Speaker 1: And hello, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast
on this on this Monday, Today's night, the ninth day
of Febebruary, year of our Over, twenty twenty six. My
name is Tom Sullivan. And uh, well, did you like
the Super Bowl? We got a little I mean, I
don't know. I I'm from Seattle, so I was rooting
for Seattle. But I just I thought the game was
just okay, I mean it was. It was asking expect
did the two really good defensive teams going against each
other doesn't make for a very exciting game. But it
was clear, clear, clear, clear Seattle was was dominating the Patriots.
So congratulations to Seattle. As far as far as Bad
Bunny goes, I don't know what to say. I wasn't
impressed either. I'm not going to put it down. I'm
not going to praise it. Some of the some of
the adjectives being used about all the exciting show that
it wasn't exciting. I thought it was. I didn't get it.
Let me put it. Maybe it's maybe I'm just out
of the wrong generation on that, but I so they
so they so they had a Lady Gaga. I like
Ricky Martin was part of that. But but in any case,
I I don't speak Spanish, so I kind of felt
like okay. And as far as the Latin beat, the
Latin music, I love Latin music. It makes you want
to get up and dance. No, that did not. It
just it just did not. So let's see real quick numbers.
The preliminary number show one hundred twenty seven million people
tuned in. That makes it the number one most watched
television broadcast is every year. Used to be the Oscars
and the Super Bowl were kind of neck and neck.
The Oscars don't get what they used to get, so
super Bowl one hundred twenty seven, they're same a range
from one hundred twenty seven to one hundred and thirty
million viewers in the United States, and there were more
that were streaming from outside the United States, so it'll
break the previous record from the previous year. The Bad
Bunny shows estimated to have drawn eve and more people
tuned in for that one hundred and forty two million,
so it was the stadium was full. Seventy thousand tickets
sold for the game twenty nine to thirteen, Seattle over
New England, OH at TPUSA, Turning Point USA, they had
their alternative halftime show. Kid Rock was kind of running
that whole operation, and they I've seen two different reports,
one from from Turning Point. He's saying that they had
six million streams and another one said they had twenty
five million on social media. So six million or twenty
five million or even add them together versus one hundred
and what did they say for one hundred forty two million? So,
you know, good for Turning Point. They got some people.
I was wordying about it. It sounded like they were kind
of pushing, kind of hustling, you know, join now, join now.
But so anyway, that's that's it for another year. I
don't know what for football fans, what do you do
this next weekend? Gotta wait meantime Tonight five o'clock Mountain
time at seven o'clock Eastern, four o'clock Pacific is the
deadline in the ransom note for Nancy Guthrie, and everybody
says it's going to be more ominous. I don't know what,
but they want six million dollars in bitcoin. And so
I picked up the phone and called the guy that
I know knows everything about technology, Ira Victor. He is
the chief forensic analyst at Discovery ten Technition dot com
and that's he's that's his business's Internet security. So I
called him up and I asked him, I said, what
do you make of this demand that the ransom be
paid in bitcoin? And can it be followed? And how
do people get the money out of the wallet that
it's sent to. So here it's the conversation I had
just a few hours ago with Ira Victor, how we're
going to pay this this ransom with bitcoin? What do
you make of that whole thing? Am I? I have?
Nobody knows the answer to is this really what's going with?
Nobody knows what's going on. But when I started seeing
the bitcoin, and I started hearing some people talking about,
well you can do it via bitcoin, but bitcoin uses
blockchain and so therefore you can follow it and you
can discuss that. You know, they'll never get away with it.
And other people are saying no, no, no, no no.
They they split it up and send it off in
fifty different directions and they'll be able to get the
bitcoin and run away with the money. What do you say,
I ra.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad Tom that you brought up the blockchain,
because I think a lot of people and a lot
of reports about the ransom for uh Samantha gun three,
gun Three's mother are not picking up on the most
important part of the of the ransom the ransom, which
is that they're focused on the bitcoin. You can't use
bitcoin without a digital wallet, and the digital wallet address
lives in the public domain. That's the blockchain. It's like
a giant Excel spreadsheet, and so every wallet is on
the spreadsheet. Okay wherever. So you've got your wallet, I'm
gonna pay. I'm going to pay you.
Speaker 1: I send you bitcoined to your wallet address. That that's correct. Okay,
that's right. So you've got an address for your wallet,
for your wallet, so therefore I just need to identify
who you are with the I know what the wallet
is because I got to send the money to it.
Or is this more complicated?
Speaker 2: Well no, then that that's the basics. Now you can
there are people, so yeah, let me let me step back.
You send it to the wallet, and at some point
somebody has to take that bitcoin out of the wallet
to do something with it in the real world, right,
whether they transfer it to currency dollars or euros or yen,
whether they transfer it to gold will they transferred to
Diamonds or as the cyber criminals that ransomed Caesar's Casino
right in my home state of the Vada a few
years back. They got fifteen million dollars Tom in their
ransom attacked against Caesar's. Yeah, and and what the cyber
criminals did. So Caesars paid the ransom to get access
to their data, and the cyber criminals got the bitcoin.
And then you know the old saying, Tom, you were
in law enforcement. You can run, but you cannot hide.
So one of the one of the cyber criminals involved
in this, Tayla jew Bear jew Bear j U B
A I R. I don't know exactly how you say
that name. He decided he wanted to go to Uber Eats.
He ordered an Uber Eats meal and they delivered it
to where he lived. Oh boy, and law enforcement was
watching his wallet.
Speaker 1: So you can get it to your wallet, but you
can't spend it. You can't take it, that's exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well you if you don't, you can leave it there
forever and maybe give it to your kids in a
hundred years. No one cares anymore.
Speaker 1: Can I Can I take the bitcoin that I have
in my wallet and pay Uber eats with bitcoin. Some
places do do take bitcoin now they do. So here's
the thing, Tom, because of the increased regulations we have
now at bitcoin versus the early years, and a lot
of that's happened in the last year or so. Do
we have increased regulation. So the anti monitoring, anti money
laundering laws are being replied.
Speaker 2: To the wallets. And look, let's say I buy I
buy six million dollars worth of bitcoin at Robinhood and
because they're they're a broker for stops and for crypto,
and I canswer to your wallet tom Okay, and you've
got a wallet at Goldman, SATs Okay or Hasty Trade
one of those other PayPal, and so the law enforcement
just goes to PayPal and says, where did you get
the six million dollars? Tom Iral did such and such
and gave it to me. So the trick is, if
you're a bad guy, you can get the money sent
to your wallet, but then what do you do with it?
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: And there are these there are these services that will
do what they call washing the money. They'll move them
the currency through different wallets, so it makes it harder
to track but again, Tom, you were in law enforcement.
If the law enforcement is determined enough, they have someone
who does the forensics, yeah, and says, okay, it leads
to this guy.
Speaker 1: I heard that.
Speaker 2: That's what happened.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I heard. Was said. Okay. So
then they take it and they divide it up and
spread it all over a bunch of different wallets, and
it's very hard to follow. In other words, if you're lazy,
I'll get away with it. If you're if you're a
determined investigator, you can follow it.
Speaker 2: Is what you're saying, that's correct, and sometimes it's easy
like it was with Actually I looked it up, uh
Tala jew Bear, jew Bear, what is his name? And
he was he was lazy. He decided to go spend
part of his crypto on uber eats, which you gotta think, Tom,
that's pretty dumb because the uberys delivers.
Speaker 1: To your home. Yeah, they got your name and your address.
So in ransomware. Because we're talking of the big news
is of course about Savannah gut Thrie's mother. But the
other story that we hear about once in a while,
but I know companies don't like to talk about it
is the ransomware where they get an email or some
notification we have all your data and if you want it,
you've got to pay us x money dollars to get it.
That's what we're usually dealing with, right, correct.
Speaker 2: And the one other element of that, and I deal
with that a lot in my in my practice and
information security and forensics, is that the attacker say, we
have your data. If you don't pay us in this
short this short period of time with crypto, with bitcoin,
we will not only not give you access to it anymore,
but we will sell it and distribute over the internet.
And so for yeah, for example, you've had plastic surgery,
medical practices where they're taking pictures of intimate parts of people.
Speaker 1: YEA, sensitive private stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're sensitive, private, private stuff. And so this
is that this is much more common used by ransomware attackers.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And again though they don't always get away. So we
remember about four years or so ago, Tom, the Colonial
pipeline ransomware attack for gasoline was shut down.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the Colonial pipeline for people that aren't familiar,
is the main way of moving fuel up and down
the East coast, that's correct. And the attackers were tracked
through their digital wallet, and about eighty ninety percent was
about four or five million dollars that was that was ransom,
you know, the ransom payment from Colonial pipeline, and about
four million dollars of that was actually recovered through tracking
the wallets, the digital wallets.
Speaker 2: So it's very hard to get to get away with
any meaningful amount of money. And if you're not, you know,
if you don't want a lot of money for what
are you doing doing the crime? Just go on and
earn an honest days living. The guy would have made
more money now he's going to be in jail. The Uberry.
It's guys who just been a driver. Yeah, it may
make money the honest way.
Speaker 1: Well, most people in law enforcement will say, if you
just keep digging and digging, digging, because somewhere along the line,
somebody's made the bad guy's made a mistake, and that's
that's what they're looking for. So it's the same applies
obviously to this. So I so we'll see what happens.
Because the deadline five o'clock tonight. They've got to pay
six million dollars in bitcoin, and then the next step
after that is for law enforcement to go chasing the
wallet and watch it like a like a hawk.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So I think it's not going out on a limb
if the ransom is paid, and hopefully Samantha Guthrie's mom
has returned to us safe, safe and sound, that we
may not. This story may go silent for a while,
a month, a year, five year, years, sure, and then
you'll you'll be reading something on your phone and go, oh,
they caught the people that kidnap Samantha done three back
in twenty twenty six. Yeah, and I think that I'm
not going out on a very long limb to make
that prediction.
Speaker 3: I hope they do get caught.
Speaker 1: I do too. I have my suspicions that this has
been a week, so I got my suspicions about more
than a week that she's even alive. I hope she is.
But it's this whole thing is a sad, sad story.
There's a lot of rich people out there that if
you want to try to steal some of their money, fine,
Savannah Guthrie makes good a good living, no question about.
But she's not the richest person in America. There are
other targets. So I always go back to usually when
something happens the disappearing wife. You know, they always check
on husband family. That's where you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, and it may be it may be that
as well, which will will be combined with tracking down
the wallet so they have the have the proof to
get a conviction.
Speaker 3: I hope.
Speaker 4: So these people should go to jail. Whoever did this,
they should definitely go to jail. Oh, no question, good,
could you send could you send the dollar? Uh to
see where to the bitcoin address to the wallet, just
so you know where the wallet so you can keep
an eye on the wall. They probably already have the
wallet address. Why aren't they checking that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so so they if they've made the demand,
presumably they've given an address.
Speaker 3: That's what usually happens.
Speaker 2: Here's the address for a wallet, right, so law enforcement
already knows the activity on that wallet because it's public.
Speaker 1: So you can see what what came in, what went out.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes you can.
Speaker 2: And then you and then you start, uh you know,
it's it's we we call cookie crumbs. Even in the
real world. Oh listen, go back and start tracking COI crumbs.
Speaker 1: When I was in the accounting profession, I've often said
you could read somebody's bank statement, and without knowing who
they are, you could you could draw up a perfect
description of who they were by where they went, that's right,
what they bought, where their income came from, where there
where their expenses went to. So yeah, that's what they
can do with the with the bitcoin wallets. It's the
same as a chance.
Speaker 2: And that that's right, and that could lead if it
is someone that knows Savannah gunn gus three or her husband.
Her husband was al Gore's chief of staff for the
campaign in chief House. He's a big mover and shaker,
so maybe it's someone that knows the husband. But you'll
be able by tracking the trans the transactions and looking
to who that person is in the same place at
the same time, with track it back to the real world. Yeah,
odds are that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that the al Gore connection goes back to two
thousand and so twenty six years ago. But yeah, that
was what he did as a young man. All right, Well, Ira, interesting,
So we'll see what happens and if they pay then we,
like you said, we've got to be patient. We'll wait
and see. Might take a while, but they will find him,
that's right, Yeah, iie Ira Victor. Give us your your
full contact info so people know how to reach you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, Tom, Ira Victor. I'm a digital
forensic analyst with Discovery Technician dot com.
Speaker 1: Perfect Perfect Perfect. I are always good to check in
with you. We don't we shouldn't wait until we have
a ransom situation. But I knew when I saw this
and started thinking about bitcoin, I knew exactly who to call.
So thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day
and we'll catch up with you again soon. So while
we were recording the conversation with Ira, Savannah gut three
has just released another plea to the kidnappers. Let's listen.
Speaker 5: Hi there, everybody. I wanted to come on and just
share a few thoughts as we enter into another week
of this nightmare. I just want to say, first of all,
thank you so much for all of the prayers and
the love that we have felt, my sister and brother
and I, and that our mom has felt. Because we
believe that somehow, some ways she is feeling these prayers
and that God is lifting her even in this moment
and in this darkest place. We believe our mom is
still out there. We need your help, law enforcement, is
working tirelessly around the clock trying to bring her home,
trying to find her. She was taken and we don't
know where.
Speaker 3: And we need your help.
Speaker 5: So I'm coming on just to ask you, not just
for your prayers, but no matter where you are, even
if you're far from Tucson, if you see anything, you
hear anything, if there's anything at all that seems strange
to you that you report to law enforcement. We are
an hour of desperation.
Speaker 1: We need your op So that just came out late
this afternoon. It was moments ago. We're recording in the afternoon.
She said, we need you and then she repeated three
different times, we need your help, We need your help,
we need your help in different parts of that statement.
She was not using a script, she was not reading
some things. This was contemporaneous, she said, at an hour
of desperation because again the deadline that was given in
the ransom note was five o'clock Mountain time. Just that
for your time zone. So they're still looking. Josh Ritter,
he's a criminal defense lawyer, he's also former law enforcement,
had this reaction to the search for Nancy Guthrie.
Speaker 6: We need to get some answers as to if they've
made any progress, because, like you said, we're nine days
in last Sunday is when she was abducted, and the
idea that the last we've heard from law enforcement is
that they still have no suspects, no even persons of interest,
and yes, they continue to investigate. We've heard about photographs
being taken, We've heard about other cameras being retrieved from
the crime scene. We've heard about them looking even under manholes.
But we don't know if all of this is based
upon new leads or if this is just them following
up and being thorough with their investigation. But there's this
chilling silence that has taken over the investigation because we
don't have any answers as to what to expect next.
Speaker 1: James Gagliano, former NYPD, this is his thought.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's all part and parcel of the
conduct of an investigation that has defied gravity for so long.
It just doesn't make sense from so many parts of
what traditional kidnappings typically entail. Again going back to the
Limberg baby kidnapping, or Frank Sinatra Junior or even Patty Hurst.
Speaker 3: Is this for profit? Is it for revenge?
Speaker 7: Is there an ideological bent to this, and that has
not been stated or released yet. I think this is
just a law enforcement team, the FBI and the Pima
County Sheriff's Office that is turning over every stone, following
exhaustively every lead, literally going down rabbit holes, and sometimes
that's what you have to do. I won't criticize them
for going back to the house. I criticized them last
week for releasing the crime scene so early.
Speaker 3: But as was pointed out at the top.
Speaker 7: Of this hit, you know, there's a lot of work
ongoing behind the scenes on digital imagery. That stuff takes time.
Was it a proxy server? Was it an IP address
that was masked by VPN? Things like that take time
to kind of grind through. And think that's what they're
focused on right now. If you listen to the three
messages that have been released by the family and their
heart wrenching, you see a family, you know, at the
end of their rope, literally beseeching the captors or the
abductors to please release them. I'm still not certain that
these notes, this messaging and communications from these so called
abductors can be authenticated yet.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot.
Speaker 7: To this that the FBI the behavioral analysis unit as
well as the crisis Negotiation unit are trying to assist
a family with Remember, we in law enforcement cannot compel
a family to act in a certain way or tell
them that they have to do this.
Speaker 3: It's all up to them. And here's the chilling piece
of this.
Speaker 7: We're hurtling towards a deadline right now, five o'clock right
which is the second deadline that's been laid out by
the supposed kidnappers. I don't even think paying the ransom
money would be dispositive in this case.
Speaker 3: Could these be fraudsters a opportunists?
Speaker 7: And I think that's what the family and law enforcement
is having to be forced to deal.
Speaker 3: With right now.
Speaker 1: So we know about two maybe three messages coming from
I think it's two from the from whoever is the
cap door, and yet nobody can figure out they don't
fit the pattern of a normal ransom letter.
Speaker 7: They make no sense. And here's why. Typically in a kidnapping,
if it follows typical protocols, there are a multiple deadline
set when the kidnapper wants to show how serious they are.
If you do not comply with the first deadline, you
will receive negative consequences, and those you can think about
all the awful things that could happen in this instance
where there doesn't appear to be any negative consequences. We're
still not one hundred percent certain that missus Guthrie is
alive because there's been no proof of life, and yet
it wouldn't be surprised if there was an additional deadline.
Somebody's either playing this out because either trying to mass
the fact that they do not have her, or they're
just trying to lead the family on and try to
get any money out of them that they can.
Speaker 1: So let's keep go and get comments from around the table,
if you will, from Law Enforcement actports. John Miller had
this observation today.
Speaker 8: You know, we know this does not appear to the
kidnapping have involved a gentle extraction from the house. We
know from the pictures we've seen and from the statements
of the sheriff there's blood on the front steps by
the front door. That DNA shows that that's her blood.
Considering what you pointed out, her age, the need for medications,
or what the family described as her brittle health condition
on a normal day, that would be a very high
risk victim and Remember, when you're the kidnapper, you're not
just holding the person you're kidnapped. You are responsible for
the care and well being of that victim while you
have them, and you know, these are real questions about
what is her status now. I think the difficulty we're
in is the nature of that communication. You know, when
you have a kidnapper who reaches out through the media
and then gets a response through the media, usually the
next step would be to create a private communication direct
with the family where you could get into these sensitive
areas and specifics. What are the mechanics, how do we
get this done, how do we pay? How much is
there a negotiation there? What about the transfer of the
person back to us? How will that happen? But when
you're communicating through multiple television outlets and then being answered
by social media, we're not seeing a lot of that unfold.
In listening to my former FBI colleagues this weekend, you know,
at least three of them brought up the idea that
the word so that we can celebrate with her. Does
that mean a celebration of life, which would be indicating
that she may no longer be with us, or does
that mean celebrate her coming home. All of that, mixed
with the tone is the things that are raising these questions.
But the simple fact is we don't know.
Speaker 1: Stuart Kaplan, former FBI has a different angle to all
of this.
Speaker 9: From my advantage point, those messages are messaging directly the
source of whoever has been sending those ransom notes. Now
we don't have the benefit of being able to actually
read those ransom notes. And by the way, there may
be some additional messaging that quite frankly, Lauren Forsman or
the FBI is holding close to the vest. But it
seemed at least yesterday that that messaging, in a very
cryptic but very specific and methodical way, was responsive to
specific questions or concerns from the ransom note makers or
authors of that ransom note. And that's why I think
that there is a lot more information that is unknown
to the general public, that specifically is only known to
law enforcement. And it's a cat and mouse game at
this point. Well, again, that money play may have been
because quite frankly, either the family resisted or pushed back
or at the direction of law enforcement, was not responsive
to the ransom note makers or communicators, and in retaliation
for non compliance, they now escalated or increased or heightened
the threat level and said, look, we wanted a million,
and now if you want to see your mother returned
to you, or ever see her alive again, it's now
six million. And I will say this, this five o'clock
deadline cuts both ways, because thing happens at five o'clock.
Clearly the ransom note makers lose their credibility, and also
if the gut three family doesn't follow through and make
that payment again, there may be some unfortunate consequences. This
is going to be a game changer this afternoon at
five o'clock. Look, yeah, well look there's a lot of
tension behind the curtains. I will say that the Guthrie family,
and rightfully so, if it's your loved one, you're willing
to pay whatever it takes, whatever you could muster up
or afford, even if it's a long shot. On the
flip side, law enforcement is wanting to see proof of life.
They want to see some additional information so that arguably,
you don't send six million dollars to someone who disappears
and they have nothing to show for it. So here
again is a cat and mouse game. I will just
say this to you, and I've said it from the
very beginning. The advancement of technology that is in the
toolbox of the FBI is like no other in twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 3: Those assets and resources.
Speaker 9: Generally are never known or seen by the general public
in a criminal investigation. I again think the breakthrough of
this case will be caught will be because of the
advancement in technology that the FBI has deployed in this case.
Those data sets, those digital footprints, do take some time,
but again I am optimistic that we are at the
precipice of this case being broken wide open. So again,
a new message from Savannah Guthrie. She was not reading
a script. You could tell it was ad lib. She
looked very stressed. She had a couple of comments in there.
One of them was at an hour of desperation, she says,
we are we believe our mom is still out there.
She said, we need you. Then she three times repeated
throughout not a very long statement, we need your help.
Thanked everybody for their prayers. So five o'clock is the
deadline Mountain time, just for your time zone. But yeah,
I believe Stuart Kaplan's right. We're down to a precipice
on this particular event. And like we talked to Ira
Victor about if they send the money, then the FBI
is going to have to then keep an eye on
that wallet. And if nobody touches the wallet, and who
will it be? Who somebody's got to make a mistake here,
somebody's got a blink in order to figure out who
is the person or people behind the abduction of Nancy Guthrie.
Speaker 1: All right, Wall Street today, Well we were positive, So
those are technically some new records today. Dow up twenty
points to fifty. I know fifty one thousand and one,
thirty five s and P up thirty two, NAZDAC up
two hundred and seven, Gold up one hundred dollars back
above five thousand. We were there last week the five
thousand and eighty for an ounce of gold and oil
up about a dollar. Today is sixty four dollars and
some change. That's it for today. I have a wonderful
rest of your Monday. We'll be back again tomorrow. Hope
to see you there.