Hey Steemit friends, Retrac the 16 year old investor here.
Today I have quite a hectic story about how bitcoin played a major role in getting me arrested at 16 years old.
During the month of June I decided I wanted to sell some alt coins. I used Poloniex to exchange everything into bitcoin and started searching for someone to buy my bitcoin. I normally would go to LocalBitcoins but E-transfers on my bank account had been frozen due to the large transfers I had been receiving (from bitcoin). The problem with the bank has since been resolved, they wanted to make sure I wasn't laundering money.
I found someone online who said he lived near me and wanted to buy my bitcoin and that we was willing to overpay using US cash.
Red flag
If it's too good to be true then it normally is, this was too good to be true.
He was willing to overpay about $50.
The silly inner teenager in my decided it was still a good idea to meet with this guy at 10PM in a grocery store parking lot. We made the exchange and I thought everything went relatively smoothly.
A few days went buy and I had used some of the money at a few stores (yes, you can use US cash in Canada at most stores). I decided to buy a birthday gift from staples for my dad. I went to the cash and handed some of the bills over when the store manager told me they were FAKE. He then called 911.
I could've left the store at that moment but I decided not to because I truly believed I did nothing wrong and that everything would be ok. I thought wrong.
Once the police arrived they talked to the store manager while I stood there awkwardly. Believe it or not, even the cops thought that the bills were real! I saw them google pictures of fake bills to try and see what was wrong with them. I later found out that it was one of the cops first day on the job, lucky me.
Once they decided the bills were indeed fake (even though apparently one of the bills was real), I was told my rights, handcuffed and thrown into the back of the police car. I was driven to a police station where I was questioned by the rookie cop. Unfortunately he actually told me my rights AFTER I wrote my official statement about what happened...
So as of now I am charged with possession of counterfeit money. My statement has been sent to a youth prosecutor, he/she will determine whether it is worth it or not for the government to take me to court or not. If the prosecutor says that I do not need to go to court all charges will be dropped and records cleared. However if I do have to go to court I will have to fight my case, this might mean an expensive lawyer which will come out of my pocket, not my parents.
I now use a bitcoin debit card to cashout crypto, you can see my CryptoPay debit card review here :
https://steemit.com/cryptopay/@retrac/cryptopay-debit-card-review
I hope you can learn from some of my mistakes and enjoyed reading about my story. This whole ordeal has been quite stressful for me and my family. Wish me luck with my case and please remember to UPVOTE and RESTEEM if you have any questions or comments then do not hesitate to leave a COMMENT, I reply to almost all comments :)
