Bitcoin Forum

I was using SilkRoad only to store a selection of bitcoins offsite.  I've never bought any drugs from the site, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one.  They took about 30 bitcoins from me when they snatched Silk Road, and I'm considering sueing them now considering their present value.  Anyone else thinking about this?  Anyone here have any experience with such a claim?

Why would you use a blackmarket as an online wallet in the first place?

+1 @TiagoTiago

The site was shady and unreliable from the get go...

Because I had already been taken by another online wallet service that closed with much of my funds.  Mybitcoin.com IIRC.  So I figured that a hidden website that doesnt' even pretend to be legal wouldn't be a worse risk.  I figured (incorrectly) that as long as it had already been up and not seized, that DPR must have known what he was doing in the security realm.  I was keeping it there as I transitioned from one computer system to another and moving from one home to another.  I just hadn't gotten around to logging back into it and sending myself the funds yet before the FBI takedown.  I was procrastinating.

doesn't make any sense to me.. you had to have known that the FBI was after silk road. if you wanna risk that much money, you should have also known that DPR was not very careful about his staying quiet.

I think you will have very little luck with claiming BTC, just like you would with cash involved in alleged drug trade...

USA land of the free...

is it me or does anyone else think it's kinda funny that OP is basically saying "i wanted to protect my assets, so i hid my bitcoins where the drugs were."

Hahahaha, you're as stupid as the dealers, junkies and any other criminal fucktard that used that site. GO for it, file a claim, give them reason to know who you are and arrest your delinquent ass too. With you being a site user, it will certainly make you a suspect if you open your mouth, just go ahead and file your claim, that will be great. hahahaha. Fricken criminal scum and anarchist trash need to be put in prison, it was a great bust Silk Road, so many leads now. Lock all them bastards up.

Well the claim isn't against the FBI.  People seem to think the coins belong to the FBI.  Eventually the coins or the proceeds from when the coins are sold will become the property of the US Treasury.  However they aren't even the property of the US treasury yet.

After the trial is over (yes technically they can do it before but they won't for a lot of reasons) the DOJ (<- notice not FBI) will file for civil forfeiture.  It will be successful and then the DOJ will auction off the fofeited property and transfer the proceeds to the US Treasury.   They do this for billions of dollars in forfeited property every year so it isn't anything unprecedented, although this is probably the first case involving Bitcoins.

Part of that process will be a public claim period.  You have the ability to file a claim (under penalty of perjury) that the assets confiscated are owned partly by you, and that they were not the proceeds of a criminal enterprise.

If you succeed the court would return the wrongly frozen assets back to you.  I don't think I have to point out how much of an uphill battle that will be and how much the three letter agencies will turn over every aspect of your life to see if there is fire where there is smoke but it is your right as part of due diligence.  However I should warn you to get some realistic expectations.  The timeline is measured in years (sometimes decades).  I had funds frozen as part of legal action against Full Tilt Poker, that was over two and a half years ago, AFAIK to date not a single penny of player funds have been returned.

Not sure how well it would go over for Americans, however I wonder if it is possible for people from other countries to do so? For example, if you were buying drugs in a country that doesn't prohibit said drugs, and the U.S seized your funds, would you not have a claim?

Well, I never bought anything on that site, but I sure wouldn't relish the thought of the FBI, ATF etc up my business for a mere $30K; but I strongly suspect that number is going to continue to rise. 

I think that you would, but IANAL.

Yeah it is kinda an interesting concept.  It will be a loooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng ass time.  These kinds of processes usually go far slower than most people expect.   If I get a resolution (either a check from the US treasury or denied claim) on the Full Tilt Poker event before 2016 I will be pleasantly surprised. 

Now in my case that fiat money is only going to go down in value but Bitcoins on the other hand.  In theory that $30K might be worth $300K, $3M, $30M by then.  At some price point it starts to make sense to take a stab at it.  Hell if the payoff is large enough a lawyer might take it on contingency.

E-gold was indicted on April 27, 2007 and the department of Justice obtained a restraining order to prevent the "dissipation of assets."
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/press-releases/2007/egoldIndict.htm

Legitimate investors are still trying to get their funds back in 2013
https://egoldclaimsprocess.com/

Possibly expect dread pirate was a fucking idiot and put the servers in the US.  The US is going to argue jurisdiction.  Buying drugs might be legal in far-a-way-istan but I can tell you now the DOJ case will be the sale occurred in the US in violation of US law.  Far better to file a claim as MoonShadow indicated that the claimant deposited coins but it wasn't to buy anything illegal.  It could work. probably not but a lot depends on how much the coins are worth when that day comes.

You will probably be arrested for frequenting a place where drugs are being dealt.

Agree your criminal trial would be interesting to follow as far as jurisdiction (don't know if there are federal frequenting laws but your state would charge you for them), not sure you want to roll those dice though. What the gov wants more than anything with SR is to make an example of the first batch and hope they discourage the concept. You never want to be the example setter for the powers that be. If by some miracle you got a judge to side with you the IRS would be in your living room the next day.

I wouldn't even have posted that you were there and surely wouldn't call them. But let us know if you give it a shot I will make some popcorn.


PS- For future reference, never stash your money at a drug dealer's house. And staring into the sun is a bad idea also.

Mmmm, I think its time we set up Bitcoin space nodes. I bet we could buy some launch rights from Greece, fire a high end server or ten into orbit with some Solar panels, and be out of global jurisdiction.

I'm not really a supporter of the Silk Road, nor do I condemn it. I do dislike the U.S ruining everyone's fun though.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334701.0

soon.

Just a reminder as the anniversary of his passing is nearly upon us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz


There is not much in the way of justice in the USA with regards to technology questions. Presuming you did nothing particularly wrong (like violating jstor TOS by exceeding a download quota) does not mean somebody won't decide to put you in prison (for 50 years or less).

What say you, downloading jstor docs or bitcoins at silk road... 

RIP aaron swartz. he, bradley manning and snowden are true fucking martyrs to me. i don't know about julian assange, as he seems like he could be seedy.. but those 3 guys gave up their lives to get the truth out to us.

And the latest, Jeremy Hammond.

Hammond is particularly tragic as there is no grey area in what he exposed. Firms were hired to draw false connections between political activists and terrorists, presumably so they could invoke the NDAA and treat the political activists as terrorists (indefinite detention etc). This all came out in Hedges v. Obama and is on record, only because Hammond released it to the world. Yet instead of that conspiracy even seeing the light of day, Hammond got 10 years to sweep it all under the rug.

Sorry for your loss.

Why not just walk into your local police station, say your property has been taken during someone else's arrest and ask if there is a form to fill in?  It might be a good place to start and at least they will know a lawyer who specialises in the area.

This is relevant to my interests. I have 35 BTC (iirc) in SR, and I too was only there out of curiosity. I wanted to know how the seller interface differed from the user interface, and had plenty of coins, so I paid the (whatever it was) for a seller account. Forgot about it until DPR got nabbed.

In addition to all the other issues, there's still the fact that these are all still encrypted, I assume. The feds appear to assume this too, based on the senate hearing last week. Everyone had a good chuckle about the unique situation (for them) where they had confiscated so much value that couldn't be touched. They can look through records and stuff all they like; I never did anything with my account than look around, but this was back when coins were like $5 or so, and I never bothered to pull the remaining ones of the 50.

If you get any interesting info, shoot me a PM. I'm not pursuing it unless I have reason to believe the PrivKeys can be had, but if I change my mind or find out something, I'll likewise give you a shout...

The FBI moved the coins.  Either they brute forced the wallet password, timed the arrest when the wallet as unlocked, or DPR gave up the password.  Either way they coins have been sent to private keys controlled by the government.  The block chain is proof of that.  Can't move coins you don't have the private key for.

I've obviously not kept up with the happenings on this, then. I was under the impression that DPR had not provided the prikey(s)... I remember, shortly after the arrest of Ulbricht, hearing this cited as circumstantial evidence they may not have caught the real DPR. And that there were also a good number of coins for which they didn't even have an address for, so we didn't know how many there were.

Googling now, I guess, since I've clearly had a severe memory lapse...

They've moved the coins that were deposited into the server pool addresses, because that wallet.dat was probably on the server itself.  Last that I heard, the address that the feds assume was the private wallet of DPR had not been moved; and if it had it would be more likely to be proof that they have a fallguy, and that DPR just moved them to make that point clear.  It's hard to access the Internet securely from a jail cell.

Depending on the jail, it's not that hard to get a smartphone with a data plan in, specially if you're loaded.

Well, you're definitely an aware human being that shows empathy and understanding towards other people's freedom and rights.

He's been in a Federal holding jail for most of the time, and the Gmen have been watching him like a hawk for this exact reason.

Yeah, they know how dangerous it would be to let him loose with a phone. It's still not impossible for him to get one, but I'm sure they're doing everything within their power to minimise the risk.

Half of me is saying "Do it". I'm most interested in proving in a court you own some bitcoins.
The other half is saying , "Nope" for obvious reason. I'm sure they have some felonies for which they haven't found the criminal you yet.

And that is why I'm wavering....

I guess I'm genuinely interested in the legal aspects of this.  Given the Eric Holder/complete lawlessness issue, it really should be in a court room rather than the administrative divisions.  But here's the general scenario as I see it:

Marketplace ABC has trade accounts with X number persons.  Not disputable X/2 of those were engaged in activities illegal in their jurisdiction.  Others were curious about the site and may have placed minor amounts of coin there in 2010/2011.  Market changes caused those small amounts to become fortunes.

FBI takes said trade accounts....do they have to pay some or all of the trade account funds back?

Say they confiscated funds from an individual in Colorado who had bought marihuana on Silk Road from another individual in Colorado, said purchase being legal in Colorado (he might have bought from an unauthorized/unlicensed source, but that would be a state not a federal problem). 

I'm smelling a class action suit here....but what do I know, maybe the current social/political environment is so oppressive and totalitarian that everyone just sits in the corner shaking in fear.

Obviously a lot of people have standing to sue.

That. And it is entirely warranted fear. You are taking two areas where the gov has demonstrated it will act above anyreasonable interpretation of the law and combining them. Illegal use of a computer (see Aaron Swarz, rip) and the war on drugs (#winning for 42 consecutive years).

You are confusing some sense of justice with the US legal system. The DEA has arrested and convicted airplanes, on suspicion of having been used for trafficking at some point in their lives. They have confiscated cash upon suspicion that it was drug money because only drug dealers carry cash.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/struggling-minnesota-waitress-sues-police-seize-12000-tip/story?id=16074433

That's just the first one that came up on google. There's thousand just like it.

So you can sue, and hope they don't example you by charging you with frequenting, attempted money laundering, tax evasion, computer fraud/abuse, aiding and abetting terrorists (piracy, ya know), or any other stupid thing they can conjure up. Which is endless. Asset forfeiture is the least of your potential problems, your criminal defense would cost a lot more than you are walking away from.

But if you want to be a martyr I will give you my utmost respect and even send you letters in prison. It isn't about the right thing, at this point. It's about choosing who to pick a fight with and when, and knowing when you will be crushed regardless of justice. I would not pick this fight.


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Edit- imagine if they lined you up with a judge whose only internet experience consisted of an email account, drudgereport, and maybe a facebook page that he/she has never really figured out how to use.

They get... "defendant converted dollars to an encrypted currency used predominantly for illicit purposes and smuggling via the internet. Defendant then transferred a substantial amount of encrypted currency (over $30,000 worth) to an encrypted website, accessible only through a sophisticated surreptitious browser designed to conceal online activities, most commonly used by pedophiles and terrorists. Defendant delivered these encrypted funds anonymously, with full knowledge it would be received by persons engaged in wanton criminal activity, and defendant has no stated legitimate purpose for doing business in this manner..."

Good luck explaining to your computer illiterate judge that you just wanted to understand how the platform worked, you didn't know this, you didn't know that, you didn't think it was that much money...judges love that shit. 30 years, maybe a last minute plea bargain to 5-7 if you are squeeky clean.


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Final edit, I promise. You need to read this to understand what you are dealing with. The final sentencing guideline was 35 years in a federal prison after he refuse a plea bargain.

So you understand the reality before you read this. JSTOR is academic journals. They are freely available to download for anybody on the MIT campus. Their terms of service had set some arbitrary limit on the total number of downloads, but it was a large number. Aaron left his laptop on campus set to auto download all the academic journals on JSTOR, allegedly to take them and make them freely available to people off campus as well. The public could buy any of these papers for a couple bucks via the JSTOR website, or go to the MIT campus and download them for free also.

With that understanding of the "crime", here is the indictment

http://web.mit.edu/bitbucket/Swartz,%20Aaron%20Indictment.pdf

now imagine Silk Road...

There's no such offense at the federal level (though there may be something similar).  Even if there were, it would be unconstitutional, and probably state frequenting laws are unconstitutional as well.

I'm sure they could think of something, though.  Accuse you of money laundering and either actually prosecute you just for pissing them off, or try to pin some kind of liability on you for participating in a money laundering enterprise. 

OP would be well advised to consult a good lawyer with criminal drug and forfeiture experience.  It would be worth it to cultivate a contact now, in case the value of the BTC in question is actually worth pursuing it during the period where you can.

Lots of journalists and police accessed it. I don't think the site in itself was illegal per se, just 99% of the stuff it sold was, and obviously they weren't paying taxes on profits. It's probably a grey area.

I wonder if there's any lawyers on here. Might be worth making a thread in the Law section. Would be interested to see what is and what isn't legal regarding these type of black marketplaces.

Actually, none of that is relevant to the problem.  It's all true, but it misses the legal issues.

Suppose you were some big time gangster running a bank, and the FBI shut you down.  Some of your customers were shady, some were not.   But their money is theirs.  Now assume that again you are a big time gangster, but you have a business where you have a large accounts payable.  You owe a thousand people fair amounts but the money you have is yours.  They shut you down and take your money, those thousand people are out of luck.

The former situation is closer to this one than the latter.  But you've raised an interesting point; namely, that in a US bank failure you may not get your money back if the FDIC doesn't do their job of protecting the innocent, in a bitcoin exchange or business failure you may not get your coin back because the FBI persecutes the innocent.

The only group of people who have gained from the closure of Silk Road are the Mexican drug mafias. Earlier, the drugs which were available from the SR were cheap and safe. Those you get on street are adulterated with toxins and a part of the revenue is going towards the organized crime.

Yep, it was supply meeting demand.  And those supplying the drugs had a reputation to uphold on the site. 

Are you still considering it? And if we hit 500?
I'm curios about the price you're willing to risk finding out that you're a Mexican drug lord that has shipped thousands of kilos of narcotics via SR:).

Hmm... Mexican drug lords are not that intelligent. Most of the drug vendors in SR were from Canada and the EU (especially Netherlands and Germany), in addition to those in the US.

Lols,I was joking about the consequences.
They will label him as a Mexican Venezuelan Colombian Chinese pirate drug dealer Somali rapist the moment he submits his request:)

I don't do illegal drugs.
I visited silk road(out of curiosity, not intent to purchase/consume).

I have seen people benefit greatly from Marijuana.

Silk Road was a good thing for BTC. It gave people a reason to buy BTC.

What is the point of a decentralized peer 2 peer network outside of avoiding the law?

Tor = For violation of law(privacy? ROFLMAO)
BTC = For violation of law(Sorta like torrent, other uses exist, their usefulness is negligible)
Torrent = For violation of law(The existence of "legitimate" torrents does not change the fact that torrents are useful for one thing(piracy))

You guys need to stop coming down on people for things that your local law man says is bad.

The irony here, how many of you U.S. BTC fans believe you have freedom?
I know, I don't.

LOL people in Mexico can't even use Ebay that country is so screwed up.  And with NAFTA, they just move their stuff across the border to designated distribution points. 

They never needed anything like Silk Road and have no use for it.

I don't know much about SR (was never a member). But even at its peak, less than 50% of the merchandise items were drugs, weapons and other illegal stuff. The rest consisted of Bullion, BTC to Cash offers, Bitcoin miners.etc

either way, the point is that it was an underground black market.. for illegal activity. he might as well go to the police station with a line of coke still on his nose.

it might be worth it. imagine getting it in a decade and bitcoins are worth 100,000 each :P

Actually all of that is relevant to the problem. Swartz violated a terms of service agreement and downloaded more free documents than the site's terms allowed a user to do all at once. If Swartz had simply downloaded them manually one at a time, no violation would have occurred under any interpretation of the law. By speeding up the process (he never distributed the docs he downloaded, the allegation was intent to distribute). Despite all docs being free to download on campus, he was hit with all the charges in the indictment. None of them are reasonable. Wire fraud? Aiding and abetting...what? 35 years!

It's relevant because that case is the benchmark for the level of insanity that the legal system can operate when it comes to 'computer crimes'. Throw in drugs, and all the leeway given to prosecute drug crimes, possible organized crime and money laundering involvement...like I said it's not about right/wrong or legal/illegal. It is that none of the charges really fit the crime, and the punishment certainly did not fit the alleged crimes. But instead of a prosecutor acknowledging that, or a judge dismissing it, or a state or federal senator standing up for his rights, or a media fury, he was ordered to stand trial. For a terms of service violation.

For a closer case as far as the sirlk road specifics,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#Criminal_prosecution

Again rewriting the laws to suit a prosecution, is the only relevant consideration for a potential defendant, if you view it as a sort of Pascal's Wager on a legal scale.

Actually, after thinking about it again, you may have a claim. I was just thinking about how I purchased some sunglasses, a fake rolex (as a gag gift) and a chainsaw off of the Silk Road, nothing illegal there. The argument that it is an illegal marketplace kind of reminds me of a flea market. You can find drugs and stolen goods at a flea market, however you don't have your money confiscated for shopping there, I guess unless you are partaking in knowingly buying stolen goods or drugs.

The question is, if you can prove you didn't use the SilkRoad for nefarious purposes, would you be able to get your coins back?

Why doesn't the Bitcoin Community have more lawyers?

Really?  You don't think the leaders of groups like the Zetas or the Sinoloa or Juarez cartels are intelligent?  Yet they somehow manage to prosper and control multi-billion dollar industries?  That's bullshit.

The Zetas actually managed to create their own alternative cell tower network to have completely off-the-grid communication.  Is that stupid?  The fact is they've succeeded because they are, in fact, very resourceful and their leaders are intelligent.  They did this at least in part by kidnapping the tech geeks capable of setting it up, forcing them to do it and then disposing of their bodies.

Now, they certainly act non-optimally in doing things in this manner.  Seems to me you could find some bad geeks and just compensate them royally and ensure their loyalty and that way, you wouldn't have to kidnap someone else just to maintain the network your now-murdered geeks put together.

But the idea that Mexican (and other Middle and South American) drug cartels are not intelligent enough to use something like Bitcoin if they see it to their advantage is ridiculous.  If they decided to do it, they'd either figure it out themselves or hire or kidnap some geek to tell them how to do it or manage it for them.

It is inevitable that lawless actors will flock to Bitcoin.  Yes, some will be chaotic evil.  Some will be chaotic good, to pick a geek trope to end a post about geeks and Mexican drug cartels.

I don't even think that's correct.  That's presumption of guilt and no due process.

yeah i don't know how one would be able to prove that they were not using SR for illegal activity. even if you bought something legal, that does not prove your innocence.

No, it's not relevant.  You are discussing law as applied by a district attorney.

Here we are discussing law as applied by citizens (subjects) seeking redress from government injustice.

They would probably have an arguable case if say a known drug dealer with a history of convictions had a large amount of money on silk road, but had not done anything with it.

But we are not talking about that.

I gather you haven't read this whole thread? I am discussing it from the point of view of a district attorney, because the district attorney (or more likely the AG in this case) will be filing the criminal charges against SR users, and those suing for return of property will be first in line to be charged.

For the fifth time, this has nothing to do with right or wrong, or valid punishments for "crimes". If it did, Aaron Swartz would have maybe been on the hook for community service or been banned from the MIT campus. Instead he killed himself rather than fight a multi-million dollar criminal defense or plea bargain for federal prison time.

I am saying forget your armchair lawyer delusions about "your rights" and "due process" and all the imaginary trappings of a justice system. They don't exist anymore, not when it comes to cyber crimes and certainly not cyber crimes affiliated with drug crimes and possible 'other' frowned upon crimes.

See Hedges vs. Obama for where we the people stand. It is an important guidepost. Also, it is probably the best thing to do at this point, people need to file civil suits against the government and force them to defend the stripping of rights, so there is precedence that is not set in a criminal court that has already proven biased against search and seizure, probable cause, due process, scope of authority, etc. Hedges v Obama failed for the most part, but it did bring light to the problem, and may find support in a future less prejudiced courtroom.

Yes, I have read the whole thread.  I guess you don't understand where I'm coming from.  I agree with your concerns about the onset of totalitarian operations and the loss of the rule of law in the Justice department.  However, those are not related to what happens when a case is filed in a situation as has been described here. 

First, there are 'administrative remedies' which might be required to be pursued.   This is where you might have some valid concern about retaliatory prosecution of the innocent.  Second, assuming some time had past and no positive results had been achieved in those processes, the class action lawsuit might be filed.  That would be to compel an action, such as here to return the money as the statutes say is possible.  What that would do is take the action out of the administrative justice nonsense and put it in a courtroom.

You can speculate that the administrative agency would take retaliatory action, sure.  But once the matter was in the hands of a judge they wouldn't look very good if they did that, and there tend to be consequences.  Plus, they have other things to do than harass silkroad people. 

If they didn't even have enough evidence to win a forfeiture action, how the hell could they successfully prosecute a criminal case?

I think the more important issue as to why it might be foolish to file a challenge to the forfeiture is that fee shifting might not be available and the cost of actually pursuing the action might be higher than the value of the seized property.

Obviously, anyone considering such an action should consult an attorney or attorneys with civil and criminal experience and make damn sure they don't have any criminal liability.  One (semi-creative) argument a prosecutor could make is that simply by depositing money on a site the main purpose of which was criminal activity, one is aiding and abetting the criminal enterprise by increasing its liquidity.

I don't see why they'd bother retaliating solely because one filed with the administrative process they set up to handle exactly this kind of situation.  That's why it's there.  Now, if by losing your anonymity, you are therefore exposed to criminal liability, that's another issue, and one nobody should be discussing here, but in private with an attorney.  Nobody could give a valid opinion on potential liability without the specific facts of the individual's situation, which they shouldn't be talking about in public.

Well, ya.  Unless they didn't have any liability from doing so (and do not forget income tax and/or attempts to evade it! in evaluating that!)

I'll tell you what the administrative agencies should do...it would be to take the attitude that "we did really good here, ran a few honey pots and pulled in a whole crew of under-current-defined-law-"wrongdoers" and raked in a bunch of illegally gotten cash.  Say what?  Say there was a lot of honest money there?  Hey, take it back, no problem".

Well...that's what they SHOULD DO....

ROFL....

I think you should definitely move forward with lawsuit. But if you find pro bono lawyer or such organization like ACLU helps you. There are several other that can help.
At least such lawsuit will be part of history and could be sited as precedent. 

I have a feeling that this is true and could be an important precedent.  But it would be nice to hear it discussed from a very experienced constitutional attorney.

Only way I would take this on is if I could relocate myself and all my assets to a country without an extradition treaty, and have my attorney file the suit for me.

Then if it's all cool and a fair hearing you can come home, if they come down on you you're not another digital martyr in a cage.

Good luck whatever you decide.

So again, the lesson to be learned is to keep your bitcoins locally on your own hardware unless you are spending them for some reason. Forget anything online.

Apart from the fake rolex.

Fakes aren't, unto themselves, illegal.  Selling them as the real thing is fraud, though.

Perhaps US law is different, but I would have thought that selling them at all, even if clearly labelled as fakes, would still be a trademark violation.

Edit: I'm not a lawyer, but it would appear to be covered by 15 USC § 1125

Yes, but there is more to it than that.  First off, it has to be fairly obvious that the manufacturer and the seller intended to commit fraud.  A copycat that is obviously a copycat can easily be argued to be a parody product in court, and if the trademark holder never prosues the issue in a US court at all, then the law presumes that the product is not in violation of trademarks.  Granted, this assumes that the trademark owner is aware of said copycat product, but that's their problem.  Until an injuction against the product has occurred, selling them is not illegal; and buying them never is.

EDIT:  There are a number of Chinese knockoff products that have the trademarked name diliberately misspelled, that are often sold in cheap retail places commonly called "dollar stores".  The copycats aren't very good, perhaps deliberately, and anyone who thought the product was the original had to be less than observant.

Things like fake Rolexes are routinely seized.  They don't need an injunction to do that, just a temporary restraining order or, for instance, an ex parte writ of search and seizure.  The counterfeiting scum rarely challenge this after the products are seized, because there is a criminal element to trademark infringement (18 U.S.C § 2320), and the crooks are glad just to get away with whatever profits they earned with their fakes.

It is rarely if ever illegal simply to purchase a counterfeit product.

As for fake Rolexes, the fakes generally do not have the same second hand action as a real Rolex.  A real Rolex has a second hand that is a delight to watch.  The fakes tick along and spaz out and look like shit.

Found similar situation (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/nyregion/liberty-reserve-operators-accused-of-money-laundering.html?_r=1&) with the quote that could be useful.

The point of the separate dilution clause is there doesn't have to be actual confusion:
It is enough that is clearly meant to look like the original, even if it isn't exactly the same, or uses a misspelled name.

The theory of damages for that kind of dilution is that the mere existence of inferior knockoff products tarnishes the name of the original.  For example, Rolex is damaged by the profusion of cheap knockoffs out there, such that someone wearing a real Rolex enjoys less benefit from it because of the presumption that it too is a cheap fake.