Hacker News Reader

Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

> Coelho landed on the radar of U.S. authorities in June 2018, when he tried to enter the United States at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. The government obtained a warrant to search the electronic devices Coelho had in his luggage and found text messages, files and emails showing he was the RaidForums administrator Omnipotent

I called complete, total and utter bullshit. That's a parallel construction if I ever saw one. Very few people get their devices searched (I know maybe one in 100) and, oh-the-coincidence, this guy happens to be that "Omnipotent" admin of a cybercrime forum?

Yeah. I've got a bridge to sell you too.

View on HN

I think you may have just read the timeline of events incorrectly as what was said makes perfect sense?

This was a multi-country investigation. The USA were likely already aware of Coelho so when he entered the US, he was then arrested by US authorities upon landing. It doesn't say his devices were searched there and then. It said a warrant was obtained to search his device, so they would needed to have a valid reason to apply for that warrant.

You seem to be reading it as if they had no idea who he was and they randomly searched someone's electronic devices and just happened to be this guy. That's not what they're saying happened?

I guess "landed on the radar" could be interpreted as the first time you get noticed by law enforcement.

> Very few people get their devices searched (I know maybe one in 100) and, oh-the-coincidence, this guy happens to be that "Omnipotent" admin of a cybercrime forum?

That’s not what the text really suggests. It very clearly states:

> The government obtained a warrant

Which obviously means that he wasn’t randomly searched at the border, but the government knew who he was.

It’s not parallel construction, just poor wording by Krebs.

speaking of parallel construction, did you hear about the mass shooter on the brooklyn subway today? they said they ID'd him because he left his credit card at the scene.

Did they? I'd only heard they were considering the card name a person of interest, which would make sense if they'd either accounted for everyone else at the scene but the name on the card, or are looking for witnesses who might have more info.

Edit: Breaking news is that the card is indeed believed to be from the attacker. Aside from photos on social media, the suspect also left behind a bag of other weapons and a key to a U-Haul van. I'm guessing the card may have been in said bag. I'm not really sure there is much to suspect parallel construction here.

That seems believable. You buy something with your credit card, but it into a pocket because you are distracted and it falls out.

Unless they meant he left it as a calling card, which I don't think they did, I don't see why that is suspicious, just another example of not having to make a single mistake.

Dude is not all there https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtl9pjnppooRbj_YssCKxsA/vid...

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21583486-220317-raid...

The middleman service used his personal, verified, Coinbase account. The raidforums domains were his customer service website and contact emails for Coinbase, Kraken, and PayPal. His personal gmail used recovery@raidforums.

I mean, yes, obviously. They don't just get a search warrant for no reason.

There is a chance of that.

e: yeah, that makes sense I guess

But that's the whole beauty of parallel construction: you don't know if they found that out before or after...

I bet he thought the exact same thing ;0)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com