CRYPTO CROOKS: BitConnect Episode 3 – Technically, You Kind of Lost Your Money

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4.8 • 689 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we meet the online influencers who enticed victims into the BitConnect farce, and the pyramid-scheme model that allowed them to make millions doing it.

"Crypto Crooks" is sponsored by Chainalysis.

It takes a village to scam the world. Or at least some YouTube channels.

In the penultimate episode of “Crypto Crooks: BitConnect,” we talk to Scott Shaffer, who kept close tabs on the BitConnect team both before and after the collapse on his YouTube Channel, “Crypto Jedi.” He watched a series of charismatic, powerful YouTubers invite viewers into their pyramid scheme, getting richer with every fish they caught. And ultimately, he watched their greatest coup of all: turning their victims … into scammers themselves.

Clips:

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“Crypto Crooks” is a CoinDesk Podcast Production. The executive producer is Jared Schwartz, with additional production by Eleanor Pahl, Rob Mitchell, Nora Battelle, Jonas Huck, and Moon Beast. Fact-checking is by Amber Von Schassen, and sound design and music are by Altus Noumena. This show is written and voiced by David Z. Morris.

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Transcript

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0:50.0	Crypto Crooks is sponsored by Chainalysis, the leading blockchain data platform.
1:10.1	Like most true stories and most scams, it's hard to say exactly when BitConnect's $2 billion fake crypto scheme began, or exactly when it ended.
1:21.4	Maybe it started when Satish Kambani thought up a crypto-inspired Ponzi scheme. Maybe it started with the invention of Bitcoin.
1:29.2	Maybe it started all the way back with the rise of the modern financial system.
1:33.8	As for where it ended, maybe when the Texas State Security Board issued a cease and desist
1:39.6	order against BitConnect, or when BitConnect's organizers disappeared with investors Bitcoin.
1:45.7	Or maybe, it won't really end until authorities finally tracked down alleged founder Satish Kumbani
1:51.8	and put him on trial. But for at least one man, the BitConnect story is definitely still not over.
1:58.8	Hey, hey, hey, hey, story is definitely still not over.
2:26.9	Once again, that's once again, that's Carlos Matos, giving his legendary cheer at the October 2017 BitConnect celebration in Thailand.
2:35.5	Carlos provided the most indelible moment in a jam-packed evening, featuring not just a parade of upbeat pitchmakers, but also incredibly elaborate musical numbers and dance routines that bathed the BitConnect
2:40.7	faithful in grand declarations, frenetic rhythms, and hypnotically flashing lights. Carlos Matos and his infectious cheer are the most lasting remnant of the BitConnect saga,
	...

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