16 ms·

YC-backed uBiome is basically Theranos-lite

261 points by donsupreme 5y ago

faangiq 5y ago
Huh. Another SV darling of the past 5 years ends up being a massive fraud. Sad there’s no real media in this country to cover these stories.
- simulate-me 5y ago
  This was covered by CNBC and WSJ. What media sources did you check?
  - detaro 5y ago
    This really needs a "XYZ's law" label by now: If someone didn't see it, or doesn't remember seeing the reporting a year ago, or doesn't remember the headline accurately, it's the fault of the evil media not reporting things.
    - coolso 5y ago
      In fairness, the evil media is pretty picky and choosy on what it wants to make damn sure you know and think, and what it hopes you don’t know and think. Hence the term. Not sure it necessarily applies in this case though.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Prescient comments from 3 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041106 “The grapevine says this place is a dog and pony show.” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042433 “Grapevine is true. What they are doing is extremely questionable. They are billing insurance thousands of dollars for tests that are rudimentary and only look at absence or presence of microbes.”
- detaro 5y ago
  Some of the media reports are literally linked from the Twitter thread here as sources.
- anamax 5y ago
  Theranos was not a "SV darling". Yes, Theranos was headquartered in SV, but, the vast majority of the investment money came from outside. (The only SV money was some very early stuff from Draper, which was a relatively small amount, and some later money from Larry Ellison.) Yes, George Schultz lives in SV, but he's not of SV.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Not so much? They raised from DFJ and ATA, not to mention Ellison. Definitely feels like an SFBA tech company to me.
    - anamax 5y ago
      The "D" in DFJ is Draper, which I mentioned. (DFJ has renamed itself to "Threshold.") I missed ATA. DFJ/Threshold did the seed round, $500k, but doesn't seem to have invested afterwards. ATA did B, at $9.1M, and was a minority investor in C, which totaled $28.5M; Ellison was the C lead and there was a third. In short, maximum for DFJ, ATA, and Ellison from those three rounds is <$40M. (Rupert Murdoch did A, $5.8M.) Theranos raised a total of $1.4B. $40M, aka <3%, is in the noise, and the fact that it was early not late says that SV wasn't interested. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/theranos/company_financials https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/theranos/company_fin...
    - tomhoward 5y ago
      Yes and no. For the affirmative: Holmes was a Stanford student; the company was located in Palo Alto; she grew up idolizing Steve Jobs and thought she was emulating his approach; early investors were Tim Draper (personally or via DFJ? It’s not clear to me), Ellison and ATA. For the negative: Draper’s investment was a super-early, “family and friends” investment when the company was just a “promising idea”, kinda like a YC investment, and he didn’t invest again; Ellison isn’t a VC and was also just excited by the concept and the founder; other than Draper, none of the main SV VCs invested - i.e., Sequoia, KP, Bessemer, Graylock, Benchmark, Accel, General Catalyst, Index, etc, or even any smaller ones with any pedigree (ATA was a new firm in 2004 and is now defunct, and never had any repute); most of the funding, even quite early, and especially later, came from sources outside SV, eg Murdoch, politics figures, and other non-SV investment firms - you just wouldn’t raise funds from those kinds of sources if you were making it as a conventional Silicon Valley startup.
reureu 5y ago
Having worked in health tech for the past ten years, I can name other companies that are equally massive frauds that just haven't been discovered yet. All you need is a good PR team and some big name investors, and it doesn't matter if what you're creating is real or not... you can get away with a lot. Health care and medicine isn't a "fake it till you make it" type of industry, but that's the entire model that's preached in the startup world. So, almost by definition, startups + health care is really ripe for fraud and deception.
- metadat 5y ago
  If you know of similar frauds, then please name them here.
  - adampk 5y ago
    That is a big ask for someone that probably doesn't want all that noise in their life?
  - reureu 5y ago
    Two that I'm comfortable sharing are: Cerebral (cerebral.com): first, their whole business model is about being a pill farm for controlled substances. So, out of the gate that's pretty concerning (but, yes, you can make a lot of money by providing easy access to adderall and ativan). Beyond that, they're having a hell of time recruiting providers and so their lead time for appointments is pretty high. They're still taking customers on a subscription basis, but can't provide appointments. I think it's just a matter of time before that whole mess collapses. One Medical (onemedical.com): in early 2021, they were caught letting people skip the line for covid vaccines. The house select committee on coronavirus investigated them and released a pretty damning report back in December, and their SEC filings have indicated that they're under further investigations by some various organizations. Based on this information and other chatter I've heard, I don't think that's the only questionable thing they've done.
    - caseyohara 5y ago
      Very strange that Simone Biles (the olympic gymnast) is Chief Impact Officer at Cerebral, front and center on the homepage.
adampk 5y ago
It seems like health tech is the most "scammable" vertical, or is most "scam-prone"? (scam might be a strong word, bs maybe more accurate?) Maybe it is because health-insurance billing is already so opaque and error-prone it provides cover for questionable services. Also, if the service is "free" to end-users (because it is covered by health insurance) then why not try anything in the name of self-health? It seems the most sanctioned vertical to fake-it-till-you-make-it till you hit critical mass and then you are too big to fail because big SV names have already anointed you a winner. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-inside-story-of-a-scorched-earth-breakup-between-two-founder-friends https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-inside-story-of-...
- pedalpete 5y ago
  As a founder in the health-tech space (sleep-tech/neuro-tech in particular), I think it's more than just related to health-insurance. My take is it isn't just the tech side of health that is scammy. In sleep and neuro, we see all sorts of products which make outrageous claims that they say are backed by "science" from leading research organizations, but when you go looking for the research, there is nothing there! I think sometimes people want to believe their own BS. I wonder how often the people selling/peddling their wares believe what they are saying, or just don't care. We're being very cautious in our GTM to make sure we build a lasting and trusted company at https://soundmind.co https://soundmind.co
  - mountainriver 5y ago
    This is cool!
  - robg 5y ago
    What are you using to benchmark sleep quality?
    - pedalpete 5y ago
      We're beginning by focusing just on slow-wave oscillations, and we can directly measure the impact we are having on those through the EEG in our headband - what was the response to a stimmed SWO vs a non-stim/sham SWO. We're starting here because there is a large volume of good research in stimulating SWOs. Does that answer your question? I've just sent you a Linkedin request if you'd like to discuss further.
0des 5y ago
How does this happen so often with YC companies? You'd think the amount of applicants would raise the bar of scrutiny a little. Can't tell if I'm getting older or if more often now some of the newer YC inductees are getting accepted on factors other than their tech accumen.
- dang 5y ago
  I'm curious how you arrived at that impression? YC has funded thousands of startups and as far as I know there have been very few bad eggs. Occasionally they've had to disown one, but it's surprisingly rare. I don't know if there were any signs of uBiome being bad when YC funded them in 2014.
  - 0des 5y ago
    Lol I like how you sneak in here like a regular commenter. Due to how close you are to YC I don't think I could in good faith try to convince you one way or the other, its just an outsiders perspective from someone who has been here just as long as you, but is not employed by YC, that's all
    - pvg 5y ago
      You could try to convince the rest of us
- clpm4j 5y ago
  Out of the thousands of startups they've funded, how many have been confirmed as scams?
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    "so often"
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    < 10 afaik
- 5y ago
sydthrowaway 5y ago
What happens when YC goes outside of SaaS or Airbnb for X.
vimy 5y ago
Their tech wasn’t fraud as far as I know. There are a dozen other companies using the same technology. 16S rRNA gene sequencing. I used them and never felt deceived with the data I got. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176555 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Edit: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/ubiome-co-founders-charged-federal-securities-health-care-fraud-conspiracies https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/ubiome-co-founders-char... Nowhere here does it say the tech was fake. Mostly insurance fraud. I don’t think the label “theranos-lite” is correct.
- jwithington 5y ago
  What kind of information did it give you?
  - vimy 5y ago
    What bacteria my gut was missing or had too much of. My Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio was skewed. I then changed my diet and did several more tests to see the evolution of my gut microbiome. The periods where I felt better correspond to the test results that showed an almost normal result. When I got worse again so did the tests. There were several useful tools on github and other sites: https://github.com/ubiome-opensource/microbiome-tools https://github.com/ubiome-opensource/microbiome-tools https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/02/26/biohacking-comparing-multiple-ubiome-samples/ https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/02/26/biohacking-comparing-mu... https://microbiomeprescription.com/ https://microbiomeprescription.com/ I now use https://biomesight.com/ https://biomesight.com/ instead of ubiome.
    - joering2 5y ago
      I'm thinking about pulling trigger on BiomeSight, especially since they are UK-based so far from USA and they have more strict regulation on not selling my DNA. But other than fancy scientist lingo, did they actually give you "recommendations for food, prebiotic supplements and lifestyle adjustments based on up-to-date research findings" ? Did they give you enough real information that you could actually adjust your life for better?? https://shop.biomesight.com/collections/frontpage/products/gut-microbiome-test-snapshot https://shop.biomesight.com/collections/frontpage/products/g...
Fomite 5y ago
Myself, and a large number of folks I know in medicine, microbiology, etc. were pretty worried when it turned out they were doing most of their work without an IRB back in 2013.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
Germany doesn't extradite to the US? Surely that's not true.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  According to this Germany doesn’t extradite its own citizens https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extradition-proceedings/extradition-from-germany-to-the-usa/?lang=en https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extrad... France is the same, as they claim the US system favors the rich and is unfair (or so I’ve heard)
  - hiq 5y ago
    > France is the same, as they claim the US system favors the rich and is unfair (or so I’ve heard) No need to make it about the US, France doesn't extradite its citizens to any other country. It has nothing to do with any claim regarding the US legal system.
- fsh 5y ago
  Of course it doesn't [1]. Most states won't extradite their citizens. [1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0089 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Oh my mistake I never actually realized that. It does happen in some cases though.
    - sitic 5y ago
      They usually can still be prosecuted for crimes committed abroad by the local justice system, as if the crime had occurred within the country's borders.
Semaphor 5y ago
I’m not sure if she is a German citizen? That seems a bit quick. I’d assume it has something to do with her medical condition and him (the citizen) being her caretaker instead.
- rndgermandude 5y ago
  Early naturalization for spouses in Germany can happen after 3 years of legal residence, but they only moved mid-2020 according to wikipedia, so she shouldn't be a citizen just yet. However, extraditing just her (cannot extradite him, he is a citizen) will be probably hard due to technicalities and bureaucracy. The health condition may be a factor in a German court decision. Furthermore the alleged crimes and penalties are a major hurdle... According to the twitter thread, she'd face up to 95 years imprisonment, which creates two legal problems for any extradition: It is a vastly longer sentence than what she'd face in Germany for equivalent crimes - so a German court might require assurances first that in the US she wouldn't face a maximum sentence so vastly different than one she'd face in Germany [0] - and 95 years could be considered by a German court as an effective death sentence and Germany does not allow death sentences - this was the case when Turkey wanted some PKK people extradited on terrorism charges, and had agreed to max life imprisonment without parole instead of a death penalty, but the highest German court then ruled against extradition, saying life imprisonment without parole / likely death in prison is equivalent to a death sentence, as it removes any hope for the prisoner to one day become a free person again, and considered that cruel and inhumane[1]. I'd think she might not have been extradited yet because behind the scenes the US and Germany might be still haggling about what charges with what maximum sentences she might be charged under, before the German state prosecutor office files for extradition on behalf of the US. If she manages to become naturalized before that, that may mean game over for any extradition. Germany could refuse naturalization based on her alleged criminal behavior, but that's unlikely, as she wasn't convicted and as the alleged crimes are non-violent; Germany will usually only refuse naturalization of spouses when there have been previous convictions or solid allegations of extremist and/or grossly violent crimes. [0] E.g. Puigdemont, one of the leaders of the Catalonian separatist movement, was requested to be extradited from Germany to Spain on the charge of "rebellion". German courts found that there is no equivalent crime in the German penal code, and refused to extradite on this charge. Spain would have had to drop the rebellion charge, and have him extradited on the lesser misuse of public funds charge, which they weren't willing to do, so the extradition proceedings were aborted. [1] https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/2010/01/rk20100116_2bvr229909en.html https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheid...
MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
„ Ten years ago today, a Theranos employee went to Reddit for help. He didn't name the company, but it was all basically right there in the post. I wonder what secrets are being shared by anonymous accounts today that we will only understand in 2032.“ https://twitter.com/alanmcole/status/1510809555143438348?s=21&t=IqzxkuOf3ygIIuT3gCGlMA https://twitter.com/alanmcole/status/1510809555143438348?s=2...
jacquesm 5y ago
Funny, with a name so close to uBeam you'd think someone would pick up on the joke. There is some precedent for German residents extradited to the United States, it all depends on how grave the crime is (fraud is explicitly mentioned) and on reciprocity, ie if the same crime were enacted with the countries reversed whether or not the extradition would happen as well. Some information here: https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extradition-proceedings/extradition-from-germany-to-the-usa/?lang=en#Extradition-of-German-Citizens-to-the-USA https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extrad... Regardless: marrying to avoid extradition may work, but it may also work against you if it appears that the marriage was a sham to avoid extradition. Finally, the US is required to cooperate in order to give up your US citizenship, which for fugitives they are unlikely to do.
- G3rn0ti 5y ago
  Fundamentally, article 16 of the German constitution explicitly prohibits extraditions of German citizens. Of course, there are precedents in certain cases of severe crimes but the legal barriers are high.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    But they're not, at least, not yet afaics and as I wrote above if the only reason you obtain that citizenship is to avoid prosecution in your home country you might just lose it again.
sjg007 5y ago
It's very odd. If they had not committed insurance fraud they could have done pretty well. Just saying what your microbiome is and then offering up probiotics, vitamins, supplements and food etc... with the standard disclaimer that this is not medical advice.

261 points by donsupreme 5y ago

Huh. Another SV darling of the past 5 years ends up being a massive fraud. Sad there’s no real media in this country to cover these stories.

simulate-me 5y ago
This was covered by CNBC and WSJ. What media sources did you check?
- detaro 5y ago
  This really needs a "XYZ's law" label by now: If someone didn't see it, or doesn't remember seeing the reporting a year ago, or doesn't remember the headline accurately, it's the fault of the evil media not reporting things.
  - coolso 5y ago
    In fairness, the evil media is pretty picky and choosy on what it wants to make damn sure you know and think, and what it hopes you don’t know and think. Hence the term. Not sure it necessarily applies in this case though.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
Prescient comments from 3 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041106 “The grapevine says this place is a dog and pony show.” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042433 “Grapevine is true. What they are doing is extremely questionable. They are billing insurance thousands of dollars for tests that are rudimentary and only look at absence or presence of microbes.”
detaro 5y ago
Some of the media reports are literally linked from the Twitter thread here as sources.
anamax 5y ago
Theranos was not a "SV darling". Yes, Theranos was headquartered in SV, but, the vast majority of the investment money came from outside. (The only SV money was some very early stuff from Draper, which was a relatively small amount, and some later money from Larry Ellison.) Yes, George Schultz lives in SV, but he's not of SV.
- tptacek 5y ago
  Not so much? They raised from DFJ and ATA, not to mention Ellison. Definitely feels like an SFBA tech company to me.
  - anamax 5y ago
    The "D" in DFJ is Draper, which I mentioned. (DFJ has renamed itself to "Threshold.") I missed ATA. DFJ/Threshold did the seed round, $500k, but doesn't seem to have invested afterwards. ATA did B, at $9.1M, and was a minority investor in C, which totaled $28.5M; Ellison was the C lead and there was a third. In short, maximum for DFJ, ATA, and Ellison from those three rounds is <$40M. (Rupert Murdoch did A, $5.8M.) Theranos raised a total of $1.4B. $40M, aka <3%, is in the noise, and the fact that it was early not late says that SV wasn't interested. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/theranos/company_financials https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/theranos/company_fin...
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    Yes and no. For the affirmative: Holmes was a Stanford student; the company was located in Palo Alto; she grew up idolizing Steve Jobs and thought she was emulating his approach; early investors were Tim Draper (personally or via DFJ? It’s not clear to me), Ellison and ATA. For the negative: Draper’s investment was a super-early, “family and friends” investment when the company was just a “promising idea”, kinda like a YC investment, and he didn’t invest again; Ellison isn’t a VC and was also just excited by the concept and the founder; other than Draper, none of the main SV VCs invested - i.e., Sequoia, KP, Bessemer, Graylock, Benchmark, Accel, General Catalyst, Index, etc, or even any smaller ones with any pedigree (ATA was a new firm in 2004 and is now defunct, and never had any repute); most of the funding, even quite early, and especially later, came from sources outside SV, eg Murdoch, politics figures, and other non-SV investment firms - you just wouldn’t raise funds from those kinds of sources if you were making it as a conventional Silicon Valley startup.

reureu 5y ago

Having worked in health tech for the past ten years, I can name other companies that are equally massive frauds that just haven't been discovered yet. All you need is a good PR team and some big name investors, and it doesn't matter if what you're creating is real or not... you can get away with a lot. Health care and medicine isn't a "fake it till you make it" type of industry, but that's the entire model that's preached in the startup world. So, almost by definition, startups + health care is really ripe for fraud and deception.

metadat 5y ago
If you know of similar frauds, then please name them here.
- adampk 5y ago
  That is a big ask for someone that probably doesn't want all that noise in their life?
- reureu 5y ago
  Two that I'm comfortable sharing are: Cerebral (cerebral.com): first, their whole business model is about being a pill farm for controlled substances. So, out of the gate that's pretty concerning (but, yes, you can make a lot of money by providing easy access to adderall and ativan). Beyond that, they're having a hell of time recruiting providers and so their lead time for appointments is pretty high. They're still taking customers on a subscription basis, but can't provide appointments. I think it's just a matter of time before that whole mess collapses. One Medical (onemedical.com): in early 2021, they were caught letting people skip the line for covid vaccines. The house select committee on coronavirus investigated them and released a pretty damning report back in December, and their SEC filings have indicated that they're under further investigations by some various organizations. Based on this information and other chatter I've heard, I don't think that's the only questionable thing they've done.
  - caseyohara 5y ago
    Very strange that Simone Biles (the olympic gymnast) is Chief Impact Officer at Cerebral, front and center on the homepage.

adampk 5y ago

It seems like health tech is the most "scammable" vertical, or is most "scam-prone"? (scam might be a strong word, bs maybe more accurate?) Maybe it is because health-insurance billing is already so opaque and error-prone it provides cover for questionable services. Also, if the service is "free" to end-users (because it is covered by health insurance) then why not try anything in the name of self-health? It seems the most sanctioned vertical to fake-it-till-you-make-it till you hit critical mass and then you are too big to fail because big SV names have already anointed you a winner. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-inside-story-of-a-scorched-earth-breakup-between-two-founder-friends https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-inside-story-of-...

pedalpete 5y ago
As a founder in the health-tech space (sleep-tech/neuro-tech in particular), I think it's more than just related to health-insurance. My take is it isn't just the tech side of health that is scammy. In sleep and neuro, we see all sorts of products which make outrageous claims that they say are backed by "science" from leading research organizations, but when you go looking for the research, there is nothing there! I think sometimes people want to believe their own BS. I wonder how often the people selling/peddling their wares believe what they are saying, or just don't care. We're being very cautious in our GTM to make sure we build a lasting and trusted company at https://soundmind.co https://soundmind.co
- mountainriver 5y ago
  This is cool!
- robg 5y ago
  What are you using to benchmark sleep quality?
  - pedalpete 5y ago
    We're beginning by focusing just on slow-wave oscillations, and we can directly measure the impact we are having on those through the EEG in our headband - what was the response to a stimmed SWO vs a non-stim/sham SWO. We're starting here because there is a large volume of good research in stimulating SWOs. Does that answer your question? I've just sent you a Linkedin request if you'd like to discuss further.

0des 5y ago

How does this happen so often with YC companies? You'd think the amount of applicants would raise the bar of scrutiny a little. Can't tell if I'm getting older or if more often now some of the newer YC inductees are getting accepted on factors other than their tech accumen.

dang 5y ago
I'm curious how you arrived at that impression? YC has funded thousands of startups and as far as I know there have been very few bad eggs. Occasionally they've had to disown one, but it's surprisingly rare. I don't know if there were any signs of uBiome being bad when YC funded them in 2014.
- 0des 5y ago
  Lol I like how you sneak in here like a regular commenter. Due to how close you are to YC I don't think I could in good faith try to convince you one way or the other, its just an outsiders perspective from someone who has been here just as long as you, but is not employed by YC, that's all
  - pvg 5y ago
    You could try to convince the rest of us
clpm4j 5y ago
Out of the thousands of startups they've funded, how many have been confirmed as scams?
- ergocoder 5y ago
  "so often"
- jacquesm 5y ago
  < 10 afaik
5y ago

sydthrowaway 5y ago

What happens when YC goes outside of SaaS or Airbnb for X.

vimy 5y ago

Their tech wasn’t fraud as far as I know. There are a dozen other companies using the same technology. 16S rRNA gene sequencing. I used them and never felt deceived with the data I got. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176555 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Edit: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/ubiome-co-founders-charged-federal-securities-health-care-fraud-conspiracies https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/ubiome-co-founders-char... Nowhere here does it say the tech was fake. Mostly insurance fraud. I don’t think the label “theranos-lite” is correct.

jwithington 5y ago
What kind of information did it give you?
- vimy 5y ago
  What bacteria my gut was missing or had too much of. My Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio was skewed. I then changed my diet and did several more tests to see the evolution of my gut microbiome. The periods where I felt better correspond to the test results that showed an almost normal result. When I got worse again so did the tests. There were several useful tools on github and other sites: https://github.com/ubiome-opensource/microbiome-tools https://github.com/ubiome-opensource/microbiome-tools https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/02/26/biohacking-comparing-multiple-ubiome-samples/ https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/02/26/biohacking-comparing-mu... https://microbiomeprescription.com/ https://microbiomeprescription.com/ I now use https://biomesight.com/ https://biomesight.com/ instead of ubiome.
  - joering2 5y ago
    I'm thinking about pulling trigger on BiomeSight, especially since they are UK-based so far from USA and they have more strict regulation on not selling my DNA. But other than fancy scientist lingo, did they actually give you "recommendations for food, prebiotic supplements and lifestyle adjustments based on up-to-date research findings" ? Did they give you enough real information that you could actually adjust your life for better?? https://shop.biomesight.com/collections/frontpage/products/gut-microbiome-test-snapshot https://shop.biomesight.com/collections/frontpage/products/g...

Fomite 5y ago

Myself, and a large number of folks I know in medicine, microbiology, etc. were pretty worried when it turned out they were doing most of their work without an IRB back in 2013.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

Germany doesn't extradite to the US? Surely that's not true.

edgyquant 5y ago
According to this Germany doesn’t extradite its own citizens https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extradition-proceedings/extradition-from-germany-to-the-usa/?lang=en https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extrad... France is the same, as they claim the US system favors the rich and is unfair (or so I’ve heard)
- hiq 5y ago
  > France is the same, as they claim the US system favors the rich and is unfair (or so I’ve heard) No need to make it about the US, France doesn't extradite its citizens to any other country. It has nothing to do with any claim regarding the US legal system.
fsh 5y ago
Of course it doesn't [1]. Most states won't extradite their citizens. [1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0089 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Oh my mistake I never actually realized that. It does happen in some cases though.
  - sitic 5y ago
    They usually can still be prosecuted for crimes committed abroad by the local justice system, as if the crime had occurred within the country's borders.

Semaphor 5y ago

I’m not sure if she is a German citizen? That seems a bit quick. I’d assume it has something to do with her medical condition and him (the citizen) being her caretaker instead.

rndgermandude 5y ago
Early naturalization for spouses in Germany can happen after 3 years of legal residence, but they only moved mid-2020 according to wikipedia, so she shouldn't be a citizen just yet. However, extraditing just her (cannot extradite him, he is a citizen) will be probably hard due to technicalities and bureaucracy. The health condition may be a factor in a German court decision. Furthermore the alleged crimes and penalties are a major hurdle... According to the twitter thread, she'd face up to 95 years imprisonment, which creates two legal problems for any extradition: It is a vastly longer sentence than what she'd face in Germany for equivalent crimes - so a German court might require assurances first that in the US she wouldn't face a maximum sentence so vastly different than one she'd face in Germany [0] - and 95 years could be considered by a German court as an effective death sentence and Germany does not allow death sentences - this was the case when Turkey wanted some PKK people extradited on terrorism charges, and had agreed to max life imprisonment without parole instead of a death penalty, but the highest German court then ruled against extradition, saying life imprisonment without parole / likely death in prison is equivalent to a death sentence, as it removes any hope for the prisoner to one day become a free person again, and considered that cruel and inhumane[1]. I'd think she might not have been extradited yet because behind the scenes the US and Germany might be still haggling about what charges with what maximum sentences she might be charged under, before the German state prosecutor office files for extradition on behalf of the US. If she manages to become naturalized before that, that may mean game over for any extradition. Germany could refuse naturalization based on her alleged criminal behavior, but that's unlikely, as she wasn't convicted and as the alleged crimes are non-violent; Germany will usually only refuse naturalization of spouses when there have been previous convictions or solid allegations of extremist and/or grossly violent crimes. [0] E.g. Puigdemont, one of the leaders of the Catalonian separatist movement, was requested to be extradited from Germany to Spain on the charge of "rebellion". German courts found that there is no equivalent crime in the German penal code, and refused to extradite on this charge. Spain would have had to drop the rebellion charge, and have him extradited on the lesser misuse of public funds charge, which they weren't willing to do, so the extradition proceedings were aborted. [1] https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/2010/01/rk20100116_2bvr229909en.html https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheid...

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago

„ Ten years ago today, a Theranos employee went to Reddit for help. He didn't name the company, but it was all basically right there in the post. I wonder what secrets are being shared by anonymous accounts today that we will only understand in 2032.“ https://twitter.com/alanmcole/status/1510809555143438348?s=21&t=IqzxkuOf3ygIIuT3gCGlMA https://twitter.com/alanmcole/status/1510809555143438348?s=2...

jacquesm 5y ago

Funny, with a name so close to uBeam you'd think someone would pick up on the joke. There is some precedent for German residents extradited to the United States, it all depends on how grave the crime is (fraud is explicitly mentioned) and on reciprocity, ie if the same crime were enacted with the countries reversed whether or not the extradition would happen as well. Some information here: https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extradition-proceedings/extradition-from-germany-to-the-usa/?lang=en#Extradition-of-German-Citizens-to-the-USA https://se-legal.de/schlun-elseven-lawyers/lawyer-for-extrad... Regardless: marrying to avoid extradition may work, but it may also work against you if it appears that the marriage was a sham to avoid extradition. Finally, the US is required to cooperate in order to give up your US citizenship, which for fugitives they are unlikely to do.

G3rn0ti 5y ago
Fundamentally, article 16 of the German constitution explicitly prohibits extraditions of German citizens. Of course, there are precedents in certain cases of severe crimes but the legal barriers are high.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  But they're not, at least, not yet afaics and as I wrote above if the only reason you obtain that citizenship is to avoid prosecution in your home country you might just lose it again.

sjg007 5y ago

It's very odd. If they had not committed insurance fraud they could have done pretty well. Just saying what your microbiome is and then offering up probiotics, vitamins, supplements and food etc... with the standard disclaimer that this is not medical advice.