Topic: Has any legal ramifications come from fraudsters NEVER turning BTC to fiat? (Read 745 times)

No.  In the US, this question has been decided by a court. When the SEC went after Trendon Shavers, Judge Mazzant ruled:

"However, the question currently before the Court is whether the BTCST investments in this case are securities as defined by Federal Securities Laws. Shavers argues that the BTCST investments are not securities because Bitcoin is not money, and is not part of anything regulated by the United States. Shavers also contends that his transactions were all Bitcoin transactions and that no money ever exchanged hands. The SEC argues that the BTCST investments are both investment contracts and notes,and, thus, are securities.

First, the Court must determine whether the BTCST investments constitute an investment of money. It is clear that Bitcoin can be used as money.

(More issues relevant to that specific case deleted)

Therefore, the Court finds that the BTCST investments meet the definition of investment contract, and as such, are securities. For these reasons, the Court finds that it has subject matter jurisdiction over this matter."

For straight fraud, the issue of whether something is a security doesn't even come up.  In the US, fraud is simply "an intentional deception or misrepresentation made by a person with the knowledge that the deception could result in some unauthorized benefit to himself or some other person." It's possible to commit fraud with respect to anything of value.

I think it's feesible so long as your in the same country as the offender.  once more than one country gets involved, you have to basically hire another lawyer (I would imagine) to clarify all the fresh legal outlooks on virtual currency.  it's a mess right now, but i expect that it gets cleaned up in the next half-decade or so.  a lot of legalities regarding virtual currencies are very pigeon-holed.

True, true, but in order to get that far, one would need to prove theft.  If I send 100 BTC to a random address that is not officially associated with anyone, how can that be permissible in court to supplement a subpoena to get the criminal's name?

And I haven't even touched on teh part where 90% of the lawyers/legal counsellors where I live think BTC is on par with WoW gold.  This makes it doubly difficult to get anywhere seriously.

Technically, no. However, it's going to make it a whole lot easier to get your money back.

You'd be best off trying to track the person down based on the information you have about him. If it's not a huge amount of money, many fraudsters will just give you back what they stole if you contact them through a real life avenue, like Facebook.

If BTC remains as BTC and is never converted to fiat, is it more difficult to accuse someone of fraud? 
My friend was recently the victim of online fraud (in Canada) and we found (his dad's a lawyer) that even with an IP address, you are unlikely to be able to recover any losses because of the inability to prove the transmittal of funds (also the IP is in Europe).

Is this par for course with BTC?  How can we get around this?  In looking at ALL Bitcoin related heists and apprehensions, all suspects have at one point involved fiat with their business.  Is fiat the KEY to legal recourse?