One of the problems with prosecuting cybercriminals is that building cases and investigations takes time, often years.
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One of the problems with prosecuting cybercriminals is that building cases and investigations takes time, often years. In the meanwhile, the bad guys are ransoming this and extorting that and really harming a lot of people.
But what if we went after all the sim-swappers and other assholes in The Com by taking a page from the prosecution of Al Capone? I'm talking about just filing notices of unreported income with the IRS on all of these guys? I think the IRS even still has a bounty program for this kind of thing.
https://www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-office
Hey, there's a decent business plan here...
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BTW, the IRS has criminal enforcement authority, and can and does put people in jail for ignoring their investigations.
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I believe the US Postal Inspection Service are vicious prosecutors. If mail fraud is involved, that may be another way to pursue?
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@MagentaRocks You are 100 percent right. If I were a scammer, I would scrupulously avoid sending anything through the US Mail.
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@briankrebs gotta be fast before they're bled dry on manpower after Jan 6.
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This all came to me as I was pondering why the hell I keep having to trip over the same jerks time and again. I'm like, wait, this yo-yo is still bouncing around? Now they're multi, multi crypto millionaires? Nobody's going to charge them criminally because not enough evidence, but everyone knows who they are? Terrific. Sick the IRS on them.
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True story: The 17-y/o kid arrested in Florida for taking part in the 2020 Twitter hack that caused a ton of celebrity accounts to tweet bitcoin scams, got the court to force the secret service to give him back 300 bitcoin. He's out of jail now, and that 300 bitcoin is now worth about $30 million.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/07/three-charged-in-july-15-twitter-compromise/
https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2020/08/01/twitter-teen-makes-first-court-appearance-in-tampa/
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@briankrebs haven't we gutted the IRS so extensively that it's basically toothless now?
The idea is sound, but the reality is likely very disappointing.
Decades of plutocracy have made it nearly impossible to go after the very rich, but that has a downstream effect that most people don't realize. (probably this, too)
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@briankrebs Our justice system is kaput. It has proven it is incapable of dealing with modern issues in a timely manner if at all.
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@briankrebs I would love to see it happen, but my impression is that one has to provide some sort of real evidence of income in the form of documents and receipts. One can't just point out that they live in mom's basement, don't have a job, and drive a Lamborghini.
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@briankrebs I suspect that the IRS' capacity to crack down on criminal behavior is one of the first things the coming administration will seek to defund.
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@sig_ug how about bragging about stealing it, and then leaking info about themselves that identifies them IRL?
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@evacide I know you're right. it's so fscking depressing.
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It's not even that uncommon for cybercrooks to get let out of jail and literally go dig up a trezor hardware wallet and retrieve millions of stolen money.
I don't think we've come to terms with the fact that most of these guys will have stuff squirreled away everywhere, just in case. In the past, if you got busted they pretty much knew what you had in your bank accounts, which were all frozen, and any cash you had would be seized.
But that's not even relevant anymore. It's like having lots of ill-gotten bitcoin makes you a member of the mob or a cartel, in that you will always have some kind of protection when you get out.
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@briankrebs If they do make statements about receiving large sums of (untaxed) income which can then be substantiated with other evidence (blockchain, unexplained assets, extravagant lifestyle, etc.), that might have a chance of success.
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The other thing that might make a dent in this problem is more civil prosecutions by bitcoin theft victims against the parents of kids involved in these crypto heists. The big thing now is targeting lower end young crypto dads, apparently. You know, the kind who put all their kids' college fund in there.
The federal system doesn't know what to do with minors, which is why the sim-swappers and other crimers on the The Com constantly recruit 12 and 13 y/o to do the interstate calling where they commit serious federal crimes. Or holding the bitcoin or SIM cards, or whatever.
Some of these kids are millionaires many times over before they are 18, by stealing it all.
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@briankrebs This also seems to be a preferred way to jump start an infosec career. The orgs that have stuff to protect either want a PhD or someone like that who proved themselves "effective" in committing crimes. Someone like me who writes defensive utilities isn't even going to get responses for junior sysadmin posts.
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what the IRS audit folks recovered in the current administration is exactly why TFG's handleers all want the IRS audits gutted yet again. you can be sure they all remember the lesson of how they finally got al capone.
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@briankrebs
The look on his face says it all.
