Bitcoin Bandits Read online

  All this was interesting to Thomas as the sleeping woman in the middle seat next to him began to snore, but the real question remained—where was this stolen Bitcoin, who took it, and can it be retrieved?

  The YouTuber made many mentions of the hack of BitX in his video, as supposedly it was major news, and crashing the market, and he made many mentions to try to cheer his watchers up, and reassure them that the fundamentals of the technology were still there, and worth investing in.

  Sure, the tech may be great, but people won’t invest in things like this that aren’t safe. . .

  The kid on the screen said something that made Thomas think long and hard.

  The kid said, “And that’s another reason why you need to control your own funds. Don’t trust the exchanges.”

  So, it’s sort of like cash in a sense?

  His cell buzzed in his pocket. Pulling the phone from his pocket and checking to see the sender, the hair on his neck stood straight and he perked up in his seat, startling the sleeping woman with the blindfold over her eyes next to him.

  The message read—What do you want to know?

  He was eager to respond, but not exactly sure with what to reply. He knew better than to ask who she really was, where she was, so, instead he asked: Can you help me?

  He waited, but there was no immediate response, so he typed: I’m new to this market, and you seem like you want to find these guys as bad as I do.

  She responded to that immediately: It's not just a market. It's the future.

  Thomas locked his personal phone, turning off the YouTuber as he was talking about, “It may be a good time to buy.”

  Thomas typed: I’m new to all this, sorry.

  No response. He typed: I could use some inside look. Without doing anything illegal. I’ll be meeting with a specialist at the scene. But if you have any information, I would happily take it.

  Things are still fresh and foggy, she typed, or their tracks are just well-covered up. We can see where the Bitcoin was sent to, but we don’t know who did it, or the physical location of it.

  Where did it go? he asked.

  Lots of different wallets. Whoever took it, spread it out thin, she said.

  If you know where it went, he said, can’t you just force the assets back?

  She typed: You are fucking new to this.

  I’m good at finding money, he said, but it’s more difficult to find cash than a digital transaction. This sounds more like physical cash than anything.

  Not a bad comparison, she said. But you can’t send cash to anyone in the world in seconds.

  Seconds? he asked.

  With some of the crypto, it’s a fraction of a second, she said.

  Thomas was in a sort of stunned state. He knew the sluggish speed of money, especially across borders. Investigating banks, he got that response from the higher-ups in the corporations frequently. It takes three to five days to get the funds transferred. . . But seconds? That’s quite the improvement, he thought.

  Listen, she typed, I’ve got to go, but if I find anything I’ll send it your way. I want to get these assholes maybe even more than you do. If you get anything juicy, will you send it my way?

  This is a criminal investigation, he said.

  So? she replied. Do you want to catch the criminals?

  He definitely did.

  I’ll be in touch, he said.

  Again, she signed off with the emoji with the hand doing the peace sign.

  He closed his government cell and placed it back in his pocket. He searched then—how is Bitcoin like cash?

  Chapter Eleven

  The turbulence knocked the plane down what must have been a good six feet in the jam-packed full 747. The darkness of night had flown by, as the bright afternoon sky flooded the plane with its brilliant light reflecting off white, puffy clouds. They were a beautiful sight, except for the whole flying-through-them part.

  Rocking back and forth and bouncing up and down as the landing gear extended from the bottom of the aircraft, Thomas could feel many on the plane holding their breaths, but he simply closed his eyes and waited patiently to be back on the ground.

  The Incheon International Airport of Seoul was one of the largest—and busiest—airports in the world. He’d only been there once before, but he remembered the hassle of navigating, and there was far less English to help him navigate.

  Rubber hit the tarmac with a screeching sound that brought ease to many on-board the plane, and some even let out cheers of excitement to have been through the choppy end of the flight; Thomas had his case fixed ready in his hand, eager to disembark. He wasn’t in a hurry simply to get off the plane, no, Thomas had an appointment with the CEO of BitX—Li Wei.

  Thomas made his way off the plane, his brow-length hair rustling on his forehead, his gray suit and blue tie clung to his body from the thirteen-hour flight and seemed to be clamoring to be removed. He’d make his way to his hotel first where he’d shower and change. Then it would be time to head off to the BitX headquarters.

  He wouldn’t be given such a wish.

  In the huge area that was the arrival area, a place with thirty-foot ceilings, vast blue screens of arrival and departure times, and thousands of people down the long corridor, Thomas quickly saw his name on a white sign in the mix of all the other signs of various languages.

  Thomas noticed there wasn’t a driver waiting for him.

  The man holding the sign wasn’t dressed in any mediocre black suit a chauffeur might wear, wore no black hat, and showed no smile. He was Thomas’ height, of dark complexion, was shaven bald, had a short black beard, and he wore a tan suit. Thomas walked toward the man, and it didn’t take the man long to produce his badge and a business card. How’d I know he was a cop?

  “Special Agent Ronald Jones.” The man stuck out his hand, which Thomas shook.

  “Thomas Merten.”

  “Welcome to Korea, Mr. Merten.” Ronald dropped the sign to his side, and ushered Thomas forward with a low wave of his hand.

  “Thanks.” Thomas hefted his briefcase in his hand.

  “How much do you know about the case?” Ronald asked, stuffing the paper into a waste bin.

  “Not a hell of a lot, Ronald,” Thomas said after blowing his nose from a Kleenex pulled from his pocket. “Five-hundred and eighty-five thousand missing. A dead programmer. Money that seems extraordinarily hard to trace. Not too much more than that. I’m excited to get some more details.”

  “You’ll get a briefing after your meeting,” he said. “Oh, and Ron’s fine.”

  Thomas nodded.

  Minutes later, they were off to the car—a white Mustang, newly washed.

  “We are running a bit behind,” Ron said, “if you don’t mind, we’ll be right off to the BitX Offices. We’ll get you a ride after to your hotel.”

  “That’s fine,” Thomas said. “If I remember correctly, it's what, an hour to the city?”

  Ron nodded. “Give or take, you’re welcome to sleep in the car if you wish.”

  They both got into the silver VW sedan and Ron sped off with a heavy foot.

  Ron handed him a sandwich, still wrapped in some fast food wrapper he must have bought just before picking him up, which Thomas took and ate. Ron surprisingly talked little about the case, more about how he ended up working in Korea after the war, and a few places Thomas may want to eat while he was in the city. Watching the cars zip by, and with NPR playing on the radio, Thomas dozed off for most of the trip.

  He awoke to the sounds of a city brimming with life as the golden hour lit the city in its full glow. It had been years since he’d traveled to the eastern side of the world, and in a sense, he felt as if he was in another world. Teenagers in bright clothing with hair that looked like it was out of a movie—or a manga—were mixed with some of the most styled business women and men he’d seen.

  “We’re not far,” Ron said, “it’s just around the corner here.”

  After waiting for the heavy traffic, and hundr
eds of people clogging the intersection to move, Thomas quickly realized which building they were heading to. The building itself was a skyscraper with paned-glass windows and humming lights of blue and white on the interior. He assumed something as trendy as BitX would be up on one of the higher floors. But what tipped him off to which one it was, were the scores of protesters picketing and yelling outside the ring of security that was housed at the front entrance.

  Signs that read, ‘We want our Bitcoin back’, ‘Li Wei is a liar’, and ‘Don’t believe the hack’ were hefted high above the protesters. These protesters, however, didn’t look like the ones you’d imagine that would be in Seattle, or San Francisco. These men and women were mostly well-dressed, seemingly upscale. They didn’t have long beards, shaved heads, or were screaming at the top of their lungs. Thomas counted six drones above them, filming them, and he thought they probably belonged to BitX or the local media.

  They seemed quite well-mannered and coordinated, he laughed, maybe even polite.

  Ron drove them into an underground parking lot beneath the building. They made their way to an elevator that led them to the main entrance to the building. The receptionist seemed to recognize Ron, and then in turn looked at Thomas and smiled. The interior of the building was a dazzling display of stainless-steel artwork and sculptures amid the glimmering glass building reflecting the soft blue and whites of the lights overhead.

  “Mr. Jones,” the receptionist with the kind, hazel eyes said as they approached. “You may go up.”

  Ron nodded and walked past, with Thomas following behind. They stepped into the elevator, and Ron hit the number marked twenty-three. As they went up, Thomas asked Ron what Li Wei was like.

  “Li—to me—feels like your traditional Silicon Valley CEO. He’s ambitious, extremely apt at new technologies, trendy. . . but he’s brief. I wouldn’t expect you to get more than 15 minutes out of him. I’m not sure how much you understand about blockchain and cryptocurrencies, but he’ll likely fill your head with a lot of words that will jumble up the answers you’re going to be looking for.”

  “Yeah, I was worried about that,” Thomas said. “But it's not the first time I’ve dealt with his lot.”

  Once on the 23rd floor, the elevator doors opened to reveal a bustling commotion within the offices of BitX—which was signified by a very stylish logo above the receptionist's desk—a receptionist who seemed distraught from the dozens of people frantically rummaging through papers on the floor, and hunched over computer screens behind.

  A man approached quickly as he saw Ron exit the elevator. He walked up, bowed to Ron, and extended his hand to Thomas. “Mr. Merten,” the man said in a thick Korean accent.

  “Thomas,” Ron said, “this is Soo-Jin Park, lead investigator from the South Korean government.”

  Thomas bowed his head.

  “We are happy to have your expertise,” Soo-Jin said. He was a man six inches shorter than Thomas, with thin, square-framed glasses, short black and gray hair combed to the side. He wore a thick, dark-gray suit that hung from his burly frame.

  “I’m happy to help however I can,” Thomas said as they ushered him down the hall to the large office where both doors were shut tightly, and where a single man sat alone at a huge glass desk. He was on the phone, visibly yelling into the small, black cell.

  The secretary outside of his office nodded as the three of them approached. She pressed a button on her phone, and Li looked up at them. He said a few more words in Korean loudly and laid the phone down at his side. He waved for them to enter.

  Soo-Jin opened the door and Thomas entered first as Li stood to greet him.

  “Mr. Merten,” Li said in a calm voice, in that same Korean accent he’d heard from him before on TV.

  “Mr. Wei.” Thomas shook his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  He motioned for him and Ron to take a seat. Soo-Jin stood back by the doors. Behind Mr. Wei was a gorgeous view of the city of Seoul with the golden glow of the sun reflected off high-reaching skyscrapers, and the mountains far off in the distance were dimly lit.

  Thomas looked around the office, admiring the decor, and the obvious attempt to make it look like a billion-dollar CEO worked there. It was immaculately clean, with large windows behind him as clear as air itself. The room was decorated with more stainless-steel sculptures, these ones the size of paintings though. There was an interesting space-ship looking thing to the side that looked like an aircraft meant to look like a flying spider; Thomas knew it was a drone, but one far larger than anything he’d ever seen—he thought it represented the CEOs ego perhaps. His desk was well organized, with his pens all laying perpendicularly to the edges. There was a set of chairs in the corner by a support beam that seemed somewhat out of place, but they were of nice design, and the floor was a fine, white marble.

  “I appreciate the Americans coming to help us during this trial,” Mr. Wei said. Li looked very similar to how he looked on his television interview. His hair was slick and groomed just as immaculately as before, his composure was sound, and his suit looked like it came straight from the tailor.

  “I’m here to help,” Thomas said. “Can I ask you first off, what do you believe was the connection to the hack and the murder of your lead programmer? How do you think he was involved?”

  Li sighed, sitting back in his chair, and even seemed to get a bit choked up. “Joon was a friend of mine, we built this place together.” Li locked eyes with Thomas. “There is no way he was in on the hack. Absolutely no way. That I am sure of. But I won’t deny my mind is filled with that same question every moment of the day. The way he was tortured. . . so terrible.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Thomas said, tightening his tie. “I know this is all fresh. What can you tell me about the hack? What have your other programmers found?”

  “The Bitcoin was sent to many addresses across the blockchain,” Li said, “93 to be exact. The Bitcoin hasn’t been moved out of those addresses yet, which I would have expected.”

  “Expected?” Thomas asked.

  “Yes, usually hackers move the funds around, even to privacy cryptocurrencies like Monero to better hide the assets, where they’re free to exchange funds through decentralized exchanges, even BitX. But the Bitcoin is just sitting on those ninety-three wallets.”

  “Are the funds equally dispersed?” Thomas asked.

  “Yes. Well, more or less. Intriguingly enough, they are all about the same amount, give or take three.”

  “Three? Three Bitcoin?” Thomas leaned in.

  “Yes, six-thousand ninety, six-thousand eighty-seven, six-thousand ninety-three, for example.”

  Thomas scratched his chin. “That seems too exact to be a coincidence. We don’t believe much in coincidences when following money trails.”

  “My programmers say it could be the effect of the fee sizes being different for the movement of so many funds at that time, as each transaction clogged the network and sent the difficulty skyrocketing. That could feasibly be the reason for the difference in amounts on each wallet.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Thomas said.

  “It will be in the report you’ll be given,” Mr. Wei said. “In greater detail.”

  “I’ll be sure to be checking that out later,” Thomas said, leaning back in his chair, looking over at Ron, who gave that, ‘I see there’s something fishy with this look,’ that resembled a furrowed brow. “Let me ask you, Mr. Wei. . . what safeguards did you have in place to prevent such a hack? I mean, for example, in the U.S. we have backed assets, FDIC, and not to mention—the best anti-hacker experts in the world. Much of whom used to be the bad guys themselves. Something like a Vanguard account is so unhackable, or I should say—safe, that it wouldn’t be able to be stolen.”

  “BitX is one of the most elite, safe exchanges in existence,” Li said, running his fingers through his hair. “We should hardly be called an exchange anymore at that! It's one of a kind, the best investment platform in modern currencies
that will be for the next 10 years.”

  “Doesn’t seem that safe to me,” Ron said. “From an outsider’s perspective.”

  Li looked about ready to spiral into a tantrum at that. His fists balled, his teeth clenched, and his anus surely puckered. “This was a robbery! We are the victims in this! Some fucker stole my money!”

  “I thought Bitcoin belonged to the people,” Thomas said, slightly enjoying the unraveling of the CEO of the ‘safest exchange ever.’ “At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

  Li’s face relaxed, his jaw untightened, and he sat back in his chair. “Listen, I’ve got an immense amount of work to do, and all of what you need to know is in the report. . . so. . .”

  “Mr. Wei,” Thomas said, “I know your time is valuable, and I thank you for your time, but I’m here to help. Just a couple more questions if you don’t mind.”

  Li seemed unsure, by the rustling of his tie, and his looking out the window, but he agreed with a nod.

  “Your security protocols,” Thomas asked flatly. “Who created them?”

  “It was Joon,” he said. “Revolutionary, really. I dare say sexy—the coding. He worked tirelessly to protect the assets of our investors.” Li steepled his fingers. “Oh, Joon. . .”

  “No one else?” Thomas asked.

  “If you’re implying—” Li snapped.

  “I’m not implying anything,” Thomas said. “I’ve only learned that in my experience, most of these thefts are from the inside. They’re often carried out from the outside, but intel comes from the chest. Did Joon have many associates? Family members that you may have thought. . . odd?”

  “Joon had nothing to do with this.” Li stood from his chair and put both hands on his desk. “He died. . .” Li choked down his tears, and his voice weakened. “He died a terrible death, and for what? You know that he was trying to recover the funds. He died trying to get them back. Whoever killed him was just covering their tracks and killing Joon was like killing the lead singer of a band. There’s really no replacing him.”

  Thomas thought that was a weird comparison, but oddly perfect. If Joon was the artist people say he was, he may have been the Jim Morrison of the crypto world. . .