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Bitcoins Seized In Drug Bust
First time accepted submitter Salo2112 writes "In a case believed to be the first of its kind, federal authorities have seized a Charleston man's virtual currency due to an alleged drug law violation with possible links to a shadowy online black market. From the article: 'The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration recently posted a forfeiture notice indicating that agents had seized 11.02 Bitcoins worth $814 from 31-year-old Eric Daniel Hughes for allegedly violating the federal Controlled Substances Act. No other details were provided.'"
I'm surprised it took so long.
Free Martian Whores!
They'll have to enter the hash into the court records as evidence.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Why is every minutiae associated with Bitcoin posted on the front page here?
This is not news for nerds. Criminals will always look for ways to hide money, whether it is in hard cash, diamonds, or even bitcoin it is not new.
Stop this nonsense now.
They'll have to enter the hash into the court records as evidence.
Nothing new. I'm sure hash has been on record as evidence in drug cases before.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Ahh the joys of self-financing government departments. "We believe those assets were used in connection with a crime". Suddenly, they don't have to prove anything, they just have to seize it and it's theirs. Nice and convenient. Can they even prove where the bitcoins came from?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Anyone under the misapprehension that the drug war is about catching scum bag drug users or dealers should watch this excellent documentary:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/
You'll learn who the really big players are. Hint: it's not who you think it is ;)
Peace,
Andy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Can we at least make sure stuff is adequately summarized before it hits the front page?
As already said, you must be new here.
For the record, it was in South Carolina.
Umm, what the heck? When a name like "Charleston" is just given without any other qualifier, it's obviously referencing the most well-known city with that name, i.e., the one in South Carolina.
Given that the "U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration" is explicitly mentioned, the summary automatically rules out your localities in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, so listing those as possible interpretations of the summary is ridiculous and ignorant.
And while, yes, there is possibly one other well-known Charleston on your list (the capital of West Virginia), the rest of the members on your list of U.S. cities are not generally known widely enough that they would be recognized by a wider audience without qualification.
I'm not from the South, nor have I lived most of my life in the southern U.S., but if I said the name "Charleston" to just about anyone I know, without further qualification, they would assume I'm talking about Charleston, SC (unless context suggested otherwise).
When someone says "New York" in an article, you don't assume they are talking about New York in Linconshire in the UK, nor do they think you might be talking about New York, Kentucky or New York, Texas. Similarly, a story about "Los Angeles" shouldn't leave the reader befuddled about whether we're talking about Los Angeles, Texas, let alone the much more significant city of Los Angeles in Chile. If you're from West Virginia, I can understand being a little irked that the South Carolinian Charleston is more famous, but just about all of the other Charleston locations you listed in the U.S. are pretty insignificant, with most of them having populations of a few hundred to a couple thousand. Heck, you even listed Charleston, Arizona and Charleston, Oklahoma, which are both freakin' ghost towns.
Next time, take two minutes and do some research by clicking the top link for "Charleston" in an internet search before pasting in an irrelevant list from Wikipedia that you didn't even bother to read.
As with everything else there's a form for that! We should charge the feds for doing paperwork for them all the damned time.
Also, they're serious about it even ignoring the face value of legal US tender to prosecute.
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I live close enough to the Charleston in TN that I have gotten used to checking whenever the word comes up without more info.
You, yourself admitted that at least one item on Kr1ll1n (579971)'s list was reasonable.
Other people are even now pointing out that what you claim was obvious is not obvious.
I supect you'll be surprised how many people who don't live in the US also don't find ANYTHING about which Charlston is largest obvious, and in fact you'll probably hear from people who only know of a handfull of the very largest cities in the US and have never heard of ANY Charleston.
Your claim that the mention of the general US Drug Enforcement Administration appearing in the summary invalidates all non-us locations is itself wrong (The US siezes assets in cases of INTERNATIONAL drug trafficing, so the summary is just assuming something is 'obvious' too - you've got a whole lot of "my side gets to declare EVERYTHING is obvious to win our Internet argument" going there.
Yet despite those issues, you're still busting someone's chops. You've jumped on somebody who 'obviously' took at least two minutes doing some research, to get the list you are declaring irrelevant. You see with your own eyes a piece of research that I feel confident took at least two minutes and your first nit-picking, obsessive compulsive act is to criticise the poster for not taking two minutes to research something. That's like me reading your post and then claiming you are 'obviously' a secret lifetime South Carolinian.
I have never met you before, but my first impression is you are the sort of pedantic fool who trys to bully people at near random to bolster his flagging self esteem, falls back on a claim of Aspergers when called on it, and you have the sort of underlying, monumental anger-management issues that make you an impossibly annoying jerk for everyone who has to deal with you day to day. In fact, that's "Obvious!".
Who is John Cabal?
and it will only have been there once.....
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http://letstalkbitcoin.com/post/53700133097/users-bitcoins-seized-by-dea
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As I comment this is at a -1.
I would say not wanting to pay someone to violate your rights while monitoring and punishing your activities is a perfectly reasonable answer.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
In the past, the main goal of seizing drug money (in this case, the bitcoins) has been to gain evidence in building a drug case. Namely, that the physical set of bills was "sent from" a buyer and "received by" someone in exchange for illegal narcotics. The usage of said money to buy new jerseys for the police softball team was always a perk, but ultimately not relevant.
Do you actually believe this? I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so naive. Maybe I'm just missing the sarcasm.
Or maybe you're talking about police in your home country. Here in the U.S.A. police routinely seize valuables with little or no justification, relying on the threat of violence to get what they want in the street and then relying on their privileged positions within the legal and political systems to make sure no one can do anything about it.
Departments are routinely allowed to keep 80% of the money they seize, and the totals routinely reach the millions.
From the ACLU:
The money is the point of the seizures. Any evidentiary value is a bonus.