In short
Podcast Summary: Coining It with Lewis Goodall | Ep 2 - Unmissables: Explosive Lies
Overview In the second episode of *Coining It*, Lewis Goodall explores the intriguing story of James Parker, a man who stumbles upon a digital glitch that allows him to create Bitcoin from nothing. The episode delves into Parker's sudden rise to wealth, his flamboyant lifestyle, and the friendships he forms with those around him.
Key Themes and Discussions
The Rise of James Parker
- Background: Parker is initially portrayed as a down-on-his-luck bachelor living on benefits in Blackpool.
- Discovery of the Glitch: Parker finds a way to generate Bitcoin through a digital loophole, rapidly transforming him into a millionaire.
- Lifestyle Changes: His newfound wealth leads to lavish spending, including gifting money and cars to friends.
Relationships and Community
- Friendships: Parker's spending sprees attract attention and forge new friendships, particularly with locals Kimmy and Jordan, who are drawn to his generosity.
- Transformation of Lives: Kimmy and her mother, Kelly, experience a turnaround in their lives as Parker offers support, friendship, and financial assistance.
The Suspicion of Authorities
- Police Involvement: Local authorities, initially skeptical of Parker's wealth, begin investigating the source of his income.
- Interplay of Generosity and Suspicion: Despite the oddities surrounding Parker’s financial activities, people around him, including his financial advisor Stephen Boyes, dismiss concerns due to the prevailing perception of Bitcoin’s speculative nature.
Key Takeaways
- Impact of Wealth on Relationships: The episode illustrates how sudden wealth can alter social dynamics, leading to both genuine connections and exploitation.
- Digital Currency Risks: Parker's story highlights the vulnerabilities and risks associated with cryptocurrency, including scams and legal ambiguities.
- Psychological Factors: Parker’s past trauma influences his excessive generosity, hinting at deeper psychological motivations behind his need to give back.
Notable Quotes
- “What good is a fortune if there's no one to share it with?”
- “You hang around me and you'll become rich.”
- “He was a very good friend to me. I was able to talk to him about things.”
Conclusion This episode of *Coining It* provides a riveting exploration of wealth, friendship, and the complexities of human relationships amidst the backdrop of digital currency. Parker's story serves as a cautionary tale about the unforeseen consequences of sudden wealth and the moral dilemmas that can arise from it.
Listeners are encouraged to follow the series for more insights into the life of James Parker and the unfolding drama surrounding his Bitcoin adventures.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Lewis Goodall:This is a Global Player original podcast.
0:30Lewis Goodall:caught in its wake when it all came crashing down. If you want to hear more, all the episodes are available now on Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the link in the description of this episode, or of course, you can just search for Coining It. Thanks so much.
0:49Lewis Goodall:In the salt-kissed air of Blackpool, where dreams sometimes go to retire, a down-on-his-luck man had found himself in possession of a secret. James Parker, a creased, cough-ridden bachelor living on benefits, had discovered a way of making Bitcoin out of nothing, making him rich beyond his dreams.
1:12James Parker:He keeps saying it's weird. Yeah, he was. What was weird? If you were sat there watching it, you'd go, it's weird.
1:21Lewis Goodall:But after all, what good is a fortune if there's no one to share it with? James did have old friends, like Amy and Loretta, who we met in episode one.
1:31James Parker:He was a right comical little character. He enjoyed his mobility scooter. I don't know, the room letting me drive it and just shout in retina. Because it was on dead farms.
1:43Lewis Goodall:Did he tell you? Did he tell you about the glitch?
1:46James Parker:No, I don't know anything. It's presumed it was like all this, what you've been mucking around with for years, isn't it? I just didn't realise it was anything so to this extreme of how many millions or whatever. It just seemed crazy to me.
1:59Lewis Goodall:His old friends may not have had a clue about the Bitcoin wealth he'd quietly been glitching, but given he seemed to have come into some money, Loretta decided to do something for him, something to help that hacking chest of his.
2:14James Parker:His flat, it was horrendous, wasn't it? It was full of loads of crap. He wasn't getting out of bed.
2:20Lewis Goodall:She booked him into a local hotel for a bit of warmth and comfort.
2:24James Parker:And I booked him into North Houston because I thought it would help him. But that was when he met Kim and Jordan. And that's when it all went bad. All he was doing all night, really, was showing off his bank balance, which at that time I think was about a quarter of a million pounds.
2:46Lewis Goodall:And he wasn't joking either. James Parker had it all right. And much, much more was coming his way. From his room in the Grand Warm Hotel, this strange Bitcoin millionaire could begin sharing his vast wealth with some new pals. I mean, if you had the money, wouldn't you?
3:10James Parker:If this story was made into a film, there would be a lot of editing that had to be taken out of factual things that nobody would believe.
3:19Lewis Goodall:I'm Louis Grenot, and this is Coining It. Episode 2, Wacky Races
3:31Lewis Goodall:Checking in to a nice hotel. It's a pleasure, isn't it? Like coming home. You feel your concerns lift for a little while as you enter the door, taken away by being so close to the sea. Now, you might remember how last episode we told you that Kimmy Caton and her mum came to meet James Parker together at a hotel where he produced thousands of pounds for them. Well, this was the place it all happened.
4:05Lewis Goodall:So you know that feeling when you walk into a big old seaside hotel and you can just imagine decades ago it being newer and full of people and all the furnishings being new and the carpets being new and nothing's been quite new for some time. You've got that kind of old smell of a thousand holidays past just lingering in the air. You know what I mean, don't you? You go in and the outside world kind of, morning, melts away. Thick carpets just absorb the noise. And the soft lighting in the corridors makes a little bit of the world all of its own.
4:46Lewis Goodall:Tell us the story of how you first met James Parker So do you remember the first time that you actually met him?
4:54James Parker:I was dating Jordan at the time One of the people involved in this And he worked behind the bar at the North Euston Hotel And he came back to our house one evening after work And just had hundreds of pounds in tips James was drinking across the bar. I was serving him pints. My friend who was working, he was saying, this bloke across the bar, he's got hundreds of thousands of pounds. Buy me drinks if I just give him company all night and he'll hand me some money.
5:29Lewis Goodall:Well, this is Kimmy's then-boyfriend, Jordan, speaking to police about it all later. Jordan Robinson, just out of his teens, really, an affable, gentle kind of guy, he too would be taken under Parker's wing.
5:44James Parker:When you're in a dead-end job, I thought that I would chance my luck as well. Went over the other side of the bar and I made it appear as if I didn't have enough money for a pint, which got him talking to me. He just chucked a fiver at me and said, get yourself a pint. But for the vast majority of the night, he's just paying for drinks, giving money out here, there and everywhere. What did you think about that? I just found it crazy. You don't see it. For months afterward, I couldn't believe any of it was real.
6:18Lewis Goodall:In the bar of the North Euston, James Parker was making friends the way only a man with a wad in his wallet can.
6:26James Parker:All he was doing all night, really, was showing off his bank balance, which at that time I think was about a quarter of a million pounds, which obviously I'd never even seen that amount on a phone near me. so even that just surprised me. Do you think it was strange? Of course I thought it was strange. I thought it was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen in my life. It seemed like a very, very lonely person. He'd come to the hotel all on his own, there wasn't anybody with him and he was paying for people to sit there and have drinks with him. Right. But, as I say, we left the night as friends.
7:11okay let me try and set the scene for you right this is a pretty classic old school hotel bar deep red kind of umber wallpaper soft furnishings dark pine wood small little hexagonal bar tucked
7:28Lewis Goodall:into the corner looking out onto the sea over morecambe bay and it was in this room right here where I'm set now, where James Parker would base himself for the next few months. It was right here that a little group was beginning to come together. Kimmy, her barman, boyfriend Jordan, and especially her mum Kelly, who by now was getting on with James famously.
7:57James Parker:I think their intelligence complemented each other. They both knew a lot about the world and they both had very strong opinions that seemed to align. and so they struck up a really good friendship. That was the first time in a long time that I saw my mum almost blossom out of her depression.
8:19Lewis Goodall:It helped her being there.
8:21James Parker:Yeah. It helped her being out of that house. It helped her to have a friend. I mean, the nature of depression is very isolating, and that was a huge issue that she had. It was really, really bad.
8:35Lewis Goodall:Being at the hotel and having James as a friend, it helped that?
8:40James Parker:She blossomed. She had a glow to her that I hadn't seen for maybe a decade. Why do you think that was?
8:45Lewis Goodall:Because it's a dramatic change.
8:46James Parker:She felt like she had help, which she hadn't had before. Being in the hotel and having James to look out for us, it just took a lot of pressure off of her. She wasn't worrying about money because James was just paying for everything. He made it very clear that he didn't want anything back. He just wanted to look after us.
9:08Lewis Goodall:But a curious man throwing around cash in the hotel, it'd be hard not to notice, right?
9:14James Parker:A lot of people in the North Houston Hotel, all the staff members, they thought he was a drug dealer. He's an old guy, he's got this money, nobody knows how he's got it. They either thought he was a drug dealer or he's recently sold his and his ex-partner's house or something and he's trying to live at large before he has to stop. One of his old favourite quotes was, you hang around me and you'll become rich. Hang around rich people, you'll become rich.
9:44Lewis Goodall:James was hardly the first man to find himself newly minted and newly popular at the same time. But there was one more crucial person who would come into the North Euston's hotel bar to be received by James Parker after coming down from his suite.
10:00James Parker:Mr Stephen Boyes who is hated to you Mr Parker? He was my financial advisor and then became business partner
10:20James Parker:We ran an ad campaign for people wishing to review their pensions and Mr Parker responded to that ad and so the lead came to me purely by chance meet stephen boys a silver-haired
10:39Lewis Goodall:sturdy formal kind of man in his 50s ex-army turned professional financial advisor and he looked it to pinstripe suits briefcase sort of taut manner he sorted out parker's meager pension but then he got another call.
10:58James Parker:It was some three months later when he contacted me again went out to see him and that's when he told me that he neglected to tell me that he had Bitcoin holdings. Did none of it strike you as being suspicious? Not really because at that particular time Lewis there was Bitcoin millionaires being sort of produced overnight. I thought all my Christmases had come up once I'd stumbled across a Bitcoin millionaire as a client, said, I'll happily advise you on options for investments. He wanted to buy properties. He wanted to do all sorts of different things with his newfound wealth. And I quite happily agreed to help him along that road.
11:41Lewis Goodall:And what was he like when you remember your first meeting? How would you describe it?
Read the full transcript
11:46James Parker:He was living in the bottom half of a two up, two down in Blackpool. It was a cold, damp house, really, so I don't want to be unfair to him, but it stunk of cannabis. So I did form certain impressions about him, but he was a nice enough guy. He was really polite, open, I thought very honest with his answers to the questions I posed to him. and the transfer went ahead and that was fine.
12:26Mr.
12:26Lewis Goodall:Boyes ran it by his bosses. There were no red flags, no big questions. He was free to become the unlikely Parker's new financial advisor. Who was to say a shabby man on benefits couldn't have come good? But Stephen Boyes' new job wouldn't be the easiest because as he was about to find out, The strange James Parker seemed like he just wanted to give much of his newfound wealth away.
12:58Lewis Goodall:He's the closest thing to a genuine Robin Hood, I think, that we've found. And that is Fleetwood. This is Ryan Gleeson, local lad, stand-up comic and resident MC at the Comedy Station Club in Blackpool. The more you listen to the story, the more you hear about it.
13:14James Parker:It tells you everything you need to know about Fleetwood. It's a community. They might be rough, they might not have the most money, but every single person I have ever met or ever known from Fleetwood is honest and loyal. One of those proper working class towns. Where everybody knows each other? Pretty much. If you don't know somebody, you know about them.
13:32Lewis Goodall:Welcome to the sleepy town of Fleetwood, just a few miles up the road from Blackpool on the stretch of sea known as the Fylde Coast. The town that was also home to the grand hotel that James Parker was now living in. And a town that Detective Constable David Wainwright would become familiar with back in 2017.
13:54James Parker:With a case like this, there was a certain element of disbelief. Parker had a reputation along the Fylde Coast as being the self-proclaimed Bitcoin millionaire. We heard stories of taxis that would race to calls to his address, almost like the Wacky Racers, because he'd give out such good cash tips. Part of it was just so brazen. When he was in his pond, we picked him up every day. If you knew you'd got to get James, you certainly wouldn't take a flag down off the street if someone tried to flag you down. Oh, God, some days we could have 10, 15 phone calls off and look what he was doing. He'd take him to Blackpool, wait for him.
14:36James Parker:I think he went to the banks and that, and he'd give you, like, 150 quid. I remember one driver in our company who shares the same surname with him, and he gave him 100 quid just for him the same name.
14:47Lewis Goodall:But it wasn't just wads of tips. Other locals remember even more.
14:53James Parker:We thought it was all hearsay and fabrication and fantasy, but he did mention that he'd had lots of exotic holidays. I believe that he had shares in a yacht somewhere in the Far East. He'd bought cars, very expensive cars. One story went that he was in the pub, got chatting to someone who was a bit down on the look, and the next day took them to the local dealership and bought them a car.
15:23Lewis Goodall:A habit that the hotel's barman, Jordan Robinson, knew well.
15:28James Parker:He bought maybe 10, 15 cars. In the beginning, he only bought Mercedes. Three from the Mercedes garage here in Blackpool. His blue one that he's got. He bought one for his ex-girlfriend. He also bought another person one. I think that was a 2015 C-Class, and I saw it on my way here. But that's like a£30 ,000 car as well. even people he didn't even know in the pub because he wants a car anybody and everybody he was a very very generous man he bought a share of a pub in Fleetwood and paid I think it was 27 bitcoin for that the way that I viewed it was he was a kindred spirit he was a nice person trying to help out anyone he could as long as they were okay
16:27James Parker:and like I say a week, two weeks maybe more we saw him again and this time he was with another guy that actually told us the same tale so we thought there is some truth in this then I said to my friend I says do you believe all that? my friend said no I think he's Walter Mitty I think he's making all this up and I said I don't know. I've seen stranger things.
16:58Lewis Goodall:Speaking of strange things, it's at this point that something equally strange is about to happen. These were the early days of Bitcoin trading, and trading was sketchy, very sketchy. James Parker had come into all of this Bitcoin by finding a glitch, but it was about to be his turn to get fleeced. During his illicit trading, someone had managed to con him out of a clutch of Bitcoin, 27 of them actually, which at this point are worth 10 grand each. So you can do the math. That's 270 grand he's just lost to some other scammer. Just as well, he's got a financial advisor on hand, right?
17:46James Parker:See, I said, well, you know, you've told me about it now. I can't just ignore it. I've got to report it. So I did. I contacted Action Fraud and reported the hacking of my client's Bitcoin, spoke to the police. James wanted nothing to do with it. He literally said, no. I said, well I've got to do it. So when the police finally did contact me, it was my details that I'd put down on the action fraud website.
18:17Lewis Goodall:No way was James having anything to do with it for obvious reasons. His Bitcoin glitching adventure could have stopped dead right here had some probing questions been asked. Lucky for him then, there wasn't much danger of that in Lancashire. Detective Sergeant David Wainwright. Had you heard of Bitcoin? Did you have much sort of conception of what it was? Me? No. You hadn't heard of it at all? No. The period of learning was quite significant.
18:47James Parker:This is going to confuse you even more. Do either of you know what a Bitcoin miner is? He's got a hat on. I'm a big ass. That's what I thought when I first started. We were a bit... I don't like to use the word clueless, but we didn't know what we didn't know at the time.
19:06Lewis Goodall:But there was one, one officer on the force who did.
19:14James Parker:So we met at a coffee shop and we spoke very briefly as he was on his way to see Mr Parker.
19:23Lewis Goodall:Zane Ulhak was a detective with Lancashire Police in 2017 and went to meet Stephen Boyes after that strange call about stolen Bitcoin was passed to his desk.
19:34James Parker:He always wore kind of like a suit and he was very smart and clean-shaven, you know, very presentable. I learned more about what he does for the job and he described to me he gives tax advice and he gives investment advice to his customers, some of who are high net worth. It made perfect sense. You know, I felt very confident with him.
20:01Lewis Goodall:Which made it all the more bizarre that Stephen Boyes had to now relay quite the reverse ferret.
20:09James Parker:Mr Boyes reiterated that Mr Parker didn't want any police action to be taken. He changed from wanting police to take action to actually saying it's no big deal.
20:21Lewis Goodall:A squeaky bum moment had passed unsqueaked. James Parker's Bitcoin stash remained unexamined for now. and all Detective Zane could do was ponder over this curious encounter.
20:35James Parker:I'm always cynical and suspicious of people. Perhaps I need to observe and reflect and then wait for my challenge. You don't always need to challenge things immediately.
20:51Lewis Goodall:Others might have laid low, stopped using a lucrative glitch they'd found, Maybe even just reined in their spending, kept their head down. But not James. His life, centred now in the sparkle and the light, the warmth of the North Euston Hotel, made possible only with Bitcoin riches, was better than anything he'd had in years. And warmth, well, that seems to really be the word. His new friend, Kimmy Capon. Did you like him?
21:27James Parker:I really did. I really did. He was a very good friend to me. I was able to talk to him about things. I felt very comfortable with him. I didn't feel like there was any ulterior motives behind him wanting to have a friendship with me. He never leered at me, you know. He never made me feel like an object or anything like that. He was genuinely interested in me as a person. There was never anything that I felt that was off with him. When I told him, when I first met him, that my clothes were falling apart because the mould was getting into them and there was a lot of dry rot there, he took me and Jordan out and bought us entirely new wardrobes.
22:08Not just stuff from the big chain places.
22:12James Parker:He made sure that we had really good quality stuff to wear.
22:21James Parker:He liked to take me out on shopping trips. and do the pretty woman thing. Ah, yeah. It felt very, very surreal. I'd gone from paddling in a pool to being swimming in the sea. From going to not leaving the house at all, to be taken up to Fleetwood, to go to this big hotel and then going on big shopping trips, it was mind-blowing. It didn't feel like anyone on the planet was like this. Spending all this money and witnessing him giving it away was very whirlwind.
23:02Lewis Goodall:Kimmy and her mum Kelly would go back and forth to the hotel daily, helping James out with whatever he needed, enjoying his largesse. And after a while, James even paid for a room for Kelly, getting her out of her damp and cold home. Questions? Well, maybe they could wait. I mean, wouldn't you?
23:27James Parker:If you were living in, I hate to describe my life like this, but if you were living in squalor, every item of clothing you owned had mould spots and smelled like damp, your furniture was falling apart, to buy bread and milk on a day, you were literally scraping together pennies from down the sides of sofas and you were offered the opportunity to raise yourself up out of that, if you were in such a deep desperation, I feel like anybody would do it. Hmm.
24:01Lewis Goodall:Maybe. I'll be honest. Something that's given me pause for thought when learning about all of this, in fact, in some ways has started to trouble me, is this. Why such overwhelming generosity from James? Seems to me that when most people get properly rich, the paradox of thrift sets in, and quick. I.e., you finally got something. Why give it away? What made James want to do that with such abandon? Well, clues did start to emerge. As the days and nights in the hotel went on and Kimmy got to know James a bit better, he opened the door, just a little bit, to his character. did James ever tell you much about himself like about his past his his history his personal life
24:48James Parker:story any of that or was he more mysterious he he told me a few things a really interesting story that he told me actually was part of the reason that he felt he needed to be so generous with people was there was one night he I'm not sure if he was high drunk whatever it was he had laid himself down on the tram tracks and was planning on ending his life and a complete stranger came and picked him up dusted him down and just spoke to him and really made him feel more human that was one of the first stories about his life that he ever actually told me but as far as you know more intimate details go he he didn't divulge those to me personally
25:41Lewis Goodall:but it's clear that he'd had trauma in his past it was yeah it was very clear that he had a traumatic
25:46James Parker:background
25:52Lewis Goodall:ensconced in that hotel bar james parker splashing more cash than any of them had ever seen they all had reasons to be there james himself for friendship attention worth belonging even kimmy and her mom kelly not to be cold not to shiver at night breathing in the mold for a warm bed and a building not falling apart, not to mention some very nice treats from the shops along the way, and Kimmy's boyfriend Jordan, who quickly glimpsed just the possibility of something better.
26:25James Parker:At the time, being in a dead-end job, I'd only just come off universal credit. I thought, in a way, I'd found my lifeline. I thought, this is where I'm meant to be. This is the person I'm meant to follow. If I follow him, one day I might have enough money to buy my own house if I'm lucky enough.
26:49James Parker:We all sort of came together to be this group of misfits, but he was definitely the leader. It wasn't said or spoken about, but you could just feel the energy that we all followed him.
27:03Lewis Goodall:I asked a moment ago about his staggering largesse and generosity. Well, he's about to go one step further. Here, just before New Year's Eve in 2017, James Parker actually shows his new best friend, Kelly Caton, the website glitch, sharing his precious secret, the font from which all his new wealth flows, the money machine.
27:32James Parker:We'd go to the bar and have a few drinks and then go up to his room and things and he'd be like, oh, let's just go on and have a go on. Can you remember what James showed you then, how he was making the Bitcoin? He was putting the Bitcoin into the say and then it was like he was buying it back off himself.
27:55Lewis Goodall:And as if it wasn't magical enough to actually observe making money out of absolutely nothing. There was more. He showed Kelly how to do it herself, giving her a gift that you could pretty well describe as priceless. And did you then repeat this process yourself?
28:18James Parker:Yeah, but I was always with James when we did it. Tell me about that then. He ironically told me, just make sure you just do low amounts at a time. OK, did he tell you the reason why you could only take low amounts out? Just said, just don't be greedy, basically, which is fair enough.
28:46So it was here in the North Euston Hotel that Kelly Cate first logged on to the Bitcoin
28:51Lewis Goodall:in exchange, just to have a go herself at using the glitch. On that first day that she learned the trick, she did it, and she did it again, and again, and again, giving herself access to more money than she'd ever seen in her life. And James's generosity, well, it continued. There was one other special person with whom he'd entrust his secret.
29:19James Parker:In my eyes, creating money out of nothing was just giving you money for free. That's what I was seeing.
29:27Lewis Goodall:Jordan Robinson's friendship and attention would also be rewarded as James sat him down in front of his laptop, registered him on the Bitcoin exchange, clacked his fingers together.
29:37James Parker:In that first setting, he'd probably made me maybe 90 Bitcoins and he turned around to me and just went, oh, look what I've made you. You're a millionaire now. I couldn't believe it. I was dumbfounded. When somebody's telling you stuff like that, I just, I didn't know what to think at the end of the day. Didn't you question it in your head? I did, I questioned it. I thought in my head, I was like, what the fuck is going on? This isn't real, you're living a fantasy, but it was happening. I was sat there, I was watching the numbers turn over. I'd seen him turn it into money. it never occurred to me that it was coming out of somebody else's pocket.
30:23James Parker:That wasn't what we were seeing. James, he basically said, you want to get on now and do it. He was always anticipating that the website was going to find out. But the way that he saw it, it's a glitch. You can't be prosecuted for it. from what he was telling me he said you're making money out of nothing it's a victimless crime
30:55Lewis Goodall:to be absolutely specific and exact when did you find out about the glitch what circumstances
31:03James Parker:i couldn't give you an exact date or time or how long we had been friends with james but I remember mum explaining to me that James had figured out a glitch on this website and had taught my mum how to utilise it and that was really it. I was confused by how this glitch worked but I didn't really exactly know the right questions to ask to figure that out either. there was sort of an air of secrecy around it my mum made it very clear that James wanted to keep
31:39Lewis Goodall:this secret and and the fact that she was so keen to keep it secret that didn't strike you as odd
31:47James Parker:or potentially suspicious in any way not in the legal sense not in any sense to be honest I really felt like she wanted to keep it secret to avoid the glitch being patched
32:01Lewis Goodall:Or for other people to learn about it. Yeah. And it goes away.
32:05James Parker:Yeah, for that reason. He didn't want it to be utilised too much and then the website patched it and they can no longer do that.
32:16Lewis Goodall:Now, it is important to say here that the hotel bosses had no idea at all that any kind of Bitcoin glitching was going on. Parker was, after all, just another guest in his room. The staff certainly knew about Parker's madcap tipping, though, and tongues were wagging. Parker was told, politely but firmly, to stop throwing cash around the stack. And they weren't the only ones wanting some quiet words. James Parker's local bank branch had gone and frozen his account, suspicious of the new money suddenly flooding in. This, though, was a job for James' new financial advisor to handle. Stephen Boyes set about getting it reopened.
33:03Lewis Goodall:And when Boyes had met the police, he'd actually asked for their help to get James' bank account unlocked. And the funny thing is, not only had he swerved probing questions, but they also did exactly that.
33:18James Parker:So I helped them as well. all of his bank accounts gave them, and they came to exactly the same conclusion as me at the end of their investigation that there was nothing suspicious about this guy. He was a genuine Bitcoin trader. And the police helped me unfreeze his bank accounts.
33:44Lewis Goodall:Did he tell you about the glitch at that point? No. He didn't tell you? No, no, definitely not.
33:54Lewis Goodall:So the police had not only missed their first chance, but actually helped James Parker through the good work of his new advisor. One detective, though, was still scratching his head a bit too hard over all of this. Zane Olhak needed to get eyes on James Parker for himself. and after several weeks, he'd managed to track him down to that hotel bar.
34:23James Parker:I enter the hotel lobby, look around, look at the bar, there's Mr Parker. I hadn't met him before, I just kind of knew it was him, his scruffy hair, he's quite dishevelled, stained clothes from behind. I just, I knew it was him immediately. I've approached him, the smell of stale cigarettes and alcohol. I sidled next to him. I think he knew we were all straight away. He wasn't surprised.
34:53Lewis Goodall:He was happy for me to sit and talk with him. Zane was surprised enough that James was happy to chat, but probing deeper, he was about to be floored. He did seem to have lost those 27 Bitcoin. Sure enough, they had disappeared. The thing was, James didn't care that much.
35:14James Parker:I could not get to the bottom of it. Mr Parker said part of the reason why he didn't want to make a complaint was he had a lot more Bitcoin. He said, oh, I've got over 500 Bitcoin. That would have been over£5 million at that time. It was just ludicrous.
35:34Lewis Goodall:So Detective Zane leaves the North Euston Hotel, much more confused than when he went in, but much more determined to find out. I knew he was talking absolute BS.
35:49James Parker:And it was so frustrating. I knew, I knew he was just flat out lying to my face.
35:57Lewis Goodall:And cops obviously hate lies. In the next episode, forget Blackpool. You know what it's like when you come into money, right? The local banks, they're for the little people. You need to go somewhere comfortable with the big bucks. Big bucks and little questions. We're flying with him to Dubai, where if you've got the money, anything can be more.
36:22James Parker:He walks around Dubai with this million pounds in sterling in a suitcase, and he finds his local friendly Russians and buys a villa. To this day, I think, well, why didn't I just turn around and walk away?
36:36Lewis Goodall:There's just one thing. The owner of the Bitcoin site that James has been glitching has managed to catch up with him. And he wants a word right now.
36:52Lewis Goodall:Coining It is a global original podcast produced by Global and FreeTerm. I'm Lewis Goodall. This series was written and recorded by series producer Kieran Tracy. Additional writing by Barney Roundtree. Production and sound design by Barney Roundtree. The executive producer for Free Turn is Robbie Ashcroft for Global. The director of podcast is Vicky Etchells. And the head of Factual Podcast is Al Riddle. Don't forget you can listen to each episode for free on Global Player. Download it from the App Store or head to globalplayer.com. If you like what you hear, don't forget to leave us a review.
37:26Lewis Goodall:See you next time.
From the publisher
After the brilliant response to episode 1 of Coining It, here's episode 2. If you don't want to wait for episode 3 on this feed, all episodes are available now, on Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts.
James Parker has turned a digital glitch into a fortune. Most would keep it quiet - but not James. The newly minted millionaire flaunts his wealth across Blackpool, playing Robin Hood to a tight-knit circle who share his secret. But his spending spree hasn’t gone unnoticed. One cop is watching, puzzled by the sudden riches of a man who, until recently, had nothing.
From Global and Free Turn, Lewis Goodall uncovers the true story of a man who found a crack in the system and pulled his whole world through it.
You can listen, for free, to all episodes of Coining It with Lewis Goodall on Global Player.