Coining It with Lewis Goodall | Ep 6 - Unmissables: Explosive Lies

0:01This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:17We're at the final episode where a group of friends who shared a wild ride full of money and bright lights had finally run out of luck. They've had their houses raided, computers and phones seized, as well as the Bitcoin in their digital wallets. But here's a question. Should they have been raided? Because wasn't there a deal with Coinspot? Told you on the contract. Isn't that enough? No. I don't believe the contract protects you from criminal prosecution. Why? That's just how the law works. And how the law works is that glitching cryptocurrency from the platform, moving it through Dubai, converting it into cash, gold, villas, and later cars, casinos, store vouchers, and let's not forget fridgefuls of Aldi wine, is criminal.

1:19They were all charged with transferring and converting stolen goods. And at a trial in 2022, a jury gave their judgment. Jamal, the Dubai money man, he flew over to stand trial with the others. He wasn't convicted. But as for the rest of them? Kelly Caton was jailed for four and a half years. I honestly didn't think it was illegal. Jordan Robinson, jailed for four and a half years. All he ever kept saying to us is it's all above board. It's a glitch in their system. And I decided stupidly I'll listen to this man. I'll believe whatever he says. Stephen Boyes, a professional financial advisor who should have been aware of his responsibilities, well, he really got the book thrown at him.

2:11He, of course, had never used the glitch himself, but for his role in transferring and converting stolen property, he was given six years in jail.

2:22Lewis Goodall:You and others went to prison. Should you have gone to prison? No. I'm innocent. I've maintained my innocence from the get-go. I didn't learn about the glitch until January 2018. Prior to that, I'd done everything I could have done correctly. So you think you've been unfairly treated? Definitely. So you think you've been the victim of a miscarriage of justice? Definitely. 100 % I have. He knew straight away where that money came from. And I suppose, in a way, he would have been a pretty poor financial advisor if he hadn't. Of course. he was clever enough not to use the glitch himself but he wanted part of the pie.

3:11But someone else wasn't convicted. The enigma, the unlikely man at the centre of everything who once again confounds everything and everyone.

3:30I'm Lewis Goodall and this is Coining It. Episode 6, The Final Glitch.

3:43Way back at the start of this, when we introduced you to James Parker, It was as a down and out guy whose two main pastimes were drinking and smoking. And I mentioned the cough. The truth is, it was far worse than just a cough. He was a very ill man and he knew it. He had lung disease, a serious disease called COPD. So much so that he'd even hinted about it during the interviews after his arrest.

4:17Lewis Goodall:Do you think he knew that he was done for? Yeah, and because of his ill health, I don't think he really cared. Detective Sergeant David Wainwright. The last time I interviewed James Parker, he told me, I will die soon. And he didn't care about any consequences. And it was true. I can remember the last time I saw him. Kimmy Caton. Me and my friend, you know, his almost surrogate daughter. We went round there for dinner one night. It was just something really simple, you know, bread rolls and a roast chicken and some stuffing and just making your own sandwiches. And we just sat together and had a nice dinner.

4:59And yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the last time I ever saw him. These were, of course, happier times. Long before this band of friends had scattered, had turned on each other, pulled apart by fear and fury. His other friends, Amy and Loretta, had also been told to get out of his life. but in the year before he died, they had tried to reach him as his big house had turned into a free-for-all of hangers-on. At one point we went and knocked on his door, didn't we? Yeah, banged on that door. And you could see it. We were like, just come at me. He was so frowning. He was scared. His face was all sunk in at the sides and his eyes were dull.

5:38And we said, oh, just come and sit on the doorstep with us. Just come and talk to us. He's like, I can't talk to you. and then he went, but you could see he desperately wanted to talk to us, but what could we do? So we walked away. We did try to try and help him, but like you say, what can you do? You can't make someone take help that you don't want. There was no forcing him. And I have never felt that sort of, you know, like being hit in the chest with a plank. It was horrible.

6:14As the police continued paring down his devices one by one, meticulously gathering evidence to prepare everything for trial, James Parker's health continued to decline. And though he'd discarded her sometime before, as he neared the end of his life, James Parker would make a phone call to the one person he knew would come back to him. The person who'd been there for him from the beginning.

6:46Well, it was after lockdown. And he must have been in the house on his own. He had no money, he had no food, he had no Wi-Fi, he had nothing. And he phoned me up one night drunk. And he was like, come up and see me. And so I'd gone there. There was no food in the cupboard. There was a couple, supposedly, he was paying this woman to clean. And she was buying him custard all the time. And he was living off custard. everything being stripped out of the house he had a little projector on the wall that he'd watched films and stuff on like Freeview thing and it was just, I couldn't believe it I thought all that money this is what you've been left with and all these people have took everything it was just shocking it absolutely was Amy began helping him again as best she could until one night when she left him for the last time.

7:42I thought, oh, he'll be all right for a day. And when I left, I left him packs of water by his bed and everything. And I got him a thing so he could pee in and everything because he's struggling to get out of bed and all that. He was bad at that point. And I left all food by him and drinks, you know what I mean? I organised him before I went. And then, so the day after, I've gone up there, banging on the doors, nothing. No answer or anything. I'm thinking, this, something's wrong, do you know? I mean, I must have phoned the police up. Then I started to panic. And then they sent a policeman up that come to the door and he was like, oh no, he passed away yesterday.

8:27Before I went, like he said to me, I feel a bit scared. And I kicked myself down. I think I should have stayed there the night with him. I should have stayed on the sofa and then I'd have been there. I could have got an ambulance for him. do you know what I mean? There would have been someone there, but I wasn't ready for him.

8:52I have James Parker's death certificate here. Date of death, 10th of January 2021. Says here, occupation, computer aided design craftsman. Well, you can say that again.

9:13He told me he'd spent years sat in his little flat, drinking and smoking, so COPD was clearly getting the better of him. And when he told me, I'll die soon, it was obvious he believed it and subsequently turned out to be correct. How did you feel about that? Did you feel cheated by it, in a way? To an extent, yeah, it's disappointing because a main man won't have his moment in court. So the best I got from the end of it was the jury decided that Parker was dishonest, therefore he would have been convicted and the value of money he was responsible for, he would have ended up with a massive prison sentence.

9:56How long do you think he'd have got? 12 years.

10:20throughout this series i've been asking what would you do if you'd been in his position and it's got me thinking that maybe the glitch wasn't in some crypto platform maybe all of this was a glitch in human nature. It was about the real flaws in James and the people around him. Flaws that led all of them to say yes to something that on some level they must have known they shouldn't.

10:55I think one of the things that people don't understand

10:58Lewis Goodall:about being in poverty, right? They don't understand what that's like and how overwhelming, consuming it can be. And for people, and there'll be some people listening to this who have always had money, or at least if they're not really rich, they don't know how to worry about money, won't understand what it would be like suddenly to have some. What was it like for you suddenly to have it? If you were to conceptualise poverty, for me, it would be this dense, thick fog. It just surrounds you. You are lost in it. and money coming in overnight was like a beam of sunshine had just broken through it that's really what it was that's what it felt like I was responsible for filling out my mum's forms for benefits and all of her health forms and going with her to these appointments because she really couldn't do it herself so after all of that to not have to rely on that anymore was a godsend.

12:05I carried that stress with me from a young teenager and all of a sudden I didn't have to anymore. It really was a weight lifted off our shoulders.

12:22You can't argue the legalities of it. What they did was wrong. but it feels very harsh the way that they were all treated afterwards you know the media categorized them as a gang which is so far from the truth you know there was this bond villain you know great train robbery vibe that all the news outlets were putting onto it when that was just not the case

12:55Lewis Goodall:people local press national press they've talked about this being a gang or a heist do you think that is the right way to look at it no these are a bunch of clowns it's not an organized crime group this is a bunch of idiots with the keys to somebody else's safe My mum was a very vulnerable, well, and still is, a very vulnerable single mother. James was a terminally ill elderly man who really didn't have much time left, and Jordan was a teenager, you know. I feel like other rehabilitation options would have been better for the outcome of this instead of going through such a harsh trial and getting the prison sentences.

13:43given the situations that they were all in. It really doesn't feel like a crime of moral turpitude, to be honest.

13:56Lewis Goodall:Did you think their sentences were too heavy? I was actually surprised they were so low. And the reason is, Parker discovered the keys to the safe and he showed the others how to use it. it was then their own free will to use it as often as they did. Now, what they could have done is they could have stolen little bits infrequently. It's possible nobody would have ever noticed, but they were so greedy, they took so much so quickly, that obviously it rang alarm bells and everyone found out. So when you hear people make the argument that these are people who had not had much and life had dealt them difficult blows time after time and this was something that came and was in some ways saved them.

14:47Lewis Goodall:In fact, I've interviewed some of the people involved who have said exactly that, that it was a sort of chink of light. You have no sympathy for that argument. Had they taken enough to feed themselves, to adequately clothe themselves, you could argue that. But when you're going to Dubai, when you're buying loads of drugs and use of prostitutes and giving cars away, that is sheer greed.

15:23So, for what it's worth, here's what I think. The law is the law. There is no getting around that. Ultimately, it was criminal. Boys and Parker laundered money through gold and property. They cannot have known this was anything but illegal. But what about everybody else? In meeting so many connected with this story, I have found an awful lot of people who, curiously enough, seem to know very little. They say they never really, never seriously benefited from any of it, and they certainly didn't think to question it much when they did. And all of that can feel very convenient. But then again, it was 2017 when Bitcoin was not as widely understood as it is now.

16:07Crypto itself, the people behind it have, let's be honest, been at the very least opaque about what it is and which rules apply to it. It literally exists to be beyond the control of governments and states. And a lot of very rich people have got even richer off that lack of clarity of the Wild West. is it too credulous to believe that we might have been dealing with a group of people who we know certainly didn't have much who as far as they could see genuinely believed and understood what they were doing would harm no one that just this once they'd found the gold rush some luck that the system had just this once glitched for them and if it did they weren't going to ask too many questions about it.

16:57I don't know, maybe not. But morality aside, Parker's death has left a big unanswered mystery, one to which even former detective Zane Olhak still doesn't have the answer.

17:15It locked me because it was so upsetting. What upset me the most is not being able to get those answers. There are some things that Mr Park has taken to the grave yet not knowing the answer to those he's galling for any investigator.

17:40Lewis Goodall:Do you think there are hidden bitcoins that he had that are still out there? That people might still have possession of? There's got to be, isn't there? You think? I think there's got to be, hasn't there?

17:54Do you believe that there's still Bitcoin out there, which the group took, exploited?

17:59Lewis Goodall:Loads. Roughly 2 ,500 went missing. And Stephen Boyes, through his dodgy gagging agreement, returned about 436. We recovered about 550 from the police side of things. that accounts for almost half of it. And where's the other half? Do you have any idea where they might be? I have suspicions. When Stephen Boyd's home was raided, police were initially unable to get into Bitcoin wallets linked to him. But in the end, they were able to get 27 back. About£1.2 million worth, as we're recording today. He says he doesn't have anything else, but the police beg to differ. At this moment, a proceeds of crime case is deciding if what he says is true.

19:00If it decides that he does still have hidden assets, he could receive further punishment, including more jail time. So what do you think the future holds for you? 14 years. 14 years proceeds of crime sentence hangs over me now. I'd got to pay back to the crown circa 11.6 million within the next three months. Otherwise, I could go back to prison for a maximum of 14 years. Every so often, I forget just how much real money this Bitcoin glitch was worth. These figures are staggering. Stephen Boy says he's returned all of the Bitcoin he ever had. But if it wants to, the crown can still come after all of his assets, his pensions, basically anything.

19:56And ironically, the value of that return Bitcoin has risen dramatically for its reunited owners, Coinspot. So do you think you'll end up back in prison? I don't know, is the honest answer. So this is the unfairness of it. and once they have everything I have to sell my home. All of this felt a sorry picture in the very ordinary living room where I talked to Stephen Boyes. Yet even still, there remains something niggling here.

20:30Lewis Goodall:While indeed police and others have suggested that you yourself know where the whereabouts the remaining Bitcoin is, is that true? Yes, I know exactly where it is. Yeah. Yeah, he has it. And the police know that as well. What we've beat there is the real name of Stephen and James' one-time friend, the Dubai money man they knew as Jamal. But Jamal stood trial alongside them all and was not convicted of anything at all. His record is clear. But there is one more person who a handful of people know about, and who now I know about.

21:23I've spoken to several people during the making of this series who'd heard that a new young woman had come into Parker's orbit long after Dubai and after the severing of his former friendships with the old group. Several people have told us that there'd been a large Christmas party and that at that party, this woman had seen Parker and got wind of the money around him. This young lady, about 20 years younger than himself, comes to the party with her husband and children and she sees an opportunity. So by the time I do the warrant in the march, She kicked the husband out and moved in with her children into Parker's home address.

22:15There she would live and several other of her family members would make appearances too at Parker's big house. I'm told that James was besotted with her. To which the only thing I can sadly think of asking is, could he possibly believe that she loved him? Yeah, he did. He did. He did. He believed it. He thought he was great. He had this young girl. He thought she was beautiful and everything. He just couldn't see it. I suppose because they were, like, so doubting over him. To him, it must have been fantastic. But, yeah, that's how it was.

23:00But there's more. I've seen a property document that shows the title deeds for a different house in Fleetwood. It's listed as being owned by this woman. Not because Parker bought it for her, but because she inherited it when he died, as according to our sources, he'd left it to her. Now, I wanted to meet her because she must have quite the story to tell.