As far as I remember aurumxchange froze the funds due to AML (?)
As Zhou claims the frozen funds belonged to a friend on whose behalf he was selling LR, I suspect that AurumXchange might not be willing to release the funds to either Zhou or to whoever ends up handling Bitcoinica refunds. Those funds probably aren't going anywhere until their source can be established as legitimate and their true ownership determined. Unfortunately, my friend (the source of legitimate LR funds) does not wish to be involved in this disaster because he is supposed to be irrelevant. He's fine with providing information to the authorities, but definitely not to the Bitcoin community after he has read this thread. I hope everyone can understand that. We have enough threats and attacks among ourselves and no one is going to co-operate with the community in this matter. |
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The Chinese police cannot be trusted, and you know that. If you don't make public all the information you have about this "chen jianhai", we will have to assume that he's just a made up person, and that you are the criminal.
You can assume anything you want. I can't satisfy you every time, sorry. I have co-operated with all formal legal requests so far, and they all facilitate, not delay, the refunding process to Bitcoinica customers. What benefit will you have if his information is public? Visit him in person and take a look at his relic collection? If it's not for violence I'll be surprised. If you think I have legal obligation to reveal someone's privacy, ask your lawyer to talk to me. My only priority right now is to refund Bitcoinica customers, which should have finished 2 months ago. Doing anything else will not help this process. |
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This is the 20k BTC I was talking about, I guess it was total. Zhou, you had 15k BTC transferred to the lawyer, what about the other 5k BTC? Surely the 5k BTC you were providing that you said wasn't connected to the theft wasn't the other 5k BTC your were talking about. If it is, this doesn't bode well for your case. I have sent 15,000 BTC to an address provided by Patrick Murck.
He or one of his clients will later confirm the receipt of the funds and also the escrow/representation relationship.
Thanks Zhou. It is a far cry from the 40K BTC / 40K USD stolen, but it is a start. Can you please share the transaction id? Status: 4/unconfirmed, broadcast through 8 nodes Date: 29/07/12 19:54 To: 1FqqBZnemCrcCDbz57Nk7LHLCN42hCHXEV Debit: -15000.00 BTC Net amount: -15000.00 BTC Transaction ID: b87922d693b3d3b66da385592a07147cf0b8f31f78057ebb212eb60745b58cf9 Currently I can recover at most 20,000 BTC and $140,000 from Chen Jianhai. If AurumXchange can reimburse the laundering fees for the Mt. Gox code (about $2,320.31) then it will be even better. AFAIK he used Blockchain's mixing service, but we don't expect the fees to be returned because it's impossible to identify the funds anyway. (Also Blockchain has offered a 0.5% bonus for those people who facilitated the laundering.) The average price he sold at should be around $7.2, including the exchanging fees. At this price point we are short $42,000. I'll see if it's possible to get this from Chen Jianhai, but quite unlikely. I doubt the effectiveness of Chinese police as well, because he's very likely to have "Guanxi" to deal with his financial activities (which I can't decide whether legal or not). In any case, he has been acting in a very naive way and I assume he still has freedom today because of his guanxi, not technical sophistication. I'm not sure about Bitcoinica's real solvency before the hack at the moment. The information is insufficient for me to give a definitive answer. My 5,000 BTC is entirely separate from the hack, but it more or less covers a large part of the shortfall. I'm trying to squeeze funds to see if I can compensate more personally, but I'm not in a very good financial condition. If NameTerrific is profitable in the future, I will be happy to contribute more personal funds to help Bitcoinica customers. #1 - are you talking about the hacker and his wife's info or Chris Heaslip. I find it weird his credentials were in the lastpass account affiliated with Bitcoinica when he has no known affiliation. Perhaps you can shed some light on that. #2 - you are pissed at Aurumxchange for holding your funds... we will get back to that later. There seems to be a lot of confusion around when the code was leaked and where. Perhaps you can shed some light on the details of the leak, which are muddy to most of the people trying to get to the bottom of this. Documentation of when the leak occurred (other than the first thread post here) is what we are looking for. That email was protected with my weakest password that I reused everywhere and even shared with some other people. I didn't have to protect that email at all because it's meant to be semi-sockpuppet anyway.
He had access to source code after genjix released it.
Chris Heaslip's Mt. Gox account was stored alongside Wendon's in the LastPass. Obviously he didn't know which one had more money so he logged in to both.
I know a lot of his personal information (especially his and his wife's bank accounts and address), and I threatened to report to police if he didn't agree to refund.
I don't know where you got all the misleading information from.
What you mean misleading, it's from YOUR post here! Mine interpretation, but the facts are yours. The source code was leaked after the hack as far we know. No one in this forum knew about the source code prior to genjix posting it and then deleting it. Now this hacker dude gets off easily because he sends money back? Why don't you file a police report now? The hacker didn't steal from me. Why should I file a police report? I'm obviously more pissed off because of AurumXchange, and people like you, rather than the hacker or Bitcoinica. The source code is the direct cause for the hack, because the LastPass master password was not redacted. The hack happened on July 12, and the source code was released a few days before that. Back to the AurumXchange comment as #2 above. Here you are authorizing AurumXchange to release funds to BitInstant's lawyer. It seems to me like you are admitting that the funds at AurumXchange were directly related to the hack. You originally claimed they were for a "friend" but it now appears the funds are directly linked to the latest theft. Please comment on this as it does not look well and you have basically admitted that the funds were related to the theft. After Patrick Murck or his clients confirm the receipt of the funds, I will be working on getting the fiat part from Chen Jianhai.
It appears that he stored the vast majority of the money in his offshore bank account in Isle of Man (not Jersey, I correct myself here). It should be with Barclays International. He converted some Liberty Reserve dollars to Chinese Yuan and I can get it through Alipay, and I'll simply pay that part off with my own USD savings. (I can deal with the currency controls later. My family has 5 people, and each person can access up to US$50,000 worth of foreign exchange transactions every year.)
Also he is holding some euros due to the exchange he was using didn't have enough reserves for USD. Anyway I have access to "interbank rates" so it shouldn't be a problem as well. Considering the rising EUR/USD the USD value can be a little bit more.
I assure that I won't keep a single cent from any funds transferred to me. Also I authorize AurumXchange to send the funds directly to Patrick Murck (after he provides the bank account details) so that there will be less hassle in handling large amounts of fiat money.
Perhaps I am interpreting this all wrong. Please Zhou if you are innocent, explain the above discrepancies. Chris Heaslip was a nominee accountant of Core Credit and Bitcoinica Consultancy in New Zealand. His verified Mt. Gox account was stored in LastPass. I didn't add it, but I believed that Bitcoinica wanted to have a personal account and a corporate account for use in Bitcoinica. I authorize AurumXchange to transfer funds only because they might be uncomfortable to return the funds to me due to their suspicion. I never admit the funds are stolen. I'm just trying to reach an agreement with them that even IF the funds are stolen, they are still doing the right thing. And there's nothing wrong for them to send the funds to Bitcoinica either, if I'm proven to be innocent, because of my explicit authorization. This case, they don't have to hold the funds forever and the liquidity of both parties can be restored. I'm on my iPad so it's very difficult to find the source code thing. It started with a paste bin and also a Reddit post. |
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Justice is getting the money back, and extra at this point.
I respectfully disagree. Not exactly sending the right message is it. "Hey hackers, these jokers at the bitcointalk forum are pushovers! Hack the shit out them (several times), but as long as you concoct some barely feasible story and hand back a portion of what you took, you get to keep the rest with no consequences!" Yeah, awesome. Exactly. Mybitcoin should've been the first and the last. I had no money in Bitcoinica (and I consider everyone who had to be naïve) but I strongly want Bitcoin to succeed. Thus, my motivation is in making sure scammers stop their bullying of my playground. This tells a lot about your attitude. I hope it is a hindsight and you didn't assume Bitcoinica to be a scammer's product when it was launched. I'm sure Bitcoinica itself has helped the community to grow (by providing a way to hedge and facilitate trading through the interest system), otherwise I wouldn't have been involved in the first place. The community should encourage the creation of similar products with better security in place (especially crypto-based security, like segregated accounts). |
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I believe so. He handled this matter very professionally and I'm going to continue recovering the fiat money from the hackers.
Zhou, Since the Intersango team is actively blocking the recovery process, can we convince you to take care of the claims process as you originally offered? You can calculate everything, and submit the information to Tihan / Patrick Murck for verification and actual payout. I can do that, provided anyone from Bitcoinica can send me the data (claims platform isn't available any more) and also the written authorization. With the authorization the fund holding parties can get the frozen funds from Mt. Gox as well. Also I suggest you to arrange this with Patrick Murck because handling claims may have serious legal implications. |
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I have sent 15,000 BTC to an address provided by Patrick Murck.
He or one of his clients will later confirm the receipt of the funds and also the escrow/representation relationship.
The funds were sent to the Bitcoin address as requested: http://blockchain.info/address/1FqqBZnemCrcCDbz57Nk7LHLCN42hCHXEV. Thank you Zhou for your cooperation. I was asked by some of the creditors and interest holders in Bitcoinica, LP to broker this transaction. Steps are being taken to safely transfer the funds to Bitcoinica, LP so they may be distributed in a fair and expeditious manner to claimants. Thank you, Patrick Murck Principal | Engage Legal PLLC I'm just going to comment here to say "Yes, this really is our attorney at BitInstant, and he is a trustworthy guy". Either Patrick, myself or Charlie will post here in public once the funds have been turned over to the appropriate entity, but for now they are in safe hands with a licensed attorney (Patrick) and any creditors should feel free to call up his firm at Engage Legal if they have any concerns. I believe so. He handled this matter very professionally and I'm going to continue recovering the fiat money from the hackers. |
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The simplest explanation is that you didn't expect that someone who bought LR from you, the transactions you've so far claimed are completely unrelated and "for a friend", would match up the LR account to information released much later by aurumxchange.
So, I have done a deal "for a friend" on AurumXchange using my own account. And I have also done a deal "for a friend" on QQ using a friend's account? Both happened before I had any clue of the investigation. I did the deals, but all in much larger amounts with my own account. |
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1. Look at the amount. I said I deal in upwards of $10,000, why would I sent $300+? I don't have to do that transaction even if I'm trying to launder money. 2. There's a "Private Payment" feature at Liberty Reserve, and it costs only $0.75. Am I that silly to save $0.75 and reveal the identity? At least I should use different accounts right? It doesn't fit in my thinking at all. So the screenshot is either fake, or taken by someone who has actually dealt with Chen Jianhai. |
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Please, be rational.
Of course... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95795.msg1062656#msg1062656
Currently I can recover at most 20,000 BTC and $140,000 from Chen Jianhai.
(...)
AFAIK he used Blockchain's mixing service, but we don't expect the fees to be returned because it's impossible to identify the funds anyway. (Also Blockchain has offered a 0.5% bonus for those people who facilitated the laundering.)
The average price he sold at should be around $7.2, including the exchanging fees. At this price point we are short $42,000. I'll see if it's possible to get this from Chen Jianhai, but quite unlikely. I doubt the effectiveness of Chinese police as well, because he's very likely to have "Guanxi" to deal with his financial activities (which I can't decide whether legal or not). In any case, he has been acting in a very naive way and I assume he still has freedom today because of his guanxi, not technical sophistication.
(...)
"We" means community? Who is short $42,000? The thief is never "short" of any money. It must be Bitcoinica customers. |
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I'm trying to squeeze funds to see if I can compensate more personally, but I'm not in a very good financial condition. If NameTerrific is profitable in the future, I will be happy to contribute more personal funds to help Bitcoinica customers.
Look at this liar! I have heavily invested in Bitcoin (I purchased one 1,000 BTC gold coin from Casascius and will keep it for as long as I can).
1,000 BTC is definitely not enough to compensate the shortfall is Bitcoinica still insolvent. Also it won't make my financial condition any better. My tuition fees are A$30,000 per year. By my estimation I won't be able to survive without any income until mid-2013. Also I planned to invest majority of my bank savings into Australian shares (Telstra is climbing... :-( ), and it seems that this plan has to be pulled off as well. (I made the plan when I received about $10,000 from Bitcoinica every month. The salary lasted for only 2 months.) We have noticed that it is much more effective when you target friends and family. Xavier is not going to be happy with you Zhou. This is my FINAL WARNING. Send to: 1HJc5VLMpFCQJg2maP9wGuCo3NAgwaCJQj Maria. 17,000 BTC LOL. A true friend believes in your integrity and supports you even when others don't. He knows my situation well enough that he can completely make his own judgement. Also, you have never been "effective" in scamming me, where does the "more" come from? EDIT: I have cried twice in phone calls with a friend (not Xavier btw), because of the pressure from this community. I told him everything and I was highly motivated to continue with my life. I almost wanted to grab the money from Chen Jianhai and run away, but he told me not to.Thinking is not the same as doing, but it still tells a lot. I hope the "he is clearly innocent" posts authors will keep this in mind. I can't say you stole it, but so far it's still the most reasonable explanation, IMO. Kudos for returning the money though. Yes I agree. I'm not sure how others will react in similar situations. My only feeling at that time was like: "The community is so unfair, and they assumed I'm the thief. I should probably get the money so that the unnecessary pain and psychological insecurity can be compensated for." The problem can be quite philosophical, but I can imagine a thought experiment: If the society punishes a thief in extreme ways, will the thief actually "deserve" what he has obtained? If the person is actually innocent, will he be determined to become a thief to get compensation? I have heard a story: A kindergarten started charging a fine for parents who are late for picking up their children, in a hope that these parents will have a disincentive to arrive late in the future. However, after a while, the kindergarten discovered that the number of parents who are late everyday becomes even higher. A psychologist has analyzed that these parents feel less guilty when they face a fine, because they believed that they had already paid for their mistakes, and they can continue making such mistakes as long as the fines are affordable. So intuitively I feel that the more the community criticizes me, the more I deserve to actually take possession of the funds and run away (because they penalized me like I did steal the funds, and I didn't). Please don't take these words at face value. I'm just discovering what I'm actually thinking and feeling. |
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I'll definitely co-operate with any police investigation by providing such information. However releasing the information in public isn't a good choice.
Even though as a community we can determine Chen Jianhai to be the hacker, he hasn't been proven guilty legally yet. That will only happen when he faces a criminal charge.
Also consider the irrationality of some community members I should refrain from posting anything that can potentially induce violence and personal attacks. It won't be good for Bitcoin's image and legal status (if you concern about it at all). I'll have to take into account my personal security as well.
I have his real information only because we were working on a legitimate business. He was introduced to me by a friend who works in a Shenzhen-based information security company (which does penetration tests for large corporations and government agencies). I have never considered Chen Jianhai as a "friend".
So who's this new friend, does he have a name and a phone number? edit: typo He is definitely unrelated with the theft. It's a basic ethical requirement for a professional security specialist to responsibly disclose vulnerabilities and not to take advantage of them. At this point I consider his information to be irrelevant from our investigation. I was just telling you how I knew Chen Jianhai. I didn't meet him in some scammers' QQ group. |
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After Patrick Murck or his clients confirm the receipt of the funds, I will be working on getting the fiat part from Chen Jianhai.
It appears that he stored the vast majority of the money in his offshore bank account in Isle of Man (not Jersey, I correct myself here). It should be with Barclays International. He converted some Liberty Reserve dollars to Chinese Yuan and I can get it through Alipay, and I'll simply pay that part off with my own USD savings. (I can deal with the currency controls later. My family has 5 people, and each person can access up to US$50,000 worth of foreign exchange transactions every year.)
Also he is holding some euros due to the exchange he was using didn't have enough reserves for USD. Anyway I have access to "interbank rates" so it shouldn't be a problem as well. Considering the rising EUR/USD the USD value can be a little bit more.
I assure that I won't keep a single cent from any funds transferred to me. Also I authorize AurumXchange to send the funds directly to Patrick Murck (after he provides the bank account details) so that there will be less hassle in handling large amounts of fiat money.
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I'm trying to squeeze funds to see if I can compensate more personally, but I'm not in a very good financial condition. If NameTerrific is profitable in the future, I will be happy to contribute more personal funds to help Bitcoinica customers.
Look at this liar! I have heavily invested in Bitcoin (I purchased one 1,000 BTC gold coin from Casascius and will keep it for as long as I can).
1,000 BTC is definitely not enough to compensate the shortfall is Bitcoinica still insolvent. Also it won't make my financial condition any better. My tuition fees are A$30,000 per year. By my estimation I won't be able to survive without any income until mid-2013. Also I planned to invest majority of my bank savings into Australian shares (Telstra is climbing... :-( ), and it seems that this plan has to be pulled off as well. (I made the plan when I received about $10,000 from Bitcoinica every month. The salary lasted for only 2 months.) We have noticed that it is much more effective when you target friends and family. Xavier is not going to be happy with you Zhou. This is my FINAL WARNING. Send to: 1HJc5VLMpFCQJg2maP9wGuCo3NAgwaCJQj Maria. 17,000 BTC LOL. A true friend believes in your integrity and supports you even when others don't. He knows my situation well enough that he can completely make his own judgement. Also, you have never been "effective" in scamming me, where does the "more" come from? EDIT: I have cried twice in phone calls with a friend (not Xavier btw), because of the pressure from this community. I told him everything and I was highly motivated to continue with my life. I almost wanted to grab the money from Chen Jianhai and run away, but he told me not to. |
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please make all the information about chen jianhai public as soon as all the money is out of his hands. Especially any personal information such as home address or business addresses. Also all your correspondances with him, especially emails where he incriminates himself. Any chance you recorded any of your conversations with him? If not make sure you do it from now on, and make sure you get a recorded "confession" (if needed try to trick him to go through exactly how he stole the money).
I'll definitely co-operate with any police investigation by providing such information. However releasing the information in public isn't a good choice. Even though as a community we can determine Chen Jianhai to be the hacker, he hasn't been proven guilty legally yet. That will only happen when he faces a criminal charge. Also consider the irrationality of some community members I should refrain from posting anything that can potentially induce violence and personal attacks. It won't be good for Bitcoin's image and legal status (if you concern about it at all). I'll have to take into account my personal security as well. I have his real information only because we were working on a legitimate business. He was introduced to me by a friend who works in a Shenzhen-based information security company (which does penetration tests for large corporations and government agencies). I have never considered Chen Jianhai as a "friend". |
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I'm trying to squeeze funds to see if I can compensate more personally, but I'm not in a very good financial condition. If NameTerrific is profitable in the future, I will be happy to contribute more personal funds to help Bitcoinica customers.
Look at this liar! I have heavily invested in Bitcoin (I purchased one 1,000 BTC gold coin from Casascius and will keep it for as long as I can).
1,000 BTC is definitely not enough to compensate the shortfall if Bitcoinica still insolvent. Also it won't make my financial condition any better. My tuition fees are A$30,000 per year. By my estimation I won't be able to survive without any income until mid-2013. Also I planned to invest majority of my bank savings into Australian shares (Telstra is climbing... :-( ), and it seems that this plan has to be pulled off as well. (I made the plan when I received about $10,000 from Bitcoinica every month. The salary lasted for only 2 months.) |
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Only guilty people fear the law.
I will bet you that everyone involved in this fiasco has at least arguably broken at least one law. Heck, the average American commits three felonies a day, and nobody is really sure how to run a Bitcoin exchange 100% legally. I guess this is a major reason that no one has filed a police report yet. The police is likely to question the legality of the exchange itself. Singapore has one of the least strict financial laws in the world and Bitcoinica has not meet the minimum amount for compulsory licensing of a stored value facility operator (only companies holding over S$20m need license), so holding money is fine. For exchange activities, it depends on whether Bitcoin is considered as a commodity or currency. Both Mt. Gox and Bitcoinica specifically define Bitcoin as a virtual commodity. The commodity market operator in Singapore has a much lower qualifying criteria than other financial products. If it's commodity then it's not a big problem either. For money transfer activities, almost everyone can easily operate a money changer or remittance service provider in Singapore with minimal capital. Also, Singapore doesn't declare any currency as "illegal". It's legal to use any currency other than Singapore Dollar provided both parties agree to (i.e. you can't refuse accepting Singapore Dollar in Singapore). I have carefully analyzed Singapore financial laws concerning Bitcoinica's operation, and even though I can't say it's completely legal (because I'm not a lawyer anyway), it shouldn't break the laws seriously. I'm not sure about Bitcoinica's 2nd stage of operation in New Zealand though. The dispute resolution scheme has been a debate point. |
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I have sent 15,000 BTC to an address provided by Patrick Murck.
He or one of his clients will later confirm the receipt of the funds and also the escrow/representation relationship.
Thanks Zhou. It is a far cry from the 40K BTC / 40K USD stolen, but it is a start. Can you please share the transaction id? Status: 4/unconfirmed, broadcast through 8 nodes Date: 29/07/12 19:54 To: 1FqqBZnemCrcCDbz57Nk7LHLCN42hCHXEV Debit: -15000.00 BTC Net amount: -15000.00 BTC Transaction ID: b87922d693b3d3b66da385592a07147cf0b8f31f78057ebb212eb60745b58cf9 Currently I can recover at most 20,000 BTC and $140,000 from Chen Jianhai. If AurumXchange can reimburse the laundering fees for the Mt. Gox code (about $2,320.31) then it will be even better. AFAIK he used Blockchain's mixing service, but we don't expect the fees to be returned because it's impossible to identify the funds anyway. (Also Blockchain has offered a 0.5% bonus for those people who facilitated the laundering.) The average price he sold at should be around $7.2, including the exchanging fees. At this price point we are short $42,000. I'll see if it's possible to get this from Chen Jianhai, but quite unlikely. I doubt the effectiveness of Chinese police as well, because he's very likely to have "Guanxi" to deal with his financial activities (which I can't decide whether legal or not). In any case, he has been acting in a very naive way and I assume he still has freedom today because of his guanxi, not technical sophistication. I'm not sure about Bitcoinica's real solvency before the hack at the moment. The information is insufficient for me to give a definitive answer. My 5,000 BTC is entirely separate from the hack, but it more or less covers a large part of the shortfall. I'm trying to squeeze funds to see if I can compensate more personally, but I'm not in a very good financial condition. If NameTerrific is profitable in the future, I will be happy to contribute more personal funds to help Bitcoinica customers. |
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I have sent 15,000 BTC to an address provided by Patrick Murck.
He or one of his clients will later confirm the receipt of the funds and also the escrow/representation relationship.
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So you'd rather cross your fingers and hope no authorities uncover your email address and it's contents (subpoena google) than file a police complaint and have it on file and perhaps assist in catching the real culprits? Because they involved your account in the crime and also, according to you (Zhou Tong) used it for credit card fraud. People file police reports for much, much smaller thefts. Insurance companies have people file reports as a sign of honesty. Lots of reasons to file a report.
The hacker didn't steal from me. Why should I file a police report?
The credit card fraud isn't for me. He used someone else card to buy stuff and ship to a freight forwarder. And he entered that email address for the order. Can you allow me to get the money back from him before reporting to the police? Bitcoinica customers are clearly the real victims here. |
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This is why I don't believe Zhou.
Zhou claimed:
That his business associate stole his password when he signed up on a website.
That his business associate had access to the source code prior to anyone else.
That his business associate knew who was Chris Heaslip!
That his business associate quickly decides to return funds when confronted!
Now replace the business associate with Zhou.. And it makes a lot of sense.
He had access to the email, which he havent used in a while.
Knew the password for lastpass and the source code.
Knew all the people in bitcoinica.
And of course had access to the stolen funds.
This is the evidence just from Zhou, not aurumxchange.
That email was protected with my weakest password that I reused everywhere and even shared with some other people. I didn't have to protect that email at all because it's meant to be semi-sockpuppet anyway. He had access to source code after genjix released it. Chris Heaslip's Mt. Gox account was stored alongside Wendon's in the LastPass. Obviously he didn't know which one had more money so he logged in to both. I know a lot of his personal information (especially his and his wife's bank accounts and address), and I threatened to report to police if he didn't agree to refund. I don't know where you got all the misleading information from. You shared the password with other people? To an account that had the ability to withdrawal the loot? Doesn't that sound like something you should have mentioned to your loyal customers and the people who bought this business from you? A "sockpuppet" account??? I created that throwaway account to test a vulnerability. I have at most 10 BTC in that account. It's my personal freedom to create an account with reused password right? And did I harm anyone? Chen Jianhai could simply register another email and steal all the money. And we wouldn't proceed with investigation like today. Thank god he used my account and left all the evidence there, otherwise Bitcoinica users will never see the money again! |
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