How police think about Bitcoin enthusiasts ?

[rio3233]

In my country, police don't care about bitcoin enthusiasts and i think they even don't know what and how is bitcoin. I never heard a man get jailed by police about bitcoin though.

[bitlancr]

I do not even think a lot of police people are thinking about it and the cops that are in my eyes not talking bad about it.
Some maybe are and some are not talking bad about it but positive, its laying about your interests.

[Evildrum]

Large amounts I would worry about potential money laundering issues,especially if you are caught with a lot of money in a public setting.
If I was American I would have more worries because they have some odd laws that entrap people.

You really do not know until they target the issue and people start getting hit in stings through say localbitcoins.

A example here in my neck of the woods a whole wack of pot dispensaries where allowed to open up shop.
Pot is illegal but the municipal level decided to turn the other way and this made a stampede to open up these shops.
Its illegal to sell pot on all levels of government but the local police decided they had better things to do with their time then bust pot smokers.
So flash forward a year and we have a circus going on. The municipal are telling a majority of these shops to close because the new rules
are making them illegal. These shops are refusing to close and willing to pay the fine. All the well pot is going to be legal in the next year
right through Canada.
It a trend I have noticed though right across Canada is cops are doing big raids with big media campaigns to show all the drugs they took off the streets to get brownie points from some one,who knows who! It makes little sense to crack heads when its legal in less than a year but they are tripping over themselves trying to shut these places down.
So that example should tell you the mindset of what could happen with bitcoin,seems to be a trend in my Country of the police making examples of people right before a issue is going to be legal. The ole "Its not legal yet" gambit.

[phreaky]

I honestly do not think they are really hating on it but I also do not know what they are thinking.
The most will most likely think its a criminal network currency, and used to buy all kind of things with anonymous.

[yenxz]

When it comes to a crime, what would the police think about a guy trading with bitcoins frequently in large volumes ?(hundreds of BTCs)

I've heard they can't stand bitcoin dealers out and they become a suspect immediately with no questions asked in case there's a crime where the bitcoin enthusiast is involved. Is that true ?

No,that's not true,even  bitcoin not a legal payment,but we are as bitcoin trader can trade bitcoin without any fear of police law Or being arrested,as long goverment not ruled that hold Or use bitcoin as crime,i think we Will fine..

[QuestionAuthority]

 I just asked a cop friend what he believed about bitcoin people.  He said he believes they were all criminals or hiding  something and he suspicious whenever he meets one.

[Cryddit]

Buying and selling bitcoin is in fact "trading a marketable asset for profit" - which means a dealer who does this a lot does in fact come under KYC laws, mandatory reporting statutes, and, yes, taxes.

If the police know that you buy and sell an average of a dozen bitcoins daily, and you haven't been jumping through all those hoops, then yes they can arrest you and yes, if they can seize your wallet they will.

They probably won't bother arresting you though, unless they're pretty sure they can get the keys to your wallet.  Not worth their time if they can't get the forfeiture money. 

Laws?  What, you thought they were there to enforce laws?  Well, sort of.  But they are certainly more motivated to do so when it's profitable.

[BitHodler]

If someone is trading huge amounts of Bitcoins on a daily basis that will certainly raise some red flags for the police and they will probably put the traders under surveillance so as to determine the source of the funds and if the money was obtained legally in the jurisdiction the suspects are in but I don't think this would automatically make any high-profile Bitcoin enthusiast a criminal. Actually there are special police departments that investigate cyber crime and digital heists and fraudsters so they are probably very well aware of the current criminal cases on the Bitcoin scene. The lower-level policemen wouldn't understand how Bitcoin works and they shouldn't be investigating things they don't know anything about because that is just preposterous  

I agree with everything said here.  

You can bet that if you are trading large amounts of BTC daily that someone knows.  If you file and pay appropriate taxes it should not be a problem and it makes your trading legitimate.

It also depends on which exchange you are using to do your trading at.

BTC-E for example doesn't force you to verify yourself in order to use their exchange.

It means that there is no personal information that the exchange has about you beside your IP address.

But then again, that exchange has been operating like it does for years. They won't work together with governments to hand them over your IP address and your trading history.

I thought btc-e required identification and proof of address for wire transfers. Are they not actively enforcing that rule?

I don't know that as I have never cashed out fiat with BTC-E.

What I do is :

# Deposit BTC in my account and sell a good chunk to get fiat in my account.
# Trade untill I have made enough profit.
# Convert all fiat to BTC and then cash out my entire BTC balance to my wallet address.
# Sell coins to receive the money in my bank account through various available services here in my country.

No one can proof that I have made profit where I need to pay tax over.

To make it even more anonymous you can even choose to sell your coins P2P as you then don't need a bank account to receive your money on.

[Chris!]

I just asked a cop friend what he believed about bitcoin people.  He said he believes they were all criminals or hiding  something and he suspicious whenever he meets one.

So I'm assuming now that he's placed you behind bars you're using your internet privileges? Is that kind of like your one phone call?

[QuestionAuthority]

I just asked a cop friend what he believed about bitcoin people.  He said he believes they were all criminals or hiding  something and he suspicious whenever he meets one.

So I'm assuming now that he's placed you behind bars you're using your internet privileges? Is that kind of like your one phone call?

No, but I do think he looks at me a little more critically than he used to.

[Enotche]

I think the police ngativno refers to Bitcoin enthusiasts. After all, their activity is connected with the fight against crime. A crime like this is not enough, use Bitcoin in their dirty work. Suffice it to read the news reports:
-"In Spain arrested 30 suspected of laundering money through Bitcoin centers"
-"Taiwanese police conducted related arrests Bitcoin"
-"NYPD awarded for investigating Bitcoin-crimes"

[StoreBit]

are you talking about a specific police or about police department, the police what if instructions from higher authority but I think they no such instructions about bitcoin. so I think they remain calm and cool

[bitkilo]

I didn't read every posts here so someone may already have mentioned it but if you want to know the answer to your question why don't you ask BurtW how he was treated, i think the cops even robbed his kids piggy bank if i remember correctly.

[Anno MMXVI]

They surely think that it is something weird, but they won't put you in jail, because it isn't prohibited, if that's what you want to know.

[BitcoinSupremo]

Lol in some near by country of mine, Police don't even know what bitcoin is, let alone them be suspicious of anyone, even in my country they don't know a lot about bitcoin, and internet arrests I have never heard about any arrest of such kind, based on bitcoin usage in deep web. I think we are pretty safe in this country of "meraviglie" miracles

[Daniel91]

Lol in some near by country of mine, Police don't even know what bitcoin is, let alone them be suspicious of anyone, even in my country they don't know a lot about bitcoin, and internet arrests I have never heard about any arrest of such kind, based on bitcoin usage in deep web. I think we are pretty safe in this country of "meraviglie" miracles

It's the same in my country as well
We don't have much bitcoin users and generally people have no idea about Bitcoin.
So, I'm sure that we don't need to be afraid from police because of Bitcoin.
Even if i will try to explain them, I'm not sure if they will understand.
Even if they will understand, there is no law about Bitcoin in my country, so no worries

[afriezalie]

Here, there's nobody think about bitcoin user. They even don't know about bitcoin or don't want to know. Usually in modern area, police suspect bitcoin enthusiasts especially big transaction as fraud or criminal. It's not just bitcoin user, if you withdraw big amount of money, you will be suspected by bank.

[Mvaporis1961]

The only thing that make us bitcoin enthusiasts bad is by those criminals using bitcoin in deep web for illegal transactions like selling drugs, selling illegal fire arms and other stuff but they other police did not know that majority of the bitcoin enthusiast use it for good things like making it a part time job to earn some money from trading and investment sites.

[SilverPunk]

The only thing that make us bitcoin enthusiasts bad is by those criminals using bitcoin in deep web for illegal transactions like selling drugs, selling illegal fire arms and other stuff but they other police did not know that majority of the bitcoin enthusiast use it for good things like making it a part time job to earn some money from trading and investment sites.

Yeah ,exactly chief .because bitcoin abuse so much by illegal use and the fact that bad doing have a big impact than good doings .we are doing good things but they don't recognizes it some of the bitcoin holders deal with underground markets as you said.

[QuestionAuthority]

The only thing that make us bitcoin enthusiasts bad is by those criminals using bitcoin in deep web for illegal transactions like selling drugs, selling illegal fire arms and other stuff but they other police did not know that majority of the bitcoin enthusiast use it for good things like making it a part time job to earn some money from trading and investment sites.

How do you know "majority of the bitcoin enthusiast use it for good things". There is pretty much no market in the world that exclusively caters to Bitcoin users other than the dark web and Silk Road type sites. If I were going to take a wild guess (which is what you did) I would guess that a few people are using it for legitimate purposes like investments and the bulk are using it for illegal purposes.