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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

Ok. Do these guys that commit white collar crime not know how a passport works? If you have millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts WHY are you in the US? Why are you buying estates and testing out a new bmwI8 and spilling champagne all over? Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? wtf. Even the guy running silk road was hanging out in SF now lives in a 4x6 concrete cube - instead why not hang out with Edward Snowden in a Russian bar or whatever.

This guy for example the FBI calls just to chat. They can't touch him.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/felon_share...

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I've also always wondered this. But people seldom run.

I think Snowden had seen enough of the sausage being made to realize that hiding in the USA was impossible, given the security apparatus' capabilities.

Part of it is the psychology of it. The fraud triangle is opportunity, rationalization, and pressure.

Many people have convinced themselves that they're not doing anything wrong, or that they deserve it. If you're not doing something wrong, why flee?

Others get greedy. I had an accounting professor who used to say, "If you're going to steal, steal big and steal once."

Psychology--people will try to remain close to places and people they know. There are many examples such behavior especially during natural disasters when they are commanded or know they should flee but don't.

Given that he defected to Moscow, staying in the US wasn't an option

Snowden didn't defect. He was on his way to Venezuela, which had granted him asylum. The US canceled his passport, stranding him in Russia. Even though the Venezuelan Air Force has an Airbus, flying to Russia non-stop was not feasible--Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, had his plane forced down on the suspicion that Snowden was aboard. Still, if Putin wanted to get Snowden to Venezuela, all he had to do was put him aboard a Russian nuclear submarine. In ten days, Snowden would be in Maiquetia with no risk of interference. As it turns out, Russia is probably a safer place for Snowden than today's Venezuela.

If Venezuela was willing to let him travel there they could have issued him documentation to do so.

He would have had to get there. He was stuck behind customs in a Russian airport and the president's plane had already been grounded looking for him.

Documentation sounds like it would do very little to deter rendition by a nation-state.

Kidnapping from another country followed by torture has only been done by a couple of countries recently. The term 'rendition' sounds much more civilised though, and 'nation-state' makes it sound like a government other than that of the US might do it to Snowden.

It's an ugly, ugly exercise of power.

I have the odd tie in of having lived near an airport in NC where the CIA was operating small jets to conduct those "renditions" (read: kidnappings) overseas during the Bush II years.

The other place in the US that is weird: The base known as "The Farm" right next to Colonial Williamsburg which is neither fish nor fowl--a lot of people and things get moved in and out of the US from there with zero accountability.

We badly need to get the US government back under control because the things done in our names are simply evil.

Please read the post you're responding to again.

The cancellation had no effect on the ability of Venezuela or Russia to permit him to travel.

The part where the plane was forced to land.

Had Snowden been in Evo Morales plane nothing could have been done about it. That plane was extraterratorial.

Sentence four.

Let me spell it out for you: Venezuela and Russia would happily have allowed Snowden to fly, but the US was ready and willing to force down and search any plane that was even suspected of carrying Snowden.

Snowden is just a bargaining chip Russia prefers kept in its own pocket.

Quite possibly, but they never tried to prevent him from flying, so that's irrelevant here.

Crazy that people still believe this stupid lie, easily debunked by 30 seconds on Wikipedia.

Even crazier is that the people who really wanted to string Snowden up by the neck were the conservatives, because they love law enforcement and are willing to give up freedom in order to fight Islamic terrorism. In other words, supporting Big Brother despite ostensibly wanting less government.

Crazier still is that those same people, the ones who were demonizing Snowden for ending up in Russia, are now in love with Assange and Putin because Trump.

"Two things are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the Universe."

> Even crazier is that the people who really wanted to string Snowden up by the neck were the conservatives

I strongly feel that this had bipartisan support across the aisles. Obama supported it, despite his pledge to protect whistle blowers. Hillary was no different.

It's true that this was bipartisan amongst elected officials, and strangely to me, a number of liberal people in my native DC area that I still talk to. I think there were varying degrees though. Do you think Trump would have let Manning go for example? I'm not sure that even Hillary would have. And yet Obama did, eventually.

Also, there is little doubt in my mind that mutual hate of Hillary brought together WikiLeaks and several previously unlikely allies.

> you think Trump would have let Manning go for example? I'm not sure that even Hillary would have.

Of course not, I'm just trying to dispel the myth that the world is in black and white. You can't just hold the 'other' party accountable. We need to look in the mirror.

Powerthirsty psychopaths of all factions unite against the puppets marching of on theire own.

That is what terrifies me--people who are ostensibly conservative but then are all pro-military and pro-big-government and you find out all they want is some tax break or other stupid consideration that benefits them personally. Democrats are not immune to this behavior, either--I have met few who disfavor big government and think they can somehow control the beast. They can't.

I guess those conservatives who have military backgrounds felt that Snowden betrayed them and put them in greater jeopardy. The problem with that is, it's hard to prove the value of what Snowden did. Harm may well have been done in the small, but at the same time there was great justice in the large. Being a whistleblower was the ethical choice; if you look the other way, you're no better than the prison guards at the concentration camps who weren't full-on members of the Nazi Party.

Snowden leaked a lot about foreign intelligence programs run by the US. That's not whistleblowing, that's espionage. it's naive to think China and Russia helped him pass through without something in exchange.

When a country really wants to get you, there aren't many safe places in the world. The terrorist Carlos got abducted by the French intelligence service. Eichmann by the Israeli services. There are less famous cases (like the Kalinka Bamberski case). What's interesting in that in all of those cases, these illegal means of grabbing the suspect abroad didn't invalidate the case against him and in all of those examples the suspect was then charged and sentenced.

So yeah maybe, but only for some petty crimes.

We're not talking about terrorists or Nazis here. Do you really think we'd be sending Seal Team Six to get some guy who scammed the lottery? He didn't even catch federal charges.

Against a Madoff perhaps, yes. But the point is rather that the FBI probably doesn't need to respect the rules outside of the US.

If you aren't a threat to lives on american soil, there is no amount of financial crime that will earn you extraordinary rendition. It isn't worth the diplomatic relations, nor the risk of life for the people who would be grabbing you.

The FBI don't operate outside the US. It would be the CIA if anyone.

The FBI does operate overseas: https://www.fbi.gov/about/leadership-and-structure/internati...

Here's an article on using the FBI as more or less another branch of special forces: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/insid...

I seem to remember Brandon Webb's book "the red circle" where he relates FBI agents were attached to seal teams to do forensics in theater after operations.

Which is just another example of how government expands its scope and rarely ever contracts.

> But the point is rather that the FBI probably doesn't need to respect the rules outside of the US.

That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works. They don't operate at all outside the US. :)

Say what? The FBI definitely operates outside the US.

https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/legal-attache-offices

Technically, those embassies are still in U.S. jurisdiction, however, I grant you your point as I was unaware they did this.

They investigate crimes overseas all the time. They investigated that situation where three US special forces guys were shot by a Jordanian military police for example.

After requesting and receiving special permission from Jordanian authorities.

There aren't many safe places in the world if you're a terrorist or wanted for other types of violence, but financial crime is practically a national industry in lots of places.

Iran is a pretty safe bet if you are hiding from the West as long as the crimes are not committed against Iranians.

https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/j...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-sho...

Most people would rather be middle class Americans than rich Iranians.

China.

All barriers are deterrents. Whatever crime you committed, the authorities are going to be equally or less likely to arrest you if doing so is more expensive and more difficult. They'll spend billions or trillions to get Osama Bin Laden but for a lottery scammer they might give up.

I think they don't know when to stop. Fleeing the country would put an end to their criminal career, and they continue to see dollar signs. By the time they realize that the authorities will put a stop to it anyway, it's too late.

The art is to provide a clueless playboy to take the fall, so whoever has also monetary gains can sneak off in the storys background while a exempel is statuated for moral reasons.

> Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)?

Why don't people in poor countries just move to better countries? Why do people stay in the rust belt instead of moving to the coast? Why do people on the coast whine about rent instead of moving inland?

Leaving everything you know is hard.

To quote a famous quote

> I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth, then I ask myself the same question.”

Not really a good analogy as the limiting factor in your scenarios is often money

No, it is a valid point.

Take Germany for example: In the neighbouring country Switzerland you can easily earn twice as much and the higher living costs only cancel out a part of the difference. >80% of Germans would have the money to move and would be much better off and still only very few do it (<2%).

Same with all the unemployment in Spain, people could move to e.g. Germany in masses but they don't.

People just don't like change and are not the rational players everyone wants them to be.

I've worked in Switzerland as a consultant and there were Germans all around. A friend of mine makes more money waitressing in Switzerland than I make as a SW engineer in Austria. So I am kind of guilty too ;)

Actually there are quite a lot of young people from Spain & e.g. Romanians that leave their countries. Emigration in Romania is quite a big problem (from 23 million to 20 million people). I guess it depends on your definition of "moving in masses".

> Same with all the unemployment in Spain, people could move to e.g. Germany in masses but they don't.

Did you know? It costs money to move somewhere, and unemployed people have very limited incomes. Stumping up the apartment deposit + bus ticket + float to cover living expenses until first payday might be hundreds of Euros & be completely unreachable.

> People just don't like change

I think people would jump at the opportunity for a well-paid job and are far more rational in their decisions than you give them credit for.

Unless maximising income is not equivalent as behaving rationally, which is always a possibility.

Good luck. It's pretty difficult with the various capital controls in place to get lots of money out of the US without attracting attention.

The Governor of NY was run out of office and nearly prosecuted when some bank compliance officer when transferring a few thousand bucks to a escort service.

> The Governor of NY was run out of office and nearly prosecuted when some bank compliance officer when transferring a few thousand bucks to a escort service.

Spitzer was almost certainly parallel construction.

Yep. I have to say they whole GFC and it aftermath surprised me in how well the hired hands of the big guys play the game.

> Good luck. It's pretty difficult with the various capital controls in place to get lots of money out of the US without attracting attention.

No it isn't, buy Bitcoin, store coin in brain wallet, walk across any border.

Sure, but then you've changed the game into finding a way to purchase that much Bitcoin and also find a way to liquidate that much Bitcoin once you realize that few merchants accept it.

That's a much easier game, it's a 150 billion dollar market that trades a few billion a day; converting millions is nothing. Nor do you need to liquidate it all at once at your destination, you can take your time.

No one's questioning the liquidity of the BC market; getting the money to and from the exchange would be a gigantic hassle. Banks generally have reporting requirements for transactions of a certain size, many countries are more uptight about opening accounts (Know Your Customer laws) due to previous terrorism-related money-laundering operations; as a US citizen, he'd have the burden of reporting his overseas income back to the IRS (failure of which may trigger asset seizure back in the USA, which might be a problem if he bought a house for his parents).

> getting the money to and from the exchange would be a gigantic hassle

No, it's a simple bank transfer. It doesn't matter if that's reported to anyone, transfer to an exchange in your own country and you're not doing anything illegal. And the topic is the difficulty of going around capital controls, not the tax burden of an ex-patriot. Bitcoin makes getting around capital control easy; easy doesn't mean legal. You're refuting things that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

> and you're not doing anything illegal

Did you mean to post this in the comments for a different submission? Because I'm pretty sure that laundering money from fraudulent lottery entries… is extremely not legal.

How do you buy millions of dollars worth of bitcoin? Paypal?

On a bitcoin exchange like Coinbase. Plenty of people have millions of dollars of Bitcoin. 10 million USD is about 2500 bitcoins, that'd barely move the market if purchased all at once, not at all if spread out over a day or two. 24 hour trading volume is about 3 billion USD.

doesn't coinbase require a link to a bank account? so you'd need to have millions in your bank account to buy the BTC.

The topic is moving capital across borders, that presumes you already have said capital and naturally yes that would be in a bank. Buying millions in bitcoin is not illegal, it will not be difficult, it doesn't matter if your bank reports the money transfers.

Maybe because they like living in the US and like having that money there? I doubt that a want to completely changing one's culture is what drives people to commit monetary fraud.

Living in a 4x6 concrete cube would be much more of culture shock for me.

He didn't do it assuming he'd get caught.

Interesting how people here on HN tend to bash criminals because of their stupidity instead of focusing on their poor ethics. How society has changed.

Sometimes it seems that the idea that "It's not a crime unless you get caught" has become mainstream. It doesn't seem to be a very solid foundation for a society.

Hopefully this is just harmless fun discussing hypotheticals.

This is just automatic engaging of a problem-solving mindset, I believe.

If there is a wide consensus on "poor ethics" here on HN, why comment?

If the exploit looks super obvious and you're not hearing about people using it that's a good indication that people are using it and smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

I'll take the simple answer here, that you're giving these folks too much credit wrt to knowing how "the system" works.

Its not just with fraud, its with anything that comes for free. Sometimes also called luck.

The general idea is if you are lucky, you will be lucky enough all life. And the party will never end.

Its only when it stops you realize that you could have saved up and moved on long back.

You can't have the whole world.

ironically John Macafee did the opposite and ran back to the US as a #1murder suspect and rapist : http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-documentary-gring...

2 mil. really isn't all that much. He would blow it quite fast if he lived how you described.

Yeah you could live on that comfortably for the rest of your life, but not extravagantly.

Cynic in me would point out that for most people in the US does not exist in any way.

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