7 ms·

This is a new crime. The original crimes he plead guilty to in 2015 and was sentenced (money laundering, obstruction of justice). This new crime he plead guilt

by nikcub 9y ago

This is a new crime. The original crimes he plead guilty to in 2015 and was sentenced (money laundering, obstruction of justice). This new crime he plead guilty to a few months ago and was sentenced this week (money laundering). The new crime is that after he had plead guilty in the 2015 case he was out on bond awaiting sentencing. During that time he took a backup of the Bitcoin private key for the 1,600 Bitcoin the USG had seized from him and moved them to an offshore account. The USG went to sell or move the Bitcoin they had seized from Bridges and found all of the addresses empty He was caught (again) and plead guilty (again) - and this time handed over all of his keys and hardware wallet and returned the 1,000 (on a hardware wallet) + 600 (in a market account) coins As an aside - the obstruction of justice charge is insane. In his first theft, he transferred some coins to a personal MtGox account. He later learned that the USG was investigating MtGox and knew that eventually they would discover his MtGox account if it was seized. So he transferred his MtGox coin out and then sent them a seizure notice so that they would be tipped off to the investigation. It had its intended affect - the DOJ called off its investigation into MtGox (this was mentioned in sentencing memo) Ars do a good summary of the new charges and some of the other aspects of the case: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/corrupt-agent-who-investigated-silk-road-is-suspected-of-another-700k-heist/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/corrupt-agent-wh... edit: To add, we don't get many technical details of this case because of the plea - but i'm curious to know for certain how they traced the second theft back to Bridges and how they found his new Bitfinex account. It isn't hard to believe they always suspected he had taken them, and then worked backwards looking at his movement etc. - but for now we can mostly only speculate Here is what we do know. A day before he was supposed to hand himself in, he was raided and they found id documents, offshore corporate records, a new passport, citizenship applications for his wife for a third country, a macbook with serial number filed off, etc. Its likely they subpoenaed bitcoin markets for those offshore entity names. It also looked like he was going to run: http://ia601308.us.archive.org/17/items/gov.uscourts.cand.288494/gov.uscourts.cand.288494.116.0.pdf http://ia601308.us.archive.org/17/items/gov.uscourts.cand.28...

davidsong 9y ago
> a macbook with serial number filed off This really tickled me for some reason. Does he know something that we don't?
- hnarn 9y ago
  That serial numbers are traceable to where and by who the device was bought? Nope, pretty sure everybody knows that. What this agent probably didn't know was that laptops aren't bikes and the serial number is available in more places. In OSX you can see it by simply going to the Apple menu > About this Mac.
  - aidos 9y ago
    How is that hardcoded into the device? It's not just on the drive somewhere. Is it changeable? Not something I'd really thought about before but maybe there's some way of changing it.
    - jorvi 9y ago
      Usually its on the logic board.
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      Usually it's quite literally burned into a ROM chip.
    - discreditable 9y ago
      The serial number is burned into the motherboard. At least in the case of Lenovo laptops I've dealt with, it seems to be possible to modify. When we send machines for repair, if they replace the motherboard it comes back with the same serial number we sent in. In some cases, we've been sent systems without serial numbers and they refuse to boot.
      - corey_moncure 9y ago
        My 2010 MBP came without a serial number burned into it. It was causing trouble when I tried to use things like Facetime from the Mac because apparently the protocol depends on this serial number. I had to download a utility and burn it to CD, boot the CD and flash a serial number of my choice. I was tempted to go with 0000000001...
cvsh 9y ago
>A day before he was supposed to hand himself in, he was raided If you're fleeing the country to evade imprisonment, why would you wait until the day before you're to be taken into custody to do it?
- aluhut 9y ago
  It's mostly the stupid criminals who make the news. Otherwise they would get away and for reasons of ongoing investigations, there would be no news.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
goelakash 9y ago
Offshore account? As in transfer his wallet credentials to some safe offshore vault?
- dmix 9y ago
  This word sounds scarier than what it means in 2017, especially in the context of crypto-currencies. An HTTP request to a BTC wallet server in any foreign country could be an 'transfering to an offshore account'. No banks are storing BTC for you AFAIK, no money would be transferred via Swift or other formal means. And it wouldn't make sense for someone about to go to jail for BTC related crimes to be mailing an encrypted thumb drive to a safe deposit box in a foreign country...
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
    In this case the BTC wasn't his to begin with so he had zero rights to do anything with it.
- heptathorp 9y ago
  He spent the bitcoins to a new UTXO that the Feds didn't have access to. Since these "accounts" exist on the block chain, which is replicated on computers all over the world, I guess every account is an offshore account.
baldfat 9y ago
24 Months for this is crazy. He stole 10.4 million dollars of goods. He tipped off about another case coming against MtGox and knowingly continued these activities after being caught. I think this just shows the weakness of out sentencing guidelines. People with a thousand dollars of drugs get decades and this guy gets 2 years tacked on?
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  24 Months for this is crazy No it isn't. It's USA, snatch a chain (not trivial considering the trauma to the people but still...) while having a gun and you may get 99 years (Texas). Steal millions or billions and get a sentence of months.
  - jstarfish 9y ago
    It looks ridiculous on paper, but it does make sense in the grand scheme of things. Aggravated assault/battery gone wrong has permanent consequences. Whether it's a $3 chain, a $3k necklace or a $30k car, when I steal it at gunpoint, an error in execution can result in loss of life. Life is not replaceable. There is no justice to be had, even if I'm caught. An embezzlement or scam gone wrong results in a few more digits than intended getting shuffled around and an insurance claim gets filed; if it falls through maybe a company goes under, a retirement fund/livelihood is ruined but in the end, all the players victimized are free to try living again in some capacity and/or try to seek restitution. That's what justice is supposed to entail. Knowing crime is a predictable behavior, we are much better off as a society guiding determined criminals towards the lesser consequences of white collar crime. Would you rather someone open a $300k HELOC in your name or potentially kill you for the $20 in your wallet?
    - shkkmo 9y ago
      Yes, I would rather be mugged and have someone take $20 from my wallet than have someone take my entire retirement. Perhaps for you "a few digits" off your retirement isn't a huge issue because you can just send more money in, but that isn't true for the majority of the population. The reason for these harsh sentences isn't because they were "risking someone else's life", if it were we would have similar penalties for drunk driving. The basis for these disparities are clearly classism, racism and political fear mongering.

by nikcub 9y ago

davidsong 9y ago

> a macbook with serial number filed off This really tickled me for some reason. Does he know something that we don't?

hnarn 9y ago
That serial numbers are traceable to where and by who the device was bought? Nope, pretty sure everybody knows that. What this agent probably didn't know was that laptops aren't bikes and the serial number is available in more places. In OSX you can see it by simply going to the Apple menu > About this Mac.
- aidos 9y ago
  How is that hardcoded into the device? It's not just on the drive somewhere. Is it changeable? Not something I'd really thought about before but maybe there's some way of changing it.
  - jorvi 9y ago
    Usually its on the logic board.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    Usually it's quite literally burned into a ROM chip.
  - discreditable 9y ago
    The serial number is burned into the motherboard. At least in the case of Lenovo laptops I've dealt with, it seems to be possible to modify. When we send machines for repair, if they replace the motherboard it comes back with the same serial number we sent in. In some cases, we've been sent systems without serial numbers and they refuse to boot.
    - corey_moncure 9y ago
      My 2010 MBP came without a serial number burned into it. It was causing trouble when I tried to use things like Facetime from the Mac because apparently the protocol depends on this serial number. I had to download a utility and burn it to CD, boot the CD and flash a serial number of my choice. I was tempted to go with 0000000001...

cvsh 9y ago

>A day before he was supposed to hand himself in, he was raided If you're fleeing the country to evade imprisonment, why would you wait until the day before you're to be taken into custody to do it?

aluhut 9y ago
It's mostly the stupid criminals who make the news. Otherwise they would get away and for reasons of ongoing investigations, there would be no news.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

goelakash 9y ago

Offshore account? As in transfer his wallet credentials to some safe offshore vault?

dmix 9y ago
This word sounds scarier than what it means in 2017, especially in the context of crypto-currencies. An HTTP request to a BTC wallet server in any foreign country could be an 'transfering to an offshore account'. No banks are storing BTC for you AFAIK, no money would be transferred via Swift or other formal means. And it wouldn't make sense for someone about to go to jail for BTC related crimes to be mailing an encrypted thumb drive to a safe deposit box in a foreign country...
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  In this case the BTC wasn't his to begin with so he had zero rights to do anything with it.
heptathorp 9y ago
He spent the bitcoins to a new UTXO that the Feds didn't have access to. Since these "accounts" exist on the block chain, which is replicated on computers all over the world, I guess every account is an offshore account.

baldfat 9y ago

24 Months for this is crazy. He stole 10.4 million dollars of goods. He tipped off about another case coming against MtGox and knowingly continued these activities after being caught. I think this just shows the weakness of out sentencing guidelines. People with a thousand dollars of drugs get decades and this guy gets 2 years tacked on?

tryingagainbro 9y ago
24 Months for this is crazy No it isn't. It's USA, snatch a chain (not trivial considering the trauma to the people but still...) while having a gun and you may get 99 years (Texas). Steal millions or billions and get a sentence of months.
- jstarfish 9y ago
  It looks ridiculous on paper, but it does make sense in the grand scheme of things. Aggravated assault/battery gone wrong has permanent consequences. Whether it's a $3 chain, a $3k necklace or a $30k car, when I steal it at gunpoint, an error in execution can result in loss of life. Life is not replaceable. There is no justice to be had, even if I'm caught. An embezzlement or scam gone wrong results in a few more digits than intended getting shuffled around and an insurance claim gets filed; if it falls through maybe a company goes under, a retirement fund/livelihood is ruined but in the end, all the players victimized are free to try living again in some capacity and/or try to seek restitution. That's what justice is supposed to entail. Knowing crime is a predictable behavior, we are much better off as a society guiding determined criminals towards the lesser consequences of white collar crime. Would you rather someone open a $300k HELOC in your name or potentially kill you for the $20 in your wallet?
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    Yes, I would rather be mugged and have someone take $20 from my wallet than have someone take my entire retirement. Perhaps for you "a few digits" off your retirement isn't a huge issue because you can just send more money in, but that isn't true for the majority of the population. The reason for these harsh sentences isn't because they were "risking someone else's life", if it were we would have similar penalties for drunk driving. The basis for these disparities are clearly classism, racism and political fear mongering.