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Comment by alasdair_ | Hacker News Reader

The article mentions the us irs were involved. For a german marketplace run by an Australian.

Any idea why?

An idea: much of the time the way dark net vendors are taken down involve the IRS. Did you know that you can legally report illicit income, legally, with ostensibly no negative consequence?

>Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17

Be that as it may, the "parallel construction" thing by various agencies make it a hairy prospect.

eg "legally" report stuff there, and strangely enough anonymous tips to your local LEO officer would probably happen. ;)

Sure, but the IRS has no jurisdiction in either Germany or Australia for non-citizens.

That doesn't mean the vendors or market operator associates don't operate within IRS jurisdiction, and it also doesn't meant that the European and Australian authorities wouldn't work with the IRS to pool intelligence on organized international crime.

Because underpaying taxes is the worst possible offence against humanity.

Its state which punishes you, and not paying taxes and counterfeiting money is punished more than vicious murders or rapes. Cold hard viewpoint with very little human touch.

The US can bypass the restrictions European police etc. has on spying on internet connections.

Possibly someone getting audited about surprising income, which then got forwarded over to police?

Looks like the FBI and DEA were involved as well as several other country's police agencies, with Europol acting as coordinator. Lots of money moving across countries means lots of taxes probably not being paid, hence the IRS.

Well the IRS would only have been involved if the money flowed into the US and/or to a US citizen.

They have no jurisdiction abroad

The markets are used for transactions around the world. Probably a lot of them in the USA.

Which fits with what I wrote. Either a US citizen or crosses US borders. If not, then the IRS has no jurisdiction.

I'm speculating here, but they probably asked the FBI or some US agency for help tracking crypto transactions. The IRS probably got involved by those agencies with the excuse that people may be hiding income from the illicit transactions... but also because the IRS is, besides maybe the intelligence agencies, one of the agencies with the best crypto-tracking technology and capacity in the US.

US citizens are taxable also abroad to my understanding ;). One of the few countries doing it like that.

I live in Sweden. When we open a bank account we always get a bunch of questions. One of them is "Are you a US citizen?". The banks are apparently required to send the information to US.

I'd guess it has something to do with FATCA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...

> The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is a 2010 United States federal law requiring all non-U.S. foreign financial institutions (FFIs) to search their records for customers with indicia of a connection to the U.S., including indications in records of birth or prior residency in the U.S., or the like, and to report the assets and identities of such persons to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.[1]

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