Meh. Wisdom comes with age.  If Zhou has made mistakes which have made it possible for someone else to perpetrate this crime (a suggestion I make only because my own children share way too much information with others without thinking about how it might be used), I doubt he'll still be making them by the time he's 30.  Throughout all of this, Zhou has acted with great maturity at some times and like a petulant teenager at others - which is to be expected.  If he's found innocent of any wrong-doing, this isn't going to haunt him in the long term.

Zhou, whether you're innocent or guilty you need to get a lawyer and shut the fuck up.  There is no way in which continuing to post here regarding this incident can possibly benefit you at this time.

You posted the other day that what you feared most from the Bitcoinica clusterfuck was criminal charges which would affect your future.  That's now a distinct possibility, so stop worrying about arguing with people on the internet and spend your time and energy on engaging a lawyer who can help you defend yourself against these accusations.  This isn't a game.

Interpol is just a clearing house which co-ordinates co-operation between the law enforcement agencies of different nations.  Jurisdiction would belong to the nation from which the crime is deemed to have been committed or to have taken place (where there are multiple jurisdictions involved, one place can cede jurisdiction to another).

Jurisdiction doesn't become an issue until a criminal investigation has been conducted.  Mt Gox is the only party so far which acknowledges having filed a police report.  I suspect that the release of this information will prompt people to file reports with the appropriate computer crime units in their own countries (I know one person had already reported the Bitcoinica hacks to the DoJ in the US).  It's those law enforcement agencies who'll determine if any charges are laid and where.

It would certainly be wise for Zhou to retain a lawyer at this point.

So are you saying that you used a different email when you sold the LR for your friend?

How would a hacker benefit from using the SJ email to have a wire sent to your bank account?


Judge me is intended to operate as a mediation service in civil matters.  It's not intended to handle criminal matters such as embezzlement.

Zhou admitted on here the other day that he sold a large amount of Liberty Reserve following the hack - people had already noticed the transactions and asked him about them.  He said he did it "for a friend".

It's good to see the exchanges co-operating with each other for the benefit of the community.

While it's obvious that users won't get their funds back any time soon, if at all, at least people now have a clearer idea of what really went down.  

Make sure you let us know the incident number when you file that police report.

"The law" being an internet petition?

http://www.change.org/petitions/bitcoinexpress-have-him-arrested

LULZ.

If you think she's done something criminal, sack up and file a police report.  You're embarrassing yourself if you believe anyone's going to take someone who starts internet petitions seriously.

Does someone with a reddit account want to let this guy know what's going on.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/x4h2o/has_anyone_had_any_dealings_with/

Same here.  You only need to identify yourself for threshold deposits (ie, those over $10k) and that's a recent requirement.

I was thinking more along the lines of the guy who wanted the scanned ID using it to open accounts with other exchanges and/or bank accounts.

At this point we don't know what has led to the bank reviewing activity on Intersango's account.  Could be related to this.  Could be something totally separate.  It's inevitable that sooner or later one of the exchanges is going to get caught up in a serious money laundering investigation.  The question is which one and when.  Anyone who has an axe to grind against Bitcoin or a particular exchange can make an an anonymous report accusing exchanges of money laundering and it's going to get followed up just like anonymous tip-offs about tax evasion get followed up.

Intersango's bank is reviewing activity on their account.  Current estimate for completion of that process is one week but I guess that will depend a lot on what the bank finds.

No matter which exchange you choose, you need to understand the risk that your funds could be frozen by third parties at any time.

Good find Phin.  It may or may not have anything to do with the current review of Intersango's account, but it proves beyond doubt that people are stupid enough to publicly post stuff which links exchanges to money laundering.  Looks like the guy might have been using the ID of his "customers" to open bank/exchange accounts. (who in the hell would be stupid enough to send a scan of their ID to someone purporting to be an online drug dealer?).


Hi Metro Bank.  I ordered drugs from some guy on the internet and he hasn't sent them.  I paid the money into one of your accounts.  Please help me get my money  back.  kthnxbye.

Indeed, these have never been secret.  For that matter, Colin's contact details are not secret either. 

I'd seriously suggest that you find a new lawyer.  Yours seems unable to put together a business letter to you, the client - I wouldn't entrust them with writing an important letter to someone else.  Their paralegals are apparently totally inept when it comes to research, too.

Which is something that's happened to other exchanges multiple times in the past and been sorted out.  Whatever the bank's going to do, it's going to do in it's own time-frame and there's not much that Intersango or its users can do about that.

Sort of.  When the DoJ went after the online gambling providers, they went after the payment processors.  People's money was tied up for ages because the gambling providers didn't have enough reserves on hand to directly pay out people's balances (at least one of them had been co-mingling funds, but that's another story) - the money was in the bank accounts of the payment processors and those were frozen.  While many users did receive their deposits back, it demonstrated the extent to which payment processors are a weak link in the chain.

While it's possible that a regulator might choose to go after one particular exchange, it's just as likely that they'd do what they did with the online gambling drama and go after everyone at once.  There's no question that a sub-set of customers on every exchange are going to be using the exchange to launder money, evade taxes or commit other financial offences.  The offshore poker providers weren't actually breaking any laws in the jurisdictions in which they were licensed.  It pretty much came down to the DoJ having the power to disrupt their business indefinitely if they didn't play ball.  The Bitcoin exchanges are tiny compared to the online poker providers and its unlikely they'd win in a showdown with the US DoJ.

Loup is right that there are a number of US agencies which could really fuck up an exchange's shit pretty much regardless of where that exchange is located.  I just believe that once that particular can of worms is opened they are more likely to go after everyone than after just one exchange.

I'm not sure what the fines are for failure to comply with AML/KYC requirements in the US.  Here in Australia, the fine for either not reporting a transaction as required or reporting it late is up to $1.1 million for an individual and up to $22 million for a company.  A single transaction could have multiple reporting requirements attached to it, so you can get hit with more than one fine for a single transaction.  Big banks might be able to absorb those kinds of fines, but I doubt there's a Bitcoin exchange on the planet which can afford them at this time.

Just like conventional financial institutions are constantly bombarded with fraud and hacking attempts, the same is going to be true in the Bitcoin world. I suspect that many people grossly underestimate how frequent those attempts are. It's always going to be a matter of trying to stay one step ahead of the game. 

More likely someone contacted the bank and told them that people were using it to launder funds, which immediately obligates the bank to investigate activity on the account. 

There's no "massive world-wide investigation" going on.  While it's possible that various international agencies will investigate some of the issues related to the Bitcoinica clusterfuck, it still won't be a "massive" investigation.  As businesses go, Bitcoinica is a piddly little one and it's total debts appear to be just over USD 1 million.  They may well end up being the first Bitcoin related business investigated for financial offences such as facilitating money laundering, facilitating tax evasion, etc but I can't think of any exchange which isn't at risk for that - let's face it, the Bitcoins which pass through Silk Road are being cashed out somewhere.  In fact, if the authorities choose to go down that route, they may do exactly what they did in regard to online gambling and hit everyone at once, shutting down the flow of funds.

There's not a legitimate bank on the planet which would confirm to outsiders that they're investigating activity on one of their customer's accounts.  Depending on the reason for the investigation, it could be seriously illegal to reveal that even to the customer concerned.

Intersango had previously posted that certain forms of withdrawal would be unavailable between 26 and 30 July.

It's not really clear whether their Metro bank account is now in a state of total limbo until the investigation into their account activity is completed.


Or someone who's really pissed off over the Bitcoinica clusterfuck has decided to cause them as much grief as possible.

It's not a technical issue.


https://support.intersango.com/