Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg

 I swear this book reads more like a spy novel than accurate events surrounding the tracking down and arrest of cryptocurrency crooks. One of the attractions of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was their supposed impenetrability to law enforcement. But as with anything digital, there’s always a way, and this is also a story of how clever researchers and cops discovered ways to track transactions by using the very device, the blockchain, that was supposed to guarantee both anonymity and security.

But a more basic and skeptical thought immediately struck Gambaryan about this new form of currency. “Participants can be anonymous,” he had read. But if this blockchain truly recorded every transaction in the entire Bitcoin economy, then it sounded like the precise opposite of anonymity: a trail of bread crumbs left behind by every single payment. A forensic accountant’s dream...Gambaryan had always had his doubts about Bitcoin’s untraceability. From the very first time he’d read about Bitcoin, back in 2010, his accountant’s brain had wondered how it could truly provide anonymity when the records of every transaction were shared with so many thousands of machines around the world—even if those transactions were to addresses rather than names

The blockchain is a form of public ledger that is duplicated across millions of computers and involves solving a mathematical algorithm that requires increasing amounts of computer power. Because it is public and always duplicated, it’s trusted, but it also provides an enormous amount of data for analysis.  

When someone moves a sum of bitcoins, their wallet software broadcasts the transaction over the internet to Bitcoin’s network of “nodes,” the thousands of servers around the world that store copies of the blockchain. Whichever node first receives the announcement of the new transaction then passes it on to other nodes, which in turn broadcast it out further, so that the record of the payment is confirmed and copied into the blockchain’s global ledger of all transactions. The system is a bit like a crowd of people who each whisper a rumor to their immediate neighbors, so that the information spreads virally through the crowd in ripples—but at digital speeds designed to inform the entire network in minutes or even seconds.

Some of the agencies involved in the hunt are unknown to the vast majority of people.  The IRS-CI, for example, an arm of the IRS had some very sophisticated analysts who loved the challenge of breaking the unbreakable and beating a new cipher. 

“Every Bitcoin user has access to the public Bitcoin blockchain and can see every Bitcoin address and its respective transfers. Due to this publicity, it is possible to determine the identities of Bitcoin address owners by analyzing the blockchain,” the ruling read. “There is no intrusion into a constitutionally protected area because there is no constitutional privacy interest in the information on the blockchain.The HSI agent wasn’t caught in the Welcome to Video dragnet because IRS agents had violated his privacy. He was caught, the judges concluded, because he had mistakenly believed his Bitcoin transactions to have ever been private in the first place.”

As the Berkeley researcher Nick Weaver had warned, and as cryptocurrency users around the world were finally learning, “The blockchain is forever.” 

Very interesting book that should cause those wanting to transact criminally in cryptocurrency to tremble.

Note that Tigran Gambaryan, one of the principal IRS investigators working on tracing bitcoin blockchain  transactions has been imprisoned in Nigeria. “Gambaryan was detained alongside a colleague in mid-March on the grounds that Binance had devalued the country’s fiat currency and enabled the “illicit” transfer of funds. While his colleague was able to escape, Gambaryan remains imprisoned on financial crimes charges—even as a growing number of US lawmakers pressure the Biden administration to facilitate his release.”  Wired Magazine

Some Debate Thoughts

 I usually don't comment much on debates, usually because they aren't, but it has become clear that Trump has nothing new, he relies on immigration (immigrants are Hannibal Lecters coming to eat you and your dogs and cats) and personal insults. He has yet to address why, during his four years as president, he failed to fix immigration nor build his infamous wall, perhaps because he couldn't get Mexico to pay for it. 

Getting others to pay for his mistakes seems to be a recurrent theme in his life. And it takes real talent to bankrupt some of his efforts. How do you run a casino into bankruptcy;  they are a license to print money. His steak and university businesses went bust in a swirl of fraud.  His major claim to fame after squandering his father's $413 million is a reality show where he gets to fire people. (Harris's line about him getting fired in the last election by 81 million Americans was priceless.) Since then his major asset appears to be his name which he wildly over inflates in value along with everything else (including the square footage of his apartment) as we learned from his 34 counts of fraud conviction in NY.  In each of his business bankruptcies it was others who got left holding the bag and paying for his mismanagement.

He's offering the same plan as solutions:  get Mexico to pay for the wall, get China to pay for our debt and trade imbalance through tariffs.  It's like he never learned anything at Wharton (perhaps his dad paid them off, too) about Smoot-Hawley and the damage that did to the world economy.

Let's face it:  he's just an old man, desperately clinging to reality show laurels and needing to win the presidency so he can stay out of jail.

A New Idea for Supreme Court Oversight

 Those of you who read this blog know that I have made several proposals that I believe would provide for a  better Supreme Court structure. 1 President  has proposed a number recently. 2 All of those suggestions would appear to be doomed to failure given the current political Congress. Dean Chemerinsky, in a letter to me, suggested my idea for a rotating panel of appellate justices to decide cert would simply be adding another layer of courts that we don't need. 3

 

I have a new proposal that I believe would address some of those issues.

Article III Section 2 of the Constitution reads as follows: In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.  [my emphasis]

 

This section has to do with Court jurisdiction and implies that Congress can make adjustments to that jurisdictional oversight.  So why not act a section that Congress could assign itself the role of appellate for those cases where the Supreme Court has overruled standing precedent, e.g. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) (overturned Roe v Wade) and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) (overturned Chevron); or, in cases where evidence exists showing a justice should have recused him/herself because of a conflict of interest.

 

I don't believe a constitutional amendment would be required under Article III as it seems Congress already has that power.  I have deliberately limited the Congressional appeal possibility to those two types of cases to avoid massive impact on Court decisions. In order to review a case (and possibly overturn the decision that would simply eliminate the decision reverting to preexisting law) Congress would need only a simple majority.  To overturn a decision would also need but a simple majority of the House and Senate. Nothing would preclude a new appeal to the Court, perhaps even on similar grounds, and if warranted a new Congress could validate a new decision. Such a reversal by Congress might make the Supreme Court revisit its thinking. This process also addresses the current failure of Court members to recuse themselves when there exists clear reasons why they should

Of course one might argue that Congress need only pass ethics rules covering such situations or new legislation to validate something like Chevron deference, for example. This process is much more complicated as it leads to irrelevant amendment additions and slow downs whereas a quicker decision of up or down on a precedent overturning decision would be far cleaner and quicker.

1. https://rarebits.blogspot.com/2020/10/fixing-supreme-court-conundrum.html

2. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/29/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-bold-plan-to-reform-the-supreme-court-and-ensure-no-president-is-above-the-law/  While interesting, some of the proposals would require a Constitutional Amendment, currently an impossibility.

3. Personal email to the author.

Review: The Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Bakker's Evangelical Empire by John Wigger

 The sex and financial scandal of PTL creator and leader devolved into a battle between two versions of Christian evangelicalism: Pentecostal (represented by Jimmy Swaggert who wanted to bring down Bakker’s Empire) and A more standard for of evangelicalism represented by Jerry Falwell, who thought he could save and thus inherit everything.  To his dismay, probably because he had not done due diligence, he discovered the situation was far more dire than he had imagined.

The creation of PTL and Heritage USA followed a well-established trajectory in American evangelicalism as it evolved from field preaching, to camp meetings, to big tent revivals, to radio and television and eventual financial scandal. Bakker began small in 1974 and soon exploded in popularity as Bakker early on recognized the power of TV at getting his message – and requests for funds – across to thousands of people around the world. They weren’t the first to use broadcast.  Bakker’s genius was to create the Christian talk show – it didn’t look like a church service unlike broadcasts by Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, etc. With celebrity, however, came temptation and the desire for more.

Heritage USA was to become the Christian alternative to Disneyland. To be constructed on 2300 acres it would have hotels, water parks, restaurants, theme parks, and TV studios. It would also cost many millions to build.  To finance it, Bakker came up with the idea of selling partnerships.  Partners would be guaranteed that for a “gift” of $1000 they have lifetime access to a hotel room for 4-5 days and all the facilities each year. Problem was that these were very popular and as soon as the need for more funds grew, they had more partners than could ever be accommodated when they wanted in the hotels.  So Baker wanted to build more hotels which needed more money which needed more partners, ad infinitum, especially as he kept adding more theme parks and attractions, none of which they could afford.

PTL’s board provided no oversight whatsoever and Dorcht and other Bakker lackeys kept giving the bakers (and themselves) more and more lavish bonuses (all with extra money so they were tax-free) that were off the books.  They had millions coming in each month but it was nowhere near enough to keep everything afloat. (Prosperity gospel preached by Bakker and others paid no attention to debt and accounting. “The facts of accounting applied only to those who lacked faith. Second, it allowed ministries to aggressively raise funds, since by taking their followers’ money they were really doing them a favor. The more believers gave, the more God would give them in return.”  If in doubt spend and buy, and if you give enough to the “church”, i.e. Bakker, Swaggart, etc., you will reap “tenfold.”  Worked for a while for Bakker, although I’m pretty sure God had nothing to do with it. If he needed more money he would just have another telethon and the cash poured in. [Bakker} ““we knew the principle of giving, and those people that were watching the [PTL] satellite [network] have been fed on the word of God and God has prospered them. Oh, people, you can’t beat God giving, no matter how hard you try.”  Accounting be damned.

By 1984, just 10 years after their start, financial cracks were becoming crevices.  “The main concern…is whether PTL will be able to continue as ‘a going concern’ based on current assets of only 8.6 million against 28.5 million in current liabilities. Part of the problem… was that the lifetime partnership program had shifted how people gave to PTL. “More and more of our funds were coming from lifetime partnerships” while “monthly contributions dropped off drastically,” he later said.”  Bakker’s response to this negative view was to turn “ to an old trick that he had used many times in the past: launch a new project and use the funds raised for the new project to pay old debts. It was like getting a new credit card to make payments on an old card that was maxed out. Though the Heritage Grand was still several months away from opening, in September 1984 Bakker announced a new lifetime partnership program for a second hotel, the Heritage Grand Towers. “When in doubt, build something more!”

Then the Jessica Hahn scandal hit. Bakker had had a tryst with Hahn, a church secretary.  She claimed she was drugged and raped. She was paid off with PTL money to keep quiet.  That information and persistent rumors that Bakker was indulging in gay sex with some PTL staff he had hired, finally led to his resignation as PTL began to circle the wagons to prevent a very hostile takeover by Jimmy Swaggart who didn’t like the Bakker form of evangelism.

Of course in typical Trumpian fashion, Bakker turned all blame away from himself.  It was the Fault of the media, especially the Charlotte Observer that had written numerous stories detailing the financial house of cards he had built. The IRS had begin an investigation into the use of funds that had been allocated for specific purposes by donors but were bing used for personal bonuses and other projects. The IRS was Satan (always handy to be able to blame a nonentity.)  “He portrayed the IRS audit as an attack of Satan. “The larger a ministry grows the more you become an enemy of Satan,” he declared on the air. Satan’s tool was “government agencies” that were “anti-Christ and anti-God,” Bakker said.”

Heritage USA is no more.  It closed in 1989.  Oral Roberts’ City of Faith, medical facility Roberts claimed to have been ordered by God to build following the death of his daughter in a plane crash, also closed in 1989.  (You may remember Roberts said he would die if people didn’t send money to keep it going; instead, it just siphoned money from his TV ministry. Falwell’s son who took over after the death of Jerry became involved in his own sex and fiscal mismanagement crisis.*** 

The numerous scandals resulted in serious drops in giving; people were tired of giving money only to discover it was enriching the celebrities rather than helping or converting people around the world.  Go online, though and you can still find lots of ways to buy prayer requests, etc. Hard to tack them to a church door, though. 

Following his release from prison, Bakker has reinvented himself rather brilliantly, shifting from the prosperity gospel to an apocalyptic one, i.e., fitting following 9/11 the world will soon be coming to an end.  (His prediction on air was 2019, guess they missed that one.)  Bakker's new ministry sells survivalist supplies, e.g., camping supplies, freeze-dried foods, all over-priced and low-quality.  Bakker gushes, "And it's low in cholesterol." Certainly a major worry as the world collapses around you.

"Bakker has always had a talent for identifying cultural trends and crafting a message to fit. Had his role at PTL been limited to this, the ministry might have fulfilled more of its promise. But religious groups have a way of elevating prophets beyond their abilities, a tendency made worse by our modern fascination with celebrity."

***https://www.vox.com/2020/8/25/21399954/jerry-falwell-jr-resigns-scandal-liberty

Historian's Pickaxe

Conventional wisdom has Roe v Wade playing the primary role in the rise of the religious right, yet that’s not the case. In the early seventies, most evangelicals considered abortion a non-issue, or, at best a Catholic one. The precipitating event was President Carter’s implementation of anti-segregation policies using the IRS as a weapon. Bob Jones University, an evangelical college,  was adamantly opposed to any kind of integration and when the IRS threatened to pull tax-exempt status from all segregated schools, it became a catalyst for action against the federal government and their “control of private education.”

At a conference of  conservative religious groups in 1990, when the standard line was outlined in a speech by someone, “[Paul} Weyrich forcefully disputed that assumption, recounting that ever since Barry Goldwater’s run for the presidency in 1964, he had been trying to enlist evangelicals in conservative political causes, but it was the tax exemption for religious schools that finally caught the attention of evangelical leaders. Abortion, he said, had nothing to do with it.”  It was Green v Connally, and Coit v Green, both 1971 decisions, not Roe v Wade that provided a catalyst to the movement. Both of them affirmed  that tax exempt status could not be granted to segregated schools, of which there were still many even 15 years after Brown v Board of education that struck down separate but equal schools.

In fact, Southern Baptists, hardly pastions of liberalism, were promoting loosening up restrictions on abortion. “Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, during the summer of 1971, the messengers (delegates) to the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that stated, ‘we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” They reaffirmed that position in 1974, the year after the Roe decision.**

W.A. Criswell, former president of the Southern Baptists and one of the most famous fundamentalists of the twentieth century said, in 1973, “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” ***

Reaction to the IRS dedcision, particularly the demand that schools have a quota of minorities, was swift and angry. ““Jerome Kurtz [IRS Commissioner] has done more to bring Christians together than any man since the Apostle Paul.” Numerous organizations were from, Christian coalitions, to fight this intrusion into the Christian school subculture that feared inegration. “Evangelical leaders, prodded by Weyrich, chose to interpret the IRS ruling against segregationist schools as an assault on the integrity and the sanctity of the evangelical subculture, ignoring the fact that exemption from taxes is itself a form of public subsidy. And that is what prompted them to action and to organize into a political movement. “

The problem they faced was adding another issue that would engage a broader segment of society than just tax exemption. The elections of 1978 provided a clue. Pro-life advocates (primarily Catholics) had targeted Dick Clark in Iowa, considered a shoe-in for reelection. He was defeated by a pro-life candidate to the surprise of everyone following a vigorous anti-Clark campaign that distributed thousands of leaflets in church parking lots just before the election. Analysts agreed abortion made the difference.

The defeat of Clark and the triple win for Republicans in Minnesota in 1978 convinced Weyrich that abortion was a winning issue for conservatives.  Helped by Frances Schaefer, a Presbyterian minister and activist who had been liaising with Catholic bishops, abortion became a rallying cry on the right.  Ironically, it hurt Jimmy Carter, who had a more consistent anti-abortion belief than Reagan, but even though Carter had nothing to do with the IRS actions, he became associated with it as president dooming his presidency. Reagan became the darling of the right and the rest is history.

*The Historian's Pickaxe by Randall Balmer See also Randall Balmer’s (Historian of Religion) book, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America (2006)

**And again in 1976, if a bit more measured:  calling on “Southern Baptists and all citizens of the nation to work to change those attitudes and conditions which encourage many people to turn to abortion as a means of birth control”; but it also affirmed “our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health.” Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1976 (Nashville, Tenn.: Executive Committee, Southern Baptist Convention, 1976), 58.  Precisely the opposite of the position being taken by current radical anti abortionists.

*** Quoted in Christianity Today, March 2, 1973

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