The secret life of Jimmy Zhong, who stole – and lost – more than $3B | Hacker News Reader

The secret life of Jimmy Zhong, who stole – and lost – more than $3B

cnbc.com

79 pointsjc_81119 comments

Have to admire the chutzpah to ask for leniency since stealing the bitcoins made the US government about three billion dollars by delaying the disposal of the bitcoins until they appreciated. He only had to serve one year after living it up for ten so not a bad trade off by some points of view.

On the other hand, everyone who didn’t dare to come out and ask the government for those coins now knows jimmys name, so I doubt he is off the hook.

I thought someone did try to claim their bitcoin back after the original Silk Road bitcoin seizure, after they deposited bitcoin and the site got seized before they could spend anything (plausible deniability of anything unlawful), but still lost.

Gov isn’t going to make it easy to “prove” you had no criminal intent, even if you didn’t do anything yet. Though it should really be the gov’s job to prove every deposit was criminal before seizing it imo.

Unlikely someone would succeed now either. And the gov would probably claim they only owed you the dollar value, not the bitcoin back (but does the opposite when they claim you owe them stolen bitcoin and that’s favourable to you).

Maybe it was a claim on a libertyreserve deposit?

Brian Krebs himself tried to put in a claim, but no updates since his initial contact from IRS in 2020 (7 years after the seizure): https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/02/a-light-at-the-end-of-li...

I agree in principle, but I think it’s also very realistic to suggest that there was no real legitimate and legal usage for Silk Road. It is possible some items and services for offer would be legal in some contexts, but the site existed for the express purpose of being a black market of illicit goods and services. I don’t see there being much plausible deniability.

Not a lawyer, but I think in this case it would reasonable for it to be on the defendant to demonstrate that their participation in such a black market was legal, in good faith, and a rational choice (I.e. no reasonable alternative existed). Just surfing Silk Road? Super reasonable, should not be illegal since there is no indication of intent. Deposited money into Silk Road? You definitely had intent to transact.

I’d say it was full of hard to get (and potentially embarassing) goods and services, legal or not. More of an anarcho-libertarian mindset than “I gonna break the law and the law only!”.

Plenty of things that aren’t illegal but regulators over-reach anyway and make it difficult to transact in. Then there’s the “illegal in USA, but not in _____”, or “illegal in France but not in USA”

Having to make a public claim that you were just going to buy a technically legal viagra analog is a good way to make sure nobody bothers (on top of the gov just making spurious claims that the marketplace is itself a criminal neighbourhood where anyone present is subject to arbitrary search/seizure).

White collar crimes. Meanwhile if you are a black man robbing a store you can be behind bars for 10 years.

What I’ve come to accept is that white collar crime “feels” distant to an average person. Even if some bank exec cooks up a way to steal a few dollars an account to the tune of millions or even if I’m phished $10k out out of my investment account, it doesn’t “feel” the same as knowing someone robbed my neighbor and pistol-butted them for a $1000 iPhone.

One of the biggest "white-collar" crimes is wage-theft, which certainly isn't distant at all from the average worker.

Easy, your life wasn't threatened in the former, like it usually is in the latter. If I'm not mistaken, most of the charges are associated with the intention to commit a murder, threatening, extortion, etc. and not actual theft.

I assume (and this is completely hypothetical) that if I were to politely rob a grocery store with a smile and a veiled threat (reminds me of that scene with Clooney), I wouldn't have to face a high sentence.

>Meanwhile if you are a black man robbing a store you can be behind bars for 10 years.

Maybe 30 years ago and entirely depends on the context--robbery generally involves the use of force or weapon. However, I regularly see shoplifting, open drug use, and other crimes that cops won't even come out for. I had someone hit and run on my car and the 911 dispatcher told me to file a 311 complaint.

Sad part was when the local police still didn’t solve the physical breakin and theft he was a victim of, but will get cut in on the proceeds from his crime the feds solved for them.

Also, how do you take all those security precautions but not have a lawyer on retainer?

Also, what kind of PI throws their client under the bus like that?

why would you hang around the US with that loot ? go where uncle sam wouldn't be able to touch ya

in this article: person not culturally white tries to fit in using money

would've been easier if he just relocated

The crazy part of this story (and there are a lot of crazy parts), is that he kicked the whole thing off by calling the police to investigate a crime against him that was predicated on a crime he himself performed. It's basically "hey officer, that guy just stole from me the stuff that I previously stole from someone else!"

"Your trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen!"

Why is it the IRS Criminal Investigation group doing the investigation and not the FBI? I understand there may be some tax implications but I'd have thought they'd let the FBI figure it out and deal with the tax stuff after....??

Accountants make better investigators

If I were him I'd be pretty scared. I doubt he makes it a year after he gets out. No one in crypto will ever trust him again, and plenty of people will be hunting him down.

Poor dog, I hope he gets visitation time.

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