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Silk Road Investigators Charged With Stealing Bitcoin
itwbennett writes Two former U.S. government agents face charges related to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin while assisting with an investigation of the Silk Road underground online marketplace, with one accused of using a fake online persona to extort money from operators of the site. Facing charges of wire fraud and money laundering are Carl Force, 46, of Baltimore, a former special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and Shaun Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Maryland, a former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service. Both served on the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, which investigated illegal activity on the Silk Road website, the Department of Justice said Monday in a press release.
Pretty darn hard to trace, and very usable as alternative currency.
How convenient that misconduct of the investigators which would have a bearing on admissibility of evidence in Ulbrich criminal trial was not revealed until after his trial was over. He probably does have a few days until his 60 day deadline to appeal lapses though.
They tried to buy donuts with bitcoins.
It's not very reassuring when the investigators in such a case are themselves blatantly breaking the law to serve themselves. It makes you wonder about the other government agencies and employees looking at things such as all the mass collected survelance materials and wondering how they can use their position to their own personal benefit. Contrary of course to what the government says will never happen. I don't feel like there is much integrity. Having said that at least they got caught even though after the fact.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Your brave protectors who can do no wrong and should be trusted to stoically carry out their duties to flag and country. Now give us our backdoors you little shits.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
This is the most interesting question.
Either some investigator who caught them is _really_ good, or the perps are _really_ stupid. They were practically handed the opportunity for a perfect untraceable crime, yet screwed it up.
they just know too much about this, and perhaps other Bitcoin-related cases, and need to be discredited and put away.
Any crime perpetrated by someone held responsible for the victim or subject by reasonable judgement shall be tried and sentenced as escalated one step more severe than the normal context of the crime, according to the following list:
infraction -> misdemeanor -> gross misdemeanor -> felony -> capital crime.
Therefore, while "beating someone up" might be a gross misdemeanor assault in the eyes of the law, when performed by a custodial parent on their child, or a nursing attendant on one of their wards, it would be considered a felony.
Petty theft of $100 might be a misdemeanor, but when it's done by someone in custody of the cash drawer, it's a gross misdemeanor.
By this standard, however, sitting members of Congress and the President could be considered to be "responsible" for the entire country, and thus automatically always escalated.
-Styopa
I'm just curious if these are the same people who penetrated the SR site via phpMyAdmin, over the Internet, on 192.168.1.24?
I mean, what motivation could there have been at play?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Have gnu, will travel.
n/t
I mean these guys evidence/affidavids would have been shquashed and unidminssible if this came out during/before the trial. Now this is corruption at its best. Les see if we can find out if the prosecutors knew about this dring the trial.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
It has nothing to do with bitcoin. Are you telling me DEA agents (and the rest) never get caught stealing cash? Or drugs? It's more about opportunity and something of value that some tool thinks he can steal without getting caught. If they had confiscated a bunch of gold bars, some LEO would try to put one in his pocket in the evidence room.
These two were tied up in the chain of evidence that led to his conviction, so depending on what gets tossed he has a chance here. Now he did admit that at one time he was DPR and that he had resumed work under the alias so he's probably not going to get everything overturned. But his defense was that someone else associated possibly with MTGOX was the mastermind framing him more recently.
So what's intriguing here is that one of the investigators was doing some shenanigams with MTGOX accounts and was involved in seizing MTGOX assets. Since MT GOX started having liquidity problems right during this investigation of Silk road, it really makes you wonder if this is where some of those missing assets went.
Furthermore the agents appear to have done things as their shenanigans came to light to obfuscate the trail back to them. This is not too far afield from ulricht's claim that someone was framing him, asking him to step in as DPR, and putting keys on his computer.
It actually seems it's not far fetched to imagine Ulricht was telling the truth about having relinquished DPR that someone suddenly invited him back into the game as the FBI closed in. Perhaps there's some grains of truth in there somewhere. e.g. maybe one of the agents did add his bitcoin keys to Urichts computers.
Given those sorts of conjectures it seems very reasonable he should get a new trial. He's guilty by his own admission, but maybe not guilty of everything he's charged with.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Plus on above - wish I had mod point today.
BUT it is extremely relevant. If two of the main investigators (or more) were stealing during the investigation, creating false identities there, and they did not disclose it to the defense, it is enough to declare a mistrial. It could be used to impeach their testimony, discredit them, and destroy the "I" in "FBI" (integrity).
and IAAL
But wouldn't such a determination be based on the specific facts and timelines, which, the court should be quite capable of determining without the help of advantageous timing by prosecutors to avoid their pervue....I mean I would think....or do you think the courts incompetent to make such a determination, hence we need this sort of secrecy?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
It takes a thief to catch a thief.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Forget these two guys and their bitcoin score, how much CASH walks away during drug investigations? How much is outright stolen, how much is extorted? How much is taken in product in lieu of cash?
This is one of the most pernicious aspects to drug criminalization, the huge potential for corruption by law enforcement.
And it's just another problem completely eliminated by legalization.
Such a thing is completely unheard of!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Do you seriously believe that's what libertarians want or are you knowingly attacking a position that no person actually holds?
Wrong term, right idea. If a cop perjures himself it's pretty much automatic "retroactive innocence" for every case they ever touched. Convicted pedophiles can now teach kindergarten classes territory.
DPR's attorney can now demonstrate plausible motive for the dirty cops to have framed his client IE. get him out of the picture so they can loot his bank account.
The entire case against him falls apart and worse: now the US Government could potentially be liable for the CURRENT worth of all Bitcoin's seized in civil asset forfeiture OR their max valuation during the entire period that DPR was deprived the opportunity to sell them OR some hybrid(like the average valuation during the time where DPR was unable to sell).
They might as well skip the formality and just escort DPR out of prison here and now. I'm not even a lawyer and I could get DPR freed with this. I'd just go in the courtroom and be all like:
"Your honor, I could waste every-bodies time going through every exhibit one by one and moving to suppress, but can we just get this over with so everyone goes home early? I request the juries verdict against my client be overturned in light of the government's/and their agents malfeasance and request that the case against my client be dismissed with prejudice. We can also do this the slow boring way, but the outcome of that process seems pretty obvious..."
Remember kids, when you pay your colleagues to look the other way, use real cash and not bitcoins. If they don't get their hands dirty, they'll still rat on you.
Do you seriously believe that's what libertarians want or are you knowingly attacking a position that no person actually holds?
He's attacking the position they effectively hold behind all the barely formed BS which doesn't explain how they'll actually keep society running. "Don't worry charity will take care of..." what exactly? Because they certainly don't donate 20-40% of their income to charity at the moment.
I'll go after this because it ties into a pet peeve of mine with too many tv scripts.
"...proving someone is the owner of a given bitcoin wallet is much harder to do than to prove a person is the owner of a bank account..."
Going down the "prove it" road with the police is just bad news. Too many times it screams "I'm guilty but haha". If you're innocent even though a conspiracy of 4 people framed you, do get that good lawyer but then claim your innocence and let the "episode" unfold.
If you get all "come and get me and try to prove it", then you make an error, you're hosed.
One of the cool things about some of the homicide shows is occasionally the interrogating detective will say "look, we've got you on x financial offense, but we need your help as a witness so we'll reduce that as much as we can, maybe to community service plus restitution." But if the suspect gets all smug, even when innocent, then the cops just get grumpy and go for the 5 years in prison max penalty.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If somebody likes to steal it is reasonable to suspect that he creates situation in which he can easily steal. The two investigators proofed that stealing is what they do, so all results of their "investigation" should be taken with a large grain of salt. Your example is spot on.
Well if that's your attitude, then bitcoin is even more secure. Because you can do whatever you want with bitcoin, and there is a good chance the police will simply arrest someone else for your crimes and easily convict them.
Unfortunately this also means that you may also be easily be convicted for someone else's crimes, but not using bitcoin won't help you avoid a false conviction, so you should just use it anyway.
I don't know what anything I said has to do with TV scripts, but the day that the justice system no longer needs to prove guilt (to some standard, e.g. beyond a reasonable doubt), is the day that we no longer have a justice system.
They might as well skip the formality and just escort DPR out of prison here and now. I'm not even a lawyer and I could get DPR freed with this. I'd just go in the courtroom and be all like:
"Your honor, I could waste every-bodies time going through every exhibit one by one and moving to suppress, but can we just get this over with so everyone goes home early? I request the juries verdict against my client be overturned in light of the government's/and their agents malfeasance and request that the case against my client be dismissed with prejudice. We can also do this the slow boring way, but the outcome of that process seems pretty obvious..."
"Yo homie, slow your roll, we alls know this guy ain't done nutin wrong but wees gotta examine evidence and suchizzle stuff to havs all the due processes down in this bitch".
"overruled".
-Judge
Corrupt DEA agents? Inconceivable!!!
Secret Service agents involved in criminal activities? Inconceivable!!!!
DPR's claims of being setup? Inconceivable!!!
My misunderstanding of what inconceivable means? Only sarcastically.
These guys stole Bitcoins? As the saying goes, "and nothing of value was lost".
Crooked vice cops. Way to contradict a stereotype, guys.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.