Topic: PirateAt40's Money Laundering Operations: GPUMAX and BST - page 4. (Read 16065 times)

Certainly. I was hoping the scrutiny would be of a higher quality, though. When people make reputation-tarnishing statements about someone based on nothing but idle speculation, it bothers me. I know this forum's membership has an aggregate mean IQ of about 50, but I was disappointed that certain people chimed into this bullshit that I wasn't expecting.

Hey Dawg,

How are you? Is Hawaii still good for business?  I like your show. You always get your man. Your wife looks mean though.

Nice to see that you like Bitcoins. Will you be taking them for Bail-Bonds? I bet that will go over really well here.

Hypothetical, or whatever you want to call it, it's all FUD.

Relax. I like dogs.

But more seriously, the unnecessary addition of ", Trendon" (as if that's at all difficult to find or new information, given his #bitcoin-otc profile) to your sentence just comes off as trying too hard.

The way people paint pirateat40, you'd think he really was the most interesting man in the world. I've heard people say he's the secret investor behind bitcoinica, but that he's also the thief behind the coins and is involved in laundering the stolen coins. Others say he's involved in major drug operations. It's astonishing how much of a crime lord the guy is, and how much everyone knows about him given how little he says anywhere public.


Will you be trying to unmask this mysterious "dog" character next? I bet I run a massive prostitution and human slavery ring in bitcoins, or something like that, right?

Woof!

Are you the receptionist at Business Cognition? Do you accept bitcoins?

Hello? Yes, this is dog.

No, Trendon. The Most Interesting Man in Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto.

There's a lot of straw-man arguing in this thread.

Some of us believe that pirate is PROBABLY laundering drug money or something not too far from it.

There's a lot of conjecture about how law enforcement could or could not influence the bitcoin economy.

Some folks are arguing that no-one has proved that pirate is laundering money. Guess what? You're all right! You're also all missing the point: 7% weekly is questionable, to say the least.

It's a rate that is unsustainable unless there are transactions going on at the level of the entire Bitcoin Saving and Trust market cap with a transaction fee greater than 7%. This is relatively easy to achieve in various lines of *questionable* business, accepted as the fee for the added risk of increased scrutiny and potential for legal action (or worse, depending on who your partners are).

I disagree with the notion that pirate going down would hurt bitcoin. I'm indifferent, either way should be fine for bitcoin. Any economy has a continuum of markets, from black through grey to squeaky-clean white. Even black markets have a continuum: hit-money and human trafficking on the one side, and simple goods smuggling and tariff avoidance on the other.

No-one can reasonably argue that pirate is squeaky-clean white, if for no other reason than the incompleteness of his public disclosure.

So what? Decide where you're willing to operate and operate there. Let's skip the 'you don't have proof!' for assertions of opinion.

-s


I'm not involved in prosecuting anybody, and never claimed my beliefs about pirate's activity constitute probable cause. I was just discussing the parameters affecting the hypothetical situation where a money launderer is being investigated by law enforcement in the US.

As an aside, if law enforcement can convince a judge that a money launderer's operation is 'permeated with fraud', in the specific sense relating to document warrants, they can perform seizure indiscriminately, rather than having to name what they expect to find beforehand. So, effective money laundering requires at least an ostensible cover story to avoid that injunction.

Then why not show your probable cause?  Your argument right now is "He produces high returns and I think he's doing something illegal."  Your hunch is not probable cause.

"I don't always sip fruity drink, but when I do, I sip dos frambuesas"

*sips his fruity drink on his private island while watching the community make him sound like the Most Interesting Man In Bitcoin.

Does he live in the US? Does anybody actually know this? People seem to know an identity that Pirate planted, but I haven't seen a single scratch of evidence that he even exists.

Even then, you're missing my point: Pirate has not disclosed any evidence that could possibly point to him having made his money legally. The bar I'm asking for isn't even all that high.

I bought his story the first few months; it's hard to believe it anymore.

I'm not saying I am in agreement with the OP, but I do like the rationale for why Pirate would have setup GPUMAX.  I've been puzzled as to why he would do that.

If he is laundering money, I'm guessing that means that all of the money could get seized by the government and you wouldn't have any recourse to get it back.  I know the US government likes to seize possessions that are connected to the drug trade.

I don't know if people who are loaning money to him would be criminally liable.  I'm hoping not, but I am not an expert.  One would hope that forum posts of an unconfirmed guess (or anonymous post) that he is engaging in illegal activity would be treated as a completely unreliable source.  Now if you are one of the small handful of people who actually know who he is and still invested, then you might be liable for prosecution.

that is one of the world's biggest myths imho.

was kim dotcom ever proven guilty?

no, but they destroyed his business anyway.


if you make a lot of money, you're guilty until you can prove to the state that you're innocent (they will assume it comes from illegal means unless you can prove it was earned legitimately)

if you sleep with a young-looking chick, you're guilty until you can prove to the state that she's 18+ (they will assume she's a child, and you go to jail, unless you prove your innocence).

splatster, while in the US 'innocent until proven guilty' holds, all that is necessary is probable cause to obtain a search warrant that would make proving guilt much easier. In serious money laundering cases, searches/wiretaps/etc have gone on for years prior to the actual indictment. While in the US hacking is still not allowed for obtaining computer records, precedent for offensive information gathering has been set in Germany. Encrypted hard disks provide no defense against that threat vector.

-s

Don't be smug just because you keep your finger in his bum hole (metaphorically speaking).

The United States (where pirate lives) has this crazy thing where people are innocent until proven guilty.  If you can't prove him guilty, then his jurisdiction's law says he's innocent.
I can't say that I don't think something less than savory is behind his returns, but making claims with no proof is insane.