Your police reports needed. Patrick Strateman - Buddy wants his Bitcoins.

[theta]

I have to say the same. I had some bitcoins in my intersango account and recently withdrew them without any issue.

For how long did you wait? And how recent you asked for an withdraw?

Waited 3-4 days, it was beginning of December.

[zhangweiwu]

I have to say the same. I had some bitcoins in my intersango account and recently withdrew them without any issue.

For how long did you wait? And how recent you asked for an withdraw?

Waited 3-4 days, it was beginning of December.

Interesting. All complaints on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=414764.msg4508190 are around early January...

[icicle]

Just checking in to say things are moving along.

Hope we can get Taaki arrested too.

[icicle]

Checking in again to say the first message in this thread has been updated, now would be a good time to file police reports in your own country or state (don't worry Brits... You can do it by post or email).

Get a copy, get a crime number or other reference and a contact name at your police station. Save these. You will need them in a month.

[zhangweiwu]

Checking in again to say the first message in this thread has been updated,

You mentioned Officer Gomez at Ingleside, and if someone is assigned to your case you will update. Do you think we should write to Officer Gomez now, or wait a bit till an office is assigned? I assume this Officer Gomez is in charge of the area around which Patrick lives, correct?

now would be a good time to file police reports in your own country or state (don't worry Brits... You can do it by post or email).

Why you think filing the case in hometown helps? Each police office would end up only one victim on the record. I know perfectly well what will happen if I file a case in my own country (China) police: nothing. Did you consider filing the case in U.K. where the business is registered? There is a gentleman who offer to check if this can be done:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=414764.0;all

And do you think of confronting Patrick personally, so he has to answer a question or two? Since it is a matter of life and death a confornation is worth it. He may not say much, but sometimes you know things by checking what is not there.  Many are not living in the U.S. like you to have the convenience of visiting him.

[icicle]

>You mentioned Officer Gomez at Ingleside, and if someone is assigned to your case you will update.

When.

>Do you think we should write to Officer Gomez now, or wait a bit till an office is assigned?

Still wait.

>I assume this Officer Gomez is in charge of the area around which Patrick lives, correct?

One of the officers, yes.

>Why you think filing the case in hometown helps?

Because it is part of the proceedure in North America.

>Did you consider filing the case in U.K. where the business is registered?

Already filed, but nothing much will happen to anyone in the UK. The police there are not educated. Its a few weeks training and off you go. The UK, in fact, is a very good place to be setting up frauds or indeed, committing any kind of crime - and if you want to be even more certain of getting away with it you join the police first.

>And do you think of confronting Patrick personally, so he has to answer a question or two? Since it is a matter of life and death a confornation is worth it. He may not say much, but sometimes you know things by checking what is not there.  Many are not living in the U.S. like you to have the convenience of visiting him.

Yeah, the problem with this is it then introduces a grey area in court about how reasonable the accusers are. This is a greedy murderous thief who has gambled away Buddy's life. He is going down for the rest of his and I don't want to do anything to endanger that.

Talking of danger, there will be several people who would like to see Strateman strung up from the nearest lamppost, probably several more than that if they suspect him of the Mt Gox theft - and he has been known to sit in the support channels of his rivals looking for vulnerabilities, plus there was no love lost there, plus as I recall they were hanging on to 'his' stolen millions. Whether he did it or not he makes a good patsy.

So this is not someone who can simply walk to the store for a pint of milk. He or his mother can quite reasonably assume anyone approaching them mentioning bitcoins is going to start pulling out fingernails and we already know Strateman is capable of killing. Plus what do they reasonably have to lose? They are already looking at life in prison. I wouldn't recommend approaching these murderous little fucks as much for your own safety as anything else.

So, I already filed LOCALLY, in Georgia in November. That case was forwarded, as per American police procedure, to Officer Gomez at Ingleside in San Francisco, California (a different state than Georgia). In a short while a specialist fraud investigator will be on the case. At this point it would be handy if there were police reports already filed LOCALLY, ready to be forwarded, about more than one of their scams so we can use the organized crime process and recover whatever we are able to.

Once Strateman realised I was expecting more than 50 bitcoins he refused to communicate further. Emails to his lawyer are read, and passed on, but he ignores these too. I'm not going to have better luck confronting him in the street and the chances of me resisting the urge to plaster the little shit all over the pavement, thereby destroying the case, are minimal.

He is the one going to be in a tiny cell, with no computer, staring through the bars on the window all day, if he is lucky enough to have a window, while being chased through his dreams by a little golden dog every night, for the rest of his life. Not me.

Unless I get my bitcoins. Right now.

[ptrs2010]

I have tried filing a report, about the 12.4 BTC still owed to me by intersango, with the police in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The police however says they can't file it, as this case relates to the agreement between me and the company. Hence this is a civil case and is not related to criminal law. The only thing they did was they told me to get a lawyer and sue the company. Perhaps you would have any advise on this, Icicle?

Btw, I am the guy that zhangweiwu spoke of. I have contacts in London and could travel there personally relatively easily, if this would contribute/achieve something, however I understand now from your last post that the case has already been filed in the UK? Please let me know if you think I can mean something in progressing this matter.

Hope Buddy is still doing ok, considering..

[zhangweiwu]

icicle: I will repeat my case to any police officer who allowed you to file a case, once their contact method is known. I would like to inform the U.K. police officer of our similar stories if they had one assigned to your case. I feel many others would do the same, as you already know, there are many who reported unable to withdraw from Intersango.

And by 'confrontation' I don't mean to tie him to a lamppost (although that seems to work in China - too many population for police to care about such trivil fights, and I was innocently beaten on the street before, police didn't care). English is my second language so I perhaps wasn't clear. A few questions like "Do you still have everybody's coins" and "Are you still going to run the company" may reveal something. Sometimes even a good look at him serves some purpose, e.g. if he avoids eye contact, or if he was found drinking the days off. I don't know U.S. law but confrontation in the sense of self-introduction and asking questions seems common in U.S. movies, although I am not sure if taping the process is legal or not.

Since you found his mom as well, did you try to reach her? I mean, I won't assume she knows everything or is part of the game, but: I have been oversea once, and had a dispute with a local, and a text message asking the father for help solved it instantly when the police can't - the father doesn't even speak English nor my language. Admittedly that was a smaller dispute, and the local wasn't a bad guy, just someone in such a predicament hard to afford to let go that money, unfortunately it was the same to me, or I'd love to spare him of the embarrassment - I know this story may splash a culture shock.

[ptrs2010]

Intersango website has now become unreachable for me...

[zhangweiwu]

Confirms, it is down for me from China too. We can find some pattern in this. MtGox stoped withdraw 2 weeks before the site went offline. The pattern means, if your exchange is stopping withdraw, you should panic:)

[fransbauer]

Hi Guys,

Patrick and Amir stole 1788 btc of me. Trough the Intersango site,
I worked hard for that money all my life.
Is there anybody out there who has some info.
I know Amir is still a free man, blaming it all on Patrick.
Will refresh his memory soon.

TTysoon.

[Icicle2]

Hi! Its Icicle. My previous account has been hacked or diverted or something. Recovery passwords do not arrive anyway.

So sorry to hear there are other people missing large amounts. I hope it will be of some comfort to know these people will go to jail. If there are any funds left that weren't pissed up a wall at $12 per bitcoin, we will find them.

Here is where we are with the police. They need to know for CERTAIN that the Patrick And Carole Strateman living in San Francisco are the same Stratemans involved in the theft of your bitcoins.

With this in mind, the police have been looking at photographs online but there are only side views of Patrick Strateman in public, so it is difficult to confirm his identity.

Does anyone know where there is a shot of Strateman face on?

It might seem like a trivial thing, but to a police officer in the US, it is considered good manners to be absolutely sure of the identification. They do, after all, go storming into other people's houses, with guns.

If you can help positively identify Strateman or if your coins are missing too, please phone..

The phone number is (415) 553-1521, Our SFPD case number (crime number) is 149 000 541 and you should ask for Sgt. McPherson.

Feel free to phone even if the police in your country want to call it a civil case because they are idle bastards. This is not a civil contract dispute, it is a civil contract dispute AS WELL.

I see no reason why recovered bitcoins should be denied to their rightful owners simply because the police in your own country would not take a report.

Incidentally, I have had success by writing to police headquarters to report crimes such as this then asking for a crime number. The people at headquarters tend to be more intelligent. The people on front desks in random locations[1] tend to abuse every bit of power they can get, and be too thick to know what their actual powers are, and not want to do any actual work. It helps if you are ill, or disabled and 'can't get to the police station'.

[1] by 'random locations' I am mostly thinking about the United Kingdom. So far, 90% of US police have surprised me by knowing what they are doing. In the UK, the reason they don't have guns is because they'd shoot their own feet off before you could say "time for a tea break".

[koshgel]

I live near San Francisco. Do you have actual addresses for these pricks?

I'll gather whatever info you need.

[Icicle2]

Edited. Thank you Koshgel and Tomatocage!

[Tomatocage]

I'll PM him the address, Icicle2.

Edit: PM has been sent.

[Icicle2]

Um, being the suspicious sort, I have just got to wondering how come my password doesn't work and how come the resend thing didn't work. Perhaps the board is a bit broken.

But perhaps there is a hack. It should go without saying, but I shall say it anyway.

If anyone pretending to be me asks you for money to recover your bitcoins, it is a scam. I shall not be asking you for money.

Zhangweiwu,

>And by 'confrontation' I don't mean to tie him to a lamppost (although that seems to work in China - too many population for police to care about such trivil fights, and I was innocently beaten on the street before, police didn't care). English is my second language so I perhaps wasn't clear. A few questions like "Do you still have everybody's coins" and "Are you still going to run the company" may reveal something. Sometimes even a good look at him serves some purpose, e.g. if he avoids eye contact, or if he was found drinking the days off. I don't know U.S. law but confrontation in the sense of self-introduction and asking questions seems common in U.S. movies, although I am not sure if taping the process is legal or not.

I know exactly what you mean you can tell a lot about emotion by facial expression. I got tested for it once at UCL while they were examining me for Prosopagnosia. I scored 100%. I mixed up Boy George with Elizabeth Taylor, and Einstein with Lenin, so I am face-blind, but I can tell what someone is thinking - just not who they are!

The law in the US about surveillance varies from state to state, though generally outside in the street, someone will have no 'expectation of privacy' so I should think you could film what you want so long as you aren't using a massive telephoto lens to peek into their house. Indoors you often have to tell them about film, though in my state not about audio recording, so long as you are being recorded too.

Still, judges don't like sneaking around.

[koshgel]

Received the address. Thank you.

This is Strateman's address? Is there one for Amir?

I'm not going to beat it him up because I'll get charged for assault but I will take whatever pictures and confront him with questions if you'd like. Let me know.




Edit: Apparently hes been doxed

http://pastebin.com/kXRRAG4t

[Icicle2]

Amir is in the UK. He is sometimes in Kent, and sometimes at various squats in London. I can find him if we have to, but it would be best to wait till the last minute. I shall have to call in some favors there and we will only get one chance at it, so perhaps it is best to wait. Then Strateman will blame Taaki to get himself a shorter sentence, hoping Taaki can't be found.

Heh.

Koshgel, i would be interested to know what his face looks like when he is asked "did you spend our bitcoins?" And "are our bitcoins safe?" Stuff with a yes/no answer - to do with the fate of our property.

If you could film that, I'll tell you if the little bugger is lying or not.

I suspect Strateman is on the Autism spectrum, like me. If so, he might not go out much unless to walk his dog, so it might be that you'll end up asking Carole/Jamie his mum, instead. He lives with her. She is like the Strateman Whisperer, however as she has ignored all my attempts to find out what is going on, and the house was put in a trust, she is possibly in on the whole scam. This makes her a useful interviewee.

My feeling is that Strateman still has most, if not all of our coins, and has had them so long he feels they belong to him. Think that little creature, whose name I forget, from Lord of the Rings. He will give them back, but not one microsecond before he has to.

See the message on Intersango.com?

"We're still here...

Funds will be returned in an orderly fashion"

Classic Strateman.

If you haven't had your funds yet, it is your own fault, see? You must have been disorderly. You haven't kissed his Imperial Stratenesses' ring enough.

Well, if a little girl pleading for the life of her dog didn't make an impression, then nothing will. Buddy's predicament has at least let us all know where we stand. At the mercy of a sociopath. You don't get many of those on the Autism spectrum.

He either hands over the coins, or his ring will shortly be getting all the attention it can handle

[koshgel]

I see. I'll be in San Francisco during the weekend and will scope out the location.  Many of my drinking buddies go to law school in San Francisco, so I'll ask them what's the best way to pursue legal action against this asshole.

Are there any photos of him so I can be sure I have the right person?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I see. I'll be in San Francisco during the weekend and will scope out the location.  Many of my drinking buddies go to law school in San Francisco, so I'll ask them what's the best way to pursue legal action against this asshole.

Are there any photos of him so I can be sure I have the right person?