Scammer tag : Nefario, theymos, others known and unknown

The Global Scam Exchange (aka GLBSE) was for a time trying to sell itself as "the Bitcoin Stock Exchange", in spite of glaring flaws and general incompetence. The situation came to a head recently, and the fallout is quite amusing to watch.

James McCarthyⁱ, CEO and minority shareholder of Bitcoin Globalⁱⁱ scrounged together a couple hundred Fiatcoins and retained an incorporation lawyer of the cheapest sort that could be found. As a result of this brave move, Jamieboy found out for the first time in his life that indeed Bitcoins don't have a clear legal status. Whodda thunk it ?!

Shocked and appaled at this sudden realisation, he proceeded to randomly delist "assets", without explanation and without a practical way for the ex-shareholders to somehow recoup their interest. Few days later the scamsite was taken offline, all the slow loading, mostly fake content replaced with a note that once theymosⁱⁱⁱ returns 800 of the ~8k btc scammed so far repayment of Bitcoin balances held by the naive customers can "begin".

That other scammer must have either coughed up his share of the loot or otherwise done something, seeing as how even without any payments whatsoever beginning, nevertheless the text displayed was updated to announce that "everything is ok" (obviously) and that "payments will begin later today". A convenient term, seeing how the tomorrow of that original today just came to its timely end an hour or so ago.

As instructed, my representative put in requests for tagging these people appropriately : first Nefario, on October the 1st, then theymos and other confederates on October the 8th. Amusingly enough, the first request was granted^iv. In eager expectation of theymos getting kicked out the back door, here's a repost^v :

On September 24th theymos falsely announced that he was selling a package of 23% of Bitcoin Global stock. At the time the company was solvent and operational. Asking price was ~5k BTC for the entire block, with the caveat new shareholders would have to be approved by current shareholders. Also on September the 24th theymos declared in support of this sale that the SEC is not investigating GLBSE and further that he personally thinks the SEC emails are fake (they are not, have been in fact verified by multiple trusted members of the community, including by calling the signatory at his phone number as published on the SEC website).

On September 25th Nefario, at that time CEO of Bitcoin Global delisted without warning and without explanation about 1/3 of the GLBSE listed stocks, by historical volume. When questioned, theymos declared that he had no previous knowledge of this action carried out by the CEO of a company he was representing himself as 1/4 owner.

On October 5th theymos himself admitted to having lied in his previous representations, in that the block of shares he was selling were not entirely his, but he was acting as representative/broker for a number of other parties, among which was bitcoin.me and others. Also on this occasion he disclosed his previously undisclosed position as board member of the company. Also on this occasion he disclosed that apparently the actions of the CEO did have the Bitcoin Global board's majority support.

Barely a week after his original offer, the company he was purporting to sell shares into is in default (as in, not repaying customer BTC held) and may or may not be reogranizing (no actual plan was announced, operations suspended for days).

This paints an ugly enough picture as it is. In any event theymos no longer holds the claim to personal integrity required for being the administrator of this forum, or a principal in any other respectable bitcoin venture. A scammer tag may be warranted even if nobody took his bait and so luckily no bitcoin was actually lost: the offer was made in bad faith in any event.

Is the rat's nest finally coming unhinged ? Whodda thunk it...

1. aka Nefario, of "I spent a day flying from China to the US with no money on me, spent six hours in immigration detention in the US, was sent back and then spent another day in Chinese detention over why didn't the US let me in" fame. [↩]
2. A handy equivalent of Bitcoin Consultancy, in the sense that upon scrutiny this will likely result in yet another company that "in spite of the best efforts of the partners doesn't actually legally exist". [↩]
3. One Michael Marquardt. [↩]
4. Even if that crook theymos actually made a new thread to request the same thing in, imagining perhaps that this changes anything - a practice entertained lots around there btw, here's the mysterious Dave of 28 latrobe Rd, Morwell, Australia. doing the exact same thing. [↩]
5. Mostly because they're deleting topics around there, such as for instance this quote by BurtW of a reply to something that was said in response to something else - all cleanly gone by now. Shame, shame. [↩]