Behind Carder Kingpin Roman Seleznev’s Record 27 Year Sentence

The whole 'pass the risk to the merchant' system is broken by design. Everybody that could do something about it passes the buck and the only part that can't do anything about it is held responsible. Merchant contracts are terrible, especially the on-line variety.

Likely there is a political angle here, given that dad is a big-name Russian. I can't see any reasonable explanation why this guy should get 27 years and others get away with much less.

I do want to remind you of all your past comments where you were adamant that people are not sentenced to such lengths and that therefore we should not take any of those long prison threats terms serious.

"Presuming that the result of this conviction is that the USG can effectively claw back much of the proceeds of the crimes, then 5 years would presumably have the same retributive and deterrent effects."

I can see a strong argument for same, or close to the same, deterrent effects -- it's a pretty straightforward marginal argument supported in the literature (i.e. the swiftness and sureness of a punishment has more of an influence on deterrence than the severity of the punishment).

But I don't see how you can make that argument for retributive effect. The worse the punishment the stronger the retributive effect. In order for the retributive effect to be about the same for five years and 27 years there'd have to be diminishing marginal disutility to offender for additional years of prison. I don't think that's empirically observed -- prisons use the threat of additional time, along with privileges, as a management tool inside prisons.

Whether or not we as a society should be satisfied with the disutility of five years worth of prison for this particular crime and whether retribitutivism is an appropriate measure of justice to begin with are different questions.

This guy is a scumbag and a criminal but he defrauded banks and card networks, and those banks and networks attempted to pass that liability onto their customers. It's an important distinction.

The article mentions that he's the son of a powerful man and that letter starts saying that he was poor. How's that? Also, where did the millions he stole go?

Possibly the same way that the Dread Pirate Roberts (Silk Road) was captured - the FBI simply grabbed him before he could turn off his laptop.

1) OpSec is hard

2) When you get away with something for long enough you get a sense of invulnerability

3) OpSec is hard

But sadly not uncommon. If you have a lot of money you can induce people who want or need money to act against their better judgement. It works even better if you have some way of threatening their lifestyle and is standard trade craft for intelligence agencies trying to develop assets.

It's based on where the harm occurs; in this case, there's a clear connection to specific locations in the US. The US doesn't have trials in absentia, so the important issue here is mostly extradition, and that boils down "if you're caught in a country that (a) recognizes the crime you're being charged with in its own jurisdiction, (b) has an extradition treaty with the US, and (c) believes based on the US's extradition filings that the US has a legitimate case, you're going to end up standing trial in the US.

This case is a little more complicated in that Interpol appears to have been the controlling authority for extraditing Seleznev from Maldives, but again, the principle is less that of jurisdiction than of the propriety of extradition.

> For instance using debit cards for the riskiest locales

That seems counter-intuitive to me. If there's going to be a fraudulent charge on my account, I'd rather it be a temporary charge that can be resolved instead of actually taking money from my checking account until the bank decides to refund the fraud. I almost never use my debit card for this exact reason and use credit cards for everything possible.

>the sentence is harsh.

EDIT: inaccurate -- see 'tptacek below

Sentences in the United States have a de jure length which is longer than the de facto length. Usually a 27-year convict will be eligible for parole after about 9 years. I didn't see anything in the article about denying parole (which is very rare). Considering the number of people Selezny harmed and the fact that he continued to do so after he knew that there were warrants for his arrest, I think that a decade in prison is a reasonable sanction.

Also, the extended sentence is not so much "to send a message" as it is in response to his evasion of the authorities. That message was sent a long time ago.

  For instance using debit cards for the riskiest locales

Do not do this. Credit can be fought because it is a future debt, debit is much more difficult because the money is already gone.

Do not, do not, do not use your debit/check/atm card at riskier places.

The Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court agrees with you regarding the "sending a message" sentiment. But the other eight justices disagreed. Personally I think it's unsupportable too.

For example the first guy to commit that crime gets the full "sending a message" sentence but the following violators just get the standard "proportional justice" sentence? Not sure King Solomon would go for that.

Sure. 2 points; I subjectively view this crine as much less admirable than a simple bank robbery or Ross ulbricht (less the alleged murder attempts) as this causes individuals direct harm. This is subjective, I think others may agree that identity theft is pretty malicious.

Also, yes Russia could kidnap you if you committed enough crimes for them to dub you worth tracking, capturing, negotiating a diplomatic extradition and then trying in court. Its not likely many "regular" people will be carted away from a Bahamian Vaca.

If you take this argument to its logical conclusion, we should never convict anybody of any crimes ever.

not sure why he's getting downvoted. even the tip of the iceberg that is known to us warrants all sorts of prosecution.