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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."
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."
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.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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".
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Link?
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.
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...
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.
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.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If he had exchanged his bitcoins for egyptian pounds he would have been fine. But he exchanged against a foreign currency for which there a re law regulating and only allowing banks, exchanged among other. You cannot setup a street corner egyptian pound to dollar or euro exchange. That is the law he broke. This is not about bitcoins being legal or not this is about exchanging for foreign currency , laws which many of the country of the world I went to had.
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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 in August 2013? By the way, those protesters were calling for the establishment of an Islamic state.
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.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
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.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
There are a lot of 'ifs' and extra assumptions in my previous paragraph and I don't know anything about the case or the Egyptian justice system. The dentist might still be complete innocent and victim of some grand conspiracy.
However, I agree with the parent that if you cannot suspect from the facts in the article why this man was arrested, you're either a liar or not qualified to write this kind of articles.
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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