How Joby Weeks Survived a Billion-Dollar Crypto Case... | DSH #2040
Digital Social Hour
Joby Weeks recounts his seven-year ordeal after being arrested in a high-profile crypto case, detailing how he was wrongfully targeted despite no criminal charges or trial. He describes being held under house arrest, los
Key takeaways
- Arrested without trial over crypto mining activities
Transcript preview
So my partner, Ernesto, goes there to go clear out the ATM. He saw the police officer, so he's like, oh great, this is because he's going to pull out $300,000, you know, you don't want to get robbed by some stick up kid, right? So he goes, opens up the ATM, takes the 300 grand out, turns around, and the cops rob him. That's New Jersey, it's run by the mafia, I'm not lying, I'm like, if you're really police, I get to see a lawyer, I get to see a judge, I get to see a judge, I get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get a judge, I get to get a judge, I get to get a go to jail where am I for six hours they're trying to steal my crypto and so they disappeared me for 11 months I got bounced from jail to jail to jail to jail state to state to state to state they called diesel therapy my family didn't know where I was for 11 months man I'm too blessed to be depressed, bro. Thanks for having me on. Fill everyone in on the latest update and everything. I know I'd think next month you're finding out what's going on exactly right. Yeah well I've been sitting here with this ankle bracelet on my ankle for close to seven years and so I'm looking forward to it coming off hopefully that's the goal. It's been quite a battle and so yeah, June 24th is the next hearing and then of course the floor 4th of July, Trump plans on making 250 pardons. And so we'll see if maybe I'll get one of those. And I'm not seeing any kind of progress in the court case. I mean, the government has asked for and been granted 35 continuances. This all started before COVID. It started before January 6th, you know. And I've been sitting on house arrest ever since. So I'm excited to see what happens. You might have the record for longest house arrest. I definitely do I definitely think holy crap seven years is crazy yeah usually it's like a couple months max I feel like well dude and I still haven't even been convicted of a crime I've never been sentenced I still haven't even had a trial bro we've gone through 12 prosecutors they're all quitting this case like rats fleeing a sinking ship man it's it's quite incredible to watch so you're in limbo almost huh purgatory yeah I've been sitting here I can't go anywhere can't have a job or a computer or a phone or use a bank account or a crypto I have a guard watch over me 24 hours a day. Holy crop. It's wild man I can't get sunshine I can't go to the gym, weddings funerals, I can't go to church. Wow. They treat me like I'm the most dangerous person in the whole world. It's insane so I bet you're doing a lot of reading. I've read a lot of reading. I've read about 30,000 pages of law I feel like Moses you know the law. It's like the law. It's like the law. It's like the law. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's people go. Holy crap. That's insane man. Seven years and hopefully the 24th something happens. You're feeling optimistic? Well now everybody likes Bitcoin you know in 2019 there was no black rock and Goldman Sachs there was no strategic Bitcoin reserve they were coming out hard against crypto. It was called Operation Choke Point you know when Obama got the orders from the guys in the cloud to shut it down. Guys in the cloud if you know how the cloud works there's the the bank for international settlements and they have the member banks like the I M. F the World Bank the Federal Reserve the Bank of England and then the member banks like Chase in Wells Fargo and Bank of America and then all the mom mom and pop banks this SWIP system is owned by these families these trillioner trusts I call them the guys in the cloud yeah and those guys sent orders down stop Bitcoin I mean three and a half trillion dollars has left their banking system and gone into the crypto space and they're not too happy about it so they're not following orders shut down anything that had to do with crypto. He went after the ATM guys, the real world asset guys, the chip manufacturers, the miners, the exchange guys, every vertical in the crypto space was attacked. And I was the largest Bitcoin miner on the planet, set up the biggest data centers. And we mined over 92,000 Bitcoin's and a half million Ethereum. Had over a million members from 100 countries. And the government just came in with machine guns, stole everybody's money, stole all the equipment. We were making over 5 million dollars. day mining Bitcoin and that was 2,300 days ago so there's 10 billion dollars missing you know wow it's like probably one of the biggest heists you've ever heard I mean that the silk road was pretty good and those agents went to jail when they rated the silk row the agents stole the Bitcoin they didn't even give it to the government they kept it for themselves and the agents went to jail for it and it's just another rinse and repeat any activity on the crypto they took or is it still dormant? some of it, but you know I call the IRS up in West Palm Beach, hey where are the assets? There's no asset forfeiture they put on the docket that they're going to give the assets back but they never do. They like call the marshals in Tampa so I call them they say oh I don't know call the FBI in Miami I talked to them oh we sent four boxes to Colorado so I call Colorado. What happened? Well we only received one box I don't know called New Jersey so I just get the run around they can't find the assets you know what how do you lose how do you lose a billion dollars worth Wow, that's a lot of this big data center, who's got it? Where'd all the Bitcoin go? So it's kind of a crazy, crazy story. It's gonna be a good movie one of these days. I get pitched casinos constantly. I turn every single one of them down. I never promoted one in my single life. But then I met the team at Legends. That's Legends with a Z with a Z. It's an established brand with a real reputation and the thing that sold me is they actually pay out and they do it fast. You get everything in one place. You get everything in one place, live table games plus a hundred percent match on your first purchase if you're in the US they're live in 39 states including Texas Georgia and Florida at legends.com with a z if you're outside the US you can still play at legends dot I. Go check it out. Click the link below use code d. S. check out the link below. me, I was at Tony Robbins doing Date with Destiny. And you know, they took me to this unmarked building and they're hustling me for my private keys. They're trying to give me to make me fork over my Bitcoin. And I'm like, if you're really police, I get to see a lawyer, I get to see a judge, I get to go to jail. Where am I for six hours, they're trying to steal my crypto. And I thought they might take me to get me to get me to Gitmo. I was like, what the heck going on. So I finally was going on. and all that kind of stuff well they get mad and so they disappeared me for 11 months I got bounced around from jail to jail to jail to jail state to state to state they call it diesel therapy my family didn't know where I was for 11 months man it's a it's a wild story I should probably start from the beginning though huh yeah we probably should I would know how many of your your listeners know this story I have done a couple podcast but it's just been the craziest experience you know I'm grateful for it's just been the craziest experience you know I'm grateful for it's I've learned a lot and I've learned patience and you know I've learned to trust God more I believe that you know God laughs up if plans a man and and that you know so his timing is perfect I'm finding out and so here we are today seven years happened December 10th 2019 so six and a half years later it's looking like it's gonna come to an end team Trump likes Bitcoin Eric Trump is now mining Bitcoin so yeah Yeah, who would have thought man? Who would have thought? You were just too early I think. Well that was the problem you know when I found out about Bitcoin It was 85 cents. I bought my first Bitcoin on the silk road Nobody knew what a Bitcoin was and before that I was minting gold and silver coins for an organization called Liberty Dollar. I was the regional currency officer for Colorado and we minted hundreds of millions of dollars of gold and silver coins and at about 20,000 merchants that were accepting our money for money for their goods for their goods we were the number two most popular currency in the United States. And so it was going a lot great. We pumped silver from four bucks an ounce to $49 an ounce. Wow. And so we decided let's put Ron Paul's face on a coin because he was running for president. This is back in 2008. I mean there's Gandhi coins, there's Martin Luther King, Jr. Poins. Why not make a blood coin? Right? So we sold 60,000 of those months won and so I had some money to do like the Ron Paul limo and the Ron Paul limo and the Ron Paul blimp I took, and the Ron Paul blimp I took, I took, I took the limo and the limo. under 30 states and all the debates and I you know try to get everybody excited about freedom and liberty sound money private property bringing our troops home and all that stuff and so after that we pooled about five million dollars together and minted about four tons of gold silver platinum and copper Ron Paul coins and then the feds came in with machine guns that stole all that money too. Geez. So we were like wait why can't we mint gold and silver? The Constitution clearly says gold is lawful is lawful money So that was another seven year ordeal where we had to start a class action left a lawsuit against the FBI to get our silver and gold back. And so that was about the time Bitcoin came out. And I thought, oh, well, we had a mint. So we designed the Bitcoin logo and put a private key, we laser edged the private key on the back of the coin so that people could take the Bitcoin off the internet and put it on a physical wallet that's fireproof and floodproof. We called it a cold storage coin. And that went viral. The whole world. the Bitcoin logo and but then of course the the Silk Road got rated I lost all my Bitcoin again so I'm gonna buy some more Bitcoin I bought it on Mount Gocks but instant in Mount Gox it started and then that got hacked I lost all my Bitcoin again and I was at a thing called a porky pine festival in New Hampshire in 2013 and I met a guy named Vitalick who was starting a new project called Ethereum and so I thought oh I'll help with that project got some Ethereum and then that got hacked Dow hack was like 60 million bucks. So I was like, it was a Wild West, you know, back in the early days of crypto. And so then somebody said, well, why don't you start mining Bitcoin? And I'm like, I don't really understand mining and how that all works. But sure, what do you do? And it's like, well, if you have a laptop computer, you can just take it out of your addict, it's just collecting, open it up and run some software and help secure the blockchain and, you know, track the transactions, well if I'm making a dollar a day on my laptop mining Bitcoin if I filled a whole data center with a million laptops I'm gonna make a million dollars a day and so that's what we decided to do is go out and build big data centers and mine lots and lots of Bitcoin. Time is changing the way people bank they offer the most rewarding fee-free banking. This is fee-free banking built for you. They're not like traditional old banks that charge you over draft and monthly fees. They have thousands of fee-free ATMs. Why would you pay to get your own money? This is Chime members can benefit from up to 1,150 in annual awards, fee-free, real humans 24-7. 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