This article seems more interesting for me
http://www.coinfinance.com/news/charlie-shrem-pleads-guilty"They had no choice. When federal agents were investigating silk road they discovered Shrem was helping launder money. They can't just ignore crimes that are taking place right in front of them. Most banks execs are smart enough not to detail their illegal activites in email. - neededtobesaid"
Yes and No.
As prosecutors, yes, they have a public obligation to fulfill their role as, well, prosecutors. However, the law affords them considerable latitude in how they do that—and for good reason.
The best exercise of justice lies in the ability to weigh the many factors involved, and effect a reasonable degree of pressure and/or punishment. What I see here, is not that. I see the typical "throw the book" at him, hope the charges stick, resulting in an easy plea deal—which they got.
I've never known a prosecutor to give a second thought as to whether (and to what extent) they should have charged. Nor whether they just ruined someone's life in the process.
For crying out loud, we have grandmas in federal penitentiary for growing and consuming cannabis for their arthritis. In one case I was reading about, an elderly lady invited an officer in her home for tea, only to be imprisoned, when he saw her plants in her kitchen.
Shrem's amateur-ness, clearly evident, is more of a sign of his lack of criminal intention. Most pros in this business, who know very well what they're doing from the start, take the necessary steps from square-one to maintain security and plausible deniability.
Lastly, money-laundering is fundamentally a questionable "crime" to begin with. If I think of routing certain funds in a certain way with a certain intention: it's legal. But if I think about it in a different way, even if I'm essentially doing the same thing, and am willing to disclose my thought process and paper trail, then it can be illegal. This is one of the reasons banks place a premium on confidentially of their internal records. No matter what their intentions, if records are made public, they may be used to construct a case against them, regardless of their intent.
This is also a reason that some folks (perhaps more on the extreme side) call money-laundering a "thought-crime." It's already illegal to do whatever the action was, that the "laundering" is suspected of aiding. Why not simply prosecute that original action? And if the core action wasn't illegal, is it even laundering then?
In the case of Shrem, so what if he sold bitcoin to someone—even if they told him they were going to spend it at the Silk Road? Several items for sale at the Silk Road are perfectly legal. Furthermore, even if someone told Shrem they wanted bitcoin for the explicit reason of purchasing drugs, who's to say those drugs aren't legal in that person's jurisdiction? The Silk Road sells internationally.
