Butterfly Labs (BFL) raided today by U.S. Marshalls 9/19/14

[Inaba]

Why do I need to do that?  It's already been done, a press release has been made and the statement is out there. I imagine there will be lots of sad troll pandas in the future. I'd say they'd look like idiots, but they already do, so it would be redundant.

[QuestionAuthority]

Why do I need to do that?  It's already been done, a press release has been made and the statement is out there. I imagine there will be lots of sad troll pandas in the future. I'd say they'd look like idiots, but they already do, so it would be redundant.

Well, at least you're sad about it.

[sly5am]

Finally, BFL's forum is getting up to speed: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-and-miscellaneous/8832-rumor-raid.html

Here's what I predict:

BFL, were you raided?

It wasn't a raid. We invited the FTC, US Marshals and the FBI to tour our plant to prove to them that we truly are the most trustworthy Bitcoin entity in the world. Later, we treated them to lunch, had a few laughs at the expense of them monumental assholes over at BCT, then they went on their merry way.

That's the good news. Now, the bad news. Due to shortage of parts...

LOL plus 1000  and I hope JZ and the rest go to jail for fraud for a long long time. Enjoy my cash you decided to steal temporarily BFL.. Looks like I will finally get it back and then some.

hahahaahahahahahahahahahah... Fucken assholes

[xstr8guy]

Amazingly Josh is still answering questions on the BFL forum.

Why do you find that amazing?

Maybe Inaba is just a new implementation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA ? His keyword-oriented response generation is effective in emulating the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect to generate voluminous discussion threads.

You just made my head explode!

And I think you might actually be correct. Lol.

[jjc326]

Finally, BFL's forum is getting up to speed: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-and-miscellaneous/8832-rumor-raid.html

Here's what I predict:

BFL, were you raided?

It wasn't a raid. We invited the FTC, US Marshals and the FBI to tour our plant to prove to them that we truly are the most trustworthy Bitcoin entity in the world. Later, we treated them to lunch, had a few laughs at the expense of them monumental assholes over at BCT, then they went on their merry way.

That's the good news. Now, the bad news. Due to shortage of parts...

LOL plus 1000  and I hope JZ and the rest go to jail for fraud for a long long time. Enjoy my cash you decided to steal temporarily BFL.. Looks like I will finally get it back and then some.

hahahaahahahahahahahahahah... Fucken assholes

they took the thread down

haa Josh says on BFL forum that everything should be resolved next week.  Sure, the court is just going to disbelieve the FTC and allow BFL to continue the screwing of the customers...

[LittleD]

Why do I need to do that?  It's already been done, a press release has been made and the statement is out there. I imagine there will be lots of sad troll pandas in the future. I'd say they'd look like idiots, but they already do, so it would be redundant.

OMG look what the Troll brought in LOL ... Braaa! are YOU delusional? ... You think this whole scam is a small thing? ... wow ... The fed's bring down your operation and your just like..."what ever man... ill show you who has the last laugh" ... Your DELUSIONAL boy...



I hope your cellie cuddle's YOU    

[Searing]

Why do I need to do that?  It's already been done, a press release has been made and the statement is out there. I imagine there will be lots of sad troll pandas in the future. I'd say they'd look like idiots, but they already do, so it would be redundant.

not sure what you mean FTC comes along and says you at BFL are doing what everyone who purchased a 65mm and monarch unit from you all said

ie taking $$ and not refunding and not shipping a product that makes any sense in a timely manner (at the least prob more fraud will be found)

so if you want to see a 'sad idiot' look in a mirror.....

sheesh what a tool you are..being a megalomaniac in the face of reality must really suck after the FTC and now the IRS is investigating..by the by Josh did
you file your mining returns as stated by the IRS guidelines on alt currency mining 2013 in the USA?

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irs.gov%2Fpub%2Firs-drop%2Fn-14-21.pdf&ei=a5UlVKXnOZGeyATO7YHQBg&usg=AFQjCNG2g1OtOLBx6oIf45FLTw1JA_zo4Q&bvm=bv.76247554,d.aWw

Better get your big boy pants on ..where the FTC goes the IRS is sure to follow.....

[QuestionAuthority]

They gonna get ya like they got Al Capone. LOL

That's ok because I got a preorder for you on super slippery lube guaranteed to keep the friction down to a minimum. It's called ButtSafe and it is available for preorder now. Send in $2,999 and you'll be reserved a spot in the queue. We guarantee to deliver it right to your prison cell before the first hemmoroid pops.




Disclaimer: all sales final - no refunds if you're an idiot and we think we can fuck you and get away with it - we accept Bitcoin but immediately convert it to cash so we don't have to refund anyone in Bitcoin when we get caught in fraud - lube may not perform as claimed and could be severely underpowered - power supply not included even if you paid for one - as a reminder this company and its officers think your an idiot and will continue to call you names throughout the sale period. Thank you for providing the funding to develop ButtSafe through your preorders but this grants you no special rights or privledges to receive product on time or at all - just for good measure, fuck all of you stupid idiots. Happy Shopping!

[JoshsAssIsFucked]

Why do I need to do that?  It's already been done, a press release has been made and the statement is out there. I imagine there will be lots of sad troll pandas in the future. I'd say they'd look like idiots, but they already do, so it would be redundant.

OMG look what the Troll brought in LOL ... Braaa! are YOU delusional? ... You think this whole scam is a small thing? ... wow ... The fed's bring down your operation and your just like..."what ever man... ill show you who has the last laugh" ... Your DELUSIONAL boy...



I hope your cellie cuddle's YOU    
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3_PrxTZXmhw/T7V8XIEL5TI/AAAAAAAAFX8/f_xZ8yRxqdY/s1600/11-lets-go-to-prison-17.jpg

I like it, Almost as much as josh chewing on dick candy

gotta say though, I said 3 YEARS AGO almost. When i met him at bitcoin conference in london 2012 it was BLATANTLY obvious! Crack sweats galour! Guy obviously lives on cloud 9.

He was trained in phy-ops in the army, Its where he learnt how to BS the way he does but what happens to people who continue down these lines is they actually believe there own lies! As you can see with joshy boy. This is why the puppet show of the so called goverment, police, courts, solicitors, lawyers continues to this day. People ACTUALLY believe this bullshit but if you have had any experience with either, you will see what a joke it all is, An illusion!

People are too dumbed down with schooling (programming) and eating all the shit in our food, water and what not. But some of us are not blinded by there bullshit, Some of us see right through it! Unfortunitly 90% of people dont!

[2112]

He was trained in phy-ops in the army,

How do you know that? Can you give us a link to his post?

[JoshsAssIsFucked]

He was trained in phy-ops in the army,

How do you know that? Can you give us a link to his post?

Cockroach never refutes it

[ElGrandJefe]

He was trained in phy-ops in the army,

How do you know that? Can you give us a link to his post?

Cockroach never refutes it

I'm sure he dreams of being trained in psy-ops, along with his service in Seal Team Six, but IIRC he was a Korean linguist.

At least he'll be able to promise to love you long time if he encounters any Korean drug kings in the slammer.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

He was trained in phy-ops in the army,

How do you know that? Can you give us a link to his post?

Cockroach never refutes it

I'm sure he dreams of being trained in psy-ops, along with his service in Seal Team Six, but IIRC he was a Korean linguist.

At least he'll be able to promise to love you long time if he encounters any Korean drug kings in the slammer.

Trained at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.  Prime duty.  Might be where he got his pilot's license.

[2112]

Trained at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.  Prime duty.  Might be where he got his pilot's license.

Thanks, I checked the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Language_Institute  and this institution grands AA degrees, which is far away from the psy-ops educational requirements.

This type of teaching establishment have their own occupational risks, which I think Churchill summed the best: ability to squeeze the maximum of words into the minimum of meaning.

This would also completely explain Inaba's dialectical habits. Given the sentence "two plus two equal five", he would correct it to "two plus two equals five" or complain that it isn't a well-formed sentence but just a clause.

In my opinion that has more in common with "verbal tic" than a highly skilled social technique. I've met unquestionably highly educated people who to the end of their life couldn't get rid of similar language habits learned in a mediocre language schools (religious, not military). This ELIZA technique is frequently used to quickly approximate a fluent speech.

Amazingly Josh is still answering questions on the BFL forum.

Why do you find that amazing?

Maybe Inaba is just a new implementation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA ? His keyword-oriented response generation is effective in emulating the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect to generate voluminous discussion threads.

[MrSwadge]

What is the best way to read up on what happens in the case on Monday? Is there somewhere that the court proceedings are published?

[HELP.org]

Amazingly Josh is still answering questions on the BFL forum.

Why do you find that amazing?

I find it amazingly stupid.  You are involved in pending civil litigation with the possibility of criminal charges.  People in that situation would have legal counsel who would tell them not to make any public statements because they could be used against them.  BFL has already pissed of the regulators by posting their rebuttal and having those foam fingers made up with customer funds.   I have referred your postings to the attorney who is heading up the case for the FTC and I explained about how you conspired with the people who run this forum to run ads that everybody involved knew would not be delivered as required by law.  Hopefully some of those funds can be recovered and returned to the people who trusted the operators of this forum.

You may also note the Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, Peter Vessenes, was trying to hide mining funds from a customer and was caught after posting on this forum:  http://cointext.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/alydiancomplaint.pdf
That was the last post he made here.

[LittleD]

All the FTC vs BFL court documents & evidence can be found here: Index of http://ia902308.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531/

[Raskal]

Only issue the FTC is gonna run into is BFL did deliver some units and clearly was actively working on R&D (to some extent at least) so the only real solid case against them is misuse of company funds which is basically a hefty fine no jail time and more than likely no settlement on delayed orders, at most they may be forced to use any monarch cards they have in their cloud mining datacenter to send to customers which at 40 billion network difficulty would only make a few bucks a day. I doubt if any real repercussions will come about. One judge has already said he believes there was foul play and if he could he would lock the 3 of them up for the full 24 months.. yeah at best only 24 months for a multi million dollar scam so I seriously doubt if there will be any satisfactory justice for those of us that were duped.

[ElGrandJefe]

Only issue the FTC is gonna run into is BFL did deliver some units and clearly was actively working on R&D (to some extent at least) so the only real solid case against them is misuse of company funds which is basically a hefty fine no jail time and more than likely no settlement on delayed orders, at most they may be forced to use any monarch cards they have in their cloud mining datacenter to send to customers which at 40 billion network difficulty would only make a few bucks a day. I doubt if any real repercussions will come about. One judge has already said he believes there was foul play and if he could he would lock the 3 of them up for the full 24 months.. yeah at best only 24 months for a multi million dollar scam so I seriously doubt if there will be any satisfactory justice for those of us that were duped.

"Some units", yes. But how many? If you only ship half of what you promised, while refusing refunds to the rest after you convince them to upgrade to the next, much more powerful hardware generation (in exchange for a 10% restocking fee, natch), that's a deceptive business practice as well. Not to mention the fact that NONE of the shipped units, aside perhaps from the first few that went to special friends, delivered the yield BFL promised, due to the extensive delays.

And don't forget their massive "burn-in" farms, which comprised up to 3% of the entire network and poured their proceeds directly into BFL's pocket. In financial circles, that's called the "skim", and it's illegal as hell (not least because of the additional shipping delays it caused - taking BTC that should have gone directly into customers wallets).

I don't know if failure to disclose that BFL purchased Eclipse way back in June 2012 - a fact that wasn't revealed until the release of a deposition - is deceptive as defined under law, but it was certainly unethical.

If they failed to disclose their millions in BTC income, because they believed it untraceable, then they might be looking at many years of turning large rocks into smaller rocks.

The BFL Three just got an extra week to provide the evidence demanded by the court. Come back next week when they ask for another week, but aren't granted it.

[Raskal]

Only issue the FTC is gonna run into is BFL did deliver some units and clearly was actively working on R&D (to some extent at least) so the only real solid case against them is misuse of company funds which is basically a hefty fine no jail time and more than likely no settlement on delayed orders, at most they may be forced to use any monarch cards they have in their cloud mining datacenter to send to customers which at 40 billion network difficulty would only make a few bucks a day. I doubt if any real repercussions will come about. One judge has already said he believes there was foul play and if he could he would lock the 3 of them up for the full 24 months.. yeah at best only 24 months for a multi million dollar scam so I seriously doubt if there will be any satisfactory justice for those of us that were duped.

"Some units", yes. But how many? If you only ship half of what you promised, while refusing refunds to the rest after you convince them to upgrade to the next, much more powerful hardware generation (in exchange for a 10% restocking fee, natch), that's a deceptive business practice as well. Not to mention the fact that NONE of the shipped units, aside perhaps from the first few that went to special friends, delivered the yield BFL promised, due to the extensive delays.

And don't forget their massive "burn-in" farms, which comprised up to 3% of the entire network and poured their proceeds directly into BFL's pocket. In financial circles, that's called the "skim", and it's illegal as hell (not least because of the additional shipping delays it caused - taking BTC that should have gone directly into customers wallets).

I don't know if failure to disclose that BFL purchased Eclipse way back in June 2012 - a fact that wasn't revealed until the release of a deposition - is deceptive as defined under law, but it was certainly unethical.

If they failed to disclose their millions in BTC income, because they believed it untraceable, then they might be looking at many years of turning large rocks into smaller rocks.

The BFL Three just got an extra week to provide the evidence demanded by the court. Come back next week when they ask for another week, but aren't granted it.

I completely agree with you, I also hope I'm wrong and they get locked up. I'm just looking at it from a legal perspective and while yes everybody knows they acted in a very deceptive way and drained I believe it was 40 million dollars from company funds to enrich their lifestyles it has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they set out from the beginning to never deliver and since they did deliver on a fraction of what they sold and proved they were in active development it will be near impossible to prove what their mind set was. As I said I whole heartedly hope I'm wrong and that the judge is willing to bend the law a little to see them behind bars where we all know they belong however if that did happen  I am fairly confident the decision could easily be overturned by a different judge in appeals court. Although  they are clearly guilty as sin it's not what we know it's what can be proven in court and in my opinion the prosecution will have a difficult time proving what BFL's intentions were because they clearly stated no refunds and late deliverys can be claimed as simply manufacturering  delays the only solid case I see is misuse of company funds. Hopefully I'm wrong.