Ohio Resident Pleads Guilty to Laundering Over $300M Through Bitcoin 'Mixer'

TheJoeMan 2021-08-19 11:32:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

“The FBI and … are working together every day in a complex and ever-changing digital environment to *protect the American people from sophisticated money launderers*“

This is probably controversial, but I don’t feel I need protection from a Bitcoin mixer? I doubt anyone law enforcement will read this, but maybe ask yourself if your agency is just more interested in stealing money?

realce 2021-08-19 13:10:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You don't believe that an individual who robs the country of taxes on 300m of assets isn't abusing the other citizens of the society? Are you against prosecuting money launderers for some libertine reason?

The guy who ran Helix facilitated hundreds of millions in illegal commerce of the highest order - he's no different than a shady bank that allowed criminals to launder money. I know, I used it many times.

GDC7 2021-08-19 15:19:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> You don't believe that an individual who robs the country of taxes on 300m of assets isn't abusing the other citizens of the society? Are you against prosecuting money launderers for some libertine reason?

There are no taxes due on the sale of illegal drugs, otherwise they'd not be illegal.

As a matter of practicality , given that the war on drugs is just a massive jobs program you might as well optimize for inefficiency and somebody in the chain of command should openly say that and thus focus on getting the drugs, not the money connected to the drugs. It's more inefficient and time consuming which in this case it's a good thing.

Everybody would be happier and more fulfilled (which again is the goal of the aforementioned jobs program) , except ,of course, big shot prosecutor making big announcements of seizes of millions of dollars, or in this case bitcoins

toomuchtodo 2021-08-19 15:53:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Income on illicit activities is absolutely taxable. That’s how the IRS got Capone. The IRS will then involve other law enforcement agencies, sharing the data submitted.

https://taxfoundation.org/irs-guidance-thieves-drug-dealers-...

https://www.wbez.org/stories/how-al-capone-made-the-irs-famo...

GDC7 2021-08-19 16:17:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> The IRS will then involve other law enforcement agencies, sharing the data submitted

Let's be real, if the IRS really wanted that money they'd have thousands of anonymous cash drop boxes

One of the problems is that there is no competition among 3 letter agencies

In this case the interests of the IRS and the DEA are orthogonal , but the IRS doesn't worry about it (as a private entity would) because they can just ring a bell and get everybody involved , but the problem is that there is nobody asking themselves if the whole process which is about to be put in motion will be a net negative or net positive for all the stakeholders

In a private organization the C-suite executive thinks about this question many times before ringing said bell, regardless of what the black ink on the white paper says.

The mental and organizational agility is the real difference between the private and public sector.

In the private sector, if the rules don't make sense they are broken and later eliminated, the opposite happens in the public sector.

Laws upon laws are made, no law is ever eliminated, and red tape submerges the whole organization

satronaut 2021-08-19 14:23:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

taxation is theft. You don't think the government taking half your paycheck each year (income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas tax, capitol gains tax, etc.) while debasing your currency is theft?

bscphil 2021-08-19 15:08:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I just want to point out that this comment is completely irrelevant and ask other users not to be sidetracked by it.

The question upthread should be understood as saying "given that it's acceptable for the government to tax people (an assumption almost universally shared), why should it be okay for a Bitcoin user to cheat the government (and by proxy their fellow citizens) out of taxes on $300M of Bitcoin?"

I think that's a reasonable question.

satronaut 2021-08-19 15:13:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

it's not cheating the government out of tax money at all. He's providing a service which offers simple cryptographic solutions to enhance a bitcoin user's privacy

bdcravens 2021-08-19 15:04:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What's your alternative plan for paying for things?

satronaut 2021-08-19 15:14:05 +0000 UTC [ - ]

not bombing foreign countries and not giving other countries foreign aid so all we need to focus on is roads and such. Much cheaper to add a new lane to i-5 than it is to rebuild afganistan

bdcravens 2021-08-19 15:29:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You didn't answer the question. You only said how you'd prefer the money be spent. Perhaps I poorly worded it, so let me be more clear: without taxation, where do you get the money to begin with?

satronaut 2021-08-19 16:08:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

have a flat income tax where everybody pays like 5% or something non-intrusive into their life. Or go back to excise taxes. Why do we need a government of our current size anyways?

satronaut 2021-08-19 16:45:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

can't reply to the latest message. Rite now it's theft. Tax's aren't used for american society. They're used to steal money from the poorest of our country to give to the richest of others (all the "foreign aid" is stolen through the inefficiency of bureaucracy). I'd be happy to pay taxes for services that I actually use, like roads and a police force and a fire station. But it doesn't make any sense to throw money into subsidizing somebody else's company or some other countries problems

AnIdiotOnTheNet 2021-08-19 16:41:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

So it isn't the "theft" you object to really, just how it is stolen and spent?

meowster 2021-08-19 15:21:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What's your alternative plan for paying for roads?

helloworld11 2021-08-19 16:35:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Oh how terrible... Taxes on 300 million in transactions by people who mostly don't affect my life directly at all were nefariously prevented from falling into the hands of noble government agencies that would spend them on wonderful things like severely bloated bureaucracies, wars, military equipment for local police, violent swat teams, grotesque drug war operations, pork projects and so forth. It's an absolute tragedy. I know that government spends much on many necessary public projects, but it also wastes vast quantities of tax dollars (arguably much more than is lost to money laundering or tax evasion) on boondoggles. Thus, at some point, it would be a good idea to also question the moralizing logic of associating all lost tax revenues with crushing losses to the "public good". Focus can also be made on simply forcing vast existing tax revenues to be used better, no?

Also, note: Libertine is not the same as libertarian, might want to know the definitions of basic terminology before slinging accusations of ideological bias.

made a couple edits.

joelbondurant 2021-08-19 02:57:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Someone please build a distributed mixer to keep funds away from extortion sector terrorists.