SheepMarketplace owner busted by czech police trying to launder stolen money

Sorry it's czech article

http://archiv.ihned.cz/c1-63752430-jak-se-praly-bitcoiny-miliony-z-ciziny-vila-napsana-na-dedecka

basically he tried to launder stolen money from sheepmarketplace bought luxury house to his grandpa and was busted. It's the same Tomas Jirikovsky like in DOXX


Comments


[232 Points] None:

looks like its game over....

(•_•)

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

"Czech Mate"


[48 Points] karelb:

edit: hijacking my own post

It should be noted that there was no arrest described in the article. Just seizing of his property and a criminal investigation. I agree that arrest is probably not far away, but the article does not describe that.


Well, since this shit concerned me directly, I will translate it from Czech to English best to my abilities. (paging /u/gwern btw)

I don't have that much time so there might be errors. The gist is: he bought a house, wrote it on his granddad, and exchanged the money on bitstamp and put it on his regular account. The officers were alerted by the big amounts of money, and traced it back to bitcoins and money laundering.

The article is a bit confused, mixing narratives together - mixing official "sheep market" narrative (meaning, someone external stole it) with Tomáš's official narrative ("I had nothing to do with it, it was on my server by acciddent") and with police story ("he has the money, we proved it").

It also doesn't really mention it was darknet marketplace with drugs, it only mentions that it was "an online marketplace", and it says that Tomáš was the hacker that stole the money - but again it's a confused article in general.

So at times it doesn't make that much sense; I think that's because the reporter didn't really follow the case that well and mixed stuff together. Anyway, let's do this.


How the bitcoins were laundered: millions from abroad, a house written* on granddad

(*note: this idiom - "written on somebody" - means in Czech "officially owned by", "officially done by" - as in, officially granddad owned it)


(note: all amounts are in Czech Crowns, 1 million is 36.300 eur / 39.000 usd, 8.7 million is 316.000 eur / 340.000 usd)

[image]

Laundered house: villa in Lužice [<- a small town] is, according to police, a "proceed of crime". It was supposedly used for laundering dirty money. That's why police seized it.


Last year in January, a new bank account of 26-years old Eva Bartošová had a payment, that made Air Bank (Czech Bank) safety controls flash (an idiom). Almost 900 thousand Crowns from a foreign company that exchanges virtual bitcoins into real money.

The young woman could not credibly explain to the bank officers the source of the money. Only additional investigation revealed that millions already went using this road. And that behind it was a certain Tomáš Jiřikovský, that was connected by amateur internet investigators with stealing money from web marketplace Sheep Marketplace, where people traded in large numbers with the bitcoin currecy. The damage was described by the operators of the marketplace as more than 100 million.

(My note to the above: as I said, the article is confused.)

According to HN (<-short for the news name, Hospodářské Noviny), police officers seized his house near Hodonín, that he bought for bitcoins and that he wrote on his granddad.

"The case is in a phase where we cannot comment", told Petra Vedrová, a police spokesman for South-Moravian district.

Profesor signed, grandson paid

The story can however be reconstructed from documents saved on cadaster (note: I don't know how is it in other countries; in Czech we have a cadaster with information about real estate ownership - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadastre , and it's perhaps suprisingly public and open). According to the decree about seizing the house with a pool and garden in the town of Lužice the police officers wrote, that the programmer Jiřikovský and his wife Eva Bartošová (note: the girl from earlier) from laundering dirty money. The 8.7 million, that was used to buy the house, can be from the funds stolen from Sheep Marketplace.

"Your money, our provisions, all were stolen", wrote the operators of the marketplace on their web not long before they had to close it two years ago. They thought that someone found an error in the system and took 5400 Bitcoins. According to the exchange rate at the time, around 109 millions.

(My note: Again, they are confused and keep on writing that sheep was some legit online marketplace and Tomáš is the hacker that stole money from it.)

The officers of Ministry of Finance's Financial Analytical Office, that are detecting suspicious transactions, mapped how the Jiřikovský's money travelled. They first left from the abroad company Bitstamp Limited, that is selling and buying bitcoins. The millions then arrived with several transactions either on the account of Jiřikovský and Bartošová, or on the account of the real estate company and the lawyer that worked on the house sale. Part of the money went to the original owner of the house, another part of the money went on her bank as one-time payment of a mortgage.

The house is however in the cadaster written on Jan Goliáš, a granddad of Jiřikovský, that added no money to the transaction. That it was just an effort to conceal the real owner is demonstrated by the police by the fact that Jiřikovský was the one that insured the house.

"The real estate properties were fully paid by the finances, acquired by the transactions of the virtual currency bitcoin," say the detectives. Jiřikovský, according to bank data, took 839 thousand Czech crowns in cash from bank. Again from bitcoin.

The mobile number, that was used by Jiřikovský before, is owned by somebody else. HN tried to contact his wife through Facebook - but without a reply. And his granddad Goliáš was not available in his office on Mendelev University. On this university the 74-yeat old professor works as a renowned expert on fruit production

(Note: the next two paragraphs are writtten very confusingly.)

Jiřikovský never talked publicly, at the time of the Sheep Marketplace affair he made an announcement that he only allowed the so-called webhosting - meaning that for money he allowed place and service for other internet pages. Even a website that a fans of Sheep Marketplace made. But he had nothing to do with the market.

When Jiřikovský found in the fall 2013, that the web is illegal, he turned it off. He did not expand on why it would be illegal, but it could have something with drug selling, that people today sometimes buy with bitcoins.

Key question: the money origin

Because of the police silence we cannot tell, how deep are the police officers in the case. If they only investigate money laundering, or if they want Jiřikovský for his role in stealing money from the marketplace.

They should, because so-called "legalization of procceeds of crime" can only be proven if the police officers clearly name the exact crime where the dirty money comes from.

In the past the detectives thought that they are on a trace of 5.3 billion laundering in Prague exchange. They stopped the investigation of the owners - they couldn't prove that the money were dirty. (not sure if they are talking about BTC exchange, probably not, the money is too big for that and this paragraph is kinda irrelevant)

The worldwide trend of dirty money ending in bitcoin more and more is confirmed by the Ministry of Finance specialists.

"We detected a growth of suspicious trades, where the gains from criminal activity end up in virtual currency," warned last year annual report of Financial Analytical Office.


[26 Points] bennyking3:

Haha, this is why it's so hilarious when I saw comments like:

"Stealling 40 Million from people involved with drugs… “Tomáš Jiřikovský” whether he stole it or not, his name being thrown about is good enough for Mexican cartels to hunt down him and anyone he knows…. I wish him the best of luck surviving."

This guy was outed over 2 years ago and no one did shit. He didn't even have to move LOL. Darknet vendors are a different group of people from big time trunk-full-of-cocaine-bricks dangerous drug dealers...a much nerdier, less scary group of people that are near the bottom of things. This is why no market admins are afraid of their "vengeance".


[18 Points] 13tom13:

serves the cunt right, should have ran it legit and paid himself out of the markets fees probably easier to launder smaller amounts that way anyway


[13 Points] None:

This is why the "no doxing" rules in this sub are retarded.

Gwern, who is a mod, doxed this guy months ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1ptd6b/precommitment_proof_of_knowledge_about_a/

No one killed thomas, no one attacked his GF, no vigilante justice at all.

/u/igetdankshit, Why again are we not allowed to try and identify kimble and verto? Are you going to ban Gwern for (correctly) doxing the sheep admin?


[10 Points] AgoraMarket:

Says he was actually arrested last autumn, among other things.

Crappily-translated article by Google Translate.

Stuff like this is exactly why Verto, et al., will not find it easy at all to cash out millions in stolen BTC.


[10 Points] SexyAmeriCandy:

Where are all my internet tough guys who were supposed to do something about this back when the dox became known?


[5 Points] eterared:

Fuck yes!!!!!! About time that cocksucker was caught.


[4 Points] czechguy1:

lol i dont know if he will be in higher-security, but we have couple ppl in czech jails...mmmm...


[4 Points] deepdot:

Funny reminder, the interview he gave at 2013 to a Czech newspaper denying everything:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=cs&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbyznys.lidovky.cz%2Fobral-drogove-dealery-o-miliony-cech-jsem-nevinny-brani-se-programator-1md-%2Ffirmy-trhy.aspx%3Fc%3DA131206_112108_firmy-trhy_mev&act=url

And Eva denying everything on her facebook accusing /u/karelb for the rumors:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SheepMarketplace/comments/1rxjsc/ji%C5%99ikovsk%C3%BDs_girlfriend_made_a_statement_on_her/

Lol this is just too funny, Live justice porn.


[3 Points] eatmybreadpudding:

Little does he know, his worst punishment is already becoming a reality... being shamed on the front page of Reddit!

Shame!


[5 Points] None:

JUSTICE


[3 Points] BAppleSchlep:

Should have been more careful...


[3 Points] Axaq:

Well he clearly pulled everything off perfectly other than the laundering. He came out after being doxxed in Czech newspapers to deny his involvement. He is way out of the box what the fuck.


[3 Points] travis-:

So basically /u/gwern was right a year ago and everyone else in that thread was retarded and owes him an apology.


[2 Points] CoCaiNeLord:

I can't believe it took this long! His dox was posted around for a long time before he was arrested for trying to cash out. Nobody bothered to look into this guy for an international drug market with all the evidence he left behind? wtf.


[2 Points] None:

his arse will be on an open season..


[2 Points] TotesMessenger:

This thread has been linked to from another place on reddit.

If you follow any of the above links, respect the rules of reddit and don't vote. (Info / Contact)


[2 Points] None:

Gwern was fucking right. Tomas should be nervous when he gets to prison, it's possible there are people in there that he ripped off.


[2 Points] gwern:

Incidentally, this is a historic occasion: Tomas now has the dubious distinction of being the first (and thus far only) black-market operator to ever be arrested* after their market has shut down.

Every other market operator arrested was arrested before or effectively simultaneously with the market being raided - SR1, SR2, Hydra, & Utopia.

* karelb says that Tomas hasn't been officially arrested yet, but I'm going to assume that he will be soon. Otherwise, replace 'arrested' with more appropriate expression like 'targeted by law enforcement' or something.


[2 Points] FuckYourMyspaceAngle:

I knew it was Tomas all along after the gwern writeup. Even though people tried to disclaim it, the fingers pointed directly at him.

The goofy fat fuck behind the sheepmarketplace was bold enough to operate a clearnet site with the same name. He had pictures on facebook with Tor on his computer in the background. All of the links to bitcoin and programming. He was an amateur programmer and even more amateur in the way he attempted to launder his money.

You'd think with that many eyes on him he'd lay low for longer than he has. Even high profile vendors would've been caught with this method he attempted to try. He might have gotten away with a few hiccups, but to keep pushing your luck?

This guy has everything coming to him. Whether it's a bounty or jail for the rest of his life, it won't be pretty. A possible extradition wouldn't be out of the equation either.


[1 Points] deepdot:

Lololol!


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] None:

good.


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] MyDNMReviewAcc:

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood riddance


[1 Points] None:

I have a question since we don't have a solid translation yet: Is he getting in trouble for the 'stolen' aspect of the money, or just money laundering?


[1 Points] heyfreshhhhh:

At first he was like LOL, but then he was like baaaaaaaaaaaaaa.


[1 Points] pinkprincess1:

It's funny he looks almost exactly like I pictured.

Ah well, it proves the point that karma is a bitch......


[1 Points] WhereIsMyLSD:

JUSTICE!!!!!

I'm having similar feelings to what I felt when we killed Bin Laden.


[1 Points] ShulginsCat:

Oh the comeuppance!! This news made my entire month


[1 Points] R4ID:

fine fucking lee... jesus that took way way way too long.


[1 Points] None:

Imagine how shitty this guys life's gonna be, but how great it could have been. That has to be the worst. You hear this VERTO and KIMBLE?! YOUR NEXT!!


[1 Points] theseeker01:

hahaha get fucked you exit scamming asshole.


[1 Points] kopletor:

By the way, the same Tomas Jirikovsky bought a corporation in April 2014 and renamed it to... FinCoin! :-D

(From the official Czech business register: https://or.justice.cz/ias/ui/rejstrik-firma.vysledky?subjektId=580876&typ=PLATNY)


[1 Points] ChewyTheSheep:

Oh well. I'm feeling a bit sheepish now. I was one of the small minority who believed the profesorhouse ebook hack story and that sheep was just trying to get enough coins back to eat the loss, pay everyone back and continue into the long term.


[1 Points] DrDoesLitl:

What a fat ass ugly mofo


[1 Points] TheRealestNurseJoy:

Great to hear. A market that truly tried to sully our name!


[1 Points] None:

[removed]


[1 Points] SecondChanceUsername:

He'll definitely be whacked or be bubba's bitch...


[1 Points] manfuckhorse:

justice porn at it's finest....gotta love it.


[1 Points] userrr69:

If this is real l0l l0l l0l lmao LMAO!!!!!!!!!! L0L L0L L0L L0L


[-1 Points] jimmyjoej:

Im sure plenty of people will have contacts on the inside to get him... hahahs


[0 Points] koolmodee100:

Tim Osman. Thats some funny shit