What Kind of Genius Makes a Traceable, Illicit Payment on Cash App?
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Unless under Subpoena or if there's a equivalent emergency of CALEA for an payment gateway, they would not reveal the exact financial statement or settlement. The ledger is private.
Meanwhile the bitcoin ledger is public, anyone can see a transaction and know when it happened.
With the payment gateway via applepay/cashapp, you know who the person sent it and received it only under warrant/Subpoena. If this is released wrongly, or non-intentionally, then it can easily be inadmissable in court breaking chain of evidence, etc etc.
With bitcoin, once you know one party's address, you can view all transactions and see the immediate network effect. Same with knowing the payment gateway details of authorizer and debtor/debtee. There is no need for warrant/Subpoena to view this.
I can go on, but you get the picture, I hope.
In the alternate universe where Gaetz was a little bit smarter, he would've withdrawn cash from an ATM and bought Amazon gift cards from a retail store, and sent the girls the codes from messaging account not associated with him.
Cash in an envelope leaves no trail. Large ATM withdrawals can be explained away.
Luckily BCH has near-perfect coinjoin privacy with CashFusion. It is capable of running > 20 person coinjoin rounds with no change outputs and no trusted third party. And the transactions always cost a fraction of a penny cause BCH has reasonable sized blocks.
The harder part is proving that those addresses are his or a proxy for him when he denies it. It’s possible to hide this well with effort but guy who used cashapp is probably not your best chance.
You can tumble coins, but many people don't know how and many competent ones do get scammed.
It's not that Gaetz was a "genius" for using CashApp, it's already incredibly common. I don't believe most sex workers and their clients consider police enforcement a real threat, especially given how lax prostitution laws are enforced if you keep out of the public eye. Most sex workers are probably more worried about men who would leak their info or stalk them. So in terms of relative importance privacy is a top concern, but having a traceable ledger isn't (because the police are unlikely to spend the money to throw you behind bars). In fact it's harder to get infromatino from CashApp than it is from Bitcoin. After all a SW's wallet is probably public and at this stage of the investigation it wouldn't be hard to get Gaetz wallet as well.
That said, if I were Gaetz and for whatever reason I needed to pay minors for sex I'd seek help. Failing that I would probably exclusively use cash or dead drops.
I hope they know they're posting all their transactions publicly.
I look forward to seeing someone make the argument that if you pay the travel costs associated with a woman traveling with you, you are in fact "sex trafficking" that woman.
"Sex Trafficking" and "Severe forms of trafficking in persons" are defined in 22 U.S. Code § 7102 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/7102).
> (12) Sex trafficking
> The term “sex trafficking” means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
"Commercial sex act" is also defined in this section:
> (4) Commercial sex act
> The term “commercial sex act” means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.
Finally, "severe trafficking" is defined as:
> (11) Severe forms of trafficking in persons
> The term “severe forms of trafficking in persons” means—
> (A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
If you combine all of those definitions it seems clear that if the prosecution can show:
- Matt Gaetz paid the transportation costs - of a minor - in exchange for a sex act (for himself or another)
That would constitute a "severe form of trafficking" according to the United States Code. Paying for travel would constitute transportation. If the payment for travel is in exchange for a sex act, that would transform it into a "commercial sex act". Finally, if that person is a minor that would trigger the 11 (A) condition to make it a severe form of trafficking.
You've somehow missed both the "in exchange for sex" and "with a minor" part? This one doesn't seem difficult or ambiguous at all. This is clearly trafficking.
> "with a minor"
Sex trafficking is criminalized regardless of whether the woman is a legal minor. Conduct that is "sex trafficking of a minor" when you do it to a minor must be "sex trafficking" of a non-minor when you do it to a non-minor, right?
The less stupid argument:
> "in exchange for sex"
There is no line to be drawn between paying for someone to travel with you, and sleeping with them (900% legal, and still legal when the someone is a minor), versus paying for someone to travel with you, so that you can sleep with them (illegal, but even more illegal when the someone is a minor). There is nothing even slightly unusual about traveling with someone with whom you have a sexual relationship, or about paying their travel costs.
And the one in the middle:
> This is clearly trafficking.
Perhaps, if you're prepared to admit that "trafficking" means nothing more or less than "prostitution". That is not the common use, however; "trafficking" would notionally involve Gaetz receiving money from other third parties so that those third parties could sleep with the girl.
You can argue for that in front of a judge or jury, but you need to remember: they are not legally obligated to believe your bullshit. Sure, maybe Gaetz just happens to like hanging out with 17-year-old girls, who he brings to states that showed up in a list of "states with lower age of consent", and his favorite form of hanging out just so happens to be spending a few hours at a hotel where they have sex. But just because he makes that argument doesn’t mean that the jury has to believe him. They don’t leave their critical thinking skills at the door.
Where do you get this idea? Sex trafficking is any time you move someone and exploit them for sex... No third party needs to be involved. (According to both dictionary and wikipedia definitions.)
You quote it but seem to deliberately ignore a key part of the quote in your own comment:
> paying for her to travel with him over state lines, in exchange for sex, which could amount to sex trafficking of a minor. [emphasis added]
If the woman in question was a minor at the time it constitutes trafficking and similar crimes by definition in many jurisdictions.
On the other hand the fact that the reporters have been able to see payment details from multiple payment apps and they are reporting this while he is still being just investigated and hasn't been charged yet smells a little too convenient.
That’s what makes it investigative journalism. It’s one of the reasons journalism even exists.
Are they adults who are consenting and not being exploited? Then that's different. (And, imho, we should decriminalize and regulate sex work.)
Your framing ignores the fact that one of the participants was a child.
Also, moving a minor across state lines for sex runs afoul of federal law, not just state laws.
Are you suggesting what Gaetz did was somehow ok?
She is making light of an underage girl and calling her a hooker...clearly when you are part of the SV elite rules and common decency don’t apply.
Simultaneously she is giving the old SV wink and nod to Bitcoin - which I’m sure she is heavily invested in - as part of her joke at the expense of this unfortunate underage girl.
As for the Congressman, he is a deplorable human being and didn’t use Cash App because he is dumb...he used cash app for the same reason Kara Swisher freely made a joke at the expense of an underage girl caught up in sex trafficking... because Kara and the Congressman are self-righteous, rich, nobles who believe they are above reproach and consequence. Unfortunately for society they are both correct. My guess is it will even come out the Congressman was behind the Text to his father demanding $25M to keep this quiet as a ploy to sidetrack and muddy the waters of the investigation itself.
She never called her a hooker though.
And Gaetz was using the app to procure prostitutes most of whom weren't underage so its accurate.
Yes there were more women involved and at this time only 1 is alleged to have been underage, but she also acknowledges in another tweet in the thread the investigation is targeting the underage sex trafficking.
The alleged payment(s) may have been to consenting adult sex workers, but no one knows so it’s not accurate to say these were payments to “hookers” as opposed to payments to facilitate underage sex trafficking (or both). In any case the Tweet is clearly intended to be a joke, so under the circumstances it’s definitely at the expense of at least 1 underage girl, and oddly that would be true whether there turns out to not be an underage girl involved.
It describes two separate scenarios being investigated and the latter does not mention payment.
> "Apple Pay for hookers? Seems like Bitcoin would be a better choice."
There were several people mentioned in the one I’m referencing.
"Apple Pay for hookers? Seems like Bitcoin would be a better choice."
I'm not sure that is what you characterize it as.
I characterized the tweet as an attempted joke (that also promotes Bitcoin), how would you characterize it? It’s certainly not a serious suggestion.
If there were no allegations of underage sex trafficking sure just a joke at the expense of another corrupt public official, but under the set of allegations she is labeling a underage girl a hooker along with consenting adult sex workers.
The responses to my comment are exactly my point...people will excuse the SV elite, and it’s no different than the people who will make excuses for the congressman.