Topic: [Payout Updates] Bitcoinica site is taken offline for security investigation - page 8. (Read 156711 times)

True. However, since some chose to believe that Zhou Tong has somehow funded Bitcoin Magazine, I would like to make the following statement.

1. Bittalk Media Ltd was formed on 23/12/2011. see http://business.data.gov.uk/id/company/07891749

2. Whatever donations Zhou Tong may have given to bittalk.tv way before December 2011, Bittalk Media Ltd and Bitcoin Magazine have none of it. We do not have any equipment reportedly bought using those funds on our books either.

3. Zhou Tong is neither shareholder nor director nor creditor nor donator of Bittalk Media Ltd. He is also not an advertiser in Bitcoin Magazine.

4. I can see every single transaction in history of the company and not a single penny is received from Zhou Tong or Bitcoinica GP. (This excludes single copy or subscription purchases, if any).

5. DCAO is not Bittalk Media Ltd.

6. To the best of my knowledge Bittalk Media Ltd. has approximately 1380$ "misappropriated" by Bitcoinica GP. These money were in an account controlled by me personally and earmarked to be used for payment of shipping fees for Bitcoin Magazine.

7. Matthew N. Wright, while Editor in Chief of Bitcoin Magazine, and likely also the heart and soul of it, when posting on this forum is expressing his own opinions which are not necessarily the same as opinions of Bitcoin Magazine or its publisher. Matthew does not own a controlling stake in the company. Bitcoin Magazine is a product of collaboration of fairly large team.

I hope this clears up the matter of alleged donations made by Zhou Tong or Bitcoinica to Bitcoin Magazine.

Vladimir Marchenko
Executive Editor, Bitcoin Magazine,
Managing Director, Bittalk Media Ltd.

Bruno-

Your question is spot on... they are considered scammers by this observer. Every single one of these Bitcoin Consultancy/Bitcoinica players carries a full-on scammer tag in my book, they may never get one officially on this forum because they have built up a lot of love with certain power brokers, but scammers they are and scammers they shall be reviled as.

You cannot buy a clean reputation by funding magazines or hosting events, or making donations. A reputation is based on the entire body of work- and for these bastards the enduring legacy is the loss of tens of thousands of bitcoins to criminal intent, gross incompetence and outright dishonesty. Doing it with clear malice of forethought and premeditation makes them scammers.

I like many of your posts, fellow bitcoiner Bruno. The question you ask there is an interesting question. People are labeled scammers on this forum over petty sums. However when you are involved in a clusterfuck that sees millions vanish, then there's no punishment.

I've followed all the Bitcoinica threads with big interest, unfortunately I've come to the conclusion that all the BC guys are immature men who doesn't take any responsibility. If I was responsible for running Bitcoinica, I would never have announced any takeover before I'd personally (or someone I trust 100%) checked that all assets were properly protected, codebase was sound, and there was no lose ends.

Seeing how one basic security guideline after the other have been ignored/failed at throughout this clusterfuck, and how Intersango support is run, the only conclusion I have left is that these guys simply don't care. We also see now that when the hack happened, Genjix was at Hackathon in Berling, although he should've flipped backwards and shouldn't have spent his weekend coding when so much clusterfuck is happening. He was also recently in Brazil. Brazil is not cheap, and yet he goes on this forum complaining he has a crappy computer, and that he's losing personal funds throughout this orderal. And Donald is now going for a month to Portugal, and apparently all three of them was recently for a trip, to where, Defcon ?

So obv. the priotization is not where we'd expect it to be, and thus they've lost absolutely all credibility. If they honestly tried to sort out this clusterfuck, then at least there could be something left or their reputation. As it is now, this is a hot clusterfuck potato, that nobody wants to hold. Zou Thong is also some character, and not easy to say which role he does have, but it's hard to believe he's innocent. Somebody is pulling the strings in this scam, and we can't exactly be sure about who is profiting here. It could be just one individual, or a few.

We know memorydealers tried to contact the BC guys directly to have the funds paid back, as it was verifyable. As memorydealers have been doing a lot for bitcoin, I think he should've been paid back. Losing 15K BTC, is not something to take lightly.

The astounding silence in this matter is frightening. Donald has said nothing on this forum. Patrick refuses to say anything, he just 'walked away', and Genjix, well if I ever meet him I will try to blow hard on his face to see if he falls over.

But something is gotta give in this clusterfuck. What goes around, comes around.

I rode the short bus to school, therefore please forgive me for asking the following question if it has already been address: How are they not considered scammers? Whoever answers this, please do so slowly so that I can take notes in case there's a pop-quiz tomorrow.

~Bruno~ (front row, on the teacher's left, near the window, just in case)

Bitcoin Consultancy doesn't plan to refund. And now they will not be able to anyhow: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-bitcoinica-consultancy-abandons-customers-bitcoinica-to-enter-liquidation-97272

Bitcoin Cosnultancy, please, if you still plan to refund. Ask for all applicants to fill in the form of claims again. Then, compare the old with the new form for inconsistencies. Thus, many will be excluded fake claims. If the claimant real - he knows how much he owed​​, and how many have remembered the last time. Many scammers have made several claims, and may not be able to enter the data correctly. You can significantly reduce the amount of payments using this method.

Obviously the London conference is now nothing more than a gathering of the thieves, and nothing that any self-respecting bitcoin user, developer or adopter would ever want to soil themselves with.

Digging into their own pockets and paying people back in full as they proudly proclaimed they would do when they seized control from the little gangster Zhou would be a nice start to restoring their credibility, that is obviously not going to happen.

I will be the first to proclaim a boycott of any service or product developed, sold or endorsed by any of these users or the myriad of companies that they hide behind.

I rather think it's due to laziness. Man in themiddle attack has aparently occured with Intersango and prompted the Metro investigation. They reckon 5 days to hold the funds will be enough, so that any victims of 'Man in the middle attacks' will then have asked their bank for a refund, which Intersango then readily can do. As for the 100 GBP limit, I don't know. This cuts off all the small guys... But aparently Intersango can't be bothered with caring for the small guys..

There could've been other better ways to prevent these kinds of fraus. I leave that as an exercise to 'the security experts'.


Hit the nail on the head.


I am not going to London for this conference, exactly for this reason, otherwise I would've gone.

Perhaps somebody should call the Sun ? It could be a juicy real life soap opera story!

I'm sorry to rub it in, but there very likely will be no more reimbursement process. That's what it means when you get robbed. Noone is going to give you closure. If it was an inside job this will have much worse consequences for everyone involved. Like ghosts in bad movies people mourn their loss on here for months and years and there will be no closure. It'll be like in a Dostojewski novel or the film Matchpoint: whoever did it will potentially have to live with being constantly reminded of this mess forever. If it was an inside job, those responsible at bitcoinica will be haunted and cursed, even if it wasn't an inside job. They just run away from it. Really? Will you tell people in a few months or years that this was the best you could have done to make your customers good? You resign because people on a message board have hurt your pride for something you are responsible for? But they didn't give me any respect! I work only for people's respect and if I don't get that I'm gonna go and eat my icecream alone somewhere. Watch what happens now, you will have no icecream and you really hurt my feelings. WAKE THE FUCK UP you conceited bastards. The world doesn't give a shit about your feelings. This is a business and you need to grow the fuck up.

Anyway, dear ninjarobot, you have to close the case for yourself. Muchly like Intersango - they now only accept initial deposits of 100GBP from new customers, turning their exchange into an outright ponzi. I'm sure there is a for this little inconvenience: extremely low liquidity due to loss of trust following minor tiny bitcoinica hacks/heists, unprofessionalism, lack of accountability, but most of all, narcissistic personality disorders.

Don't expect them to get a scammer tag anytime soon on here either, scammer tags are reserved for Bulanula. And, the Intersango boys are organizing the Bitcoin conference in London, we can't give them a scammer tag! This shitstory has done more than just hurt a couple thousand bitcoin members financially. It may as well tear apart the entire bitcoin community. Meanwhile, you will find me over at the alternative crypotcurrencies section, in the Litecoin community. The way I see it, it holds great potential and there very well be a need for it. Enjoy your conference close to the banksters in one of the most policed towns on the planet.

+1

We want to know whether at least there is some movement - being public figures you can't afford that level of inactivity after we had so much success with fund recovery so far. if you cant provide this information legally at least provide some indirectly.

@Bitcoinica Consultancy - How will the recent developments (e.g. stolen funds returned to Patrick Murck) affect the customer reimbursement process?

Yes you can.


It is under the AML regulations of most countries, but not all countries are fully compliant with all of the FATF recommendations (I don't think that there's any nation which is compliant with all of them).  Dominica's fully or largely compliant with only 7 out of the 49 FATF recommendations on which AML laws around the world are based.

Tipping off provisions do allow FSPs to ask customers about the source/destination of funds, which can sometimes clarify whether or not a suspicious activity/matter report needs to be made.

Yes it is.

Isn't disclosing that there is an ongoing AML investigation actually against the AML investigation rules?

Im just surprised someone running a financial site such as bitcoinica is completely unaware of the fact if you transfer more than $10 000 at once its a suspicious activity.....which is why you should only do such things using bitcoin not fiat 

They dont just return funds suspected to have come from illegal activity. Most likely they will be handed over to the relevent authorities. AML means "anti money laundering" which is what I suspect you are ow being investigated for. You wont find out about it till you will get arrested and all your wordly goods including houses you bought for your family are seized s suspected proceeds of such money laundering.

you can not make this shit up

The only contact info I have for Roberto is:

Roberto Gutierrez
General Manager
[email protected]

I too would like to know why they have broken their own user agreement with you to speculate on a public forum regarding your private account details.

what do you have? access to interbank rates? within your kindergarden or where?

chroming is not funny zhou tong!

I wanted to question the same. I have officially requested a contact method of AurumXchange so that I can hire an attorney to look into the situation, but they posted this without giving me any information. (Roberto asked me whether I wanted an address, I said yes.)



AurumXchange didn't request any documentation from me and decided to withhold the funds. There's no mention anywhere in the TOS or AML that withholding of the funds will ever happen. Instead, they have said that if the funds are questionable, they will return them to the original sources.