[Mailing #67] Summary of the past 6 months

[user4164]

Hi guys,

Let me jump in: the BTC fraud (as well as fiat) is out of limitation period in most of the jurisdictions I'm aware of. At least this was the conclusion from layer I hired within EU to follow up my loss two years ago. Honestly I'm sure Simon knows it, as far as we know he also is long gone from EU, the BTC LTD is legally dissolved in the UK. There is small chance to chase this path as it might be still inside the limitation period in the UK (not the original fraud but the fact that BTC24 LTD was dissolved without transferring or mentioning the liabilities to BTC24 creditors = customers like us).

All in all it's safe to say that Simon was playing this forfeiture game for some time now (if not from beginning) and he is very well aware that there is basically nothing he would need to share with anyone here, at least not legally.

Let me follow up the story with even more writer's license. And please don't read anything in between the lines, don't take this as threatening and don't ask me for my sources. This is just how I see it (as one of possible realities):

• There was clear fuck up happening with BTC balances on known valets linked to BTC24 at the time when it went down (2013). We can only speculate how much this "freeze of German and Polish accounts by authorities" was really a cause or just a good opportunity to cover up bigger problems in BTC24 balances (namely these held in cryptocurrencies).
• The 72% payment of EUR/USD balances from user accounts which happened in <12 months after site went down were covering only fraction of the losses (only these few who followed the story and registered through that cumbersome process) and indeed no BTC balances. Now assuming there were people who had dozens and hundreds of BTC "lost" when BTC24 went off-line (and you may light up your imagination what kind of people with such credit could be) I'm sure there was some "silent" (or "secret" if you like) settlement happening between BTC24 owners (= which as far as we know was basically just Simon) and these specific creditors. People who followed the BTC flow from known addresses in first days and weeks after the BTC24 collapsed confirmed there were pretty large transfers happening.
• If this is roughly what happened then it's logical to assume that Simon lives with the rest of his (and our) BTCs somewhere in Asia (or elsewhere), simply far from his remaining small creditors, far from their jurisdictions and also keeping it low if case that they would team up and reach him the same way as the "big" creditors did in first weeks after collapse and demand their money.
• I wouldn't be surprised if he even lost the original balance sheets and I would be pretty shocked if he would have the BTC balances somewhere "cold" and untouched while paying his bills from his own pocket.
• I couldn't imagine how he would survive (and now I mean it literally!) the period when big creditors were looking for him without paying a lot and in case that majority - or all - of his fiat was frozen by authorities at that time he simply needed to use the only thing he got: cryptocurrency present in this (and BTC24 LTD) valets.
• To bring it back to Earth: honestly who from you would give any BTC (or even all/more then you have!) to some people crying on the internet that some non-existing company owe them some money and non-traceable crypto lost in 2013??? At the time when 1BTC is trading 40~50k USD and it's year 2021? With pandemic happening and no one really following the traces - so even if they find him in 1~2 years the legal window for fraud accusations will anyway be expired? No one. You would rather move to some nice place, hire a bodyguard and enjoy your life as proper internet villain!

Now if anyone is interested into inflating this kind of wild assumptions (into proper "fiction" novel) or has any other intelligence to prove/dismantle it please reach me out. It doesn't need to be publicly here, you can reach me out by private message or at gmail.

[bernard75]

• There was clear fuck up happening with BTC balances on known valets linked to BTC24 at the time when it went down (2013). We can only speculate how much this "freeze of German and Polish accounts by authorities" was really a cause or just a good opportunity to cover up bigger problems in BTC24 balances (namely these held in cryptocurrencies).
• The 72% payment of EUR/USD balances from user accounts which happened in <12 months after site went down were covering only fraction of the losses (only these few who followed the story and registered through that cumbersome process) and indeed no BTC balances. Now assuming there were people who had dozens and hundreds of BTC "lost" when BTC24 went off-line (and you may light up your imagination what kind of people with such credit could be) I'm sure there was some "silent" (or "secret" if you like) settlement happening between BTC24 owners (= which as far as we know was basically just Simon) and these specific creditors. People who followed the BTC flow from known addresses in first days and weeks after the BTC24 collapsed confirmed there were pretty large transfers happening.
• If this is roughly what happened then it's logical to assume that Simon lives with the rest of his (and our) BTCs somewhere in Asia (or elsewhere), simply far from his remaining small creditors, far from their jurisdictions and also keeping it low if case that they would team up and reach him the same way as the "big" creditors did in first weeks after collapse and demand their money.
• I wouldn't be surprised if he even lost the original balance sheets and I would be pretty shocked if he would have the BTC balances somewhere "cold" and untouched while paying his bills from his own pocket.
• I couldn't imagine how he would survive (and now I mean it literally!) the period when big creditors were looking for him without paying a lot and in case that majority - or all - of his fiat was frozen by authorities at that time he simply needed to use the only thing he got: cryptocurrency present in this (and BTC24 LTD) valets.
• To bring it back to Earth: honestly who from you would give any BTC (or even all/more then you have!) to some people crying on the internet that some non-existing company owe them some money and non-traceable crypto lost in 2013??? At the time when 1BTC is trading 40~50k USD and it's year 2021? With pandemic happening and no one really following the traces - so even if they find him in 1~2 years the legal window for fraud accusations will anyway be expired? No one. You would rather move to some nice place, hire a bodyguard and enjoy your life as proper internet villain!

Now if anyone is interested into inflating this kind of wild assumptions (into proper "fiction" novel) or has any other intelligence to prove/dismantle it please reach me out. It doesn't need to be publicly here, you can reach me out by private message or at gmail.

Not so much off as some might think.
I give it an 8/10.

[babyJ]

Yeah, thanks user4164 that’s a super depressing read!
I’d like to hear Jeff’s thoughts on your post, he always seems to have a good picture of what’s going on.

Personally I didn’t even realise there would be a limitation period in a case like this. I thought one of the features of the blockchain was that it contained a record of every transaction, so I always hoped that if there had been fraud or other shenanigans then the evidence of it could be read right off the blockchain.

I liked Vodel’s idea earlier in this thread, about offering a percentage of our BTC to any third party who could help in their recovery. The BTC price so high now, I can’t believe it wouldn’t be worth it for some law firm or tech company who specialises in cryptocurrencies to look into this situation to see if it really is a lost cause.
And isn’t it in the interest of the wider crypto community to see to it that failures like bitcoin-24 are resolved fairly? Who knows what the coin price would be if bitcoin started to shake off it’s wild west image.

Lastly, while I’m trying to stay positive, I know it looks bad that Simon has stayed silent throughout all this, and that he’s likely living in luxury in thailand, in a secret fortress under a volcano, but maybe he still wants to do the right thing. I’m sure most of us would have no problem offering him a percentage too if we could secure his help with any recovery efforts, that way he could get on with his life without this mistake hanging over him.

[user4164]

Yeah, thanks user4164 that’s a super depressing read!
I’d like to hear Jeff’s thoughts on your post, he always seems to have a good picture of what’s going on.

Personally I didn’t even realise there would be a limitation period in a case like this. I thought one of the features of the blockchain was that it contained a record of every transaction, so I always hoped that if there had been fraud or other shenanigans then the evidence of it could be read right off the blockchain.

I liked Vodel’s idea earlier in this thread, about offering a percentage of our BTC to any third party who could help in their recovery. The BTC price so high now, I can’t believe it wouldn’t be worth it for some law firm or tech company who specialises in cryptocurrencies to look into this situation to see if it really is a lost cause.
And isn’t it in the interest of the wider crypto community to see to it that failures like bitcoin-24 are resolved fairly? Who knows what the coin price would be if bitcoin started to shake off it’s wild west image.

Lastly, while I’m trying to stay positive, I know it looks bad that Simon has stayed silent throughout all this, and that he’s likely living in luxury in thailand, in a secret fortress under a volcano, but maybe he still wants to do the right thing. I’m sure most of us would have no problem offering him a percentage too if we could secure his help with any recovery efforts, that way he could get on with his life without this mistake hanging over him.

First of all: there is indeed a limitation period almost on any kind of crime in almost every jurisdiction. So fact that you can prove the crime happened (in this case fraud) it is worth nothing (from the legal point of view) if it is long gone.

Second: I'm afraid you are missing how crypto exchanges work (or at least how old fashion marketplaces like BTC24 worked in 2013). Yes, all blockchain based cryptocurrencies have "perfect" tracking of the history (now let's don't go into details of "50% attack" scenarios of altering the history, different kind of double-spend bugs etc.). However there were no BTCs (or any other assets) on blockchain while traded inside the "system" like BTC24. At that point your only "prove" that given exchange has any of your assets are transaction proves when you put assets in (like crypto transactions on blockchain or wire transfer statements from your bank) and then "book keeping" data provided by the exchange itself. If they go dark and you haven't done any screenshots or similar backups you basically lost one part of that history. In case you sent some BTCs to some address which supposedly belongs to that crypto exchange then you can see it in blockchain history but from principle of blockchain address anonymity you can hardly prove it really belongs to BTC24. So what you have are only statements from your bank if you did any transactions with BTC24 Ltd. but to claim that kind of fraud you have legal limitation periods in each country. So it's safe to say that is gone as well. Overall you have very little for any kind of case, legal or other.

That said I also want to believe that Simon doesn't want to live the rest of his life with notion of "I'm living from stolen money and I'm probably being hunted" and he will try to settle this down. And yes, I'm also OK to write off let's say 20% of my BTC account at BTC24 Ltd. in order to support him. That looks like reasonable compromise for both sides (= I will save these money from hiring some private eye who would pay Simon a visit and Simon should still have enough money left to live nice life). But my wishes and reality are often two different things...


(Btw. that part where you dream about "the interest of the wider crypto community..." really made me laugh. Call me sarcastic b*$ch but do you really think anyone cares about what happened with some BTC24 LTD and its minor creditors in 2013? In the history of BTC and other coins are so many dark stories of fraud, robberies, drug cartels and other criminals laundering billions of USD through BTC transfers, crypto exchanges manipulating the rates on daily basis and you could go on and on for days. Rally, there is nothing like "community" dreaming about higher principles, honor or other BS. Basically all of us jumped to this for profit and this is what high risk business brings: criminals, fraud and losses. Sometimes also wins but there seems to be only limited number of winners in BTC24 story and that list looks like sealed now...)

[otsch]

I think the same in the beginning things went wrong and I believed in Simon's good intentions but nowadays hes just scamming all of us and that's probably a fact. Btc24 victim still missing 300btc....


By the way just check out his Instagram living in Thai Hilton driving a Benz... He s a scammer

[user4164]

I do appreciate that Jeff set this forum in good will but can we set-up one thread collecting some more details about Mr. Hausdorf to see what preceded the incident in 2013, what happened since then and where is he now? Should be interesting story to read...

[otsch]

I m definitely up for something like that. Can't even write you a private message on this site

[user4164]

I m definitely up for something like that. Can't even write you a private message on this site

You may find me at gmail;)

Btw. two good readings:

• "What happened to bitcoin-24" blog post by Nicolas Kuttler (mainly mapping events of years 2013 and 2014): https://kuttler.eu/en/post/what-happened-bitcoin24/
• BTC24 LTD. history in UK company registry (some documents are interesting, some not, but it seems that company still operates and Simon is total control of it): https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08242858/filing-history

[btc24refund]

...

Hi,

There are a few points in your post that I'd like to address from what I know.

• There was clear fuck up happening with BTC balances on known valets linked to BTC24 at the time when it went down (2013). We can only speculate how much this "freeze of German and Polish accounts by authorities" was really a cause or just a good opportunity to cover up bigger problems in BTC24 balances (namely these held in cryptocurrencies).

I can't recall that being an issue but considering that Simon made BTC-24 by himself on a rather flimsy back-end stack; it could be possible. The only "balance fuck up" I heard of was a user receiving his fiat withdrawal twice before the site went down. This withdrawal was a regular withdraw and has nothing to do with the 72% withdrawal; later that year.

• The 72% payment of EUR/USD balances from user accounts which happened in <12 months after site went down were covering only fraction of the losses (only these few who followed the story and registered through that cumbersome process) and indeed no BTC balances. Now assuming there were people who had dozens and hundreds of BTC "lost" when BTC24 went off-line (and you may light up your imagination what kind of people with such credit could be) I'm sure there was some "silent" (or "secret" if you like) settlement happening between BTC24 owners (= which as far as we know was basically just Simon) and these specific creditors. People who followed the BTC flow from known addresses in first days and weeks after the BTC24 collapsed confirmed there were pretty large transfers happening.

Could you share these blockchain transactions?

• If this is roughly what happened then it's logical to assume that Simon lives with the rest of his (and our) BTCs somewhere in Asia (or elsewhere), simply far from his remaining small creditors, far from their jurisdictions and also keeping it low if case that they would team up and reach him the same way as the "big" creditors did in first weeks after collapse and demand their money.

He seems to have moved to Asia after selling vacuum machines for a while in Germany. As of the reason why he moved to Asia; I don't know. Could be your theory; could be something else.

• I wouldn't be surprised if he even lost the original balance sheets and I would be pretty shocked if he would have the BTC balances somewhere "cold" and untouched while paying his bills from his own pocket.

From what I know, his server with database was confiscated. He should have it returned by now; with the investigation being closed. I'll chase this one; good point.

• I couldn't imagine how he would survive (and now I mean it literally!) the period when big creditors were looking for him without paying a lot and in case that majority - or all - of his fiat was frozen by authorities at that time he simply needed to use the only thing he got: cryptocurrency present in this (and BTC24 LTD) valets.

In terms of fiat credit; there were 2 accounts that were confiscated. One in Poland and one in Germany. The one in Germany was used to pay out the 72% while the one in Poland; having a considerably smaller amount would be used to pay the remaining. My assumption is that the victims who did not receive the 72% fiat would receive 100% from Poland.

There is a problem with that though; the lawfirm that was hired by Simon to handle his case (and also facilitate the 72% payout) billed him heavily. From what I know roughly 300k Eur; which compared to the few million that was confiscated is relatively a small price. But I am guessing that the full 100% in fiat might be hard to pay out given that fact.

It could also be possible that he bought a lot of BTC privately. Based on him building an entire crypto exchange, he likely has a passion for the technology. I'm not denying that it's possible he is using BTC-24 btc's to pay his bills; but without facts its hard to come to an conclusion. All I know in regards to the btc's is that he kept them as security; how unfair and immoral that is.

• To bring it back to Earth: honestly who from you would give any BTC (or even all/more then you have!) to some people crying on the internet that some non-existing company owe them some money and non-traceable crypto lost in 2013??? At the time when 1BTC is trading 40~50k USD and it's year 2021? With pandemic happening and no one really following the traces - so even if they find him in 1~2 years the legal window for fraud accusations will anyway be expired? No one. You would rather move to some nice place, hire a bodyguard and enjoy your life as proper internet villain!

From what I can tell; I've been in touch with Simon digitally. There has also been a forum user that has visited him and spoke to him (Timoue) who has a large sum at stake. His analysis of Simon was that he basically is a naïve guy who made wrong choices but shouldn't be compared with your average cryptoscammer. I value Timoue's opinion as he actively participated and took a testimony when forcing the 2nd Polish prosecutor to get his act together (along with the Polish lawyers that was hired by us).

In the contact that I have, Simon pro-actively gives me an update (while he also could stay off the radar), send proof in the cases of the apostilled documents that they were send (track and trace information) and has repeatedly mentioned in writing that he wishes to repay the victims; which seems like a full confession to me.

Technically seen, at this point he has not stolen anything for personal gain when looking at the fiat as it still is on the confiscation account. In regards to the btc's it's murky what is going on. He never really seems to answer that question; at least not recently. I believe that once the fiat is accessible again; this topic will get covered since, as I mentioned, he held it as security. This is my assumption.

As the current situation stands; he is in the process of opening up a bank account at Bank Millenium which hopefully will do business with him as Santander will not. With some luck there will be a bank account and the funds from Santander can be transferred. From what he mentioned he will:

"start with the next step of planning on how to pay out the funds. We for sure have to request additional documents supporting the users' identity, source of funds, and address proof to initiate any transaction. There will be also a document which each user has to sign. This still has to get drafted."

To sum it up, for me the fact that he communicates, sends proof, was met by a forum user and keeps mentioning that he will repay the victims makes me conclude this is the most productive way; how slow progress might be. Alternatively; I do not see at this point how sacking him with a lawyer will speed this process up, but I'm all ears to suggestions. In the end I'd rather have it resolved yesterday than today.

[user4164]

Hi Jeff, good response, thanks for taking the time and also for maintaining the site.

Could you share these blockchain transactions?

I believe the summary from Nicolas and links in the comments on his page (see URL in my previous post) are hinting that BTC transactions before site went down were at least strange, if not incorrect. It is also visible that lot of BTC transactions happen from known addresses affiliated with BTC24 LTD (Simon) after site was supposedly closed for business and no "usual" customers like myself could make a transaction. If that is a sufficient evidence or not I let everyone to judge...

Regarding fiat vs. crypto: Assuming there are up to 3mil EUR still blocked in Poland and Simon spent ~10% on legal fees I guess it's safe to say that only few people care about that part. Assuming that many creditors have their cryptocurrency blocked since 2013 and that is well above 500BTC in total (most probably 1-10k BTC) that is today valued at 20mil EUR and more. So that's the sum we want to talk about...

Let me go on in my speculations (I have nothing to do in the meantime, waiting for Simon coming back from darkness;). I see following scenarios under which he could pay these back:

1. There was no loss on crypto assets in 2013, Simon keeps all wallets safe and he can pay all liabilities. I gave few arguments above which make this variant as highly unlikely (if anyone has few hundreds of BTC held somewhere, do you think he/she will let it go for 8 years???) but you seems to be convinced by Simon this is the reality.
2. There was some heist or fraud and part or all crypto went out of Simon's hands. However he was able to regain that by using his personal funds, smart trading (= buying the coins when low) and whatever else so he is now able to pay out everyone. This sounds even crazier then the previous variant but I cannot rule it out.
3. There was some heist or fraud and part or all crypto went out of Simon's hands. He had no way to regain these funds and hence he will only pay fraction of that back or even nothing. I'm afraid this is probable variant.

Cheers!