Bitcoin Sting Operation Nabs Egyptian Dentist (themerkle.com) 121
An anonymous reader writes:A 30-year-old dentist has been apprehended by Egyptian authorities for conducting bitcoin-to-dollar transactions on LocalBitcoins.com, a popular digital currency trading portal... According to today's post on the Facebook page of The Ministry of the Interior, Mr. Ahmed was captured with $13,900 in cash, as well as a cellular phone and a smart tablet that were used in the trading operation. Authorities setup Ahmed by contacting him about a potential deal on LocalBitcoins, where Ahmed was selling the digital currency for $570 per coin.
The strangest part of the article is "it is unclear what specific law Mr. Ahmed was breaking, as there are no regulations on digital currencies in Egypt."
The strangest part of the article is "it is unclear what specific law Mr. Ahmed was breaking, as there are no regulations on digital currencies in Egypt."
Irrelevant. (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure he'll still get stoned to death over "something".
Re:Irrelevant. (Score:5, Informative)
Egypt is a secular military dictatorship, not a theocratic one; don't get it confused with Saudi Arabia. Sisi is a former General, just like Mubarak was before him, and before that Sadat and Nasser were both Colonels. Remember that Sisi took power away from Morsi, who was part of the Muslim Brotherhood. He then proceeded to round up a lot of other Brotherhood members and throw them in jail (just like Nasser when he led the Free Officers coup in 1952).
If they're gonna kill him it'll probably be by hanging. Egypt is Socialist (in the real land-seizing, army-sells-you-orange-juice-and-bread kind of way, not the Bernie Sanders, public-health-care kind of way) so they don't like you taking large sums of money out of the country. That's my guess as to why they arrested this guy. As for the fact that there's "no law regulating digital currency", in a country where the President can round up Parliament and throw them in prison... it really doesn't fucking matter.
Re: Irrelevant. (Score:2, Insightful)
Egypt is not a secular country. The constitution of Egipt recognizes Islam as the state religion, and Sharia as the source of authority. Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt recognized Sharia as the highest law of the land. Also, it supports oppressive laws against non-muslims, while the police is notorious for not protecting them.
Don't lie, buddy. World is a small place.
Re: Irrelevant. (Score:5, Informative)
If you think the Egyptian Constitution or the Supreme Constitutional Court means anything, you're a fool. By the way, which Constitution is that? The 1971 Constitution that remained in place until the 2011 revolution? Or the interim one adopted afterwards? What about the highly controversial one that, due to the inclusion of a Blasphemy Law (something existing in other Islamic nations but not Egypt), passed with 64% support only 33% of the population, due to the other 67% boycotting the vote? Perhaps you're talking about the latest Constitution "amended" by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which miraculously passed in 2014 with 98.1% (of 36%) of the voters supporting it? Or maybe it doesn't fucking matter because it's a military dictatorship.
If an Imam speaks out against the army, they will throw his ass in fucking jail, or even kill him, without a second thought. Remember when the army massacred the protesters at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque [wikipedia.org] in August 2013? By the way, those protesters were calling for the establishment of an Islamic state [webcitation.org].
There are laws based on Islam, but there are also civil laws from the era of Napoleon, and even laws left over from British rule. Again, it doesn't fucking matter because it's a military dictatorship. There's a theme here, are you picking up on it yet?
Speaking of the British, did you know their Head of State is also the leader of the Anglican Church? Shit, I guess that makes the UK a theocracy. Oh wait, no it doesn't because sometimes things are more complicated than they seem.
Re: Irrelevant. (Score:2)
Actually, the UK is a theocratic feudal dictatorship that allows a secular Parliament to run the government. The Queen has the right to veto laws and dissolve Parliament. It's really strange but, seems to work for them.
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Actually, the UK is a theocratic feudal dictatorship that allows a secular Parliament to run the government. The Queen has the right to veto laws and dissolve Parliament. It's really strange but, seems to work for them.
But if she did, the British would finish the job Cromwell started faster than she could bolt up the tower's stairs. The queen is the source of authority but she doesn't get to exercise it.
I call it 'A system of threats and balances".
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The law says that the Queen is the head of the national religion, can veto laws, and can dissolve Parliament. In practice, the Archbishop of Canterbury is in charge of the Church of England (as much as anyone is; I don't have actual Anglican friends), and she has the power to veto one law and dissolve Parliament one time, after which the laws would be changed.
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It's been said -- in apparent seriousness -- that the Constitution holds the same position in the U.S. that the monarch holds in the UK: officially the basis of the government, but in reality doesn't really much matter.
Given the mismatch between the government and the Constitution, I'd have to say that wag got it right.
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> unbiblical stuff like sodomy
We must not have read the same bible.
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Well, it was actively discouraged. God did destroy Sodom and Gomorrah after all.
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Sodomy: yes, the government allows people to be uncharitable to foreigners and the poor, which as far as I can figure was the sin of Sodom. I suppose the sin could be rape, which is illegal. I kept hearing things about the sin being sex practices considered unnatural, but I couldn't find anything about that in the Bible.
Abortion: are there any biblical references? I don't remember seeing any.
Darwinian evolution: about as non-biblical as recovery of the first stage in orbital launches. There are
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Well, the crowed in Sodom did want to "know" the apparently male angels, which literally meant they wanted to have sex with them, so yeah...it really was about that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, [even] the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
(NRSV: know them, NIV: can have sex with them, NJB: can have intercourse with them).
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So, why do you think it's about male-on-male sex specifically? I'd consider that sin to be gang rape, personally. If they'd gang-raped Lot's virgin daughters, would that be less of a sin?
It's been a while since I read that part of the Bible, but Sodom was also notorious for being uncharitable and hostile to foreigners, and that struck me as being the big sin.
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What you wrote is inaccurate.
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Not socialism, the word you're looking for is totalitarianism.
Re:Irrelevant. (Score:5, Informative)
Alright, I simplified a bit. Nasserism, named after Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the man who orchestrated the 1952 Revolution, from which the current Government is still derived, is based on Arab Nationalism and Socialism. Egypt under Nasser was very Socialist, taking and redistributing land, and establishing a largely public-sector based economy. Since Nasser's death, a lot of that has been relaxed, and even dismantled, to the point where Egypt could be fairly described as a Mixed economy today.
However, the military still comprises a significant portion (I believe around 1/3) of the economy. I do not mean that Egypt spends 1/3 of it's GDP on the military: remember the whole "you have two cows, the government takes them and sells you the milk"? Well, that's Egypt in a nutshell: like I said in the GP, you can buy orange juice and bread from the army.
This gets very complicated due to the high level of corruption and the so-called "deep state". The army is separate yet deeply entwined with the Government; they can often act as independent entities or the same entity. The police sometimes act as an arm of the military, and sometimes they go on strike and the army guns them down in the street. It's stupidly complex.
The point is, there are still a lot of things that remain from the days of Nasser, such as not being able to take large sums of money out of the country. This is because the Government might one day decide that they want your money. That's what was relevant to TFA. What was I going to do, give an entire history of a country that's over 5000 years old?
Pyramids yadda yadda yadda Cleopatra yadda yadda yadda Napoleon yadda yadda Bitcoin.
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If Nasser was alive today, he would use the word Socialist to describe what he was and what he was doing. It has nothing to do with what I like or don't like. Project much?
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Bakhshish (Score:2)
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The cops knew they could setup a sting with someone carrying lots of cash. Just an old fashioned money grab, nothing sinister.
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Or maybe it's a crime to possess enough money for the police to want to confiscate it for their own use?
That's a crime pretty much anywhere. Maybe not in the eyes of the law but certainly in the eyes of any police officer close enough to smell the pile of cash.
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Or maybe it's a crime to possess enough money for the police to want to confiscate it for their own use?/quote
Well, that's certainly how it works in the US, at least if that money is currency you're driving around with.
Caught red handed! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Having large sums of cash is, for all intensive purposes, illegal. Unless you can prove, without the slightest doubt that the money is legit and not used in crime.
United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency
The district court's opinion includes no finding as to the credibility of Gonzolez and the other two claimants. The court did observe that the explanations of the claimants were “plausible and consistent,” but this is different from a finding that the court actually believed the testimony.
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"all intensive purposes". Bob: "For all intensive purposes, I should be able to buy that for pennies" Jim: "I don't understand your purpose Bob unless it's truly intensive"
I think people use this phrase far too often. It's "for all *intents* and purposes". It's one of those phrases that don't mean anything and take up space.
Re:Caught red handed! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's one of those phrases that don't mean anything and take up space.
No, the problem is that it DOES mean something, and that people still go ahead and use a bastardization of it, and in the wrong context anyway - thus making what they are saying that moment meaningless and taking up space.
... NOT the intended purpose.
"For all intents and purposes" refers to the (described, referred-to) thing's purpose, and the intentions of the person using/deploying/offering/whatever it. The phrase is correctly trotted out when the use to which something has been put is (or is perhaps anticipated to be) wrong
Alas, it's now right up there "I could care less," when it comes to people uttering syllables that sound vaguely like what someone else said, and to which they haven't applied a moment's thought - to realize they're just making noises instead of communicating what they really mean.
Re:Caught red handed! (Score:5, Interesting)
for all intensive purposes
Surely you meant "for all in tents, and porpoises"
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The corporation analogy is a bit of a stretch. Corporations are treated as legal persons not only because they are owned by people but because, at the direction of their owners, they hold property, enter into contracts, and interact with others as distinct entities under their own names. Money doesn't do any of that, so it doesn't make sense to treat it as a legal person.
However, the money was seized from someone, and that person ought to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. When funds are seized witho
Laws? Regulations? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this meant to be a joke? Have you not noticed that there is a dictatorship in power in Egypt and there isn't a functioning rule of law.
The only crime in that type of society is "upsetting the people in power".
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> Don't think for a second that something similar wouldn't happen in the United States or Europe
It already did:
"Two Florida men are in trouble with the law after being arrested last week for agreeing to sell thousands of dollars’ worth of bitcoins to undercover agents."
https://www.rt.com/usa/bitcoin... [rt.com]
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Which law? AML and FX restrictions for starters (Score:1)
If the article writer was unclear what specific law was broken, the writer is not qualified to write any money related stories.
Moving money around the world is subjected to Anti-Money Laundry laws, and very possible that Egypt has some sort of foreign currency restrictions (may be as simple as all FX must go through regulated institutes, likely to fit with the same AML laws). Note, you can thanks the US for the AML laws world wide, because the US Govt would ban and sanction any financial institute which wo
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Link?
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http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-24.501/
16(1) permits searches of vehicles anywhere for $10,000 or greater so long as the police have reason to believe the vehicle has ever exited or entered Canada (considering that most Canadians do visit the US occasionally that is an easy claim to make).
(that is what creates an onus to prove how you have $10,000 or more on you at any time)
12(1) requires reporting of currency entering/exiting Canada over the amount specified in the regulations.
Now, for the regula
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[citation needed]
There are a few specific codified laws that relate, but I have yet to find a credible report of simply "carrying too much money" being a crime. Notably, it is a crime to evade financial reporting requirements (which usually start at $10,000), and that's where a lot of the confusion originates. To an unaware citizen who doesn't understand the reporting requirements, making one $15,000 transaction at a bank is the same as making two $7,500 transactions. However, the single transaction will de
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If a cop finds a large sum of cash on anyone its assumed to be drug money and taken. Plenty of times no charges have been filed but the money is never given back because of the civil forfeiture laws. In other words theft.
Outlawing Cash (Score:5, Informative)
We laugh at the Egyptians, but the European Union is pushing to outlaw EU 500 notes and all cash transactions over EU 5000. With fiat currencies debased so much these kinds of controls usually happen in regimes that fear hyperinflation and massive withdrawals from banks once debts are seen as unserviceable.
Citation: from the usually pro-EU/pro-Collectivist Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
When cash disappears so does your privacy. The Orwellian State is made possible in a cashless society where Big Brother knows your every move.
Of course, this being sold as "combating terrorism" - yet the European Union is letting potential jihadi terrorists flood in unvetted by the hundreds of thousands. Banning cash looks more like a move by technocrats to control the existing tax slaves.
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They (the people that run the Euro, who again are not the EU) are thinking of phasing out EU 500 notes as they are rarely used for legitimate purposes (like a worse version of £100 notes in Scotland or £50 notes in England,
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And still the world believes those people built the pyramids.
The world believes that the Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.
You can argue to what extent the inhabitants of modern-day Egypt are the direct descendants (racially and genetically) of the Ancient Egyptians or not. However, in cultural terms it's quite clearly *not* the same society it was several thousand years ago- having been ruled by the Romans, Christianised then later Islamised. Hence it's meaningless to use either as the direct basis for arguing some point about the other.
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There is a law about foreign exchange (Score:5, Informative)
Egyptian dentist? (Score:1)
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Greater knowledge of the occurrence crime isn't the same as an increased incidence of crime.
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Your conclusion does not follow from the premises. Your logic is faulty.
If X years ago, there were 100 incidents, of which 10 are public knowledge, and in year X+40 there are 90 incidents in which you hear about 40, it does not mean that there was actually the same or greater number of incidents.
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While your logic is sound, his point was the the war on terror is a load of bullshit. And that is pretty undeniable at this point.
The war on [concept] is a load of bullshit. The war on drugs has failed horribly, there are still the same number of drug users and the distributors are even more rich and powerful after spending BILLIONS of dollars. The same with the war on poverty. The US still has tons of people in poverty, even after over 50 years of fighting the "war". The war on terror is obviously a failure, we have spent TRILLIONS and surrendered our rights for the pleasure of being groped by the TSA (who can't even stop "test" b
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It seems the best way to ensure that something will thrive is by having the US government declare a war on it.
As it has always been intended. The government knew when they started these things that it would work that way. Corrupt government and politicians being corrupt.
Millions in poverty and drug-addicted, all dependent for their survival on government entitlements, gives them immense power. The 'War On (some) Drugs is nothing but a form of price control to keep the cartels rolling n US dollars by keeping prices (and profits) high.
Strat
Re:Ban bitcoin (Score:4, Interesting)
Or c) you have no idea what's actually happening.
In the United States, at least, crime rates (violent and total) have dropped steadily since a peak in 1990, and most studies on the subject indicate that reporting rates are improving. This means that even though the crime rate figures match what was seen in the mid-1970s, it's actually likely that the 1970s were worse than the data shows, but we'll never really know for certain.
The idea that "crime doesn't seem to go away and terrorism only seems to increase" is the result of a few insidious biases. First is the availability heuristic, by which we rely more on recent and emotionally-charged events more than events farther in the past or less emotional. Perhaps you've forgotten the Weather Underground, or the Unabomber? We also have confirmation bias, which is why despite actual measurements showing otherwise, crime doesn't seem to go away and terrorism seems to increase. Once you have formed the opinion that the government is either evil or stupid [c2.com], you'll continue to notice and accept any report of the government's failings, while rejecting any report of successes.
With that in mind, it appears that new security measures (including reducing cash transactions) are working to reduce crime, but they are not perfect or infallible... just like every security measure ever devised.
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With that in mind, it appears that new security measures (including reducing cash transactions) are working to reduce crime, but they are not perfect or infallible... just like every security measure ever devised.
It seems that SOMETHING is working to reduce crime. Private gun ownership and concealed carry permits also went up over that time. It may well be that victims shooting back is also a deterrent.
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I reckon global warming causes autism.
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Bitcoin has at least one legitimate use:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/11/7375771/microsoft-supports-bitcoin-payments http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20... [nytimes.com] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20... [nytimes.com]
Your argument is wrong.
Now watch him move the goal posts to say that only a few does not count... Absolute statements are always wrong. :)