Find Trendon Shavers in person thread... [BTCST, BTS&T, pirateat40]

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Looks like Trendon's trial in November has been canceled.

11/12/2012     Trial Before the Court     4 Hours Per Side     Cancelled: Continuance Granted     9:00 AM

Ref:

Update on lawyer information...

It seems Trendon Shavers is operating "pro se".  Now if only we could be 100% sure Trendon is Pirate. (some people doubt this and think Trendon is just the fall guy in the partnership.)

http://apps.collincountytx.gov/cccasesearch/Search.aspx

429-00521-2011

Since Trendon does not really have a lawyer I understand why he can't give that information up. However I still do not understand why he wanted all that information other than to get more marks for future scams. Some people think Pirate has done a scam in BTC land before.

Edit:   http://www.drinnonwright.com/attorneys.html    Or maybe these guys are the lawyers... I do not even know. 

[repentance]

Looks like Trendon's trial in November has been canceled.

11/12/2012     Trial Before the Court     4 Hours Per Side     Cancelled: Continuance Granted     9:00 AM

Read the history.  An agreement to sever the original complaint was reached back in April.  The entry dated yesterday - 23 October 2012 - now lists pirate as "Disinteresed Third Party Trendeon Shavers".  It looks like the continuance was granted because they're waiting for pirate to produce documents before the case can proceed but he's no longer a defendant in this particular action by the looks of things.

[BCB]

At one time there was a post from a sock-puppet account in which the user claimed to know Trendon in real life and said that he was becoming reckless and drawing undesirable attention to himself.  The post was dismissed as "FUD" because it came from a sock puppet account and people still wanted to believe in pirate and his promises of untold riches, but I was never entirely convinced that it wasn't legit.  There are so many threads about pirate that I'm having trouble finding the original post, but if someone can find it perhaps it would be worth PMing the user who posted it.

Found it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82560.0

repentance

Could you (or someone) cull the relevant info from that thread and post here, please.  Thanks.

[BCB]

Phinn,

What trial?? Is this a civil or a criminal case??

[repentance]

repentance

Could you (or someone) cull the relevant info from that thread and post here, please.  Thanks.

These are the most relevant posts.  The OP only made 9 in total.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82560.msg909953#msg909953

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82560.msg909985#msg909985

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82560.msg910000#msg910000

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82560.msg910050#msg910050

Complete list of posts by that user is here.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=58277;sa=showPosts

[BrightAnarchist]

The guy who spoke with Trendon's former employer has been online briefly this evening. I'll assume he's now working on drafting an epic post (not meant as humor, for there's a lot of info), although I'm not sure where he'll post it. I just emailed him letting him know of this thread. It'll be up to him, but either way make sure he's thanked for his efforts. He's a good guy.

~Bruno K~

Sorry this isn't up to my usual prose and totally lacking details/info, but I'm rushed tonight and need sleep... yes, I made the call. BTW thank you Bruno and BCB for talking with me today, it was a great help. I will write up a more detailed update on the trendon/pirate situation sometime this week so that everyone knows what's going on. There's no longer any reason for me to hide what I'm doing, which means the information I've gathered will go back into the public sphere soon. It will be very useful to re-establish a central repository and official information update thread to keep track of everything.

The information I've gathered recently on Trendon is very, very bad. In short: btcst was definitely a scam from day one, and everything that Trendon has ever said has been a lie. Not only that, but btcst is just one of many scams and thefts that Trendon has been involved with in his lifetime. Amazingly he got away from his last major theft (prior to btcst) without prosecution, for many of the same reasons that everyone is now sitting on their hands (he made himself judgement proof while "stringing along" his victims for many months).

He's not a normal guy either: everything that I've learned about his past (and present) fits perfectly into psychopathic personality disorder, especially with the way he put his real identity right on the face of his ponzi, including the Las Vegas dinner (hint: it's all an ego thing).

The last I heard from the SEC lawyer looking into the case is that they wanted to get a warrant on Trendon, but do not yet have enough information to get one, so we should figure out exactly what information they need to get a warrant and work with the bitcoin community to provide that information to them ASAP. BCB and I already talked and he'll probably be the go-between here between the community, myself, and the SEC.

I also know with near certainty that Trendon has at least 10% of the outstanding coins at his disposal (probably more), but don't hold your breath on getting any coins back at all. Civil court is a total waste of time, so stop even thinking about it: these types of people usually hold out until the bitter end. From what the SEC has said, their intentions are to use coin repayment as a means to bargain against a criminal sentence, which I'm certain is the only possible way any coins can be retrieved. So it's very important that we gather up accurate information about who is owed what to provide to the SEC so that whatever % is recovered can go out equitably.

Let me know if you have any questions. You can expect a stickied thread from me later in the week as well as the re-emergence of a defined plan of action, all involved parties and info, real communication to and from the SEC, a central repository for everything, and more.

-BrightAnarchist

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Go here http://apps.collincountytx.gov/cccasesearch/Search.aspx and plug in this 429-00521-2011

Or go visit that link and plug-in Trendon Shavers in the appropriate boxes. You'll see he probably got evicted from an apartment complex due to not paying his rent.

[galambo]

I would guess that ninjaat40 is either Pirate, one of his "feeder fund" managers like goat, or one of his shills like reeses.

To run a successful Ponzi you have to spread the rumor that you are doing something that is difficult for average people to achieve to obtain higher than likely returns.

The original Ponzi used buying and selling International Reply Coupons for his scheme.

Most Ponzi schemes these days are based on getting a cut of illegally obtained income. For example, getting a cut of income from illegal drug sales.

I don't really feel very sorry for any of pirates investors, because they literally thought they were getting a cut of drug money through the internet fake stock market.

It makes sense that Pirate and his salesmen would go out of their way to spread this rumor in the newbie forum. Especially if the volumes of new suckers flowing into the ponzi is in decline.

[BCB]

Thanks BrightAnarchist.

Sound like your trove of dox is well beyond what we could assemble here in the short run.  

I have a collection of personally identifying info for Trendon Shavers.  I'd like to post it here but I've been informed by a mod that if it is posted it will be removed.  It may be necessary to continue the project off the bitcointalk server.

Maybe bitlane will loan us his trendonshavers.com address.

I look forward to your post.

[BCB]

galambo

Thanks for you post, however this is not really a discussion about ponzi theroy/history.  If you have any current verified identifying info on pirate or ninjarobot , please post.

[repentance]

The last I heard from the SEC lawyer looking into the case is that they wanted to get a warrant on Trendon, but do not yet have enough information to get one, so we should figure out exactly what information they need to get a warrant and work with the bitcoin community to provide that information to them ASAP. BCB and I already talked and he'll probably be the go-between here between the community, myself, and the SEC.

Obviously the only people who can answer what information the SEC needs are the SEC themselves so that needs to be a top priority so that people aren't wasting energy on gathering information whicn will be useless to the SEC.

I would guess that a great deal will depend on the willingness of the PPT operators to co-operate with the SEC - they are the ones who hold the evidence of what was "invested" with pirate.  Some of them did not want to give details of who was owed what to pirate and they may not want to give that information to regulators either.

I agree that any kind of civil action by those who lost funds to pirate would be a dead end.  Its pretty much only government regulators who have any chance of recovering anything from him.

There is no need to re-post the identifying information for pirate here.  God knows it's already been posted 7,000 times before.  It only needs to be communicated to the authorities -  if they don't already have it, which I very much doubt.  The evidence that they likely need is evidence that he actually took funds from people.  No amount of message-board posts prove that.  They would need stuff like transaction IDs which can be followed to wallets thought to be controlled by pirate/GPUMax.  No-one who chooses to remain anonymous to the investigators is ever going to see any restitution.

Find out what information it is that they need and then see if there's a way the community can provide it.  As anything which is filtered through third parties is unlikely to be usable by the SEC, the chances are that people who hold information which constitutes actual evidence will need to contact the SEC directly and be willing to turn that evidence over to them (and possibly to testify in court if no deal can be cut with pirate by the regulators).

I think that proceeding with extreme caution is advisable here so that people's enthusiasm for amateur sleuthing doesn't inadvertently create some kind of legal technicality which would compromise the SEC's ability to take action against pirate.

It definitely sounds like it would be worth The Lending Partners talking to the guy from the SEC.  There may well be other scams for which pirate could be prosecuted if there's currently insufficient evidence for them to move forward with the BTCST investigation.

As far as conclusive evidence that pirate is actually Trendon Shavers rather than someone who merely hijacked the identity of Trendon Shavers goes, the photo Goat has posted of the LV meet-up confirms that and everyone who was present at that meet-up are potential evidence-givers in that respect.  The person in that photo is the same person who showed up on the social networks of the Shavers family members as "Trendon Shavers" and the internet presences of those family members weren't recently created (the relationships are also supported by public documents like marriage certificates).  A government agency can easily find the same evidence we did even though most of those social network pages are now hidden/deleted.

Given that the existence of an investigation into pirate's ponzi is already public knowledge, there is no reason whatsoever for the investigator not to make a direct appeal to the community for information to further the investigation. 

[BCB]

Good points repentance

I not sure anyone can compel Trendon to relinquishment the control of the BTC he has remaining.  It will probably all be cashed out and spent by the time any legal proceeding take effect.

Also who has an official record of the creditors and what they are owed?  This does not exist anywhere and I'm sure the PPT's are ALL going to agree to divulge this info to the SEC or other wise.  So event if someone was able to recover $500,000 from pirate, it would be nearly impossible to fairly distribute a pro rata share to all of the legitimate investors.   

Pirate knew this and it was probably part of the plan.  Smart guy.  Master manipulator.  Too bad he couldn't use his powers for good.

Regardless he can't be allowed to walk away from this. 

[repentance]

Good points repentance

I not sure anyone can compel Trendon to relinquishment the control of the BTC he has remaining.  It will probably all be cashed out and spent by the time any legal proceeding take effect.

Also who has an official record of the creditors and what they are owed?  This does not exist anywhere and I'm sure the PPT's are ALL going to agree to divulge this info to the SEC or other wise.  So event if someone was able to recover $500,000 from pirate, it would be nearly impossible to fairly distribute a pro rata share to all of the legitimate investors.  

Pirate knew this and it was probably part of the plan.  Smart guy.  Master manipulator.  Too bad he couldn't use his powers for good.

Regardless he can't be allowed to walk away from this.  

It's likely that "what is owed" would be calculated as what people put into the ponzi less any payments they received from it.  Some early participants probably received back more than their original investment and are owed nothing in real terms.  The amount of unreturned principal is probably substantially less than the $5 million figure which gets bandied around as many people were "re-investing" their weekly interest and including that compounded interest in the figure they thought pirate "owed" them.

And yeah, it's kind of hard to "freeze and seize" a cold wallet under someone's personal control.  I doubt pirate ever kept any substantial amount of BTC on exchanges so I'm not sure that freezing any exchange accounts he holds would recover anything even if those accounts could be identified.  
GLBSE obviously has some records of which users put funds into some of the pass-throughs but I don't think it has RL information on those users. Some of the pass-through operators didn't list on GLBSE so they obviously have some information about their users but again it might not be RL information.

[strideynet]

Trembles.you people are scary. What ae you gonna do with his info. Loan sharks? Police? FBI? CIA?
Tbh the internets a dark scary place. People get scammed in real life. They often don't get help from police.
And cool it. Its his first offense. So don't expect much in court. Only serial offenders get in deep trouble.
I think people should stop trying to get money back. It might not ever happen. Don't expect it.
He might not even live there. With his money eh could move home.
You lost money. That's your fault. No offense but deal with it and learn a lesson.

[bigbox]

Its his first offense. So don't expect much in court. Only serial offenders get in deep trouble.

It appears that this isn't his first offense:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119590.msg1289098#msg1289098

Does that mean he's a serial offender? Does that mean he'll get in deep trouble?

[repentance]

Trembles.you people are scary. What ae you gonna do with his info. Loan sharks? Police? FBI? CIA?
Tbh the internets a dark scary place. People get scammed in real life. They often don't get help from police.
And cool it. Its his first offense. So don't expect much in court. Only serial offenders get in deep trouble.
I think people should stop trying to get money back. It might not ever happen. Don't expect it.
He might not even live there. With his money eh could move home.
You lost money. That's your fault. No offense but deal with it and learn a lesson.

People aren't talking about "going to the police".  The SEC in the US contacted some OTC members wanting information about pirate's operation (among other things, including GLBSE).  Ponzis like pirate's fall squarely within the jurisdiction of the SEC.  It's precisely because people realise that they're unlikely to see any of their funds back that some of them want to see pirate's life made uncomfortable by the authorities.  

Why should the fact that other people who get scammed mightn't get help from the authorities affect whether or not members of this community accept help from the authorities when those authorities come knocking?

[BCB]

Trembles.you people are scary. What ae you gonna do with his info. Loan sharks? Police? FBI? CIA?
Tbh the internets a dark scary place. People get scammed in real life. They often don't get help from police.
And cool it. Its his first offense. So don't expect much in court. Only serial offenders get in deep trouble.
I think people should stop trying to get money back. It might not ever happen. Don't expect it.
He might not even live there. With his money eh could move home.
You lost money. That's your fault. No offense but deal with it and learn a lesson.

Interesting. We have our first pirateTroll. This is pirates method you know. Ask any of his victims.
Thanks for stopping by Trendon.

[matauc12]

Trembles.you people are scary. What ae you gonna do with his info. Loan sharks? Police? FBI? CIA?
Tbh the internets a dark scary place. People get scammed in real life. They often don't get help from police.
And cool it. Its his first offense. So don't expect much in court. Only serial offenders get in deep trouble.
I think people should stop trying to get money back. It might not ever happen. Don't expect it.
He might not even live there. With his money eh could move home.
You lost money. That's your fault. No offense but deal with it and learn a lesson.

Totally on topic, and just to remove more relevance to your irrelevant post, fraud, especially mass frauds like ponzi's is not like violence or stealing gas. It needs premeditation and usually has no situation or social trigger. The more something is premeditated, the less "first offenders grace" is. Plus, since recovering bit coins could prove another difficulty it is far from the only reason to go after a guy that steals from people by the mass... unless of course you are that selfish.

[itsgoldbaby]

Trembles.you people are scary. What ae you gonna do with his info. Loan sharks? Police? FBI? CIA?
Tbh the internets a dark scary place. People get scammed in real life. They often don't get help from police.
And cool it. Its his first offense. So don't expect much in court. Only serial offenders get in deep trouble.
I think people should stop trying to get money back. It might not ever happen. Don't expect it.
He might not even live there. With his money eh could move home.
You lost money. That's your fault. No offense but deal with it and learn a lesson.

This is clearly the infamous Pirateat40. Check his post history, the first post is about Pirateat40 saying it's funny how he is still out there under a different name. I joined the forums a month or so after this guys shit fell apart, but I do enjoy finding out what will happen to this cocky douchbag.

[bitlane]

One thing to remember when talking to the involved Government Agencies is to IMPLICATE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE and let them (the interested agencies) sort out who belongs and who doesn't.

Many of us have CLEAR proof that GPUMAX and BTCST co-mingled funds in a shared wallet, so to offer up the GPUMAX board of directors onto the final chopping block shouldn't be overlooked.

It's best that I 'hang back' from this thread, as I honestly have nothing new to add and 99.9% of the information that I have was gathered LONG before (6 months) prior to the collapse, beginning with the now infamous 'Hot Check Warrant' that I was too scared to inform people about, but still reported it to a trusted forum staff member for advice on how to proceed.

I will conclude with saying that I found out a long time ago that a Civil Case would be pointless, so during the course of this, I have been in contact with every and any Government Agency that was willing to listen to me because I had already come to terms with the fact that I would never see a penny back, so to re-iterate, SCORCHED EARTH has been and will continue to be my #1 goal throughout the conclusion of this situation.

bitlane a.k.a Allan a.k.a ~DonShrents