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Feds Moving Quickly To Cash in on Seized Bitcoin, Now Worth $8.4 Million (arstechnica.com)
A federal judge in Utah has agreed to let the US government sell off a seized cache of over 513 bitcoins (BTC) and 512 Bitcoin Cash (BCH). At current prices, that would yield approximately $8.4 million for the bitcoins and nearly $1 million for the BCH. From a report: In a court filing, prosecutors noted that due to the volatility of the Bitcoin market, both coins risk losing value. Both the BTC and the BCH have already been transferred to government-controlled wallets. The new round of seized digital currency belonged to a Utah man named Aaron Shamo, whom prosecutors say led a multimillion-dollar ring of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, including oxycodone and alprazolam that were sold on Dark Web marketplaces. Shamo was arrested over a year ago -- his trial has not yet been scheduled. On Tuesday, US District Judge Dale Kimball allowed the sale to proceed. Once sold, the money would go to an account held at the Treasury Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture.
America, land of the free, and you have RIGHTS... HA HA HA! Meanwhile we will steal your stuff and sell it, putting it into the government's pockets, before you are even convicted of the crime. What good do your guns do you now to defend against tyranny?
The reason is to counterbalance the effects that using the stash to bribe them would otherwise provide, but it does seem a little mercenary and certainly has deleterious effects with civil forfeiture.
It seems pretty foreign to me that they can do whatever they please with the property of someone whose trial hasn't even been set yet.
"Shamo was arrested over a year ago -- his trial has not yet been scheduled."
I'm glad the Framers added the right to speedy sale of BTC, but they could have also added one for trials.
It makes sense that they'd try to convert this particular seized asset to cash ASAP. It's not mansions, paintings and a fleet of luxury cars...it's a highly volatile cryptocurrency. Turn it into cash, hold onto it until the trial and appeals are over, and you still have an asset worth something. If they wait and the bubble pops, they get nothing or a fraction of what they would get had they sold.
I'm not a liberal. I don't hate the first responders. I just don't think the seized money belongs to them. It doesn't seem like "finders keepers" should apply when the are paid by tax dollars to do the finding. There is also a significant conflict of interest when they are allowed to keep what they find. Spending drug money on drug rehab programs or some other way that directly benefits society seems fairer.
civil forfeiture is theft, plain and simple.
the idea that YOUR ASSETS are on trial, and you have no standing is absolutely fucking weapons grade bonkers.
Do they have to give it back if (unlikely, I know) he's found not guilty?
Nominally they do. But I have read a lot of cases where it has proved very hard to get your property back after a civil asset forfeiture action.
This happens a lot in smaller actions, not where millions of dollars are at stake. Somebody gets their door kicked in on suspicion of something or other, they often gather up all computers and files. Cars and other vehicles. It can take months if not years to get it back after the prosecution has been dropped and often it isn't in good shape when returned.
Civil asset forfeiture is one of those institutions that are incredibly ripe for abuse and are arguably totally unconstitutional to begin with. But nobody wants to be activist to fix it because they don't think it will ever apply to them. And for the most part that is true so law enforcement gets to use it as the wish.
they could continue to increase in value -- but, in any event, the guy or Government won't lose money
The 5th amendment demands just compensation for the taking of private property for use by the government.
ONE of the rights you have as owner of property is the right to control and direct the Timing of when and if you sell it or convert it into US fiat, based on your expectation of what the market price will be.
So if it DOES continue to increase in value sufficiently, then the guy could make the claim he intended to HODL the coins and be due $10 Billion US, the cash equivalent, if for some reason the government's unable to return his property in the same condition as they found it, or if it DECREASES in value, then the guy could claim he intended to sell and thus demand PROPERTY + Compensation for his loss caused by the government interfering with his rights to direct regarding the disposition of his property.
The problem with this rationale is that it is the Prosecution who asserts that this is probably ill-gotten wealth, often using the successful acquisition of an indictment as proof of probable cause for seizure. Once they get a judge to agree, assets are seized.
In the US justice system, money improves outcomes for defendants. Now the defendant cannot use those assets to pay for a defense. This is fine if the assets ARE proceeds of crime, but what about when they aren't?
The defendant has not yet been proven guilty (although the odds of a conviction just went through the roof). What happened to "Innocent until..."? This specific case may look like an OK outcome, but this becomes a precedent for future cases where the defendants are more sympathetic and/or the guilt more uncertain. (This is how we wound up with lifetime criminal registries being possible - they first used them on pedophiles.)
Sadly, some appellate courts have explicitly ruled that the government 'has the right to deny defendants the means to pay for their defense.'
That and they've held him for a year without trial, even if it did crash he has the right to sue them for the lost opportunity to sell before the crash.