Legalities of Trading

This is not my question. Someone shot me a message via the forum conversation tool asking a question and I'm not sure how to answer him. Help?
Here's a copy and paste:

Apparently , the situation is not so hypothetical. The person who contacted me about this now wants me to delete this thread (which I obviously cannot do, will not request so) because he is afraid the scammer may stumble upon it. What should I do?

Oh gee!

Well this person is sending to pm's to everyone under the sun it appears (I know various people who have received it, myself included), so if his game is subtlety I suspect that is out the window.

The question is patently silly and even someone with no knowledge of the law as a general principal should easily be able to fathom the obvious consequences in almost any legal system on the planet, however if the person really has genuine concerns, a simple call to whatever constitutes "legal aid" would resolve things very fast. Even in North America (where the system does not always provide for governmental legal advisory services, depending on state), there are always public entities which are available to field such questions for free.

Actually, in Dutch language we have 2 different terms for "stealing"
1. "Diefstal" = Theft, the thief has to steal the object(s) either by pickpocketing or burglary etc.
2. "Ontvreemding" = No idea what the English word/name for it is, the "thief" was borrowed or given in possession of the object(s) by the owner, but keeps them.

Example of #2: A employer gives his employee a laptop to do his work on, employee gets fired/end of contract sometimes after, and then doesn't return the laptop to the employer.

Both are punishable by law in almost all countries.

I think that at this point you should consider the situation and your involvement in it VERY carefully. Being an accessory to a crime is what you may be facing. Especially if you are aware that they are going to be selling and have not yet sold these stolen goods. Should this go to legal court you stand a strong chance of getting charged with accessory. Having knowledge and withholding it is quite punishable in most courts of law.

Hmm, that actually can't hold much I think. For OP most probably doesn't know who it actually is, outside a internet persona's steam account. He could report it to law enforcement, but is in no position to prevent/participate/influence anything in it outside chatting with that person. I find that a huge difference then hearing such from a neightbour or someone around or w/e.

The only other route is informing Steam Support, while that would be wise to inform Valve of the problematics, I don't think that that would be considered a factor in his liability legally.

I'll defer to Atom's insights (if he would comment here)

Even if I were to report this to authorities, all I have is a username from some forum. He hasn't even linked his Steam Account to his SteamRep account. I may as well know nothing about him.

Yes, but do you really want to have to sit down with authorities to answer questions? I doubt you are a 100% clean computer use. You wanna tell me ALL your software is up to date and legally purchased and you have downloaded NO movies or anything of that sort via a torrent?

You are saying this fraud is worth thousands of dollars. This will definitely be reviewed by cyber crime division of the FBI and they WILL be researching everyone who knows anything for collaboration. It's how they do it. They don't assume anything and investigate everything. They generally start taking interest in cases over $10,000 USD

Do the police investigate fully everybody that comes to them to report a crime?

In fact (in the US), they can't search anything without some pretty good evidence that you're directly connected to the crime and not just somebody who is giving them a tip. Also, this kind of thing would never make it to the FBI because there is no basis yet for investigating this type of crime in the United States.

Well Jeremy, I can tell you I was a victim of cyber crime. I bought a $600 cell phone on ebay. They guy took my money in paypal and ran. Paypal could not recover the funds from that account so I never got reimbursed. 3 years almost pass and I get a letter from california courts stating a person was caught selling fake items on ebay for paypal in the amount of $20000. The cyber crime division has arrested him and prosecuted him locally in his state. After the was found guilty I had a right to file a claim with the court. They will split whatever they could recover with the victims. The only reason I got $350 of the $600 back 4 years after the fact was because I filed a claim with the fbi cyber crime division. They had me on file and I eventually got my money. They spent 3 years on this case for a mere $20000 fraud case. They take ALL cases into account. Don't think they only go after the multi million $ cases. They investigate all crimes that occur in their district. Sometimes where there is lack of evidence the cases go cold but even then they are stored, never closed. Slow, but they DO get to the point eventually.

No of course not.

Beyond that however, the vast majority of keyboard warriors have utterly no understanding of their local laws, let alone international law and treaties, and rather than nit-pick all the myth and urban legend it is probably wiser to simply suggest people do a little research in terms of what is possible and probable. There are many surprises in store for those who bother to do a little poking about.

Bout 1,5 year ago, on now defunct ASBO Gaming, we had a FBI agent joining our server (private, he enjoyed TF2). It ended up in a Q&A with the players etc. What DID stuck with me was that he said that if someone got defrauded of items/money by a scammer, and it exceeded a value of slightly less then 200 dollars, they could arrest the scammer for it etc. If its multiple acts, then those get added.

On bigger scam's I always tell the ppl to also file a report to their country's justice system. Some countries it will be thrown away as soon you walk out. But it still would leave an impression to the person you reported to.

Ha, lol datastorm I remember that, was very fun although I did not know how we knew he was an FBI agent
But personally I look at this situation this way:
Say somebody wants their friend to keep their contraband(e.g.fake money,drugs) then they sell that on for money, it's still illegal contraband isn't it. I am pretty sure as well that when you sign a contract e.g. Terms and conditions if you do not keep to the contract you can be sued. So yes,exploiters and hijackers are illegal not sure about scammers though they should be

Oh and in a lot of developed countries their I'd normally some form 'Internet crime act'