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>“These charges are a warning to drug traffickers worldwide that neither the shroud of the darknet or of virtual currency can hide their illegal activities from

by fiblye 6y ago

>“These charges are a warning to drug traffickers worldwide that neither the shroud of the darknet or of virtual currency can hide their illegal activities from the vigilance of U.S. law enforcement,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin for the District of Columbia. The real warning to heed here is that we allow some countries to arrest citizens of other countries who committed crimes outside of their borders. I know what extradition is, but the concept of spending your whole life in country A, and having country B decide it's time to arrest you and charge you within their jurisdiction makes me uncomfortable. I think more people will oppose it once global power balances start to shift this century.

bobthepanda 6y ago
This is already starting to happen. A bunch of countries suspended extradition to Hong Kong after all the recent power consolidation by China because while they trusted an independent Hong Kong to have reasonable limits on its judiciary they do not trust China to do the same; after all this is a country that dismisses "rule of law". And in fact the whole protest situation was caused by Hong Kong's Government introducing a poorly worded extradition bill that would've essentially given carte blanche for Chinese extradition. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/asia/hong-kong-extradition-bill.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/asia/hong-kong-extr...
- throw443259 6y ago
  And the reason for the initial bill was due to a Hong Kong citizen murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan. Taiwan and Hong Kong do not have extradition treaties. The murderer is still free in Hong Kong.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    I mean this was never going to happen anyways because cross-strait relations are fickle and perilous at the best of times, and Taiwan has specifically said that it does not really want to participate in extradition with HK after the whole fiasco. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/world/asia/hong-kong-murder-taiwan-extradition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/world/asia/hong-kong-murd... The rational response to "hey the country who originally requested the extradition doesn't want to do it anymore" would be to shelve the bill, but at that point the Government and CCP wanted to save face and dug in their heels. Which makes the whole situation an extremely stupid case study of how not to de-escalate a situation.
zamadatix 6y ago
What extradition "is" has almost nothing to do with the concern, it's all about the clauses in the extradition treaty about how it must be done. In the case of Costa Rica and the US it requires dual criminality, can't be a political or military crime, can't have passed the statute of limitations, and can be denied at will if the person is a national of the requested country.
Kalium 6y ago
One of the interesting caveats about extraditions treaties is that they generally only apply to things that the country doing the expediting consider to be criminal. With that in mind, someone spends their life in country A and does a bunch of things country A considers illegal and involve country B. This isn't an obvious caveat and isn't discussed much, so I can understand where nothing here would surface it. Extradition treaties mean that things don't become de facto legal because an international border is involved. Though I understand if some might consider such treaties to be simple abuses of hegemonic imperialism.
ardy42 6y ago
> The real warning to heed here is that we allow some countries to arrest citizens of other countries who committed crimes outside of their borders. > I know what extradition is, but the concept of spending your whole life in country A, and having country B decide it's time to arrest you and charge you within their jurisdiction makes me uncomfortable. That's not a very accurate description of what was alleged to have gone on here. It's more like someone spending their whole life in country A, while running a smuggling network in country B, and only then having country B decide to arrest you for organizing the smuggling of illegal items into their country. This indictment wouldn't have happened if these guys had restricted their opioid sales to their country of residence.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Parent comment plays into the current narrative of Anti-American sentiments and bolstering their internal prejudices with twisted reasoning and siding with massive drug smuggling operations. What’s worrying about anti-American sentiments is that people are willing to advocate for the worst of atrocities just to satiate their emotional state exasperated by media. I saw similar opinions in countless other threads. America has become the punching bag, thanks to President Trump.
  - fiblye 6y ago
    Not sure what internal prejudices or twisted reasoning I have about my own country. I certainly don't know what it has to do with Trump. My concern is that countries will ship people to a country they've never been to for things like drug crimes. The standard for what's wrong is going to change in coming decades, and countries that thought it's normal to extradite people for things like drugs are going to find themselves opposing extradition for things like illegal speech, etc. And there are various charities that send things like birth control or abortion pills to women who can't legally or safely access them. I think if we saw incidences of people being extradited for mailing birth control, most people would agree it's a huge overstep.
    - nkrisc 6y ago
ConcernedCoder 6y ago
One guy was dual citizenship costa rica ( the ALLEGED darknet/bitcoin drug dealer ), and U.S.A., the other was a costa rican citizen ( the pharmacist ALLEGED to be selling the opioids ) The charges were "conspiring with persons to distribute controlled substances, distribution of controlled substances, conspiring with persons to import controlled substances, conspiring to launder money, and laundering of monetary instruments" I'm pretty sure money laundering, illegally purchasing narcotics, packaging and shipping same internationally are all crimes even in costa rica? I'm all for tempering goverment oversight, but c'mon... they were ALLEGED drug dealers, and by world standards at least if they get extradited to the USA they might stand trial -- I can think of a few countries where they would just be summarily executed...
siruncledrew 6y ago
That sums up why Pablo Escobar funneled so much money towards ensuring Colombia would remove an extradition agreement with the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extraditables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extraditables

by fiblye 6y ago

bobthepanda 6y ago

This is already starting to happen. A bunch of countries suspended extradition to Hong Kong after all the recent power consolidation by China because while they trusted an independent Hong Kong to have reasonable limits on its judiciary they do not trust China to do the same; after all this is a country that dismisses "rule of law". And in fact the whole protest situation was caused by Hong Kong's Government introducing a poorly worded extradition bill that would've essentially given carte blanche for Chinese extradition. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/asia/hong-kong-extradition-bill.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/asia/hong-kong-extr...

throw443259 6y ago
And the reason for the initial bill was due to a Hong Kong citizen murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan. Taiwan and Hong Kong do not have extradition treaties. The murderer is still free in Hong Kong.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  I mean this was never going to happen anyways because cross-strait relations are fickle and perilous at the best of times, and Taiwan has specifically said that it does not really want to participate in extradition with HK after the whole fiasco. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/world/asia/hong-kong-murder-taiwan-extradition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/world/asia/hong-kong-murd... The rational response to "hey the country who originally requested the extradition doesn't want to do it anymore" would be to shelve the bill, but at that point the Government and CCP wanted to save face and dug in their heels. Which makes the whole situation an extremely stupid case study of how not to de-escalate a situation.

zamadatix 6y ago

What extradition "is" has almost nothing to do with the concern, it's all about the clauses in the extradition treaty about how it must be done. In the case of Costa Rica and the US it requires dual criminality, can't be a political or military crime, can't have passed the statute of limitations, and can be denied at will if the person is a national of the requested country.

Kalium 6y ago

One of the interesting caveats about extraditions treaties is that they generally only apply to things that the country doing the expediting consider to be criminal. With that in mind, someone spends their life in country A and does a bunch of things country A considers illegal and involve country B. This isn't an obvious caveat and isn't discussed much, so I can understand where nothing here would surface it. Extradition treaties mean that things don't become de facto legal because an international border is involved. Though I understand if some might consider such treaties to be simple abuses of hegemonic imperialism.

ardy42 6y ago

> The real warning to heed here is that we allow some countries to arrest citizens of other countries who committed crimes outside of their borders. > I know what extradition is, but the concept of spending your whole life in country A, and having country B decide it's time to arrest you and charge you within their jurisdiction makes me uncomfortable. That's not a very accurate description of what was alleged to have gone on here. It's more like someone spending their whole life in country A, while running a smuggling network in country B, and only then having country B decide to arrest you for organizing the smuggling of illegal items into their country. This indictment wouldn't have happened if these guys had restricted their opioid sales to their country of residence.

fermienrico 6y ago
Parent comment plays into the current narrative of Anti-American sentiments and bolstering their internal prejudices with twisted reasoning and siding with massive drug smuggling operations. What’s worrying about anti-American sentiments is that people are willing to advocate for the worst of atrocities just to satiate their emotional state exasperated by media. I saw similar opinions in countless other threads. America has become the punching bag, thanks to President Trump.
- fiblye 6y ago
  Not sure what internal prejudices or twisted reasoning I have about my own country. I certainly don't know what it has to do with Trump. My concern is that countries will ship people to a country they've never been to for things like drug crimes. The standard for what's wrong is going to change in coming decades, and countries that thought it's normal to extradite people for things like drugs are going to find themselves opposing extradition for things like illegal speech, etc. And there are various charities that send things like birth control or abortion pills to women who can't legally or safely access them. I think if we saw incidences of people being extradited for mailing birth control, most people would agree it's a huge overstep.
  - nkrisc 6y ago

ConcernedCoder 6y ago

One guy was dual citizenship costa rica ( the ALLEGED darknet/bitcoin drug dealer ), and U.S.A., the other was a costa rican citizen ( the pharmacist ALLEGED to be selling the opioids ) The charges were "conspiring with persons to distribute controlled substances, distribution of controlled substances, conspiring with persons to import controlled substances, conspiring to launder money, and laundering of monetary instruments" I'm pretty sure money laundering, illegally purchasing narcotics, packaging and shipping same internationally are all crimes even in costa rica? I'm all for tempering goverment oversight, but c'mon... they were ALLEGED drug dealers, and by world standards at least if they get extradited to the USA they might stand trial -- I can think of a few countries where they would just be summarily executed...

siruncledrew 6y ago

That sums up why Pablo Escobar funneled so much money towards ensuring Colombia would remove an extradition agreement with the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extraditables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extraditables