Topic: Going after Trendon Shavers, Pirateat40, BTCST - page 16. (Read 48481 times)

Government investigators of fraud, scams and other financial crimes are far better resourced to find out exactly what pirate was doing than anyone this community could employ.  You already have enough to report him to those authorities and for them to begin trying to trace the funds (you have no access to the other side of these transactions - the USD trail - while those investigators do).

There is nothing to stop you from collecting information with regard to taking civil action against pirate (and it's even known that he is due to appear in court in relation to other matters in November so he could be served there), but you don't need a lawyer in order to get the US Attorney's Office (they appear to be who normally investigates ponzis) moving.  There seem to be multiple bodies to whom suspected ponzis can be reported and there's no harm in reporting this to all of them.  It's their job to investigate whether pirate's scheme was a ponzi or some other kind of investment fraud - you don't need to present them with a complete case file in order to make a report.

Thats easy. He took your coins and ran.
Whatever Pirate did with your coins, "invest", sell, gamble, coke or hookers doesnt matter one yota. Why dont you focus on verifying his ID and filing a formal complaint?

1.5-3% per day isn't unusual for an online ponzi scheme (zeek managed to get to ~$600m and last over a year offering rates like that).
What interests me though is you saying he paid out more than he got in - what details do you have for that?

How exactly does the evidence not support that?

As long as you do not contact law enforcement, nothing prevents Trendon Shavers (assuming he is pirateat40) from disappearing, as he has the right to get out of touch at any moment. Do not forget that a suspect in an investigation may be forbidden to leave the country. It does not mean that he would not be able to flee anyway, but that would make it an additional offense, for which he might be convicted even if he gets away with the bitcoins theft.

I filed a report with IC3 about a week ago. Do the same if you want to see some action. All this talk is cheap.

I cant believe these people are honestly asking for more fucking money. Even if satoshi himself came down from the heavens and hired chuck norris to go after blackbeard its still wrong.

Goat- it sucks to have to sell stuff to honor your obligations, but those are the realities of owning a business and offering investment opportunities. Some days you win, and some days you have to make your word be worth something, suck it up and pay out. That's the other side of the coin from when you are raking in the profits. The Scammer tag is not for participating, the Scammer tag will be for those who willfully promoted the scheme (which was the scam) were intimately involved in the scam, and do nothing to make good with the victims of the scam.

Good. The more transparency you can offer the better. How about a full data dump on all of the secret IRC discussions, a breakdown on what was discussed and when, and access to the private contact info you have for pirate? The datamining experts here will find things like that valuable in their search for the guilty parties.

Why? What possible use does anybody investigating this have for donations? If there is an action plan developed and a fund to hire professional to investigate- that would be one thing, but just to say- "we need donations" is offensive. And the root cause of why I and others are doubting your sincerity is solving this problem.

Then may I suggest you think again. You were a vocal cheerleader, and enthusiastic early adopter, an insider in every respect, and you made a very public case for what a wonderful place it was to invest. You then proceeded to make significant profits for yourself on channeling the funds to pirate. An explanation in fine print does not make this okay, you have a fiduciary responsibility to those who entrusted you with their money. I realize that this is a pretend world, with a pretend currency, but the real world rules of responsibility for financial transactions apply. To put a none too subtle note on it, you are a very public accessory to a crime. You have channeled a significant amount of wealth through your mechanism of investment to an crime that is well into the felony range in pretty much any jurisdiction world-wide. You don't make that go away with a lame caveat emptor. You bust your ass trying to do the right thing, you dig deep until you bleed to make good to those who trusted you, long before the Court orders you to, and you don't ever ask for a donation to assist in this matter in any way. And you might consider staying out of the limelight. The investigation and subsequent prosecution (on whatever level) of this matter is not something that you should be the face of.

And I have been a very interested observer as you have learned how to put together your ventures. Your learning process has been very public. You just need to think about tightening up on the details now that investment mogul has turned to as-yet uncharged con-conspirator. You are standing at that crossroads where you have to decide who you are- a scummy little sycophant who is trying to bluff his way out of responsibility with empty words, or a man of honor who will do the right thing, and own his mistake, be honest about it, and work to make it better. And perhaps, a small note of humility and contrition?

Jeebers Cripes. Quite the inverted signal-to-noise ratio around here. How tangential can 9 pages of 'replies' be?

Goat - I think a coordinated effort would likely be a good thing. I could see myself ponying up for some of the cost. But first I would like to understand what the assumed costs and benefits may be.

- What are the various possible outcomes of such an effort?
- Can this be approached in a stepwise fashion?
- What wold be the expected cost of each step?
- If this action resulted eventually in some restitution, how would proceeds be allocated?

You are brilliant. If this pans out to be a part of a bigger outside scam, the community in general, will look less like a hornets nest of crocks to outsiders, possible like a currency for gullible idealists. Unflattering sure, but far better than the current status. This lesson have shown to all of us that risking your own money in questionable investments is not only damaging to you, but to the whole community.

Good work, go for it.

Goat,

Your doing the right thing. Do not worry about the hecklers.

Best of luck to you. I watch on with interest.

Finally somebody says it. If you hadn't, I probably would have.

After reading this thread, I am now convinced that all of them will get away, the pirate and all of his cronies, his feeder fund (PPT) operators.

If I were a feeder fund operator, what would I do? If I were not eloquent, I would probably disappear. If I were a psychopathic manipulator, as a scammer usually is, I would state that I am pursuing the pirate on behalf of my investors and would try extremely hard to create the impression that I am a victim, rather than the perpetrator I really am. Never forget that scammers are usually psychopathic controllers who masterfully make you believe what they want you to believe.

You don't believe this? Then you are beyond help. You think that somebody who is able to establish and run a feeder fund for a huge scam operation is unable to recognize the nature of the whole business, in spite of ample and very elaborate explanations and warnings? There are very naive "investors", but there are no very naive feeder fund operators.

I would rather assume that the clique is still communicating and they are covering each other's asses.

So what would I do if I were pirateat40? I would leisurely launder my last bitcoins and disappear into a faraway country for a long and nice holiday. From there I would watch how a bunch of clueless "investors" is being led around by the nose by my comrades, perhaps just by the ones on that notorious photo showing the elusive club of people hand-picked by me, the pirate. If, after a few years, I would consider all clear, I might even return and, if it's still all clear after another year, start the next scam. With all the experience I would have gathered, that would be very smooth sailing.

And a word directly to Goat and any other feeder fund operator who now wants to look like Jesus, the savior. If you want to disprove what I think and write, let some trusted person here select an auditor for you, open your books to that auditor, and show what you have done.

But actually I am now very pessimistic and may even stop reading these hopeless threads. My unhappy prediction is that the pirate will go free.

Oh really?  Forge me some TXs then.  Can you make it look like Satoshi sent me 1000 coins in 2009 please? 
 

I support this.

People trusted pirate because:

A: He had perfect OTC rating and community respect.

B: He had (up till now) been reliable and did what he said he would do.

C: There was evidence that he was doing some sort of legitimate business (would any of the ponzi-thumping morons like to explain what's up with GPUMax, since you obviously know everything about pirate?)

D: They accepted that whatever he was doing was probably risky, but assumed that he would do right should things go tits up.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect to get any money back, but I think it would be sending the wrong message to let some asshole walk away with millions of dollars like it's nothing. Of course, given how long it took zhoutong to start processing claims for bitcoinica (people were saying he walked with the money, too) it's possible that pirate is currently shitting himself trying to work things out in a fair and manageable way. If that's the case, he'd better speak up before the FBI shows up at his door.

It is good to hear that people are making "arrangments" to go after Pirate. But all in all. I'm not sure much will come from it.

By all means put Good money into chasing after  bad money. Perhaps you might turn a profit in all of this. Well some PPTs obviously have (i think).

Bitcoin has moved into the strong hands. Get over it. Stop trusting scumbags on the internet to hold your damn bitcoins.

Just so.

Goat is doing his damnest to whitewash his history as a complicit I-know-Pirate's-business-model shill by appointing himself public prosecutor. Good luck with that, Goat, but it's a collosal mistake for anyone else to subsidize one of the leading co-conspirators to this scam.

At the very least, I'd like to see if someone will really do something about this, and what the response from law enforcement will be if any. It's big enough in scale to pursue and may at least serve as a precedent.

Pirate never claimed he wasn't running a passthrough to Zeek until after payments stopped. And operating a Zeek passthrough is perfectly consistent with the vague claims he made about his business model. Pirate made it very clear that he wasn't revealing the details of what he was really doing.

Of course they could try, I'm just looking realistically at the situation, and the chances are slim. I would love to see Pirate behind bars, and Goat and all other PPT operators have everything back.

But I think there's a very important lesson to be learned, to do Due Diligence before you start working with another company. I can see Goat made a really stupid mistake, and being far too trusty in the Pirate show.

I'm not sure why Goat should be selling his private property to reinstate the investors though. Apart from paying back any fees he earned from the operation to his customers (which would be a gentleman's move), Pirate is to blame.

If Goat is to be blamed of anything, it's stupidity.