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> A criminal complaint by the Justice Department details a string of investments that Jones made in the spring of 2017, mostly through an unnamed conspirator’s

by rtpg 6y ago

> A criminal complaint by the Justice Department details a string of investments that Jones made in the spring of 2017, mostly through an unnamed conspirator’s account, based on phony insider info provided by the undercover fed. That summer, the relationship would flip: Jones told the undercover agent on July 25 what an unnamed company's earnings would be, investing $5,000 on his behalf. Two days later, the numbers came out. They were identical. You know what? I'm getting a bit tired of things that smell an awful lot like entrapment. Way too many things where you have a law enforcement official seemingly start an interaction, and the "actual crime" only happening later in the sequencing. I'm not going to shed too many tears at people getting arrested for like... fake insider trading or whatever. But there's a lot of stories of people getting put away for really nasty stuff where the details make it _extremely probable_ that the undercover agent was extremely important in moving things forward. I feel like there needs to be some stronger requirements before pulling off these kinds of schemes, instead of LEO seemingly trying to fill some quota by going out hunting for people to fall into these traps.

slim 6y ago
in some countries entrapment is explicitly and strictly forbidden. like if law enforcement has an infiltrated agent, it's a risk that could void the case
- martin8412 6y ago
  And in some countries entrapment isn't even a thing. You broke the law, you'll get punished regardless if coerced by a cop or not.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    With good enough manipulation techniques you can make anyone do anything, so basically services can send LEO to groom undesirable citizen into committing a crime and then lock them up legally. It's just slightly more sophisticated than Soviets did.
    - martin8412 6y ago
      Yea, you can absolutely do that. The country I'm speaking about is Denmark. The police can also break down your door without a warrant and use anything they find against you. Them having entered illegally may have consequences for their unemployment(though it won't), but the evidence is still admissible in court.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Like where, North Korea? Did you spend even 5 minutes thinking about what you just said? Civilians rely on cops for instructions and directions. Furthermore a cop can order around civilians under threat of force. If a cop forces you to commit a crime and then jails you, they can extort you for money corruption will be through the roof. Thats what we have in Russia, the security services are superbly corrupt and regularly extort people. At least there they are breaking the law while doing so. You are suggesting we make it legal here.
josefx 6y ago
> I'm getting a bit tired of things that smell an awful lot like entrapment In most countries "entrapment" requires that the suspect is unwilling, unlikely or under no suspicion of committing a crime. The guy they caught was actively looking for buyers and had been selling information on a purpose build board before he was kicked out of it for selling bad info.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  No it doesn't require suspects to be those things "in most countries". The suspect has to do so by their own volition and not after prodding by a cop. If a cop asks if you want to buy some drugs and you say yes then the cop can be punished, not you, no matter if you might be suspected of wanting to buy drugs. This sneaky entrapment is a very American thing and won't be accepted by most courts. Just like US cops pretending to be prostitutes and then arresting the client. That's entrapment in "most countries".
  - evgen 6y ago
    He wasn't 'prodded', he was given an opportunity to do something he was already doing and any suggestion that this is entrapment is only made by people who have no idea what that word actually means. This sort of investigative technique would be perfectly valid in most countries and I think you really have no idea what you are talking about.
    - Daho0n 6y ago
      Stop being so snarky and read the comment again please. What I were replying to were a comment stating that "the suspect is unwilling, unlikely or under no suspicion of committing a crime" for it to be entrapment, which is false in most places no matter what happens in the case from the article. It's unrelated. If a cop asks me if I want to buy drugs and I say yes, they most definitely have no case whatsoever here in Denmark even though I were willing to buy. Luckily we don't have these insane laws that cause police to get people in a bad place and then punish them for it.
Daho0n 6y ago
It's a very American thing sadly. In most countries this would not be accepted by a court.
- paulpauper 6y ago
  American justice , the puritan way
Sebb767 6y ago
As far as I know, entrapment in the US is very specific and only counts of you do a criminal activity because someone is a police officer. I.e. If a police officer talks you into selling drugs you're totally on the hook unless he said something along the lines of "I'm from the police, it's fine / you must".
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  No. Entrapment in the US means they push you into doing something you weren’t inclined to do. A cop saying “I’m a cop and you have to smash this window or someone will die!” is indeed a form of it, but there are others. An undercover cop who pushes and prods and begs you to get them some pot until you give in is entrapment, even if they never reveal they’re a cop.
  - rcxdude 6y ago
    > An undercover cop who pushes and prods and begs you to get them some pot until you give in is entrapment Only if they are actually coercing you (e.g. by physically threatening you). Asking really nicely or being annoying doesn't count.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      No. Coercion and threats are not necessary. Persistence alone counts. For example, California's jury instructions on the defense: https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/calcrim/3400/3408/ https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/calcrim/3400/3408/ > Some examples of entrapment might include conduct like badgering, persuasion by flattery or coaxing, repeated and insistent requests, or an appeal to friendship or sympathy. Or SCOTUS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_v._United_States > Unanimously, the Court overturned the conviction of a recovering New York drug addict who had been repeatedly solicited for drug sales by a fellow former addict who was working with federal agents.
xwolfi 6y ago
It's very american for me these things where your behaviour and moral character seem to be more important than the impact of your crime. I m not sure I d pursue a guy who traded nothing on fake intel damaging no one, even if there was a potential in his character. We have to accept people arent perfect and we may only be able to punish crimes after they happen and damage people. In France I was taught that the only goal of the justice system is to repair tort created to a victim, not cleanse society of evil thoughts.
- Nbox9 6y ago
  In the southern US public schools I was taught there were three goals of criminal punishment. I provide the list as a data point, and not representative of my personal views. The list is provided in no particular order. 1. To deter future crimes. If something is punished heavily people will be more reluctant to do it. 2. To reform the criminal. Time spent in jail might provide people with the opportunity to ‘turn their life around’. This time spent will prevent the criminal from doing any future crimes in the outside world both while in jail and after their release. 3. To provide justice to the victims. If something was stolen then it must be returned. Knowing a murderer is caught/safe will provide some relief to the victims. Justice is important to a civil society.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    "1. To deter future crimes. If something is punished heavily people will be more reluctant to do it." We know this doesnt work, we have been running this experiment in imperial britain for hundreds of years - in 1700 you would be hanged for stealing groceries. Executions were a public holiday, so everyone could see and be impressed. It worked so well that while thiefs were being hanged, pickpockets cleared out wallets of the oblivious crowd watching. Extra history has an excellent series that lends serious perspective on the subject: https://youtu.be/XvMQY_y4qx8 https://youtu.be/XvMQY_y4qx8
    - tryonenow 6y ago
      The fact that crime still exists doesn't mean that public, extreme, and/or gruesome punishment doesn't act like a deterrent which reduces the frequency of crime. I'm not saying that inhumane punishments it necessarily justified, but this argument is fallacious.
varispeed 6y ago
So in a nutshell, the LE was stroking man's temptation and it turns out he had low enough threshold to follow through. It's almost like a thought crime. Why something like this is legal in the US?
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  Except that's not what happened, there was no entrapment, and the US has a very similar legal system to other Western nations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Law enforcement agents only stepped in after the perpetrator had been committing crimes online for a long time. From the article: > As far back as 2016, the account with that moniker bought names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers on the underground marketplaces that traffic in illicit online goods. He took that personal info to open banking accounts in the names of unwitting strangers, and used those accounts to make trades based on insider information he gleaned from others The reason they do things like sell fake information is that they need to engage with the person, who is already committing these crimes on their own, in some way that produces the least amount of additional criminal activity. Hence the fake info sale and then the purchase of real into, both of which the guy was advertising online before the agents engaged him. This isn’t entrapment. He was advertising illegal services by his own choosing. The police didn’t make him do these crimes on the dark web (before they even got involved). They simply engaged with him as another one of his dark web customers to build a case.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  > The police didn’t make him do these crimes on the dark web (before they even got involved). I tend to always assume the police are lying in the United States. How do we know they weren't doing this longer than they say? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- rtpg 6y ago
  OK you know what? I reread this and the timeline, and you're right. This seemed to be pretty limited in providing activation energy for the crimes. There's some irony in getting caught with real insider info, when most of the complaint seems to center around this person lying and making up insider info.
  - canadianfella 6y ago
    You know what?
brandmeyer 6y ago
Remember the Ammon Bundy incident and trial? This was the case where a group of right-wing tax protesters took over a chunk of Federal land in Oregon. A big part of their subsequent acquittal was the reveal that nine of the occupiers were actually FBI informants. Of course, Bundy went on to do other crazy stunts later on. But given the information available to the jury at the time, they decided that the government had gone too far in the Oregon case.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  This is more typical than you'd expect. Once you hear about LEO involvement in high-profile cases, you start seeing it everywhere.
_jal 6y ago
I tend to agree, in many cases. But when evaluating claims of entrapment, it is really important to pay attention to narrative manipulation. Where you start the story, for instance, matters a lot. If there are people undercover, there are going to be colorable ways to paint just about anything as entrapment. That said, it does happen, and it is both horrifying and counterproductive. https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-is-manufacturing-terrorism-cases-2016-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-is-manufacturing-terrori...
exo-pla-net 6y ago
Entrapment is a subtle concept. Most people misunderstand it; police are legally permitted to do much more than most expect. This guide enumerates the misunderstandings about entrapment, and (if you're not already a lawyer) it will likely teach you something that could prove valuable: https://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-was-entrapped https://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-w...
DaniloDias 6y ago
You might find this cspan call about LEO press releases interesting. This is FBI Agents Association representative Rey Tariche responding to an observation that look like they’re entrapping in order to justify their budget. https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1555616344.323_producermattcallscspanfbiagentsassociationrepresentativereytaricheaboutsix6weekcycle-2014.mp3 https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1555616344.323_producermattca...
kleton 6y ago
There was a shooting by two “isis” members at a Draw the Prophet (Muhammad) event in Garland Texas in 2015. It came out later that their undercover FBI handler had organized and encouraged this attack.
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  Treason
  - kleton 6y ago
    You'd think that, but when the security guard who got shot sued the federal government, US District Court Judge Karen Gren Scholer dismissed the lawsuit and wrote: "The Court finds that the conduct alleged by Plaintiff fall[s] within the scope of the discretionary authority conferred on the FBI by the Undercover Guidelines and the [DIOG (Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide)]."
    - imwillofficial 6y ago
      This is treason. Falling under some guide written by the same people the Agent works for does not absolve Him of His crimes, regardless of what a judge says.
YouthfulMarxism 6y ago
Drugdealer selling heroine to the undercover cop level "entrapment". Such an injustice.

by rtpg 6y ago

slim 6y ago

in some countries entrapment is explicitly and strictly forbidden. like if law enforcement has an infiltrated agent, it's a risk that could void the case

martin8412 6y ago
And in some countries entrapment isn't even a thing. You broke the law, you'll get punished regardless if coerced by a cop or not.
- varispeed 6y ago
  With good enough manipulation techniques you can make anyone do anything, so basically services can send LEO to groom undesirable citizen into committing a crime and then lock them up legally. It's just slightly more sophisticated than Soviets did.
  - martin8412 6y ago
    Yea, you can absolutely do that. The country I'm speaking about is Denmark. The police can also break down your door without a warrant and use anything they find against you. Them having entered illegally may have consequences for their unemployment(though it won't), but the evidence is still admissible in court.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Like where, North Korea? Did you spend even 5 minutes thinking about what you just said? Civilians rely on cops for instructions and directions. Furthermore a cop can order around civilians under threat of force. If a cop forces you to commit a crime and then jails you, they can extort you for money corruption will be through the roof. Thats what we have in Russia, the security services are superbly corrupt and regularly extort people. At least there they are breaking the law while doing so. You are suggesting we make it legal here.

josefx 6y ago

> I'm getting a bit tired of things that smell an awful lot like entrapment In most countries "entrapment" requires that the suspect is unwilling, unlikely or under no suspicion of committing a crime. The guy they caught was actively looking for buyers and had been selling information on a purpose build board before he was kicked out of it for selling bad info.

Daho0n 6y ago
No it doesn't require suspects to be those things "in most countries". The suspect has to do so by their own volition and not after prodding by a cop. If a cop asks if you want to buy some drugs and you say yes then the cop can be punished, not you, no matter if you might be suspected of wanting to buy drugs. This sneaky entrapment is a very American thing and won't be accepted by most courts. Just like US cops pretending to be prostitutes and then arresting the client. That's entrapment in "most countries".
- evgen 6y ago
  He wasn't 'prodded', he was given an opportunity to do something he was already doing and any suggestion that this is entrapment is only made by people who have no idea what that word actually means. This sort of investigative technique would be perfectly valid in most countries and I think you really have no idea what you are talking about.
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    Stop being so snarky and read the comment again please. What I were replying to were a comment stating that "the suspect is unwilling, unlikely or under no suspicion of committing a crime" for it to be entrapment, which is false in most places no matter what happens in the case from the article. It's unrelated. If a cop asks me if I want to buy drugs and I say yes, they most definitely have no case whatsoever here in Denmark even though I were willing to buy. Luckily we don't have these insane laws that cause police to get people in a bad place and then punish them for it.

Daho0n 6y ago

It's a very American thing sadly. In most countries this would not be accepted by a court.

paulpauper 6y ago
American justice , the puritan way

Sebb767 6y ago

As far as I know, entrapment in the US is very specific and only counts of you do a criminal activity because someone is a police officer. I.e. If a police officer talks you into selling drugs you're totally on the hook unless he said something along the lines of "I'm from the police, it's fine / you must".

ceejayoz 6y ago
No. Entrapment in the US means they push you into doing something you weren’t inclined to do. A cop saying “I’m a cop and you have to smash this window or someone will die!” is indeed a form of it, but there are others. An undercover cop who pushes and prods and begs you to get them some pot until you give in is entrapment, even if they never reveal they’re a cop.
- rcxdude 6y ago
  > An undercover cop who pushes and prods and begs you to get them some pot until you give in is entrapment Only if they are actually coercing you (e.g. by physically threatening you). Asking really nicely or being annoying doesn't count.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    No. Coercion and threats are not necessary. Persistence alone counts. For example, California's jury instructions on the defense: https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/calcrim/3400/3408/ https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/calcrim/3400/3408/ > Some examples of entrapment might include conduct like badgering, persuasion by flattery or coaxing, repeated and insistent requests, or an appeal to friendship or sympathy. Or SCOTUS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_v._United_States > Unanimously, the Court overturned the conviction of a recovering New York drug addict who had been repeatedly solicited for drug sales by a fellow former addict who was working with federal agents.

xwolfi 6y ago

It's very american for me these things where your behaviour and moral character seem to be more important than the impact of your crime. I m not sure I d pursue a guy who traded nothing on fake intel damaging no one, even if there was a potential in his character. We have to accept people arent perfect and we may only be able to punish crimes after they happen and damage people. In France I was taught that the only goal of the justice system is to repair tort created to a victim, not cleanse society of evil thoughts.

Nbox9 6y ago
In the southern US public schools I was taught there were three goals of criminal punishment. I provide the list as a data point, and not representative of my personal views. The list is provided in no particular order. 1. To deter future crimes. If something is punished heavily people will be more reluctant to do it. 2. To reform the criminal. Time spent in jail might provide people with the opportunity to ‘turn their life around’. This time spent will prevent the criminal from doing any future crimes in the outside world both while in jail and after their release. 3. To provide justice to the victims. If something was stolen then it must be returned. Knowing a murderer is caught/safe will provide some relief to the victims. Justice is important to a civil society.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  "1. To deter future crimes. If something is punished heavily people will be more reluctant to do it." We know this doesnt work, we have been running this experiment in imperial britain for hundreds of years - in 1700 you would be hanged for stealing groceries. Executions were a public holiday, so everyone could see and be impressed. It worked so well that while thiefs were being hanged, pickpockets cleared out wallets of the oblivious crowd watching. Extra history has an excellent series that lends serious perspective on the subject: https://youtu.be/XvMQY_y4qx8 https://youtu.be/XvMQY_y4qx8
  - tryonenow 6y ago
    The fact that crime still exists doesn't mean that public, extreme, and/or gruesome punishment doesn't act like a deterrent which reduces the frequency of crime. I'm not saying that inhumane punishments it necessarily justified, but this argument is fallacious.

varispeed 6y ago

So in a nutshell, the LE was stroking man's temptation and it turns out he had low enough threshold to follow through. It's almost like a thought crime. Why something like this is legal in the US?

rootusrootus 6y ago
Except that's not what happened, there was no entrapment, and the US has a very similar legal system to other Western nations.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Law enforcement agents only stepped in after the perpetrator had been committing crimes online for a long time. From the article: > As far back as 2016, the account with that moniker bought names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers on the underground marketplaces that traffic in illicit online goods. He took that personal info to open banking accounts in the names of unwitting strangers, and used those accounts to make trades based on insider information he gleaned from others The reason they do things like sell fake information is that they need to engage with the person, who is already committing these crimes on their own, in some way that produces the least amount of additional criminal activity. Hence the fake info sale and then the purchase of real into, both of which the guy was advertising online before the agents engaged him. This isn’t entrapment. He was advertising illegal services by his own choosing. The police didn’t make him do these crimes on the dark web (before they even got involved). They simply engaged with him as another one of his dark web customers to build a case.

Judgmentality 6y ago
> The police didn’t make him do these crimes on the dark web (before they even got involved). I tend to always assume the police are lying in the United States. How do we know they weren't doing this longer than they say? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
rtpg 6y ago
OK you know what? I reread this and the timeline, and you're right. This seemed to be pretty limited in providing activation energy for the crimes. There's some irony in getting caught with real insider info, when most of the complaint seems to center around this person lying and making up insider info.
- canadianfella 6y ago
  You know what?

brandmeyer 6y ago

Remember the Ammon Bundy incident and trial? This was the case where a group of right-wing tax protesters took over a chunk of Federal land in Oregon. A big part of their subsequent acquittal was the reveal that nine of the occupiers were actually FBI informants. Of course, Bundy went on to do other crazy stunts later on. But given the information available to the jury at the time, they decided that the government had gone too far in the Oregon case.

redis_mlc 6y ago
This is more typical than you'd expect. Once you hear about LEO involvement in high-profile cases, you start seeing it everywhere.

_jal 6y ago

I tend to agree, in many cases. But when evaluating claims of entrapment, it is really important to pay attention to narrative manipulation. Where you start the story, for instance, matters a lot. If there are people undercover, there are going to be colorable ways to paint just about anything as entrapment. That said, it does happen, and it is both horrifying and counterproductive. https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-is-manufacturing-terrorism-cases-2016-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-is-manufacturing-terrori...

exo-pla-net 6y ago

Entrapment is a subtle concept. Most people misunderstand it; police are legally permitted to do much more than most expect. This guide enumerates the misunderstandings about entrapment, and (if you're not already a lawyer) it will likely teach you something that could prove valuable: https://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-was-entrapped https://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-w...

DaniloDias 6y ago

You might find this cspan call about LEO press releases interesting. This is FBI Agents Association representative Rey Tariche responding to an observation that look like they’re entrapping in order to justify their budget. https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1555616344.323_producermattcallscspanfbiagentsassociationrepresentativereytaricheaboutsix6weekcycle-2014.mp3 https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1555616344.323_producermattca...

kleton 6y ago

There was a shooting by two “isis” members at a Draw the Prophet (Muhammad) event in Garland Texas in 2015. It came out later that their undercover FBI handler had organized and encouraged this attack.

imwillofficial 6y ago
Treason
- kleton 6y ago
  You'd think that, but when the security guard who got shot sued the federal government, US District Court Judge Karen Gren Scholer dismissed the lawsuit and wrote: "The Court finds that the conduct alleged by Plaintiff fall[s] within the scope of the discretionary authority conferred on the FBI by the Undercover Guidelines and the [DIOG (Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide)]."
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    This is treason. Falling under some guide written by the same people the Agent works for does not absolve Him of His crimes, regardless of what a judge says.

YouthfulMarxism 6y ago

Drugdealer selling heroine to the undercover cop level "entrapment". Such an injustice.