https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31012462 ("Insider Trading at Coinbase (twitter.com/cobie)") (3 months ago, 333 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31012837

Since the definition of insider trading is kind of, “whatever the SEC enforces”, it’s possible to believe that this is a security that was insider traded and also that it’s not “insider trading” in the only meaningful way (the SEC way.)

Insider trading is a crime. The SEC cannot bring criminal complaints. Every insider trader who has gone to jail was prosecuted by the DoJ.

FBI: https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/insider-trading

Only talk about securities. It seems to me as if it would depend a lot on if the digital asset(s) in question count as securities or not.

How are they getting them on wire fraud charges? The texts back and forth describing the scheme?

I think the key to understanding how this is fraud is the fact that they acted on privileged Material Information to the disadvantage of their employer, not the exact nature of how they profited off it. Essentially, they stole company secrets.

I thought Hoeg's video on it was good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EafL0w48IAg

"Throughout the relevant period, Nikhil and Ramani repeatedly traded ahead of Coinbase listing announcements, trading in at least 25 tokens. At least seven of the listing announcements described above involved crypto asset securities"

1 - https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2022/comp-pr2022-1...

This isn't about the SEC at all. Arresting on a subset of eventual charges is something that nearly all prosecutors do, and for a large set of very good strategic reasons.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many examples of high-profile cases where the original arrest was based on all possible charges.

What argument are you presenting instead? Because he was charged for 7 instances of security fraud we should assume that all 25 are securities fraud? Regardless of whether the SEC eventually charges all 25, they've clearly decided to differentiate them all on some metric (otherwise, they would've charged them all at the same time).

(As opposed to an illegal commodities exchange for bitcoin.)

This will be the central issue of the case. It'll be interesting! Will Coinbase step in to defend this guy who they were going to fire, just to prove that they don't list securities?

"Well technically" works sometimes. Only sometimes. And people who aren't familiar with SEC rules are not really qualified to say if it's fair game or not.

if you think you broke the law and want to avoid arrest, stay away from the airport.

anyone who buys a ticket they get your full info and then the arrest is as easy as picking you up at the gate, nowhere to hide.

For my assigned agent: this is not an admission of guilt, just curiosity and information collection. Carry on.

From the Hacker News Guidelines [0]. Please take these comments elsewhere.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22puneet+puneet%22

Perhaps they would for a violent criminal or terrorist, but it certainly seems unlikely for a relatively small-time white collar criminal. The fraud totaled $1.5M, this guy isn't exactly Bernie Madoff. Surely the US would not expect the Indian Government to spend multiple millions in operational and resource costs to locate, capture, and extradite a nonviolent criminal who made $1.5M illegally.

This exists for boats too, and is generally also broadcast between countries before international arrivals for scheduled services.

Most fully remote companies won't demand an in person meeting unless it's something of a disciplinary nature anyway. Merely a message saying "Your employer requires you to appear at X time at Y place" would be a red flag for many.

The message would say "is it easier to discuss this next to a whiteboard?" If it were friendly...

This was a meeting with a security team though?

Would have been much better than going through the US/Canada border which has a full data sharing agreement between CBSA and US CBP/ICE.

(note: this is a stupid, humorous theoretical, not real advice on how to flee to avoid prosecution)

also, a note, any airline flight that crosses US airspace submits its passenger manifest to US CBP/ICE/DHS electronically as a database transfer, this has been a thing for 20+ years as a result of 9/11 and the PATRIOT act.

q1: Surely walking from one country to another needs paperwork of some kind?

q2: And even then, don't they check passport for port of entry? Like how and when did you get to mexico if you want to leave it?

2. Nope to enter mexico by foot in certain border tourist cities, of course USA cbp/ice requires full id for anyone coming back.

Though you'd have thought someone committing financial crimes in the crypto industry might have more scope for planning their offramp

One would think.

Maybe, that was his 'last thing'

whatever his friend did is working so far. still at large.

https://twitter.com/ChainLinkGod/status/1513926481486909442

Edit: Quoting in case it gets deleted:

>>While the SEC was very swift in shutting down Coinbase Lend for DARING to provide 4% yield

>>They’ll do absolutely nothing about this situation because they are a corrupt organization that wants to see the average American stay poor

https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-does-not-list-securities-...

Two days later, his (Brazilian) bank started to withhold his (non-Brazilian) salary payments for money laundering suspicions because he forgot to file one random document, he was frantically trying to find a way to open a bank account here in Europe, no one would let him with his Brazilian residency, and he had to resort to asking his wife for money. Another two days later, his lawyer told him to get lost because the Brazilian tax office knocked at his office door, he lost the preliminary court case to get his (to begin with, legal) money back, was stranded in Europe and they went to detain his wife. He couldn’t even open a cryptocurrency exchange account because not even they want to deal with the Brazilian authorities and the only ones operating in Brazil itself are on the governments leash.

It's not lawless at all. He also told me they have a personal identification number like the US SSN, but that it's much more widely used for almost anything, even if you want to rent an apartment or go shopping (his words, never verified it) and allows authorities to track their every (mostly financial) step. He emphasised you better have that number ready when you enter the country too.

As they say, Brazil is not for amateurs.

Does the US have outgoing checkpoints on its land borders? I thought you only dealt with the Canadian/Mexican customs agents on your way out, and only dealt with US CBP on your way back in. (I haven't crossed a US land border since a road trip to Canada when I was a kid, so I could be very wrong.)