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I know stuff like this shouldn’t bother me relative to all the other stuff worth worrying about, but damn if it isn’t demoralizing. Makes me question why I even

• DennisP 9y ago
  Maybe because you want to live in a first-world country without going to prison for securities fraud.
  • cat199 9y ago
    .. vs a luxury resort in a 2nd world offshore haven or a yacht. ... and this sentence becomes more ambiguous
    • RyanZAG 9y ago
      Agree - your life in a 3rd world country with $50 mil is going to be far better than in a 1st world country. I don't think that one was a good argument. The only good argument is that stealing from people is immoral.
      • wbl 9y ago
        He'll be extradited.
        • KillerRabbitt 9y ago
          Only if there's a country willing to prosecute and he's in a country with an extradition treaty.
          • toomuchtodo 9y ago
            Or he ever transits a border crossing or airport and needs to use a passport.
          • wbl 9y ago
            Which countries would he be in without one? They may also prosecute locally if there are victims of his there.
    • everdev 9y ago
      $50M can't buy you a clear conscience.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • loblollyboy 9y ago
        conscience shmonscience
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
      • sparkie 9y ago
        He's not exactly robbing old ladies though. He scammed a bunch of idiots who willingly threw money at something they obviously had no understanding of. The warning signs for ICOs have been pretty clear for a some time now, but it seems like some people will only learn by first hand experience, how not to invest.
        • everdev 9y ago
          Actually, we don't know the identities of everyone who invested. I'm more hesitant to victim-blame than I am to blame the person who intentionally committed a crime. I agree that it's a buyer beware market, but it's because of people like this guy. The laws are on the books and hopefully will be enforced. Just because it's a new tech doesn't mean it's a lawless frontier even though some people are acting like it is.
    • JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > .. vs a luxury resort in a 2nd world offshore haven or a yacht Unless he wants a life of paranoia, he's limited to countries who don't extradite to the United States [1]. Since his face and name are known, as well as his wealth, he'll likely have to share a good fraction of his proceeds with local officials to stay alive. [1] https://www.internationalman.com/articles/which-countries-can-the-nsa-whistleblower-escape-to/ https://www.internationalman.com/articles/which-countries-ca...
      • soundwave106 9y ago
        Minor point, Savedroid is based out of Germany, so I imagine it is more extradition to Germany that would be the concern. I imagine the net effect of the rest of your statement is the same though.
        • zwily 9y ago
          If any of the victims are on US soil, the US would have no problem going after him too.
          • soundwave106 9y ago
            Yes, true, if outright fraud, I agree this is the case. Actually this would probably apply to any country which has substantial numbers of people or currency involved in this scam, narrowing his "acceptable country" list further.
        • citilife 9y ago
          Have you heard of Kim Dotcom[1]? New Zealand resident, with a service based out of Hong Kong, and the U.S. attempted (still attempting) to extradite him. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom
        • pcwalton 9y ago
          He's now wanted by all countries that have citizens who invested in his scam. It is likely that this group consists of all major Western countries.
• conanbatt 9y ago
  I tell you why it should: because you might want to do your work independently, someone might be willing to invest in you, and there is a third party that makes it impossible.
• Brockenstein 9y ago
  Well on the upside you aren't facing lawsuits and litigation for the next twenty years, or possibly prison time or extradition depending on what laws were broken where. And the blatant display ala martin shkreli doesn't play very well once twitter is no longer the buffer between you and reality.
• piracy1 9y ago
  Do it, make an ICO.
  • logfromblammo 9y ago
    Is that when you find out that scamming people is a different kind of work, which requires a different skill set? Only the very best scammers ever get to learn about extradition.
• colechristensen 9y ago
  Well you should take some solace in the fact that doing your day job won't land you in prison. ICOs are a good way to launder money and defraud impressionable speculators out of their money. It'll take a while but the securities regulators and prosecutors will have their day. The people that get away with securities fraud hide it with complex corporate accounting structures, ICOs are the dumb version of securities fraud. It is not too difficult to convince a jury when they guy is tweeting pictures of beer on the beach.
• techsupporter 9y ago
  Irrespective of prison, there’s also a pretty good chance that what you do for a living doesn’t raise your chances of someone showing up and wanting to “discuss things” with you. Ripping people off for €40 million may end well for this fellow or it might result in a few irritated “investors” (donors?) coming round with knives, or even just fists, for a quick chat about what happened to their money. It might not be likely but that’s a risk and a much greater one than I would want to take. Besides, someone can only use the defense of polite society if he or she hasn’t already ripped the cover away.
  • paul7986 9y ago
    Indeed illicit money usually begets bad consequences!
  • sndean 9y ago
    > someone showing up and wanting to “discuss things” with you. Yeah, there's more than a few cases of people ending up back in the US (or whatever country) in the trunk of a car. I may prefer prison over the constant fear of being "disappeared" by a bounty hunter or hired kidnapper [1-3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Sidney_Jaffe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Sidney_Jaffe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Luster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Luster [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann#Capture_in_Argentina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann#Capture_in_Arge...
• hristov 9y ago
  Don't be too demoralized. With crimes as with legal business stories you only tend to hear about the large successes. It is nice to think that if only your morals weren't as strong you could be a criminal multimillionaire, but it is doubtful in reality. As a parallel there are thousands of kids setting out to become the kingpin drug-dealers glamorized in media and most of them end up dead, in jail or working bad dead end low level dealer jobs where they make less than minimum wage. There are now over fifteen hundred different alt coins most of them languishing in complete obscurity and failure. Nobody knows the exact statistics, but I am sure the vast majority of the reported ICOs were failures too. The ICO market is unregulated so that it does not show when the promoters are buying their own tokens ... I guarantee you that most ICOs were basically propped up by the promoters in order to make them look successful so that they did not really make anyone any money. The major difference between this and the drug dealers, is that the police have not moved in yet, so people are not going to jail yet. So it is always better to work in creating real value and making an honest living. And don't worry about what would have been if you were a successful criminal. Consider the infinitely more likely possibility of what would have been if you were failed criminal, or just an impoverished barely-getting-by criminal.
  • robbomacrae 9y ago
    I think in general your point stands but not with the audience of this website. I'm willing to bet nearly everyone who reads this has looked at phishing scams, nigerian prince emails, and now ICO's and thought to themselves "jeez it's like they aren't even trying..." Starting up a drug dealership I'm sure is tricky.. but it would only take one afternoon to set up a couple of the above schemes and A/B test your way to illicit success. There's probably plug and play github repos. I don't intend to encourage.. stay classy HackerNews!
• kolbe 9y ago
  In all fairness, he has very little legal recourse while on the run. I knew a guy who ran off with tens of millions of dollars in 2008, only to have to have most of it stolen by the mob while hiding in Ireland. By the time he was caught and extradited, he didn't even care anymore. You could probably just go to whatever beach he's chilling at, and just take what you want if you have the physical power to influence him to do so.
• ChuckMcM 9y ago
  It's a valid question. A number of people "score" their life by the size of their bank balance. That is easy to do because hey a number is a number and they are easy to compare. As a life score however it doesn't reflect a lot of meaning. One of the things I point out to young people who are just getting started in their careers is that nobody made the baseball of hall of fame by being the highest paid player. The things they did that counted were runs, and pitches, and defensive plays. Games played, and games won. Owners and managers throw around money to try to put together a team that can win the pennant or the series, but the players are evaluated, and judged, on their play not their pay. So why would anyone evaluate themselves based on how much they have earned rather than a much more meaningful example like how much they have done. Start evaluating yourself on how many problems you have solved, or how many people you have helped, or how many lives you have saved. Those are good measures for a score. Money isn't.
  • stanleydrew 9y ago
    This sentiment is great, and I happen to subscribe to the view that financial wealth is an imperfect signal of value created. In reality though there is a psychological effect that benefits those who make a lot of money as long as other people know they make a lot of money. How much money someone is willing to pay you is inherently a value judgement on their part. All else equal, is a player paid $100K a year or a player paid $10M a year more likely to make the baseball hall of fame?
    • ChuckMcM 9y ago
      I wouldn't disagree that there is correlation, after all by doing good stuff you get more of a say in what people will pay to have you do it for them. On the player question, if your a Giant's fan you might remember them paying $126M to Barry Zito, a Cy Young award winning pitcher. Somehow I don't think Barry is headed to the Hall of Fame.
• ggg9990 9y ago
  When you’re running from the police and angry victims, you have to NEVER screw up. You can’t ever use a credit card, call your family from a regular line, look up something on Google that could identify you, etc. that’s a hell of a lot of stress and I personally wouldn’t want it. Then again, I have plenty of money right now, but not $50 million.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• rrrx3 9y ago
  Why would you be demoralized by this? He's going to get caught and put in prison. You're not. You win.
• tomc1985 9y ago
  You're only seeing his "success". We'll see how long it lasts