i doubt the government will return assets they seized .. they are probably holding the bitcoins 'in rem'
Were his Bitcoins taken? Was he somehow forced to reveal passwords?
Did they prohibit you from discussing the methods of confiscation?
On the day I was arrested at my client's office in front of my client and all my co-workers they did not have to tell me why I was being arrested - sealed arrest warrant.
That same day they searched our house and did not have to tell us what they were looking for - sealed search warrant.
After being arrested in front of my client, which was a nice touch as they immediately terminated our contract, they took me to our house. I was taken aback by the number of cars so I made a point of counting them, 22.
The neighbors who watch the whole thing but failed to take any video (darn) counted up to 35 agents involved in the search.
They were very thorough even searching the entire attic and crawl space, every book, etc. It took my wife weeks to get the house put back together. Imagine up to 35 people searching you house for hours, they had the manpower and time to search just about everywhere.
During the search they got into my safe containing all of my physical Bitcoins and other Bitcoin related stuff.
Since I was not doing anything wrong I never expected to be shaken down in this way.
My security threat profile was common burglary and my main concern was making sure my wife would be able to sell the Bitcoins in the event of my death. So, the the vast majority of my Bitcoins were kept in a Trezor Bitcoin safe with the seed words kept off-site.
After searching my house for many hours and not finding what they were looking for, but taking every computer and electronic memory device they could get their hands on, they phoned in a search warrant for my office, which was granted.
Upon searching my office they found my off-site paper backup of the seed words for the Trezor which were there with retrieval instruction in the case of my death. They took all of our corporate computers and left.
The rest is, as they say, history.
Food for thought: my attorney informed me that they can and sometime do put people in jail until they turn over a password. So in reality your passwords are only as safe as your willingness to spend time in jail over them. After spending 3 days and 2 nights in solitary confinement (in the SHU at the federal detention center) I can tell you that most people will crack in pretty short order. It boring beyond comprehension.
Part of the total cost shown on my wife's web site ($284,373.00) was the cost of replacing all of the computers and cell phones we needed in order for our business to keep operating. Of course once we get all the computers back we will then have more computers and phones than we know what to do with. Anyone want to buy a used computer that was under government control for nine months?
