Civil asset forfeiture is a hot topic right now, it's total bullshit.  Unfortunately here in California we just had a promising reform bill shot down by misrepresentation from the law enforcement lobbies.  Most of the California forfeit cases deal with cannabis cultivation.

The scary thing is, when you get to looking at civil asset forfeiture, they really don't need any reason to take your stuff, you do not need to be accused or convicted of a crime, and you have no recourse to get it back.

Makes me feel like I got off  "light" compared with you.

Sorry for your loss.

Hehehehe, this was pretty epic, i wish we could tag all the wallets that are part of the police or any government agency.

Be careful about posting things like that.  On Reason.com, someone posted that a federal judge should "burn in hell" and the Feds subpoenaed Reason.com to get the IP of the person who posted that....no kidding.

I know nothing about other countries but here in the US they have this thing called "contempt of court" which is the second most odious part of the law, right behind civil asset forfeiture.

All the judge needs to do is say "give me the password to all of your Bitcoins or you will be in contempt of court".  If you do not then give them your Bitcoins you will be sent to jail.

Note that for the most part it is almost impossible to appeal "contempt of court"

Also, they can keep you in jail until you produce the password they want.  That means forever - there is no time limit.

So your passwords are only as secure as your willingness to go to jail to keep them secret.

This has been happening for years with medical cannabis dispensaries in California.  The police bust in to a California law abiding business, take all the cannabis, money, computers, video surveillance gear, etc. etc., and then say have a nice day, we may file charges against you.  Charges are never filed and all that stuff now belongs to the police.

What a deal, no wonder they don't want to change it.

It would be interesting to see how the fed and courts in the US interpret "Business" if you:

Trade bitcoins for fiat at bitcoin meetups for no profit at spot price.

Is this technically a business? I suppose they could prosecute these individuals for tax fraud when they don't exactly pay the capital gains from bitcoins volatility... but what if you purchase the bitcoins instantly through an exchange and had the buyer pay spot+exchange fee thus no change in value?

What if an exchange created btc coupons that could be sold to redeem bitcoin and those in turn were sold for profit locally? (Like BTChina was doing) . Do the laws qualify coupons as needing a money transmitters license?

Perhaps we need to take a page from all the fortune 500 companies which use a well known loophole to bypass gambling laws. Sell a product(sticker) that enters user in a contest with a chance to win bitcoin (from foreign exchange and with extremely high odds of winning) and no requirement of purchase necessary if users fill out a form to be mailed one opportunity to win btc(limit 1 per address)

turtlehurricane said he was only advertising.

Your quote from LBC is about BurtW.

They are different people.

I'm horrified by your story. Outright scary!

Eventually,  I assume Homeland Security will want to cash out, by selling these coins on an exchange or auction them out to an investor (like the Silk Road coins).

Just as the community should be encouraged to not trade with stolen coins, obtained through hacking of exchanges etc, I similarly feel no one should purchase or be involved in the trade of 'tainted' coins such as yours that were stolen from you by the State.

Hopefully, someone will take their time to ensure these coins are tracked so that any future potential buyer can be made aware of where these coins came from.

Will it help him in any way?