Two Federal Agents in Silk Road Case Face Fraud Charges | Hacker News Reader

Two Federal Agents in Silk Road Case Face Fraud Charges

nytimes.com

287 pointsTwoFactor90 comments

I encourage everyone with interest in the overall story to actually read the complaint. It's astonishing.

It appears that these two Federal agents were doing far, far more than just grabbing some excess bitcoins that were lying around and they figured nobody would miss. It reads more like a purposeful organized crime effort, involving setting up dummy shell companies, forging letters from the government, being involved in pitching investments in shady offshore bitcoin startups, etc.

They also allege that these agents were turning around and selling insider info on the investigation to DPR in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoin. They allege an agent just basically strong armed some random guy ("RP") who was a customer of CoinMKT and stole $297,000 or so from him, using the Federal Government search and seizure docs to do so but then just transferring the money into his personal checking account.

The agent was doing shady transactions via Venmo and got flagged and had his account suspended, so he contacted them as a DEA agent to get the account reinstated. When they got suspicious (because he had been using his personal email address before going "official") and contacted his supervisors he tried to start a criminal investigation of Venmo as "a suspicious money remitter" through his office.

They allege that the other agent was responsible for the wholesale theft of bitcoin from Silk Road and its various vendors, after they managed to apprehend someone ("CG") who was an administrator at Silk Road. This agent signed Federal warrants seizing the assets of Mt Gox, meanwhile transferring millions of dollars in bitcoin into his own account.

Reading this is thoroughly jaw-dropping: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-release...

Indeed. It appears Force's fatal flaw was trusting an IRS Agent to help him out of a situation.

Guess what his business he is in now.

> there is some implication that these agents may have been responsible for theft of bitcoin not only from Silk Road, but from Mt Gox as well

I don't think this is true. Unless I'm missing something the allegation here is not that they stole from Mt. Gox but that they used Mt. Gox to cash out bitcoins stolen from Silk Road.

They did actually then steal from Mt. Gox, but it was "legal". They accused Mt. Gox of operating illegally and seized their US bank accounts. That happened a long time before Mt. Gox actually collapsed and is separate from the bitcoin theft that brought them down.

This whole thing reads like a conspiracy theory dreamed up by radical libertarians. If they really are out to get you, does that mean you're not paranoid?

> I don't think this is true. Unless I'm missing something the allegation here is not that they stole from Mt. Gox but that they used Mt. Gox to cash out bitcoins stolen from Silk Road.

The complaint does not accuse them of stealing from Mtgox. However, there is still the curious matter of how Ulbricht's Mtgox account was drained several months later: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2tgymg/silk...

The complaint does accuse the two agents of stealing directly from Silk Road during the "proffer" of DPR's employee, C.G. There is no accusation of stealing from Mt.Gox. They reportedly used Mt.Gox to convert stolen bitcoin to dollars and then wired out the dollars to other accounts).

Drug enforcement officers on the take shocker.

I though this was common knowledge. Arrest and find 2 lbs and $20k, person gets charged with 1 lb and $10k

The twist being, Bitcoin is so far from even pseudo-anonymous that stealing the cash would have been much, much smarter. The Blockchain, it turns out, is the least anonymous way to transact. All your ledger made public forever, what could possibly go wrong?

Sure, with perfectly clean CoinJoins, mixing, etc. you might possibly be able to hide the coins, for a little while. Just don't ever try to actually, you know, spend them.

This is something I'm still wrapping my head around because I've read that Bitcoin tumblers are effective. But it's like you said: all transactions are public.

Any kind of structuring or splitting is an obstacle but not an insurmountable one. And crucially: it is strong evidence for knowing that you're up to something illegal.

Interestingly, these guys weren't caught because they stole bitcoin. They were caught because they converted the bitcoin into US dollars and then ultimately transferred that cash into accounts subject to investigative jurisdiction in the U.S. Had they simply kept (and maybe even spent) the bitcoin directly, it would have been far harder to identify them.

Not sure about that. It seems like they were caught because they were totally and utterly beyond flagrant in their abuse of their office. Reading through that complaint I saw at least a dozen examples of actions where I wondered "what the hell did they think was going to happen next" in regards. Using government subpoenas to intimidate payment processors, having their name associated with bitcoin startup pitches while still being on the US Government payroll, and engaging in literal extortion attempts against DPR which were discovered easily when his servers and computer were seized, were just a few of their greatest hits. These guys were on a fast road to discovery from various different directions, it's hard to comprehend what they were thinking their endgame would be.

Here's a link to the the complaint: http://cryptome.org/2015/03/force-001.pdf

I have often thought that Aaron Greenspan's attitude towards California money transmission law was a little aggressive, http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20141022/the-common-se... , like, this guy is ranting about obscure laws and there is no way that the government would really abuse this legislation to shut down reasonable businesses.

Then, in this complaint, I read

""On March 4, 2014, FORCE asked one of his co-case agents on the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force to run a query in a law enforcement database for Venmo, saying that he wanted to collaborate 'on a suspicious money remitter, Venmo Inc. Venmo has since registered with FinCEN, but I want to know if they have state money license remitting licenses in California and New York. Can you check? If not, I want to seize their bank accounts (need to identify them) a la BRIDGES and [M.M.'s] seizure warrants for Mt. Gox.""

Wow. Nope. Aaron Greenspan is exactly right about the effects of this legislative mess.

Thanks. Glad someone noticed, though aggressive overuse of 18 U.S.C. § 1960 at the federal level is hardly the biggest problem... See page 15:

http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatemen...

The real issues are at the state level, but as you can see, it's all intertwined.

I wonder if the government buried this until after the Ulbricht trial was over. The fact that two of the investigators were corrupt and stealing funds could have derailed the case.

That hadn't even occurred to me. Is that something that prosecutors can even do? It seems legally and ethically suspect, but prosecutors seem to be unaccountable when it comes to that sort of tactic.

I can imagine the prosecutors pretending it's not material because it's an "ongoing investigation" (that's purposely paused until the trial finishes), but it would be very interesting to know the complete timeline and see how it meshes with that of the Ulbricht trial.

If the agents are convicted, you'd think Ulbricht's lawyer could appeal to have his conviction overturned...

Except these agents were a separate investigation and their evidence wasn't included in the trial.

It's relevant though. Missing information is just as important as provided information when it comes to the law. That's what they mean when they say the whole truth.

Only if the missing evidence is exculpatory.

If Officer A arrests you for a DUI and speeding on Day X...the actions of Officer B on Day Y for a separate DUI case is irrelevant.

The "missing information" as you put it, is related to a murder-for-hire trial that is separate from the Ulbricht-ran-Silk-Road trial.

Even if they are not convicted, these charges are more than enough to appeal the entirety of the case against Ulbricht.

As someone with direct experience with police corruption (I will save the story for some other time), I hope like heck he gets relief from his conviction due to these stunning revelations.

I don't claim to know all the details or connections between these rotten agents and the non-rotten ones, but to be honest, I don't think it matters much.

The actors in power have to be held to a much higher standard of conduct than the criminals do, and just the appearances of these perhaps illegal behaviors should cast grave doubt over the entire case.

What difference would it have made?

I would assume just media wise

Any evidence these 2 agents provided would be regarded as unreliable.

What evidence did these 2 agents provide?

For one thing, the entire Maryland hitman case collapses if you can't use anything Force touched, because he ran it from start to finish as Nob.

No doubt the case they were working is probably tanked, but my question was meant to be pointed more towards the trial that's already happened, where evidence has been presented (past tense).

It would cast a shadow of doubt over any and all evidence that these now discredited agents were involved in collecting and any testimony they made or influenced.

IANAL, so hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in, but if you can show in court that a witness has comitted a crime you can show that they are not trustworthy and essentially impeach their testimony.

There was so much evidence against Ulbricht that it probably wouldn't have changed the outcome, but the fact that this is only now being brought to light is very suspicious.

> The Baltimore investigation resulted in an indictment of Mr. Ulbricht on a charge of murder for hire, but that case has remained pending and the evidence in support of it was kept out of the New York trial, apparently because of the investigation into the agents.

They were part of a separate case against Ulbricht. The one he was convicted on wasn't based on their evidence and/or testimony.

Trials have to prove someone is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If agents involved in the investigations were caught misbehaving, that may very well add doubt to the validity of the investigation's results. Or at least it could delay the trial while the results are re-evaluated.

Well, I took a high school civics class too, but I don't see these guys as having been central to the case against Ulbricht at all.

I didn't (nor do I see what high school has to do with the most basic principle defining a state of law). And I didn't say they were central to the case, either.

But depending on the lawyers and the judge, this could have been used to construct something that would have affected either the progress or the outcome of the trial.

It's entirely philosophical anyway.

> I didn't (nor do I see what high school has to do with the most basic principle defining a state of law).

It was my way of trying to suggest that, like everyone with a modicum of education in the United States, I'm aware of the principle that accused persons are innocent until proven guilty in US law, and you didn't really need to point it out to me like it was something I hadn't thought of.

Ulbricht can still appeal on this basis, no?

The Ulbricht case that went to trial was a different investigative team. [e.g. These agents were not involved]

> The charges stem from the agents’ role in one of the federal investigations into Silk Road; a separate Manhattan-based investigation ultimately led to the filing of charges against the website’s founder, Ross W. Ulbricht, who was convicted last month on numerous counts. The website was also shut down by the authorities.

However, I'm pretty sure the "murder for hire" trial is going to die quietly because of these agents.

Yes, it's unheard of for agents in a "different investigative team" (that, BTW, happens to be involved in shaking down suspects) to, say, provide illegally obtained evidence to their coworkers. The government is very strict about tracking the source of evidence so it can be turned over to the defense; otherwise it'd be a clear Brady violation. They could face as much as a light chastizement from a federal judge!

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/epidemic_of_brady_vio...

Is there some link you can point us to suggesting that that's happened in this case? There are 113,000 employees at DOJ, so, statistically, every case is always going to be one or two hops away from some kind of malfeasance somewhere, right?

Your comment is disingenuous. The case was not "one or two hops away" from malfeasance, it was the subject of said malfeasance. The fact that neither of the bad actors testified in court, and that they may have been working in a separate office does not change this.

It's disingenuous to ask if the "tainted" investigation is actually linked to the one that produced Ulbricht's conviction?

In that case we talk about very close investigations. So the chances of cross contamination are higher, IMO. And IIRC we still have no idea how the server was found in the first place.

If the complaint is "the DOJ routinely hides evidence and engages in corrupt behavior", it isn't exactly a counterargument to say "but you're always near some corruption at the DOJ, and besides, the DOJ hasn't released any evidence that they're not to be trusted".

It is entirely likely, a priori, that there will be abuses in a system where violations of the law are, to a close approximation, unpunished, it is to their great professional benefit to violate the law, and it is to their great professional benefit to ignore violations of the law by their coworkers. Nothing in this indictment makes me revise that opinion downwards.

Besides which, these agents in particular have a pattern (according to the indictment) of initiating investigations against targets who had become obstacles to their corruption.

There are over 100,000 employees at DOJ, and it would be an extraordinary claim to suggest that enough of them are corrupt to make this kind of corruption routine. It might be true, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Note that because of selection bias, links to Brady stories probably don't constitute "extraordinary" evidence.

>> [e.g. These agents were not involved]

i.e. not e.g.

It turns out one of them was probably on Ulbricht's payroll:

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-m...

Wow. How could Ulbricht's attorney not appeal after this is made public?

You think evidence that Ulbricht bribed someone to get intelligence on another DEA investigation is going to help him?

I mean: they'll probably appeal no matter what, because what do they have to lose at this point.

> You think evidence that Ulbricht bribed someone to get intelligence on another DEA investigation is going to help him?

Not at all!

> I mean: they'll probably appeal no matter what, because what do they have to lose at this point.

Exactly this. Sorry I wasn't clear.

It's hardly bribery if the other party isn't acting in an official capacity. Fake authority has probably been a ploy of scammers and fraudsters since they existed.

On the other hand, I'm sure theres a major problem for the government here if the guy signing seizures is doing so for his own illicit gain.

> It's hardly bribery if the other party isn't acting in an official capacity.

You can't be an officer in a case and not be acting in an official capacity at the same time. It's not like you go home at 17:00 sharp and then turn around to the people that you just spent time with as an official and pretend that didn't happen.

This was pretty deliberately buried, yes. I've been going through the evidence exhibits for the trial, and in retrospect, knowing what I know now, it's remarkable how carefully chosen exhibits are to hide all the traces on Ulbricht's end: for example, due to redaction failures, we know all the mentions of French Maid were scrubbed by prosecution; his journal is carefully chosen to start after Chronicpain was busted and used to rob SR1 accounts; the failed extortion attempt using the name 'A.A.' is partially redacted so it sounds like an isolated incident; and so on.

What do you mean by buried? I think it's fairly obvious why the prosecutor would choose not to present this evidence if the case could be made without it. The prosecution isn't required to present everything at trial.

I guess there's the question of whether the prosecution provided it to the defense or not, though I'm not sure how that would help. Ulbricht was sticking with the claim he wasn't running the site at the time, no? Seems irrelevant that some bad agents stole from the site he wasn't running.

Bitcoin seems to make everyone crazy. I guess if you're prone to theft and dishonesty, it must be tough to look at a folder on some confiscated PC with files worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and not take them. Seems like everyday police corruption, like how drug dealers busted with thousands of dollars suddenly have a evidence locker inventory with zero cash.

I'm glad the system is working, at least to the point of catching these guys. You can't stop human nature, but at least you can punish the guilty.

I think it's a look into what he world looks like without social norms. The folks stealing bitcoins probably would never take $200 out of grandma's purse when she wasn't looking. Society has acculturated people to understand that's bad. But butcoin is novel, and doesn't have social norms surrounding it. It doesn't feel the same as taking money out of a purse.

I would argue that many of the recently publicized actions of the government in general provide a look into what the world looks like without social norms.

As the guy above said, I don't think it's particularly novel about Bitcoin, rather that the temptation of something that has a large amount of value will always make a few give in. These guys may not have stolen from a grandma, but would feel less inhibited stealing from what they ostensibly view as criminal's money.

I think your theory might be a tad overly optimistic with regards to the character of these officers.

I think the amount of infrastructure they set up to execute the crime indicates complete understanding of the law. That is very different from committing a crime because one's adherence to social norms makes them think it isn't a "real crime".

The folks stealing bitcoins probably would never take $200 out of grandma's purse...

You're probably right, and that would be great if agents primarily came into contact with grandmas and their purses. However, these individuals were employed to investigate successful criminal enterprises. It is very doubtful that this is the first time they've had an opportunity to steal from the wealthy target of a criminal investigation.

Bitcoins make everything so tempting.

Or maybe I should say, bitcoins make stealing so tempting -- at a personal level.

Maybe it's the mixing of these DIY technologies with money -- all these scams feel within reach -- just about anybody can easily steal money, where as in the non-digital world, stealing too hard...

Looks like we have indeed found a third way to make money off Bitcoin.

The first two, both widely used so far, are

(a) operating a Bitcoin exchange and running away with customers' Bitcoins and

(b) hacking a Bitcoin exchange and running away with customers' Bitcoins.

(c) investigating bitcoin related crimes for a federal agency and selling access to your investigation back to the target

Corruption is always a way to make money - it's a time honored tradition. What I'm afraid we're seeing here is that if the corrupt individuals aren't sufficiently capable, they get caught.

What is going on that isn't being caught (or just as bad, being caught but not being punished because "important people" would be inconvenienced)?

It's not bitcoin, greed is rampant - pocketing cash is a lot easier than pocketing bitcoin. Bitcoin has traceability, and you would assume the average LEO wouldn't have a wealth of knowledge to steal and launder it without getting caught.

Cash on the other hand, they can take out of the brown paper bag, shove in their jacket and it's essentially theirs.

http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-release...

What a terrific example of how Bitcoin's transparency is one of its greatest assets.

It will be interesting to see how they allegedly got the bitcoins, since I expect that will come out in the indictment and trial.

Perhaps they pretended to be an extortionist and a hitman in order to convince DPR to send coins to their address in exchange for a "hit" on the "extortionist".

The complaint already says how: after busting Chronicpain in a CD, he turned over his SR1 moderator/admin account, and then Force used the mod/admin ability to reset passwords & PINs to log into big vendors' accounts and transfer their balance out of SR1 to his own Bitcoin account.

Thanks, I had missed any links to the indictment in the original story, but it's definitely a worthwhile read.

After knowing the background, I don't actually mind the redaction of those details from the evidence in Ulbricht's trial.

This is an excellent demonstration of the value and transparency the blockchain provides.

Now that blockchain analysis tools are getting better, I wonder if we'll be seeing more and more criminal activity exposed.

For example, someone linked to this wallet/transaction in a reddit thread, which appears to show one of the $100k payoffs: http://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/08363b86122e340c

Even just six months ago it would have been hard piece that information together, but Wallet Explorer makes it clear as day.

Basically the same MO as in drug cases - part of the briefcase-o'-cash (or drugs, or what have you) goes into evidence, part goes into the agents' pockets.

Read the complaint, it's so much worse than that: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-release...

So we're just going to ignore the rather awesome fact that there was "Special Agent Force" who was reckless and didn't abide by the rules, but got the criminals in the end? It sounds like a graphic novel or something.

He is a criminal himself, the worst kind: an official abusing their civil authority to enrich themselves and commit their crimes against many innocent people (Ulbricht not being one of those).

So much for bitcoin being anonymous... (Yes I know it can be anonymous if one is careful but as it is commonly used it is not and this needs to be remembered).

How many bad apples until people declare the whole batch spoiled?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Overgeneralization

Well,it sounds like you've already made up your mind, so at what number did you reach the breaking point and made the decision that the entirety of our law enforcement system was spoiled?

When the Senate declared we torture people and the president decided not to prosecute.

Well, there's your answer.

It requires a sample of about 72 bad apples and 0 good apples to be 95% confident that at least 95% of the batch is spoiled.

Have you ever picked apples?

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