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Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

You can charge anyone in the world with anything, the trouble is getting a judge to agree with you and getting your hands on the person you're charging.

The first problem doesn't seem to be all that hard in the US (unless the inside traders are part of the US government, of course), the second problem can be as simple as having Google organise an all-expenses-paid team activity to bait the subject into jurisdiction.

If the basis for their charges really is just that he traded in dollars, then this is yet another example why nobody should trust Americans and their currency when it comes to trade. I hope they can come up with something better than that.

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> the second problem can be as simple as having Google organise an all-expenses-paid team activity to bait the subject into jurisdiction.

This actually happens. I know that the FBI once organized an all-expenses-paid trip to a "conference in Hawaii" for certain Chinese chemists it wanted to nab.

The corollary is that if you have reason to expect you're wanted by American Feds, never travel outside China, Russia, and certain European states that are extraordinarily hesitant to extradite to the US (e.g. Ireland).

And never have an emergency (accidentally, FBI-forced landing, etc) causing you to accidentally inhabit those countries either.

I thought I'd heard of this but couldn't find enough examples of this, let alone an FBI induced landing.

It appears REALLY hard to step over jurisdictions.

I did find the PLO terrorist incident from 1985. The terrorists killed an American on a cruiseship, Achille Lauro. Reagan sent a fighter jet to intercept, escort, and force a landing in Italy for the commercial jet the terrorists were later flying on.

There are other examples like forcing downed flights in the hunt for Snowden, but it's super rare and ultimately unlikely.

Oh yeah, it's definitely super rare, especially when we do anything to force the landing. The Snowden example is the only one coming to mind, and that was a decade ago.

There are a number cases where the stop was known ahead of time (like Maher Arar), but those are moderately rare too.

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