WEBVTT - 2022 Team Favorites: Cops Seizing Crypto 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:05.720 Hi, this is Vickie with the Bloomberg Crypto podcast team. 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.960 We've been taking a break this week to recharge our 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.440 batteries for the new year, and we'll be back tomorrow 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.200 with some fresh episodes for you. But today we're re 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.880 upping the last in our series of our team favorites, 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.840 and this one is definitely in my top ten. It's 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.480 a fascinating interview with Bloomberg reporters Ellen Milligan and David Vorriacos. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:26.759 They walk us through how police and FBI agents have 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.000 had to rethink how to recover stolen goods when they're 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:32.960 dealing with digital assets. This sort of turns into a 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.440 Keystone Caper's type adventure with agents trying to track down 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.680 digital keys after a raid or a seizure, all the 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.720 gain access to stolen crypto. All of us here on 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:46.159 the Bloomberg Crypto team hope you had a great end too, 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.240 and we look forward to what the new year will bring. 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:59.800 Hope you enjoyed this one picture this You're the FBI 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.400 trying to track down the digital keys that will give 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.800 you access to illicit or stolen crypto. You're rifling through books, 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.759 paper stuffed in suitcases. You're tearing open gum wrappers. It's 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.000 like something out of a movie. But in the world 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.360 of crypto, these odd nooks and crannies have become totally 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:24.200 normal places for law enforcement to look for digital passwords alone. 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.840 Cops in the U S and the UK sees billions 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.600 of dollars in crypto assets from various different criminal busts. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.319 With so much money on the line, enforcement agencies around 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.520 the world have had to learn and learn quickly how 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.000 to suppot these digital assets and seize them from accused criminals. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.440 Today I'm joined by Bloomberg reporters Ellen Milligan. They are 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.880 spending all this taxpayer money to train these police officers 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.960 in crypto, and then they're losing them. And David Vorriacos 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.080 while the crypto was in the possession of the US government, 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:57.720 stole it from right under their noses. To discuss how 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.240 the seizures of digital assets are transforming leasing policies and 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:07.640 protocols around the world. Ellen, David, thank you so much 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.080 for joining us today, Thanks for having us. We're going 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.600 to talk about something kind of weird, which is how 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:19.400 do police officers sees imaginary money. And I don't just 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.320 mean imaginary in the sense of contested valuation. I mean 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.840 imaginary as in not cash, not physical, not things that 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.040 you can sort of wrap your head around. You know, 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.120 people are breaking down the door and they're like freeze 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.280 and we're gonna take all your stuff. You have been 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.800 writing about what happens when cops sees crypto. Tell us 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:42.200 more about what that's like. Well, police traditionally have sees 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:49.880 physical items like jewelry, cash, cars, boats, planes, and with crypto, 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.520 they have to know that it's there, and they have 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.240 to be educated enough about the process to understand that 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.280 it has value and there are are unusual ways to 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.040 access and so that's what we wrote about. The police 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:07.280 around the world are educating themselves on what crypto is 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.160 and how to access it. Then once they get it, 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.639 how they store it and how they sell it and 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:18.160 ellen what does that look like. Well, really, there's a 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.440 few different elements to this. Like David said, there's the 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:27.040 seizing of the crypto and discovering it, which is easier 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.680 said than done, because often there's not a physical element 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.400 to crypto. Sometimes there is like a kind of hardware 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.640 device that crypto wallet is kept on or something like that, 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:46.120 but often these are digital assets and to discover them 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.560 and then to seize them, you need a seed phrase 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.400 that accesses the crypto wallet. So even if you're holding 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.680 a keep key device, for example, police won't know how 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.600 much bitcoin or another cryptocurrency is held on there until 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.680 they can access it using this kind of password, and 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.920 then they're storing it once they've seized it. How do 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.680 they keep this asset safe often for years while you 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:19.320 go through a criminal trial and then a forfeiture order. Um. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.160 There's real security issues with hacks, for example, but also 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.320 there's you know, in some cases there have been corrupt 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:35.640 police officers who have taken it for themselves. Um. And 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.680 then the last element is how you release that that 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.279 cryptocurrency um, if you give it back to victims or 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.680 what value you give it back to victims if the 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:51.880 state keeps it. These are the questions that law enforcement 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.640 has been grappling with, and what David and I really 0:04:55.640 --> 0:05:00.559 discovered is there's no standardized procedure of where that people 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.479 do this every as in any of the parts like 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:08.480 each one is idiosyncratic exactly, and every different law agency 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.279 around the world and different law agencies within the same 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.880 countries do it differently. And the police let the rest 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:16.640 of the world when it comes to crypto, have had 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.520 to learn this as they go along, and inevitably mistakes 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.719 have been made along the way, and they're still grappling 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.400 with this. So you mentioned kind of three elements, each 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.719 of which sounds hilariously complicated. So let's let's take one 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.640 of each one in turn. First of all, is the 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:37.440 the identification, right, So, like something suspicious is happening, we 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.640 think that's a suspicious things in crypto. We've figured out 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.880 that that exists. What are the steps involved in Okay, 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:46.919 we think that this is suspicious. We have, you know, 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.520 good cause we have all the people work, etcetera. That's required. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.360 How do they even get those passwords in the first place. Well, 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.760 in identifying the suspicious crypto, they can see the movement 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.720 of crypto on the blockchain. That is a public um 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.560 ledger ledger that they can see, and they can What 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:08.760 they must first do is trace it to criminal activity. Uh. 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:12.239 And once they've traced it to criminal activity, they can 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.680 then get a court order two seize wallets that are 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:21.000 associated with UM say stolen crypto. At that point they 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:25.279 can't they cannot actually access those wallets without the seed 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.880 recovery phrases, and they can come in different ways. They 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.680 may be written on slips of paper. They may get 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.039 it from UM insiders who are familiar with it. But 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:37.960 if they do not have those seed recovery phrases, they 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.000 can't The police cannot access the crypto, so they can't 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:47.159 say compel and exchange to have that crypto over to them. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.640 There's a case UM that's pending in federal court in 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:58.200 Washington in which UM a guy named Gary Harmon from Akron, Ohio. UM. 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.680 He is alleged to have stolen crypto right from out 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.800 under the noses of the Internal Revenue Service, which had 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:10.120 seized crypto from Gary's brother Larry Harmon, who pleaded guilty 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.520 UM two charges associated with running a crypto mixer and 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:20.640 helping to obscure the identity of crypto. And the federal 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.400 government alleges that Gary Harmon, while the crypto was in 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.480 the possession of the U. S Government, stole it from 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.640 right under their noses and has a value of many 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:36.360 millions of dollars. He's scheduled to go to trial early 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.320 next year, but there have been negotiations that have been 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:43.680 spelled out in court papers in which Uh, the federal 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:47.560 government just wants the seed recovery phrase so they can 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.320 have the crypto. And Gary Harmon's lawyers say that's essentially 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:56.360 tantamount to him admitting he committed the crime. Interesting, so 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.320 all of the big parts of jurisp it and so 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.720 people might be familiar with now being applied to the 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.360 slightly more chaotic entity is involved in crypto. That sounds 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:11.160 like fun Ellen, you mentioned that that's the second part 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.840 of this complex thing around storage. There seems to be 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.320 part of the problem the David is describing if if 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.040 another entity can just be like, Nope, that's mine and 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.760 take it once that crypto has been seized by the 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.000 government or by the police, Like, what's going on there? 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.640 What are those faiel safes exactly? And Um, A lot 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:33.679 of these cases have come out of like the eighteen 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.960 time where there was kind of the last big spike 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:43.880 in crypto and then crash before before spike. Um, and 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.240 a lot of those cases came out of hacks. And 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.760 that just shows you even if the police are holding 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.280 it um and storing this crypto in their own internal 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:56.040 system or outsourced system, there's still a danger that that 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.000 could be hacked and when you've got cases like the 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.839 bit for next case that David spoke about, I mean, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.440 the whole world knows how much UM that this law 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.079 enforcement agency has ceased, and it becomes very vulnerable, vulnerable 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:14.079 because of that. I spoke to a small police force 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:19.480 in southern England for this story. They stumbled across crypto 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.679 for the first time accidentally really in twenty seventeen. So 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.200 this was a kidnapping case UM where a guy was kidnapped. 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.959 Turned out his house was a cannabis farm. So they 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.600 did some digging around and they found this keep key 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:38.000 device which had a notepad attached to it with two 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:43.080 seed phrases, and it had nine hundred grand in bitcoin 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.880 I think on it. And so what police did is 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.040 that that there was no precedent for this. They had 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.480 no idea what to do. Most of them didn't really 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.280 know what krypto was. They bought their own key key 0:09:55.320 --> 0:10:00.400 device and they transferred UM the bitcoin from his wallet 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.120 to their wallet, their crypto wallet, and then they kept 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.720 this keep key device and the seed phrases in a 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.400 safe and only to hang on like a physical a 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.679 physical safe in the police station. And I need two 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:19.000 policemen had access to the to the safe. And that's 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.520 because in the silk Row case that David referred to, UM, 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.640 there two police officers ran off in that case in 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.920 the US with some of the money that they were storing. UM, 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.600 and so there was a you know, the police are 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.920 very worried about corrupt police officers but also about losing 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:40.920 losing the money. So that's how they did it. And 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.440 then UM they eventually sold it to a trusted exchange. 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.600 Now they don't do that anymore, not surprisingly because it 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:52.440 is very dangerous to keep such a millions of dollars 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:56.600 in in a mini like small police station in southern England. 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.600 It's ridiculous now, um, but these are the kinds of 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:02.920 ways that they would do it as they were learning 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.680 on the job. And I mean now what they do 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.120 and what most UK law enforcement agencies do, which is 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.080 they have a UM. They outsource it to a company 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:19.920 called Kamani, which is backed by a Ledger and and others, 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:24.240 and it's they've got their own secure, high tech like 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.240 system of James. So they say, you know, I guess 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.440 time will time will tell. We'll be right back with 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.240 more from Bloomberg reporters. David Vorriakos and Ellen Milligan on 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.640 how law enforcement is keeping up with this new digital 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:46.720 to mention of financial crime. I want to push on 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.400 something that you're saying here about. You know, they tried 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.120 some stuff, the stuff didn't necessarily work. Now they may 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.080 be getting better at it. How are they getting better? 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.480 Like where are they finding people? You've mentioned outsourcing, but 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:03.640 they obvious we need police officers who are themselves trained 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.120 in knowing what to do. What has that process been like? 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.840 So in the UK, UM the police lobbied the government, 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.400 the Home Office UM for funding to train about two 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:19.160 fifty officers around the country in how to investigate sees 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.360 and realize the value of these assets. They were dubbed 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:31.120 crypto tactical advisors. Yes, and I think one or two 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.040 from every force around the country was trained in this 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:36.520 and that really helped them. And then they did a 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.840 public procurement process UM to outsource this and I know 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:45.040 that that's been done in the US less successfully UM, 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.880 which David can tell you about. But actually the trouble 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.480 that they're having now is UM they've lost a number 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:57.280 of these crypto tactical advisors to coin based chain analysts. 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.320 These firms who can triple their pay. So that's something 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.960 that really struggling with is they are spending all this 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.240 taxpayer money to train these police officers in crypto and 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.079 then they're losing them to these firms who can pay 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.120 them far more. So let me just make sure I'm 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.679 understanding this. I a U S taxpayer, have nominally contributed 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:20.679 to somebody working for coin base right now, essentially potentially 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:26.040 I as a UK taxpayer, definitely um I would say 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.880 also in the US, I mean the FBI and the 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.959 Internal Revenue Service have some extremely talented investigators and they 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.600 have a very large databases at their access which are 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.800 able to they're able to use to triangulate to figure 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.480 out who owns a wallet because they can follow the 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:49.120 movement of crypto across the blockchain in ways that people 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:53.320 can't do it um who have only public access. And 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:58.240 they also work with firms like Analysis, which um Ellen 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.520 had mentioned, to help them put together who owns, you know, 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.680 disputed wallets. And I would also say that the government 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.320 is looking to privatize the storage and sale of seized 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.199 crypto assets. The Justice Department, through the Marshals has had 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.959 sort of mixed success with that. Marshals used to auction 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.840 crypto themselves and they stopped in They were trying to 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.080 hire an outside firm and the two firms that they 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.240 had settled on both were disqualified because they were too 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.880 big under the the regulations, and so the marshals are 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.960 doing it themselves, but they're looking for a firm outside 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:42.120 to do it for them. And Ellen. This is related 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.640 to the third parts of that complex tree, right, which 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.080 is the distribution once some sources of judgment has been 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.920 rendered on on either the crypto or the alleged criminal involved. Yeah, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.640 this is almost the most complicated part because there was 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:01.120 no legal preston for for this and what a court 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:05.840 does when, for example, it finds someone guilty, there's a 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:10.400 forfeit tire proceeding um that happens later on and often 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:16.640 this happens years after um. And what's the forfeits proceeding um. 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.000 In the UK you have the Proceeds of Crime Act 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.640 and this is a twenty year old act. And at 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.400 the end of the case, when someone's found guilty and 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.520 sent to jail within a year, there's usually a court 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.640 hearing where judge will decide the seat what to do 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.720 with the seased assets, whether the criminal can keep some 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:44.360 of them, whether they forfeit them um and also how 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:46.720 whether they stay with the state, whether they have to 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:51.640 be distributed to victims. For example, the trouble that this 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.880 police force had in the case I was talking about 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.640 earlier was this law was twenty years old when crypto 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.400 didn't exist, So they had to go to a judge 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:06.000 and convince them that this is an asset. The most 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.920 valuable asset in the case it was. They came across 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:14.960 cash about two d grand in cash, watches, artwork, gold, 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:19.000 but the crypto was the most valuable asset. The other complication, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.160 and we've seen that even more so, is that crypto 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.280 will be a much different price than it was when 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.600 they seized it. And and and the good thing that 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.320 police have had up until this year was it ballooned 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.480 in price, so either the state or victims got quite 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.560 a good deal out of it. And I think what 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.680 police are now really grappling with is actually that that 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.240 crypto that they've been storing for so long has actually 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.080 fallen in price now quite a lot, what actually quite 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.960 a lot? And at what point do they sell it? 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.560 They're confined by the law, but at what point do 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.800 they convert that. Do they convert it before they forfeit 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.960 to its. It's really complicated and it's really those kinds 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.240 of questions are actually outside the law, and it's about 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.520 instinct or missed And David, is it similar in the US? 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:14.159 In the US, assets can be forfeited when someone is 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.639 convicted of a crime, but they're seized before someone is 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:20.840 convicted of a crime, so they may sit there for 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.639 a year or two, three, four years while someone is 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.600 going through the judicial process. And uh, the government cannot 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.480 sell those crypto assets until after there's an order from 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.080 the judge saying it's okay to UM to liquidate this. 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:40.800 I was going to say, there's an interesting case in 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:46.639 San Francisco where someone stole sixty nine thousand, three hundred 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.919 seventy bitcoin from the Silk Road site in November of 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.119 It was worth a billion dollars that then went up 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.680 a great deal more than that, and it's fallen since then. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.800 But there's someone referred to only as individual X who 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.919 agreed to forfeit it, and so he's not he or 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:09.320 she is not contesting ownership UM. But there are a 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.920 bunch of other people who are putting claims in saying, well, 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.800 they had some of the crypto that was in dispute, 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:21.919 and um, so the judge in San Francisco is ruling 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:26.640 on that dispute and he's hearing testimony and reading reports 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.760 from experts on both sides, and in every case so 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:34.080 far he's ruled for the government, and a couple of 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.960 the people who say that, um, some of that crypto 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.880 is there's have appealed it and the so it has 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:45.040 to be adjudicated at the district court level and the 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:47.680 appellate court level before they can go ahead and sell 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.000 all of that crypto, which is very valuable. And it 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.639 sounds like it's going to take a long time. It's 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.920 has taken almost two years so far. It probably take 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.199 I would guess another year or so, but then I 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.119 assume they're going to go ahead and sell it. Wow. Well, 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:09.120 thank you both for joining us on this frankly fascinating episode. 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.600 I really appreciate you both taking the time. Thank you 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.720 so much. Thank you Ellen, and thank you David. You 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.159 can find more of their reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal, 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.880 on Bloomberg dot com and on Twitter. Ellen is at 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.280 Ellen A. Milligan. That's M I L L I G. 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.080 A N and David is at David vorriacos. That's David 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:36.720 V O R E A c O S. On the 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.200 next episode of Bloomberg Crypto. One of the most interesting 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.800 conversations in crypto right now is all about definitions, and 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.600 especially the definition of a so called security Who betters 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.600 to tackle this than Bloomberg ompainion columnist Matt Levine, a 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.520 former practicing lawyer and investment banker who has written extensively 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:59.160 about securities, securities law, inside of training, all the things 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.720 that are very much top goal right now. You'll also 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.600 hear highlights from Matt's interview Sam bankmun Freed at the 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:13.320 recent Bloomberg Crypto swmach in New York. This is Bloomberg Crypto, 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.840 a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.160 more shows from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.960 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.320 Send us your comments, questions or suggestions for the show 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.760 to Crypto at Bloomberg dot next, or find us on Twitter. 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:37.200 We're at Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:41.080 Vicky ver Galina. Our senior producer is Janet babin Our 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.320 producer is Sharon Burriro. Our associate producers Ozanam Siddiki and 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:49.240 Moses and m Desta wonder At is our engineer. Original 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:54.760 music by Leo Sidrn. I'm Stacy Maria Shmo. We'll be 0:20:54.760 --> 0:21:06.399 back tomorrow. The expect the propection about the APT sting 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:07.520 the st