Bitcoin Sting Operation Nabs Egyptian Dentist (themerkle.com)

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."

Comments

Caught red handed!

[ScentCone]

Caught red handed with a "smart tablet." As opposed to ... a stone tablet? I think those caused more trouble in Egypt back in the day than anything made by Samsung or ASUS. And ... caught with $13k in cash? Like ... enough to buy a modest used car? Criminal Super Villains just ain't what they used to be.

Re:Caught red handed!

[lgw]

for all intensive purposes

Surely you meant "for all in tents, and porpoises"

Re:Caught red handed!

[ScentCone]

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.

"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 ... NOT the intended purpose.

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:Ban bitcoin

[Sarten-X]

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, 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.