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Comment by phphphphp | Hacker News Reader

He’ll be watching his back in prison, he’s got access to billions of dollars — or, at least, is perceived to. He has wronged a lot of people, too. Also, prison is a one way street: if he stays on the run, and some day things do get to the point where he would feel safer in prison, he could hand himself in. Once he’s in prison, he has no choice left.

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The South Korean justice system is notoriously lenient on white-collar crime, and it's exceedingly rare even for violent criminals to be murdered in a Korean prison. The popular perception is that you can spend a couple of years in prison and enjoy your ill-gotten gains for the rest of your life with no further repercussions, provided you've hidden your money well enough. Guess what, the whole point of crypto is that it's easy to hide.

A few years ago, a man named Son Jung-woo was arrested for running what was the largest child porn site in the world back then. His sentence? 18 months. The U.S. wanted to put him away for life, but the Korean courts would not deport him.

I'm sure Do Kwon would rather hand himself in to the Korean authorities than risk going to prison in any other country.

> the whole point of crypto is that it's easy to hide.

This couldn't be further from the truth and shows how the majority of people do not understand the benefits that crypto offers.

Other than speculation the main use case of crypto is hiding money. Sure many people do it poorly, but it is possible and in fact the main use case.

You could say this exact same thing about cash and be just as correct.

No. The main use of cash is as a means for conducting transactions for goods and services.

And what’s the main use of cash from the perspective of the US government? And what makes cash have value? And what has been the history of money thus far that has led to this junction?

Transacting for goods and services. Cash has value because you get arrested if you don’t have enough to pay taxes.

I totally agree. Cash has value because it’s backed by violence.

Oh no the state has a monopoly on violence what a bad thing. I much prefer the natural way where your right to property ends at the tip of my spear.

Everything privately held that has value is backed by the threat of violence.

Except transferring cash requires physically moving it, and it is heavy and bulky in large amounts.

Compared to bank accounts, real estate, and offshore corporations, it is certainly easier to hide your crypto (or rather, hide the fact that it's your crypto) if you know what you're doing. Heck, even the word "crypto" means "hidden".

Do Kwon might not be any good at sneaking though airports, but he certainly knows his way around the crypto scene. He has had plenty of time to launder his coins. In fact, he's probably had more time to plan and execute an exit scheme than any of the other crooks who got busted lately. So I wouldn't underestimate how well he has hidden his embezzled billions.

Hacker News is especially hostile toward crypto. Most likely, people here won’t even bother to engage in an honest conversation. “It’s a scam, it’s for crime” is the consensus. It’s frustrating when you’re surrounded by “confident idiots”, people who are uneducated about a topic that portray confidence. As I’ve gotten older, I just care less about educating people for free.

Bitcoin is going nowhere. Time itself will teach the naysayers. HN will be angry, in denial, etc as the trend of bitcoin adoption plays out. But they can’t be so ignorant as to stop it. In other words, their education is not required.

Guess what, the whole point of crypto is that it's easy to hide

The opposite: hard to hide (thanks to blockchain) but also impossible to confiscate (assuming you did it right or don't cave in).

> impossible to confiscate

If the purpose of the confiscation is simply to freeze the funds, it seems many agencies can do so. If they're patient enough, they'll eventually catch the owner when the funds move.

> South Korean justice system is notoriously lenient on white-collar crime

Is this because of the courts or prosecutors? I don't see the latter being lenient with a fugitive.

The courts for the most part. Or at least that is the public perception.

The sentencing guidelines maintained by the courts have all sorts of criteria for reducing the sentence that can be compounded to skew the result heavily towards the low end of the legally mandated range, and many times even below the legal minimum. For example, people who were drunk when they committed crimes often get away with lower sentences because "they probably weren't aware of what they were doing." Bonus points if you have a wife and kids to feed, pay a token amount to your victims as compensation, get your mom to write a letter to the judge, and/or act like you're sorry on your day in court. Some of these criteria have good reasons, but allow them to be compounded and that's how you end up with "you're guilty of raping your coworker, but you may go home."

So why didn’t he hand himself in? He’s been on the run since last year, he has had numerous opportunities to hand himself in before being arrested in Montenegro.

He probably believed he could have his cake and eat it too. Turns out he's not as clever as he thought. Now the only thing he has some amount of control over is which jurisdiction he will be handed over to.

which jurisdictions can he handed over to?

Any jurisdiction that has filed charges against him and has an extradition agreement with Montenegro. His country of citizenship probably has priority, though.

If he doesn't want to be extradited, he can delay the process for quite a while like Julian Assange did.

> The South Korean justice system is notoriously lenient on white-collar crime,

Then we should pray he gets extradited somewhere else.

> The U.S. wanted to put him away for life, but the Korean courts would not deport him.

Wouldn't the right word here be "extradite", or was he a US citizen?

Yep, that should have been "extradite", not "deport".

>A few years ago, a man named Son Jung-woo was arrested for running what was the largest child porn site in the world back then. His sentence? 18 months. The U.S. wanted to put him away for life, but the Korean courts would not deport him.

This was the subject of the "Welcome to Video" episode of Darknet Diaries[1]. IIRC, he couldn't be extradited to the US because he was facing a lawsuit in Korea, one filed by his own father seemingly for precisely this side effect.

[1] https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/131/

>>The South Korean justice system is notoriously lenient on white-collar crime

Then I wonder why he didn't just turn himself in, do the time and come out after a couple years and enjoy his spoils.

I'd imagine prison in SK is bearable enough.

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