At the start I wish to declare the following: All fraud is bad. It is a dishonest appropriation of someone else's resources by manipulative person/agents.
On Face the Nation Treasury Chief Scott Bessent noted that IRS enforcement had caught fraudsters in Minnesota.
"These are money via bureau services and they are wire transfer organizations outside the regular banking system."
That sounds like fintech and its twisted sister, crypto. TechGods have long wanted their own system of money outside government inspection. To my surprise they were willing to work with serial child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in that endeavor.
Byline Times reported:
The Edge Foundation was not just a talk-shop. For Jeffrey Epstein, it was a route to influence the direction of Silicon Valley, AI, Big Tech and cryptocurrency at their most pivotal period. One of the most crucial moments of impact was on Bitcoin, the world’s most recognised, valuable and widely used cryptocurrency.
At the very moment Bitcoin’s future was in jeopardy, Epstein’s money and access placed him inside the institutions that were beginning to frame the cryptocurrency as a tool to route around nation states – and consolidate power among a new class of networked tech elites.
Back to all fraud is bad and Bessent's IRS enforcement. The Big Beautiful Bill impacts that very thing:
....IRS units auditing the wealthy have faced huge cuts. As of March, the Pass-Through Entities office of the IRS had lost 27% of its staff, while the Global High Wealth unit had lost 38%. These staff reductions bode poorly for tax enforcement: When the IRS was crunched for resources in the 2010s, there was a 71% drop in audits of millionaires.
.Bessent made it clear that fraud by recent immigrants is not acceptable and it will be investigated:
"When you come to this country you need to learn what side of the road to drive on,you've got to learn to stop at stop signs and you've got to learn not to defraud the American people."
Trump appears interested in catching or killing only small time persons in the drug trade as he recently pardoned convicted drug smuggler former President of Honduras Juan Hernandez. One does not get convicted in the U.S. without evidence. The Guardian reported:
Thanks to Trump’s shocking pardon, Hernández’s drug crimes are now more well known than ever. But the rest of his repressive, thieving, dictatorial history, backed by the United States year after year, has evaporated from the story.
Trump II must feel the same way about fraud as he does about drugs. Let's catch the little guy and make him pay while the President pardoned fraudster after fraudster in the finance world.
"Fintech appropriates depositor money based on lies." That's Synapse Financial Technologies, an Andreessen Horowitz affiliate. We will see who gets prosecuted first, Synapse or Somalis.
Trump II protected Jeffrey Epstein as he worked on the currency of criminals. He pardoned the Honduran President after he had stolen government money and facilitated the movement of 400 tons of illegal drugs into the United States. That fit with Trump II's earlier pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.
Silk Road, which was shut down in 2013 after police arrested Ulbricht, sold illegal drugs using Bitcoin, as well as hacking equipment and stolen passports.Ross Ulbricht was a dark marketplace TechGod. Jeffrey Epstein ran in the same circles as major TechGods:
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who sat on MIT Media Lab’s advisory council, invited Ito and Epstein to an August 2015 dinner in Palo Alto with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel – the PayPal co-founder and driving force behind Palantir.
The Honduran President worked directly with TechGods to establish Propsera:
Próspera is a special economic zone, specifically a “Zone for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDE),” as established by the Honduran government in 2013. The legality of these zones was originally enshrined in the Honduran Constitution by former President Juan Orlando Hernandez to attract investment and for economic development. In 2017, Honduras Próspera Inc., a U.S. based company, signed an agreement with the Honduran government, taking control of the zone. Its identity as a semi-autonomous zone is unique; the Honduran government has little control over it, Honduran law does not apply there, and the zone does not pay taxes. For example, labor laws and regulations are different, as well as the court system, which is not headed by Honduran judges. The zone is effectively governed by the corporation.
Libertarian-leaning tech billionaires such as Peter Thiel and Marc Andressen have invested in Próspera’s development.
And that corporation is owned by a PEU, NeWay Capital. It's founder spoke at the Federalist Society.
Trump II effectively made the U.S. a fraud non-prosecution zone for the wealthy. My wise friend wrote after Trump pardoned David Gentile, a private equity underwriter (PEU) who ran a Ponzi scheme:
By pardoning Gentile, the Trump administration made it a moot point to go after people skimming off others assets for personal gain and enrichment. If you're a prosecutor, even if you prove wrongdoing, what's the point?
Instead of raising the bar on white collar crime we will remove the bar altogether. Therefore party on and no need to fear. Hopefully lack of trust grinds the market to a halt.
I'm sure the full force of the law will come down on Somali immigrants.
Politics is an insufficient way to explain our world, given its ever shifting sands, serial mistruths and mind numbing double standards.
Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren. Increasingly, more are one. And their sons shall be far richer than their fathers.
