1
00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:04,280
Speaker 1: I was at work and I got a targeted AD

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,080
Speaker 1: from a law firm and it said, did you invest

3
00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:10,240
Speaker 1: in center Tech? We think that center Tech is a

4
00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:13,200
Speaker 1: fraud and if you have any information, please contact us.

5
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:16,840
Speaker 1: And it was the perfect targeted ad because I was

6
00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:18,960
Speaker 1: the one who had all the information that they needed.

7
00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:22,560
Speaker 1: I called him up and they said, would you be

8
00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:25,360
Speaker 1: interested representing this case that we're bringing to court.

9
00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:01,040
Speaker 2: I'm Johnny be Good and this is creating a con

10
00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:10,120
Speaker 2: the story of Bitcom episode seven, Criminal Etiquette. By the

11
00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:13,800
Speaker 2: end of October twenty seventeen, centri Tech had collected more

12
00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:17,760
Speaker 2: than thirty million dollars from investors. The company had lofty

13
00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:20,440
Speaker 2: goals of creating a debit card to spend cryptocurrency in

14
00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:24,120
Speaker 2: the real world. In reality, they used smoking mirrors to

15
00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:27,440
Speaker 2: convince eager investors that they had an actual functioning product,

16
00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:32,479
Speaker 2: much less a functioning company. And then came that piece

17
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:35,480
Speaker 2: about centri Tech in the New York Times. All of

18
00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:40,800
Speaker 2: their exaggerations, mistruths, and blatant lies had been exposed, and

19
00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:44,000
Speaker 2: now the vultures were circling and they planned to hit

20
00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:48,960
Speaker 2: CenTra where it hurt. The explosive article featured a picture

21
00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 2: of Robert Farkas, Sam Sharma, and Ray taken in their

22
00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:54,640
Speaker 2: swanky downtown Miami offices.

23
00:01:55,800 --> 00:01:56,800
Speaker 3: I was like, this is dopeer.

24
00:01:56,840 --> 00:01:59,800
Speaker 2: In the New York Times, there was Ray standing in

25
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,320
Speaker 2: between Sam Sharma and Robert Farkas, dressed in a fancy

26
00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:04,200
Speaker 2: dark blue suit.

27
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:07,280
Speaker 3: This suit that I'm wearing is three thousand dollars suit.

28
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,560
Speaker 3: And Sharma looks like weird in this. Looks like he's

29
00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:13,280
Speaker 3: got fucking silk hair or something.

30
00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:17,120
Speaker 2: For someone who claims he didn't like having his picture taken,

31
00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:21,640
Speaker 2: Ray enjoyed seeing himself in The New York Times, even

32
00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:22,760
Speaker 2: if he didn't have a tan.

33
00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:25,880
Speaker 3: I mean I just look like for especially for someone

34
00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:28,680
Speaker 3: living in Miami. I look mad, pale, and just my

35
00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:31,919
Speaker 3: base is all bone. You can see like my jaw

36
00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:35,400
Speaker 3: so crazy in that. But I don't hate this.

37
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:39,880
Speaker 2: Picture appearances aside. Right beneath that photo was the article

38
00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:44,080
Speaker 2: hal Floyd Mayweather helped two young guys from Miami get rich.

39
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:48,600
Speaker 2: As soon as Ray got past looking at himself and

40
00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:53,880
Speaker 2: actually read through the article, his tone completely changed. Here's

41
00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 2: some of the greatest hits from that article. CenTra as

42
00:02:57,720 --> 00:02:59,680
Speaker 2: a project that has ended up with more than a

43
00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:04,200
Speaker 2: few problems. Including a chief executive who does not appear

44
00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:08,680
Speaker 2: to have been a real person. After being contacted by

45
00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:13,200
Speaker 2: The Times, mister Mayweather deleted his Instagram and Facebook posts

46
00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:19,040
Speaker 2: endorsing CenTra. There was one problem with this plan. The

47
00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:22,800
Speaker 2: company had not been approved or had even applied to

48
00:03:22,919 --> 00:03:26,880
Speaker 2: run a centric card on the visa network. Assuming regulators

49
00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:30,080
Speaker 2: don't step in, mister Trapani and mister Sharma can keep

50
00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:32,600
Speaker 2: the money even if they don't build anything.

51
00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,360
Speaker 3: That fucking whole thing was so fucked up because Robert

52
00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:38,480
Speaker 3: Farcas took the phone call from them and he was

53
00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:39,200
Speaker 3: all excited.

54
00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:45,040
Speaker 2: Ray chewed out Farcas, who, by my account, only spoke

55
00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:48,360
Speaker 2: with Nathaniel Popper for approximately four and a half minutes

56
00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:50,640
Speaker 2: before passing the phone onto Ray and Sam.

57
00:03:51,320 --> 00:03:55,280
Speaker 3: He didn't question what they're writing about, Like typically that's

58
00:03:55,320 --> 00:03:57,240
Speaker 3: what you do. Like you're the owner of a company.

59
00:03:57,240 --> 00:03:58,960
Speaker 3: You don't want a New York Times article. It's gonna

60
00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:00,600
Speaker 3: be a bad article. You have to asked, Like, not

61
00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:02,360
Speaker 3: everybody's going to write a good thing about you.

62
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:04,600
Speaker 2: Ray's mom also felt.

63
00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:07,640
Speaker 4: That way when he told me that The New York

64
00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:09,920
Speaker 4: Times was coming to interview him. I said, right, it's

65
00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:12,720
Speaker 4: a New York times, don't do it. I'm telling you

66
00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:14,880
Speaker 4: right now. You don't know what they're going to say.

67
00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:16,880
Speaker 4: You know, you never know how they're going to sway things.

68
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:19,200
Speaker 4: But this is the thing. He never listens to me.

69
00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:20,760
Speaker 4: Oh no, it's.

70
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:21,479
Speaker 1: Food, it's food.

71
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:25,400
Speaker 2: The article man, plenty of new eyeballs were now focused

72
00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:26,160
Speaker 2: on centri Tech.

73
00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:29,960
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this.

74
00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:31,200
Speaker 5: This doesn't sound good.

75
00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:33,320
Speaker 2: That's our friend, Maara.

76
00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:37,640
Speaker 6: This is a national article. People are going to read this.

77
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:39,440
Speaker 5: What's going to happen here?

78
00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:41,560
Speaker 3: That's when I really got nervous.

79
00:04:42,279 --> 00:04:45,000
Speaker 2: Up until that point, centri Tech had managed to dodge

80
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:49,359
Speaker 2: a million bullets. But that article exposed the underbelly of

81
00:04:49,400 --> 00:04:53,200
Speaker 2: centri Tech, prodding at each embarrassing detail.

82
00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:58,440
Speaker 1: They talked about Sam Sharma's drinking and driving incident, They

83
00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:01,200
Speaker 1: talk about a lot of the prior issues that they

84
00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:02,800
Speaker 1: had with Miami exotics.

85
00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:06,640
Speaker 2: This was all news to investor Jacob Renzel. He remembers

86
00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:10,320
Speaker 2: finding the article online and seeing the responses from Centra's leadership.

87
00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:13,200
Speaker 1: Ray Mitripponi actually didn't know that that was a negative

88
00:05:13,279 --> 00:05:16,479
Speaker 1: article for the longest time. He actually says, all press

89
00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:20,160
Speaker 1: is good press. To me, that looked like the nail

90
00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:20,680
Speaker 1: on the coffin.

91
00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:26,800
Speaker 3: The worst part about the article was definitely that it

92
00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:30,719
Speaker 3: drew extra eyes from authorities, but at the time we

93
00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:33,240
Speaker 3: didn't know that. Also, like the whole perjury thing had

94
00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:35,839
Speaker 3: happened weeks before this, so like things were just getting

95
00:05:35,839 --> 00:05:37,520
Speaker 3: hot and it was just not looking good.

96
00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:41,520
Speaker 2: Earlier that month, Ray and Sam were indicted for perjury

97
00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:45,800
Speaker 2: stemming from Sam's DWI case in Manhattan, the case where

98
00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:47,960
Speaker 2: Ray testified when he was caught in a lie that

99
00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:51,000
Speaker 2: Sam only had one drink that night. The New York

100
00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:54,360
Speaker 2: Times article included that detail, and it didn't paint a

101
00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:58,160
Speaker 2: pretty picture. CenTra investors acted accordingly.

102
00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:00,560
Speaker 1: I was like, I need to sell now because this

103
00:06:00,640 --> 00:06:03,480
Speaker 1: is totally one hundred percent of scam, and it sent

104
00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:07,400
Speaker 1: me down a path to start collecting data on every

105
00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:10,240
Speaker 1: individual of this company.

106
00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:15,480
Speaker 2: As Jacob and other investors tried to cash out, Ray

107
00:06:15,520 --> 00:06:18,080
Speaker 2: decided it was time for him to check out. But

108
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:21,520
Speaker 2: Sam Sharma, who also goes by Sorby, wasn't ready to

109
00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:22,360
Speaker 2: jump ship yet.

110
00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,040
Speaker 3: In sorb we have a conversation about stepping down and

111
00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:28,600
Speaker 3: making some new the CEO, someone that has an actual

112
00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:33,080
Speaker 3: clean image. What Sorbi would remain as the defacto owner

113
00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:33,760
Speaker 3: of the company.

114
00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:37,080
Speaker 2: Behind the scenes, Ray knew he couldn't cut ties completely.

115
00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:39,240
Speaker 2: He still needed something from Sam.

116
00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:41,719
Speaker 3: I'm asking him to pay a debt that we built

117
00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:43,680
Speaker 3: together that's in my family's name, and he tries to

118
00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:44,800
Speaker 3: give me the run around on it.

119
00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:48,120
Speaker 2: If Sam wasn't going to settle the outstanding Tripani debt,

120
00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:51,080
Speaker 2: Ray needed to maintain some type of control.

121
00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:53,760
Speaker 3: We ended up putting my grandfather as the CEO.

122
00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:57,880
Speaker 2: You heard that right. Seventy nine year old William Hagner,

123
00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 2: better known as Pop, would be taking the reins of

124
00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,320
Speaker 2: a crypto tech firm, a man who made his living

125
00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:07,919
Speaker 2: inspecting elevators and allegedly racketeering.

126
00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:12,880
Speaker 3: My grandfather is the perfect person because he's not obviously functionable.

127
00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:15,640
Speaker 3: But it makes it that I have somewhat ownership of

128
00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:19,200
Speaker 3: this company without having ownership of this company, and I'm

129
00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:22,360
Speaker 3: able to step away. We put out a press release

130
00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:25,480
Speaker 3: saying that we were stepping down. William Hagner was going

131
00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:26,760
Speaker 3: to be the CEO of the company.

132
00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:30,240
Speaker 2: In that press release from Centritech, it said rayin Sam

133
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:33,480
Speaker 2: would be stepping aside to support the continued growth of

134
00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:38,480
Speaker 2: the company. As for Ray's grandfather, there was one important detail.

135
00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:39,160
Speaker 2: They left out.

136
00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:43,560
Speaker 3: My grandfather had just gotten cancer a second time. He

137
00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 3: was on his way out, and he was basically like,

138
00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:48,000
Speaker 3: I don't give a fuck at this point and just

139
00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:48,680
Speaker 3: do whatever you want.

140
00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:54,200
Speaker 2: I know it sounds crazy, but in some ways, this

141
00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:57,640
Speaker 2: was Pop's last hurrah, his last chance to go out

142
00:07:57,680 --> 00:08:02,400
Speaker 2: like a boss. In the press release, Sam defined his

143
00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:06,320
Speaker 2: own role as visionary manager moving forward. I'd love to

144
00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:11,440
Speaker 2: see that job description. More and more worried investors began

145
00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:14,960
Speaker 2: to chatter online about Centritech being one giant lie.

146
00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:18,240
Speaker 1: But I was just generally embarrassed that I invested in

147
00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:20,480
Speaker 1: something that is scam.

148
00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:24,520
Speaker 2: That's when investor Jacob Rensel started pressing Centru's team on

149
00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:25,320
Speaker 2: the slack channel.

150
00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:28,840
Speaker 1: Whenever I asked hard questions, they never got answered. My

151
00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:30,520
Speaker 1: message just started to disappear.

152
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:35,600
Speaker 2: Jacob wanted answers, and the question seemed fair. What was

153
00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:38,360
Speaker 2: the deal with via en MasterCard? When was he going

154
00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:41,400
Speaker 2: to get his centri card? And who the fuck is

155
00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:42,200
Speaker 2: William Hagnet.

156
00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:44,600
Speaker 1: Little did I know at that time I was on

157
00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:46,920
Speaker 1: the wrong end of a band hammer that was coming

158
00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:47,840
Speaker 1: my way.

159
00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:51,400
Speaker 2: Suddenly, and without any warning, the moderator of Centrau slack

160
00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:53,120
Speaker 2: channel locked Jacob out.

161
00:08:54,559 --> 00:08:57,800
Speaker 1: I believe Raymond Trepani actually banned made himself. I can't

162
00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:01,040
Speaker 1: confirm that, but the moment that that happened, I was

163
00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:07,559
Speaker 1: extremely upset. I was asking legitimate questions, just regular easy

164
00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:10,360
Speaker 1: questions that could have been answered if they were a

165
00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:13,080
Speaker 1: legitimate company. That set me off.

166
00:09:13,559 --> 00:09:17,080
Speaker 2: Whether it was Ray or someone else. Whoever banned Jacob

167
00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:19,720
Speaker 2: from the Slack channel picked the wrong guy to fuck with.

168
00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:22,120
Speaker 1: I threw my phone on the floor. I was like,

169
00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:24,960
Speaker 1: fuck you guys. I was running around the room like,

170
00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:28,679
Speaker 1: oh my god, I invested how much money into this shit?

171
00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:31,280
Speaker 1: Just super pissed off.

172
00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:36,679
Speaker 2: I never understood people who break their own shit out

173
00:09:36,679 --> 00:09:41,880
Speaker 2: of anger. But nevertheless, Jacob sought revenge and combed every

174
00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:46,200
Speaker 2: channel he could read it, YouTube, Twitter, even Facebook.

175
00:09:46,720 --> 00:09:50,000
Speaker 1: Just straight every day trying to find more information, looking

176
00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:53,160
Speaker 1: up articles, looking up anything that's tied with these individuals.

177
00:09:53,520 --> 00:09:58,560
Speaker 2: The easiest way Jacob connected all these dots Ray's Facebook page.

178
00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:03,000
Speaker 1: Raymond Trepani was a fire hose of information. I figured

179
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,240
Speaker 1: out every single family member that Raymond Trupani had. He

180
00:10:06,760 --> 00:10:10,400
Speaker 1: was all about flashing everything that he had. He just

181
00:10:10,600 --> 00:10:12,880
Speaker 1: let it all out there. So he was just a

182
00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,360
Speaker 1: data mine. I just started getting screen grabs of everything

183
00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:19,200
Speaker 1: that I was finding and then compiling it all. And

184
00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:22,800
Speaker 1: that's actually how I figured out who William Hagner was,

185
00:10:23,679 --> 00:10:26,760
Speaker 1: so I was like, oh, this is actually Raymond Trupani's grandfather,

186
00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:31,559
Speaker 1: Bill Hagner. I actually spent like a month and a

187
00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:33,960
Speaker 1: half compiling all of it, and then I asked myself,

188
00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:36,520
Speaker 1: what was I doing? Why am I spending all this

189
00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:37,199
Speaker 1: time on this.

190
00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:40,160
Speaker 2: Jacob found his answer one day when he came across

191
00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:41,559
Speaker 2: an ad from a law firm.

192
00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:44,520
Speaker 1: And said, did you invest in Center Tech? We think

193
00:10:44,559 --> 00:10:46,920
Speaker 1: that Center Tech is a fraud and if you have

194
00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:48,839
Speaker 1: any information, please contact us.

195
00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:52,199
Speaker 2: One phone call later and Jacob signed on as one

196
00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:54,800
Speaker 2: of the lead plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit being

197
00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:59,559
Speaker 2: filed against Center Tech. He turned over his mountain of documents, downloads,

198
00:10:59,559 --> 00:11:00,959
Speaker 2: and screen shots to the suits.

199
00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:04,679
Speaker 1: We believe that they were committing fraud. So really, at

200
00:11:04,679 --> 00:11:07,400
Speaker 1: that time, it was more about proving that they committed fraud.

201
00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:09,440
Speaker 1: There was no funds to get back at that point

202
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:09,840
Speaker 1: in time.

203
00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:13,640
Speaker 2: At this point, CenTra hadn't been accused of anything.

204
00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:18,360
Speaker 1: Obviously, what they're doing is not what they're saying they're doing.

205
00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:22,439
Speaker 2: So Jacob and the class pressed forward. The attorneys filed

206
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:25,480
Speaker 2: suit against Centritech at the end of twenty seventeen. And

207
00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:29,960
Speaker 2: this wasn't just some manufacturer's warranty class action suit where

208
00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:32,679
Speaker 2: you get some pamphlet in the mail advertising the ten

209
00:11:32,760 --> 00:11:36,280
Speaker 2: dollars payout you get using a QR code. No, this

210
00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:40,920
Speaker 2: class action submitted claims totaling billions of dollars, anywhere from

211
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:43,520
Speaker 2: thirteen to sixty one billion dollars.

212
00:11:43,880 --> 00:11:47,040
Speaker 1: The moment that we pushed that out, I sent a

213
00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:49,880
Speaker 1: copy of it to TMZ and leaked all the information.

214
00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:53,920
Speaker 1: I said, Hey, big scoop, we're suing these guys. Do

215
00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:54,520
Speaker 1: an article.

216
00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:57,920
Speaker 2: TMZ ran a story about how a company endorsed by

217
00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:00,920
Speaker 2: Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled was being I.

218
00:12:00,880 --> 00:12:03,760
Speaker 1: Was, you know, taking Raymond Trepani's playbook, All press is

219
00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:04,520
Speaker 1: Good press, right.

220
00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,120
Speaker 2: Ray may have stepped away from centri Tech, but that

221
00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:18,679
Speaker 2: didn't absolve him of his past. By December of twenty seventeen,

222
00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:21,120
Speaker 2: centri Tech was sued by a group of investors in

223
00:12:21,120 --> 00:12:24,840
Speaker 2: a class action lawsuit. But there was more bad news.

224
00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:28,640
Speaker 3: I was home one day and Sorbi calls me and

225
00:12:28,679 --> 00:12:31,960
Speaker 3: he's like, the SEC is doing an investigation and we

226
00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:35,480
Speaker 3: need to hire lawyers. It's like, bro, it's not even

227
00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:38,400
Speaker 3: a big deal, like you know, some bullshit the SEC.

228
00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:41,440
Speaker 3: And I was like, all right, whatever. I was more

229
00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:43,640
Speaker 3: worried about me going through the casino later that night

230
00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:45,800
Speaker 3: than what he was talking about on the phone. He's like, yo,

231
00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:48,240
Speaker 3: but you have to get like I'm going to hire

232
00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:50,480
Speaker 3: this attorney. I'm like, all right, whatever, just let me

233
00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:53,520
Speaker 3: know what I gotta do. It wasn't the FBI, right,

234
00:12:53,559 --> 00:12:59,240
Speaker 3: The SEC doesn't sound as like intimidating. They were just like, oh,

235
00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:01,080
Speaker 3: this is like some little shit that will have to

236
00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:03,000
Speaker 3: go through. And I was like, all right, fuck it.

237
00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:05,040
Speaker 3: Assume me for all the money. I've always been like that.

238
00:13:05,160 --> 00:13:08,559
Speaker 3: Just send me the bill. I'll put all my money

239
00:13:08,559 --> 00:13:11,080
Speaker 3: in cash, and I'll give you one hundred bucks a week.

240
00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:12,240
Speaker 3: I could care less.

241
00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:15,720
Speaker 2: Centritech founded the company right around the time the Security

242
00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:20,080
Speaker 2: and Exchange Commission was looking to define crypto as a security,

243
00:13:20,160 --> 00:13:22,600
Speaker 2: because the SEC could only step in if the company

244
00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:27,720
Speaker 2: was selling securities. Securities are stocks, bonds, any investment asset

245
00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:31,800
Speaker 2: that has an expectation to increase in value. In twenty seventeen,

246
00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:34,280
Speaker 2: the SEC was on a hunt to get a handle

247
00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:37,400
Speaker 2: in this emerging market. If they didn't step in now,

248
00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:40,640
Speaker 2: they saw they could have a massive problem on their hands.

249
00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:43,200
Speaker 7: This was a time when a lot of younger people

250
00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:48,200
Speaker 7: with very limited or no financial services experience saw what

251
00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:50,959
Speaker 7: they thought was the next big thing and wanted to

252
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:51,560
Speaker 7: be part of it.

253
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:54,920
Speaker 2: Howard Fisher is a former prosecutor for the SEC.

254
00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:58,760
Speaker 7: There were tons of icos at that point, all sorts

255
00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:01,160
Speaker 7: of crazy things. I remember a white paper for something

256
00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:06,559
Speaker 7: known as banana Coin, a banana based digital currency redeemable

257
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:09,800
Speaker 7: for two pounds of Cambodian bananas if you went to

258
00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:13,360
Speaker 7: the plantation and Cambodia where they were being grown. So

259
00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:16,319
Speaker 7: it had really become a wild wild West.

260
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:20,040
Speaker 2: It wasn't bananas that had the SEC knocking on Centristor,

261
00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 2: but a bunch of other things.

262
00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:26,120
Speaker 7: This is an interesting case because on the one hand,

263
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:30,400
Speaker 7: this was sort of your garden variety fraud. Makeup stuff

264
00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:34,520
Speaker 7: about your business prospects, makeup stuff about your business partners,

265
00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:37,880
Speaker 7: makeup stuff about your executive board, which admittedly is a

266
00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:40,800
Speaker 7: little bit out there. But what made this interesting was

267
00:14:40,800 --> 00:14:43,880
Speaker 7: that they were taking this and putting it into the

268
00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:47,720
Speaker 7: crypto space. And this is one of the first times

269
00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:53,320
Speaker 7: that celebrity endorsers were roped into digital asset promotion.

270
00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:57,160
Speaker 2: By the end of November twenty seventeen, the SEC sent

271
00:14:57,160 --> 00:14:58,440
Speaker 2: a subpoena a center Tech.

272
00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:01,080
Speaker 7: Typically, the first thing that what happens is that whoever

273
00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:02,480
Speaker 7: gets a subpoena panics.

274
00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:05,040
Speaker 2: To Sam's credit, he didn't panic.

275
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:07,920
Speaker 3: He tells me like, oh yeah, it's nothing, bro guys.

276
00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,640
Speaker 3: Spoke with his attorney. He was great and he helped

277
00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:11,440
Speaker 3: me with everything.

278
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:14,880
Speaker 2: Months earlier, Sam wanted to make sure center Tech wouldn't

279
00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:18,080
Speaker 2: have any problems with the SEC. A new case called

280
00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:20,960
Speaker 2: Sam's attention, so he texted the team about it.

281
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:25,360
Speaker 3: Sorbe brought up a company called Recoin, which I got

282
00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:26,720
Speaker 3: in troubled by the SEC.

283
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:31,800
Speaker 2: In September of twenty seventeen, the SEC had announced an

284
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:35,960
Speaker 2: enforcement action against Recoin for selling unregistered securities as part

285
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:40,360
Speaker 2: of two separate initial coin offerings. The allegations and charges

286
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:44,440
Speaker 2: were steep. Sam Sharma feared that the Security and Exchange

287
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:46,800
Speaker 2: Commission could be a problem for centri Tech.

288
00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:50,760
Speaker 7: One thing that people tend to misunderstand about the SEC

289
00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:54,200
Speaker 7: is that the SEC is an agency of limited jurisdiction.

290
00:15:54,720 --> 00:15:58,400
Speaker 7: It does not exist to protect people against business scams,

291
00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:02,360
Speaker 7: and it doesn't exist as a general regulator of the

292
00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:06,480
Speaker 7: world of business. It exists to protect people from being

293
00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:10,720
Speaker 7: defrauded in connection with a purchase or sale of securities.

294
00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:14,240
Speaker 7: And the SEC is only empowered to act if the

295
00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:19,200
Speaker 7: instrument at issue is defined as a security, and that

296
00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:22,960
Speaker 7: has been the key issue in the digital asset space.

297
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:28,360
Speaker 2: That was and still is a trillion dollar question. Were

298
00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:34,000
Speaker 2: these cryptocurrencies of security? Sorby needed to know his coin

299
00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:36,960
Speaker 2: was not in fact a security, or at least that

300
00:16:37,040 --> 00:16:38,680
Speaker 2: the SEC wouldn't consider it one.

301
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:43,520
Speaker 3: I guess like Sorbie just was trying to find clarification

302
00:16:43,640 --> 00:16:46,360
Speaker 3: on what was happening to other coins, just like that

303
00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:47,800
Speaker 3: of being nervous.

304
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:50,720
Speaker 2: So Sorby consulted with one of the partners of the

305
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:54,840
Speaker 2: law firm, Pope and done. According to Pope and Donn's website,

306
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:58,680
Speaker 2: their offices sat in downtown Manhattan, right around the corner

307
00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:01,760
Speaker 2: from Wall Street. Sorby was lucky enough to put Eric

308
00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:06,160
Speaker 2: Pope on retainer. Eric assured sorry that the SEC would

309
00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:08,840
Speaker 2: only go after Center Tech if it was considered a security,

310
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,240
Speaker 2: like a stock, the very thing that got recoined in trouble.

311
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,760
Speaker 2: According to their lawyer, mister Pope, Centri Tech was definitely

312
00:17:16,840 --> 00:17:21,560
Speaker 2: not a security. So when the SEC subpoena showed up

313
00:17:21,600 --> 00:17:25,399
Speaker 2: on November twenty ninth, twenty seventeen, Sorby wasn't worried.

314
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:29,800
Speaker 3: Sorby just replied back in email form to the SEC

315
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,159
Speaker 3: and was like, listen, I spoke to an attorney and

316
00:17:33,359 --> 00:17:36,439
Speaker 3: got clarification that it wasn't a security, and they were

317
00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:40,320
Speaker 3: probably like, what who is this guy?

318
00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:44,639
Speaker 2: Damn that's pretty ballsy to reach out to the SEC

319
00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:47,320
Speaker 2: and tell them their definition of a security was wrong.

320
00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:50,120
Speaker 2: Here's Howard Fisher Again.

321
00:17:50,160 --> 00:17:54,600
Speaker 7: We've seen the SEC aggressively argue that pretty much every

322
00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:59,159
Speaker 7: single digital asset would perhaps the exception of bitcoin, is

323
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:02,400
Speaker 7: in fact a secure, and if it's a security, the

324
00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:05,800
Speaker 7: SEC could regulate it and it could step in to

325
00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:08,000
Speaker 7: stop scams involving them.

326
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:11,399
Speaker 2: Sam Sowerby Sharma would rely on the details of his

327
00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:15,440
Speaker 2: attorney's opinion to fight the subpoena. But there was one

328
00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:18,560
Speaker 2: important detail that Sam did not know about his attorney.

329
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:24,400
Speaker 2: Eric Pope, didn't exist, just like Centia CEO Michael Edwards,

330
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:25,960
Speaker 2: he was completely made up.

331
00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:31,199
Speaker 5: Eric Pope was meant to be a lawyer, educated at

332
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,240
Speaker 5: the Warden school just like Donald Trump and then New

333
00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:38,000
Speaker 5: York University School of Law with a long track record

334
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:39,280
Speaker 5: as a successful lawyer.

335
00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:43,160
Speaker 2: Ben Schreckinger is a political journalist who unmasked Eric Pope

336
00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:43,760
Speaker 2: to the world.

337
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:49,280
Speaker 5: Eric Pope was a persona invented by John Lambert.

338
00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:52,240
Speaker 2: All right, so who the fuck is John Lambert.

339
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:57,040
Speaker 5: John Lambert was a college student who was engaging in

340
00:18:57,080 --> 00:19:01,240
Speaker 5: an elaborate fraud, creating a fake law for charging people

341
00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:05,720
Speaker 5: thousands of dollars for legal services and making it all up.

342
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:09,760
Speaker 2: Essentially, So this is where things get interesting. John Lambert

343
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:12,800
Speaker 2: was a college student who, along with one of his buddies,

344
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 2: created the fake law firm of Pope and Donn and

345
00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:19,480
Speaker 2: then advertise it on freelancing websites like upwork.

346
00:19:19,960 --> 00:19:23,800
Speaker 5: As things got more elaborate, they created a website with

347
00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:28,119
Speaker 5: a stable of attorneys with very impressive biographies, and it

348
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 5: turned out that at least some of those biographies had

349
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:33,840
Speaker 5: just been ripped from Pravath swanmon Moore, which is one

350
00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:35,720
Speaker 5: of the most prestigious law firms in the country.

351
00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:40,040
Speaker 2: Sound familiar, It's like John Lambert pulled the page straight

352
00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:41,400
Speaker 2: from Sam and Ray's playbook.

353
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:46,040
Speaker 5: He grew up in Eastern Tennessee. He liked to play

354
00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:52,119
Speaker 5: video games. He met friends online playing video games, and

355
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:55,280
Speaker 5: he was obsessed with the movie The Wolf of Wall Street.

356
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:58,360
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Jordan Belford.

357
00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:00,760
Speaker 5: I'm the broker from child.

358
00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:02,080
Speaker 2: From New York. Yes, yeah, have a seat.

359
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:04,320
Speaker 3: How are you This stuff regulated?

360
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:10,040
Speaker 7: Sort of Jesus Christ is spread on these is huge.

361
00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:10,360
Speaker 5: Yeah.

362
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:12,159
Speaker 2: And that's the point, Jordan, what do you get on

363
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:12,679
Speaker 2: blue Chip?

364
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:12,960
Speaker 7: Stop?

365
00:20:13,480 --> 00:20:17,040
Speaker 2: I make one percent. I didn't make one pink sheets

366
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:17,680
Speaker 2: it's fifty.

367
00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:19,000
Speaker 4: You know.

368
00:20:19,160 --> 00:20:23,160
Speaker 5: The story of Jordan belfour is a guy who makes

369
00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:26,959
Speaker 5: big money, is very flashy and is eventually exposed as fraud.

370
00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:31,119
Speaker 5: And that's a theme of the story of John Lambert

371
00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:32,280
Speaker 5: slash Eric Pope.

372
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:37,880
Speaker 2: If you look at Eric Pope's profile on upwork, which

373
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:41,080
Speaker 2: as of twenty twenty four is still active, it says

374
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,320
Speaker 2: at Pope and dun Law, we offer reliable and effective

375
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:49,600
Speaker 2: legal services. Our seasoned professionals are led by Eric Pope,

376
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:52,359
Speaker 2: a graduate of the New York University School of Law,

377
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:54,159
Speaker 2: and Jonathan Dunn.

378
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:57,520
Speaker 5: Yeah. If you believe what you're reading on the internet,

379
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:01,720
Speaker 5: you're getting a high powered man. Had an attorney with

380
00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:05,560
Speaker 5: an address in New York with New York city phone number.

381
00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:09,320
Speaker 2: But here's the thing about John Lambert. He wasn't just

382
00:21:09,359 --> 00:21:10,959
Speaker 2: any ordinary college student.

383
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:18,080
Speaker 5: John Lambert was catapulted to unlikely prominence by co founding

384
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:21,479
Speaker 5: the Students for Trump group, which became huge force on

385
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:25,119
Speaker 5: social media during Trump's rise to power. One of the

386
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:28,080
Speaker 5: things they became known for that got them a lot

387
00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:31,720
Speaker 5: of attention was posting photos of college aged women and

388
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 5: skimpy outfits, often with Trump campaign paraphernalia.

389
00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:39,760
Speaker 2: So yeah, centri Tek was paying six hundred and fifty

390
00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:42,879
Speaker 2: dollars an hour to the co founders of Students for Trump,

391
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 2: who was also moonlighting as a fake high profile lawyer.

392
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 2: You can't make this shit up.

393
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 5: According to the indictment, this money got sent to a

394
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 5: PayPal account.

395
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:57,400
Speaker 2: A law firm collecting legal bills through PayPal. Seems legit right,

396
00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:02,480
Speaker 2: Too bad they didn't accept bitcoin. Sam wasn't the only

397
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 2: one to fall for John Lambert's scam, but Sam's decision

398
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:08,880
Speaker 2: to forward Eric Pope's name and legal opinion to the

399
00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:11,439
Speaker 2: SEC led to John Lambert's undoing.

400
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:15,080
Speaker 3: It's definitely crazy that, like, you know, some guy we

401
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:18,480
Speaker 3: met off upwork that we used as an attorney ended

402
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:21,399
Speaker 3: up being some big time scammer that was taken down

403
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 3: because Sam used his name. When it came to the

404
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 3: SEC investigation.

405
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 2: John Lambert was eventually arrested, and his lawyer blamed the

406
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 2: TV show suits. He said the character Mike Ross, who

407
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:39,119
Speaker 2: pretended to be a Harvard educated lawyer, led John to

408
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,439
Speaker 2: believe that he too could practice being a lawyer.

409
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 3: At no point did Sam ever tell me that this

410
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,960
Speaker 3: was an attorney from upwork. But it doesn't surprise me

411
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 3: one bit that that's where he found the attorney.

412
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 2: John Lambert's co conspirator flipped on him and cooperated with

413
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:59,719
Speaker 2: the fed's investigation. In twenty nineteen, John Lambert pled guilty

414
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 2: to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and got thirteen months

415
00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:06,160
Speaker 2: in prison. In a way, if it weren't for centri Tech,

416
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,400
Speaker 2: Eric Polpe may still be giving fraud and legal advice.

417
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think in war right, like you

418
00:23:12,840 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 3: just take it on the chin. I don't think Sam

419
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 3: would be like upset about it. I just think he'd

420
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:19,679
Speaker 3: be like, wow, it got me, you know, like always

421
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 3: finagling and scamming things, you see how easily it's done.

422
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 3: So if I see like a good scamming'm like that

423
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 3: was pretty good. I mean that's how I always take things.

424
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 2: Ugh, this fucking guy with a class action lawsuit and

425
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:42,159
Speaker 2: an SEC investigation looming over centri Tech, Ray had stepped

426
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 2: aside and was busy enjoying his retirement.

427
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 3: I was just at the casino, just fucking hookers, gambling

428
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 3: up a storm, just fucking being a complete degenerate.

429
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 2: Ray just couldn't help himself, and now that he was

430
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 2: no longer a part of centri Tech, he went back

431
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:00,760
Speaker 2: to screwing over Sam Sharma, just like he did in

432
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 2: high school. He'd continue his pump and dump scheme extracting

433
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 2: money from the company. It was another big fuck you

434
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:11,639
Speaker 2: to Sam Sorbi Sharma. Each day Ray would pump up

435
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 2: the value of the center coin and then dump his

436
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:14,679
Speaker 2: coins out of profit.

437
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 3: I went from having a couple hundred thousand in my

438
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 3: bank from CenTra to having millions of dollars in my

439
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 3: bank account from CenTra. I was like, fuck it, I'm

440
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 3: undercutting Sorbi as much as possible.

441
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 2: That money also helped to support raise many bad habits.

442
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 3: My Xanax intake was insane. I would go get a

443
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 3: prescription for one hundred and twenty zanax is supposed to

444
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 3: last you a month. I'd finished that in four days.

445
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 3: But then There'd be times where I'd run out and

446
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 3: I'd have seizures. It was a point where there was

447
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 3: a shortage of xanax in Florida, and I kept running out.

448
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 3: I always wanted someone there, like if I was having

449
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 3: a seizure, to like, you know, bring me to the

450
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,919
Speaker 3: hospital cold nine one one. Realistically, I was on a

451
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 3: path that died anyways.

452
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, it wasn't Ray, but the man Ray

453
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 2: looked up to who passed away. His grandfather, Bill Hagner,

454
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 2: lost his fight against cancer.

455
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 3: You know, he was so sick for so long that

456
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 3: I don't think he wanted to really be around much longer.

457
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 2: Bill Hagner died in late March of twenty eighteen. Even today,

458
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 2: his LinkedIn profile lists him as the president of centri Tech.

459
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 3: I'm not good with dealing with loss at all. I

460
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,959
Speaker 3: don't know if it's like a sociopathic tendency, but I

461
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 3: never cry at wakes and whatnot. I don't really like

462
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 3: the whole thought process of being sad over death. I

463
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 3: don't know if that's just my way because I don't

464
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:39,919
Speaker 3: know how to cry it might have been like the

465
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 3: first person I would cry for. But like a few

466
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 3: days later, I'm playing in this very high stakes poker

467
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 3: game like this one hundred thousand dollars by and I'm

468
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 3: in for probably like a quarter million, and I get

469
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 3: a jail call.

470
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 8: This is a prepaid call from an inmate at the

471
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 8: County Correctional facility.

472
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 2: Ray was curious, so we answered. It was Sam calling

473
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 2: and he had some bad news.

474
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 3: They had just picked up Farcas. They had just picked

475
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 3: up Sorbi. Like, what the fuck happened here?

476
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 2: Ray could hear the fear in Sam's voice. He explained

477
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 2: how that day, April first, twenty eighteen, Robert Farcas was

478
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 2: at the Miami Airport. He was about to board a

479
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,719
Speaker 2: flight to Singapore when the FBI swooped in and arrested

480
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 2: him at the gate. There was speculation from the FBI

481
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 2: that Robert was about to flee the country.

482
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 3: I don't know what the fuck he was trying to do,

483
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 3: if you really would have fled or not.

484
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 2: When looking deeper into Farcas's trip information, it suggested that

485
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,360
Speaker 2: he was traveling with another Center Tech employee on company

486
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 2: business to South Korea, and records show Farcus book to

487
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 2: return flight home. Regardless, Sam and Farcas were in deep

488
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 2: shit and facing a handful of charges that had to

489
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 2: do with centri Tech.

490
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 3: I'm talking to him and I'm like, why didn't they

491
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 3: arrest me? I should have never asked that over the phone.

492
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 3: And he should have never even called me from the jail.

493
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 3: You know, you're not supposed to call people that you

494
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 3: committed the crime with from the jail. It's a criminal etiquette.

495
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:09,199
Speaker 2: The two weren't just facing jail time. The SEC was

496
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 2: also coming after their money. Along with criminal charges, the

497
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 2: SEC filed civil charges.

498
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 3: I leave the casino that night and I'm like looking

499
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 3: over my shoulder, thinking like they're coming for me for sure.

500
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 2: Ray hurried to his car. He looked around the parking garage. Nothing.

501
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 2: He got in his car and drove home the whole

502
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 2: time staring into his rear view mirror, expecting at any

503
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 2: moment to see flashing red and blue lights. But it

504
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 2: never happened. He made it home and ran inside. The

505
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 2: FBI didn't arrest Ray that day, or the next day,

506
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 2: or even that week.

507
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 3: It was just like every day on super high alert,

508
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 3: thinking they're coming for me. But a couple of weeks past,

509
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 3: I'm like, are they ever even going to come for me?

510
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 3: Maybe they're just not arrested me.

511
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 2: Twenty anxiety ridden days went by until early on April twentieth,

512
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, Ray heard that dreaded pounding on his front door.

513
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 3: About five thirty. I just hear loud banging on the door.

514
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 3: I surrendered to the FBI.

515
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 4: There.

516
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 3: They allowed me to put on my clothes and take

517
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 3: me downstairs. It was super embarrassing too, because I lived

518
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 3: in a complex, so like you know, everybody I know

519
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 3: is like in the hallways watching me get it taken out,

520
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 3: and I see these people every day.

521
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 2: All Ray could think about was how glad he was

522
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 2: that his grandfather wasn't around to see him standing there

523
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 2: with cuffs on.

524
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:37,360
Speaker 3: He was proud of me the day he died. Him

525
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 3: seeing me get arrested probably would have killed them anyways.

526
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 2: Much like Sam and Robert Farcas. They charged Ray with wirefraud,

527
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 2: security fraud and conspiracy to commit both charges. All of

528
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 2: them were facing up to sixty five years in prison.

529
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 8: It was hard for me to tell who did what here,

530
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 8: who was responsible for what? And I'm sure that they

531
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 8: had different levels of responsibility.

532
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 2: Credit Nathaniel Popper of The New York Times and his

533
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 2: article about Centritech for helping to put these three founders

534
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 2: on the fed's radar.

535
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 8: The SEC sued them six months after my story, which

536
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 8: kind of suggests that the story may have piqued their

537
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 8: interest or had them take a look at this. I mean,

538
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 8: this was just so egregious and it was just hard

539
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 8: to ignore.

540
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 2: At the time. The case was among the first in

541
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 2: a wave of litigation by the SEC.

542
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 8: Oftentimes, the way regulators and law enforcement decide the cases

543
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 8: they bring is the case that will set the precedent

544
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 8: that they want to set, that will make it clear

545
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 8: you can't do this. This was the clearest crystallization of

546
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 8: all of these issues where you can say you can't

547
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 8: do all of these different things that these people did,

548
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 8: and don't think that you can't.

549
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 2: By the end of April, CenTra Tech's three founders were

550
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 2: sitting in jail. Their fates would rest in the hands

551
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: of justice.

552
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 6: Your honor. When I started Centertech, I had a vision

553
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 6: of prosperity, happiness, and good fortune for everyone involvement for

554
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 6: the hardship any of them suffered, I'm truly sorry and

555
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 6: I pray for a day where there is solitude in

556
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 6: everyone's life affected by this.

557
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 2: Next time, on Creating a Con.

558
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: You can only fake it to You make it for

559
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 1: so long before somebody finds.

560
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 8: Out that your Harvard degree is not so Crimson.

561
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 2: Creating a Con is a production of Glass Podcasts, a

562
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 2: division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

563
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 2: If you would like to reach out to the Creating

564
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 2: a Con team, email us at Creating a Con at

565
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 2: gmail dot com. That's Creating a coen at gmail dot com.

566
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: We appreciate your support. One way to support our show

567
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 2: is by subscribing to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, and

568
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 2: don't forget to rate and review Creating a Con. Five

569
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 2: star reviews go a long way. A big thank you

570
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 2: to those who are listening. Also be sure to check

571
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 2: us out and follow us on Instagram at Glass Podcasts.

572
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 2: The show is hosted and produced by me Johnny B. Good,

573
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 2: with executive producers Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman, and Andrea Gunning.

574
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 2: Written and produced by Ben Fetterman and Todd Gans, Additional

575
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 2: writing by Matt Delvecchio, Operations and production support by Christin Melchiori.

576
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 2: Additional production support Trey Morgan. Our iHeart team is Ali

577
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 2: Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Sound editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,

578
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 2: Consulting producer Nathaniel Popper, creating a CON's theme composed by

579
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 2: Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MiB Music. Thank you

580
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 2: for subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus exclusively on Apple.

581
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoyed this ad free presentation of creating

582
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 2: a the story of bitcom. Continue binging the rest of

583
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 2: the series one hundred percent add free, and stay tuned

584
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 2: for early access to bonus episodes and additional content exclusively

585
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 2: for subscribers, and for more podcasts from iHeart and Glass Podcasts,

586
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

587
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: your podcasts.