Topic: BREAKING: SEC Charges pirateat40 With Running Bitcoin-Denominated Ponzi Scheme (Read 44398 times)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. He beat his wife after being charged, and now she's in a limo going to a haunted hay ride with him and the kids?

Well, hey - if you want to damage the man, fix the battered wife syndrome and have her leave him.

I disagree with the "no such intent" part; he already was a con man before getting involved with Bitcoin:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1289098

Not to forget that some proxy services such as Paybtc's BitcoinMax most likely also scammed investors.

his FIAT bank account is frozen, but that doesnt stop him selling hidden bitcoins at localbitcoin places

Sometimes people upload things that happened a long time ago to their facebooks

Actually if you read the court documents what's happened so far is that first Shavers tried the Sovereign citizen route claiming the court has no jurisdiction over him, which was promptly laughed out of court, then he was adviced to prepare an accounting of his finances which he promptly neglected to do then had a date to appear in court, which he promptly neglected to do and by now the court has frozen all of his personal accounts in response. The actual trial is gonna take some time (years).

I'm not sure I'd call pirate's scheme from the beginning a "plan", but it was definitely someone taking advantage of an opportunity he was creating.

pirateat40 deleted most of his posts on here, but you may remember he was asking either bitlane or smoothie (or both?) who they were, over and over again. Not sure if it was here or in IRC, but if here, he's since deleted those posts and they both appear to have selectively edited a few parts of their own. I'm not sure why I can't find this info again, but I know I saw something along these lines in August of last year, shortly after the run up to $15 and crash back down to $8. I checked a few of the threads where I was certain it was posted and its not there anymore.

Also, don't forget the Vandroiy bet (though I honestly think that was less opportunistic and more a warning).

I can think of a number of different ways you could game pirate's moneyPak to BTC (or vice-versa) operation if you knew exactly how it worked (and especially if you thought it was also a Ponzi):
Step #1: Become his best anonymous customer.
Step #2: Become his best anonymous investor.
Step #3: Make promises from both.
Step #4: Abuse trust.
Step #5: Profit.

Glad I never really got involved, this post was about the extent of my contribution:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1024661

I feel bad for those that lost money, but keep in mind there's a few folks in that thread, brunic & usagi, notably, that even wanted to ban dissenting speak or wanted people to flat out "shut up". This forum, at the time of BS&T, was actually quite hostile to folks even suggesting it was a Ponzi or moneylaundering scheme, under the impression that if it wasn't, it'd be destroying a legitimate business.

I don't believe pirate actually thought that he was going to run a Ponzi or was planning on it. I think he had a solid but small moneyPak-for-BTC business model that worked on the scale of thousands of dollars, worked less reliably at tens of thousands, and utterly failed at hundreds of thousands. I also think his willingness to work with anonymous individuals probably sealed BS&T's fate.

piotr_n and goat can you take your pissing match elsewhere.

Frankie,

There is a pending civil case for the Trendon Shavers Ponzi scheme.

http://www.justmugshots.com/texas/collin-county/18816833

Right. Bring more nazi symbols, to prove that pirateat40 was a scammer and a pure criminal, while US gov had completely nothing to do with stealing your money.

Still, according to my definition to be a scammer one needs to have an intent to scam - and IMHO pirateat40 had no such intent. He was just an idiot and a total tool.

well, laught as much as you want, but try to buy bitcoins to repay your lenders, having the collateral funds frozen, mr smart ass
and who froze the collateral funds? your nazi government - who else?

  U rule!

I am telling you: he does not have that stash.
All he might have are his personal coins, maybe a few tens of thousands, which today should be enough for a preposterous life.

But the stash itself was hold by his customers - and he was holding the customers' dollars, as a collateral.
The idea seemed safe, but when it came to then point the customers did not give him back the coins, and pulled the strings making the dollar funds frozen, making him unable to exchange the collateral into bitcoins. And let me remind you that it was with your applause guys, since you were all so happy that SEC froze his bank account.

It was somebody's brilliant plan to purchase hundreds of thousands of coins, without moving the price.
Buying tons of bitcoins with a huge discount by pretending borrowing them with a huge interest.
And I doubt that the somebody was the pirate himself - it had to be someone with good connections in US authorities.
So IMHO the party most responsible for stealing your money is the US government itself - just like in the case of MtGox and Btc24 frozen funds.

my main aim was to ask what is the update on the whole case, is it truly already over, is there an upcoming visit to court coming soon, ??

meandering off topic slightly
i used the photo's as they were taken directly from ashley shavers public FB profile with FB dating them this month. showing trendon out and about, which got me wondering what was the latest in the case?

no one uses the hidden metadata of files as gospel.. my phone still says its 1997 due to my battery going flat before i get to recharge it and/or having to swap simcards which requires removing the battery entirely. and that meta data if beleived places them in a fastfood venue at 3 in the morning... hmmm maybe not.

but anyways lets not investigate the picture as thats just meandering off topic.. what is the update on the whole case?

Is this true? He is free and out? (With a giant Bitcoin stash hidden away of course)

OK, just let me help them a bit, so they would not need to wast their time digging through your bullshit.

People, I suggest you to see this post, that should give you a clue about the relations between Goat and Nefario:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1143404

And here is the final chart showing the volume of Goat's PPT bonds in circulation at GLBSE (that's the same bonds about which Nefraio said that "The Goat has done nothing wrong", denying the fact that Goat was letting new bonds on the the market, while not being able to deposit the relevant amount at the pirate's bank anymore).



Also here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1161899
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1173216

Technically I only connect Nefario to your scam, and your scam to this...

It is still in that threat.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1126157

Anyone can go and see how you were selling more and more PPT bonds, while it was already clear that pirate would not accept any more deposits.
And I also know for a fact that Nefario was your lying bitch, since (unlike you) I do not need to write down a 5 digit number to remember it the next day.

BTW, I remember very clearly how you did not like my comments back then - so much that you went to theymos asking him to remove my posts from your topic.
Which he did... which was weird for me... until I found out that our great admin had a secret share in GLBSE.
But at least he had a dignity to put my comments back, into a different thread - so he wasn't as much of a crook as the two of you, but just a secret investor with a conflict of interest

And for me the only black and white case is that you Goat are a mean and cheeky crook, who was selling counterfeited bonds, profiting on the collapse of the pirate's business.
While Nefario was helping you with it.

Right.
Then you probably work for the authorities

How was he supposed to give back the money if you froze his funds?