>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.