DEA nabs $150M from dark web drug lord based... in Coventry

A dark web drug kingpin has handed more than $150 million in cryptocurrency to US authorities and pleaded guilty to selling hundreds of kilograms of drugs over the internet. The cash haul marks the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) largest single-case crypto/cash seizure in history. Indian national Banmeet Singh ran a …

[elDog]

Eighteen months in prison for stealing PII of 200,000 DHS employees

It seems the US sentencing guidelines have become rather relaxed in recent times.

200,000 federal employees whose data was sent (probably for a price) to India. That's like 3 minutes behind bars per stolen ID. Each affected person will be spending months/years trying to clean up their lives.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Eighteen months in prison for stealing PII of 200,000 DHS employees

Federal sentencing guidelines are complex, but they do not have a "this much time per stolen ID" component.

One of the Legal Eagle YouTube videos had a nice brief rundown of the major factors in US Federal sentencing.

[Anonymous Coward]

the resulting property search led to the discovery of multiple cold wallets and recovery seeds

Oh really ? Sorry, not buying it.

Given you could put the data needed to recover a wallet onto a 360Kb floppy (and whose to say someone hasn't ?) then I am curious as to how these seeds were actually recovered.

That sounds very much like something the press were given to publish without thinking.

[doublelayer]

Re: the resulting property search led to the discovery of multiple cold wallets and recovery seeds

They didn't say that they had found all the seeds, just that they found some of them. It was probably just a search to get every hard drive and SD card in the place, then looking through each of them for wallet keys or seeds. Maybe the criminal had other ones stored somewhere, at least I probably would have tried if I was a criminal with that much wealth from it, but they wouldn't know that if the criminal had been successful at hiding it.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: the resulting property search led to the discovery of multiple cold wallets and recovery seeds

Many criminals have abysmal OPSEC, and we've seen many cases where criminals did not do a good job of protecting cryptocurrency wallets. As usual, you can find relevant stories on Molly White's website.

[Khaptain]

Only 8 years

"Feds said the 40-year-old was instrumental in distributing fentanyl, LSD, ecstasy, Xanax, ketamine, and tramadol in what was described as one of the most prolific drug operations in the US."

The Fentanyl alone should have put him away for at least 20 years.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Only 8 years

He plea-bargained. That's how the US justice system works these days (and has for quite some time): smart defendants get a lawyer who figures out how strong the prosecutor's case is, then what kind of deal can be struck. Prosecutors do not want to take people to trial. Trials are expensive and they involve a lot of work for a prosecutor, who would much rather spend those resources plea-bargaining a bunch of other defendants and improving their conviction stats.

[lglethal]

I know, I know. It's crypto. It's not real money until you cash out, etc. etc. But seriously how much money do you need???

Once you had €20 million saved. Wouldnt you think about quitting? Just pack it in, hand over to someone else, and walk away with the cash in hand. Hell pay tax on it, claim it's crypto currency gains. After tax you still have €15 odd million. Boom done. Nice life, it's a lot of money, but not so much that people are going to ask too hard questions. Job done...

But nope, Crims never seem to think that way, do they? You gotta keep making more. €150 million? Nope keep going. €150 million isnt going to be hard to launder when it's time to walk away, is it? Nooooo. Would you even be able to spend €150 million in a lifetime? Not without gaining some attention from authorities wanting to know exactly how you came across that money, that's for sure...

Greedy git... Oh yeah and Drugs bad, mm kay...

[Michael Wojcik]

Once you had €20 million saved. Wouldnt you think about quitting?

I wouldn't. I enjoy my job. I'd pay off debt, make gifts to family members, make charitable donations, probably hire a contractor to do some of those DIY jobs on the backlog. I'm sure my wife and I would take a vacation trip somewhere. But quit? No thanks.

[lglethal]

OK and now reframe it so that, even though you enjoy your job, it carries a significant risk of you being imprisoned for your work for the next 10-20 years, at any time and without any warning.

Still happy to keep working at that job? Or perhaps you'd move to one, paying less, but doing something similar, but which doesnt carry a risk of imprisonment? No? Still happy to keep risking prison for more money? I call bollocks...

[FirstTangoInParis]

What’s it worth?

What is cryptocurrency actually worth here? Thought the value crashed and burned?

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: What’s it worth?

It's complicated.

The current spot price of Bitcoin and many of the other major cryptocurrencies is still quite high, so they notionally have value. Some are more liquid than others. How much someone could cash out, and how quickly, is difficult to guess. Certainly some. Based on reports of high-flying cryptocurrency fraudsters and maybe-not-technically-fraudsters on White's site, I'd guess that someone could make a decent amount of money cashing out various currencies with a bit of care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eight years only? After which he'll return to India where he's got millions stashed away. I'm mad. Distributing fent is murder x 100's.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general is a crook? 20 years please. You betrayed the public.

[Joe-Thunks]

Not a Sackler = jail time

If he was connected, he could have just paid a fine and walked away.

[IGotOut]

Something doesn't add up...

going by the sentencing, my guess is he grassed up a lot of people who, let's say, may not be too happy and are not known for forgiveness.