In connection with their pursuit of Alexander Vinnick, the FBI seized funds and shut down BTC-e without warning or consideration for thousands of innocent users.
Full story (https://news.bitcoin.com/btc-e-closure-clients-are-mt-goxed-by-the-u-s-a-new-front-in-crypto-wars/)
Several comments really highlight the injustice;
geggamojja • 10 months ago
I'm a hard working European. I have a steady job, pay my taxes and never committed a crime in my life. This lead to the FBI seizing most of my life savings, that I decided to place in bitcoin for what seemed to be good return on investment. I'm disgusted by a foreign country can label me a criminal and steal my money without any kind of warrant or similar against me. I pray this is resolved somehow, but it doesn't look very good. I have been following forums and similar, and we're literally thousands of average Joes in the same situation, whos savings has been stolen by the US from an exchange. Imagine the outcry if Russia shut down Nasdaq and seized all assets being circulated there
hattra • 10 months ago
Any sign of a class action suit being started to recover our property? When HSBC Mexico got fined by the Feds for failing to correctly document their account holders, the Feds didn't close the bank and deny the depositors access to their own money, so why should they be able to do it to a bitcoin exchange?
"cartel operatives would arrive at the bank’s branches and “deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows"
(https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/15/hsbc-has-form-mexico-laundered-drug-money)
Some HSBC staff had their bonuses reduced, yet no one was arrested - in stark contrast to Ross Ulbricht (down 144,336 bitcoins & life imprisonment.)
Also;
Michael Despott • 7 months ago
The Commonwealth Bank in Australia was found guilty of more than 50,000 counts of money laundering...no one has yet to be fined or prosecuted...mmmm....
(Full story - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-03/commonwealth-bank-to-pay-a-700-million-to-settle-laundering-suit)
May 2018 be the year of decentralised exchanges, ever increasing awareness and adoption of decentralized non-government cryptocurrency.