FBI: Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder "Medvedev" Worth $800,000,000 in Bitcoin

[First77]

FBI Claims Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder Medvedev Was Worth $800,000,000+ in Bitcoins

https://news.bitcoin.com

[First77]

FBI coming to Bitcoin   

[CryptoBry]

Scam artists can be found in any kind of industry and Bitcoin or cryptocurrency for that matter is not an exemption definitely. In fact, scammers find cryptocurrency to be their new haven as it is easier to fool people with the enticement that cryptocurrency is new and amazingly profitable. It is time that there must be a way to minimize scams. It is time that we use the very thing we are promoting --the blockchain technology -- to stop these people from victimizing innocent people. It is not actually the fault of Bitcoin but the fault of these people whose intention is just to grab money out of people's purses promising that they can get to the paradise if we join their shenanigans. This Medvedev has became famous because of his surprisingly hit program online which is just actually a ponzi.

[jseverson]

Here's the proper link to the article:

https://news.bitcoin.com/fbi-claims-arrested-cyber-crime-syndicate-co-founder-medvedev-worth-800m-in-btc/

Looks like the arrest was made by Thailand authorities with cooperation of the FBI. It would be interesting to see whether the authorities can take custody of the coins, and how they'll split it. It could affect whether future regulations would treat Bitcoin as a currency or an asset.

I wouldn't be against having those coins lost forever either. 100k Bitcoins entering the market would certainly cause a splash, likely in a negative way.

[stompix]

Here's the proper link to the article:

https://news.bitcoin.com/fbi-claims-arrested-cyber-crime-syndicate-co-founder-medvedev-worth-800m-in-btc/

Looks like the arrest was made by Thailand authorities with cooperation of the FBI. It would be interesting to see whether the authorities can take custody of the coins, and how they'll split it. It could affect whether future regulations would treat Bitcoin as a currency or an asset.

I wouldn't be against having those coins lost forever either. 100k Bitcoins entering the market would certainly cause a splash, likely in a negative way.

Hmm, what was this guy doing with that amount of money?

CSD investigators have claimed that Mr. Medvedev was trading illegal products online in exchange for bitcoin.

You don't make 800 millions selling "products", only if those products are credits cards but even so...probably most of those bitcoins where acquired when BTC was below 1000, and even in this case...80 millions?
The entire SR bust was 10 times below that.

And speaking of auctioning coins, I checked the dates and it seems it took them almost a year to auction those coins in the SR case.
Now, these coins were actually seized abroad it will probably take a lot longer, if the FBI has them
But I doubt the Thai authorities won't ask for their share if not for all...
What a mess!!!!

[Nkan25]

The government situation in Thailand would lead me to speculate that the Thai government is probably going to keep those Bitcoins for themselves. I think its good that it cleans up the image of Bitcoin for institutional investors. Cash has been laundered and same with tech and commodities, hopefully, this just shows that Bitcoin is used the same way and that there are some controls. It still doesn't take away its decentralized application.

[First77]

You don't make 800 millions selling "products", only if those products are credits cards but even so...probably most of those bitcoins where acquired when BTC was below 1000, and even in this case...80 millions? The entire SR bust was 10 times below that.

$1,000,000,000 can do lots of serious crimes

[VitKoyn]

FBI Claims Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder Medvedev Was Worth $800,000,000+ in Bitcoins

https://news.bitcoin.com

I have read this news earlier and I wonder what the authorities will do with those Bitcoins that they got from this man, because it is a huge amount (100,000 Bitcoins) that it can affect the price of Bitcoin if they will dump/sell it to exchanges, maybe they can just auction it part by part?. Anyway this kind of people who are doing illegal things (hacking, selling drugs, etc) in the web or online and use Bitcoin are the plague in cryptocurrency space and I also found out that the FBI had been tracking this man for two years. It was good that he gets caught this time.

[QuestionAuthority]

What would happen if the Thai police decide to confiscate the btc and liquidate them. How quickly could you sell 100k btc and where would you sell them?

[boboking]

FBI Claims Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder Medvedev Was Worth $800,000,000+ in Bitcoins

https://news.bitcoin.com

I have read this news earlier and I wonder what the authorities will do with those Bitcoins that they got from this man, because it is a huge amount (100,000 Bitcoins) that it can affect the price of Bitcoin if they will dump/sell it to exchanges, maybe they can just auction it part by part?. Anyway this kind of people who are doing illegal things (hacking, selling drugs, etc) in the web or online and use Bitcoin are the plague in cryptocurrency space and I also found out that the FBI had been tracking this man for two years. It was good that he gets caught this time.

Unlike cash they can just dump it in the evidence room but in  this case there should be a wallet either it is hardware,desktop, laptop or a mobile gadget. That will be put into the evidence. Since it is in the web  i do know they can be recover the coins on another gadget or perhaps send it to another wallet. I wonder how will FBI keep this bitcoin to evidence?

[Carlsen]

The really interesting question for me would be what happened to the coins.
In a best case scenario the coins are hidden in some wallets and will never survace again.
That would mean the 100K less bitcoins criculating, so less supply so higher price for the rest.

[First77]

What would happen if the Thai police decide to confiscate the btc and liquidate them. How quickly could you sell 100k btc and where would you sell them?

Police might destroy those 100,000 Bitcoins. Police burns/destroys tigers, lions, elephants, rhinos bones and skins when they can earn multi-million dollars.

$400,000,000 worth of drugs are set on fire by police at one go.

[jseverson]

You don't make 800 millions selling "products", only if those products are credits cards but even so...probably most of those bitcoins where acquired when BTC was below 1000, and even in this case...80 millions?
The entire SR bust was 10 times below that.

Yeah, it looks like Infraud was created way back in 2001, so they could have easily been trading Bitcoin since its inception. There are no exact numbers, but the FBI apparently sold around 144k Silk Road coins, as opposed to an estimated 100k in this case, so Silk Road's is probably still bigger in Bitcoin terms.

What a mess!!!!

So true. No wonder countries always talk about Bitcoin being a contributing factor in crime lol.

[QuestionAuthority]

What would happen if the Thai police decide to confiscate the btc and liquidate them. How quickly could you sell 100k btc and where would you sell them?

Police might destroy those 100,000 Bitcoins. Police burns/destroys tigers, lions, elephants, rhinos bones and skins when they can earn multi-million dollars.

$400,000,000 worth of drugs are set on fire by police at one go.

Whoa, that’s a lot of burned coins. I didn’t know that about the Thai police. So the 21m coins might shrink again. Oh well, that’s better than dumping them on the market I suppose.

[First77]

So true. No wonder countries always talk about Bitcoin being a contributing factor in crime lol.

Bitcoin $1 to $1000 gave $800,000,000 in the hands of "cyber criminal" since he had 100,000 Bitcoin since the beginning

[stompix]

You don't make 800 millions selling "products", only if those products are credits cards but even so...probably most of those bitcoins where acquired when BTC was below 1000, and even in this case...80 millions?
The entire SR bust was 10 times below that.

Yeah, it looks like Infraud was created way back in 2001, so they could have easily been trading Bitcoin since its inception. There are no exact numbers, but the FBI apparently sold around 144k Silk Road coins, as opposed to an estimated 100k in this case, so Silk Road's is probably still bigger in Bitcoin terms.

What a mess!!!!

So true. No wonder countries always talk about Bitcoin being a contributing factor in crime lol.

What I don't get in this case is the huge amount of money...and their stupidity.
I might not think like a criminal but if I were in their place the most important thing that would always be on my mind would be...the FBI or the Interpol will come after me at one point!

So based on that, let's say they acquired those coins at 1000$. All of them.
Even by April last year this would have raised their profits by 200 millions. In December they could have sold for 1.4 billion$ or even more!!!!
What the hell were they still doing ? There is no way to even measure this greed and stupidity.

If the coins were not stored profits, but actually moving funds, then this operation would be at least 40x bigger than SR.
And that would be huge!!!

What would happen if the Thai police decide to confiscate the btc and liquidate them. How quickly could you sell 100k btc and where would you sell them?

Police might destroy those 100,000 Bitcoins. Police burns/destroys tigers, lions, elephants, rhinos bones and skins when they can earn multi-million dollars.

$400,000,000 worth of drugs are set on fire by police at one go.

Whoa, that’s a lot of burned coins. I didn’t know that about the Thai police. So the 21m coins might shrink again. Oh well, that’s better than dumping them on the market I suppose.

I don't think they burn confiscated money or gold or jewelry.
What every police destroys are illegal goods that are illegal to be sold. (In case of Russia french cheese  ).

But since we have this piece of fresh news:
https://news.bitcoin.com/bank-of-thailand-bans-banks-from-cryptocurrency-activities/

The Bank of Thailand (BOT) issued a circular on Monday asking “financial institutions not to get involved in cryptocurrency transactions for fear of possible problems from the unregulated trading,” Reuters

I really wonder how will they act.
That's a billion sitting right in front of them, more than 1% of their annual budget.

[alyssa85]

Here's the proper link to the article:

https://news.bitcoin.com/fbi-claims-arrested-cyber-crime-syndicate-co-founder-medvedev-worth-800m-in-btc/

Looks like the arrest was made by Thailand authorities with cooperation of the FBI. It would be interesting to see whether the authorities can take custody of the coins, and how they'll split it. It could affect whether future regulations would treat Bitcoin as a currency or an asset.

I wouldn't be against having those coins lost forever either. 100k Bitcoins entering the market would certainly cause a splash, likely in a negative way.

If the FBI gets hold of the coins, they won't release them all at once. They have a history of auctioning coins steadily in tranches  over many months, precisely because they don't want to be accused of moving the market.

[figmentofmyass]

Hmm, what was this guy doing with that amount of money?

CSD investigators have claimed that Mr. Medvedev was trading illegal products online in exchange for bitcoin.

You don't make 800 millions selling "products", only if those products are credits cards but even so...probably most of those bitcoins where acquired when BTC was below 1000, and even in this case...80 millions?
The entire SR bust was 10 times below that.

well, the darknet markets eclipse SR in size now. alphabay alone was 10 times the size of silk road, and that was last year. in spite of the continued heat, the darknet markets still seem to be booming. i think XMR has picked up a lot of traffic as well, making it tough to gauge the overall size of the markets.

but still, it's true. 100,000 bitcoins seized....that's crazy. i wonder if this syndicate was involved in some exchange hacks.

i wonder how much of this the american government can get their hands on, given the FBI involvement in the case. i'm also starting to wonder if the US marshall auctions like we've seen in the past will still continue. at some point, governments will want to keep some BTC in reserve.

[VclDm]

Here's the proper link to the article:

https://news.bitcoin.com/fbi-claims-arrested-cyber-crime-syndicate-co-founder-medvedev-worth-800m-in-btc/

Looks like the arrest was made by Thailand authorities with cooperation of the FBI. It would be interesting to see whether the authorities can take custody of the coins, and how they'll split it. It could affect whether future regulations would treat Bitcoin as a currency or an asset.

I wouldn't be against having those coins lost forever either. 100k Bitcoins entering the market would certainly cause a splash, likely in a negative way.

If the FBI gets hold of the coins, they won't release them all at once. They have a history of auctioning coins steadily in tranches  over many months, precisely because they don't want to be accused of moving the market.

That would be a bad thing for bitcoin as the FBI is trying to hold a large amount of bitcoin for their purposes. I think if the FBI really studied bitcoin, that might change some of my perceptions of bitcoin because with their technical level the FBI could do as much as they wanted with bitcoin. I will confirm more about this information.

[First77]

Too many hacking and stolen stories for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies

[FiiNALiZE]

FBI coming to Bitcoin   

FBI isn't coming in new to Cryptocurrencies because the whole place was researching on it for many years. This may not be a huge issue.

[First77]

FBI isn't coming in new to Cryptocurrencies because the whole place was researching on it for many years. This may not be a huge issue.

$1,000,000,000 stolen or untraced can fund a WAR.

[stompix]

Hmm, what was this guy doing with that amount of money?

CSD investigators have claimed that Mr. Medvedev was trading illegal products online in exchange for bitcoin.

You don't make 800 millions selling "products", only if those products are credits cards but even so...probably most of those bitcoins where acquired when BTC was below 1000, and even in this case...80 millions?
The entire SR bust was 10 times below that.

well, the darknet markets eclipse SR in size now. alphabay alone was 10 times the size of silk road, and that was last year. in spite of the continued heat, the darknet markets still seem to be booming. i think XMR has picked up a lot of traffic as well, making it tough to gauge the overall size of the markets.

but still, it's true. 100,000 bitcoins seized....that's crazy. i wonder if this syndicate was involved in some exchange hacks.

i wonder how much of this the american government can get their hands on, given the FBI involvement in the case. i'm also starting to wonder if the US marshall auctions like we've seen in the past will still continue. at some point, governments will want to keep some BTC in reserve.

That x10 in size is based on total numbers recorded by SR in 2012. And usage exploded in 2013.
The only number they had to measure SR sales was the profits they've made in 2012 that was around 22m$.
Alpha bay was bragging about 600k$ sales a day, from here we this x10.

But if we compare numbers from a month before the bust, AB was just x2 times bigger and that more than 3 years after the fall of SR, 3 years in which usage would should hav gone in terms on x10 or x20 up.

Unfortunately darkmarkets are having the life experience of torrent websites.
They come out of nowhere, attract millions and then the website closes down. But, the problem is that when Kickass went down nobody lost millions like when the exit scam from sheepmaket happened.  

This is why I believe those numbers are either inflated from coins that were bought years ago or by other kind of illegal activities. No DM is the place to deal in billions.

That would be a bad thing for bitcoin as the FBI is trying to hold a large amount of bitcoin for their purposes. I think if the FBI really studied bitcoin, that might change some of my perceptions of bitcoin because with their technical level the FBI could do as much as they wanted with bitcoin. I will confirm more about this information.

You will confirm nothing about this since the FBI can't hold coins.
It's not how things work.

For example it was the FBI that seized the coins but it was the USMS that sold them.

$1,000,000,000 stolen or untraced can fund a WAR.

Not for long...


 

[whoisyourking]

FBI Claims Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder Medvedev Was Worth $800,000,000+ in Bitcoins

https://news.bitcoin.com

Let us see how the FBI will catch the ICO promoter who raised and run all the funds from their projects. This news is good hope that all those ico scammed will stop and jailed who are involve.

[First77]

$1,000,000,000 stolen or untraced can fund a WAR.

Not for long...

Bitcoin $1 to $20,000 in 9 years got $350,000,000,000

I say atleast $25 billion is highly risky/criminal/very dangerous when Islamic terrorists are running free in more than 20 countries.

[Yarsk]

Crimes Criminality are found in any industry that has profitable future just like bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies world entirely, I would love to see those coin redistributed back into the market but that is going to have a negative impact on the price of bitcoin. We must all learn how to protect our self from all this scammers who feeds on the gullibility of people.

[Kakmakr]

What would happen if the Thai police decide to confiscate the btc and liquidate them. How quickly could you sell 100k btc and where would you sell them?

Police might destroy those 100,000 Bitcoins. Police burns/destroys tigers, lions, elephants, rhinos bones and skins when they can earn multi-million dollars.

$400,000,000 worth of drugs are set on fire by police at one go.

They destroy it, because the option to sell it will feed the demand for it. You want to kill the market for those products by destroying it or reduce the supply of those products. Bitcoin is not falling under the endangered species category. 

Most of the confiscated money, goes back to the government to buy tools to fight these crimes. I think they will sell those coins and buy law enforcement gear to do the same. ^smile^

[First77]

Most of the confiscated money, goes back to the government to buy tools to fight these crimes. I think they will sell those coins and buy law enforcement gear to do the same. ^smile^

Governments have serious problems with Bitcoins and cryptos. Looks like 100,000 less Bitcoins

[Kakmakr]

Most of the confiscated money, goes back to the government to buy tools to fight these crimes. I think they will sell those coins and buy law enforcement gear to do the same. ^smile^

Governments have serious problems with Bitcoins and cryptos. Looks like 100,000 less Bitcoins

Governments also need more money to fight crime. There is just so much you can tap out of tax payers and when you get free money like this, you take the opportunity. In the US there is something called the "Civil asset forfeiture" which is used to channel money from crimes to combating crime. This is very controversial, because some people are saying 81% of people who had cash seized by DEA weren't charged with a crime. 

If governments see Bitcoin as a threat, they would just regulate it to death, but they know it will not go away. < Drugs are still on the streets and Billions of Dollars are spend to prevent it >

[sampoer23]

FBI Claims Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder Medvedev Was Worth $800,000,000+ in Bitcoins

https://news.bitcoin.com

We must always be vigilant in online-based program that is too profitable, why should so. we definitely engga would want if one day the money we lost because there are a lot of scam based online mode so be careful.

[A Feeder]

FBI Claims Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder Medvedev Was Worth $800,000,000+ in Bitcoins

https://news.bitcoin.com

I will not believe that kind of price because it is too unrealistic. These informations can only be a bait or some sort of scheme for the FBI to bite. Not all informations and references including organizations are trustworthy for me. I only play safe to not believe easily in informations given to me.

[stompix]

FBI Claims Cyber Crime Syndicate Founder Medvedev Was Worth $800,000,000+ in Bitcoins

https://news.bitcoin.com

I will not believe that kind of price because it is too unrealistic. These informations can only be a bait or some sort of scheme for the FBI to bite. Not all informations and references including organizations are trustworthy for me. I only play safe to not believe easily in informations given to me.

You don't believe the price? What price? The price you have paid for you translator?

Bait scheme for FBI to bite?
At least try to understand what the article is about , read the article , read the links before posting!!!!

Is this enough proof for you the case is real?
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1032021/download

In the US there is something called the "Civil asset forfeiture" which is used to channel money from crimes to combating crime. This is very controversial, because some people are saying 81% of people who had cash seized by DEA weren't charged with a crime.  

Of course not, because that's what civil forfeiture is.
It seizes money and goods from suspects, without charging you.
The trick is that in order to get your goods back you have to prove you haven't committed any crime fraud etc, on acquiring them. This is one reason why most give up, either guilty or afraid of not getting in more trouble.