dada78641 21 hours ago
> Two crypto thieves decided to settle an argument over who was wealthier by screensharing as they transferred crypto between wallets to prove ownership. In doing so, one of them — known online as "Lick" — revealed a wallet address that crypto sleuth zachxbt quickly tied to the theft of around $90 million from US government wallets containing seized crypto assets

Rapp snitches.

MisterTea 2 days ago
A bit lost here. Is there more backstory to this? It reads as if the government contractors son stole the 90 million from the government?
alistairSH 2 days ago
Correct. US Marshalls have a contract with this guy’s dad to mange their crypto holdings (seized as part of investigations). Kid steals money but can’t resist showing off to friends and gets “busted”. Except the government still doesn’t appear to acknowledge a theft even occurred and the kid taunts investigators by sending them small amounts of ETH.
bluemenot 2 days ago
I wonder if technically the small amounts of eth are bribes…
SilverBirch 21 hours ago
It's pretty common for crypto wallets that have been linked to illegal activity get blacklisted. So by sending a bit of crypto to the guy that figured out who he is, if/when the government investigate and freeze accounts the guy who busted him will get their account frozen too.
mrgoldenbrown 17 hours ago
Aka "dusting"
knowitnone3 2 days ago
just to let the kid know, I'm one of the investigators. I hate being taunted with any type of cryptocoin, cash of any denomination. I also hate gold and silver. I won't sleep until I catch you or $10 whichever comes first.
ortusdux 2 days ago
FatalLogic 2 days ago
This would be a much better link for this post

There's a lot more detail, and delivered in more professional way

altairprime 2 days ago
If you email the mods about this (and link to your comment), they might well agree and update the post link.
anonymousiam 2 days ago
caycep 2 days ago
Molly White really is quite thorough
cj 2 days ago
Tangent: what does the govt do with seized crypto? Does it eventually get liquidated?
wmf 2 days ago
They used to auction it but I think now they are holding it in a "strategic reserve".
alfiedotwtf 59 minutes ago
I’m sure Kushner is keeping it safe, along with all that non-corrupt Trumpcoin
tamarinddreams 14 hours ago
Yet another attempt to store a lot of Cheddar.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese
shrubble 2 days ago
So much of the government is like this, they will hire some connected guy to manage something in a slightly competent manner.

Just learned that the federal government has long term leases on office buildings that congressmen have a financial interest in. More disappointment.

N_Lens 2 days ago
I think the level of corruption and blatant disregard for laws by the privileged we're seeing is unlike anything in modern history. If Nixon's watergate happened today it wouldn't even be a blip in the 24hrs news cycle, that's how far gone the erosion of institutions and rule of law is.
drdaeman 2 days ago
> it wouldn't even be a blip in the 24hrs news cycle

It would be, but both mass media and people attention spans have changed, so it would be very different in a lot of ways.

alfiedotwtf 56 minutes ago
Taken further, the reason you wouldn’t see it on the news is because the media is controlled by the people in government and friends…

Don’t believe me? Google how TikTok got sold off to Trump’s base and now the word “Epstein” has been banned in DMs

tim333 22 hours ago
>unlike anything in modern history

The stuff currently happening in the US is unusual for the US but mild compared to Putin's Russia which Trump seems a little inspired by. At least you don't have people falling out of windows yet.

tartuffe78 18 hours ago
How tall is that ballroom going to be?
linksnapzz 17 hours ago
...should be at least as tall as the Salon de Fetes in the Elysee; that'd be appropriate.
chneu 2 days ago
It's pretty wild how "normalized" it got within my generation.

What's more wild is how much of the US believes that the other party would be much worse.

To be clear, Republicans are absolutely the current cause of this insanity that's going on. The two party system doesn't help, but Republicans have committed insanity while claiming everyone else is doing worse. Trump is a literal pedophile who openly admitted to hating immigrants his entire life. We all saw this coming.

NicoJuicy 2 days ago
That's how Russian propaganda works

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

renewiltord 24 hours ago
It didn’t. You started paying attention. That’s all that changed. Hillary Clinton was pulling exceptional performance on cattle futures and Paul Pelosi had a strange knack for picking stock that reacted well to laws his wife pushed for. It is brazen today because they’re just launching $MELANIA and shit like that and selling pardons but that’s only because that’s user-visible. If someone siphoned your taxes or performed insider trading you wouldn’t even know.

But corruption has been part and parcel of US politics. Or are we supposed to believe that things like the Chappaquiddick incident were actually innocent accidents?

When I was younger I remember thinking that George Bush pardoning Scooter Libby was outrageous. Then I found out what these people were up to routinely.

tim333 22 hours ago
I had a look at the Wikipedia on Chappaquiddick and it doesn't mention anything corruption? Seems to have been drunk driving? Not sure how it relates?
linksnapzz 17 hours ago
It relates, insofar as the driver was not charged, and in fact managed to run for president (and almost won the Democratic nomination) several years later, which a charge of manslaughter generally precludes.
tbossanova 22 hours ago
Aaand people wonder why we don’t trust politicians. I know a couple of good people who have tried to get into politics, just on a local scale. They said it was the worst thing they ever did
ajross 2 days ago
To be clear: the crypto in question wasn't managed in even a slightly competent manner. It was literally embezzled.
nerdsniper 2 days ago
It was embezzled in a slightly competent manner. Not very competently.
roysting 2 days ago
oh, yeah, I forgot about that grift. Another favorite of mine are the many holier-than-thou NGOs that are little more than friends and family enrichment schemes, even more grotesquely than the federal government contracting grift that is not just replete with political and staffer corruption, but also just plain run of the mill nepotism... literally parent hiring and managing children. And no, this has been pervasive for many years now. I would say it really got bad in the aughts when the budgets blew up and things like enforcement and prosecution just couldn't keep up with the money spigots, not to mention that hiring criteria other than competence led to the most lazy, and disinterested people responsible for investigation and prosecution to the point that you basically had to build a case and deliver a signed, recorded, and notarized confession before anyone would even look at obvious corruption and grift.
belter 2 days ago
aryan14 2 days ago
And he has been and continues to make fun of the investigators, publicly mocking investigators and sending small amounts from the fraudulent wallets to investigators.

Crazy world

duxup 2 days ago
If he "invests" some of his funds ... could get a pardon.
knowitnone3 2 days ago
with that dirtbag, anybody can get a pardon - even illegal immigrants and all they need is a dollar
inlined 2 days ago
Tbf, accepting a pardon is legally admitting guilt per SCOTUS and disgorgement would allow the funds to be sized
trhway 2 days ago
Dr. Fauchi pardon comes to mind. I doubt that his accepting of pardon was an admission of guilt. He wasn't even charged, so how can he admit the guilt?

And i think that similar preemptive pardon here, without charge and thus any guilt admission, wouldn't allow the fund seizure.

SV_BubbleTime 2 days ago
It was though. It wasn’t a conditional “everyone but Facui because some people liked him” thing.

He lied under oath about his knowledge of gain of function at the Wuhan lab. He is guilty of at least that.

tbossanova 22 hours ago
Oh thats crazy about Fauzi lying under oath! Do you have a link in case I need to back this up
SV_BubbleTime 18 hours ago
What’s crazy is how isolated from the truth you want to be.

Fauci lied under oath about gain of function research.

https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114270/documents/...

avaer 2 days ago
In theory. Do you really think that would happen in the current ecosystem?
duxup 2 days ago
Even "better", Trump can extort more ...
laughing_man 2 days ago
The one thing the government will not tolerate is embarrassment. There's no way he avoids a long prison sentence.
grugagag 2 days ago
He’s reaping what he saw. Things aren’t looking good for him nor his father, a lesson both of them will painfully learn from. Father career is possibly over.
lostlogin 2 days ago
> Things aren’t looking good for him nor his father, a lesson both of them will painfully learn from

You’re a hell of an optimist.

I’d say that it’s just as likely that the pardon sharpie is being readied, just as soon as the super PAC donation clears.

paulpauper 2 days ago
Put it into Trump's coin as a donation
jLaForest 2 days ago
Trump already rug pulled
kevin_thibedeau 2 days ago
Bribes are $3M cash. He's good.
paulpauper 2 days ago
why would that make a difference
lupire 2 days ago
X can't bribe Y by buying Z that Y has no interest in.
londons_explore 2 days ago
> Father career is possibly over.

Plenty of people would happily flush their career down the drain to run away with their family and $90M

tartoran 2 days ago
I guess so but what about when you get caught and get nothing?
lazide 2 days ago
Just like many people are optimists in thinking criminals will get consequences, criminals are often optimists in thinking they won’t get consequences.

Both have cherry-picked their life experiences to support this view.

knowitnone3 2 days ago
if you get caught. just saw a video on a couple who stole a Brinks armor car; disappeared into Europe with new identities; never caught until female turned herself in. Not everybody gets caught.
tartoran 15 hours ago
Sure, if you get caught. It's a huge risk though..
lupire 2 days ago
Is that same or different from the gang who robbed an armored car for about $100M worth of goods, and ICE stopped the prosecution and deported one of the robbers, before the stolen goods were recovered?
wmf 2 days ago
bayarearefugee 2 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executi...

Pretty sure they'll both be fine as long as they still have access to that money.

jongjong 2 days ago
He and his son should be in jail. This is criminal; whether it's theft or criminal negligence.
paulpauper 2 days ago
the feds haven't even acknowledged there was a theft. it's possible they still don't know or somehow don't have the evidence to bring charges
caminante 2 days ago
Or this is a false accusation.

I don't have the knowledge to sanity check the claims, but I would've figured someone would be getting rolled by now. I recall that the dad was scrubbing socials along with the son, but that could be token harassment.

big_youth 2 days ago
They did something, how else could the son flex watches worth 6 figures.
caminante 2 days ago
Likely? Yes.

Watches? You can also be right. Though, I don't think you need $90 million to spend <$1 million on a watch to splurge.

cucumber3732842 20 hours ago
You can rent anything.
wmf 2 days ago
The feds won't say anything until after they arrest the father and son. Obviously there is an investigation going on but it takes more than a few days.
paulpauper 2 days ago
It appears the feds were so incompetent they didn't realize the theft had occurred until AFTER Zach's post went viral, and even then, nothing may happen. And to think, had Lick done nothing he likely would have gotten away with it. Perfect crime undone by ego.
misiti3780 2 days ago
Is the accusation the dad stole the crypto, or the dad AND the son stole the crypto ?
wmf 2 days ago
It's not clear.
geor9e 2 days ago
The headline is that the son stole the crypto. Maybe your sarcasm went over my head, and you're just saying that the dad is definitely involved too. In which case, probably.
misiti3780 2 days ago
i wasnt be sarcastic, it seems so easy to prove i cant believe the kid needed to DOX himself. the US Government puts his dad in charge of shitload of crypto and his son starts live streaming himself buying expensive watches - seems like a slam dunk to me
gmuslera 2 days ago
There's no honor among thieves.
cucumber3732842 2 days ago
This isn't a "honor among thieves" thing. This is a "getting one over on someone you don't like because there's no consequences" thing.

This is a petty dispute. I'm not gonna go put a bullet in someone who over a petty dispute like this. Nobody is, not even thieves and other people who live outside the law. That's just absurd. Someone who I've wronged in doing so (i.e. someone who likes them) might put one back in me. Or there might be other consequences. People let those things go because it's just not worth it vs the risk of consequences.

But say I can do something that will cause the government to go after someone for me at no risk to myself... That's basically what happened here.

This is basically an attempted (we'll see if it succeeds) DDOS reflection attack but with government.

Mistletoe 2 days ago
There’s another crypto thief that is the son of the head government official…
tcfunk 2 days ago
Slightly tangential question but what’s with govt seized crypto assets? I had a bit of Litecoin a while back and went to check my wallet one day to find an FBI landing page instead. Is that just theirs now? Feels a bit like the gov seized control of my savings account.
collingreen 2 days ago
Same - lost 500 LTC and 5ish BTC to fbi raid of an exchange back when BTC was ~$12. Sure would love to get that back at current prices!
tasuki 13 hours ago
> went to check my wallet one day to find an FBI landing page

That's not how wallets work.

qingcharles 6 hours ago
I mean, it kinda is if all your crypto is held at an exchange.