Bitcoin Forum

When it comes to a crime, what would the police think about a guy trading with bitcoins frequently in large volumes ?(hundreds of BTCs)

I've heard they can't stand bitcoin dealers out and they become a suspect immediately with no questions asked in case there's a crime where the bitcoin enthusiast is involved. Is that true ?

What do the police think about a guy walking round with $10,000 in cash in his pocket? It's much the same thing.

Yes, because it's well known Bitcoin users are murderers. Where did you hear that stupid shit from?

are you trying to spread FUD?

there is no law against people trading bitcoin. in some countries they just may be subjected to tax laws if the volume is high that is it.

they'd think "now what should I charge them with?".
but who cares what they think if they have no proof?

I thought police hate bitcoin traders.

Due to the recent days usage of bitcoins for fiat transaction by large number of users into the illegal activities,
Police looks the users of bitcoin as a culprit or a suspect who had did something wrong.

This is exactly what I thought of.
What if it comes to a crime where the bitcoin enthusiasts got involved in?

When I see this question I think of the Peter Wright situation.  As soon as the press got ahold of this the Australian police had raided his house.  I do not know all of the specifics but that is a pretty quick reaction by the police. This could be an isolated situation.

...

Probably the easiest way to make this problem moot is to not let the cops know about any BTC you may have or trade!  

That is one of the great things about Bitcoin.  With some precautions you can accumulate and even spend BTC relatively anonymously.  The police really should just do their jobs (enforcing the laws), and not worry about us BTC fans.

BTC and cash can be used by criminals.  The police should investigate criminals, not people w/ cash or BTC.

I do agree with you, though the cops don't...  I strongly believe that when it comes to a trade of a large volume(hundreds of BTCs), cops would see on the btc-trader as a suspect.. even though we're talking about a bitcoin enthusiast only. Trading with bitcoins for cash raises flags.. who has this cash? why you need cash...

What does a crime have to do with trading Bitcoin?

You can trade Bitcoin as be a normal citizen. You can also trade Bitcoin and commit a crime completely unrelated to Bitcoin.

It's not about "not standing" Bitcoin traders, if someone does something against the law, the law enforcement cannot be that judgy, they can't take a stand regarding the person's activities and have to judge them accordingly to what they did.

Except that they can see 10.000$. But with bitcoins you only have a phone in your pocket. Like anyone else. Keep your cool and you're pretty much safe.

I don't know how they think about btc enthusiasts but if they hate them, they must first target those people who are obviously into it. probably website owners to which information are publicly known. being involved in btc isn't a crime so i suggest police officers might wanna join signature campaigns.  ;D

Bitcoin enthusiasts are mainly traders who buy/sell coins for profit which after they don't pay any taxes.. moreover, they support illegal activities by selling coins to criminals for cash.

I think this is how police think about this.. what do you think ?

I think you are think of Craig Wright, and he was wanted on tax "issues" long before that wired article broke. I suppose that story release may have helped move the raid up as once he was in the spotlight he might have tried to run or something, but Bitcoin was not the sole source of his trouble with the law..

You should read up on Civil Asset Forfeitures laws. In the US police can seize cash or property even with no proof of a crime, simply guilt by association. If you have $10,000 cash you "must have done something wrong as normal people do not carry that kind of money". You can read a good overview at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-17/police-civil-asset-forfeitures-exceed-value-all-burglaries-2014  or simply google it, tons of examples of this activity.

I've never heard any case where the police have questioned bitcoin users, especially not in my country. To be on a safe side, it's better not accept bank payments from even trusted users as if in case they use hacked accounts, we can land in legal trouble but that can happen with any currency (even if it's local currency). Many bitcoin users have been scammers due to which bitcoin also is considered to be associated with illegal activities. However, it's still safe to trade in it.

In my town, I don't think the police even know what bitcoin is. Maybe they will just take it as a online token in a few years time... There is no law/regulation on bitcoin here...

Same here. They r just too dumb to know anything bout that.

It's the government who control the police so the laws can tell you most of time.

I think they will not like but coin or else even they will get addicted to it, it can go either ways but its the government which controls police and its bank which funds government and banks see bitcoin as threat since they might incur big loss if bitcoin becomes too mainstream so i don't think government will entertain bitcoin and always try to eliminate it

providing that this trader doesn't engage in illegal activities, he will have nothing to fear.

For sure you would have problems. Look at a bitcoin trade ub public, looks exactly like a drug trade.
The requirements to become a officer of the law have fallen as no one wants to be seen as a goon for the goverbment and pay has not kept up.
Image they dance around some one they observe and realize they have wasted time on you. Meaning they pull up some trumped up charge or cut weight.
Never sure thoufh because there is ahuman behind the badge and we often suprise.

Any large trade (the limit varies in each country), will raise red flags automatically and as result the involved parties would be the target for investigation so it's not going to be BTCitcoin only (due to criminal activities) and it's more of a standard protocols by police officers, to be followed instead.

First of all, it is hard to find where transactions are made to and from (as in people).
Companies like Bitmixer.io help to hide people's identity. Alng with sites like Coinbase and blockchain.info (as long as you don't confirm identity or phone).

Police SHOULD not take this into account as it does not affect them. Governments may accuse people of "money laundering" however, Bitcoin is legal in most countries so that is highly unlikely.

I'd say don't advertise to the world that you're walking around with a tablet that has a Bitcoin wallet in your pocket, use Localbitcoins, pay cash but don't carry briefcases full of cash with you, don't do your business in a back alley (You want to be in a relatively safe place with a lot of people around if only for the sake of not getting mugged!) and you should be fine. If all else fails, send all your Bitcoin to an address that you control if you run into any kind of trouble.

Yeah what the hell. Police don't hate bitcoin users, and they definitely don't become suspects straight away. I think they are done work bitcoin users. Even if they are trading large amounts of bitcoin.

I don't think the police care at all about bitcoin fans. Why would they? They've got bigger fish to fry.

That doesn't mean they won't ever pick on Bitcoin users just to make it look like they're doing something. Some police departments don't even care about the bigger fish they could be frying, sometimes because they're corrupt and sometimes because they don't want to get off their lazy asses to do what it takes to put those bigger fish in jail. But, of course, they have to justify their existence, so they spend a lot of their time picking on the small-time operators almost at random and chasing people for doing five miles over the speed limit.

Why on earth would the police care if you are trading Bitcoin? As long as you don't do anything against the law in your country, you will be just fine. And I am quite sure that plenty of police officers don't even know what Bitcoin is.

Usually police departments are not even sure what bitcoins are

Not in the police's eyes though, because bitcoin is a new thing.  They probably think drugs or tax cheating.  Don't we have any cops here who want to chime in?

This forum is probably 20-30% LEOs but they can't tell you who they are because it makes it hard to buy contraband in the Marketplace sub-forum.

Cops don't care if you carry large amounts of cash, gold, bitcoins or avocados as long as you can tell them where you got a truck full of avocados when you're asked and you don't try to exchange them for fiat. In fact, they really don't care at all about Bitcoin. I could sit in a police station with another Bitcoiner transferring a million bitcoins between laptops all day and they wouldn't raise an eyebrow. It's when you get fiat involved that they get interested. All fiat transfers between parties must comply with AML/KYC law.

I think if you have valid proof that you haven't committed a crime, then it'll be all fine. :)

Exactly this.

Bitcoin is part of your normal wealth here, so if you trade Bitcoin and make a profit, then you have to pay tax over the profit you made. If you do this, then nothing will happen. If they somehow know you are not paying tax over your profit on purpose, then the government and eventually the police will come after you.

I think even if we do illegal activities in bitcoin like a fool. police will not be able to resist / imprison us

Usually, one doesn't have to prove they haven't committed a crime; in fact, in the US, it is the other way around.  They have to prove that we have committed a crime.

These are my thoughts: The US government treats all of it's citizens like criminals....they're watching what we do constantly....so, whether we're spending bitcoin, dollars, or EBT cards, it doesn't matter because we're ALL criminals in their eyes.  It's pretty much us against them anyway!  The police ARE the bad guys where I'm from so.....who cares what they think!  But, they better bring a fool proof warrant with them when they come!

I also feel the same but there are many people too who scare users asking about bitcoins saying that they would get into legal trouble if they trade in the currency.

Also I am not sure if tax laws would be against users saving money in bitcoins but they may just ask us for the source of the income. It can be considered as Freelance money.

Same here. I'm sure Police in my country never know about bitcoin, because bitcoins in my country is not popular. If there any crime about bitcoin in my country, i'm sure it will be a big news.

Since most of police don't know what Bitcoin is, they'll focus on the word dealer.
And since in their books dealer = bad, merchant = good, you can do your own math :)


Also, as somebody stated, if you have 10k$ on you and you are not in a suit, it looks suspicious to them.

I hope you guys are aware that the police force of every country has a Cyber Crime department where they deal with all the crimes done through the Internet or digitally and I am sure they very well know what Bitcoin is. Now I would think they only go after the big scammers and don't bother with the petty Bitcoin thieves that are trying to scam $15 for their next Xbox game over the forums  ;)

I've been reading a lot of such posts and blog comments and they are just demeaning bitcoins a lot. It's because there have been so many users who have fallen in trouble due to trading with scammers on LBC and the misuse of bitcoins
being read every time in newspapers.

In some countries, most Police force haven't heard of bitcoin yet so they're basically clueless but unknown stuff is always attached to something negative.

Here the police doesn't consider it a big crime if we trade in bitcoins but if in any case we are associated with stolen debit cards, hacked bank accounts or any other illegal or unauthorized activities, a legal action can be taken against us.

 I don't  think police should be suspicious or judgmental if your having large amount of bitcoin.As long as you earn your bitcoin honestly like trading,and not from illegal activities I think you don't afraid with police.

police in my country. do not know about bitcoin.  although you steal bitcoin your friend, you would not go to jail

If we read this articles clearly, it is not bitcoins that are responsible but it is just a medium used by scammers or criminals. We just need to be more careful when dealing with new peoples even through LBC or any other medium.

Just as you quoted, due to large number of users getting into criminal activities every time we make a deal, make sure you don't end up with some problem with the scammers, mainly people are trying to hack.

in my country,police have no rules to arrest people who do wrong with bitcoin or crypto currency,so its causing some people do a crime with bitcoin,the only thing can blame people who do crime with bitcoin is internet laws,and that only have minor punishment.

it differs from country to country. some countries have more bitcoin users and more detailed rules about using/trading cryptocurrencies. but as far as i know owning bitcoin is not against the law anywhere, some places prohibit the trading or accepting bitcoin as payment because the could not regulate bitcoin and they want taxes to be clear on their merchants.

as long as you earned bitcoin from legall activities like trading or other activites, then that's none of their business, but if you earned bitcoin from illegal activity like terror in my area a guy threaten Mall in our location with a bomb and demanded to be paid in 100 bitcoins , then i think you will face the police

This is honestly the most ridiculous statement I read in recently. You know that this is completely based on personal views of the specific policeman.
It is like saying that every pit bull owner trains his dog to be a vicious killer. Which is totally false.

That's the way Bitcoin is being traded. It doesn't mean that police are targeting Bitcoin. Police are simply targeting dumbasses that don't know the law.

If you took 50 btc to a Starbucks to trade for $22,000 in cash from some guy you hooked up with on localbitcoins then you deserve to go to jail. Not just because it's illegal but because I don't want dumbasses to just walk around unsupervised.

Now in the statement above replace (50 btc) with (25 oz of gold). It's still illegal and has nothing to do with bitcoin.

tributary police or what ever link to fiscal law is not :D happy to find such movement-----
how to explain?

as long as you are not doing anything illegal you have nothing to worry about.
using bitcoin whether it is for trading or just selling stuff and getting paid in bitcoin is not against the law in most places.

so just search for your country's laws about bitcoin and paying taxes for your transactions, and never pay any attention what others say with FUD.

no, police hate criminals, and their job is to stop them. regardless of who is an enthusiast of the bitcoin or an investment guru, or a teacher.
what you say it's called racism

Where did you hear that bitcoin users are considered suspects? This is just a rumor which has no truth and mainly people who don't want users to be associated with bitcoins spread this FUD. There is no harm if you are a bitcoin dealer but if the coins you earn are too much to believe you are working honestly in the currency, that's when it can be a trouble.

I think police thinks of BTC guys are mean hackers. Basement still lives with the parents smart.

You are very right here, but not only small but bigger scams also happen with bitcoins I think. Yes still they have too many cases to handle and such issues of 10-15$ scams are just a time waste for them. They would like to catch a hacker than a scammer.

Eh, I wouldn't say that's what they think. Most people just think Bitcoin is some other system that is far more complex than just a bunch of "hackers" in their basements, but they might not always think of it in a good light.

The police are probably fine with people owning Bitcoin, as long as they aren't doing anything illegal with them.

There are many things can happened.Maybe police can look at the bitcoin enthusiast as drug users seller or buyer or even a terrorist.Because bitcon is always being connected to terrorist and illegal things online,cause drug lords and terrorist sometimes use bitcoin as mode of payment on buying drugs and heavy weapons

For me police think about us as a Deep web user. They think that we are using our bitcoin to sell and buy some illegal stuffs like drugs and firearms but they didn't know that we bitcoin enthusiasts using it right and making money from it. I think the only thing that making us an illegal user is those people who using it on deep web.

do you think police will getting hard to arrest people with bitcoin crime?because bitcoin not listed on their regulated and not legal on goverment?i dont think so,police will arrest people with every crime,include related with bitcoin,and police have special regulation for extra ordinary crime.

In what country? Tradingw Bitcoin is not a crime, even not in large amounts but if it's connected with money laundering then is a problem. And trading large amounts maybe couldw risew some suspicion of it but you have to have some evidence. Andw I don't think that police all over the world thinks that Bitcoin people and enthusiasts are criminals.

Indeed, this all depends on which country we're talking about, in some it may well be illegal to use Bitcoin itself. But in most western countries, they will only investigate if there is sufficient reason to believe you may be involved in criminal activities.

in my country using bitcoin aren't breaking the law as long it is not used for illegal activities such as buying drugs or something else and if police found some bitcoin users has used bitcoin for criminal acts they will only arrest for those who abusing bitcoin and not all bitcoin users in my country

Police think that we are criminals because we are earning free money out of nothing.

They are actually to dumb to understand the positive features of bitcoin and take everything as a crime which they fail to understand.

Police force is basically employed by the country and they will do whatever the country says. 

Most countries police were not aware of this growing technology. Only the higher officials have been notified with it when because of illegal activities done in the large scale.

I recently talked to an (older) policeman. He has heard the word bitcoin, but did not know anything about it.
Probably the way most policemen in my country would react. Bitcoin here is just not established yet.

even so, police still need proof to judge if those who have bitcoin earn their bitcoin or use it in illegal activities.

If someone is trading huge amounts of Bitcoins on a daily basis that will certainly raise some red flags for the police and they will probably put the traders under surveillance so as to determine the source of the funds and if the money was obtained legally in the jurisdiction the suspects are in but I don't think this would automatically make any high-profile Bitcoin enthusiast a criminal. Actually there are special police departments that investigate cyber crime and digital heists and fraudsters so they are probably very well aware of the current criminal cases on the Bitcoin scene. The lower-level policemen wouldn't understand how Bitcoin works and they shouldn't be investigating things they don't know anything about because that is just preposterous  ;)

I do not think that they are thinking like this, I even know someone that is a cop and using the bitcoin.
I honestly think they are not thinking very bad about it.

Lets be honest here:

1. Society knowledge about cryptocurrencies and bitcoin in general is really poor. Most people heard the word 'BITCOIN' but that's it.

2. People are usually only repeating information they heard on Tv - and we all know what kind of info mass media are spouting about bitcoin usually.

3. Most people lack basic knowledge about monetary system and economics, they take FIAT + Bank hegemony is ideal and the best system.

I agree with everything said here. 

You can bet that if you are trading large amounts of BTC daily that someone knows.  If you file and pay appropriate taxes it should not be a problem and it makes your trading legitimate.

Depends what country you live in and how much time the Cops have on their hands.

It also depends on which exchange you are using to do your trading at.

BTC-E for example doesn't force you to verify yourself in order to use their exchange.

It means that there is no personal information that the exchange has about you beside your IP address.

But then again, that exchange has been operating like it does for years. They won't work together with governments to hand them over your IP address and your trading history.

Police dont know what is the true usage of bitcoin, except some intelligent ones.
Majority of them think that Bitcoin is the medium of exchange for drugs and other illegal activities.

The basic knowledge of Bitcoin needs to be taught to them.

I thought btc-e required identification and proof of address for wire transfers. Are they not actively enforcing that rule?

In my country, police don't care about bitcoin enthusiasts and i think they even don't know what and how is bitcoin. I never heard a man get jailed by police about bitcoin though.

I do not even think a lot of police people are thinking about it and the cops that are in my eyes not talking bad about it.
Some maybe are and some are not talking bad about it but positive, its laying about your interests.

Large amounts I would worry about potential money laundering issues,especially if you are caught with a lot of money in a public setting.
If I was American I would have more worries because they have some odd laws that entrap people.

You really do not know until they target the issue and people start getting hit in stings through say localbitcoins.

A example here in my neck of the woods a whole wack of pot dispensaries where allowed to open up shop.
Pot is illegal but the municipal level decided to turn the other way and this made a stampede to open up these shops.
Its illegal to sell pot on all levels of government but the local police decided they had better things to do with their time then bust pot smokers.
So flash forward a year and we have a circus going on. The municipal are telling a majority of these shops to close because the new rules
are making them illegal. These shops are refusing to close and willing to pay the fine. All the well pot is going to be legal in the next year
right through Canada.
It a trend I have noticed though right across Canada is cops are doing big raids with big media campaigns to show all the drugs they took off the streets to get brownie points from some one,who knows who! It makes little sense to crack heads when its legal in less than a year but they are tripping over themselves trying to shut these places down.
So that example should tell you the mindset of what could happen with bitcoin,seems to be a trend in my Country of the police making examples of people right before a issue is going to be legal. The ole "Its not legal yet" gambit.

I honestly do not think they are really hating on it but I also do not know what they are thinking.
The most will most likely think its a criminal network currency, and used to buy all kind of things with anonymous.

No,that's not true,even  bitcoin not a legal payment,but we are as bitcoin trader can trade bitcoin without any fear of police law Or being arrested,as long goverment not ruled that hold Or use bitcoin as crime,i think we Will fine..

 I just asked a cop friend what he believed about bitcoin people.  He said he believes they were all criminals or hiding  something and he suspicious whenever he meets one.

Buying and selling bitcoin is in fact "trading a marketable asset for profit" - which means a dealer who does this a lot does in fact come under KYC laws, mandatory reporting statutes, and, yes, taxes.

If the police know that you buy and sell an average of a dozen bitcoins daily, and you haven't been jumping through all those hoops, then yes they can arrest you and yes, if they can seize your wallet they will.

They probably won't bother arresting you though, unless they're pretty sure they can get the keys to your wallet.  Not worth their time if they can't get the forfeiture money. 

Laws?  What, you thought they were there to enforce laws?  Well, sort of.  But they are certainly more motivated to do so when it's profitable.

I don't know that as I have never cashed out fiat with BTC-E.

What I do is :

# Deposit BTC in my account and sell a good chunk to get fiat in my account.
# Trade untill I have made enough profit.
# Convert all fiat to BTC and then cash out my entire BTC balance to my wallet address.
# Sell coins to receive the money in my bank account through various available services here in my country.

No one can proof that I have made profit where I need to pay tax over.

To make it even more anonymous you can even choose to sell your coins P2P as you then don't need a bank account to receive your money on.

So I'm assuming now that he's placed you behind bars you're using your internet privileges? Is that kind of like your one phone call?

No, but I do think he looks at me a little more critically than he used to.

I think the police ngativno refers to Bitcoin enthusiasts. After all, their activity is connected with the fight against crime. A crime like this is not enough, use Bitcoin in their dirty work. Suffice it to read the news reports:
-"In Spain arrested 30 suspected of laundering money through Bitcoin centers"
-"Taiwanese police conducted related arrests Bitcoin"
-"NYPD awarded for investigating Bitcoin-crimes"

are you talking about a specific police or about police department, the police what if instructions from higher authority but I think they no such instructions about bitcoin. so I think they remain calm and cool

I didn't read every posts here so someone may already have mentioned it but if you want to know the answer to your question why don't you ask BurtW how he was treated, i think the cops even robbed his kids piggy bank if i remember correctly.

They surely think that it is something weird, but they won't put you in jail, because it isn't prohibited, if that's what you want to know.

Lol in some near by country of mine, Police don't even know what bitcoin is, let alone them be suspicious of anyone, even in my country they don't know a lot about bitcoin, and internet arrests I have never heard about any arrest of such kind, based on bitcoin usage in deep web. I think we are pretty safe in this country of "meraviglie" miracles :)

It's the same in my country as well :)
We don't have much bitcoin users and generally people have no idea about Bitcoin.
So, I'm sure that we don't need to be afraid from police because of Bitcoin.
Even if i will try to explain them, I'm not sure if they will understand.
Even if they will understand, there is no law about Bitcoin in my country, so no worries :)

Here, there's nobody think about bitcoin user. They even don't know about bitcoin or don't want to know. Usually in modern area, police suspect bitcoin enthusiasts especially big transaction as fraud or criminal. It's not just bitcoin user, if you withdraw big amount of money, you will be suspected by bank.

The only thing that make us bitcoin enthusiasts bad is by those criminals using bitcoin in deep web for illegal transactions like selling drugs, selling illegal fire arms and other stuff but they other police did not know that majority of the bitcoin enthusiast use it for good things like making it a part time job to earn some money from trading and investment sites.

Yeah ,exactly chief .because bitcoin abuse so much by illegal use and the fact that bad doing have a big impact than good doings .we are doing good things but they don't recognizes it some of the bitcoin holders deal with underground markets as you said.

How do you know "majority of the bitcoin enthusiast use it for good things". There is pretty much no market in the world that exclusively caters to Bitcoin users other than the dark web and Silk Road type sites. If I were going to take a wild guess (which is what you did) I would guess that a few people are using it for legitimate purposes like investments and the bulk are using it for illegal purposes.

True, not all users of the bitcoin use it for things that are bad (Mafia, Illegal Commercial, illegal, and dangerous). I also think that those who say that Bitcoin users always doing dangerous deals, it is the people who have eaten or Violent movies too often or perhaps he feared innovations!

I think that think two things. Most of polices think like think their chief. That the guy is making something illegal and must be punished. Then there are few who think with their head and will think that the guy is doing a business which can be even illegal for the moment but that in the future can be a normal one like the trade with the other money.

Yes, I'm absolutely positive Bitcoin is used for investment purposes (because I'm doing that and so are many people on this forum).

The problem is that we investors and speculators don't keep the economy rolling along. Day to day use makes an active healthy economy. The only places I can think of that promote active healthy use of Bitcoin is dark markets. You can't do your weekly grocery shopping with Bitcoin but way back in the 70s when I was a stoner I know I needed a bag of weed every week and Bitcoin works well for that.