Going after Trendon Shavers, Pirateat40, BTCST

[bg002h]

I'll chip in my ill gotten BTC2 when you all are ready.

[mobodick]

Sadly at this time we have reason to believe fraud occurred.

If Pirate provides evidence that he was actually operating a passthrough to Zeek, will you still hold him responsible for returning your coins?

I can not speak for the group. But I would feel a whole lot better about it if he was tricked by Zeek rather than running a full ponzi. However if he collects back from Zeek he would need to forward that onto account holders.

You think someone like pirate could be 'tricked' into a ponzi?

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If he was involved with Zeek he would be fully aware that it must be a ponzi.
Only naive people with no experience can think that a ponzi is not a ponzi.

[P4man]

How about you do a big public apology first to all the people that warned you, but that you have been shouting down and insulting for over 6 months and more importantly,  to the people who trusted your judgement, but that you misled by pretending you knew more than you really did?

The same goes for the rest of the pirate promo team who are now all pretending to be only victims fighting for the righteous cause.

[Shadow383]

How about you do a big public apology first to all the people that warned you, but that you have been shouting down and insulting for over 6 months and more importantly,  to the people who trusted your judgement, but that you misled by pretending you knew more than you really did?

The same goes for the rest of the pirate promo team who are now all pretending to be only victims fighting for the righteous cause.

+ graham's number.

[Puppet]

Also was it clear Madoff was a ponzi? He tricked a lot of people...

QFT. Thats the guy who is going to uncover what Pirate really did ROFL.

[DutchBrat]

Also was it clear Madoff was a ponzi? He tricked a lot of people...

QFT. Thats the guy who is going to uncover what Pirate really did ROFL.

Well like we have said before the FBI hopefully will take on the case and investigate it in detail. Also hopefully some or all of the coins will be returned.

Shouldn't the ICCC be the place to go with this ?

The Internet Crime Complaint Center. Co-sponsored by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C)

http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

And seeing as people want to file individual complaints as well, how about setting up a locked forum thread where you guys post all the info you currently have on 'pirateat40'

[mobodick]

Many people seemed to give him a lot of money once everyone started telling ponzi.

That kind of makes sense, since once you know it is a ponzi you can figure a way to try to profit from it, such as by sending in lots more lambs to the slaughter, whereas when you didn't know what it was it was maybe harder to see why (or even how) he would ever give you any of your money back...

-MarkM-

Part of this IMO is that once people yelled ponzi people wanted safe investments and bought insrued pirate stuff. However it turns out most of the insurance money was also sent to pirate :/

You see, this is where those people were wrong.
If people yell ponzi people should GTFO of the deal, not seek some insured ponzi stuff.
But in those situations usually greed takes over and the FIRST thing greed does is throw reason out the window.
Or would you claim that you honestly thought there was not a huge huge risk that pirate would not pay (and that is not a rhetorical question)?

[zyk]

1.5-3% per day isn't unusual for an online ponzi scheme (zeek managed to get to ~$600m and last over a year offering rates like that).
What interests me though is you saying he paid out more than he got in - what details do you have for that?

Block chain evidence, and no at times it seems he dipped into negative value however at the end it is clear he was up. Many people seemed to give him a lot of money once everyone started telling ponzi.

I agree we do not need to know what happened before we file a complain and we might not ever know. However collect evidence just seemed like the right first step. Part of this step is who is owed what and to see if the want to file a complaint as well. Sadly many large PPT operators at this time seem to not want to join us. Some slowly are talking with us however.

Thanks.

Also some smart people still think pirate had nothing to do with a ponzi. You really can at times make more than 1% a day just doing arb. Honestly pirate could have been something else.
Anyway we want to get evidence for the parts we are missing to get a better picture. Also it would help if pirate would just open up and talk.
Thanks.

The first thing we would like to do is find out exactly what pirate was doing.

Thats easy. He took your coins and ran.
Whatever Pirate did with your coins, "invest", sell, gamble, coke or hookers doesnt matter one yota. Why dont you focus on verifying his ID and filing a formal complaint?

There are powerful people on this forum, who nor want pirate@40 to be located, neither to see his uncooked accounting made public -- thats why---and thats why it takes 6 weeks

for Goat to open this thread (going after Trendon Shavers) and now to put even that 3 steps back to the  closed one (aggregating data) and IRC and thats why now, even as a

Trendon Shavers will be identified, nor proper accounting, neither the operator of BCST will be found.

It is good to hear that people are making "arrangments" to go after Pirate. But all in all. I'm not sure much will come from it.

By all means put Good money into chasing after  bad money. Perhaps you might turn a profit in all of this. Well some PPTs obviously have (i think).

Bitcoin has moved into the strong hands. Get over it. Stop trusting scumbags on the internet to hold your damn bitcoins.

Read my posts in bitcoinmax before they are all becoming censored like in here and you can again see in the rear - view mirror :

"Caution - Objects might be nearer than they appear"

the first step should be to file a complaint imo.  The sooner the better. Let them do their job.

We are doing this as a group and this is the way they wanted to do it.

@Goat ...are you allowed to tell us who is ment by "we" and "they" ?

Cheers Zyk

[P4man]

I'll chip in my ill gotten BTC2 when you all are ready.

You do realize the first thing Goat will consult a lawyer about, is his OWN liability for promoting and facilitating a fraudulent ponzi operation, right? Why do you think he is still pretending its unsure if pirate really ran a ponzi? Goats first concern is not getting your coins back, its keeping his own ass out of trouble, and if that would mean letting Pirate off the hook, you can bet those 2BTC that he will.

[mobodick]

Sadly at this time we have reason to believe fraud occurred.

If Pirate provides evidence that he was actually operating a passthrough to Zeek, will you still hold him responsible for returning your coins?

I can not speak for the group. But I would feel a whole lot better about it if he was tricked by Zeek rather than running a full ponzi. However if he collects back from Zeek he would need to forward that onto account holders.

You think someone like pirate could be 'tricked' into a ponzi?

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If he was involved with Zeek he would be fully aware that it must be a ponzi.
Only naive people with no experience can think that a ponzi is not a ponzi.

I honestly do not know how zeeks operated. Also was it clear Madoff was a ponzi? He tricked a lot of people...

It's not important HOW zeek operated, it is important that they had unrealistic returns that are only possible if something is not straight.
Name a form of 'business' that claims such returns and is NOT a ponzi, please.
About bernie, a lot of the unknowing and unexperienced people invested through peripheral routes. They could be kept in the dark.
People dealing (almost) directly with him and who were in the money business absolutely had to know that it was a ponzi.
The only thing they didn't know was when it would bust.
The only respect madoff got in the banking community is from how long he could keep it running.
Of course they would all deny they thought it was a ponzi, but do you realy think big player banks and hedge funds are this naive? They'd be out of business in 2 days if they hired people that stupid.

[Frankie]

Assuming this was a ponzi he has no where close to 500,000 BTC he claims.

I hate to be crass, but no shit, Sherlock.

The fact that he likely has only a fraction of the deposits is why some have said this effort is throwing good money after bad. I wish the true victims of this scam luck (ie, the people mislead by co-conspirators such as yourself), but please calibrate your expectations.

I think you p4man are either paid by Pirate to try to trick us into this ponzi idea or that you just want to feel right about something cuz your ego needs it.

You've always said you understand Pirate's business model, so I would appreciate some of your expertise here. How does paying people to "trick" them into think it's a Ponzi help Pirate? Keep in mind, these were the same people telling people not to invest and to pull out their funds--for months, in many cases.

[gene]

Many people seemed to give him a lot of money once everyone started telling ponzi.

That kind of makes sense, since once you know it is a ponzi you can figure a way to try to profit from it, such as by sending in lots more lambs to the slaughter, whereas when you didn't know what it was it was maybe harder to see why (or even how) he would ever give you any of your money back...

-MarkM-

Part of this IMO is that once people yelled ponzi people wanted safe investments and bought insrued pirate stuff. However it turns out most of the insurance money was also sent to pirate :/

You see, this is where those people were wrong.
If people yell ponzi people should GTFO of the deal, not seek some insured ponzi stuff.
But in those situations usually greed takes over and the FIRST thing greed does is throw reason out the window.
Or would you claim that you honestly thought there was not a huge huge risk that pirate would not pay (and that is not a rhetorical question)?

He'll cling to the "not proven ponzi" line till the end.

[gene]

I'll chip in my ill gotten BTC2 when you all are ready.

You do realize the first thing Goat will consult a lawyer about, is his OWN liability for promoting and facilitating a fraudulent ponzi operation, right? Why do you think he is still pretending its unsure if pirate really ran a ponzi? Goats first concern is not getting your coins back, its keeping his own ass out of trouble, and if that would mean letting Pirate off the hook, you can bet those 2BTC that he will.

This is for goddamn certain.

[gene]

I don't trust any PPT operators.

Theymos (who admits knowledge of and engagement in fraud) and other forum admins (shills) also helped Pirate and PPT operators by facilitating their promotion and encouraging/stickying Patrick's bogus ratings.

best posts:

How about you do a big public apology first to all the people that warned you, but that you have been shouting down and insulting for over 6 months and more importantly,  to the people who trusted your judgement, but that you misled by pretending you knew more than you really did?

The same goes for the rest of the pirate promo team who are now all pretending to be only victims fighting for the righteous cause.

I'd strongly advise filing complaints with whatever information you already have and adding any extra information you have as it comes in.  The longer it takes before those who can access all sorts of information about Trendon Shavers which this community cannot start investigating, the more opportunity he has to muddy the trail.

I also believe that it if it was legitimate to ask Bitcoin Magazine to distance itself from Matthew, it is equally legitimate to ask the other members of GPUMax to distance themselves from Trendon and to make a public statement regarding his current role in relation to that entity and whether or not GPUMax itself had any exposure to BS&T (we know that they shared a wallet, but we have no idea to what extent the businesses may have crossed over in other ways).

I doubt very much that no-one closely associated with Trendon knew what he was doing.  It's likely some were complicit in his fraud.

Will this auspicious collection of righteous souls also be going after the Pass Through operators who made a tidy little profit shilling for pirate, handling the recruitment of his victims, performing the actual transfer of his victim's funds into his scheme and now all want to so handily hide behind his skirt and claim no culpability?

Seems somehow disingenuous for anyone involved as a co-conspirator to get involved in an effort to track down the bad guy. Of course, OJ claimed he was hunting for his ex-wife's killer while still wiping the warm blood off his gloves, so I guess nothing should surprise us any more.

And if this particular clown car actually starts rolling... you may want to check your own records PPT folks... you had a secret clubhouse with the guy, you had ongoing secret dialog with him, it would only be reasonable to think that a gaggle of top flight biznessmen like yourselves would at least have a real name and phone number for the guy you gave $5,000,000 to, wouldn't it?

And in the sense of fair warning... if anybody asks for a penny of "contribution" for this effort, you will be the straw that broke the dam, and will become target number 1 for all abuse, serious questioning, threats of uncertain but very scary harm and concentrated legal action against you. Even stepping onto the path of "creating a structure" for that kind of heaping salt into the wound smacks of wanting to dig in and grab a few coins for yourself after the major crime has been committed.

And drop the potentially. If this effort isn't already exploring every possible legal avenue with full disclosure and cooperation from every PPT operator to help out the investigation on behalf of the victims that you helped create, then this is clearly a scheme for a little extra taste for the poor junior boys who didn't make out like true bandits at the big people's table.

Goat is doing his damnest to whitewash his history as a complicit I-know-Pirate's-business-model shill by appointing himself public prosecutor. Good luck with that, Goat, but it's a collosal mistake for anyone else to subsidize one of the leading co-conspirators to this scam.

...
I would like to say a few quick things, my stuff I have had to sell was to cover things like my insured PPT bonds. The ones I guaranteed. I did not and will not go into default like many of the other PPT operators. Some of then I think will get the scammers tag because they lied about where their money was going. That is part of the reason why they are not here IMO.

Goat- it sucks to have to sell stuff to honor your obligations, but those are the realities of owning a business and offering investment opportunities. Some days you win, and some days you have to make your word be worth something, suck it up and pay out. That's the other side of the coin from when you are raking in the profits. The Scammer tag is not for participating, the Scammer tag will be for those who willfully promoted the scheme (which was the scam) were intimately involved in the scam, and do nothing to make good with the victims of the scam.

About opening the books, they have been opened. We have seen what was going on with many PPT operators because most of the work was done in the block chain. We still are missing some stuff and this is the sort of thing we will be looking for very soon.

Good. The more transparency you can offer the better. How about a full data dump on all of the secret IRC discussions, a breakdown on what was discussed and when, and access to the private contact info you have for pirate? The datamining experts here will find things like that valuable in their search for the guilty parties.

There will be a thread in a few hours for collection, and that will not be managed by me. I will not even have access to what is collected.

Why? What possible use does anybody investigating this have for donations? If there is an action plan developed and a fund to hire professional to investigate- that would be one thing, but just to say- "we need donations" is offensive. And the root cause of why I and others are doubting your sincerity is solving this problem.

I do not think I did anything wrong with my PPT because I was clear I would be giving my money to Pirate. I also explained that there were real risks investing with pirate and one should not invest more than they could lose.

Then may I suggest you think again. You were a vocal cheerleader, and enthusiastic early adopter, an insider in every respect, and you made a very public case for what a wonderful place it was to invest. You then proceeded to make significant profits for yourself on channeling the funds to pirate. An explanation in fine print does not make this okay, you have a fiduciary responsibility to those who entrusted you with their money. I realize that this is a pretend world, with a pretend currency, but the real world rules of responsibility for financial transactions apply. To put a none too subtle note on it, you are a very public accessory to a crime. You have channeled a significant amount of wealth through your mechanism of investment to an crime that is well into the felony range in pretty much any jurisdiction world-wide. You don't make that go away with a lame caveat emptor. You bust your ass trying to do the right thing, you dig deep until you bleed to make good to those who trusted you, long before the Court orders you to, and you don't ever ask for a donation to assist in this matter in any way. And you might consider staying out of the limelight. The investigation and subsequent prosecution (on whatever level) of this matter is not something that you should be the face of.

I also have explained how and my my bonds P were sold in the TygrrBondP thread found on the forum. Not reason to explain again. If you have a question please post it in the correct thread.

Thank you.

And I have been a very interested observer as you have learned how to put together your ventures. Your learning process has been very public. You just need to think about tightening up on the details now that investment mogul has turned to as-yet uncharged con-conspirator. You are standing at that crossroads where you have to decide who you are- a scummy little sycophant who is trying to bluff his way out of responsibility with empty words, or a man of honor who will do the right thing, and own his mistake, be honest about it, and work to make it better. And perhaps, a small note of humility and contrition?

[E. A. Gail]

Frankie,
You are answering your own question although you problably dont see it.

The fact that he likely has only a fraction of the deposits is why some have said this effort is throwing good money after bad.


You've always said you understand Pirate's business model, so I would appreciate some of your expertise here. How does paying people to "trick" them into think it's a Ponzi help Pirate? Keep in mind, these were the same people telling people not to invest and to pull out their funds--for months, in many cases.

By your own logic:

Pirate only has a fraction of the money so hunting him is to throw good money after bad -> I.e. Do not go after Pirate since he ran a ponzi.

How does paying people to "trick" them into think it's a Ponzi help Pirate? -> If people believe Pirate has no money they wont go after him.


Best regards

[Dice]

Was reading through some of Pirate's old posts and he use to sell video cards. Maybe we can get in contact with a buyer and see if a return label was written on the packaging?

[Monster Tent]

Was reading through some of Pirate's old posts and he use to sell video cards. Maybe we can get in contact with a buyer and see if a return label was written on the packaging?

Someone already did. He confirmed that pirateat40 is the same guy as the one in the picture from vegas.

[dishwara]

Was reading through some of Pirate's old posts and he use to sell video cards. Maybe we can get in contact with a buyer and see if a return label was written on the packaging?

Someone already did. He confirmed that pirateat40 is the same guy as the one in the picture from vegas.

"Captain Jack sparrow" going to caught soon.
The question is, he already planned everything or just doing everything on the go. 

[Shadow383]

Was reading through some of Pirate's old posts and he use to sell video cards. Maybe we can get in contact with a buyer and see if a return label was written on the packaging?

Someone already did. He confirmed that pirateat40 is the same guy as the one in the picture from vegas.

"Captain Jack sparrow" going to caught soon.
The question is, he already planned everything or just doing everything on the go. 

He's probably already gone, he's had a whole month.

[Mousepotato]

Has he been active in IRC at all lately?