10 People Arrested In the Netherlands For Bitcoin Laundering (reuters.com) 44
New submitter Incadenza writes: 10 people were arrested in the Netherlands today according to the Public Prosecution Service (In Dutch). The arrests were said to be part of an international investigation, including requests from the USA, Morocco, Australia and Lithuania. Apparently the investigators followed the trace from 'Bitcoin-cashers' (who convert the Bitcoin profits to old money) back to Bitcoin transactions on the Dark Web. How successful this was is yet to be seen, since all the main suspects are said to be 'cashers', not traders.
Re: There's a reason Republicans... (Score:1)
First of all, most republican politicians are no longer fiscal conservatives. Second, fiscal conservatives would prefer less government control over our currency because what the fed does by devaluing our currency is basically a secret tax on all of us. You can't print as many bitcoins as you want when you need money. It's not controlled by a central authority.
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It's not controlled by a central authority.
It's allowed to exist at the pleasure of the central authority. Control to be exerted as/when necessary.
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conspiracy theorist = nutjob
I'd say most conspiracy theories are asinine in their implications but nonetheless this is a meme perpetuated by the establishment and the media; it's not meant (nor is it even necessary) for it to sway everyone, just the majority; those of us too smart to fall for it represent such an insignificant portion of the population that we don't matter. You, however, fell for it... which means it isn't even your own opinion; it was planted there.
Do you have any of your own thoughts or do you just regurgitate what
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Since you're allowed to exist at the pleasure of the central authority THEREFORE you, and everyone else, are controlled by a central authority. Right?
He who can destroy a thing controls it.
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To which I shall add: You are governed by consent.
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We are governed by majority consent. Not individual consent. Individual doesn't work, as anyone who wishes to be outside the law would be free to go on a murder-and-pillage spree without state interference.
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That is a given. If you can convince the majority to side with you, you pretty much win by default. It's that getting them to agree with you that is the problem. Beer and circuses goes a long ways.
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Not always. It's quite possible for a minority to govern an unwilling majority - it just requires they have access to superior weaponry, organisational skills, propaganda tools or secret police. The idea of government by consent of the majority is far from universal. It's really something of a historical fluke.
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No, not always but it's fine for a general rule at least in common times. I'm speaking of now - not of history.
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"are so pro-Bitcoin. Their kind loves money laundering."
You mean, as opposed to those other politicians who make up fake economic cries like 'money laundering'.
If you have evidence that someone is dealing meth or embezzling, then file the appropriate charges. There is no need to criminalize dealing in cash as a penalty enhancer. There is especially no need to criminalize dealing in cash as an isolated activity.
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Drop the political propaganda. It is irrelevant and just marks you as an honor-less moron.
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Supposedly some people were acting as middlemen for the sellers on one of those markets to exchange it back the traditional money and were moving millions.
So the Dutch equivalent of the IRS got on their trail.
They also found out some where producing XTC as well.
Blockchain / Public ledger (Score:5, Informative)
Or in other words: it might not be the best idea, for your illegal activities, to use a cryptocurrency: a type of money send/receive/exchange mecanism where...
THE WHOLE MECANISM (by design) RELIES ON BROADCASTING EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION TO THE NETWORK
(specially when your adversary is the state and could put the necessary Big Data Analysis to more or less track the money through the network)
The main advantage of bitcoin and other crypto currency protocol, is that there isn't a single entity in charge of the transactions, there's not a single point that you can block/ban.
Everything works by the network reaching a consensus.
To reach consensus, it means that every member of the network keeps a local copy of the blockchain: a local copy copy of the global "ledger".
And thus each single transaction is broadcast to the whole network to be appended (= mining) to this globally distributed ledger.
Thus each time some pothead buys weed with BTCs, that mean that every single member on the network is informed that $price BTCs were moved from the temporary wallet of the pothead generated for this transaction, to the temporary wallet of the seller generated for this transaction.
And thus an entity with enough computing ressources can track all the temporary wallets generated in all the various transaction, and after following a big enough bunch of such "crypto-money trails" (so they have enough confidence), they can zero down to a few suspect that they can investigate through regular police work.
And so the seller CAN'T COMMIT TAX FRAUD
(Lie about the money he earns, and pretend to earn less to escape from paying the taxes they are supposed to)
Which is illegal in most jurisdiction.
So the Dutch equivalent of the IRS got on their trail.
Yup, the tax service are typically the kind of state-level player that might shell out for the necessary resources to track the money.
Lying about your taxes is illegal nearly everywhere.
They also found out some where producing XTC as well.
Which, from what I know, is on the *hard drugs* list in the Netherland (like heroin, etc.) and thus still outright illegal.
Unlike the *light drugs* list (like various THC-containing Canabis derivatives, and like the last few mushroom which didn't get banned yet in 2008) which are considered a private affair for the consumer (it's their health, therefor it's their problem) and tolerated for selling within reasonable controller manner
(a small coffee shop selling a couple of joints per client ? Tolerated.
a huge operation exporting 2 tons of hashish per year on various illegal networks? Busted).
Some dutch /.er to step in to correct me ?
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"Or in other words: it might not be the best idea, for your illegal activities, to use a cryptocurrency: a type of money send/receive/exchange mecanism where...
THE WHOLE MECANISM (by design) RELIES ON BROADCASTING EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION TO THE NETWORK
(specially when your adversary is the state and could put the necessary Big Data Analysis to more or less track the money through the network)"
It's funny how these criminals haven't figured out how to use a mixing service (CoinJoin) properly.
__
"Which, from wh
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Well, you could use an exchange, but there is a good chance your BTC might be swiped, Mt. Gox style.
Or third party swiped Cryptsy style. So many ways to get robbed here...
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Who is the mental midget that postulated that BTC was anonymous? It's not, it can't be. Even *I* realized this when it was first talked about.
As an aside, I also mined 48 of them way back when. I rediscovered them on a headless, powered-down, server and donated them to EFF. They weren't worth much, a bit over $600 each as I recall. Being mentally retarded, I'm pretty sure I used my real name somewhere along the line. I have no idea if that's in the blockchain or not.
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If it's so easy to track then how do coin thieves get away so easily every time?
You are confusing "simple" and "easy." It is simple to track, but it takes work. Like it is simple to clean out the garage, but it takes work. Not every LEO will do a lot of work for a simple pot bust.
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>The main advantage of bitcoin and other crypto currency protocol, is that there isn't a single entity in charge of the transactions, there's not a single point that you can block/ban.
Wrong and wrong. Hash.io has enough power to control the chain. Around 10 people basically control BTC. The reason you can't have >1MB blocks that are required to grow the network much further beyond its current size (bandwidth issues 2.1 transactions/second, and so on) is because these Chinese miners that control the ch
Technology vs. Implementation (Score:2)
>The main advantage of bitcoin and other crypto currency protocol, is that there isn't a single entity in charge of the transactions, there's not a single point that you can block/ban.
Wrong and wrong. Hash.io has enough power to control the chain. Around 10 people basically control BTC
I was speaking about the general concept of the design.
Not the peculiarities of the implementation.
The bitcoin (and other cryptocoin protocol) are designed to eschew the need for a central entity (compared to other exchange protocols and platforms that need a central authority and couldn't work without one). By design, bitcoin doesn't need one, because by design it distributes the information across the whole network. And thus by design it CANNOT be anonymous. At best, it's pseudonymous (there are no Real I
Re: Bitcoin Laundering...???? (Score:2)
They cannot trace the transactions through the launderers, so they were left with physical assault/kidnapping/threats to get the information. That's news. Or at least propaganda to make us think they can't.
"old money" (Score:5, Funny)
The new name for "legal tender".
Re: "old money" (Score:1)
yeah, "highly inflationary fiat currencies" is already in wide use and more descriptive. We're not talking about cutting Doubloons here.
Finally! An end to crime! (Score:1)
Good job, US, AU, and Lithuania, for reaching across the vast expanse of the globe to track down these ten people.
I've never seen a prosecutor put out a press release that doesn't tout how many MILLIONS OF DOLLARS they've saved or recovered, or what the "street value" (often inflates 4x-10x is) but this time it seems nobody could actually put a value on it?
Undoubtedly all crime involving Bitcoin will now suffer a big hit. The dark nets are no longer dark. All will be well.
I can now sleep easier. Come her
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Ah, not "bit laundering", "bit-coin laundering". Not fundamentally different though...