Long overdue. At some point, these scam operations are so large that they have to be operating with tacit approval of their host countries, who have been given no incentive to stop the virtual cold war against the personal finances of foreign citizenry that is bringing in millions of dollars into their economy.
> the virtual cold war against the personal finances of foreign citizenry
Comparing a scam to war is inaccurate. The Cold War was a war running cold with the potential to go hot. Cambodia and America are not going to war over this.
> we are at war with many countries all the time, most of it is cold
Like whom? We (and let's be honest, every other great power) are at war with many countries all of the time, and while they may be cold for long stretches, they absolutely (a) go hot from time to time and (b) are constantly threatening to go hot.
I'm not sure if one can merely walk away from a criminal enterprise of that size. As soon as you stop paying certain people you end up in a cage, and unless the stream of money is constant there is no reason to just not reneg on all prior agreements and go in a cage for stuff you already paid authorities off for.
So the whole crypto anonymity thing isn’t actually real? As it turns out, tracing people is still easier than tracing money? Decentralized economies are run by criminal enterprises?! We aren’t safe!?!
Wonder how this whole concept overlays onto LLMs, with a lot more money on the line and a lot less regulation.
You're probably joking, but even if crypto was totally anonymous, running a massive criminal human trafficking empire in the real world is very non-anonymous.
Long overdue. At some point, these scam operations are so large that they have to be operating with tacit approval of their host countries, who have been given no incentive to stop the virtual cold war against the personal finances of foreign citizenry that is bringing in millions of dollars into their economy.
> the virtual cold war against the personal finances of foreign citizenry
Comparing a scam to war is inaccurate. The Cold War was a war running cold with the potential to go hot. Cambodia and America are not going to war over this.
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that's a pretty naive view of war. we are at war with many countries all the time, most of it is cold.
> we are at war with many countries all the time, most of it is cold
Like whom? We (and let's be honest, every other great power) are at war with many countries all of the time, and while they may be cold for long stretches, they absolutely (a) go hot from time to time and (b) are constantly threatening to go hot.
DOJ press release.[1] DOJ claims custody of US$15 billion in Bitcoin. "Largest forfeiture action in the history of the Department of Justice."
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chairman-prince-group-indicte...
https://archive.is/2025.10.14-150019/https://www.wsj.com/bus...
From this article they got $15B (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/bitcoin-doj-chen-zhi-pig-but...). At what point do you say, "That's enough money?" Did they think the scam was going to go on forever?
I'm not sure if one can merely walk away from a criminal enterprise of that size. As soon as you stop paying certain people you end up in a cage, and unless the stream of money is constant there is no reason to just not reneg on all prior agreements and go in a cage for stuff you already paid authorities off for.
> As soon as you stop paying certain people you end up in a cage
You end up dead because your co-conspirators don't want to end up in a cage.
So the whole crypto anonymity thing isn’t actually real? As it turns out, tracing people is still easier than tracing money? Decentralized economies are run by criminal enterprises?! We aren’t safe!?!
Wonder how this whole concept overlays onto LLMs, with a lot more money on the line and a lot less regulation.
You're probably joking, but even if crypto was totally anonymous, running a massive criminal human trafficking empire in the real world is very non-anonymous.
At that scale, you have massive influence within the Cambodian government, so you're not worried about "getting caught" in the traditional sense.