{"id":9093,"date":"2021-09-01T18:58:50","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T17:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/?p=9093"},"modified":"2021-09-01T18:59:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T17:59:00","slug":"anti-bitcoin-law-activist-mario-gomez-arrested-in-el-salvador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/anti-bitcoin-law-activist-mario-gomez-arrested-in-el-salvador\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Bitcoin Law Activist Mario Gomez, Arrested in El Salvador"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The arrest of activist Mario Gomez<\/a>, who has been a prominent critic of President Nayib Bukele's newly enacted Bitcoin Law, which makes bitcoin legal tender, has been announced by the El Salvadorian police.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Anti-Bitcoin<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to local sources, police in El Salvador \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/g>\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/clipPath>\r\n <\/defs><\/svg><\/span><\/a>have apprehended cryptocurrency and computer systems expert Mario Gomez, who has been a vociferous critic of the country's recently passed Bitcoin Law since its passage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the passage of El Salvador's controversial Bitcoin<\/a> Law, sponsored by President Nayib Bukele, cryptocurrency <\/a>has been declared legal tender in the country, on par with the United States dollar, and most merchants are now required to accept it as payment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u00f3mez, the founder of the tech incubator Hackerspace, is one of the most well-known Salvadorans who has spoken out against the implementation of the new law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with the local newspaper La Prensa Grafica, Mario de Gomez's mother, Elena de Gomez, stated that she was uninformed of the reason for her son's detention, despite the fact that police believe the analyst is being investigated for suspicions of financial fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the arrest, according to a report by La Prensa Grafica, police from El Salvador's Operational Tactical Section (the Salvadoran equivalent of SWAT) attempted to seize Gomez's computer, but were forced to relent as reporters approached the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to local media accounts, Gomez was transferred to the Special Crimes Unit of the National Civil Police Central Investigations Division shortly after his detention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the police, Gomez is being probed for sending \u201cfake emails to a number of bank users whose accounts had been compromised.\u201d Salvadoran authorities are attempting to gain access to Gomez's cell phone and computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intervenimos a Mario G\u00f3mez en v\u00edas de investigaci\u00f3n por los delitos de fraude financiero, relacionados a correos electr\u00f3nicos falsos enviados a muchos usuarios del sistema bancario, donde sus estados de cuenta han quedado vulnerados. <\/p>\u2014 PNC El Salvador (@PNCSV) September 1, 2021<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Over the last week, Gomez participated in several forums and\u00a0video conferences\u00a0to detail what he considered to be the flaws and risks associated with the Bukele government\u2019s implementation of the Bitcoin Law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gomez is also credited for leaking key details of the country\u2019s Chivo cryptocurrency wallet, which was created by the government to control the dollar-to-bitcoin exchange process and is promoted as the official Salvadoran Bitcoin wallet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analyst pointed to several design features in the Chivo wallet <\/a>that concerned him, including the fact that the operating costs of the \u201czero-fee service\u201d would be paid for with tax money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hours before his arrest, Mario sent a cryptic message to El Salvador\u2019s Intelligence Agency: \u201cIt is not me. It is your own people. The more you try to hide what you do, the more people will come out and expose what you hide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mensaje para mis seguidores del OIE: Yo no soy. Es su misma gente… Mientras m\u00e1s traten de ocultar lo que hacen… M\u00e1s gente va a salir a contar lo que esconden.<\/p>

Yo solo dejo que pase\u231b\ufe0f, \ud83d\udc41\ufe0f y \ud83d\udce2.<\/p>

Fin del comunicado. \ud83d\ude43<\/p>\u2014 mxgxw.\u03b1 (@mxgxw_alpha) August 31, 2021<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At this time, no new remarks have been published by the police, and officials of the National Civil Police have not responded to Decrypt's request for comment. It appears that both the Hackerspace and Gomez's personal Twitter <\/a>account have been deactivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The arrest of activist Mario Gomez, who has been a prominent critic of President Nayib Bukele’s newly enacted Bitcoin Law, which makes bitcoin legal tender, has been announced by the El Salvadorian police. According to local sources, police in El Salvador have apprehended cryptocurrency and computer systems expert Mario Gomez, who has been a vociferous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":9094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[4194,152,456],"class_list":["post-9093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-anti-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin","tag-el-salvador"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/image-11.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}