[HN Gopher] Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife'...
___________________________________________________________________
Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI
says
Author : optimalsolver
Score : 79 points
Date : 2021-05-11 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (decrypt.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (decrypt.co)
| hhjj wrote:
| So Internet was demonized at first, saying it allowed pedophiles
| to share child pornography with impunity from their home. Then we
| learned that internet allowed to catch more pedophiles than ever.
|
| Looks like this scheme finally applied to bitcoin. It was _very_
| easy to predict though.
| twostorytower wrote:
| Bitcoin is a dream come true for the FBI/CIA. There are companies
| building sophisticated software to track the routing of shady
| payments through the blockchain (wouldn't be surprised if
| Palantir does this). Eventually, crypto finds it way towards a
| tangible asset that can be tied to somebody and it's just a
| matter of a paper trail.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > There are companies building sophisticated software to track
| the routing of shady payments through the blockchain
|
| https://www.chainalysis.com/ (no affiliation)
| varispeed wrote:
| That is the ultimate problem of Bitcoin that it is non-
| fungible, which means it's not a real currency if 1 BTC !=
| another 1 BTC. If you get paid in BTC you never know if you
| receive tainted coins and have them confiscated by exchange at
| the withdrawal attempt.
| xgulfie wrote:
| Serious question, I thought BTC's only usefulness came from its
| usefulness in laundering money. Is this not true?
| strombofulous wrote:
| bitcoin works by distributing the entire history of all
| bitcoin transactions among a distributed pool of nodes.
| Anyone can look at any transaction at any time with only a
| small amount of effort.
|
| there are services that will "mix" your coins with a bunch of
| other people's, but you can see all the coins that went into
| the service and the addresses they were all sent to so it's
| not foolproof.
|
| I've heard that monero is a coin that can be used for
| laundering, but I've never looked into it so I can't say for
| sure
| otterley wrote:
| I wouldn't say laundering money is its _only_ utility, but
| the value of BTC is quite likely a reflection of the economic
| value of illicit activity (or black-market savings, if you
| prefer). Given how relatively difficult BTC is to use for the
| average person, it 's the simplest explanation (per Occam's
| razor) for why it's worth so much in aggregate.
|
| Think about it: If you were a criminal, would you rather keep
| your cash under a proverbial mattress like in the old days,
| or in properties that could be seized by the local
| government? Or in BTC, where it can't really be seized, is
| semi-anonymous, and where there is a (imperfect but decent)
| exchange market for fiat currency (and, rarely, goods and
| services) when you need it?
|
| I know what I would choose.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I disagree: criminals mostly use it as a mean to transfer
| money.
|
| The main reason behind the rise in price is purely
| speculation and fomo.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| Bitcoin's usefulness comes from being able to transact value
| without a centralized authority. There are no gatekeepers to
| determine who can transact with whom, to assign value to a
| medium, or to take that value away. It is democratization of
| financial power.
| xgulfie wrote:
| I mean pragmatically not abstractly. Bitcoin transaction
| fees were >$50 recently, so it's useless as a form of
| payment, and nothing is keeping it from being worthless
| tomorrow so it's a poor parking spot for money.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| Pragmatically, I can buy things online without having to
| give up my name and address. That's a win for me.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| yownie wrote:
| Seem's like a pretty obvious use of Parallel constructions
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction) going on
| here for the BBC -> FBI tipoff
| theshadowknows wrote:
| I am morbidly curious how much being a hit man pays. I don't want
| to look it up for fear of finding myself 'on a list' :) but it's
| such a high risk occupation that one assumes it's pretty
| profitable. In the US, anyway. This brings me to bitcoin.
|
| Would it be smarter as a murderer-for-hire to ask to be paid in a
| less-expensive (for now) but growing currency such as Etherium or
| Litecoin? I mean, ask the 'client' for X dollars _worth_ of that
| coin and then let it appreciate over time. Maybe that 's missing
| the mark. But I sort of feel like you'd be better off going for
| the long term gains and, potentially at least, being able to cash
| out earlier?
| capableweb wrote:
| Seems to go for less than $100K USD, which surprised me (source
| is Australian though http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/
| 02/05/australia.ki...)
|
| The Wikipedia page has more info on "contract killing", won't
| put you on a list to just read that :)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_killing
|
| Since this murder-for-hire chose to use a global and
| transparent ledger that will have that transaction until either
| the world disappears or the ledger somehow disappears from all
| nodes, I don't think "smarter" should come anywhere near this.
| Using blockchains like Bitcoin for crime is far beyond stupid.
| theshadowknows wrote:
| That's a great point. And it brings up a question I've never
| had before :)
|
| What would it take for the Bitcoin blockchain to atrophy
| enough so as to be unusable?
| jstanley wrote:
| > Would it be smarter as a murderer-for-hire to ask to be paid
| in a less-expensive (for now) but growing currency such as
| Etherium or Litecoin?
|
| No, because the efficient market hypothesis.
|
| If you know that some asset is definitely going to
| significantly appreciate in value why don't you just buy it and
| skip out the hitman thing? The answer is that almost noone has
| any better idea of what the correct price should be than
| whatever the current price is.
| cwkoss wrote:
| From my reading of probably unreliable/fake sources, a "hit" on
| a normal civilian typically ranges from $10-50k. Cost increases
| with difficulty of accessing target, risk of detection and
| making it look accidental.
|
| A hitman may wish to delay use of payment for opsec reasons,
| but I think it's odd to think their desire for speculative risk
| would be much different than the general public.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There have been murders for hires in the US for as little as
| 2000$, often done by teenagers.
| asimjalis wrote:
| In this case it was $17,800 according to
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/wwmt.com/amp/news/local/former-...
| asimjalis wrote:
| How did the BBC know about this plot? This is something that the
| story does not explain.
| rob-olmos wrote:
| What's the CoinBase method for connecting via ACH or is it only
| wires? Funding via ACH would just be two numbers, at the easiest.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| "Man Used Bank of America to Pay Hitman in USD for Wife's Murder,
| FBI Says An FBI agent explains how a BoA account led the agency
| to the suspect."
| [deleted]
| pjc50 wrote:
| Few people would be dumb enough to commit crimes with a bank
| account in their own name. Except this guy:
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/house/547280-gaetz-paid-accused...
| smnrchrds wrote:
| And this guy:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/25/us/ohio-candidate-
| tells-o...
| weeweww32 wrote:
| Should've used Monero
| underseacables wrote:
| Wait, this actually works?!
| taylorfinley wrote:
| The article says the FBI intervened before the hit was
| executed. They were apparently tipped off by the BBC. It's far
| more likely, in my opinion, that a BBC source would disclose
| his scam taking bitcoins from would-be hirerers of contract
| killers, than it is that an actual hitman would have bad enough
| opsec that the BBC would be the ones to discover his clients.
| capableweb wrote:
| Yes, you can pay people and have them murder others. Some do it
| on a grand scale even (Academi/Blackwater/Xe Services). Same
| goes for a bunch of other taboo/illegal things, you have the
| right amount of money, anything is possible.
| whymauri wrote:
| Kinda crazy. Most DarkWeb 'hitman' sites were just FBI
| honeypots or good samaritans reporting sketchy individuals to
| the FBI. I doubt this guy found the services through the 'dark
| web' or even the Internet. Probably met them through personal
| connections.
| chelmzy wrote:
| Should have used Monero.
| capableweb wrote:
| Would not have mattered since this guy was stupid enough to use
| Coinbase in the first place.
| meowster wrote:
| That's not an appropriate use of "SHUM".
| donkey-hotei wrote:
| He should not have hired a hit man to murder his wife also.
| Hydraulix9899 wrote:
| There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe" for
| criminals. In reality, the block chain is public (and all of its
| transactions inside... that is how distributed ledger consensus
| is achieved among miners) and the on-ramps and off-ramps between
| fiat are all logged / tracked, especially Coinbase (since they
| are taking the "safe route" and playing by all of the rules with
| governments / regulators).
|
| Your last-mile exchange from bitcoin back to USD on Coinbase, for
| example, is logged and monitored by Coinbase -- furthermore, the
| bank is incentivized to file Suspicious Activity Reports whenever
| they see these large wire transfers to the virtual banks used by
| the exchanges for withdrawing and depositing fiat. So, even
| privacy coins are tracked in this way (these necessary fiat
| exchanges).
|
| You can basically say the same thing about IRS tracking crypto
| tax evaders.
| jeppesen-io wrote:
| > There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe"
| for criminals
|
| It certainly can be safe and pseudo anonymous. Just need to be
| careful about fiat on/off ramps and maybe use a mixer or two.
| These things are not hard to do.
|
| The person who used Coinbase was either lazy or ignorant
| jb775 wrote:
| I agree, but think there's still ways to remain truly anonymous
| if you have the technical ability.
|
| Why do you think ransomware groups always accept bitcoin?
| mullingitover wrote:
| > There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe"
| for criminals.
|
| Is this why we've successfully caught every single ransomware
| operation transacting in crypto?
| vkou wrote:
| To be fair, you have to look at the enormous number of
| ransomware operators that are conducting their business in
| fiat...
|
| Humm. I suppose that there aren't very many of them. Perhaps
| cryptocurrencies do make some forms of criminal enterprises
| much easier to operate. I'm willing to accept that 'Hitman
| for hire' might not be one of them, though - mostly because
| you need a local presence, at which point, taking payment in
| cash has a number of advantages.
|
| It would be quite difficult to operate a ransomware operation
| out of, say, Belarus if you expected your victims to pay by
| posting you envelopes stuffed with cash.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| People make it out like the fiat conversion step is a big
| gotcha but criminals make fraudulent bank accounts with
| stolen/synthetic identities all the time.
| vkou wrote:
| Then why are ransomware operators getting paid in
| Bitcoin?
|
| It's not impossible to use the regular banking system for
| crime. But it's a lot harder, and a lot easier to get
| caught. A cartel in Mexico with an annual income in
| billions might be able to bribe or threaten the right
| people, but some techie running a small call center is
| going to have a harder time.
| consp wrote:
| They might have enough knowledge to use other currencies as
| intermediaries. I think the OP means criminals in general and
| not ones with a bit more knowledge.
| klaudius wrote:
| Use Monero
| timbit42 wrote:
| Monero is not completely untraceable either.
| sedeki wrote:
| Can you elaborate? I know very little about Monero.
| LanternLight83 wrote:
| Well, I can't speak for why it might be tracable, but can
| conversely testify that it has dedicated mechanisms for
| obfuscating and confusing transaction details such as who
| sent money, who received it, and how much was
| transferred- mechanisms which are used by default for
| every transaction, not just for "private" transactions,
| creating a cloudy swarm of activity in which you can only
| really tell that "transactions are happening" without
| access to (or the intense brute-force effort of
| obtaining) one of the several private keys involved in
| any given action.
|
| Some ground-laying patents _have_ been filed by
| CipherTrace, but I think it speaks for itself that the
| IRS 's $625,000.00 bounty on tracing Monero still stands.
| tmashb wrote:
| Almost the entire comments mix "crypto" with Bitcoin or
| "all cryptos are the same" which is factually false. Please
| explain how different it is in comparison, the thread is
| flooded with baseless claims. This is analogous to placing
| your money under the bed vs. in a bank vault, they're both
| unsafe technically, but the difference is vast.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| But what if he merely sent the Bitcoin from Coinbase to another
| wallet first - say a brain wallet he knows in his head - and
| then transfered the Bitcoins to the hitman?
|
| Wouldn't that be enough for him to be able to say "no i just
| bought some weed sorry, jail me for a month. i dont know why
| that person then went on to try to kill my wife."?
| me_me_me wrote:
| Yes you can do it with any money. What's your point?
| the_local_host wrote:
| I suspect there are few real-world examples where "you could
| just say X" actually works... but in this case the story is
| that a random "weed dealer" killed not a random person, but a
| specific person known to the "weed purchaser"?
|
| Who would believe that story?
| cwkoss wrote:
| How does prosecution prove the payment was connected to the
| hitman and not the weed?
|
| Seems like they'd need to seize the hitman's digital
| communications, at which point the jig is probably already
| up.
| DennisP wrote:
| It's "beyond a reasonable doubt," not "beyond all doubt."
| [deleted]
| mywittyname wrote:
| Evidence.
|
| A grand jury must look through the evidence and conclude
| that there is enough there to possibly result in a
| conviction.
| mindslight wrote:
| Being actually innocent isn't enough to protect you from the
| FBI, so no, any suspicious trail at all is too much. Once
| you're a person of interest, any of the many possible opsec
| failures is enough to build a case. And for (attempted)
| murder, the spouse is usually a person of interest.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Yep. The Bitcoin Blockchain is a permanent historical ledger.
| As time passes and info about who transacted what becomes
| public, the cost of identifying a transaction decreases.
| (Assuming Bitcoin is still around) we should assume that over
| time, the cost to unmask any given btc txn to asymptotically
| approach $0.
|
| Even if you escape the statute of limitations, there is a good
| chance your grandchildren will be able to see what you did with
| Bitcoin by just looking it up on a public website in half a
| century.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| >the cost to unmask any given btc txn to asymptotically
| approach $0. Mind you, there are several ways to obfuscate
| transactions even in the bitcoin network. and there are also
| privacy focused blockchains to whitewash money
| cwkoss wrote:
| All of the 'trustless' tumbling solutions I've seen tend to
| leave some evidence on the blockchain, it often only
| dilutes the certainty that a particular input maps to a
| particular output.
|
| IMO, the only "surefire" way to launder bitcoin is
| traditional money laundering: send a trusted person dirty
| bitcoins and they send you back bitcoins from a clean
| legitimate source. Strong incentive for launderer to take
| the funds and run, so trust is unstable in this model.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| But... trustless! /s
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| > there is a good chance your grandchildren will be able to
| see what you did with Bitcoin by just looking it up on a
| public website in half a century.
|
| That's all of the internet, forget blockchains.
| SahAssar wrote:
| No, it isn't, if a service is properly secured and does not
| sell it's data then there is no reason to think this.
| Please stop spreading FUD like this, it only makes people
| think that privacy is impossible.
|
| Even if you are talking about dragnet collection and you
| assume that for example NSA can store all traffic on the
| internet (which is basically impossible) in Utah (or
| wherever) for future decryption with post-quantum
| cryptography there is no reason to believe that they would
| make it public. And that is basically the worst case
| scenario.
|
| Privacy fatalism helps no-one.
| kodah wrote:
| I don't think that's privacy fatalism? Did you know that
| Reddit's entire graph has been cached on some dudes
| servers and up until fairly recently allowed search by
| username? That includes deleted posts and edits.
|
| Reddit is not unique. People do this with Twitter too. I
| forget the name but there's an entire service for caching
| changes to your Twitter bio.
|
| > No, it isn't, if a service is properly secured and does
| not sell it's data then there is no reason to think this
|
| Citation needed. Reddit and Twitter aren't selling data
| to those people. It's an open API.
| SahAssar wrote:
| You're talking about public info, that people posted on
| public forums. Is anyone surprised that that info would
| be public?
|
| We may be talking about different things, but to me "all
| of the internet" means much more than public data and
| public forums.
| kodah wrote:
| I think it's reasonable for the average internet user to
| expect that some creep isn't archiving the whole
| internet. Public or not. We are indeed talking about the
| same thing, you are just denying that it's a problem.
| SahAssar wrote:
| I'm saying that "all of the internet" is more than the
| public internet. You seem to be saying the opposite,
| especially since you said "archiving the whole internet"
| which implies that any one entity has that sort of
| access. You say "Public or not" as if that does not make
| a difference, but there is a huge chasm between the
| privacy you can (and reasonably should) expect depending
| on it.
|
| I think privacy is something we should strive for, but I
| think that when something is said publically on a
| globally broadcasted medium people cannot reasonably have
| an expectation of privacy. The problem with privacy in my
| mind is when there can reasonably be an expectation of
| privacy but that isn't met.
|
| If I tweet something it's clear that's public. If I DM
| someone that should be private.
|
| Why is it reasonable to not expect that there would be
| someone saving public data?
| kodah wrote:
| archive.org accepted dumps of Parler, in recent memory,
| which is clearly stolen information. Do you think that's
| the first time they've accepted information that is meant
| to be private?
|
| Facebook had created puppet profiles from people's
| contact information and made them public, notoriously.
|
| Like, at what point would you like to accept that GPs
| statement is not hyperbole? Would _all_ information that
| _was_ private need to go public? By then I 'd say it is
| too late.
|
| This is a rather silly argument where you try to draw
| some line in online services that has been willfully
| greyed by the people who create these platforms for their
| own benefit.
|
| If you want to call GP a privacy fatalist, then I'll just
| call you a privacy denialist and leave it there.
| SahAssar wrote:
| I strongly believe that privacy is important, but I also
| think that it is important for people to have clear
| expectations of when they can expect it.
|
| Is it so absurd to say that if I post stuff publically I
| cannot expect it to be private and if I post stuff
| privately I should absolutely be able to depend on it to
| be private?
|
| I think your example of parler is an example of a service
| that was not adequately secured to protect it's private
| communications and the facebook example is clearly
| unethical and just one of the reasons I don't use the
| service.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| It's not privacy fatalism. I'm referring to the public
| internet, which is now mined and stored as input for AIs,
| if nothing else.
|
| We can only speculate that data breaches will be used for
| such purposes eventually too.
|
| The best you can get is E2EE communications. I find it
| ironic someone commenting on a text based public forum
| would argue this.
| SahAssar wrote:
| We may be talking about different things, but to me "all
| of the internet" means much, much more than the public
| internet.
|
| > The best you can get is E2EE communications.
|
| There are quite a lot of steps between public data and
| E2EE.
|
| > I find it ironic someone commenting on a text based
| public forum would argue this.
|
| I don't have any expectation of privacy here and know
| what I'm saying is public. On other sites/services I have
| privacy and know that what I'm saying isn't public.
| freshair wrote:
| Maybe my grandchildren will somehow have better luck than I
| did. Archive.org doesn't have several forums I used to post
| on. I'd like to get copies of my old posts, but gave up on
| that years ago. I did manage to track down the owner of one
| of the forums, but he had no backups.
|
| _" Everything stays on the internet forever"_ is a good
| cautionary principle, but isn't a strict reality.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Sounds like it worked just great for one of the criminals...
|
| From TFA "The FBI has not, however, been able to identify the
| hitman as yet. The reason is almost certainly because the
| hitman did not use a commercial service like Coinbase, which
| must comply with know-your-customer laws, for the Bitcoin
| transactions but instead relied on his own personal wallet--one
| that did not reveal any information about his identity."
| gumby wrote:
| I wonder if the hitman is the one who notified the BBC. Seems
| like a better way to make some money than actually, you know,
| doing the job.
|
| (not implying that the _bbc_ gave him any money)
| rOOb85 wrote:
| To me, it sounds like BBC knows more then they let on.
| Could BBC have been running a undercover investigative
| story? It just seems too unlikely they could get the
| hitmans bitcoin address without being somehow involved.
| m4x wrote:
| Only because the criminal hasn't yet tried to use that
| bitcoin to buy something in the real world.
|
| If they try to convert to fiat via an exchange, they can be
| identified the same way the husband was. If they try to buy
| products directly without using fiat then it is harder for
| law enforcement to get the records they need, but still quite
| possible.
|
| They will probably be safe if they never touch the bitcoin,
| but that entirely defeats the purpose of using it
| jeppesen-io wrote:
| > Only because the criminal hasn't yet tried to use that
| bitcoin to buy something in the real world.
|
| An asumption you're making and likely untrue. There are
| many ways to convert to fiat or skip that step and luander
| through the dark web
| ignoramous wrote:
| Don't need darkweb for that if you're very careful with
| how you execute trades on https://localbitcoins.com/ (a
| service that I believe predates coinbase, circle et al)
|
| Usually, one'd use a coin like _Monero_ instead, the
| project 's wretched history notwithstanding.
| caeril wrote:
| What is wretched about Monero's history?
| Thorentis wrote:
| People doing nafarious things don't cash out using
| exchanges. They use things like localbitcoins to make a
| trade in person (or through an intermediary), and obviously
| lose a percent of the value in doing so. At that point it
| basically becomes a cash transaction.
| SahAssar wrote:
| What about tumblers/mixers?
| tw04 wrote:
| And if they run it through a coin washer?
|
| https://bitcoinlaundry.online/en/index.htm
| Larrikin wrote:
| Most of the big exchanges don't allow cashing out of
| coins run through those anymore.
| divbzero wrote:
| Bitcoin is more traceable than cash, but surely creative
| criminals have worked out a way to launder it?
| freshair wrote:
| Unless the hitman has decided to retire, it's probably only a
| matter of time before they catch him using good old fashioned
| detective work. For instance, investigators might be able to
| catch the hitman in a sting operation, if they know what
| marketplace the hitman sells his services on.
| krisroadruck wrote:
| I feel like you rather overestimate the prowess of law
| enforcements ability to solve murders, especially non-slam-
| dunk ones with a witness and an obvious connection between
| the murderer and victim.
| freshair wrote:
| Maybe so, you could be right. But if this man is taking
| contracts from the general public, I think that must be a
| good lead.
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