After the Liberty Reserve action last month, some folks wondered if bitcoins would be next. It's an unanswered question for now, but using bitcoins for cash-gifting schemes and as the vessel of choice in an alleged extortion plot against a prominent American politician (more below) certainly isn't scoring any PR points.

Looks as though Merlin's (by fiat) decided to use bitcoins in its cash-gifting scheme while some of Merlin's members reserved their right to lead cheers by introducing conspiracy theories about government "fiat" currency while bizarrely seeking a way to sanitize it by pointing to the "Jews."

Naturally the Merlin's cheerleaders -- like the earlier JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid HYIP cheerleaders and cash-gifting cheerleaders -- want to put a chill in this board by planting the seed that harm will come to posters who stray from the company line.

"I would be careful if I was you, because you will pick up the tab later on down the road," one of them menaces. "The letter will be addressed to you."

To raise doubts about a cash-gifting scheme using bitcoins is described as "spreading demonic nonsense" and "pernicious nonsense" and "[vitriol.]"

Amazingly, this is happening after the jury returned guilty verdicts (February 2013) in the Connecticut cash-gifting cases after the indictment alleged that in May 2010, the defendants attempted to intimidate a participant who had questioned the legality of the gifting-table scheme. Equally amazingly, it is happening even as the Feds have announced criminal charges against a Tennessee man implicated in an alleged plot to extort money from a candidate for the Presidency of the United States while allegedly seeking to use bitcoins as the collection vessel.

A snippet from a June 26 statement issued by the U.S. Department of Justice (italics/bolding added):

According to the indictment, Brown allegedly caused a letter to be delivered in August 2012 to the offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Franklin, [Tenn.]. The letter demanded that $1 million worth of the digital currency Bitcoin be deposited to a specific Bitcoin account to prevent the release of the purportedly stolen [Mitt] Romney tax returns. The letter also invited interested parties who wanted the allegedly stolen Romney tax documents to be released to contribute $1 million to another Bitcoin account.

Source:

USDOJ: Tennessee Man Indicted for Romney Tax Return Fraud and Extortion Scheme

One could conclude from these circumstances that cash-gifters and extortionists see bitcoins as a useful utility and as a means to criminal ends.

Of course, every good cash-gifting scam needs a good storyline. Merlin's points to its purported "complex mathematical models" rather like Frederick Mann did to sanitize JSS/JBP and Trevor Cook did to sanitize his epic Ponzi scheme in Minnesota that gathered $194 million in part by duping people into believing his "returns" were possible because the scheme was able to borrow trading money under "Shariah law" and didn't have to pay interest to the bankers.

So, now we have bitcoins purportedly used in an international cash-gifting scheme that apparently still is operating even after the Liberty Reserve prosecution was announced last month and even after the verdicts in the Connecticut cases -- and we have allegations in Tennessee that a man thought he could extort cash from the Republican Presidential nominee via bitcoins.

PPBlog

P.S. Wanna talk the real meaning of "pernicious?" This is a quote from one of the cash-gifting cheerleaders in Connecticut: "It’s sort of a joke that I refer to our freezer as the ATM.”

But it gets even worse in the pernicious cash-gifting world . . .

Not even members battling to stay sober in Alcoholics Anonymous were off-limits to the Connecticut gifters, according to the New Haven Register:

Gifting table testimony cites severed rabbit head, questions about link to slain Madison woman- The New Haven Register - Serving New Haven, Connecticut

From the lede of the story (italics added):

A Women’s Gifting Table member testified Wednesday that she found a severed rabbit head on her lawn while tables were under investigation, and believes it was left by someone associated with a murdered participant.