The CEO of Butterfly Labs is a convicted felon (25M USD worth of mail fraud.)
BFL hid this fact from its customers. (As they knew how the silly internet would react to this information.)
The information here presented would predictably make it much harder from BFL to acquire huge amounts of money through pre-orders.
(Yes, they have successfully taken in
huge amounts of pre-paid pre-orders on untested, unreleased products, as can be easily verified.)
This post aims to collate the relevant, publicly available information and present it in a concise, readable format.
A concise summary of evidence:(1) Chris Vleisides is the President/Director of Butterfly Labs Inc:
(2) Mr. Vleisides and associates orchestrated a massive mail order scam that ran from 1990 to 2006, causing a loss of at least 19M USD out of the ~25M USD invested in the scheme:Sonny Chris Vleisides, 39, previously of Kansas City, MO was arrested in 2007 and held two years in Italy before he was extradited to the United States.
Vleisides was sentenced to 14 months in prison followed by three years supervised release after pleading to one count of mail fraud.
https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/radDocs/PressRoom/nr110114.htmSonny Vleisides is associated with BFL and it's the same Sonny listed in the case documents. He was involved in off shore gaming in the capacity of selling and providing software engineering to companies that did the actual offshore gaming (there is even a US patent application for the process). The industry came under attack (as we all remember) around that time, and Mr. Vleisides was caught up in the process as well as a good portion of the industry based in Costa Rica.
Although this may be cause for concern to some, the fact is that we're a robust company with 22 employees. One of them has a colorful background in offshore libertarianism. If I thought there was even the possibility of something unsavory going on within BFL, you can rest assured I would a) not be part of it and b) would let everyone know it.
The reality is, we are legitimate, we have released revolutionary products and we are going to release more revolutionary products. I was made aware of this back story prior to my employment and I evaluated it and concluded that it was immaterial to the business at hand and thus joined BFL. There was nothing hidden from me and Sonny has always answered questions and been completely open about his past, but I think we can all agree that it's not something you just announce to the world.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109349.msg1202784#msg1202784Inaba is an employee of Butterfly Labs Inc, who posts on these forums under the names
inaba and
BFL_Josh.
(4) The mechanics of the scam, per DOJ Agent testimony: A joint investigation involving the IRS-CID and the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), revealed that from at least 1990 through July 2006, SONNY VLEISIDES, James Ray Houston, Dennis Emmett, William Cloud, Henry Walther, Scott Henry Walther, and others committed a massive international lottery scam using the following company names: Shamrock Agency, German Swiss Group, World Expert Fund, Mutual Medical Insurance Co, Old Amsterdam Trust Co, Euro American Fax Co, European Union Commission, EU American Payment Co, Global Search Network, North American Foreign Payments Services, Wor'dwide Verification Service, and others. VLEISIDES ran the scheme along with Houston and Emmett. VLEISIDES, Houston and Emmett, who were all located in Costa Rica, worked with mailing houses which, at the direction of VLEISIDES, Houston, and Emmett, sent out tens of thousands of mailings to victims in the United States, many of whom were elderly.
The mailings contained false statements, half truths, and omissions, and induced the victims to participate in various international lotteries, falsely stating that if the victims participated, they were guaranteed to win or had a very good chance to win. The mailings directed the victims to send their money to Ireland, at d the Netherlands, among other locations, where William Cloud had set up addresses with commercial mail receiving agencies and individuals to forward the money, eventually, back to the United States. After receipt at the commercial mail receiving agencies, the victims' money was sent to Henry Walther, who, along with his son Scott Henry Walther, deposited the money into various bank accounts and then distributed it as directed by VLEISIDES, Houston, and Emmett. Some of the money was spent on furthering the criminal activity. Some of the money was paid out to victims in small-dollar checks that the co-schemers misrepresented to be lottery winnings. The rest of the money was paid out to the co-schemers and others for their own use.
VLEISIDES and the other defendants did not buy any lottery tickets, and the vast majority of the victims lost the money they sent. The total loss from the scheme is in excess of $19 million.
...
An analysis was done on approximately twenty of the bank accounts established in the United States at the direction of VLEISIDES and his co-schemers. The analysis revealed, in summary, that the victims' money was first deposited into accounts established by the co-schemers at numerous banks in accounts with names that sound like official lotteries: SHAMROCK AGENCY, WORLD EXPERT, OLD AMSTERDAM, GERMAN SWISS, and EUC. (Hereinafter, accounts at this first layer will be referred to as "Deposit Accounts.") The co-schemers obtained over $19 million from tens of thousands of victims and deposited them into these accounts. After the co-schemers deposited the victims' money into the Deposit Accounts, they transferred the money to the next layer of accounts, hereinafter referred to as "Payment Accounts." These accounts were in names that included NORTH AMERICAN PAYMENT and EU PAYMENT SERVICE. From the Payment Accounts, the co-schemers wrote checks represented as winnings and sent them back to the victims. The amount of the alleged "winnings" was far less than the amount the victims sent in - for the over $19 million going into the accounts from victims, only approximately 20% was sent back to victims in the form of "winning" checks. The co-schemers transferred some of the money from the Deposit Accounts and Payment Accounts to the next layer of accounts, which will hereinafter be referred to as "Syphon Accounts." The co-schemers wrote checks (or used wire transfers) from the Lottery Accounts and the Payment Accounts to the Syphon Accounts, which were in names that included WESTERN INTERNET, BUTTERFIELD, CARNEGIE and HENRY WALTHER ATTORNEY WIRE ACCOUNT. Money from the Syphon Accounts was used to continue the scheme by paying scheme expenses, as well as to provide benefits to the co-schemers. The co-schemers also took money at each layer in the form of checks to cash, checks to themselves, or checks to the payment of personal or scheme expenses.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/106417808/Affidavit-for-Extradition-WarrantSeptember 15, 2010
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. SONNY VLEISIDES
...
The defendant is hereby placed on supervised release, effective immediately, for a term of
three years under the following terms and conditions:
...
The defendant shall not engage, as whole or partial owner, employee or otherwise, in any business involving loan programs, gambling or gaming activities, telemarketing activities, investment programs or any other business involving the
solicitation of funds or cold-calls to customers without the express approval of the Probation Officer prior to engagement in such employment.
...
All fines are waived as
it is found that the defendant does not have the ability to pay a fine....
As directed by the Probation Officer, the defendant shall provide to the Probation Officer: (1) a signed release authorizing credit report inquiries; (2) federal and state income tax returns or a signed release authorizing their disclosure and (3) an accurate financial statement, with supporting documentation as to all assets, income and expenses of the defendant. In addition, the defendant shall not apply for any loan or
open any line of credit without prior approval of the Probation Officer.
...
The defendant shall not transfer, sell, give away, or otherwise convey any asset with a fair market value in excess of $500 without approval of the Probation Officer until all financial obligations imposed by the Court have been satisfied in full....
Upon a finding of violation of probation or supervised release, I understand that the court may (1) revoke supervision, (2) extend the term of supervision, and/or (3) modify the conditions of supervision.
http://ca.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20100915_0004129.CCA.htm/qxThus, it can be seen the CEO of Butterfly Labs is likely
* in violation of his parole.
* (Unless given express prior approval from his probation officer on a number of counts.)
To return to the first point,
the CEO of BFL is a convicted felon and a scammer, as should be evident from the above.
I
sincerely hope BFL is not simply a preorder scam, and I hope BFL does
everything in their power to show that they're in fact not.
However, alarm bells should be ringing, and red lights flashing all over the place. This could be the biggest, and by far most professional scam yet.
For the time being, and under the weight of the public and indisputable evidence presented above, it seems prudent to say:
Do not order ASIC "Supercomputers", or other unreleased products from Butterfly Labs Inc.This post summarizes what is known at the present time. This thread will be updated with new information as it becomes available.
Notes:
(1) This summary was originally posted to:
Bryan Micon's List of Bitcoin Scammers, Shills, and Users Not To Trust IMO
