The sad thing is that BTC-e has by far been the most reliable BTC exchange over the long term. They may have had anonymous"ish" owners. They did have a shell company in the U.K. For banking purposes.

If in fact the US government steals from the little guys on the exchange it would be just that theft. This was a legitimately run exchange for many years. The supposed money launderers were only earning .2% on currency trades. I would hardly consider that the income a reasonable money launderer would expect for their services.

Alex may have been a thief, but that doesn't mean the exchange itself was a criminal enterprise. Certainly most of the people trading on the platform weren't money launderers. I also certainly don't fully absolve Magicaltux of his serious ineptitude in running Mt. Gox. If the update from today regarding the movement of funds is accurate this was a theft that was ongoing for 2-3 years. How did Mark and staff not account for the missing BTC? Clearly he wasn't auditing the hot wallet addresses ever.

Guys and gals contact your senators and congress people and tell them the FBI has seriously over-reached recently and needs its powers scaled back. I don't expect to get my $9 back, but I know people who actively traded thousands on BTC-e if it is seized then everyone will have to prepare for civil asset forfeiture lawsuits against the US. Basically a fools errand. If this was a Wall Street exchange it would be treated totally differently and the assets would be divided up properly. But in cryptoland the government feels justified stealing the money and selling it for its own purposes of continuing the police state.