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Secret Service Agent Sentenced In Scheme Related To Silk Road Investigation
- ryanbertrand 9y ago[removed my joke]...
- jstanley 9y agoIt's not a bonus, it's theft. It's still theft even if you take it from a criminal.
- mosselman 9y agoSwishhh
- SeckinJohn 9y agoThen the government taking a criminal's drug money would also be theft? Also, he took it from a government wallet, not directly from a criminal. Edit: Just to clarify, I was just pointing out that the comment I replied to is tangential(1- he didn't steal from a criminal. 2- 'someone' can 'seize' a criminal's money without it being theft.). He obviously stole -this isn't even a case of trying to steal; he stole, and got caught- and I don't get how he can get away with such a small punishment for stealing $10M+.
- StavrosK 9y agoNo. I mean, "theft" means "we made a law making it theft". By definition, government seizures are not theft.
- erasmuse 9y agoI don't have a dog in this fight but surely neither the government nor anyone else gets to define what ordinary English words mean.
- alphydan 9y agoOf course they do. What do you call: "Taking a person's life with your own hands?" - For a white westerner: Crime, Murder, etc - For the government/military: war, being a hero, etc - For "brown" people in the wrong countries: Terrorism
- dkersten 9y agoIf one of the agents pockets the criminal's drug money, then yes, its theft.
- TomMarius 9y agoDepends on your definition of theft. Some people consider taxation a theft.
- mysterypie 9y agoWhoosh! A good example of why jokes are discouraged on HN.
- fnwx17 9y ago- Bridges, how much BTC did we confiscate from Silk Road? > - 1,600 > - 1,000 you say? > - Yes, sir - exactly 800 bitcoins
- quickthrower2 9y agoTaxable
- emdowling 9y agoI would be very curious to know why he thought he would get away with this. Did he erroneously believe Bitcoin is anonymous? Have there been any interviews with the agent or those around him?
- kbart 9y agoCall me cynical, but I don't believe it's uncommon for them to take forfeit money after an arrest. This time the only difference was that Bitcoin transactions could be publicly seen, as opposed to cash/wire transfer, and the agent wasn't aware of that.
- jstanley 9y agoThat normally wouldn't go directly to the agent though, right? So that's completely different.
- cptskippy 9y agoI believe he was saying it's not uncommon for law enforcement officers to steal forfeitures from the state. If you're the one accounting for an arrested individual's belongings, it's very easy to falsify documents.
- emdowling 9y ago> the agent wasn't aware of that If thats the case, it's interesting that he wasn't aware of the fundamentals of the technology that enabled the people he was investigating.
- tristanj 9y agoThis isn't newsworthy, the incident happened in 2013 and he was already caught, sentenced, and sent to jail in 2015. He received 71 months in prison. His partner in crime (Carl Force) received six years in prison (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10417551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10417551). The whole incident was well publicized in the media (thousands of articles). The only new thing this one adds is that the DoJ announced he is receiving additional sentencing. The submission title is clickbait, and does not reflect the article's contents. A better title would be "Secret Service Agent receives additional 24 month sentence for theft of 1,600 Silk Road Bitcoins". If you're interested in the background for the case, WIRED has a good article from March 2015 [1], as well as a link to the pair's criminal charges [2] . [0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-secret-service-agent-sentenced-71-months-scheme-related-silk-road-investigation https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-secret-service-agent-s... [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/ https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-... [2] https://www.scribd.com/document/260409270/Force-Bridges-Criminal-Complaint#fullscreen&from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/260409270/Force-Bridges-Crim...
- tryingagainbro 9y agoIt will be newsworthy even 5000 years from now just as some things from 5000 years ago are news worthy today. Power. Corruption and all.
- tawayway 9y agoPersonally, I would be surprised to read about well-documented theft committed by ancient Pharaohs in tomorrow's newspapers.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago(Almost) everyone has a price. Show a suitcase containing $5 mil to a border agent making $90k a year, and he'll let you pass 10 tons of cocaine...and maybe even ask his wife to sleep with you (if you request it). Humans and all...
- ddnb 9y agoI know I would (letting the 10 tons pass)
- mythrwy 9y agoBorder Agents make 90K a year? I'd think more like 60K.
- astura 9y agoCBP officers are public servants so their salary is public information: https://www.cbp.gov/careers/frontline-careers/cbpo/pay-benefits https://www.cbp.gov/careers/frontline-careers/cbpo/pay-benef... $90K for a non-entry level CBP officer is reasonable.
- bkovacev 9y agoExcuse my ignorance, couldn't have he moved the bitcoins to offline storage, or is that the thing of the past? I am so out of the loop with bitcoin.
- ericcholis 9y agoNope, hardware & paper wallets are the preferred method of storage. Keeping crypto with exchanges is generally frowned upon by long-term holders.
- raverbashing 9y agoHardware and Paper wallets are offline storage
- onewaystreet 9y ago> As part of his plea, Bridges agreed to turn over the stolen bitcoin to U.S. agents. He likely got less time for agreeing to turn over his private key. That might have been a bad decision depending on how many years he would have gotten otherwise. Those 1,600 bitcoin are worth over $10 million at the moment.
- gambiting 9y agoSurely, that can't be how it works though, can it? If he refused to release the key and got say 10 years of prison, he wouldn't be free to spend them after getting out of prison - after all, they are still considered stolen property. Serving the prison sentence wouldn't magically make them his.
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoI've seen cases thrown out for ALL of the reasons that Ross Ulbricht's lawyers brought up. Such as when the government withholds evidence to allow the defense to properly mount a defense. Such as when the investigators of the case were part of a corrupt money laundering and extortion scheme, where they steal money intended for the government and concoct schemes to make the defendant look worse to a jury even if they can't charge him with those things, but those things are also used in sentencing rationale. Such as when those exact investigators can't be brought in as witnesses because they botched the whole investigation for multiple field offices and government agencies. Ross had zero wins in his motions, in his sentencing, in his appeals. Amazingly discretionary how all of this is.
- necessity 9y agoHis arrest is too big a show of power by the US government to go wrong. It's not about justice, it's about authority. Doesn't matter what happen, government will have it's way... As long as people let it.
- s73ver_ 9y agoBecause none of this changed the fact that Ross, and Ross alone, ran the Silk Road. He did the things that he was accused of. Other criminals being criminals around him doesn't change that fact.
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoYes, I too read the judge and appeals judges responses
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- habosa 9y agoFor those who want to read more about the Silk Road story, including everything in this post, check out the book "American Kingpin" [0]. It's a great read and a real page turner. It tells you about Ulbricht, his accomplices, everyone chasing him, etc. Reads like a novel. [0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31920777-american-kingpin https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31920777-american-kingpi...
- jameskegel 9y agoHaving just finished this book about 2 months ago, I tend to agree. My only gripe is that the book is about 20% too long. There is a lot of what I call "fluffing", like when I had a book report with a simple topic and a high word-count minimum
- thousandautumns 9y agoYeah if the book is too lengthy, the author also authored a series of articles for Wired (I believe) a couple years back that are pretty in depth and a great read and serve as the basis for the book. I highly recommend them.
- astura 9y agoIs this it? https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/ It's not written by him but it contains this: >This article includes reporting by Nick Bilton, whose book on the Silk Road case will appear in 2016
- adekok 9y agoSo we should trust the government with encryption back doors, right? Right?
- jijji 9y agostealing bitcoins is like stealing a bag of money with a gps chip. its hard to spend the money without everyone knowing where it was spent
- Voyage_wanderer 9y agoYou should realize that every agent on the case or any case of money laundering have total and anabated control of money flow. They are a part of the system. Guys who caught are just stupidest of the bunch.
- necessity 9y agoThat makes it the... Fourth corrupt agent in this case? The war on drugs is truly disgusting. Free Ross!
- bertolo1988 9y agoSomeone should do a movie out of this. One of the most amazing histories i have ever heard and it's not over yet.
- bertolo1988 9y agoThis could be a movie.
- jason_slack 9y agoI read "American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road" and seeing how these agents committed these crimes and their jail sentence and then sentence that Ulbricht received seems a bit unjust to me.