IS SEALS WITH CLUBS DONKDOWN??? (Update: Micon charged with a felony in Nevada)

[NaturalBornHustler]

Can somebody please tell me why Antigua of all places? Wouldn't he be better off with an anti US government. Send him back to Russia.

When this first happened I googled "Antigua gambling poker" and there are tons of articles about Antigua fighting with US over laws and what not. Obvious choice, they won't cooperate with the states in these matters.

[BetCheckBet]

Druff, did you cum in your pants today? Please answer honestly.

TIA

Micon probably came in his pants. Lets be honest. He's always wanted to be Kim Dotcom. I imagine he will make sure to tell his story loud and clear across as many internet podcasts as he can.

[FRANKRIZZO]

Micon in the same league as Dread Pirate now so gangster.

[garrett]

banks didn't want me, e trade turned me down, couldnt get an account at Wells Fargo.

So I bought bitcoin. played poker for bitcoin

[Shizzmoney]

So if Micon lived in any other of the 49 states and ran SWC he probably wouldn't have had a problem

Well, prob states that either a) didn't have a serious gaming commission (who are paid to protect the interests of their owners: the casinos) or b) were religiously/morally fanatical about gambling (like in the South).

Honestly, Oregon would probably of been the place to setup shop the best.

[sonatine]

banks didn't want me, e trade turned me down, couldnt get an account at Wells Fargo.

So I bought bitcoin. played poker for bitcoin

huh!

[garrett]

Some of this forums less active posters would be making this place a MUCH better place. And therefore DanDruff. You got these pieces of shit like "skatz" (sonatine/handicapme) whoever else running the conversation, purrposely.

Druff has alot of useful knowledge. I am not sure its able to be all heard yet. Still too many trolls.

[BeerAndPoker]

Nevada Gaming is serious business.

That is direct and to the point.

Gambling is what Nevada thrives and they aren't going to let even a small timer like Micon who thinks he's getting around the laws on technicalities make a living being heavily involved in running a poker site especially with the launch of Nevada poker where the state of course gets it's share of the wealth (or lack thereof atm).

I actually saw this coming to some extent just not in the manner of force with several men knocking down his door at gun point. Usually those type of tactics aren't done that much anymore unless the person has a history or is being completely uncooperative although they may not want to give him the heads up otherwise he will just leave the state.

Micon might broadcast to everyone how he loves the bitcoin world, hates the typical political ways of the USA,etc. but if they came at him civilly he would likely have been cooperative.

For his personal sake hopefully he has backups of all his important bitcoin stuff somewhere which I'm sure he probably does.

As for his family even as much as his wife loves him you still have to wonder if she has any regrets of the new world she will have to live the rest of her life.

[YUUP]

Druff, can you give some cliffs on what powers Nevada gaming has for the idiots(me) please tx

[sonatine]

Remember that Gaming could have simply orchestrated a DOJ raid and run point on it. Home invasion breaches are kind of a specialized thing, I'd expect that either LVPD SWAT or DOJ or even FBI were the pointy end of that stick, regardless of what department's signature was on the paperwork or what was on their flak vests.

[4Dragons]

Amazingly, no one thought of this in relation to Seals, but looking back it's so fucking obvious.

I have worked with the MGCB and can tell you that I saw this play coming years ago. Even when it hadn't been said, I knew what had happened to Micon to make him wake up in Antigua. Not looking for a cookie, but odd that this didn't register with you.

[4Dragons]

Remember that Gaming could have simply orchestrated a DOJ raid and run point on it. Home invasion breaches are kind of a specialized thing, I'd expect that either LVPD SWAT or DOJ or even FBI were the pointy end of that stick, regardless of what department's signature was on the paperwork or what was on their flak vests.

Guaranteed it was 2 Agents from Gaming and a 12 man SWAT team from the State of Nevada.

[sonatine]

Remember that Gaming could have simply orchestrated a DOJ raid and run point on it. Home invasion breaches are kind of a specialized thing, I'd expect that either LVPD SWAT or DOJ or even FBI were the pointy end of that stick, regardless of what department's signature was on the paperwork or what was on their flak vests.

Guaranteed it was 2 Agents from Gaming and a 12 man SWAT team from the State of Nevada.

This sounds super right to me.


There are agencies that source all this in-house over there (looking at you Department of Energy lab on the outskirts of Vegas), but those guys are usually dealing with classified data. Hence the mat olive pickup trucks with 50 cal machine guns mounted in the rear.

[Dan Druff]

Honestly I never saw this coming. I should have, but I didn't.

Not the fact that law enforcement got involved. That's not at all surprising. It's the fact that it was Nevada Gaming, rather than the DOJ.

I kept thinking DOJ, like we all did, because they're the ones who busted all of the other poker sites.

But there wasn't enough money in this operation to make it worth the DOJ's time.

I totally didn't think about Nevada Gaming. No one did. But it's so obvious and so amazing that no one didn't, as Nevada Gaming is REALLY sensitive to any kind of unlicensed gambling in the state.

They busted those coin-flipping scammers in the Bellagio hotel rooms (the ones Iceman worked for).

They busted that World Cup betting ring at Caesars.

Basically if you're running any kind of gambling operation that Nevada Gaming hasn't licensed, they will come for you.

Amazingly, no one thought of this in relation to Seals, but looking back it's so fucking obvious.

So Micon really can't ever come back or will be looking to do a stretch? It costs 250k per person for a citizenship in Antigua or 400k buying property(real estate investment) he should go with the latter option. Just wow. Why did they take so long to spring into action maybe because site was growing possibly into main stream? If people joined his new site could they be in jeopardy as well?

It looks like there's a high chance that the search warrant was for purposes of gathering evidence to charge him with something that will stick.

As has already been pointed out, they aren't going to search your house at 8am and take your electronics unless the ultimate goal involves criminal charges.

So if he returns to the US, not only does he risk having to face the music for what already occurred prior to February 11, but he will really be in hot water for continuing to run the site after leaving the country.

It seems that he had a choice between ceasing running Seals and facing the legal music for what he already did, or leaving the country for good, avoiding potential prison time, and continuing to run Seals. Looks like he chose the latter.

FYI I do believe his story that he was already planning to move soon, but this forced a snap decision with much more dire consequences.

[Dan Druff]

BTW the search warrants with guns drawn is a lot more common than you might think. This dates back many years.

In the 1980s, a hacker friend of mine got busted. He was a minor, but that didn't stop local police from surrounding his house with guns drawn, handcuffing him, and taking all of his shit.

This was someone with zero criminal history, like most teenage hackers at the time.

He also hadn't done anything that serious, and in fact charges were ultimately dropped (and not because of any technicality).

In 1993, Heidi Fleiss was arrested for her prostitution ring. While this situation was more serious and much more high profile than the teenage hacker I knew, they also surrounded her home with guns and overdid the whole thing.

Police will defend these tactics of simply exercising caution that the suspect won't attack them during the search, but the funny thing is that you won't have nearly the same number of armed officers involved if you call 911 and report an actual violent crime occurring.

So, in short, 10 cops showing up with guns during the search is overkill, but fairly standard operating procedure.

[Dan Druff]

Amazingly, no one thought of this in relation to Seals, but looking back it's so fucking obvious.

I have worked with the MGCB and can tell you that I saw this play coming years ago. Even when it hadn't been said, I knew what had happened to Micon to make him wake up in Antigua. Not looking for a cookie, but odd that this didn't register with you.

I honestly feel stupid that it didn't register with me.

It's one those things where a distraction from something similar can make you overlook the obvious.

Everyone in online poker is so focused on the DOJ that they ignore law enforcement threats from other organizations, myself included.

So you do get a cookie for seeing the Nevada Gaming thing while everyone else overlooked it.

[Reno]

BTW the search warrants with guns drawn is a lot more common than you might think. This dates back many years.

In the 1980s, a hacker friend of mine got busted. He was a minor, but that didn't stop local police from surrounding his house with guns drawn, handcuffing him, and taking all of his shit.

This was someone with zero criminal history, like most teenage hackers at the time.

He also hadn't done anything that serious, and in fact charges were ultimately dropped (and not because of any technicality).

In 1993, Heidi Fleiss was arrested for her prostitution ring. While this situation was more serious and much more high profile than the teenage hacker I knew, they also surrounded her home with guns and overdid the whole thing.

Police will defend these tactics of simply exercising caution that the suspect won't attack them during the search, but the funny thing is that you won't have nearly the same number of armed officers involved if you call 911 and report an actual violent crime occurring.

So, in short, 10 cops showing up with guns during the search is overkill, but fairly standard operating procedure.

[cmoney]

BTW the search warrants with guns drawn is a lot more common than you might think. This dates back many years.

In the 1980s, a hacker friend of mine got busted. He was a minor, but that didn't stop local police from surrounding his house with guns drawn, handcuffing him, and taking all of his shit.

This was someone with zero criminal history, like most teenage hackers at the time.

He also hadn't done anything that serious, and in fact charges were ultimately dropped (and not because of any technicality).

In 1993, Heidi Fleiss was arrested for her prostitution ring. While this situation was more serious and much more high profile than the teenage hacker I knew, they also surrounded her home with guns and overdid the whole thing.

Police will defend these tactics of simply exercising caution that the suspect won't attack them during the search, but the funny thing is that you won't have nearly the same number of armed officers involved if you call 911 and report an actual violent crime occurring.

So, in short, 10 cops showing up with guns during the search is overkill, but fairly standard operating procedure.

In these white collar cases, they do it not so much because they think they are a danger, but because they want to make sure the target doesn't delete anything, or in the cases when the IRS does it , they want to make sure you dont have time to sell or conceal assets. If they gave the target a phone call beforehand, how many computers and hard drives would then be immediately destroyed ? a lot.

So while it is completely unnecessarily from a firepower prospective, i get why they do it .

[Dan Druff]

Nevada Gaming is serious business.

That is direct and to the point.

Gambling is what Nevada thrives and they aren't going to let even a small timer like Micon who thinks he's getting around the laws on technicalities make a living being heavily involved in running a poker site especially with the launch of Nevada poker where the state of course gets it's share of the wealth (or lack thereof atm).

I actually saw this coming to some extent just not in the manner of force with several men knocking down his door at gun point. Usually those type of tactics aren't done that much anymore unless the person has a history or is being completely uncooperative although they may not want to give him the heads up otherwise he will just leave the state.

Micon might broadcast to everyone how he loves the bitcoin world, hates the typical political ways of the USA,etc. but if they came at him civilly he would likely have been cooperative.

For his personal sake hopefully he has backups of all his important bitcoin stuff somewhere which I'm sure he probably does.

As for his family even as much as his wife loves him you still have to wonder if she has any regrets of the new world she will have to live the rest of her life.

He said in the video that they mentioned how they've been reading his social media.

While he didn't say it directly, I think he meant that they told him that they read his anti-government rhetoric, and I'm guessing they used that as justification as to why they brought such force to the search.

That might have actually been a factor -- at least from the red tape standpoint as far as requesting the resources from the departments involved -- but as I said, this is common for search warrants being served. It's not like on TV where a single officer shows up, hands them a paper at the door, and they search the place while the resident stands around with his hands in his pockets.

[YUUP]

Druff, can you give some cliffs on what powers Nevada gaming has for the idiots(me) please tx

A triple post and nothing for the Europeans? Help us out here Druff