Why do we extradite? Because no other country does justice as well as America. 🇺🇸

Yes, we may have the second-largest number of prisoners in the world after China, but China simply doesn’t have our yee-haw attitude.

Interpol catches an international criminal and they’re going to, what? Send him to a Swedish prison with a memory foam mattresses?

No way. Nu-uh. You send him to an American prison, one that’s scary and overcrowded.

And now, the American penal system has its hungry eyes on Do-Kwon, the international fugitive and the man behind the Terra collapse.

But the question is… are we gonna get him?

Espresso Shots

☕️ Bitcoin Breaks $42,000 🚀 🤯 

Bitcoin shot up 6% in the last 24 hours and blew through the $42,000, though it’s currently sitting around $41,779 at the time of writing.

This latest price hike puts Bitcoin firmly in the May 2022, pre-Terra range.

It feels like we’ve been writing this same story for about a week straight. But hey, we’re not complaining. Keep those gains coming!

“It looks like there will be a Christmas this year,” said one tear-streaked, local father, who converted his family’s entire finances into Bitcoin.

☕️ El Salvador’s Winning Bet ♥️ ♠️

Speaking of going all in on Bitcoin, it seems the strategy is truly paying off for El Salvador.

El Salvador drew international attention in September 2021 as the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Additionally, El Salvador began making significant purchases of BTC.

Though El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings may be small, around $131 million, compared to some of the largest Bitcoin whales, President Nayib Bukele took to X to brag that the country’s investment had already paid off.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin investment is currently up $3.6 million with Bitcoin’s recent rally, but if the nation truly wants to go fully crypto degen, they should go double or nothing.

☕️ Hacker Mentor Arrested 🚨 💻

Alejandro Cao de Benós, a Spanish man, was arrested on Friday for teaching North Korea how to evade U.S. sanctions using cryptocurrency.

Cao de Benós was apprehended at a train station in Madrid after Interpol alerted Spanish authorities that he had returned to his home country.

Cao de Benós stands accused of working with a U.S. citizen to provide a series of educational crypto conferences in North Korea, in violation of existing sanctions, teaching the populace how to skirt America’s digital enforcement and potentially fund nuclear programs or other malicious actions.

That U.S. citizen is Virgil Griffiths, who has already been sentenced to 63 months in jail and a $100,000 fine for his involvement.

Cao de Benós insists that there is not a “shred of evidence” that he worked with Griffiths, according to a statement released on X. Though in general we feel like innocent people say, “I’m innocent,” instead of “You can’t prove it.”

We just still can’t get over that they taught all of North Korea. That must have been a huge chalkboard.

Spilling the Beans

Extradictory Affairs 🛫 🚨

When the actions of international criminals affect the lives of good, honest, hardworking Americans, naturally, America wants to be the one to punish them.

But extradition isn’t just something that happens to anybody, no, your crime has to be particularly heinous and interesting for America to take the time to deal with all that tricky international politics.

The extradition of Mexican crime lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was one of the most recent and most notable successful extraditions.

Honorable mentions, of course, go to the failed extradition of director Roman Polanski for being… gross. And the Israeli extradition of Adolf Eichmann, who was living under an assumed name in Brazil and whose trial was the basis for the internationally famous book on the Nuremberg trials.

And extradition has always been a talking point in every piece of media where our hero has committed a necessary but calamitous murder. They’ll discuss fleeing with their accomplice or romantic partner to “some South American country with no extradition.”

Ironically, most of South America complies with American extradition. Our heroes would be better off starting new lives in China, Russia, or one of the countless Asian or African nations that don’t have extradition treaties with the U.S.

Now, the reason that we bring up this tricky little piece of law enforcement is that a new candidate for extradition is on everyone’s minds, Do-Kwon, the man behind the collapse of Terra labs and LUNA coin.

Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX have occupied the forefront of American media attention when it comes to crypto criminals, but FTX was just a drop in the bucket compared to Terra.

The damages from FTX amounted to around $9 billion. The failure of Terra and LUNA evaporated $20.5 billion from personal wallets and caused an additional $33 billion in damages when Terra contagion caused Celsius and Three Arrows Capital to collapse.

Do-Kwon as well as several other high-level executives, made impossible promises about the high yield of LUNA stablecoin, promises that eventually culminated in a depegging and death spiral to worthlessness.

While some of the Terra execs accepted their fate, Do-Kwon became an international fugitive while continuously insisting online that he was “not on the run.”

Do-Kwon was finally caught in an airport in Montenegro using fake documents, but now the question remains; what is Montenegro going to do with him?

Both Do-Kwon’s native South Korea and the United States have requested extradition so that Do-Kwon can face trial.

One might think it would be a question of where Do-Kwon caused the greater hurt, or which country has a more comprehensive case against him, but ultimately it will be up for the Montenegrin high court to decide which countries get to exact justice against Do-Kwon, and in what order.

The United States has a multi-billion dollar fraud case against Do-Kwon, but the Montenegrin High Court had initially agreed to an abbreviated extradition procedure to get Do-Kwon to South Korea, but that decision may be bogged down by international bureaucracy. 

For now, much like Do-Kwon, we’ll have to wait. The one thing that Montenegrin authorities have made clear is that Do-Kown will have to finish out his four-month, local sentence for illegally forging documents.

Now, we hope you’ve enjoyed our piece on extradition because we’re willing to bet we’ve paid a price.

All of this research into American extradition treaties and the countries in which you can or can’t hide from the law has almost certainly put the writing staff of Coffee & Crypto on some sort of watchlist.

Crypto 101

Shitcoins: This is a pejorative term for memecoins that have no real value or express purpose.

Generally, shitcoins quickly devalue into worthlessness. But by capitalizing on hype, they can experience brief flurries of liquidity and trading activity.

Two recent examples of briefly “successful” shitcoins would be the MUNGER token inspired by Charles Munger’s death or the GFY token coined after Elon Musk’s outburst.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: As exciting and complicated as extradition is, we think America should start practicing reverse extradition. Think Australia around the 18th century.

We send our most dangerous and hardened criminals to a private island where they’re deprived of food and pitted against each other in reward and immunity challenges. And it’s hosted by Jeff Probst. Well, I guess we’re just describing Survivor. Which, while we’re on the topic, really should have just been called the Hunger Games.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

That's all for today! If this email got you hooked on our unhinged crypto takes, be sure to get a full dose on Twitter @GetCoffeeCrypto.

If you find yourself smiling at any of our dumb jokes, or even *learning* something - make sure to share this newsletter with your friends!

If you get 5 friends to sign up - or even enemies, we don't care - we'll send you our Bitcoin Bootcamp Ebook! This thing is packed with info and is the ultimate guide to the world’s ultimate currency.

Just hit the Click to Share button in the section below to get started!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.