Ben McKenzie suspected there was something suspicious about crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried long before anyone else did.
The actor known for Gotham and The O.C., who earned a degree in economics from the University of Virginia, turned his attention to the study of cryptocurrency during the pandemic. Unlike millions of others who have evangelized for crypto, he came to view digital currency as fundamentally unsound and rife with fraud – case in point Bankman-Fried, who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange that at one time was valued in the billions of dollars.
McKenzie wrote a book about it – Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, co-authored with Jacob Silverman – and as part of his research he reached out to Bankman-Fried for an interview. Perhaps surprisingly, Bankman-Fried agreed, and without conditions. Their on-camera interview is a key…
These frauds exploit emotional vulnerability and trust rather than technical weaknesses.
- Romance Scams: Scammers build long-term online relationships with victims, eventually fabricating a “crisis” (medical emergency, legal trouble, or travel costs) that requires the victim to send money.
- Pig Butchering: A hybrid scam where the criminal builds a romantic or platonic relationship to eventually “tutor” the victim in a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment.