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Comment by GBiT | Hacker News Reader

I'm from Lithuania, he is a Lithuanian citizen. What is interesting, that his wife told, that he is not capable to do this, because he was a small businessman in the construction business. His wife told, that he doesn't know how to use a computer properly for things like banking etc... USA asked for the extradition of this person, and my country gave him up, but he never was in USA.

The only thing he said, is that he meet some guy in Russia, who wanted to do some business with him. It seems, that he was just a proxy. He never saw money...

It's a very interesting story to look into because its not so simple how it looks from this post.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=lt&tl=en&u=https%3...

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Pure speculation here based on your comment:

What you describe is called "being a cutout", that is a person who is a proxy for the "real" person who committed the crime. If what you say is accurate, that there was a more sophisticated person who did the crime, there is motivation on his part to plead guilty and stop any further investigation with the assurance that the other party will take care of his family while he serves his time. (At least that is how it has worked in the US with organized crime from time to time). If you step back from the deed itself and look at the bigger picture, if they guy has never been charged before he probably gets a fairly light sentence (not Manafort light, but probably not 30 years), he comes out of it with his family taken care of, the real crook has $73M somewhere safe, and this guy probably doesn't have to work any more if he doesn't want to.

He plead guilty and returned $50M. He also didn't have to be a computer hacker, just able to set up company and bank accounts abroad.

It's "social engineering" part of information security and technically hacking. Smooth talking is often far more effective than "computer hacking".

> USA asked for the extradition of this person, and my country gave him up, but he never was in USA.

International law, in the form of the passive nationality principle, recognizes criminal jurisdiction in the country of which the victims are nationals regardless of whether the criminal has ever set foot there.

Sort of odd to choose the victims location rather than the criminals location...

I don't see what's odd about that. Suppose someone in New Jersey mailed a bomb to someone in NY, killing the victim when he opened the package. Jurisdiction over the murder would lie in NJ and NY. It wouldn't be any surprise if the prosecutors in NY (whether federal or local) were more gung ho about bring charges than those in NJ, after all it was one of their own that was killed.

I, for one, would blame "some guy in Russia" if the alternative was 30 years in prison...

...then plead guilty to all counts.

Yes, but do we know the facts of the situation?

> do we know the facts of the situation?

We know he plead guilty and was in a position to return $50 million of stolen money. The top comment takes, on one hand, a mountain of criminal evidence, and weighs it against, on the other hand, things his wife said.

i think it's due to frustration. lol

Well, I'm not saying he is not guilty, he is at some point, but this story is more than it says. It's possible he was only proxy. I see some comments say here, that with his talent he could do more, but he was only some none name construction businessman.

But basically, in US I see, that a lot of people pleads guilty then it is more to the story. We don't know how much he will get for this and what deal he has. We see story, then person pleads to guilty and has to pay hundred million to later see, that they had other deal for him to pay just a few hundred thousands.

If he was a proxy how did he return $50 million?

It's not clear how he returned. We don't know if the accounts of companies were frozen or where the money went, etc... Or did you believe he returned it in Cash? Or maybe transferred from bank accounts where no one knew? It's not how the financial system works.

Here in LT we had some few series about this man and some possible things how it went. This case wasn't public, but every news site had about 15-20 stories about it in two years time.

You're missing the point of my question- if he was just a proxy he wouldn't be in control of the assets, so they'd have to go after the person he was proxying for to get the funds. The fact that he was able to return them shows that he was more than a proxy.

Or you know, he had $50M of his own that he "returned" (he was supposedly a businessman), while still being just a proxy to the other that actually stole the real stolen money.

I doubt he would have turned to fraud or become a proxy if he had $50M of his own.

Your theory is the US just snatched some multi-millionaire off the street and got them to confess to some crimes they didn't commit?

Here in the US if you have that much money you can get away with crimes you did commit.

A foreign multimillionaire. Those are worth less, especially if their state owes the US some favors (or doesn't like him in the first place).

That said, sure, having $50M to return points to him being complicit -if not the mastermind- on this. Especially since I don't think we're explicitly told he was multimillionaire to begin with, just a businessman, which can even mean a guy that sells lemonade at a street corner (as long as he owns the stand).

But, and this is what I wanted to point out, returning $50M, doesn't make it entirely implausible.

This boils down to the question: can a multimillionaire ever be successfully framed for something?

I say, why not?

I'd say there's a good chance he was a proxy who had full control of many/all the bank accounts involved, but also had little knowledge that they existed or were set up in his name.

Hmm, that's another possibility, yes! Him having control (as the accounts were made in his name) but no prior knowledge of them or what they'd be used for.

(Though this begs the question how come the real con hadn't gotten the money by then, perhaps they did it piecemeal e.g. to not draw attention, which might explain why only $50M were left).

> We don't know

Returned assets means returning assets one controls under court supervision. He controlled $50 million that he could move under court supervision. Getting confused about whether it was wired is totally irrelevant.

Better sources than a criminal’s wife would be the unsealed indictement [1] and official release [2].

[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/950556/...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/lithuanian-man-pleads-g...

If he wasn’t a proxy, where did he spend the other 70 million?

Would you, for one, please guilty to all counts and get 10 years if you were innocent, if the alternative was to e.g. risk being found guilty and get a prosecutorial suggested 30 years?

Totally the wrong person to ask since I think it's appalling how prosecutors use that tactic to get innocent people in prison, if you don't take their deal they "throw the book at you" so your average (innocent) person has no chance unless they have a shitton of money to throw at their defense.

Certainly wouldn't turn over $50 million if I were innocent.

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