Posted on 11/09/2020 9:49:04 AM PST by BenLurkin
Earlier this week, the bitcoin community was shocked when a digital wallet containing roughly $1 billion in bitcoin...was emptied by an unknown individual.
The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it had seized the wallet’s contents as part of a civil forfeiture case targeting the Silk Road. The government said it retrieved the roughly 70,000 bitcoins with the help of an unnamed hacker, whose identity is known to the government but who is simply referred to as “Individual X” in court documents.
“Individual X” allegedly hacked the Silk Road’s payments system some time in 2012 or 2013. The government says that the Silk Road’s creator Ross Ulbricht, who is currently serving a double life sentence plus 40 years for his role in the site, “threatened Individual X for the return of the cryptocurrency,” but the unknown hacker refused. On November 3rd, Individual X agreed to forfeit the bitcoin to the US government and helped transfer the money. It’s unclear if Individual X has been arrested or how their cooperation was attained.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
If you ever get a chance, there is a special out there somewhere about the Silk Road website and ross ulbricht and how he was caught, it’s definitely worth watching.
He certainly ran a website that trafficked in just about anything and maybe deserved punishment, but double life sentences plus 40 years is pretty harsh...
Bookmark.
Interesting timing for the hacker to agree to turn over the money. November 3.
Yup! Along with this tidbit:
Edward Snowden aims to become dual US-Russian citizen.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/edward-snowden-aims-to-become-dual-us-russian-citizen/
$1 BILLION??
I am gobsmacked.
That is a good start towards funding a US presidential candidate.
Waiting for my rebate check.
He was knowingly enabling murder for hire, human trafficking and really dangerous drug dealing on a mass scale. I have no problem with the sentence.
Trump should pardon him
The allegation was he sanctioned murder for hire, he was never charged with that....and there is no evidence a murder actually took place....
IMO, they made an example of him, which if they were consistent it might be less of a problem...
We have mob bosses that have gotten lighter sentences...
He made the government look like fools and they punished him for that...
Here’s what he was actually charged and convicted of..
Image result for ross ulbricht crimes
In February 2015, Ulbricht was convicted of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics by means of the internet
No where anywhere was he ever alleged to have engaged in human trafficking....
As to the murder for hire charges, here is what happened....
Federal prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht had paid $730,000 in murder-for-hire deals targeting at least five people,[28] allegedly because they threatened to reveal Ulbricht’s Silk Road enterprise.[35] Prosecutors believe no contracted killing actually occurred.[28] Ulbricht was not charged in his trial in New York federal court with any murder-for-hire,[28][36] but evidence was introduced at trial supporting the allegations.[28][37] The evidence that Ulbricht had commissioned murders was considered by the judge in sentencing Ulbricht to life, and was a factor in the Second Circuit’s decision to affirm the life sentence.[37] A separate indictment against Ulbricht in federal court in Maryland on a single murder-for-hire charge, alleging that he contracted to kill one of his employees (a former Silk Road moderator),[38] was dismissed with prejudice by prosecutors in July 2018, after his New York conviction and sentence became final.[39][40]
There’s a saying: never steal, the government hates competition.
Ross Ulbricht if you read his story was an extremely intelligent person who received a full academic scholarship and majored in Physics and received a masters degree in material science.....
His manifesto indicated he wanted to create a marketplace with complete anonymity free from all government regulation and control where goods and services were paid for in a currency that could not be tracked and was unregulated, bitcoin in this case....
I don’t believe the guy was evil or some criminal mastermind he was a brilliant person who had a crazy dream of utopia.....he deserved punishment but what he was got was intended to send a message to anyone thinking of replacing him...
Thanks for that. “Almost anything” brought to mind trafficking little kids for sex. Two 40-year sentences is light.
Oops. Two life sentences plus 40 years.
I’m guessing he will die in prison before my misstated 80 years is up regardless.
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