Or worse, funded one because of what appears to be a legit charity to (usually) help the children affected by the various wars and it turns out that it was just a front to fund the fighting.

The only reason that it was mentioned in the first place was to tie bitcoin to terror funding.  From what I have read the writer hadnt written anything in 4 months, he was not regular staff he was freelance.  If a kid used to work at McDonalds (as a real employee not a freelance burger flipper) the media wont mention that.  Nothing about his writing was in any way involved in his assistance to the guy to get him to Syria.  They already had the fact that he co-founded the first arabic language bitcoin exchange or whatever it was, so there was little need to mention the writing gig other than to try to suggest that its a larger problem with bitcoin.

You did.  They also said at the same time they have lots of backups which can and often does include deleted or edited posts.  They said this just after the silk road stuff blew up because people were panic deleting posts or editing them to obscure the content hoping to avoid criminal prosecution.

However posts here from unaffiliated people would generally not be admissible.  Evidence should be from the original source as a general rule.  

This is somewhat different from the hearsay rule which is probably what some readers of this thread would be thinking of.  That rule says that a 3rd party cannot say what they were told was said (eg "Alice told me that Bob said ...") generally that is because its not the original evidence but not exclusively because of that.  However if you are part of a forum you might be able ot testify to what you personally observed as a participant in that conversation, there are exceptions to the original source rule and ultimately it would come down to the judge and the arguments the lawyers present (if it even comes to that).

That paints it in a different light from the "no questions asked" thing, which is all I had evidence of at a minimum prior.  I would consider that a real violation of the money laundering statute rather than willful ignorance.  There is also no real legal defense against that.  

edit: before anyone jumps all over me about the terrorism thing again I felt I should add this still does not differentiate between which group.  For all I know its ELF or some other group.  I would like some clarification, if possible, on which group.  I am just too lazy and/or busy to download and grep through the emails to try to figure it out.

my mistake, I thought it was coinfire that had the freelance writer.  Maybe because I had just read it in the quote I was responding to, maybe not.  I know that in previous posts I had stated it correctly, cited information, etc to correct the "editor" misconception.  

As far as GAW and ISIS it is alleged that there is a DHS investigation into terror funding under what on the surface appears to be a "no questions asked" policy when accepting funds.  This policy is not uncommon in the cryptocoin community it is one that can allow you to run afoul of the law in a land of KYC/AML/ATF laws.  
http://coinfire.io/2015/03/06/coin-fire-gaw-miners-catches-sec-ftc-irs-dhs-attention/

Because of the Saudi Arabian link I believe that some inferred it was ISIS which is why I specifically asked for clarification if it was ISIS or perhaps ELF or some other terror group unaffiliated with the muslim religion.  

There are also NDAs at play.  If they come forward to anyone other than the government then they can be sued merely because of the NDA.  IT will also harm their ability to work in the future as many tech jobs require NDAs and breaching one makes you less employable in an already tight market.

I do know for a fact that there are NDAs for at least some of the people who worked at or with GAW in relation to paycoin and the cloud mining.  I do not know if every employee had to sign one.

he is known to be in Europe, his Belgian train ticket was in the email trove.  

DHS was apparently investigating GAW for what appears on  the surface to be "no questions asked" money transmitting which qualifies as laundering for what is purported to be  terrorist funding.  No questions asked is how they got Charlie Shrem for doing an exchange of TSR coins.  Not everything on TSR is illegal, nor are some of the transactions illegal in the US but he still was charged.

The stuff about "jot" is silly though.

That does not mean it was ISIS, although it is a strong indicator since so many princes there (and their subordinates) are known to support it.    Additionally the individual may not be Saudi.  I have not yet had time to go through the article posted yesterday (its been opened in a new tab since it was published).  I have not seen what direct quotes they have from that investigation which is why I asked.  There have just been too many people misreading things lately so I wanted to be careful slinging group names around (eg the "coinfire editor" that turns out it was never said to be an editor in the original source material).

Not asking enough questions is sufficient to get indicted for money laundering when it comes to bitcoin.  Making it harder for the US to track does qualify as money laundering.  Its as bad as structuring which is basically doing financial transactions to avoid IRS reporting requirements.  There were some legal cash businesses operating in the area  that did so much business they would take $7-8k to the bank 2-3 times per day.  They got charged with structuring (a lesser form of money laundering) because they were depositing into a bank account in amounts less than $10k even though the reporting requirements now are on any amount even as little as a couple thousand that is suspicious to the banks.  

Maybe they just did not want to keep tens of thousands in cash around.  I guess the solution would be to hire an armored car company do the pickups or something.  Sigh.  

Financial crimes in the US are sometimes as bad as tech law which is pretty bad.  There really is no area of the law where its not.  Once upon a time it used to be you actually had to do something "bad" to be charged.  Over time it has evolved into "you might be able to do something bad even though you never did" which is why shoe laces are sometimes considered machine guns and copper pot scrubbers are sometimes silencers.  (yes really, ATF has flat out said that - selective enforcement if they dont like you they charge you).  Mere possession is enough to trigger a raid, arrest, and yes even a conviction.  

This is not to say everyone charged is innocent of any actual wrong doing, it is not to say that specifically the GAW cult is not culpable, but prosecutorial overreach is common.  They often indict with everything and then offer a plea to drop the BS they could never convict on to get the other stuff.  

One thing to note, if it comes down to criminal charges from the feds about 95% plead guilty and about 75% of the 5% that go to trial are found guilty.  This leads to about a 1-2% acquittal rate.  If you were charged by the feds and not convicted you are either very very good (as is your lawyer) and you probably spent well over a million on a legal defense or you were absolutely not guilty under any circumstances.  State courts are totally different in this regard.  Federal civil cases do not have quite the same conviction rate when brought by federal agencies like the SEC.

This means if the GAW cult leadership is charged criminally it is extremely likely they will be found guilty or plead guilty.  They can make a plea deal and the judge can accept the guilty plea but not the terms and is free to sentence as they see fit (although they usually do go along with the deal it is deviated enough that its a real concern for defendants).  If they can convince a grand jury to indict they will almost assuredly get a conviction.  I wonder if Garza would entertain a 5k1.1 departure (substantial assistance  to the gov against someone else) and rat out everyone he can possibly know about especially related to the "terrorist funding".  That may put him into witness protection with a new identity although he would have to stay away from crypto for fear of someone recognizing him.

I disagree, terrorism, as defined by the US government includes more than muslims.  There is a reason they said that if you believe in the US constitution, ever served in the military, use ham radio or internet chat and a whole bunch of other things you might be a terrorist.  It is basically anyone the US gov disagrees with or is unable to politically control.  

Further jihad answers the "why" question where terrorism answers the "how" question.  You can be a jihadi without being a terrorist and you can be a terrorist without being a jihadi.

The reason this is on-topic is because of the claim of terror funding.  Was it specified if it was domestic or foreign terrorism?  For all I know he was helping support one of the activist groups (ELF is listed as a terror organization), militias (some but not all are terror orgs some just do the more historical role), or perhaps some other crazy group out there somewhere in the world.  

I ask because while there are things mentioning ISIS there are also a lot of conclusions people have jumped to and I did not know what was factual and what was speculation with the ISIS ties.

Another part of this is how the US defines money laundering, which for the most part is something the Anti-Money Laundering Coalition agrees with.  

To conceal or disguise the origin or destination of the money.  

Historically terror funding has come from charities, where some front man will promote a charity (which they may even believe is legit) and solicit donations.  On the back end terror groups siphon off money.  Because the donations are to the charity for helping whatever the destination is disguised and that is laundering under US law.

One could make an argument that anonymized bitcoin transactions are laundering because sending them through a coin mixer or whatever disguises the source and destination.  The law is more or less that generic.

This is not the only definition found in the statute, but it is one of them.  There are also a few more elements but meh.

Charlie Shreem was charged with money laundering because he knew the coins came from TSR (or so count 2 alleges) and some of the transactions there are illegal in the US.  This is one of the other definitions of laundering, promoting illegal activity.  

The result is absent more specifics I tend to disregard money laundering charges because that does not mean someone actually knew what was going on.  They might, then again they might not.  

I currently live in the US.  The US is the only place that I have heard jot used to describe writing something down.  I have heard it recently too, from different parts of the union. 

I dunno, I think its a stretch to hang someones identity on that particular word.

I highly doubt it.

FIFY


You actually read it?  Perhaps you should read it again, maybe slower this time since they did make it clear that it was a freelance writer and in the same paragraph quoted a different person who was an editor.  The phrasing was poor but it is clear if you slow down when reading.

You sure about your assertions?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/04/us/virginia-isis-arrest/index.html

According to that article he was just a writer not an editor.  As a writer he would not have editorial control over all content coinbrief publishes.

I laid out how people can file themselves in an earlier post in this thread.  As a law student it is not legal for me to represent other people directly otherwise I would be all about forming a class action and  trying to get in before there is nothing left to get

wait what?  coinbrief is a news organization.  One of their employees in his spare time (afaik) was found to be funding or attempting to fund ISIS.

Garza, PayCoin/Paybase are a separate entity.  AFAIK the only link between the two is that coinbrief wrote about GAW especially with the publicly accessible emails.

I realize you are being sarcastic but ...  I do not understand the logic behind too many users and coins going to random addresses. 

Maybe I am thinking about this wrong when trying to figure out the logic.  I have developed bitcoin apps that deal with the blockchain, process payments, etc (last project was a gambling site so there is money in, out, splits for fees, etc).  I just cant imagine any circumstances that would lead to "too many users" causing coins to go to random addresses where it has to be sorted out later.  I could see double payments or missing payments because of too many users (race condition in  the payment processing software and/or inadequate row locking when doing the payments) but not random addresses.

They know what people staked, they know what coins were generated, it should be straight forward to process payments or even to validate who got paid and who was missed.

The only reason I can think that people accept their response is they have no idea how it all works.  Its just a magic money box to them.

Have you cross checked the number of destroyed coins against what the number should be?  Basically I am asking could it be possible that there is another address that was used to destroy coins?

This would be potential proof of a crime, namely wire fraud but possibly some others.  An  easy defense to this claim would be "we destroyed the promised number of coins by  the promised date and time and  here is the blockchain proof".  This is why claims must be looked at singularly before calling it a crime - because that is how they are prosecuted and defended against.  The suggestions (by someone else I believe) that you look at it as a whole and decide if a crime occurred based on a gut feeling is not how the legal system works.  

Taking away  that defense makes it easier.  Proving criminal culpability also makes it easier to win a civil suit which is how most investors will get their money back.  However those that cashed out early can be subject to clawback laws, basically if you cashed out early and profited all of that can be demanded back by the government and then per share awards can be given which means you may end up with a loss in the long term.  This applies to mere investors the same as it does to those actually responsible when an investment vehicle is found to be criminal (look at some of the early investors in the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, merely because they cashed out early they were punished longer term).

Clawbacks can hose the people that got into XPY early and left early before everything blew up, even though they didnt do anything wrong.  I personally disagree with clawbacks unless the person is found to have known, or reasonably should have known, that the investment was criminal.  The government disagrees with me.


The SEC largely deals with civil matters.  This is related to advertising for investors, accepting investments, etc.  They do have a unit that works with  the FBI for criminal prosecutions.  

The FBI would deal with wire fraud (for anything on the internet or telephone) and if there was anything mailed mail fraud.  This would be criminal.

The FTA is the federal transit administration.  I think  you meant the FTC which largely deals with truth in advertising claims geared towards consumers mostly in civil court.  They do have a criminal liaison unit which coordinates with criminal agencies like the FBI.  The FTC would  probably stay out of it deferring to the SEC and FBI for the civil and criminal charges should any exist.  I believe they  would likely stay out of it because it is more about investment advertising as opposed to regular advertising.  Both the FTC and SEC regulate speech for the most part, just different areas of it.

That is for that one coin,  using the same logic on an altcoin if people decide to support it and its centralized and generally privately mined then they are voting for that system.  I dont know why there is even a controversy over how public the mining is or should be since a coin lives and dies by its users thus every user gets a vote.