What clickbait title did you read to believe he took part in any money laundering?
Comment on He Built a Privacy Tool. Now He’s Going to Prison.
Devial@discuss.online 18 hours agoThe title is click bait because it falsely implies that the privacy part of the tool is why the creator is being penalised, rather than the money laundering part.
It’s a bit like writing a headline about a drunk driver killing a family of four and making the headline “He bought a red car. Now he’s going to jail”
PiraHxCx@lemmy.ml 17 hours ago
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 17 hours ago
He is being penalized because of the privacy part, the prosecution argued that the sole purpose of and the intent behind the samurai wallet was money laundering (which he’s not actually being charged for nor was he ever. He was charged with a conspiracy to commit money laundering until that particular charge was dropped as a part of a plea deal) because he knew that it can be used by criminals. So he’s essentially being prosecuted for writing code that other people allegedly used to commit crimes, an equivalent of tor devs and relay operators being charged with a conspiracy to distribute CSAM and facilitate trade of illegal substances. He never held or controlled any funds yet he’s been charged for running an unlicensed money transmitting business despite finCEN explicitly stating that what he was doing did not qualify as transmitting money.
I can’t explain this nearly as well as the video does so please just watch if you have the time, it’s really interesting and there’s a lot of crazy, outrageous legal fuckery that the prosecution pulled. It’s worth a watch.