E-Gold Tarnished by Feds

Brian Doherty | April 30, 2007

The Justice Department indicts some e-gold (an electronically transferable currency backed by gold) officials and freezes some accounts for "money laundering and illegal money transmitting." Report from the DGC blog.

Report from Wired News.

The DOJ press release.

What is e-gold, anyway?

Comments

highnumber|4.30.07 @ 8:27PM|#

Practically speaking, what is e-gold? Does anyone have real-life experience with it?

|4.30.07 @ 8:51PM|#

Google stock?

The Wonkenator|4.30.07 @ 8:55PM|#

What in the ??? I am very intrigued . . . must have been a great idea if the present Alberto Gonzalez led DOJ saw fit to shut it down . . . and there will be more to come on the Gonzo hijinks on my blog, http://wonkenator.wordpress.com/ ...
In any case, I have never heard of this . . . must be Google stock BBS.

Stephanie Sailor|4.30.07 @ 9:02PM|#

In a nutshell, e-gold is -- er, *was* -- an alternative currency. Instead of backing one's wealth in hyper-inflated government-controlled dollars, people could opt to convert their money into gold, an incredibly sound form of currency. Transactions could be made electronically, via interweb. There are a myriad of reasons why one would want to use alternative currencies (a.k.a. "free market money")... but the prevailing benefits are monetary stability and preservation of privacy.

|4.30.07 @ 9:43PM|#

Regarding allegations that "the defendants conducted funds transfers on behalf of their customers, knowing that the funds involved were the proceeds of unlawful activity; namely child exploitation," well, the world should know that e-gold is a charter member of the Financial Coalition to Eradicate Child Pornography.

|4.30.07 @ 10:03PM|#

Stephanie,

Yeah, child porn is always the excuse, because using it in some way makes otherwise unjustifiable measures justifiable. We all know what was really going on, though - tax evasion.

thoreau|4.30.07 @ 10:21PM|#

How is this any different from the commodities market for gold? Couldn't people trade shares of gold for goods and services?

String Beans to Utah|4.30.07 @ 10:22PM|#

e-gold® Founder Denies Criminal Charges

|4.30.07 @ 10:24PM|#

So this little company has been squashed like a bug. I guess the feds prefer a world where only a few large companies are in the money business. It's more convienient.

|4.30.07 @ 10:56PM|#

I guess fiat currency is never used for child porn, unauthorized wars, or any other illegal activity.

IDL

|4.30.07 @ 11:07PM|#

Illegal money transmitting

We better be talking about the transmission of money related to crimes which involve theft and/or fraud, and not violations of capricious government regulations.

Yeah, I know that the unfair and counter productive drug prohibition laws probably incorporate proscriptions against the transfer of money.

|4.30.07 @ 11:07PM|#

Yeah, e-Gold was actually a major pain in the ass to sign up for, what with their risk of fraud and forms filled out in triplicate. I finally ended up paying folks the extra dough to do Moneygrams...

Things that could only be done for me in Hanoi, though.

|4.30.07 @ 11:11PM|#

Dumbass should have headquartered it in a friendly oil shiekdom like I told him, but noooooo...

Ben|5.1.07 @ 3:25AM|#

If the DoJ doesn't want you to use promisory notes then you won't use promisory notes. It's their world, you just live in it.

Monsters|5.1.07 @ 7:13AM|#

'Many facts are still unclear and everyone who reads this should remember that persons indicted are innocent until proven otherwise. So any mischief discussed here
is only alleged to have occurred. Also understand that a grand jury is a tool of the prosecution. Grand jury indictments are not the final word they are the first word.'

These are words which should appear at the bottom of EVERY tv screen when people are watching CNN or the evening news.

|5.1.07 @ 7:49AM|#

persons indicted are innocent until proven otherwise

I don't know about that. A lot of things changed after 9/11...and I think this was one of the hardest hit items. Now, people are generally treated as criminals before they can be proven innocent.

|5.1.07 @ 8:14AM|#

I'n not sure it's been covered by Hit & Run, but the Mint is after Liberty Dollar for the past few months (scroll down):

http://www.usmint.gov/consumer/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=HotItems


Whatever your opinion of ALD and e-gold, looks like we're stuck with a currency that gets more worthless by the day, and (apparently) no way out.

Jennifer|5.1.07 @ 8:44AM|#

Slightly off-topic: I found a pre-1964 silver dime in my change purse yesterday. A quickie Google search indicates there are roughly 12 dimes to an ounce, and silver's going for about 14 dollars an ounce today, which means that little coin worth only 10 cents in 1962 is worth well over a dollar today in silver alone.

There's inflation for you.

|5.1.07 @ 8:54AM|#

A quickie Google search indicates there are roughly 12 dimes to an ounce

12 dimes to an ounce of what? Weed, crack? I'm confused ;)

Jennifer|5.1.07 @ 9:13AM|#

Jimmy, I'm guessing you'd find the same rates of inflation for marijuana too. Of course, today's high-tech marijuana is supposed to be more potent than the old hippie shit, so maybe the inflation-adjusted price for THC has actually gone down, the way home-computing power has.

In the old days, you needed a computer the size of a bedroom to get astronauts to the moon. Now, with pot as with computers, you can get as high as the moon for much, much less.

|5.1.07 @ 9:27AM|#

Bravo Jennifer! The caffeine just wan't cutting it this a.m. Your wonderful metaphor bolted me upright. And I don't even care that someone will point out that it's something other than a metaphor and I'm an ignorant fool.

|5.1.07 @ 10:08AM|#

Slightly off-topic: I found a pre-1964 silver dime in my change purse yesterday. A quickie Google search indicates there are roughly 12 dimes to an ounce, and silver's going for about 14 dollars an ounce today, which means that little coin worth only 10 cents in 1962 is worth well over a dollar today in silver alone.

Perhaps you are too young to remember when the Hunt brothers drove the price of silver up and businesses were accepting silver coins at 20 times face value for purchases.

|5.1.07 @ 10:16AM|#

"...persons indicted are innocent until proven otherwise"

I prefer to believe an indicted person as innocent UNLESS proven guilty. The usual way you hear this makes one believe there is an expectation of a finding of guilt.

I like what these guys were trying to do for their clients, being very cutting edge, better than ENRON which just ripped people off. I don't see anything wrong with what these guys did and I'm rooting for them.

|5.2.07 @ 1:40AM|#

WLC | May 1, 2007, 8:14am | #
# I'm not sure it's been covered by
# Hit & Run, but the Mint is after
# Liberty Dollar for the past few months
# (scroll down):

# http://www.usmint.gov/consumer/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=HotItems

Apparently there is around a month to go before the government must respond to the Liberty Dollar suit, laying out the basis for its and the DOJ's alleged "finding" that use of the ALD is a federal crime. So far, the government has not been forthcoming about why it declared such prejudicial things. I'm curious to see what the government has to say.