Thief of $90M in seized U.S.-controlled crypto is gov't contractor's son

Posted by pavel_lishin 1 day ago

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Comments

Comment by dada78641 1 day 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.

Comment by MisterTea 1 day 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?

Comment by alistairSH 1 day 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.

Comment by bluemenot 1 day ago

I wonder if technically the small amounts of eth are bribes…

Comment by SilverBirch 1 day 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.

Comment by mrgoldenbrown 1 day ago

Aka "dusting"

Comment by direwolf20 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by wmf 1 day ago

It's not political. Most government contractors are barely competent and computer security is hard.

Comment by arjie 1 day ago

I doubt the present administration is particularly competent at bureaucracy but this theft occurred in Oct 2024 while the Biden administration was in charge. To be honest, Trevor Milton's pardon after donating a few million to Trump's campaign mean that any sum of money over $2m in government contractor hands is probably at risk. With a $2m price on pardons, it's just a question of mechanizing the machine.

Or, as Trump might say, "Bring back the autopen!"

Comment by keyle 1 day ago

Fascism is a lack of emotional intelligence, which is basic intelligence. Empathy and compassion are a form of basic intelligence.

Comment by stavros 1 day ago

Chickens have two feet. Humans have two feet. Therefore, chickens are human.

Comment by causalscience 1 day ago

I dislike people like you more than I dislike regular dumb people, because I'm sure you're convinced that was a really smart reply.

To be explicit: The person you're responding to didn't say it but they have as a premise that when it comes to political systems, lack of empathy is the defining characteristic of fascism (I'm not saying I agree with the premise, I'm saying they had this premise). If you accept this, then their argument is not logically wrong. In contrast, your example is logically wrong. In the "two feet" example you're point at one attribute of something, not a defining characteristic. The correct example would be "All bipeds have two feet (by definition). Bob has two feet, therefore Bob is a biped". The gibberish you produced is logically wrong, while that of the person you're talking to is not, but you're too stupid to understand that.

Comment by sieep 23 hours ago

We don't really do the whole calling people stupid or flaming around here. You can make your point and leave it at that or don't comment. This sort of behavior will get you banned by the very active mod team in the future. You can refresh yourself on the guidelines of the site: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Here's a section just for you: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."

Comment by stavros 1 day ago

If their premise was "lack of empathy is the defining characteristic of fascism", that makes their post a tautology. How I read it was:

> Fascism is a lack of emotional intelligence, which is basic intelligence. Empathy and compassion are a form of basic intelligence. (_AND THEREFORE, fascism lacks empathy and compassion_)

This doesn't follow. Fascism can be a lack of emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence can be a form of basic intelligence, empathy and compassion can be a form of basic intelligence, and it can still be the case that you lack emotional intelligence but have empathy and compassion (you might simply lack in other aspects of emotional intelligence).

Comment by keeganpoppen 1 day ago

“i dislike people like you who refuse to blanket call people fascists”

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by knowitnone3 1 day 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.

Comment by ortusdux 1 day ago

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/us-investigating-40-million...

Comment by FatalLogic 1 day ago

This would be a much better link for this post

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

Comment by altairprime 1 day ago

If you email the mods about this (and link to your comment), they might well agree and update the post link.

Comment by anonymousiam 1 day ago

Somewhat reminds me of this: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-federal-agent...

Comment by caycep 1 day ago

Molly White really is quite thorough

Comment by cj 1 day ago

Tangent: what does the govt do with seized crypto? Does it eventually get liquidated?

Comment by wmf 1 day ago

They used to auction it but I think now they are holding it in a "strategic reserve".

Comment by alfiedotwtf 10 hours ago

I’m sure Kushner is keeping it safe, along with all that non-corrupt Trumpcoin

Comment by tamarinddreams 22 hours ago

Yet another attempt to store a lot of Cheddar.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese

Comment by shrubble 1 day 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.

Comment by N_Lens 1 day 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.

Comment by drdaeman 1 day 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.

Comment by alfiedotwtf 10 hours 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

Comment by tim333 1 day 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.

Comment by tartuffe78 1 day ago

How tall is that ballroom going to be?

Comment by linksnapzz 1 day ago

...should be at least as tall as the Salon de Fetes in the Elysee; that'd be appropriate.

Comment by chneu 1 day 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.

Comment by NicoJuicy 1 day ago

That's how Russian propaganda works

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

Comment by renewiltord 1 day 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.

Comment by tim333 1 day 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?

Comment by linksnapzz 1 day 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.

Comment by tbossanova 1 day 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

Comment by ajross 1 day ago

To be clear: the crypto in question wasn't managed in even a slightly competent manner. It was literally embezzled.

Comment by nerdsniper 1 day ago

It was embezzled in a slightly competent manner. Not very competently.

Comment by roysting 1 day 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.

Comment by belter 1 day ago

>> More disappointment.

This whole headline in incredibly comical: https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-rel...

https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/dem...

Comment by aryan14 1 day 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

Comment by duxup 1 day ago

If he "invests" some of his funds ... could get a pardon.

Comment by knowitnone3 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by inlined 1 day ago

Tbf, accepting a pardon is legally admitting guilt per SCOTUS and disgorgement would allow the funds to be sized

Comment by trhway 1 day 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.

Comment by SV_BubbleTime 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by tbossanova 1 day ago

Oh thats crazy about Fauzi lying under oath! Do you have a link in case I need to back this up

Comment by SV_BubbleTime 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by avaer 1 day ago

In theory. Do you really think that would happen in the current ecosystem?

Comment by duxup 1 day ago

Even "better", Trump can extort more ...

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by laughing_man 1 day ago

The one thing the government will not tolerate is embarrassment. There's no way he avoids a long prison sentence.

Comment by grugagag 1 day 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.

Comment by lostlogin 1 day 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.

Comment by paulpauper 1 day ago

Put it into Trump's coin as a donation

Comment by jLaForest 1 day ago

Trump already rug pulled

Comment by kevin_thibedeau 1 day ago

Bribes are $3M cash. He's good.

Comment by paulpauper 1 day ago

why would that make a difference

Comment by lupire 1 day ago

X can't bribe Y by buying Z that Y has no interest in.

Comment by londons_explore 1 day 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

Comment by tartoran 1 day ago

I guess so but what about when you get caught and get nothing?

Comment by lazide 1 day 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.

Comment by knowitnone3 1 day 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.

Comment by tartoran 23 hours ago

Sure, if you get caught. It's a huge risk though..

Comment by lupire 1 day 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?

Comment by bayarearefugee 1 day 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.

Comment by jongjong 1 day ago

He and his son should be in jail. This is criminal; whether it's theft or criminal negligence.

Comment by paulpauper 1 day 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

Comment by caminante 1 day 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.

Comment by big_youth 1 day ago

They did something, how else could the son flex watches worth 6 figures.

Comment by caminante 1 day 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.

Comment by cucumber3732842 1 day ago

You can rent anything.

Comment by wmf 1 day 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.

Comment by paulpauper 1 day 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.

Comment by misiti3780 1 day ago

Is the accusation the dad stole the crypto, or the dad AND the son stole the crypto ?

Comment by wmf 1 day ago

It's not clear.

Comment by geor9e 1 day 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.

Comment by misiti3780 1 day 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

Comment by gmuslera 1 day ago

There's no honor among thieves.

Comment by cucumber3732842 1 day 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.

Comment by Mistletoe 1 day ago

There’s another crypto thief that is the son of the head government official…

Comment by tcfunk 1 day 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.

Comment by collingreen 1 day 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!

Comment by tasuki 21 hours ago

> went to check my wallet one day to find an FBI landing page

That's not how wallets work.

Comment by qingcharles 15 hours ago

I mean, it kinda is if all your crypto is held at an exchange.