[2014-04-10] CoinDesk: Lawyers Want Bitcoin Money Laundering Charges Dropped

[bryant.coleman]

http://www.coindesk.com/lawyers-want-bitcoin-money-laundering-charges-dropped-technicality/

Adber Espinoza and Pascal Reid were arrested in February following an undercover sting operation. Police made the arrests after undercover officers took to LocalBitcoins.com posing as credit card fraudsters.

[Rygon]

Not gonna work. They took in dirty money and exchanged it for something clean (bitcoin), which could later be exchanged for clean money. That sounds a lot like money laundering to me. Folks on localbitcoins really ought to register as a money service and CYA as much as possible. They probably could have avoided it if they did something as simple as implementing a half-ass KYC/AML policy. I hope that sellers on localbitcoins that knowingly deal with criminals and dirty money are the exception, not the norm.

[hilariousandco]

Not gonna work. They took in dirty money and exchanged it for something clean (bitcoin), which could later be exchanged for clean money. That sounds a lot like money laundering to me.

So if anyone sells Bitcoin for cash can they be accused of money laundering if the cash was dirty?

[Quantus]

Not gonna work. They took in dirty money and exchanged it for something clean (bitcoin), which could later be exchanged for clean money. That sounds a lot like money laundering to me.

So if anyone sells Bitcoin for cash can they be accused of money laundering if the cash was dirty?

Only if they can prove you knew the money was dirty.

[hilariousandco]

Not gonna work. They took in dirty money and exchanged it for something clean (bitcoin), which could later be exchanged for clean money. That sounds a lot like money laundering to me.

So if anyone sells Bitcoin for cash can they be accused of money laundering if the cash was dirty?

Only if they can prove you knew the money was dirty.

Looks like snide tactics the way they snared these guys.

[Quantus]

I don't see anything wrong with what the cops did. Its not entrapment. If the cops were like "I stole this money and need it laundered to pay for my daughters heart transplant, plz help me!" Then that would fall under entrapment I think.

Any one this dumb should avoid committing crime.

[bryant.coleman]

Only if they can prove you knew the money was dirty.

How they are going to prove that. Normally in localbitcoins.com, there is hardly any one-to-one conversation between the buyer and the seller. But even then, if some of the potential buyers tell me that the coins are indeed meant to buy drugs or ammo, I'll tell them to GTFO.

[hilariousandco]

Only if they can prove you knew the money was dirty.

How they are going to prove that. Normally in localbitcoins.com, there is hardly any one-to-one conversation between the buyer and the seller. But even then, if some of the potential buyers tell me that the coins are indeed meant to buy drugs or ammo, I'll tell them to GTFO.

The police told the sellers it was going to be used for dodgy shit.

[bryant.coleman]

The police told the sellers it was going to be used for dodgy shit.

The sellers were too dumb then. If you are using Bitcoin, then automatically you are added to the hit-list created by the bankers. You have to be extremely careful when you are in such a situation.

[hilariousandco]

The police told the sellers it was going to be used for dodgy shit.

The sellers were too dumb then. If you are using Bitcoin, then automatically you are added to the hit-list created by the bankers. You have to be extremely careful when you are in such a situation.

Yes, they were dumb, but it still seems like a snide tactic, especially when they probably wernt 'money laundering' until the police came along and snared them.