The concept involved here is extraterritorial jurisdiction--the US claims the right to enforce its laws on its citizens abroad in some circumstances. The most notorious uses in the US are FATCA (basically forcing foreign banks that do business with US citizen to hand information over to the US) and the FCPA (allowing anyone with pretty much tangential relationship to the US to be sued for bribery). It's telling that the FIFA corruption scandal was brought, not by any EU courts, but by the US federal prosecutors.
In these sort of situations, the main thing that tends to apply is not the ability to get a judgement in court but the ability to get that judgement enforced. So if, say, Fiji were to make up a law and convict, say, Donald Trump under it, no one would care--Fiji would have no practical way to enforce that judgement. But the US can generally get its judgements enforced, even outside the US.
In the specific case of the financial world, the size and importance of the US financial markets gives the US unparalleled power to enforce judgements. The US could not only lock you out of dealing with USD transactions directly, they could also direct banks that do business in the US to not do business with you.
None of that unparalleled power is needed in this case. Greece and the US have an extradition treaty, the crimes alleged by the US are serious, dual criminality exists, they're not political offenses, the guy isn't facing the death penalty, and he's not even a Greek citizen. This is a by-the-book extradition.
Traditionally an extradition treaty would require the crimes to have occurred on US soil. We’re slowly figuring out how this applies to the digital age.
> Traditionally an extradition treaty would require the crimes to have occurred on US soil.
No, they wouldn't have. While each extradition treaty is to an extent sui generis—they are individually negotiated, not boilerplate—extradition under such treaties for non-digital, meatspace offer see where the accused's acts at issue are not charged to take place in the physical territory of the extraditing country are often within their scope. In particular, no territorial restriction on the location of the offense eligible for extradition appears, unless I've overlooked it, in the US-Greece extradition treaty, which long predates the digital age.
TradeHill no longer exists, but I wouldn't want to be their ex-CEO. Their culpability depends on whether or not they knew the money being laundered was dirty, and whether or not their AML and KYC were good enough.
My point was just that TradeHill, being the US entity, is the one in the US jurisdiction and that a criminal doing business with them doesn’t magically fall under US jurisdiction. I’ve no problem with BTC-e or whoever getting arrested, since they were clearly criminals, but I am concerned about US laws becoming a thing that applies to non-US citizens outside of the US (the implication in the comment I replied to being (as I read it) that BTC-e falls under US jurisdiction because they were doing business with a US company, which in my opinion is overreach)
Clearing laundered money through a US bank is more than sufficient for US jurisdiction to apply. You can choose not to like it but this is well established case law.
Case law, where? In the US? That's a circular argument, since it's exactly the validity of US law on foreign soil that's being discussed. To cite Monty Python, "if I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some
moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"
Likewise, if some random country made a bunch of case law in its own courts establishing that foreign nationals in other countries were to be punished for making heretical texts available to citizens of that country, we'd laugh at them, not say "well, the case law is well established" and extradite our citizens.
@jcranmer agreed. US financial markets (breadth/depth) / US law influence over multi-jurisdicational banking entities, ensures that US law can/will be enforced by almost all players.
Should the authorities in a particular jurisdiction fail to enforce financial crimes, indicting a bank or sanctioning an individual in that region can effectively block all counter-parties from doing business with them (as they are now doing business with a sanctioned or indicted party).
It's hard to explain in laymens terms without sounding like some kind of "Illuminati-nut" (for lack of a better term) ):
And also requires a better understanding of interbank standards and practices, money/current-markets, SWIFT, etc.
In these sort of situations, the main thing that tends to apply is not the ability to get a judgement in court but the ability to get that judgement enforced. So if, say, Fiji were to make up a law and convict, say, Donald Trump under it, no one would care--Fiji would have no practical way to enforce that judgement. But the US can generally get its judgements enforced, even outside the US.
In the specific case of the financial world, the size and importance of the US financial markets gives the US unparalleled power to enforce judgements. The US could not only lock you out of dealing with USD transactions directly, they could also direct banks that do business in the US to not do business with you.