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Which can only be paid with crypto...

Were you expecting participants in a criminal conspiracy to take Amex?

I'm no lawyer but is this even a criminal conspiracy? I thought the 1A covered third party distribution of most stolen secret government information. The media does it and profits and apparently legally.

I guess criminal conspiracy might be the wrong word. There is no prohibition on sharing hacked data as far as I can tell. There is “unauthorized access device” like having CC or SSN numbers but that’s only if you have an intent to defraud. Maybe they could argue stolen property? There is potentially copyright infringement in some cases but this is a government database so that doesn’t apply here.

There's the raidforums indictment, but as I remember it does not directly address the "intent to defraud" question wrt access device fraud https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1493586/downl...

FWIW I think a bigger reason for lack of card payments would be the chargeback rates.

I believe you are right, but then, what is government law enforcement investigting?

Anyway, the forum it's hosted on is, I'd guess, used by people for all sorts of less legal things, and they probably do not welcome this visibility and interest.

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