> Real justification: Extraterritoriality is a thing you get to do when you're an empire.

This is exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction, which is not the same thing as (though also not unrelated to) extraterritoriality.

And everyone gets to do it, it has nothing to do with being an empire (actual extraterritoriality beyond what is normal for, e.g., diplomats might, but this isn't that.)

  Trivial amount of money laundering

  BTC-e 

haha?

Read the indictment for yourself. Namely page 16 and 17 which account for charges 3-21 of the indictment (the vast majority of it).

The only company within US jurisdiction that BTC-E did business with is a company called "tradehill". The amounts of money moved were small, ranging between $12.60 and $17,000. Less than $100,000 was moved overall and all of it was moved in early 2012.

The US doesn't care about tracking down the $12.60 that you laundered on 24 January 2012 like it says in the indictment. The US is just using that as an excuse to impose it's money laundering laws outside of it's jurisdiction. The indictment is a pretext for extraterritoriality. Extraterritoriality is a thing you get to do when you're an empire.

Not really sure how you're making the "empire" qualification. An empire by definition is not an entity which gets to make extraterritorial moves with impunity.

Just seems silly to try and cast the US as an "empire" here when all you're really saying is "the US is a very powerful nation".

That's not what extraterritoriality means -- it refers to having your citizens/property be immune to local laws in foreign countries, not applying your laws to foreign citizens/property in foreign countries.