TRIGGERnometry - The Crypto Scheme Funding Putin's War with Alex Browder

00:00:01.000 I'm the first high schooler ever sanctioned by Russia.

00:00:04.000 I created the largest open-source database of cryptocurrency money laundering,

00:00:08.000 which exposes how state-sanctioned actors, criminals, drug dealers,

00:00:12.000 and everyone else is using cryptocurrency to launder their funds.

00:00:16.000 In January 2025, the Russians launched their own stablecoin,

00:00:21.000 and it's become one of their main tools for sanctions evasion.

00:00:25.000 Most of the drone producers who are trying to trade with China and North Korea and other

00:00:31.880 countries are using it.

00:00:33.740 Drug dealers, oligarchs are using it, and it's become their tool of choice.

00:00:38.300 In 2025 alone, it processed over $100 billion in cumulative volume.

00:00:44.400 Russia responded by sanctioning me.

00:00:46.620 So it's clear the work has touched a nerve.

00:00:52.680 The British government wants to force YouTube to downrank independent content like this

00:00:57.580 and replace it with approved messaging from the mainstream media.

00:01:01.660 The only way you can fight back and continue to enjoy our content is to make sure you're subscribed.

00:01:07.300 Like this video and comment below to have your say on what the government is doing.

00:01:11.920 Alex Browder, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:13.840 Thanks for having me on.

00:01:14.840 It's great to have you on.

00:01:15.900 You are the youngest person ever to have been sanctioned by Russia

00:01:19.660 for showing and revealing how they, alongside other countries,

00:01:24.200 actually use crypto to launder money and avoid sanctions, Western sanctions.

00:01:30.900 Fascinating story, very important story.

00:01:33.280 Before we get into it, just tell us a little bit about the story

00:01:37.220 of how you started to look at this and how you discovered what you discovered

00:01:40.160 and what you then discovered.

00:01:41.640 Yeah, so it's an interesting story.

00:01:44.260 On the surface, I'm like a regular, I've had a regular childhood.

00:01:49.340 I'm an avid football player.

00:01:51.020 I go out with my friends every weekend.

00:01:53.220 I go to school in North London.

00:01:55.900 But there's always been something hovering over my life,

00:01:59.420 which has made me different from most people my age.

00:02:03.580 And so my father was the largest foreign investor in Russia.

00:02:06.960 He spent most of his career exposing corruption within Russia.

00:02:10.980 Obviously, this didn't make him friendly with the Kremlin.

00:02:14.560 They kicked him out in 2005 and declared him a threat to national security. 0.95

00:02:20.980 And my father's lawyer, a brave man named Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested, who was helping

00:02:29.440 him expose this corruption, was arrested, tortured in prison for 355 days, and killed

00:02:35.480 in November 2009.

00:02:37.460 He left a wife and two kids.

00:02:39.020 and that murder has cast a shadow over my life and Russia's aggression towards my family and 1.00

00:02:45.820 indeed towards the wider world has been increasing since then and so I've always been inspired 0.74

00:02:50.820 that I need to do something to help stop this and so what is it what is a young person good at I

00:02:57.640 would say technology and so in the thing which really got me into cryptocurrency was in February

00:03:05.300 2025 the north koreans managed to steal 1.5 billion dollars from a cryptocurrency exchange

00:03:12.980 in less than five seconds and that 1.5 billion was laundered and fully laundered and cashed out

00:03:18.980 in under 48 hours and so if north korea are able to do that and get away with it what else are they

00:03:24.740 doing and what else are other countries doing so um i started digging on the internet and um long

00:03:31.380 Long story short, I created the largest open source database of cryptocurrency money laundering,

00:03:36.520 which exposes how state-sanctioned actors, criminals, drug dealers, and everyone else

00:03:41.540 is using cryptocurrency to launder their funds.

00:03:44.720 Off of that, I authored a big Henry Jackson report, 100-page report,

00:03:49.320 on how the laundering works and how to stop it.

00:03:53.340 It got published by the Henry Jackson Society in March.

00:03:56.220 and since then I've been on a large-scale campaign

00:04:00.000 to try and take down bad actors

00:04:01.840 and protect victims here within the UK

00:04:03.840 and other countries from malicious campaigns.

00:04:07.020 And so it's really gone lots of traction

00:04:09.080 and so I'm glad to be sitting down with you guys today.

00:04:11.880 Oh, it's great to have you on

00:04:12.940 and actually we interviewed your dad, Bill Browder, recently.

00:04:17.660 That episode's done incredibly well

00:04:19.220 but he didn't say anything to us about you.

00:04:22.660 You've really come here on your own steam

00:04:24.440 because of the publicity you've generated with this and real serious attention actually.

00:04:29.640 So what exactly is it that you found when you started doing this research?

00:04:34.200 Okay, so let me start from the beginning. Russia has created a stable coin. So a stable coin for

00:04:43.240 your audience who may not know is a cryptocurrency back to some real value like the dollar or gold.

00:04:49.640 cryptocurrency originally um the main few was something called bitcoin and ethereum but uh

00:04:56.280 over the recent years they've had massive price uh spikes where they can go up 50 in one day they

00:05:02.120 can crash 50 in one day and bad actors and criminals don't want that they want to keep

00:05:07.160 their money safe and so what's been happening over the past few years is that um these things called

00:05:15.000 stable coin um have come into play where it's a cryptocurrency back to some real value and this

00:05:22.120 doesn't uh spike in price or volatility and so it's become the tool of choice for bad actors

00:05:28.840 who want to keep their funds safe but the issue with most regular stable coins like something

00:05:35.480 called usdc usdt and other stable coins is that they're able to freeze funds if a court in england

00:05:43.080 u.s or elsewhere or authorities want to um freeze the funds seize the funds and um take it away from

00:05:49.720 the bad actors and so um over many different um cases bad actors have had their funds seized

00:05:56.840 and they're getting scared now and so in january 2025 um the russians launched their own stable

00:06:04.200 coin something called a785 uh this stable coin was set up um by a state bank state russian bank

00:06:11.880 called PSP, which is sanctioned here in the UK and elsewhere, and also a convicted Moldovan

00:06:16.760 Fordster called Ian Shaw, who's also sanctioned here in the UK. And it's become one of their main

00:06:21.880 tools for sanctions evasion. Most of the drone producers who are trying to trade with China and

00:06:30.120 North Korea and other countries are using it. Drug dealers, oligarchs are using it,

00:06:36.200 and it's become their tool of choice in 2025 alone it processed over 100 billion dollars

00:06:42.280 in cumulative volume and so why is it able to continue to function um well the reason it is

00:06:49.480 is because it has enablers and in this case there are enablers within the state of kyrgyzstan

00:06:54.680 so many of the illicit exchanges which an exchange is something where uh it allows a criminal to

00:07:01.640 convert cryptocurrency into cash and vice versa, and also swap different currencies around.

00:07:08.120 Many of the exchanges are registered in Kyrgyzstan, including UK-sanctioned Mir, UK-sanctioned

00:07:15.720 Grinex, and even the issuer of the stablecoin, something called Old Vector, which is also UK

00:07:21.240 sanctioned. And even more shockingly, I would say, or egregious, there's been reports that the

00:07:28.040 the mastermind behind this scheme, this convicted Moldovan fraudster, gifted the Kyrgyz president

00:07:33.480 a luxury jet. So it's become a large-scale corruption scheme within that country, and 0.52

00:07:38.940 it's enabling Russia to move to the tune of billions of dollars through this stablecoin.

00:07:45.360 So I've spent the past year or so trying to expose this, shed light on this, and have

00:07:52.600 the government's act to try and put pressure on Kyrgyzstan to stop this.

00:07:57.960 Now, how can it do that?

00:07:59.820 There's two different ways.

00:08:01.860 The first is that the financial regulators within Kyrgyzstan

00:08:05.240 can be pressured themselves to act,

00:08:09.780 and this can happen through personal sanctions and other methods.

00:08:13.320 But Kyrgyzstan receives billions of dollars in trade

00:08:16.880 from the EU and the UK on an annual basis,

00:08:20.700 And it's become a dual-use enabling system where the EU can import billions of dollars of goods to Kyrgyzstan, and that goes straight to Russia. 0.92

00:08:32.900 So I've tried to put pressure on this, and three months ago or so, I organized 26 senior MPs to write to the UK Foreign Secretary, urging sanctions on these enablers within the state of Kyrgyzstan. 0.62

00:08:45.040 Two months ago, the government responded by sanctioning them.

00:08:51.280 And then full circle, Russia responded by sanctioning me.

00:08:55.420 So it's clear the work has touched a nerve.

00:08:59.100 And this is one of their key enabling tools.

00:09:01.980 So when you say the Russians have sanctioned me, what does that mean?

00:09:07.140 I'm asking the same question.

00:09:08.620 So I tried Googling this the first, when I found out, what does it mean?

00:09:13.660 But there's no guide to this.

00:09:16.300 What it does mean is I can't travel there,

00:09:18.840 but I wasn't planning on doing that anyway.

00:09:22.160 But I think it's a tactic of intimidation they use

00:09:27.160 to try and make journalists, MPs, politicians, or myself

00:09:31.280 fearful for their lives or for their daily activities.

00:09:38.880 But it hasn't had the intended effect for me.

00:09:41.700 Of course, at the beginning, it's a bit nerve wracking to be targeted by a big and powerful

00:09:48.480 government. But it's really become a badge of honour for me because I'm still in high school.

00:09:54.320 I'm the first high schooler ever sanctioned by Russia. So it's clear my work has had an effect

00:10:00.000 and they don't want me looking at this. No, I can't imagine they do.

00:10:04.200 What I find very interesting is when I was reading about your story, Alex, I was like,

00:10:08.320 Oh, he's so young. Isn't that remarkable?

00:10:10.900 And of course it is remarkable, but in another way,

00:10:13.620 well, it's not going to be somebody in their 50s and 60s in government

00:10:17.220 who stumbles across this because most people don't have a clue about crypto.

00:10:21.260 Even people of my age now, meme coins or all of that world.

00:10:25.200 I agree completely, and this is the issue.

00:10:28.340 When I was speaking to most people, they had no idea.

00:10:31.380 And even more seriously, most of the senior politicians I speak to,

00:10:35.020 they have no idea about this.

00:10:36.720 And so it's a case of asymmetric information. 0.91

00:10:39.160 You have the North Koreans, which have their own full departments of technology bros 1.00

00:10:44.960 who are working 24-7 to steal billions from the average UK person. 1.00

00:10:50.120 And then you have somebody at the FCDO or the NCA who is trying to...

00:10:55.740 They have 100 cases maybe they need to deal with per month,

00:10:59.200 and it just doesn't get the attention required.

00:11:01.920 So something must be done.

00:11:03.260 And I think it's good a young person can be pushing this forward.

00:11:08.280 Absolutely, because you look at crypto and it is essentially the Wild West of finance, isn't it?

00:11:13.480 Definitely. There's so many different scams, fraud systems, hacking, drug laundering.

00:11:21.640 It's truly the Wild West. And the good people who are within the cryptocurrency industry who are trying to progress it, they get harmed by this as well.

00:11:29.800 So most of the big cryptocurrency projects which have been set up, they face billion dollar hacks where the North Koreans infiltrate their systems and then steal billions. 1.00

00:11:41.920 And then they either shut down or it's very hard for them to progress. 1.00

00:11:45.340 So it really makes it hard for the whole cryptocurrency industry to evolve.

00:11:52.680 I mean it does

00:11:54.460 I guess the question I really wanted to ask you is

00:11:58.340 Essentially Bitcoin

00:11:59.760 And correct me if I'm wrong

00:12:00.840 Because I'm just in your eyes 0.96

00:12:02.740 And probably to a lot of people like an old boomer

00:12:04.800 But Bitcoin was essentially created to do transactions

00:12:10.360 That you didn't want governments tracking

00:12:13.280 So wasn't that always going to be the case

00:12:16.800 That these cryptocurrencies were always going to be exploited by shady individuals

00:12:21.840 because that's kind of how they started well i think there's a lot of um debate surrounding this

00:12:28.080 well whether it was i i think the original purpose wasn't um set up to be this whole criminal um

00:12:34.480 mastermind thing but for most cryptocurrencies you are able to track it um and you are able

00:12:41.040 to see who's using it but the issue is um it's pseudonymous which means um you're able to see

00:12:49.280 who's moving along the blockchain which is for your viewers who don't know it's just a series

00:12:55.200 of transactions which can't be altered and so it's set in stone um so it's able to be tracked but

00:13:04.240 criminals are moving so fast and using um lots of different complicated technologies which i'm happy

00:13:09.600 to um speak into well i was going to actually ask francis presented a particular vision of how

00:13:15.760 it was created but i think it's clear you don't entirely agree with it and and perhaps it would

00:13:19.440 be super helpful if you just explain to people what crypto is yeah how and why and by whom it

00:13:25.680 was created i know there's some questions about that particularly with bitcoin um and that will

00:13:29.920 i think give us a good starting base for the rest of the conversation okay so what is crypto tell

00:13:35.040 please young man tell the other ones okay so cryptocurrency is a decentralized um currency

00:13:42.240 meaning for most cases at least there's no one um there's no central bank which is able to issue

00:13:47.760 more um there's no um people who can seize funds uh except for stable coins and so it was set up

00:13:55.360 in the early 2000s most of these major cryptocurrencies um and each uh has their own

00:14:02.720 price similar to um similar to how a normal uh normal currency functions but in this case it

00:14:10.720 can increase as far as you want and what you've seen um you've seen hundreds of thousands of these

00:14:17.440 um cryptocurrencies being set up many of these meme coins um being set up and in my view um

00:14:26.640 in the next few years half of these are going to be gone because it's not sustainable um but so

00:14:32.880 you mentioned who set it up the big draw for people about why they like these things is because

00:14:39.680 there's no real government behind it um with bitcoin a person named or alleged person named

00:14:45.200 satoshi nakamoto um who's an who knows who he is um a lot of speculation around that he created

00:14:51.920 bitcoin um but the issue with that is that um it's all probably someone you know or you might have

00:14:58.560 heard of um and once that gets uh foiled or someone exposes it the whole system fails um

00:15:06.160 Because then there is someone behind the cryptocurrency.

00:15:11.700 Anyway, sorry, I'm getting sidetracked.

00:15:13.440 No, no, please.

00:15:14.640 So where that has left me and where I've came into it

00:15:19.880 is that cryptocurrency is much easier for bad actors to use and to abuse.

00:15:27.440 And the reason for that is that you are able to follow

00:15:32.600 an easy like three-step process in my mind on how you can enter your funds into cryptocurrency,

00:15:38.920 how you can launder it, and how you can eventually take it out of the system. So

00:15:43.540 I've identified maybe five different interesting categories of how you can get into cryptocurrency.

00:15:50.600 There's these massive schemes called darknet marketplaces where you can purchase on the dark

00:15:59.280 web, you can purchase online drugs, fentanyl, and other harmful substances or services like

00:16:06.640 Murder for Hire, and then it gets shipped to your door, or not to your door, but wherever

00:16:11.700 you want it to, and you can exchange it for cash. And so you have these massive darknet 0.93

00:16:18.620 drug marketplaces, like something called Hydra, which in 2022 processed 90% of all the darknet

00:16:27.240 drug marketplace funds and it offered services like like you see in movies like dead drops where

00:16:33.140 you you give cryptocurrency on this platform and in your local park a hundred uh a million dollars

00:16:39.680 gets um dropped onto this system and across the west and across in the u.s you've had this massive

00:16:46.680 massive fentanyl problem and lots of this is happening through these darknet drug marketplaces

00:16:52.140 And another interesting platform is ransomware, where a criminal group can hack into the British library or a massive company here within the UK, steal data, and then they're either forced to pay in cryptocurrency to these bad actors.

00:17:18.260 or they have all their data,

00:17:20.300 which is often regular individuals' health data

00:17:22.980 or others dispersed onto the internet.

00:17:27.040 And so what I've seen is that North Korea, Russia

00:17:30.220 and other groups are targeting the UK

00:17:32.860 with these ransomware campaigns

00:17:35.160 and getting paid in cryptocurrency.

00:17:37.380 So it both funds their war efforts

00:17:39.900 and their defense campaigns and military

00:17:42.280 while also harming lots of people here within the UK.

00:17:46.400 So for example,

00:17:47.060 um in last year uh you guys may have seen this uh the big uh car company called jaguar um it faced

00:17:57.740 a massive breach and the whole system had to shut down and it caused a fall in uk gdp so for everyone

00:18:05.100 by 0.1 so that it's able to

00:18:11.280 exploit our systems and they're able to get away with it while both harming the UK and

00:18:18.720 harming our citizens. Another example is in the US, something called Sencora, which is one of

00:18:24.880 the largest healthcare providers in the US. It paid $75 million to get its data back

00:18:31.200 because it lost everyone's data. And so it's really becoming a massive issue. And with Iran

00:18:39.500 fighting against the West now, this is one of the key tactics to try and disrupt 1.00

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00:20:21.480 month subscription. I mean, the challenge is obviously one of the great attractions of crypto

00:20:27.080 is that nobody regulates it. So it's completely free. One of the bad things about crypto is that

00:20:33.640 nobody regulates it. So I guess my question is, how do you get a hold of this problem?

00:20:42.120 Because it's clearly a big problem and it's going to get worse.

00:20:44.920 Yeah. So let's set the scene here. So the FCA, which is the Financial Conduct Authority here in

00:20:50.280 the UK, it monitors all of the financial and regulates all of the financial systems. It says

00:20:55.880 that it will only properly regulate our cryptocurrency in late 2027 and for me i don't

00:21:02.600 i don't think this is first of all quick enough or it will cover enough things you have thousands

00:21:09.560 of people here within the uk who are investing in cryptocurrency and most of them are either

00:21:14.760 losing their life savings or losing thousands thousands of pounds uh for the all the four

00:21:21.000 cases in the uk 60 of all all of them are um are digital asset related so either cryptocurrency

00:21:29.160 or stable coins and so you have people who are getting scammed in the uk um who are unable to

00:21:37.080 get any assistance from anyone and so i think it's a really big issue um and the thing is

00:21:42.440 it's only been commercialized, this cryptocurrency scams.

00:21:48.220 In Cambodia, there's these things called scam compounds

00:21:52.140 where organized crime groups,

00:21:56.280 like something called Prince Group, which I identified,

00:21:59.560 are able to traffic thousands of people

00:22:02.380 into these scam compounds

00:22:03.740 to target regular citizens here within the UK.

00:22:07.040 And so you've got victims on both sides.

00:22:09.100 And this Prince Group alone generated $20 billion in illicit funds.

00:22:16.140 The U.S. managed to seize $15 billion in 2025.

00:22:20.420 But it's an ever-growing problem.

00:22:23.560 And so you have these people in these scam compounds who are using AI now to write in full English and good grammar,

00:22:31.880 who are sending messages to me, maybe you guys,

00:22:36.860 saying there's a great investment opportunity

00:22:38.980 and all it requires is sending a small amount of cryptocurrency.

00:22:43.900 They send it, they get led on for months,

00:22:47.660 and obviously there's nothing and they're left without any help.

00:22:51.520 And so what I think is pretty interesting is that

00:22:54.660 even if you are very versed in the financial world,

00:23:01.220 you're a financial expert or something,

00:23:05.020 you could still fall for these schemes.

00:23:06.900 So an interesting example of this,

00:23:09.380 a bank CEO who is the head of a medium-sized bank in the US,

00:23:14.960 he fell victim to one of these schemes.

00:23:16.940 They promised him you can make 40 times your money in cryptocurrency.

00:23:21.660 And so the shocking thing he did,

00:23:24.740 he embezzled $45 million from his own bank

00:23:28.540 And also from his daughter's college fund from his own church, he embezzled $45 million into cryptocurrency to these scammers.

00:23:40.080 Obviously, there was no investment opportunity. He lost all the money.

00:23:43.440 The bank collapsed into what's known as FDIC protection.

00:23:47.380 And so you had his whole community ravaged.

00:23:50.120 And this is someone who's supposed to be like the leading expert in finance and in investing.

00:23:57.320 And he can fall victim to this. So it really is a threat right now for that average victim.

00:24:06.160 And so regarding to this FCA regulation, if they're not able to, they need to be able to protect all these people who are doing this.

00:24:17.200 So it's become a massive issue.

00:24:18.400 Just so that people understand, are you saying that all crypto and stablecoins are effectively tools for this, and that's kind of their primary purpose at this point, or is that overstating the case?

00:24:33.280 I think it's overstating the case.

00:24:34.740 The amount of laundering which goes on is still in the single percentage of the total volume.

00:24:41.520 However, it's just the amount they can take from this, a single percentage of a large number is still a large number.

00:24:48.400 So, and it's not like they're able, they're just using this to spend, to buy a Porsche or something.

00:24:56.900 It's funding military.

00:24:58.560 So North Korea receives a third of the government revenue from cryptocurrency schemes.

00:25:03.600 They infiltrate UK companies and do these ransomware campaigns. 0.66

00:25:09.400 They hack cryptocurrency exchanges.

00:25:12.040 So if you're a regular individual, you put money into one of these cryptocurrency exchanges.

00:25:16.540 One day, you might check and you see a balance of zero

00:25:20.720 because everything's been drained from the exchange.

00:25:25.100 And this has happened many times.

00:25:27.260 North Korea, instead of having a cyber defense division

00:25:31.860 like most countries have,

00:25:34.440 they have a cyber attack division,

00:25:36.360 which is focused, main goal and main focus

00:25:39.500 is on attacking the West through these schemes

00:25:42.080 and stealing billions through cryptocurrency.

00:25:43.740 And it's called the Lazarus Group.

00:25:46.540 It's really a shocking thing, and so it's like an inequality of arms, because you have this group, this Lazarus group, who spend their whole days on this, and then you have the Metropolitan Police or the National Crime Agency who's tasked with preventing it, who have very limited budgets and are completely under-resourced to deal with it.

00:26:13.140 So it's an inequality of arms and it's really a big issue.

00:26:17.600 And how would you regulate this?

00:26:20.040 Because that's the big question, isn't it?

00:26:21.800 We've identified the problem.

00:26:23.520 You've done that beautifully.

00:26:25.300 So I guess the next question is, what do we do about it?

00:26:28.880 And what can we do about it?

00:26:31.500 Yeah, so there's a couple of things that we can do and that I've been proposing.

00:26:36.940 The first thing that I think is really needed, and it also applies to lots of other things, is a whistleblower rewards program.

00:26:46.520 And this is because information in the cryptocurrency space is really hard to obtain.

00:26:51.740 And nobody knows, unless you have tip-offs, what's happening where and where.

00:26:56.580 And so when you have these billion dollar schemes, what's the incentive for the lowest level guy on the totem pole to inform on their masters who are bringing in billions of dollars, who they're probably getting paid a lot?

00:27:13.800 Who are criminals or state actors who very comfortably have them killed.

00:27:17.740 Exactly.

00:27:18.820 And pay for it using cryptocurrency.

00:27:20.720 Exactly. And so this changes the balance of power between these criminals and the law enforcement.

00:27:27.700 And it's actually been done very successfully in the U.S. The U.S. has a whistleblower rewards program and it regularly pays out for all these different schemes as well, not just in cryptocurrency, but also for the cartels and other groups.

00:27:42.680 And so I'm trying to push for that here within the U.K.

00:27:44.920 Another big thing which I think is needed is a cryptocurrency asset recovery office.

00:27:51.920 So, the NCA or the UK authorities are able to seize funds, as I mentioned before,

00:27:59.920 and they have had lots of different interesting successes.

00:28:02.920 But the issue, there's two issues.

00:28:05.920 The first, it's very hard for victims who have been harmed by this

00:28:10.920 to know, first of all, if their cryptocurrency has been seized by the authorities and how to get it back.

00:28:18.100 And I've spoken to a lot of people who are stuck trying to figure this out.

00:28:22.240 And the second thing is, which is actually pretty shocking, is that the insiders within the police

00:28:28.240 and within the authorities are often actually to just steal the cryptocurrency and run.

00:28:33.940 So there's a big case last year, a UK national crime agency officer,

00:28:40.240 which is like meant to investigate drug abuses and other things he was tasked to investigate a

00:28:50.080 darknet drug marketplace and they they managed to seize 100 bitcoin and he stole 50 of it

00:28:57.760 secretly without anyone knowing um it's worth like five million dollars um and for four years

00:29:04.560 or so no one noticed and so he managed to seize that without anyone noticing and without anyone

00:29:12.880 investigating eventually they did catch him because it was just missing but it really raises

00:29:18.880 a significant point about how do you store all this bitcoin um and actually interestingly this

00:29:23.920 has also been done in the us the us has a cryptocurrency asset recovery office i think

00:29:29.520 there is 20 billion dollars or so in there right now and if no one claims the cryptocurrency

00:29:36.640 uh what i've been proposing it'd be put back to use for the good um for the good of the community

00:29:42.640 to fund lots of these enforcement agencies and to fund um investigations and uh you mentioned one

00:29:49.680 of what i mean one of the things uh and it's also almost hard to blame people who are in their 50s

00:29:55.440 and 60s who are politicians in this country who are MPs whose job it is to, you know, speak to

00:30:00.960 constituents about issues at the local hospitals or too many potholes or all this stuff that MPs

00:30:06.660 deal with, for them to be up on the latest edge of the, the cutting edge of the latest tech.

00:30:14.620 You've nonetheless managed to get MPs to actually look at this and take this seriously. What kind

00:30:19.880 of conversations have you been able to have?

00:30:22.940 Yeah, so I've briefed so far all the different government agencies, including the NCA, the

00:30:30.920 FCDO, the Home Office, and all these other organizations.

00:30:34.380 And I've also briefed lots of different MPs.

00:30:37.660 And so this is a bipartisan issue.

00:30:39.860 No one wants to see their constituents losing their life savings over this.

00:30:43.840 And no one wants to see Iran, Russia, North Korea generating billions through this.

00:30:50.500 And so I've had good reception over this issue, but I agree with you completely.

00:30:56.840 These people shouldn't have to focus on this, which is why I'm trying to push for an enforcement agency in itself focused on cryptocurrency.

00:31:07.300 Like a digital fraud office.

00:31:08.620 Exactly. And so which would have the resources to have people who are actually experts on this, just focus on this, protect victims and stop these bad actors.

00:31:18.200 Again, in the US, there's a bill going through the House right now, the House of Representatives, which is the equivalent of the House of Commons, to create this in the US.

00:31:32.220 And so I think the UK should be at the forefront to do this.

00:31:36.920 Ridge first sponsored this show nearly six years ago.

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00:33:23.320 After you check out, they'll ask you where you heard about them.

00:33:27.040 Tell them we sent you.

00:33:29.100 And it shouldn't actually be that hard to fund because of, you know,

00:33:32.940 there are certain government programs and agencies that require you to put lots of money in

00:33:36.780 and you don't get any money back.

00:33:38.200 In this, you do one proper seizure of, you know, Russian billions or drug billions or whatever,

00:33:44.020 and you can fund it for the rest of eternity.

00:33:46.180 That's just one case.

00:33:47.320 Yeah.

00:33:47.760 Yeah, so I'll give you an interesting story, which is why this is so useful.

00:33:54.180 So a Chinese Ponzi scheme attracted 120,000 victims to invest in it in China.

00:34:04.480 It was proposed as a Bitcoin mining operation where they could invest in this, receive some

00:34:12.360 profits back from this Bitcoin mining operation.

00:34:15.880 It became super popular in China, government officials were investing in this, it generated

00:34:20.760 over $600 million in proceeds.

00:34:24.980 The mastermind behind the scheme, a woman named, the last name Qian, she took all the, or

00:34:33.940 a part of the $600 million, converted it into cryptocurrency, and then fled.

00:34:39.420 She originally fled to Thailand and then Cambodia.

00:34:45.200 And then eventually she took a first-class plane, sorry, first-class ticket to come

00:34:50.820 to London, here in London.

00:34:53.540 And she set up her operations here, her Bitcoin stash at that point was worth 6.6 billion.

00:35:02.080 And so she was renting a house here in London in Hampstead, which is a very nice area.

00:35:08.740 And she hired some people to try and convert the $6.6 billion into cash because she was

00:35:18.740 trying to purchase three different houses in Hampstead, one worth $25 million, one worth

00:35:23.660 $10 million, another $4 million.

00:35:25.760 And she ran into issues because she couldn't identify where these funds were coming from,

00:35:31.840 the provenance of these funds, which is why what is known as off-ramps when you're trying

00:35:37.060 for the cash. It's so important to regulate and enforce there. Anyway, this tipped off authorities

00:35:45.980 and they came to her house in Hampstead. And so she got very scared and she fled with the $6.6

00:35:53.580 billion to York. And she was renting an Airbnb there. I reckon you could probably get quite a

00:36:00.540 Can I say a B&B in New York for $6.6 billion?

00:36:03.540 Yeah.

00:36:04.540 So she thought she was good.

00:36:07.540 She had lots of aspirations.

00:36:09.540 She wanted to be a queen of a country.

00:36:11.540 There's some place near Serbia where no one's claimed it.

00:36:15.540 She wanted to be queen there.

00:36:17.540 And she actually, linking back to this whistleblower program,

00:36:23.540 some person in York didn't really understand what was going on,

00:36:26.540 found it suspicious.

00:36:27.540 So they tipped off the authorities and they came to her house in York or her Airbnb in York and arrested her and they seized her wallet with $6.6 billion in it and it was just on a USB drive.

00:36:43.640 And so that $6.6 billion could fund the program easily.

00:36:49.560 And yeah, so it's really fascinating, all these different schemes.

00:36:53.080 Well, it sounds like that's the direction in which we're going to have to move in terms of enforcing all of this.

00:36:59.420 It's really interesting.

00:37:00.840 I suppose one question that would probably be very helpful for us to talk about is,

00:37:05.060 if you are on the user side of things, if you're just a normal person who's got a few thousand pounds in Bitcoin or something like that,

00:37:12.420 what should you watch out for to make sure that you don't get scammed?

00:37:16.880 Yeah.

00:37:17.300 Okay, so there's a couple of different things.

00:37:20.520 Firstly, there's this thing called a private key.

00:37:23.080 which is basically how you access your wallet.

00:37:28.160 You should never store it anywhere or give it away.

00:37:32.520 Because to anyone, you think even if they call you up,

00:37:35.840 no crypto company calls you up.

00:37:39.120 And these scammers are getting so advanced,

00:37:43.640 they are cloning voices to try and call you to get your keys.

00:37:48.560 They have this operation where they send you a tiny bit of money

00:37:53.200 right before you're doing a large transaction.

00:37:57.160 And you think that wallet address, because it's very complicated,

00:38:00.440 you think that wallet address might be the one you're sending it to.

00:38:03.520 That's another way.

00:38:04.780 But just always be vigilant, I think.

00:38:08.920 No crypto company calls you, emails you.

00:38:12.760 But even so, it's getting even worse where they're physically targeting you.

00:38:18.560 so there's this thing called wrench attacks where um they see you posting on instagram you've got

00:38:24.800 like a nice uh you know lamborghini or something with your cryptocurrency earnings um or they they

00:38:31.440 even see you that you're just talking about cryptocurrency um they'll kidnap you and and

00:38:37.520 like torture you to give up um your wallet a wallet key now this is becoming really a

00:38:43.840 a terrible thing and it's growing um last year there were 17 of these cases where the average

00:38:49.840 um amount of cryptocurrency stolen was 500 000 um pounds and so they they go through the most

00:38:57.020 advanced um things to try and take you down and um the issue with this is that there's not no one

00:39:03.640 to protect you um so they they can knock on your door they pretend to be a delivery driver and

00:39:09.560 they kidnap you and in France is having an even worse situation with this there was like 50

00:39:14.920 um attacks last year from this and so another thing I would advise never post about um

00:39:20.920 cryptocurrency uh yeah well I just like to say I don't have any cryptocurrency and neither of us

00:39:25.960 does I think no uh my claim to fame with cryptocurrency is I bought a whole bitcoin

00:39:31.160 for no I bought half a bitcoin for 200 dollars wow um and when it doubled in price I was like

00:39:37.720 I've absolutely smashed this investment.

00:39:39.880 So I sold half a Bitcoin for $400.

00:39:43.280 And now how much is a Bitcoin now?

00:39:45.760 So now it's at like $60,000.

00:39:47.940 Yeah.

00:39:48.420 Yeah, so that would have been...

00:39:50.160 So I double my money.

00:39:52.440 It shows how much to invest in.

00:39:53.960 And look, I'm joking aside, but I have to say I've always had...

00:39:59.460 You're way too young to remember this, but your dad may have told you about it

00:40:02.540 because in Russia in the 1990s, there was this famous pyramid scheme

00:40:06.240 called MMM, Triple M. And from that moment on, I've always had this like, so you've got this 0.99

00:40:12.540 like fake currency made by some Japanese bloke no one's ever met, which like doubles in price 0.98

00:40:18.100 every three days. And that's where you, like, it usually if something is, it's my cynical Russian 0.99

00:40:24.300 side, I suspect, but it's like, if something's too good to be true, it almost definitely is.

00:40:28.840 Definitely. And this Ponzi scheme I was talking about, it's not an isolated case. There's been

00:40:33.920 thousands of these where um you know they promote some things so so not true could never be true

00:40:40.480 um but lots of people um fall for it but i i was just looking at this like charles ponzi back in

00:40:46.800 the day like in the 1900s i think it was 1915 um people were falling for these ponzi schemes it's

00:40:54.240 like been a generational thing and they don't they don't realize until everything's gone and it's

00:40:58.720 even worse with cryptocurrency um because they can run off and most of the time they don't even know

00:41:04.880 the identity of the person um behind this uh scheme there was a famous case where um i think

00:41:12.240 it was called one coin where um a woman uh she took in maybe like five billion dollars and then

00:41:18.640 ran and she's still never been found before so i mean there's good news for some people it's

00:41:25.440 worked that well for her that's true but you look at crimes and you go the incentives for these

00:41:31.520 crimes are massive right because you can literally rob a bank and get away with it and you wouldn't

00:41:38.080 make one tenth of what this person and it's also i mean one of the big advantages this is digital

00:41:43.920 if you rob a bank you have to carry massive bags of cash i've seen heat you know you have to carry

00:41:48.960 massive bags of heat of cash out you have to do some of them it's hard to transport money across

00:41:55.200 borders the moment you put it in the bank people are asking you all kinds of questions yeah with

00:41:59.120 digital you just put it put this little usb stick in your pocket and now you're the queen of a

00:42:04.240 country yeah exactly and i think um for for these hostile regimes like iran and russia that they're

00:42:10.560 able to use it so this is why they love it because you can transfer um money from the uk to iran to

00:42:17.280 to fund the IRGC within seconds.

00:42:20.120 So I identified two companies

00:42:23.920 which were registered here in the UK.

00:42:26.520 It's an interesting story.

00:42:28.280 So they were registered under a fake woman

00:42:31.560 called Elizabeth Newman.

00:42:33.760 She gave her address in the Dominican Republic,

00:42:37.520 two addresses, the Sheraton and Radisson Hotels.

00:42:41.120 And she registered that she was operating in Mayfair.

00:42:45.720 and she claimed that the business wasn't doing any business

00:42:51.240 and it was what's known as dormant accounts

00:42:54.040 when you're filing dormant accounts on Companies House.

00:42:57.400 It was operational for about five years,

00:43:00.360 but in reality the mastermind behind this scheme

00:43:04.440 was a guy named Babak Sanjani

00:43:06.760 and the operation has been moving billions for the IRGC

00:43:11.400 in cryptocurrency while being registered in Mayfair.

00:43:14.120 So it's really become a massive issue and they're able to exploit the systems here and make it feel like it's a proper company to move billions for the IRGC.

00:43:26.480 So really terrible issue.

00:43:28.860 Absolutely. And I'm also thinking just from a practical level in terms of recruitment for these crime agencies, how do you recruit people?

00:43:35.300 If you want lawyers, you know, they go to law school, they go to university, they train.

00:43:39.180 most of the people who are into crypto just anecdotally they're all people of your age

00:43:45.200 definitely i agree i agree i think um there's the exception to that which is um the people who are

00:43:52.740 in these countries who um main job is to find ways to move money for their um regimes they're

00:44:00.800 very motivated and they're very um insistent if they don't move billions they either die i mean

00:44:08.360 get killed or lose their job. And so with Russia, at least, all these actually corporations now

00:44:17.360 in Russia who have been sanctioned, like this massive one called Rostec, they're now trying

00:44:25.240 to set up their own currency similar to A75. So a new development, they've just created something

00:44:31.720 called Rubex, which is another stable coin. And so their main thinking behind this is that if they

00:44:37.400 can evade the western financial system and if they can create their own financial space then

00:44:45.860 the uk us can never sanction them or they can sanction that but it'll have never no effects

00:44:50.780 and so it's really a pressing issue that we have to deal with um which is why it's so important

00:44:56.280 that for a75 this new stable coin called rubex we um try to take it down no absolutely and but

00:45:03.980 We're talking about stable coins.

00:45:05.700 I mean, the whole meme coin thing.

00:45:07.720 Yeah.

00:45:08.120 I've got a friend who, that's how he makes his money.

00:45:10.720 He makes his money doing meme coins.

00:45:12.600 And when he tells me about it, it, I just, let's talk about meme coins.

00:45:17.700 Because I think it's genuinely fascinating.

00:45:19.980 Because to me, that's just a glorified scam.

00:45:22.480 I mean, even Trump did a meme coin.

00:45:24.000 Definitely.

00:45:24.600 And for a period of time, I don't know about right now, but for a period of time,

00:45:29.020 um launderers were seeing this um thing these these meme coins just explain what they are

00:45:35.360 first and then we're talking to the law into the money laundering so um meme coins are basically

00:45:40.440 uh a currency which is set up um either it's like something called like fart coin or like

00:45:47.440 some not uh not some nonsensical idea and they're set up and their main objective the

00:45:55.340 the people behind these main objective is to pump it up to get lots of these regular people

00:46:01.100 investing in the cryptocurrency to stimulate some volume and then they cash out all their proceeds

00:46:07.100 while all these other people lose all their money and so but why see the thing i've never

00:46:13.100 understood and sorry to interrupt is i remember that girl what's the hawk tour yeah she did one

00:46:19.180 of them and i was like look i understand why she'd do it because she can make money off her

00:46:23.580 temporary fame why would anyone buy this i i i mean that's the question you have to ask but

00:46:31.660 but the thing the thing is when people are so like popular there's other people who like are

00:46:35.500 adjacent to this who see oh maybe they can make a bit of money trying to invest in this because

00:46:39.420 they see other people making money in these meme coins and so everyone gets attracted it's like all

00:46:43.980 hype it's like this ai bubble but like condensed everyone goes in and then the people behind this

00:46:50.540 or sell out. So everybody who's buying it, it's literally a pyramid scheme. They think if I buy

00:46:56.460 this now and sell it three days from now for 10 times the price, I can cash out before it all

00:47:00.620 collapses. Well, that's what they hope. But the issue is that for many of these schemes,

00:47:06.700 the insiders who have created this, they know, they time when they're going to sell,

00:47:11.500 and the people on the other end, they have no idea about this. So you speak about this

00:47:15.740 hawk to a coin so that she wasn't the one actually operating the coin they had some people in the

00:47:23.660 background who issued the coin and they knew when they could um sell and she couldn't really stop

00:47:29.740 them because she wasn't in control of the coin and so it's really um it's hard to predict and

00:47:34.700 so it's like it's such a volatile thing uh yeah but i don't know it's terrible but meme coins are

00:47:40.140 basically somebody creating a fake currency that's not pegged to anything of value.

00:47:46.620 And the point is because of the popularity of the person who's creating the meme coin or the

00:47:51.420 virality of the meme, it goes up in price after being launched. And then the point of the meme

00:47:58.460 coin is that the person who created it, or in her case, the people who helped her create it,

00:48:04.940 cash out while everybody else loses. Exactly.

00:48:07.260 So it's a way of transferring the money of suckers into the pockets of the people doing this. 0.56

00:48:11.180 Definitely.

00:48:11.640 And so, you know, I really don't, because some of these people, they have no idea about,

00:48:16.040 they don't even know it's a meme coin.

00:48:17.720 They think, oh, you know, it might be the next Bitcoin.

00:48:20.160 And they get swooped in.

00:48:21.900 I get these emails.

00:48:23.180 These people are like, tell me, oh, I've lost, like, you know, my life savings investing in these schemes.

00:48:29.120 And then they can't get the money back.

00:48:31.320 So I really think it's terrible.

00:48:33.360 Of course.

00:48:33.800 Of course it is.

00:48:34.500 But I mean, Trump did a meme coin, didn't he?

00:48:36.380 That's true.

00:48:36.980 He also did a meme coin. 0.98

00:48:39.200 There's also Melania did a meme coin.

00:48:41.740 Lots of people did meme coins.

00:48:44.300 And so the people invested in the Trump coin,

00:48:47.440 I think they lost like $3.6 billion from the cumulative loss.

00:48:54.700 So it's only hyped for a very short time,

00:48:58.360 but people always expect it to be the next Bitcoin.

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00:50:49.220 and it's i find it really interesting and because it's mainly men who do this it's mainly young men

00:50:56.000 and i kind of think is it a little bit because the economy is what it is it's so difficult to

00:51:03.280 acquire capital it's so difficult to acquire property that a lot of men just think hey well

00:51:09.020 this is probably one of the few ways that you can actually make money in today's economy especially

00:51:13.800 if you're young definitely it doesn't help that all these people are posting on social media

00:51:17.860 that their trip to Dubai or something,

00:51:21.960 they're on these private jets.

00:51:23.760 And these people who, as you said,

00:51:27.020 it's like a bad financial situation right now.

00:51:29.120 These people who think, oh, this might be my solution.

00:51:33.220 And then they get trapped into this ever-ending cycle

00:51:36.760 where some new thing gets set up,

00:51:38.680 they try to invest, and they probably lose their money.

00:51:41.260 But then the people on the other end

00:51:42.840 are the ones who are reaping all the benefits

00:51:45.100 and are taking these jets to Dubai.

00:51:47.980 Although that's still, I don't know if that's true.

00:51:52.100 You know, these people who are faking something called LARPing.

00:51:55.020 I don't know.

00:51:55.580 Yeah.

00:51:56.080 Yeah.

00:51:56.620 And these people, this is a lot of the time,

00:51:59.660 right before they launch their coins,

00:52:01.900 they post these videos, you know, I'm like so successful.

00:52:05.480 I'm going to do the cryptocurrency, you join me.

00:52:08.660 And then it fails.

00:52:10.200 You know, I think the economic situation,

00:52:13.260 and housing, and this is stuff obviously we've talked about, and it really is, it has become

00:52:17.760 more difficult than it has been in the past.

00:52:20.240 But I also think everyone's always wanted a shortcut to wealth and success and everything

00:52:25.000 else.

00:52:26.000 And I think for a lot of people, it's just tempting because it's like, well, that's why

00:52:30.020 people buy a lottery ticket except you're way more guaranteed to get screwed on this

00:52:33.920 and you're playing with much bigger amounts of money.

00:52:36.020 You want to put 20 quid into Bitcoin and see if it goes up in price, that's a reasonable

00:52:41.660 thing to do. 0.98

00:52:42.660 You're putting your life savings into a meme coin made by some girl who's famous for an interview in which she talked about how to do a blowjob. 0.98

00:52:49.440 You're probably, sorry, forget how young you are, really. 0.95

00:52:54.000 I guess what I'm saying is everybody wants something for nothing and you can't get it.

00:52:59.260 Yeah, definitely.

00:53:00.420 And then the more people who get blown into this, a lot of them are turning to darker paths to try and make the money.

00:53:09.980 So there was this one famous case, a person, he was 19 or so, he tended to be an employee of one of these cryptocurrency exchanges and he called this person who has lots of cryptocurrency, he had 230 million and he convinced him that he was an employee and he's handling all the money and he just needs some information.

00:53:33.200 he stole 230 million and then he went on like a partying spree where in like the biggest clubs in

00:53:39.600 LA this was um he was like uh ordering these like bottle services and stuff and so people see this

00:53:49.160 and they they turn towards the darker path which is what I'm a bit concerned about and also um

00:53:55.980 the young people getting involved in hacking as well this like a big thing now and uh one of

00:54:02.220 That question is worth asking because, you know, we know people who are perfectly respectable

00:54:05.640 people who work in crypto, who have created things within that space, who have become

00:54:09.780 very successful because of that.

00:54:11.900 What is the legitimate and useful and productive use of Bitcoin and other things like that?

00:54:18.460 Yeah, so I think it's helpful that there's no like transaction fees if you're sending

00:54:24.620 money and for people in disadvantaged countries who are trying to move money.

00:54:30.220 Where they don't have an established banking system, etc.

00:54:33.340 So this is a way for people to transfer money.

00:54:35.960 And actually, increasingly in the UK, if you need to move a significant amount of money

00:54:40.220 for something, you have to go to your bank, they're going to ask you a bunch of questions.

00:54:43.780 It is annoying.

00:54:45.400 But I think a lot of people tell me that the actual people in Iran should be using cryptocurrency

00:54:56.280 to try and evade the government.

00:55:00.640 But in Iran at least,

00:55:02.600 over 60% of all cryptocurrency transactions

00:55:05.280 are carried out for the IRGC.

00:55:07.280 And so it's like the intended purpose

00:55:10.380 is to help out all these people.

00:55:12.060 But then these governments, these like massive regimes,

00:55:15.000 hostile regimes who are trying to harm their populations,

00:55:19.260 they just take it over.

00:55:20.500 And so in Iran, it's mainly used by the IRGC and its affiliates to pay other terrorist groups

00:55:31.740 and to receive income, such as the toll payments in the Strait of Hormuz.

00:55:36.160 In North Korea, not used by its citizens, it's used by the government.

00:55:42.000 And so I think encouraging people who are in these situations to use cryptocurrency is good,

00:55:49.180 but then at the same time, you have that.

00:55:52.700 Alex, thank you so much for coming on.

00:55:54.100 It's great that you're doing the work that you're doing.

00:55:56.420 You're a young man, so you've got plenty of other useful things to do in the future.

00:56:00.860 I hope you carry on the work that you're doing.

00:56:03.380 We're going to go to our supporters in a second who are going to ask you their questions.

00:56:07.020 But before we do, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

00:56:10.980 I think we should be incentivizing more youth ambition.

00:56:14.420 So what I mean by this is that right now you've got so many young people like me, there's like thousands of us, but the governments, the UK government and our school system should be encouraging people to be more ambitious.

00:56:31.620 There's thousands of outdated regulations, which mean people in my same situation are not encouraged to do what I'm doing,

00:56:41.620 or not exactly what I'm doing, but start a business, start something to help people.

00:56:48.620 For example, I'll just give you a personal example. 0.69

00:56:52.620 um my sister uh she um was gonna be join a genome project that one of these big science labs um but

00:57:02.140 hr regulations mean anyone under the age of 18 can't help in any uh science uh projects and so

00:57:09.260 um whether that's trying to cure cancer trying to um start a billion dollar company or um or

00:57:16.460 trying to do what i'm doing i think it should be encouraged more um and i think there should be

00:57:21.260 more access for people to do internships or apprenticeships. And this is one of the big

00:57:27.260 things I'm focusing on called Project Ambition. Alex, what a pleasure it's been. I've actually

00:57:34.500 learned more probably about the world in this interview than I have in a long time, and it's

00:57:38.680 depressed me even more. So thank you for that. And if you want to carry on this conversation

00:57:42.760 with Alex, make sure to join us over on our Substack, where you'll get to ask him your questions.

00:57:48.520 Is laundering through crypto any harder to track than earlier methods?

00:57:54.800 Or might it be easier because of the immutability of blockchain?

00:58:18.520 Thank you.

TRIGGERnometry - September 19, 2026

The Crypto Scheme Funding Putin's War with Alex Browder

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