Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Zaren Elizabeth Dutton.
You come on over here, let me talk to you.
Hey, what you got for me?
Do you know what's ridiculous? Oh?
Wait? Wait, hold up, I do. Oh yes, a nude magician.
Oh yeah, that is ridiculous.
Kazuhisa Oukusa. It's not me. I'm not the nude magician. Yeah. Sorry, I don't have a new job. No, he's a Japanese entertainer. You've probably seen how much shows like Britain's Got Talent or The Late Late Show with James Corden.
Do I need to remind you I don't watch television.
Oh well, he was on the Italian TV show Record It means in English the Record Show, The Record Show. Yeah. No, anyway, he was on there, impressing the judges and the audiences alike. Because this dude has the record for quote, the most matches lit with plungers attached to a person's body in one minute.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait the most.
He has the record for the most matches lit with plungers attached to a person's body in one minute. I don't even understand how the record bind you is seventy three.
Well does anyone else like the runner up on that? What is this?
Hey? Man?
Plungers attached to the body and then matches lip like he uses.
He uses the plungers. So imagine plungers suctioned over each nipple, and then he whips his torso back and forth to strike matches that are affixed to a table. And so the matches get hit by the plungers, and then they have, like I guess, a rough surface that causes them to expose, and then the phosphate phosphors strike anywhere. Yeah, exactly. So he did it for so long. One of the plungers caught fire. He's leaving like, oh, I'm squealing right, worried
about his nipples. Right, But then later on he came back to the stage because he had another one. He comes out Elizabeth. He was wearing leopard print shorts. He then took a CD, put the CD between his butt
cheeks right clenched it. The CD was attached to strings which were attached to pieces of paper which were between five glasses he had neatly arranged, and then with a quick swivel of his hips, he pulled the clenched CD and then the string, and then the papers and then the glasses were left standing.
How would he come up?
Yes? That was another record, So the other guy, this guy's got a lot of records, Elizabeth. Yeah, he has the records for, quote, having the most objects removed simultaneously from under glass bottles with a ruler no hands, used six of those. Oh no. He also has the tallest double Jenga tower cloth pull, like we need pull a cloth and it stays standing like you know, like on the on like a like a tablecloth. Hands he had, yes, yeah, head to use hands with that one, seventy eight centimeters.
He has the fastest time to remove twenty casino chips from under a glass bottle no hands, So that's a butt cheat clench, nine point sixty three seconds, and the longest duration balancing a wine glass on the head with a rotating blower with twenty eight seconds. Yeah, exactly. So what are we doing with our time? They're not out here getting world records because apparently they're just giving them out. Well there you got ridiculous, Right.
That's so ridiculous. I'm scarred.
Why clenching?
And uh, do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Yeah? I do don't hear for it, crypto what.
This is a ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, hets and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free in one hundred percent ridiculous.
I know you don't heard that.
You know how when you drive into San Francisco from either like the East Bay or if you're coming up from the airport, there are tons of billboards for tech companies. Oh god, yeah, and like most of them they decide that vowels in the company name just aren't necessary, like.
They're legal, they cost more.
Yeah, And then the billboards they feel like they're in a different lay language because like I don't understand the term.
Not a word.
It's all your best source of l MS, CPN connectivity. I don't know what it's like.
Oh, that sounds great.
And there's no physical products, so it's always just text.
Yeah, you can't show a thing.
No, it's just a big block of text B to B software solutions for international GLM with no broker fees.
Is that real?
No?
I just say that, I see.
I believe like it though, it's it's like this whole other world, and so I'm going to be hitting you with some of that jargon and idiotic company name stuff today.
Oh you know I love I know you love.
That, and I'm going to talk about I wateringly large sums of money.
Okay, yes, you do love that.
But first I want to take you to to Hama, California.
No, and take me down to ham A Turn.
It's kind of between Reading and Chico, which will mean absolutely nothing to me to non northern California folks. But I'm talking to you today, Solati Da. So it's very pretty up there.
And what's going down in the state of Jefferson.
Yeah, lots of orchards. The Sacramento River runs through town. It's a sleepy hamlet, about like four hundred peoples. But it gave us someone who would go on to much larger things, someone as outsized as ta Haima is quaint.
Oh Aaron Rodgers.
No, her name Heather Morgan.
He's from Chicos.
He is from Chico's very close. So Heather Morgan. She had a speech impediment growing up and was kind of bullied for her voice, and she was self conscious about it and said, quote that insecurity prevented me from doing a lot of things I was passionate and curious about when I was younger, from film and comedy to leadership opportunities.
So James Earl Jones and Joe Biden both.
Starterers exactly, and you know what, film and leadership, and they're amazing. She may have felt stifled in her younger years, but she had her sights set on bigger things.
Oh good for her.
You're familiar with Davis, California.
Right, yes, down familiar you.
See, Davis is my alma mater.
You we have also heard of it.
Heather went to y C.
Davis get out. She was what Aggie for Life. He's making fun of me.
Because I am a member of the YUC Davis Alumni Association. And when you do, like when you're like tired of them coming at you every year for the money, and you say here's a lifetime one.
They they like, you know, unsolicited. They send me this license plate frame thank you gift that says Aggie for Life, and it is so ugly and I'm trying to figure out who I can regive it to anyway, Well, I can give it to Heather. I can give it to Heather Morgan. She she had a full ride scholarship today.
The Captain Morgan Scholarship.
She studied economics and international relations. She did a semester abroad in Ankara, Turkey. Oh interesting and like someone who does this semester in Spain and forever wants to tell you about Barstonona Turkish culture. Maybe huge impact on Heather.
I mad it did formative years.
Man, that stuff will be it's a body, your bones exactly so, but more on that later, okay. She graduated in twenty eleven and was hired as a research assistant by a UC Davis economics professor. He said that she was a promising student who had an impressive understanding of the Middle East and that she'd quote earned a place as a co author on an academic book chapter they wrote together, which was forecasting economic trends in me E Na following the Arab.
Spring ah the Middle East North Africa.
There it is so we have, you know, like this very heady work. From there, she moved to Hong Kong and she got a job at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where she ran seminars about American culture teaching English. It's not bad for a Galfrid Taheima and so she went on to attend American University of Cairo, and her LinkedIn profile makes it look like she received
a master's in economics of International development there. According to Forbes magazine, she only attended one semester and she left without finishing her degree.
Oh, ew, I know about that.
That's no shame in that game. In twenty thirteen, she moved to San Francisco, and you know, I know about that too.
She joined the.
Tech scene, like so many others seeking their fortunes in this twenty first century gold rush.
Go get it, people get it.
So she got a job at an Arabic language gaming company called Tamatan okay I, which is that's fascinating gaming company. Yeah, and that lasted a couple of months. Then she moved to Brazil, which is the next logical step.
She's always picking the spots, Brazil, Hong Kong. You're like, yeah, what's next.
She married a Brazilian entrepreneur that she met at a conference, Bruno Desuza. This is what Forbes had to say about this quote at a conference. Yeah, Desusa said he had a quote intense relationship with Morgan that began during their few days at a tech conference, but added that the marriage was made intended to secure a visa so she could stay in Brazil and work on his pet tracking startup.
Wait a minute, it's for her to get a visa. To get a visa into Brazil, she can work basically as his like you know, partner will say his pet track tracking. So he's chipping dogs and cats and he's like, baby, I'm about to make million off these. She's like, I'm chipping by the dozens. And she's like, okay, get me like a green card. He's like, I can do better than that. But you know what's sad, but you marry me.
October twenty thirteen marriage had fallen apart, Oh because it started so honestly, so earnestly well, and so then what does the girl to do? She moved back to California, okay, And she said that she came back to the States with absolutely nothing. She couch served. She interviewed, as she put it, quote CEOs and salespeople. I wanted to know how I could solve their biggest problems like maintaining growth rates and increasing sales revenue.
So she went to them and say, what do you need? People?
Big problems that no one in any business ever talks about, yes, of course, increasing sales.
Like I wish there was like conferences or maybe like seminars about increasing sales revenue. That would be amazing, so helpful.
March twenty fourteen, no one ever. She launched Salesfolk, Ohlkay, Salesfolks.
Was that supposed to be like a type of her salesforce? Like people? Who is an email? Yeah?
It sounds like if you're trying to say salesforce and your throat gets caught and you need water. Salesfolk sales or it's an email marketing company, Sure it is. So she had just one employee email marketing. It's a spam company. Yeah, it's like mail chip. But she made up a couple of fictitious employee profiles on LinkedIn to make it look like she had a bunch of folks working at salesbook.
Wow. I like how tech fraud is always fun and like it's never like yeah, that's just scammy.
Yeah, no, it's just silly. Like if I did that anyway, go yeah, Forbes said quote. Morgan claimed during a Salesfolk presentation in twenty seventeen that her company had generated sixty four point seven million in revenue during twenty sixteen, according to the slides of the presentation scene by Forbes, and
that's sixty six million. That figure is going to pop up again later, yeah again from Forbes quote to former sales Folk employees who spoke to Forbes, such a figure wasn't credible for a company that seemed to have no more than five employees at any time and paid salaries between ten thousand dollars and thirty thousand dollars. One former intern told Forbes that they were terminated suddenly in twenty
sixteen because the company couldn't pay them. We don't call that money over here in the tech industry in the Bay Area, like thirty.
Thousand is like, this is like a boiler room operation where you're just cold calling people and then scamming old people out of email, calling it a tech company exactly.
So this doesn't matter because pretty soon she was writing for Forbes and Ink and all these other ways.
I can give you a little insight on that. Yeah, you can write for Forbes for free and call yourself a contributor, and then they will publish it under Forbes and you can say I was published by Forbes. It's not the same Forbes magazine. It used to be well, there it is.
So she did that, and then in twenty nineteen, she wrote a piece for Forbes called got Burnout. This tech ceo thinks you should try wrapping. I think we should give ourselves a moment to breathe through that one totally.
Who's the Goldman Sacks A guy who's like a DJ. I think it's the Goldman Sacks, one of the big finance guys. He spends his weekends like DJ. It's like date Jamie Diamond. It's not him.
I don't tech ceo things you should try rapping.
Yeah, I write it was him? Whoever? It was? So?
On her LinkedIn, she said that she had limited working proficiency in Arabic, Turkish, and Korean.
What does that mean? Limited work, limited working proficiency efficiency, Yeah, like I can read street.
Signs, I can hit Google Translate, full professional proficiency in Japanese.
Full professional fluency in Japanese.
That's not proficiency in Japanese, elementary proficiency in Cantonese and Russian.
Holy and got it solves a polyglot, quote native or.
Bi lingual proficiency in English and Furbish.
Furbish. Furbish is that like furbaby language.
It's the language spoken by ferbies, those toys. Oh I am not kidding you.
Wow.
Yeah, Like I wish I were making that up. I wish I could go back in time and not know this. But like ferbies make that noise.
Speak like a speaks Hamburglar. He didn't steal them. So what else did you like to know?
Okay, so we know about Heather. Now let's meet Dutch. There's a named Dutch Ilia Dutch Liechtenstein.
Oh my goodness, he does Russian named Dutch.
Dutch was born in Rostov, Russia in nineteen eighty seven. He came to the US when he was six, fleeing, you know, from religious persecution. He grew up in the Chicago area as a young and he was doing some minor hacking and a slacken internet fraud on him. He went to the University of Wisconsin and he studied psych collegy.
Of course, that's one of those degrees.
Graduates twenty ten goes to Silicon Valley. Heather. So he started a bunch of failed websites and businesses, including.
I cannot wait for this list.
Ronpaulfan dot com, which he called the Number one source for Ron Paul News. He was also quote an investor and a part time mentalist magician Wow, heart time magician magician, heart time magician.
That goes on the list of band names. Oh my god.
According to Force.
Part time magician.
Dutch quote invested in startups alongside heavyweights like Mark Benioff, and he launched his own company, Mixed Rank, backed by Mark Cuban.
Mark Benioff ben ceo.
No, he's the CEO of Salesforce. Like the actual one, sales.
Isn't his kid? The guy did Game of Thrones. I think that benfic related.
Yeah, Benioff comes from like a well to do peninsula fan. Interesting, but it's like a tech genius growing up. Like he developed as a kid. He was like a teen, he was developing all this. He's now worth ten point three billion.
Good for him and he is.
It's he's Salesforce, right. They have that giant tower in the city with the eye of sore on.
This is the one that's leaning.
No, that's the Millennium all right, Salesforce, and I work on I use Salesforce in my use it all the time life. Yeah, so uh it's I've heard of it. It's it's everywhere, and they take over the city for all sorts of top So this guy, he's he's mixing with the big dogs, tech Mark Cuban.
What is he on the He's got sharp elbow, She's the shark tank.
Thing and he's the medicine man. Okay, so there we are. We got everybody in this mix. Twenty thirteen, Dutch met Morgan. Okay, the sky's open. They started dating later that year after this is when she got back from Brazil. Okay, pretty soon she moved into his high rise apartment in the city. Whether that's in the Milie Name Tower, who knows, who knows. So they're living the high life. They're traveling to Hong Kong, Panama, Mexico, all first class.
Really yeah.
And then it later came out that in twenty fifteen, Dutch quote illicitly obtained and transferred a small amount of pay coin, an alternative form of virtual currency. So May twenty sixteen said illicit yeah, and illicitly obtained and transferred.
So stolen crypto. Yeah, okay.
So then like the next year May twenty sixteen, his company, Mixed Rank is doing pretty well, but he suddenly quit it and then he and Morgan moved to New York.
Oh, I'm starting to guess where the trips stt coming from.
They got a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment in a luxury building on Wall Street. Later, quote, Lixenstein founded a blockchain based cybersecurity company called en Pass and an investment business called demand Path. In just over a decade, he was also investing in startups. Of course, he was, Yeah, so let's take a break and we come back. We're going to get to my favorite part of this whole mess.
Okay, and it's not a Winkle Boss.
It is not a Winkle Boss.
Thank god? All right, ZARONO, Hey, howday?
Okay, goodness, all right, So we're getting to my favorite part. As I said, yes, this isn't the criminal aspect of the story of Heather Morgan, but it is criminally ridiculous.
Oh yeah, you got me sold.
So twenty eighteen, things aren't going well at sales twenty eighteen, Salesfolk not doing so well.
Salesforce killing it, gangbusters, Salesfolk.
Yeah, this is what Morgan wrote for Forbes. Quote, I had legal threats, learned that dishonest employees that were fudging numbers and people I want deeply respected. We're trying to bully and shame me into removing content I had published that I firmly believe the public needed to see sales folks.
Sounds like in a movie with merph folk and they're going to have a salesforce company, you would be called sales folks. That's what it sounds like, like a gag in a movie.
Exactly, children, Exactly, she was. So she's burned out, she's stressed out. She has to take time off. Like, what do you do when you're feeling stressed out and you need to take time off?
Go as fast as I can?
You go fast on a bike? Yes, I go in the garden. You know whatever. So sometimes though, we get solaced.
Through inspiration sometimes, yeah, it comes to you.
Are there artists who inspire you, who refresh you, make you want to do something creative?
Yeah? Give me just one, just one lucial ball.
Lall makes you, well, what about you? I have no inspiration for my life.
Heather had her own bacon.
Yes, Heather had a Lucille ball into Francis bacon. She was inspired by Yolandi visser Wait except the South African rapper and singer from the rap Raved Group tour.
Yes, that like, yeah, Oh my goodness.
She's the one who's like super pale and has that crazy lopsided bleach blonde haircut that's like a mulled mullet with Mark Davis.
Bangs trailer park fabulous.
She's out there. Heather wanted to be out there too, of course.
Why not. That's the best place to be. There's so few people out there.
She decided to start writing rap lyrics.
Remember I wanted to rap.
She said that one Tuesday morning, will quote completely sober.
Okay, she.
Had quote this crazy idea for a song that I just had to make. And so the song that she said she wrote in thirty minutes, right, Prince was quote an absurdist stoner story similar to the likes of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, but underneath is an allegory of Silicon Valley chalk full of symbolism. Oh my goodness, did you know there's symbolism and allegory.
So this is like Elon Musk's favorite song. It's like high in Silicon Valley. That's my life, man.
Probably She found a producer online fellow by the name of Kiesus like Jesus with Yeah, I really feel like Keesus took a look at her and thought I could take her money.
Oh yeah, this is this is a ripe sucker.
So Keesus stepped in. He made the beats. That's b e ats, not Bublet's not just whipping up borsed in the studio place smells like must and work cold faraway spices. So yeah, anyway, so Heather, Yes, Heather said that Keyses quote helped her improve her rhythm and flow.
Her rhythm and rhythm and flow. Yeah, the rapper. But listen, listen, Saren, Saren, I can't wait to hear.
Wasn't Heather anymore?
Oh no, of course not.
Now she was Razzle Khan what Yeah, and it's not con like con artists con con k h a n like the Aga Khan or Shaka Khan.
Oh yeah, I think it was a nod to her time in Turkey, That's what I'm guessing. Yeah, the former Khan, the Golden Horde.
Heather reached her apex form Khan Razzle Khan wow to
get into characters. She'd sport a look that like it looked like if someone in high school, like a high school volleyball player in like Middle America Heartland in the nineties, decided that she would dress as a hip hopper for Spirit Week, like that's she had, Like she has long brown hair, and she'd put on a flat billed baseball cap and like round lens reflective sunglasses and do like the whole what's up gesture really with her elbows raised in her hands pointing down, and she'd have like a
smirk or like pout, like.
Like full on former milk chicken territories.
It's so regrettable. Yes, it made me feel bad for her. Yeah, she's like a sunny d commercial, like what's up kids? It didn't just like stop with Razzle Khan. Really, she had other identities. According to Vanity fair Quote, Morgan, for her part, had a half dozen different Utra personalities online. She was sometimes Turkish Martha Stewart, who cooked lamb kebabs in her kitchen and be razzled her elliptical machine by
decorating with spray paint and LEDs. She also had an alter ego of sorts named Sharlene, who wore an eighties era blonde wig and spoke in a Southern accent about taking laxatives before going out. So Quote I can look skinny. And then there was the ultimate second self, the one, the only Razzle Khan.
So she was just hitting all the buttons. Seems tund to see which one hits, basically like, well, which one of these personas can I monetize? I'm really hoping it's Razzle Khan.
Oh yeah, she called herself the crocodile of Wall Street.
Makes sense, according to.
Her website quote, because Raz has anesthesia. Her art often resembles something in between an acid trip and a delightful nightmare. Definitely not for the feint of heart or easily offended. Raz likes to push the limits of what people are comfortable with. Her style has often been described as sexy horror comedy because of her fondness for combining dark and
disturbing concepts with dirty jokes and gestures. Just like her fearless, entrepreneurial spirit and hacker mindset, Raz shamelessly explores new frontiers of art, pushing the limit of what's possible. Whether that leads to something wonderful or terrible is unclear. The only thing that's certain is it won't be boring or mediocre.
So she's like the worst version of Brook Candy you could possibly have they downtown l a rapper. Yeah, yeah, completely a minute.
Wait, let me let me tell you some song titles. Oh the song title, yeah, please go fund yourself, Versauce bedouin vacuum cleaner, Menace to Society, which I don't know cover I think taken getting high in a cemetery, and that track has the chorus puff puff pass, I love me some gravegrass, getting high in the cemetery, getting high in the cemetery.
Wow.
Yeah, here's how Marissa the researcher summarized that too. Okay, quote to quote Marissa. This song is a real voyage. It starts with the narrator alone in the cemetery one night, smoking weed next to her grandpa's grave. When a horse propositions her, she declines. Then her grandpa comes up from the grave and asks for some weed, but she says she doesn't share her weed for free, and she tells him to go back to hell unless he has money. He offers a magic lamp he won from at a
turk during a game of backgammon. The narrator is intrigued. Hold on, let me let me play something.
I wone. She managed to get the founder of Turkey in there.
Let me play, Let me play Versachi Bedwin for you.
Just are you kidding me?
I mean this is for the sake of journalism.
Oh god, yeah, listens original that song is the Entrepreneurs and Trackers.
Russell KM the better Win come real far, but don't know where I'm at, and the crocodile of Wall Street over on my fingers and foods on my feet. Always see a goat, not a goddamn sheet and email me your message on the beat.
Beat her cadence. Her cadence sounds like someone making fun of someone's.
There's a video. Oh yeah, it totally sounds like someone making fun of something. There's a video, and it's just like all I wished is that, Like I could run up on her like Marshawn Lynch and just tackle her tackler in the street anyway.
I got to a point where Marshall Lynch didn't sually tackle people. I know he didn't.
There one would if he could tackle her, If my man Marshawn had to, he would.
I promise, I.
Promise you He's not a one trick ponies.
I would not. You can do anything.
He can do anything in this world anyway, she's got.
Your good personal friend, Marshaun Lyunch. You cannot limit him.
I want him to be friends with me. I want him to be my friend, my celebrity friend. I want that makeup artist Aaron Parsons to be my celebrity.
I can't tell you where to find him in Oakland. He's often it's the same place. Just go down there.
Do go down there, Sarah, and I want her friendship to blossom organically.
Saren, divity happened. Don't talk to him, let him talk to you, let him approach you.
Anyway. She's got another song, CALIFORNI year rolls.
Oh my God, where she can make a joke California kind of a punk band would make fun of people using that title.
Plains about an Upper east Side bro and basic ass white Hose.
So they're they So she's in on the physician. Yeah, heal thyself.
She refers she's referring to Hose, who listened to the Jonas Brothers in one direction. Apparently she made n f t s for single for her songs VERSACEI Bedouin and Social Distance. Later, the NFTs, which at some point had been purchased I'm sure, disappeared from the NFT marketplace that they were housed on.
Gasp, shocked, shocking.
The art for Versace bed Win the single is so so so so, so so so terrible. It has a parental advisory icon on it growing up for me, that was a seal of approofal. It was a good album. It's not so here. I can't fathom buying any n f T, but in particular the Versace Bedouin one. So we've got Heather flouncing around as Razzle Khan.
By the way, sounds like, you know, the Academy Awards is called the It's called the OSCAR.
There's also that's like a convention, like a con where people get together. She's gonna hack me, dude, probably yeah, anyway, right, so she's I have no crypto to steal. I lost my Apeslizabeth apes Dutch. This made him love her even more, of course, in fact, he wanted to make an honest woman of her.
Oh nice.
He spent a year planning his marriage proposal. Okay, and he hired a marketing agency to put up posters of Morgan as Razzle Khan around the city. And then there was, as he called it, non cheesy billboard that he put up in Times Square with a photo of her taken from one of these rap videos.
Does not sound cheesy at all.
The words the most brutally honest rap album of the year. She was sold. She's like, guess what I do? A hip hip hop I do? It's like the what's his name? The comedian that I love? Who does the Hannibal Burris?
Oh?
Yeah, who does eighties rap? Find it?
Look it up online. It's amazing anyway, So she's sold. The couple officially engaged in twenty nineteen.
Oh, congratulations, so happy for the family. Yeah, Sarah, listen, I'm glat to took each other off the market. Oh no, no, yes, yes, okay.
I want you to picture it. It's November thirteenth, twenty twenty one. You are at Plaia Studios in Culver City, California. The venue's website describes it as owned by bicoastal music production company Mophonics. Plia Studios is a unique and creative venue nestled in Culver City on the West side of Los Angeles. Curated with a mix of modern, industrial and eclectic design, the space breathes life into its former warehouse
bits like you don't have to imagine it. Those are and you are there totally, and you're there because you've been invited to a wedding there, oh lord, not really invited by the couple. You're the plus one of the sound bath practitioner. You've been dating for a couple months. She goes by the name Sparkleshot, but you know her government name is Melanie and she's from Encino.
She knows me as mister Andre.
Yeah, well that's right. You're the son of a venture capitalist, of course, and you're working for your dad. You recognize some of the guests, people from tech startups in Venice, some of sparkleshots pals from Burning.
Man mm hm and Silicon Beach.
That you are looking sharp in a great bespoke suit.
Sure, look at me, and not in.
Like a pooky tell them what you're wearing way, but in a way that even like your cologne smells like wealth.
Oh yes, feel good.
You're not comfortable in this crowd, not at all. So as down tempo pseudo techno plays in the background, making you feel like you're shopping at H and M or something. A woman comes around and passes out gold spray painted banana leaves to the wedding guests wave them at Morgan when she comes in. Okay, guys. She then passes you a handful of Rasulkhan stickers. Suddenly there's a thumping bead. The music has picked up tempo and has a sort of Middle Eastern vibe to it. There's a commotion at
the back of the room and you turn around. There, being carried on a Moroccan pelican is Heather Morgan. She's wearing a golden crown and some sort of beaded headdress. The crowd waves their palm leaves at her as she passes. You've never met her, nor seen her, and now you're stuck by one thing. She looks like a total dork. Like there's really no other way to put it. She looks like a nerdy kid in middle school who stole some raver's luggage and is now wearing about three other outfits at once.
Do you record my internal modelogues?
That's what I'm giving you, especially those round glasses with the amber tinted lenses. The ceremony is a strange blur, and you've survived to the reception. The bride, who you hadn't realized had disappeared, emerges from a side room. The DJ announces People of Earth, I give you Razzle Khan performing her new single Moon and Stars. The bride takes
the stage and starts uncomfortably wrapping. The younger folks in the crowd do that faux social media inspired party dance in their seats, arms in the air, and poudy faces and faked excitement on their faces. The older folks in the crowd, presumably the bride and groom's families, looked totally confused. They've looked confused the whole time. The performance ends and the groom takes the stage. He tells the crowd to get ready to have their minds blown again. You aren't
sure you're ready for that. The groom, Dutch you've heard him called, is wearing a black suit and a black shirt. He tells the crowd he's a magician.
You roll your eyes.
Your date is totally into this, loving every second. Dutch tells the guests to recall a fond memory of Heather. He then slowly makes his way around the room, guessing what moment was in their head. He gets a couple of them wrong, then correctly guesses a woman's memory. He's really good. Your date says you. Sigh. So we've met these characters. We know they're weird and techy and shady. Where do they have the money for all this stuff? This lifestyle?
I'm sorry, I'm waiting for my uber outside. Worry to they elizabeth money?
Look at me? What's this podcast called Ridiculous cross that's right, baby, let's get criming.
Oh you know it.
August second, twenty sixteen. We're going back in time.
Okay.
An unknown hacker uncovered a flaw in the code for bitfinex.
Oh yeah, okay, yeah.
A cryptocurrency exchange exchange that was like, is it bit bit finex, it's bitfinex, h whatever.
So go there and buy and trade, yeah, crypto.
This unknown hacker stole one hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty four bit coins. Oh wow, Yeah, from various user's wallets. So this is twenty sixteen. That was about half of bitfinex's inventory. Ooh, and the coins, nearly one hundred and twenty thousand of them, were worth seventy two million dollars at this time.
Oh wow.
As with cryptocurrencies, the value later ballooned into billions. Yes, yeah, So the breach in the code quote triggered a slump in bitcoin prices. It dropped twenty three after the news broke Oh damn yeah. At some point, the stolen bitcoins were transferred into a digital wallet, a wallet belonging to none other than Ilia Dutch Liechtenstein, not Dutch la. For six months, the coins didn't move. This was because more legitimate sites that accepted bitcoin had been warned not to
use the stolen tokens. But in early twenty seventeen, according to Vanity Fair Quote, software security companies noticed that someone was laundering some of that stolen crypto through a darknet marketplace called Alpha Bat, one of the world's largest sellers of feentanyl and heroin. Alpha Bay was already under investigations.
Sure they were by multiple.
Yeah, international authorities for other matters, and they were shut down by police later in twenty seven which I yes. In the course of that investigation, the FEDS arrested Alphabat's founder and went through the servers. This will become importantly so because the bitcoins were all stolen Dutch and old Razzlekhan,
they needed to launder them. So, according to the New York Times quote, the maneuvers, according to prosecutors included opening accounts under false names, moving stolen funds in small sums in thousands of transactions to avoid detection, using computers to automate their transactions, spreading funds across virtual currency exchanges, and using US business accounts to obscure their illegal activity. Despite their efforts, that activity sometimes drew the scrutiny of cryptocurrency exchanges.
In one instance, the couple used false identities to open seven accounts on a single exchange, only to have them frozen when the identities could not be verified. The accounts held over one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in assets. They nonetheless used cryptocurrency housed at another exchange to buy prepaid debit cards. One five hundred dollars card bought from Walmart was used to pay for Uber Andhotels dot Com purchases and to buy a PlayStation.
Gotta get that place, got to get your place.
So you know they're gamers too, hackers and gamers. So, according to the government's later press release, over the last five years, approximately twenty five thousand of those stolen bitcoin were transferred out of Liechtenstein's wallet via a complicated money laundering process that ended with some of the stolen funds being deposited into financial accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan.
The remainder of the stolen funds, comprising more than ninety four thousand bitcoin, remained in the wallet used to receive and store the illegal proceeds from the hack man.
If they could have gotten away with this billions, they could have bought themselves all the protection of some foreign countries.
Totally, totally. So they also bought seventy gold coins and Heather buried them actual gold coins, physical yeah something finally, not digital.
Yeah something real.
Yeah, that's that was worth tens of thousands of dollars. They got all those gift cards from big stores that could be converted into air miles.
Thing I don't understand.
And they also had you know, salesfolk.
Of course, Elizabeth use that to like get.
An institutional bitcoin account. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to continue on this crypto journey with Razul Khan and Dutch. All right, so we're back, and Dutch Man, every.
Crazy kid is going to do. I know, well, who are they going to scam next?
Those They got all this bitcoin and they're filtering it and laundering it and doing Yeah, well, they lied to their accountant about how they got it. Of course, they said that they bought one hundred and twenty in May of twenty eleven for three dollars and sixty four cents each, so which.
You know is probably was right at the time. Yeah, yeah, this whole time, my friends who bought it for like a dollar. Yeah, back of the day, I don't even think.
Yeah, yeah, they're kadrillionaires. Now they're living it up. This whole time they did all that first class travel. In twenty nineteen, they took a month long trip to Ukraine, and while they were there, they had a bunch of packages delivered from the dark web. That's simcards, bank accounts, fake Ukrainian passports, you know, so it's like me getting
Amazon packages. They're getting like return addressed dark web. All the travel was actually away for Dutch to meet with people who would convert the bitcoin into government issued currency and then he'd deposit it into Russian and Ukrainian bank That's.
What I was waiting for. Yeah, I figure he had that set up from the get So there.
Is in Ukraine they're laundering money. Yes, the authorities are closing in. There was that rate of alphabet like I said that Dark Web drugged in. They the Feds, they get the servers on that and they could see who was trying to cash out the stolen bitcoin. Eventually they had a suspect Dutch. Some of the accounts that he was using to launder money even used his real name, and on occasion he used his real driver's license to verify his identity and his own home address for a gold trade.
He just didn't have the time. Was he's a busy life type.
Yeah. To really get him and to understand where the rest of the not yet laundered bitcoins were. The FEDS needed to get into his encrypted cloud storage account, I bet and so basically, where's your drammax? So in later court docs quote in twenty twenty one, the agents obtained a copy of the contents of the cloud storage account pursuant to a search warrant. Upon reviewing the contents of
the account, agents confirmed that the account was used by Lichenstein. However, a subset of files were secured with a strong encryption algorithm and a lengthy password. A password of that length would typically prevent a well resourced attacker from accessing the file within his lifetime. November twenty twenty one, a financial services company accidentally sent a notice to Dutch letting him know that he and Heather were the targets of a criminal probe.
Oh and whoops.
They read the letter and immediately they tossed a computer down a garbage chute, hoping it would stall investigators. But I don't think it works that way. No. Yeah, So on the morning of January fifth, twenty twenty two, agents from the FBI IRS Criminal Investigation DHS they arrive at the couple's apartment with a search warrant.
And they wouldn't have needed the search warrant for what they threw in the trash because once you put it in the trash, it becomes basically public property. So that's like the whole thing.
Unless they thought, well, we'll throw a dummy computer down the chute and it'll take them all this time to look at it. So Heather's parents were visiting from Californy, so we have to tame a family in town. She asked the fedes if she and her parents and I feel like she would be the dork to refer to her to them as the rents. Yeah, could they leave the apartment during the search.
And so she has as are in town for a little while, you.
Got to go with the rents. She also asked if she could bring their Bengal cat, Clarissa, who by the way, had her own Instagram account, and they walked the cat and the cat stroller outside because Clarissa had been hiding under a bed. Instinct so the agent's like, yes, you
can get your parents and Clarissa out of here. But then, according to court documents, quote, while Morgan was crouched next to the bed calling to the cat, she positioned herself next to the nightstand, which was still holding one of her phones. She then reached up and grabbed her cell phone from the nightstand and repeatedly hit the lock button. It appeared Morgan was attempting to lock the phone in a way that would make it more difficult for law
enforcement to search the phone's contents. Law enforcement had to wrest the phone from her hand.
Oh wow, they thought over that, they thought, Yeah.
So they go through this raid.
I thought they wouldn't set them down at all.
Who knows, they find forty thousand dollars in cash, a bunch of other foreign currency. They found a bag with the words burner phone written on it. Oh yeah, God, they find like fifty different tablets, phones, other electronics. Two partially hollowed out books.
Fake id's written on it, followed up books is nice. I gotta admit it's pretty qu if you hollow it out yourself.
I doubt it Dutch. He also had a folder on his computer called personas that had like bio information and other identification of Russian and Ukrainian men and women. And then there was a document on his computer called Ukraine Underscore Package which was written in Russian and was how like it was a document about how to anonymously receive a package in Ukraine. And oh, they also found evidence of tracking info for various shipments arriving in Ukraine at
the same time that they were there. So they kept all the tracking information at long after they get home.
They kept so much paperwork.
Yeah, everything like definitively ties that online wallet connected with the Bitfinex A lawyer them, Yeah, so they hired a couple of lawyers. They hired the bit lawyers, and then they also just went ahead and renewed their lease on their apartment for another year, like they're never going to get us. We have enough money.
Oh my goodness. G. K. Chesterton is so right.
So January thirty first, twenty twenty two, law enforcement was able to decrypt some of the key files in the cloud storage I see you were able to do it.
Bet on them every time.
It had a list of two thousand virtual currency addresses along with corresponding private keys, and almost all of the addresses were linked to the bitfinex heist. So there it is, and so then it also said this is what was in the court documents quote. The encrypted area within the cloud storage account also held a parent wallet files for additional cryptocurrency that the government has not yet been able
to seize. Several of these files include variations of the word dirty in their names, such as dirty underscore wallet dot dat. The account also contained a folder holding data files for numerous financial institutions, many in Russia, with notes
that appear to be reconnaissance of potential laundering avenues. The account additionally included a text file named passport underscore ideas that included links to different darknet vendor accounts that appeared to be offering passports or identification cards for sale.
Ohs it just.
Took notes, you know, so they didn't they didn't prove that it was Dutch who hacked bitfinex, just that he'd gotten all the bitcoins.
Yeah, I can see that. February.
Yeah, February eighth, twenty twenty two, Dutch and Razlkhan, they were arrested, charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The government sees ninety four thousand, six hundred thirty six bitcoin that at that point February eighth, twenty twenty two, was worth three point six billion. Wow, that they hadn't laundered yet.
And now the people who had that stolen, do they get that back at the amount that it was worth when it was stolen? Amount they get it?
I think they get it at the coin?
Yeah. Did they get to get their number of coins back? Right? And then if the value goes up, it just happens to go up. Yeah. Wow.
Twenty five thousand of the original coins were still missing, which the government figured they'd already been laundered. Yes.
Nice.
And since the initial three point six billion dollars in assets was received, then the DOJ recovered four hundred and seventy five million more, and then the couple agreed to forfeit seventy two million dollars. By the time they were arrested, the value of the total stolen bitcoin from the original theft was more than five billion with a B dollars.
They stole five billion dollars of imaginary money.
Yes, yes, I told you it was ridiculous.
Oh my yes.
In the press release, government called it the largest financial seizure in US history.
Oh yeah.
Dutchess bail was set at five million, and he had his parents home posted to security. Heathers was set at three million. Dutchess lawyer argued that he wasn't a flight risk because his family had left Russia for religious persecution reasons, and then the government pointed out that in twenty nineteen he got himself.
A Russian passport so he can travel and.
Conveniently, Russia does not extradite its own citizens.
Yes, very right, famously, So.
The lawyers argued that the couple, though they weren't a flight risk because they also had recently had some embryos frozen in planning to try IVF.
And they renewed their lease.
And they renewed the lease, so we aren't going anywhere they're staying. Yeah, and then, in true government fashion, prosecutors pointed to a Razzlecon lyric as proof of her technical expertise. Yes, spearfish your password, all your funds transferred. They're like, she put it in the wrap.
Yeah, come on, young thug, take notes.
So Dutch stayed in custody. Morgan was later allowed to stand her house arrest in the apartment on bond with electronic monitoring. September of twenty twenty two, Razzlecon tweeted about looking for remote work for B to B tech companies like business to business.
Anyone's like, yes, we totally were.
Apparently she found something.
Oh.
In January twenty twenty three, the judge approved that she could work in her employer's office on Monday, Wednesday Friday from ten am to eight thirty pm.
Can you imagine being a parent saying this news and being like.
Oh, so you did get a job, trying to go back to the office like you have an excuse. They said that she could also have a computer and a smartphone that so that she could work from home, but she would be monitored and was not allowed to make any crypto transactions. Naturally, Dutch August twenty twenty three, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. She pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy in one count of conspiracy to defraud the US.
They hardly more charges.
Yeah, they weren't charged with the actual hack, but Dutch admitted in court that he was the one who did it, and according to Bloomberg, he later said he had quote access to bitfinex's systems for several months and also hacked into individual accounts at other crypto exchanges such as coinbase and Kraken. Once he gained access to bitfinex, Liechtenstein said he came up with a way to save customer passwords so he could use them to access accounts at other exchanges.
In some cases, he deposited money into crypto exchanges by using accounts in the name of other individuals that he purchased on the darknet. And he said he did it because quote, at the time, my business was struggling and I was feeling very burnt out from it, So he
hacks hard. Marketing's very hard. The Daily Beast David said that the charge that he confessed to had a maximum of twenty years in prison five hundred thousand dollars fine, but based on his criminal history, number of other factors, his acceptance of responsibility, prosecutors recommended restitution of seventy two million and then ten to twelve years Razlkhan. She said that in twenty twenty, Dutch admitted to her that he'd hack Bifinex, and that she was always suspicious of the extra money.
Always suspicious, so she thought it.
Was from drugs or tax evasions.
So she didn't really flip on him. She just like he could be dirty.
Yeah, yeah, And she said that some of the times they went to Ukraine or Kazakhstan, she thought they were just tourists or like building their businesses.
I thought I was on tour. One time when they.
Were in Kazakhstan, she found him burning documents in a trash can. But she was like, well that's weird. I better rap about it.
That's what you do in tech.
So prosecutors may have offered to sponsor them in witness protection. Why if he had to like disappear for his own safety.
Well, yeah, but what bigger fish do they have?
Yeah he no, he didn't. I'm there's really there's no news on them, either Dutch or razzal Khan. The most recent thing was that a quote federal judge would determine any sentencing, and then February twenty twenty four, apparently he was quote helping federal prosecutors in their case against bitcoin Fog, one of the mixing services he said he'd use to conceal assets. Okay, this is no way to end the tail zeron.
So wait a minute. So okay, Yeah, they're just trying to get this guy to flip and help them make other case.
Sounds like it. Yeah. Almost immediately after the arrest, though, Netflix announced a series dropped a new new banger like No, this isn't the End from Prison, like on.
The Phone, like real hip hop tiles.
It's going to be directed by the same guy who did the Firefest documentary Really serious. As of now, there's no updates on the status of that project. Hulu is was always working on a limited run series called Razzle on the infamous Crocodile of Wall Street starring Lily Collins.
Okay, yeah.
In early twenty twenty four, Amazon MGM Studios announced it was quote launching development on a film called Razzle Khan Okay and Finally.
They didn't no casting announcements now.
Well, March twenty twenty four, it was announced that a feature film, Dutch in Razzle Khan, starring Lewis Pullman and Chloe Grace Moretz. Oh that's cool, would start production this summer twenty twenty four. So let's see if they need us for anything.
Yeah, let's write them.
What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Oh my goodness, So like all this crypto right as somebody who grew up like idolizing con men and like hustlers, I had an immediate instinct that this is just like BS. But I didn't realize it would last so long. Yeah, because I have heard about it way back in the day from my like friends who were deep in the Silicon Valley. Did not have the intelligence to buy any of these like bitcoin type things, but I did have the intelligence to sneer at it the entire time. So
I've been right about that part. Did not pay it all well, But yeah, man, I hate this stuff and it just keeps going. And now they're he's using up like cities worth of water to make up imaginary money. She's only making people like this wealthy. It's not like you hear about like and then they gave a billion dollars to a charity because of all the free money they'd made. Like if I could feel a little better if I ever heard that.
But new that's the you know, my ridiculous take thanks for asking, is that it's everything is theoretical about it, right, Like it's just all ones and zeros in the matrix. But then there are the real world aspects of it. And I'm not talking about razzle Khan walking up and down the street wrapping. I'm talking about, like you said, like the amount of energy that gets used, and it's
so crazy wasteful. I mean, I suppose not if you're going to talk about like the money that it makes, but sure, and it's it's but it's all again theoretical, and it's it's the on the ground though it's so damaging, so damaging and wasteful, very very wasteful. So that is my ridiculous takeaway. Thank you very much, Dave. Could you could you give me a talk back?
Oh yeah, oh.
Oh god, I went ge.
Hey's Aaron Elizabeth and producer Dave.
This is Ben from New York City.
So I'm unemployed and I've been looking for jobs recently, and.
I saw a Craigslist ad to become a private investigator.
The guy wants me to drive tomorrow morning out to Long Island for an interview.
I need your guys advice. Should I go? Should I become a PI? From what I have to stand? Yeah, we we had the intern to get back to this guy. We're waiting for an update. Correct.
Yeah, we're just waiting to hear from him. We urged him desperately for you. He's got to go do this and report back. Yes, please, and then also don't get murdered, so you know, bring like mace and do a pin drop when you get there.
Pizzaza, bring a pizza.
You know everyone likes pizza. Yeah, but oh my gosh, hangry. That's all I have for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. You can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and then, most importantly, leave us a talk back on the iHeart app. Just reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
produced and edited by Dave Kusten aka Sizzle Korn. Research is by founder and CEO of Sales Farce Marisa Brown and banana leaf painter Andrea song Sharpen Tear. The theme song is by Razulkan, stylist Thomas Lee and razzlecon lyricist Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five Hundred. Executive producers are Crypto Bully Ben Boleen and Crypto Keeper Noel Brown.
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Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.