
thaumasiotes
Why do you think the people stealing bitcoins are proponents? Bank robbers are
rarely dollar proponents in the US, or yen proponents in Japan. Muggers
generally aren't cash proponents or jewelry proponents. Conmen might be
proponents of certain financial schemes, or they might just be charismatic.

------
greenyoda
From the press release:

 _MURGIO and his co-conspirators have also knowingly exchanged cash for
Bitcoins for victims of “ransomware” attacks, that is, cyberattacks in which
criminals (here, distributors of the ransomware known as “Cryptowall”)
electronically block access to a victim’s computer system until a sum of
“ransom” money, typically in Bitcoins, is paid to them. In doing so, MURGIO,
and his co-conspirators knowingly enabled the criminals responsible for those
attacks to receive the proceeds of their crimes, yet, in violation of federal
anti-money laundering laws, MURGIO never filed any suspicious activity reports
regarding any of the transactions._

~~~
cbd1984
Interesting charges. Are they ever applied to companies that allow money to be
wired or otherwise transferred between banks?

~~~
MichaelCrawford
"The rich are different from you and me." \-- F. Scott Fitzgeral, "The Great
Gatsby"

~~~
aaronbrethorst
It's F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the quote is actually from another story of his,
_The Rich Boy_. [http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/13/books/l-the-rich-are-
diffe...](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/13/books/l-the-rich-are-
different-907188.html)

------
ChuckMcM
I think they buried the lede there, it should have been FBI finds bitcoin
exchange that still knows where all of the bitcoin it exchanged went :-)

------
kriro
I have a question about a sentence from that announcement: """[...]and every
fact described should be treated as an allegation.""" (towards the very end)

Is this standard phrasing? As a non-native speaker this sentence seems odd.
I'd have guessed that fact and allegation are xor. The sentence implies that
there can be facts that are also allegations (or treated as allegations).

~~~
Stratoscope
That's just poor wording. What it means is "Everything described as a fact in
the complaint should be treated as an allegation."

Criminal complaints are written as if everything in them is a true fact,
unlike, say, newspaper articles that use phrases like "the alleged thief."

For example, a newspaper article about this complaint would say things like
"The FBI's criminal complaint alleges that..." \- even though the complaint
itself states it as a fact.

------
obstinate
One of the rules I live by: if I have to lie to a bank in order to accomplish
a thing, I do not do that thing.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
An example where you cannot avoid lying to a bank: if you move to the UK,
banks require a proof of residence in the form of an electricity bill or
similar with your name and new address on it. But the electricity company
requires a UK bank account in order to send you the first bill. How do you
break the loop? The easiest way is to fake an electricity bill.

~~~
joosters
'The easiest way' is not the same as 'you cannot avoid lying'. If you are
happy about taking an easy way when it involves crime, you are scum.

~~~
qnaal
one time I forged an eyeglasses prescription

now that my soul is under new management, I no longer feel remorse for
anything I do

