I don’t think you have a very good understanding of how difficult it is to pass laws. No, “they” couldn’t just make the possession or transfer of cryptocurrency illegal in the USA with “a stroke of a pen.” I guess you also believed the president last night when he intimated the US government was going to seize the yachts of Russian oligarchs. Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.
No. I was implying it would be nearly impossible to make the possession or transfer of cryptocurrencies illegal in the USA. How to enforce that law isn’t even fathomable.
They say the memory is the first thing to go …
https://thehill.com/regulation/administration/195387-obama-ive-got-a-pen-for-more-executive-action
All presidents in my lifetime, prior to the anointed one, would have been raked over the coals throughout media for threatening such a thing. However, that would have been racist.
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He also intimated ILL-GOTTEN GAINS, which could make those yachts seizable. Like civil asset forfeiture.
They (FBI, I believe) have been known to trace transactions to real people. It can be done. But it probably won’t even have to be once it’s illegal.
Tracing transactions is easy, but there are millions of regular Joe American citizens that have real wealth in those accounts. What do you think are they going to do, arrest people for transferring their Coinbase balance to their bank account? Why would a politician even consider making that illegal?
The pretext for almost all civil asset forfeiture is drug dealing. How would that apply to russian oligarchs? Civil asset forfeiture is usually used against the little guy with no real means to pay a lawyer to get his $5,000 back. The people that own yachts aren’t the type of people not to call a lawyer when their property gets seized. Unless they were sailing the Yacht to and from Columbia, what do you think our government can do to seize and hold onto assets in the US belonging to people that are rightfully able to enter the US? Why do you believe these talking points that aren’t rooted in any sort of reality.
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“people that are rightfully able to enter the US”… can the Russian oligarchs still enter the country at the moment? Russia doesn’t have visa free travel with the USA, so I would imagine visas for targeted individuals would be denied.
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Even worse Russia could divert their energy to mine crypto=terrible for gas prices, environment
Germans have already seized some Yachts
If they own property here and have the means, they’ll be able to get here, or are already here. Either way, if they have property here, they were able to come here at some point. A person’s due process property rights don’t disappear just because you won’t let them back in the country at a particular point in time. When someone is deported (which requires due process) we don’t also seize all their possessions.
I’m confident we have more due process rights than Germany.
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Russian airlines are blocked but I guess they could sail or fly through other airlines.
Maybe. I haven’t kept up with whether any of them are on the no-fly list.
Goose Charters are available at “reasonable” rates. IIRC, see Tokyo Joe.
They could be accused of funding terrorism. Or spying. Lots of possibilities.
Funding terrorism and spying aren’t money making ventures that you could connect to yachts the same way you can connect cash or cars to drug dealing and white collar fraud. I reiterate, our civil asset forfeiture system is setup to 90% take stuff from drug dealers and 10% take stuff from white collar criminals. Russian Oligarchs are neither.
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I’ve got a simple solution. I think they’re all probably drug dealers. We can now magically seize all their money and assets. Right?
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Isn’t bribery and corruption considered white collar crime? Nothing of value can be accomplished in Russia without greasing some hands.
Any particular reason we can seize their property now? Weren’t hands greased whether or not Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine? Or is it totally okay to own yachts in the US with ILL-GOTTEN GAINS as long as the leader of your country doesn’t invade other countries? Or maybe… these oligarchs are also… generals ordering troops to… commit war crimes! Now we’re talking. CHA-CHING!
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I don’t want to argue with you since I’m not a legal expert, so here’s an article I just found that asks the legal question and answers with civil asset forfeiture and provides some history and examples:
You must be super excited about a government task force that, based on prior experience, will net 3.3% of the ill-gotten gains of these monsters. It’s also nice that no one in US federal law enforcement really cares what these monsters do until their country starts a war that doesn’t even involve them, huh?
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I think you’re missing the point. The point is that these oligarchs are as close as we can get to an equivalent of a royal court. They own or run the biggest enterprises in Russia. Most of them, if not all of them, likely have some influence with the government. So if they get squeezed, maybe they’ll squeeze the government.
I also learned that seizure falls under the DOJ jurisdiction and requires proof, but foreign assets can also be frozen (not seized) by the Treasury without any proof of wrongdoing – if you’re on a list, your stuff is fair game.