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The Current Transcript for July 15, 2021

Host: Mark Kelley

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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I hate it when I see him being shouted out in the streets or people being rude about him because I care about him as a as a sibling, but I don't like the politics of what's going on either.

MARK KELLEY: Well, it may be one of the most interesting family dinner tables in the UK. Rachel Johnson is the sister of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. She's anti Brexit while her brother will go down in history as the leader who got Brexit done. She'll be here in 30 minutes to talk family, politics and Britain's future. Also this morning,

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A couple of times, actually, the joke was on me that they stole my prescription glasses. It was an adult monkey and he would only return the object in exchange for a raw egg.

MK: Macaque monkeys of Bali drive a hard bargain. But believe it or not, they can also teach us to be better negotiators. We'll revisit Matt Galloway conversation with primatologists Jean-Baptiste Leca. And our trip through the murky world of a cryptocurrency exchange will also continue with Episode three of the hit CBC podcast, A Death in Crypto Land. But we begin with lives at risk for the Afghans who worked with Canadian forces. Good morning. I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

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Plan to bring Afghan interpreters to Canada being finalized 'as quickly as possible': minister

Guests: Major General David Fraser, Minister Marc Mendicino

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We're also going to continue to make sure that we take on the Afghan nationals who work side by side with U.S. forces, including interpreters and translators, but our message to those women and men is clear. There is a home for you in the United States if you so choose. And we will stand with you just as you stood with us.

MK: That was the U.S. president, Joe Biden, getting those who worked with Western military forces out of Afghanistan and to safety is becoming more urgent. As U.S. troops pull out of that country, the Taliban continues to gain ground and those who worked with international troops are worried about retribution. We reached the son of a man who worked as a police liaison with the Canadian forces. We're calling him Junior. We're not revealing his name because his family fears they could be killed. Here's how he describes his family's life in Afghanistan now.

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JUNIOR: It is hard for him to look at his children and not being able to help them in any way. In a sense, he feels helpless, not being able to take out my mother and the brother in two sisters outside to a safer place. They feel like we're in a cage. They need to be kept inside. They cannot come outside. Firstly, it's because of the security. Secondly, my dad keeps them inside. One sister has Down syndrome. She's about ten, eleven years old and the other one had just graduated high school. So she is an adult. And so it is very hard for her to be a young girl in living inside and knowing that anything can happen any moment.

MK: Retired Major General David Fraser is one of three former Canadian generals who are urging our government to move faster when it comes to getting people like Jnr's family out of Afghanistan. Major General Fraser, good morning.

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: Good morning, Mark.

MK: I want to I want to get to the interpreters in a second, but first, I want to ask you about the bigger picture in Afghanistan, of course. I know you're following this. We're seeing as the U.S. troops withdraw major advances made by the Taliban. You were there in 2006 fighting for that land that the Taliban is now taking back. Our own acting chief of defence staff has said that plenty of soldiers are asking the question right now. Was it worth it, the effort that the Canadian forces made there? How do you answer that question? Was it worth it?

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: I think Canadians in the forty thousand men and women who served over there can hold up their hands and said we did what we were asked to do when we were there, when I was there with my contingent, we fought very hard to keep [unintelligible], which fell this week to the Taliban, open for the homes of Afghans and Pakistanis. We fought very hard to keep Panjwaii in the hands of the Afghan government. And today is now in the hands of the Taliban. We knew back then we couldn't win the war, but we also understood that we were buying time for the Afghans to try to find some sort of solution to the situation.

MK: Part of your war effort was, of course, being helped by Afghans themselves, interpreters, drivers, people of that, like translators. You say that we have a moral, we being Canada, we have a moral obligation to help get these people out of the country. Explain that moral obligation to us.

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: Well, first of all, we could not have done anything over there without our Afghan interpreters, different culture, different languages, they are very much a multicultural, multi-ethnic community over there and very, very different from Canada. We needed them to explain it to us and to explain our intent and our desire to the Afghans. So they were crucial to that mission. And quite frankly, any mission that Canada goes around the world needs cultural advisers and language interpreters. So they were as much as part of us as we were a part of them. And so given the fact that they were working for us, much like all the Canadians who came back and are now resettled back into society and what Veterans Affairs does to the veterans like myself, we have a moral obligation to do the same for those people who worked for us over there, called interpreters.

MK: What do we owe them?

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: We owe them a choice, much like what we started off listening to the president Biden and what the UK have done, we owe them a choice of a programme that if they want to come to this country going through the proper process and expedited process, we can get them here. The government has done this before, and I commend the government for what they did. And what my fellow generals are asking for is nothing new just to re reinitiate that programme in an expedited way so we can get those people over here if they want to, because the situation is becoming very dire for them.

MK: What are you hearing? I know you're still in contact with some of those interpreters or some of those Afghans who were helping with the NATO forces. What are you hearing directly from them?

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: Still, in the last three days, I have been in direct contact with two of the interpreters, one of them being my own, and they are hunkered down over there. They're scared. They're worried for their family and my other generals and the other people as part of this team where each of us are hearing from people that we've worked with, just how bad the situation is over there and how health is deteriorating and the freedom of movement that you and I take for granted is becoming more and more difficult, even a big urban centres. It is heart wrenching to read the email and the text that we are getting every day from people that we know.

MK: When you were there, you were commanding thousands of NATO troops, you know, about operations. You know how to run operations. Today, we're seeing the Americans who are planning to airlift interpreters and their families to bases outside of Afghanistan, outside of the U.S., where they can remain safe while they try to work out their visas. The British are doing the same thing. Why can't Canada do this?

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: That's why we wrote the letter to the minister. We are waiting for a reply. We're waiting for our minister to answer that question. We're not asking for something new. Were just saying, you know, this is of what Canada has done in the past. We want to do it again, give it in the current situation on the ground it would be much like what we have done standing side by side as a good NATO partner, as a good neighbour, to our American friends, to the south. We can do something good here for humanity and our standing in the world stage. This is something we're asking the minister just to do.

MK: What does it do to our reputation if we are to, as some have said, cut and run and leave those Afghans to their own fate?

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: I think it leaves a taste in the mouth of the Afghans who saw Canada come over and we were quite unique coming over as a whole of government, multicultural, multi-ethnic approach. I mean, when you looked at the Canadian team over there, it truly was a diverse team. I mean, I took a [unintelligible] over with me, a Sikh, over with me. We had women. When you looked at our team, it was truly a Canadian face. And we will be to talk about this multicultural, multi-ethnic diversity idea. And if we don't help the Afghans in their time of need, what does it say about us? It kind of lets them down and it kind of sends a bit of a picture story to the rest of the world.

MK: The liberal government's response to date has been, don't worry, we're working on it. What do you what do you make of that response?

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: Well, I'm glad that they're working on it, but we don't have the luxury and time to work on it too much longer. Again, this is not a new programme. We're waiting for the government to say, what are you going to do about it? The longer you wait, the more danger we create for those people over in Afghanistan and we make their decisions even harder. So we're just we want to see action, not just talk.

MK: You said something in an interview, and I just want to read it back to you because I thought it was quite telling. You said, it's difficult to get the government's attention with with covid that's going on. It's also going to be a hard fight to get the immigration minister on the eve of an election to do something that is right. What do you mean by that?

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: There's a lot of pressing issues for this government, for Canadians right now, if we look at the economy, we look at it, we look at what's going on with the indigenous population in this country. Those are serious situations and issues for Canadians to consider and to act upon. I get it. I'm a Canadian. I'm the first one to stand up for my country and for the issues that we have out there. But it doesn't mean we can't do other things simultaneously. And on the eve of an election, Afghanistan is not in the minds of Canadians, but it is about us because we've got Afghans living here. We are a nation of immigrants and we have helped out Syrians before, when the refugee crisis. And Afghanistan is still pretty close to the hearts and forty thousand Canadians into this nation, and I urge the minister to to do the right thing and be a great Canadian and help out these poor interpreters in their time of need. That's what it means to be a Canadian for me is doing the right thing and helping people.

MK: David Fraser, thank you for your time this morning.

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID FRASER: Thank you.

MK: Retired Major General David Fraser is one of three former Canadian generals urging the government to speed up the process in bringing Afghan interpreters to this country. Well, listening in on this conversation is the federal minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco Mendicino. Good morning, Mr. Minister.

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Morning, Mark.

MK: You've just been listening in an impassioned plea coming from Major General Frazier, what what do you say to him and what do you say to the others who are saying we need to help these Afghans now?

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Well, my first response is, if he doesn't have to worry, he has my full attention, the full attention of our government were fully grasped with the situation in Afghanistan. We know it's deteriorating and we know that lives are hanging in the balance. And we know that there's a need to take timely and decisive action to support the Afghans who supported our armed forces and put their own lives on the line to help the Canadian effort there. We fully agree with that. And I just want to assure you and your listeners that along with the end in global affairs, my department is indeed finalising an operational plan that would create a corridor for Afghan interpreters, locally engaged staff and their families. We've already got teams on the ground who are assessing the security situation. Our intention is to put this operation into action as quickly as possible. And I want to be clear. We're going to do everything in our power to do right by the Afghans who supported Canada's role in the war.

MK: These sound like positive steps moving in the right direction and goodwill. But what commitment can you make now today? What commitment can you make to Canadians about the fate of these Afghan interpreters?

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Our commitment is to ensure that we provide a way for those Afghans who wish to exercise the choice, as the general described it, to come to Canada who were recognised for their role in supporting the Canadian armed forces and other officials during the war. Our commitment is to put that operation into motion as quickly as possible, and our commitment is to do the right thing. I mean, Canada has a reputation for doing the right thing internationally. And as you'll recall, after the Canadian Armed Forces withdrew, we did put in place a programme that allowed us to offer a corridor for roughly 800 Afghans who supported our effort there. And we will do the same now as well, because the situation is different. It is more grave and complex and we understand the urgency of the matter.

MK: Yeah, I just want to pick up on that point. I want to hear more from a man who we are calling Jur. We're not identifying him because he fears for his family's safety. His father worked with the Canadian forces in Afghanistan and he's still in country. Here's what he has to say.

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JUNIOR: I think it's very important that we help them, get them somewhere safe. We all have children. We all have siblings. We should think about them for the moment and get in their shoes. What if it was me and I was in that situation in knowing that my previous employer or working for someone could have helped me or a nation in general could have helped me, but they did not step up and did not help me and think in a way that what if it was my family and how desperate would I be?

MK: We're told that his family's compound was actually attacked this week. As you can see, and it's been made clear, time is of the essence. Why has it taken so long to solve this? We saw this coming.

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Well, the first thing I want to just do is acknowledge that I hear the desperation and the fear and the voice of the gentleman who we just heard from, and we completely are motivated to move on this as quickly as possible. This is not something that we just put into place yesterday or even when the generals wrote us. And I do want to thank the retired generals, including retired Major General Fraser, for it, for his service in the service of everyone who served there. But we've got to make sure that we get this operation right. As I think is well known now, the U.S. and NATO are withdrawing from the region. That is making the situation extremely complex. We have a team on the ground that is assessing the security so that we can get this right. So as with as much urgency, we will put this operation into motion. But we have to be sure that we have the measures in place to protect the Afghans that we want to offer a corridor for, as well as the team who will be there to support them so that we can pull off this effort with as much safety and security as is required.

MK: You say you want to get it right. Explain to me what your fear is of getting it wrong.

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Well, the concerns, I think, that we should all have is, is that if we don't have a good plan, a solid plan in place that is informed by the advice that we're getting from the Department of National Defence, Global Affairs and other security partners in the region, is that we could lose lives and that's that weighs on us very heavily right now. And that's why we have to be sure that before we put in place the corridor and the operation, that we take the time that is necessary because each and every one of the Afghans that we want to support that may wish to come to Canada along with their families to support us, can do so with the full knowledge that that they'll be safe throughout the entirety of their of their journey. And that's why I just I know that there's a lot of urgency to the situation, Mark, but we have to be sure that we get this right.

MK: Randall Garrison is the federal NDP defence critic. Take a listen to what he told us yesterday.

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I worked in Afghanistan for an international human rights organisation. And certainly I know firsthand that our interpreters were threatened with death for working for us as a human rights organisation. And we were told that once we had left that they would take revenge on our interpreters. And it's very urgent that government act now. It's our integrity. We asked people to support the Canadian military and the allied forces in trying to promote democracy in Afghanistan. And then we turn our back on people when they're threatened for having done that. Very good work. If you monitor the situation, you'll end up with interpreters and their families dead instead of in safety. In Canada, the liberals can act and they won't face any criticism for doing so.

MK: You've got political support. So we know that that's not the issue. And you say you want to act with urgency. You say you want to get it right. Why not take the U.S. approach, which is to take these people, 115 people that have been identified, for starters, move them out of the country to a place where you can properly assess their visa applications so that we know that they will be in safety at that point and then do the paperwork where they will not be under attack. Why not take that approach?

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Well, all of the options are still on the table, Mark. And I would just point out that that there is a difference in the presence and the posture between Canada and the United States. But the point that I would simply make is that we are examining all options and are going to be sure that however the operation gets put to put into place that it is carried out and and executed efficiently with safety and security in mind for those Afghans who supported the Canadian armed forces during the conflict, and that we will do so as quickly as possible. You know, on a number of occasions, now, you've asked the major general and, you know, why should we be doing this? It is the right thing to do. Canada got into the effort abroad because we have a reputation for for for being an important partner when it comes to promoting peace and security and prosperity around the world. We take that role very seriously and we will not forget and we will stand by those Afghans who supported our members in that region there because it is the right thing to do. We have to carry out the operation quickly, but we also have to make sure that we get it right. And that is our commitment.

MK: Very quickly, when can we expect to see the first of these people arrive in Canada?

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Well, we hope as quickly as possible, and I assure you that when we have more to say, we'll come back and talk about it with you.

MK: Mr. Minister, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

MINISTER MARCO MENDICINO: Thank you, Mark.

MK: Marco Mendicino is the minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. The CBC News is next. Then:

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We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it. And I think it will be the overwhelming instinct of the people of this country to come together as one United Kingdom.

MK: That was the U.K. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, the night the UK left the European Union for good. He was celebrating. His own sister? Nah, not so much. Next, I'll be speaking with Rachel Johnson, who is part of the Remain campaign. We'll see what she thinks of the country's fortunes post Brexit and much more. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

Rachel Johnson on the personal and political dynamics of Brexit

Guest: Rachel Johnson

MK: Hello, I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current.

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MK: Still to come, a delinquent band of thieves waits for unsuspecting tourists outside a temple in southern Bali. They are fast, ruthless and make a killing in illicit gains. But no use in calling the police because we're talking about monkeys. In 30 minutes, we'll revisit Matt Galloway's conversation with primatologist Jean-Baptiste Leca. But first, the trials and tribulations of being related to a prime minister.

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VOICE 1: You are in politics, you are in journalism, and, of course, you have your brother. I mean, it has divided Britain in a way and it has also divided British families. And your family is really an example, is a microcosm in a way.

VOICE 2: I know it's what it's divided us all emotionally because we love our broth-- I love Boris, who I don't call Boris, by the way. I call him Alexander or Owl.

VOICE 1: There's that and your mum, they're there, they're both, they are on Boris side, right? In the Brexit question?

VOICE 2: Yes. No, no, no, no. It's complicated. Really complicated.

MK: Complicated seems to be an understatement when it comes to Rachel Johnson's family dynamic. She is the sister of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson now who campaigned against Brexit. Well, her brother hung his political hat on the phrase Get Brexit done. Rachel Johnson's failed campaign for a seat in the European Parliament focussed on having the UK remain a part of the European Union is the backdrop of her new book. It's called Rake's Progress The MadCap True Tale of My Political Mid-life Crisis. Rachel Johnson joins us this morning. Hi, Rachel.

RACHEL JOHNSON: Mark, hi. Good morning.

MK: Good morning. Pleasure to have you. I want to get to it. I want to get to Brexit in the book in a second. But I really need to talk to you about the story that seems to be consuming the UK right now. And that's, of course, the aftermath of the euro loss and the awful aftermath, the racist slurs for the players of colour who missed their penalty shots. It's been ugly. It's been divisive. What has this week revealed to you about your own country?

RACHEL JOHNSON: I think that's a really good starting point, because actually, as I was walking my dog this morning, I was thinking that the scenes the world saw at Wembley and in central London where Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, these places that even people who have never been to London know about, you know, these are the hotspots of central London. They were overrun with yobs. And when I say jobs, I mean, I think your audience knows what I mean.

MK: Well, tell us what you mean.

RACHEL JOHNSON: But I think it is an uncouth sort of hooligan vandal type who is intent on just drinking and and, you know, doing harm, going out and breaking things. There's the Sun tabloid splashed on a guy who's 25, who I actually saw in Leicester Square, because that's where my offices, he had stuck a flare up his backside, drunk 25 pints of lager, and then he broke into Wembley. And he sort of sums up to me a kind of your business, a loutish-ness that English football brings out. It literally brings out the worst in Britain. It's a bit like money in terms of a sport. It's you know, it brings out the worst in its supporters. Anyway, so my thought to taking it back to Brexit was these it was all a bit Brexit, you know, kind of England first, where English exceptionalism writ large and in your face.

MK: But as you know, your brother, the prime minister, has been dragged into this controversy, criticised for the fact that that that he wasn't admonishing the fans who were booing the players, that the English players, when they were taking a knee before the games to protest against racism. And by doing that, the feeling and certainly the conversation that he has, he's enabled those yobs to do what they were doing, as somebody said in parliament from that, from Labour's deputy leader. It's like is complaining about a fire they poured petrol on. They are total hypocrites. Speaking about your brother, amongst others in the conservatives, what do you say to that?

RACHEL JOHNSON: I think that's taking it a bit far. I think that's a stretch. If you don't sense publicly fans who have gone to a crowd to boo, we are a free country. We still believe in free expression. Don't forget that for the past 18 months, the government has told us what to do and what not to do in every single area of our lives from from our christenings to our weddings, to whether we can hug our grandparents, whether we can see our old folk in there in that care homes to how close we can stand on the tube. And I can understand why he doesn't want to add another layer of officiousness to daily life. And if people have got a ticket and they go and see a football game and they boo, I'm afraid it's a free country. You may not like it, but he actually can't control it. And I think if he said don't do it or he censored them, I think then that's a red rag to the kind of people who would boo anyway.

MK: But given where we've ended up and I understand what you're saying in the moment, at the time, people are booing, but then when you see where things end up, I mean, he's been accused of playing culture wars, of taking sides in this culture wars, which has now come back to haunt him and the country itself. I mean, can you then see do you believe that one is related to the other? Should he have been on the right side of history when he had that chance?

RACHEL JOHNSON: Well, what are you talking about back in 2016 or you talking about when he had the chance to say to about the supporters who were booing, the players who took the knee.

MK: I was talking about booing, but we can't talk about 2016 as well. Because, you know, there are those who say that that through 2016, with the campaign for Brexit, that Boris Johnson has helped unleash the right wing populism and with it comes some racism.

RACHEL JOHNSON: I think that's fair. You know, I think that to say we can do it on our own, where if we're the best country in the world, the English, you know, we're going to be Great Britain, we're going to be global Britain, we don't need to have the 27 other countries to trade with. We don't need to live, travel, work, love in those countries. We're great on our own. Of course, that's going to licence a sort of jingoistic I mean, I said it in my book so I can say, hey, you know, it was it licence and xenophobia. And we saw a huge rise in well, I'm not going to say huge. We saw a spike in hate crime. We saw a lot of people polls targeted. We saw shopfronts daubed with slogans. We saw a flight of people who had made their lives here, who came from other countries leaving. And that flight has continued. And if you talk to people and I have my radio show, they do say that the tone changed and it was more Britain first and, you know, go back to where you came from type mentality. And yes, of course, the leave campaign, in order to get the necessary votes to win the fifty two percent over the forty eight percent of those like me who were Romanies, they had to, they had to crank those gears.

MK: And that's conveniently caused or by something, maybe it's a little saccharin, is called populism, you know, appealing to this. And you had a great line in your book which I quite like, where you said the awful thing about populism; it's popular.

RACHEL JOHNSON: Exactly. This is why it appeals to people who, you know, they want to feel proud of something. The British the cost of St George, which is that white flag with the red. You know, my brother wrapped Downing Street, literally wrapped it in the cross of St George. If you're listening to this Google, you have never seen such a big English flag. And I say English flag, not the Union Jack. This is all England. You know, we're a United Kingdom. But this was about England. And if my brother had declared a bank holiday, people were saying, well, do we get one in Scotland? Do we get one in Wales? Do we get one in Northern Ireland, or is it just for you guys in England?

MK: You know, there were many lines in your book where I laughed out loud one and particularly that that got me. You said when, you know, people are asked to write a sad story in three words, someone would say, my phone died, but not you. If you're asked to write a sad story in three words, yours was: sister of Boris.

RACHEL JOHNSON: No, I said I was tempted to, you know, when people put that out on Twitter.

MK: Yeah, and I know. I know you're kidding.

RACHEL JOHNSON: I'm so loyal and I love him so much. But honestly, you know, this is not my politics, my politics. And actually his to let's face it, we grew up in Brussels. We went to the European school. He speaks several languages. I speak of them worse. He takes, he would, given the choice, spend all his holidays in Europe. You know, it's you know, we're internationalist country and family. And so when he obviously decided that he was going to go it alone and leave the leave campaign, of course, as you in that opening clip, it divided the country. It divided parties and it divided families.

MK: But if you have, and your book does this talk about this, you are an international family. So what is driving your brother's politics?

RACHEL JOHNSON: Well, if my husband, Ivo, was his boss once on the Sunday Telegraph when he was a foreign correspondent in Brussels, and I think he says that it's a sort of these are cultural reference points that you some of your audience may know. I mean, it's kind of Biggles, it's Enid Blyton. It's Just William. It's it's reading Tintin books on his tummy and during boring, rainy half terms, it's just it's the England, it's England, this England of Shakespeare and Dickens. And, you know, I think he was he romanticised it because those were his cultural reference points as a boy then when he went to eat. And of course, that's the top school in the world, then Oxford, probably the top university where he was top dog. I mean, having had that trajectory, why would you need anything else? You know, you think England is the best England of Churchill and, you know, the like the football chant, you know, two World Wars, one World Cup, that sort of those are the you know, those are the notes that he is striking and they strike a chord across the country.

MK: But how do you reconcile that vision of Shakespeare and Churchill with the vision of Trafalgar Square after the Euro Cup?

RACHEL JOHNSON: Well, they were direct link. It's for people who think it doesn't matter who breaks it, someone else will come and clear it up. And it's probably underpaid immigrants who are working through the night. And I think it's, I have to say, Mark, I find it disgusting. I was working the night of the World Cup. I have never been more ashamed to be English. And I'm not very English because I've got, you know, grandparents, only one of them actually born in this country. It it was the worst of us. And yes, it's football and Brexit together combined into a toxic, nasty mix that saw, you know, foreigners being racially abused by people being attacked in Wembley Stadium. Even the father of one of the England players had his ribs broken. Harry Maguire. It was a night of shame, I have to say.

MK: How do you move forward as a country when you come face to face with, as you called it, the worst of us?

RACHEL JOHNSON: Well, you have to learn, and I think that the good the good thing that's come out of the racist abuse of this, what we now call the three lions, Sackur, Sanzio and Sterling, who are the three players who missed their penalties. They're the three lions now. It's opened up the conversation. People are being much more honest. It's also made people realise that the very gesture that they were booing is completely necessary. And I think the idea that fans will boo anyone who takes the knee or as my husband says, it's called kneeling, stop calling it taking the knee. Any anyone who boos that now, I think will be probably expelled from the stadium. And and also, my brother has ordered a kind of no tolerance of racism in football. Fans won't be allowed to go to the games. And I think, you know, that is way overdue. Way, way overdue. I mean, I've done so many shows on racism in football. And, you know, there are ways of seeing who's chanting in the crowd, who's throwing the banana skin skins, you know, the facial recognition technology. We don't need to tolerate it. And I think in a way, that's the good side. The bad side is we probably won't get the World Cup in 2030. The good side is nobody can deny now that there's racism in the sport. And that politicians have to move to stamp it out.

MK: Let's talk about your book. As I mentioned, you were campaigning for the remain side in a very fraught campaign. Indeed, it was you, your party change UK, although you stood for the status quo, which you point out in the book. And I thought that was just one of the many, many, many problems with that that ill fated campaign. But the point was you were campaigning against Brexit. Brexit is now a reality. Is it as bad as you feared it would be?

RACHEL JOHNSON: You know, I interviewed Gina Miller, who is the heroine, who insisted that the government, i.e., the executive, had to refer back to parliament, i.e., the legislature before the Article 50 starting pistol on leaving the EU was fired. And I asked her that exact same question. And I think neither of us look I mean, people who were more fatalistic about what was happening said this, which I thought was quite wise at the time. Brexit will neither be as bad as the remainders fear nor as good as the Brexit as belief. Now, as far as I'm concerned, Brexit has been as bad as I feared. We've seen problems at ports, problems with imports, distribution. We've got a huge employment problem. There's no one really here to do this sort of distribution, the hospitality. You know, we've got a huge employment crisis exacerbated by covid because everyone's getting pinged, you know what I mean? You get a notification from the NHS which says you have to sit at home for ten days. So the country's kind of going into a kind of economic paralysis. And it's hard to distinguish. And it's right. Which is fortunate for this government. What is Brexit and what is covid? But when the covid mists clear, it's going to be clearer how destructive Brexit has been. I mean, exports to the EU are down like 40 percent. You know, if you look at all the data dashboard's on exports, on economic activity, you can pretty much tell that Brexit is not being great. But yet we know and then the striking trade deals with places like Australia and New Zealand. And then I sort of say I get into terrible trouble for saying, well, why not trade with the the trading bloc that's twenty two miles away? Well, rather than the one that's nine and a half thousand miles away.

MK: Fairpoint

RACHEL JOHNSON: use up like a billion tonnes of kerosene to get to get your sheep meat to New Zealand while they send their sheep meat to us sheep more cheaply because we've just done this trade deal in. The whole thing is just we've gone down a rabbit hole.

MK: You raised the spectre of covid. And it's a huge issue right now in your country. And again, an issue that your brother, the prime minister, is being criticised for his handling of it. Even as someone who served as his senior adviser at the height of the crown of virus pandemic, he apologised publicly for the UK government's response to the crisis. He said failed disastrously short. When the public needed us most, the government failed.

RACHEL JOHNSON: I had to stick up for my brother?

MK: OK, well, that's what I'm saying. Is this part of--

RACHEL JOHNSON: Nobody could have got this right. It's all very well for Dominic Cummings, sitting in his basement in Islington to write his blog saying all the things that went wrong. But, you know, everybody is making huge decisions on the hoof. They did what they were told by the scientific advisors, essentially. They didn't lock down because at that point, the scientific advisers were talking about herd immunity. You know, this is where we are. You know, there will be an enormous inquest into the government's handling of it. There have been acknowledged errors. And, you know, I would point out to the moving of old people into care homes and the fact that, you know, care homes had itinerant agency workers. And so the disease was seeded throughout the care homes. And forty six thousand elderly people probably died before their time. And that's a terrible stain on any on any government's conscience. But I have to say, you know, I can't stick my hand up and say he got it wrong in the same way I say to myself, he really was on the wrong side on Brexit.I see in his eyes that he does really try to do his best. And and actually he's more pro lockdown than I am. So we've had our own conversations in which I've said this is completely nuts. You know, you can't tell people they have to be home. You know, you can't close down the economy and pay people to have takeout on their sofas because they'll never go back to work. You know, it's just a very, very complex, it's like multidimensional chess. And there are no you're in a world of competing homes. So, of course, whatever he does, you'll have people saying he got that wrong.

MK: Tell me tell me about those conversations, those family conversations. You clearly, you know, you jump to his defence, as you just did now. And that and that's admirable. But you do have your disagreements with him. How do those play out between the two of you? Does he actually listen to what you have to say?

RACHEL JOHNSON: And I suppose there's a certain sort of disparity of status.

MK: To say the least.

RACHEL JOHNSON: I ignore it. You know, I'm just a sort of [unintelligible], journalist, presenter, writer, and, you know, but I wouldn't swap places with him for all the tea in China. I wouldn't want to have to wake up every morning and take the decisions he takes. And I have another brother in government. He was in cabinet, were he? I think he attended cabinet. He was a minister. You know, that's not for me. The responsibility on his shoulders is is too much. I mean, I wouldn't want to do it. I have huge respect and admiration for what he does. We have quite a funny relationship because he knows that I'm not always just going to agree with him because he said something. I would always say when I think he's got something wrong, either. But my rule of thumb is I don't say something publicly that I wouldn't say to him privately. I regard that as the disloyalty. So I would say, I would say on my radio show or on television that I think Lockdown's don't work. And if they do work, why are we having another one? If they don't work, why are we having another one? Do you see? I would say something like that, even if he's just ordered another lockdown, because that's something I'd say to his face and have said to his face. But, you know, listen, it's very hard booboo being me, because, I mean, this show will be parsed for disloyalty, just as any other thing I say in public is parsed for disloyalty. That's sort of my utility now in terms of the newspapers or the media.

MK: And do you think that's fair?

RACHEL JOHNSON: Well, you know, it's inevitable, I mean, it happens to my father, too. If you have any sort of public profile, then everything you say is going to be sort of refracted back to to the big guy and what it says about him and the relationship with him. And it's very, very boring. It's just incredibly boring. And I was sort of stitched up by Alastair Campbell, who was a communications director for Tony Blair. He said about he interviewed I interviewed him and he sort of said I had claimed in our interview that had it been a contest, a penalty shootout between Gareth Southgate, who is the English manager, and my brother, Gareth Southgate would win seven nil. And I just never said, you know, I said this is a retweeted by a hundred times instead of and people were saying, you know, gub with sisters like that, who needs enemies? And it's sort of so boring. But I just have to hope that he doesn't see ninety nine point nine percent of it because it's all rubbish. I'm intrinsically loyal, but I don't I'm intrinsically anti prophetical or to a lot of his policies because I just, you know, they don't stack up to me.

MK: Well, another line I liked in your book is when you walk down the street, people whisper, that's Boris's sister. And you say, I have a name.

RACHEL JOHNSON: But they like said that outloud.

MK: And you say, I have a name. And your name is Rachel Johnson. And Rachel has been a pleasure talking to you today.

RACHEL JOHNSON: Enjoy. Thank you.

MK: Rachel Johnson's new book is Rake's Progress: The Madcap True Tale of My Political Mid-life Crisis. Well, with all that said, I think it's clear that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, he has his work cut out for him. There are trade deals to be signed, a kingdom of four nations to hold together, and a new relationship with the EU to build from the ashes of the old. In the meantime, here's something to keep the nation's spirits up. This is British Hustle. Pioneers of Brit Funk, Hi Tension.

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[Song]

MK: Coming up after your regional update, a band of thieving monkeys sounds like the stuff of fiction or nightmares, but they exist and we'll hear from someone who studies them, in about 90 seconds. I'm Mark Kelley, in for Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

The tricky monkeys that steal to barter for food; and Episode 2 of A Death in Cryptoland

Guests: Jean-Baptiste Leca

MK: I'm Mark Kelly, and you're listening to The Current

SOUNDCLIP

[Foreing chatter]

MK: OK, let me decode that for you. That's the sound of a very surprised and frustrated tourists in Bali, Indonesia. Of all things, a monkey has just appropriated his eyeglasses. The tourist realises that this is now a bartering mission. He's offering the monkey eggs, nuts, bananas. The monkey swats them all away. Then he tries a cucumber and bingo, his glasses are given back. Leaving a very pleased macaque monkey to enjoy it spoils. Jean-Baptiste Leca studies these thieving monkeys. He filmed that video. The audio was taken from. And he's a primatologist and psychologist at the University of Lethbridge. Matt Galloway spoke with him in January. Here is their conversation.

MATT GALLOWAY: What's going on here? Why is the monkey stealing someone's glasses?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Well, these monkeys living around the Uluwatu temple in southern Bali are known to steal, more or less, valuable but non-edible objects from tourists. And then they hold on to these objects until they can exchange them for food with humans who, of course, really want their objects back. And they are willing to pay the monkeys some food to retrieve these objects.

MATT GALLOWAY: But the monkeys are very specific in terms of what they want. I mean, again, I described it a little bit there, but what goes on? The monkeys have the glasses, they're offered different things, and they sniff the food and then they either bat ut away, or they throw it away?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: That's right. Well, let's describe the the first part of the behaviour if you don't mind?

MATT GALLOWAY: Yeah, of course, yeah!

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: So, first, adult monkeys, that's what our latest study showed, adult monkeys, because the young ones, the juvenile ones, are not so good at it. They have to learn how to do that. But adult monkeys have learned to preferentially select objects that are more likely to be exchanged for food like electronics or glasses over other objects that are less valuable for humans and typically not worth bartering like empty camera bags or old hats. So that's the robbing part of the behaviour, the stealing part. And then, second, our latest study showed that these monkeys seek to obtain either more food rewards or a more preferred food reward in exchange for a higher-valued object. But, of course, higher-valued for humans because, for the monkeys, prescription glasses or sunglasses or, you know, an old hat has no intrinsic value. It only acquires a value in the context of the bartering interaction with a human.

MATT GALLOWAY: And so the monkey is sitting on a rock wall, and it's chewing on the glasses. What are the higher value items that it's looking for?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Well, we established a scale of value for different objects. By the way, we call them tokens. I can maybe talk about that. We call them tokens because, again, they have no intrinsic value for the monkeys except in the context of the exchange. But on the basis of how often humans want to engage in a token reward bartering interaction, these monkeys, it seems, seem to have mapped their behaviours onto our own scale of value when it comes to objects. And you have low-valued tokens that are seldom bartered by humans, empty containers and accessories. Medium-valued token, often bartered by humans, like hats and shoes. And then high-valued tokens, almost always bartered by humans, glasses, electronics and wallets, mainly.

MATT GALLOWAY: And what do the monkeys get in exchange? Because, again, they're being very specific. They'll give up that higher value item, not for anything, not just for a banana, but for something else.

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Yes, well, just as we did for the objects, the tokens, we established a scale of individual food preference. And some monkeys are into raw eggs. [slight chuckle] So that's a highly-prized food reward, particularly for adult males. You know, it's really protein-rich food. And other monkeys simply have different preferences. So for each monkey, we established a food preference, and we could tell which monkey prefer this or that food item.

MATT GALLOWAY: How did you end up coming to study thieving monkeys in Bali?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Well, I'm interested in non-human primate behaviour, monkey behaviour. And I'm a cultural primatologist, so I study social learning and culture in non-human animals. And the third result about our study is that these robbing and bartering behaviours are partly learned through observation between monkeys. And these behaviours have been maintained across generations of monkeys for at least 40 years in this population. So I look at this behaviour practice as a cultural behaviour.

MATT GALLOWAY: Tell me more about this. How did the monkeys learn to barter?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: That's a good question. We're not entirely sure about the very beginning of this practice. Because I'm a cultural primatologist and I study other behaviours that have this social learning component, I'm hypothesizing, but again, we will have to dig further that there was an inventor at some point. So you could call this monkey on your monkey zero. There was an inventor, and this monkey started to rob one object, steal one object from the tourist. And then, the local temple staff was willing to engage in a bartering interaction, and the monkey got a food reward. And then, let's say the day after, the same monkey was more likely to replicate the same behaviour to obtain the same outcome. But then what happened next is something I'm really interested in. It's that this behaviour spread within the group. And we have some evidence that there is social influence between the monkeys in the expression of this behaviour.

MATT GALLOWAY: Is your sense that the monkeys can distinguish between the various items that they are taking? I mean, would a monkey know, the difference between an empty camera bag and a bag that has the camera still in it? Would a monkey know the difference between cheap sunglasses versus sunglasses that perhaps would cost more money?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: I don't think I don't think they do. To answer your specific question, I don't think they do. But they seem to have a general sense of different types of objects, broadly speaking. So our results were obtained both from observational study but also a field experiment in which we presented a given monkey with a two-option choice situation in which the monkey had to choose two objects presented on the tray. The monkey had to choose between your average sunglasses and, let's say, a flip flop. And preferentially, the monkey, again, adult monkey, because juveniles are not so good at it, an adult monkey would preferentially, but not systematically, there is individual variation, pick up the sunglasses because they have learned that they can get more or preferred food reward for this type of object.

MATT GALLOWAY: What have you learned in studying this? What have you learnt about, I mean, it seems in some ways obvious, but the fact that they're able to do this, and that they're able to do it consistently, is fascinating. So what have you learned about monkey behaviour in studying this?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Well, our results indicate some form of robbing bartering pay maximization, which is suggestive of rudimentary economic decision making by monkeys, but that's not the first time this has been demonstrated. There are several species of non-human primates, monkeys and great apes, that have many of the cognitive abilities, symbolic abilities, computational abilities that are necessary to think economically and to produce economic behaviours. But so far, these abilities had only been demonstrated in the controlled settings of laboratory. Our research revealed for the first time that you can look at the roots of culturally-learned economic behaviour in free-ranging animals because these monkeys are free-ranging.

MATT GALLOWAY: Were you ever robbed while you were doing this research? I don't know whether you wear glasses or not, but --

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: I do.

MATT GALLOWAY: You do! Did the monkeys ever grab your glasses? [laughing]

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Yes, of course. One time... a couple of times, actually. The joke was on me. Yes, they stole my prescription glasses. And thanks to the assistance of the local temple staff, and through a bartering interaction, of course, I got my eyeglasses back, yes.

MATT GALLOWAY: What did you have to offer the monkey to get your glasses back?

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: As far as I remember, once it was an adult monkey. And he would only [chuckling] return the object in exchange for a raw egg. And another time, it was a juvenile monkey. And the bartering interaction was a little bit more messy because we haven't talked about age differences. But it's a behaviour that is learned not only through social learning and by observing other monkeys but also through individual experience. And it takes several years. Our research shows that it takes probably up to four years in these species.

MATT GALLOWAY: But when they learn it, and they learn it well, they're very good at it.

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Apparently, yes, most of them. There is some inter-individual variation. And maybe another study we could do in the future is to test individual personalities in monkeys and whether personality traits are correlated with success barter?

MATT GALLOWAY: This is fascinating. And if you do that future study, we will talk again. In the meantime, Jean-Baptiste, thank you very much.

JEAN-BAPTISTE LECA: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

MK: Jean-Baptiste Lecci is a primatologist and professor of psychology at the University of Lethbridge. Matt spoke with him in January. I'm Mark Kelley, and you are listening to The Current we're continuing with A Death in Cryptoland. This is an original CBC podcast about the secret past of a cryptocurrency CEO, his sudden demise and what it meant to his thousands of customers. Gerald Cotten was the 30 year old head of Canada's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Quadriga CX reports emerged in January 2019 that he had died a month earlier while on his honeymoon in India that left his clients quarter billion dollars in limbo and several people believing there was something fishy going on. Two years on, an on line sleuth by who goes by the name QCX-int, it has become obsessed with trying to unravel the truth. This is Chapter three of a death in crypto land with host Takara Small.

SOUNDCLIP

TAKARA SMALL: Gerry Cotten grew up in a small city called Bellville, Ontario. It's about a two hour drive from Toronto. About 68000 people live there. It's a pretty area set on the shores of the Bay of Quinty. There's not a lot to do there. I know. I lived in a neighbouring town. His parents, Cheryl and Bruce, ran a small business, Quinty Antiques. QCX-int wonders whether that's where Gerry got his knack for buying low and selling high. It's kind of funny, though, while his mom and dad were selling goods from the past, Gerry was fascinated by the currencies of the future.

WCOTT JQRU: Well, he was just always leaps and bounds beyond most most of the computer teachers we had at that time. And he certainly loved computers and technology. So my name is Scott Jaru. I live here in Bellville, Ontario. I went to high school with Gerry, Bayside Secondary School and we started there in 2002.

TAKARA SMALL: Scott Jaru thought Gerry seemed very bright.

SCOTT JQRU: You seemed to read a lot. And I was always amazed by his knowledge as a grade nine, as a 14 year old of kind of markets and trading. And I remember sometimes he would talk about, you know, being up all night, maybe trading on like Asian markets and stuff like that. And, you know, and I remember him saying that he was up a little bit. I think, you know, we're talking in the in the maybe hundreds or maybe or small thousands of dollars kind of thing.

TAKARA SMALL: Gerry would get around firewalls at school so that he can make trades and play computer games. One person we spoke with, but wouldn't talk to us on tape, remembers being on the school bus with Jerry and seeing him furiously scribbling in a notebook. She asked him what he was doing and he excitedly began explaining how it was about an Internet currency. She didn't get it. I mean, you can't just make up a currency, can you?

[Music]

TAKARA SMALL: In the summer of 2003, as Gerry was getting ready to start grade 10, the 15 year old signed on to an online forum called Talk Gold.

NEHA POONIA: Talk Gold was a forum that was used to promote what are called these high yield investment programmes, which are basically Ponzi schemes.

SCOTT JQRU: It was shocking. It was shocking.

TAKARA SMALL: QCX-int made the discovery after a relentless search of every single email he could find linked to Gerry Cotten, from the one he used to register Quadriga and working backwards from their. In the process kicks into what uncover a colossal number of domain names connected to those emails belonging to Gerry and shady online activity, which appears to have begun when Gerry first signed up to Torkild typing in his username Sceptre.

SCOTT JQRU: It's a real gotcha moment, I think. And, you know, that was a just a breakthrough of the breakthrough I've been looking for in in the investigation going on this, he said. And if he is, then there's a pattern of activity that doesn't just stretch back a few months. It stretches back years and years.

TAKARA SMALL: A sceptre is a baton that's carried by a king or queen as a symbol of authority. It's also a television brand. At the time, the company's logo was a cartoon lizard. Jerry used it for his avatar on Torkild. And with that handled, Jerry would go down a deep rabbit hole into a vast online netherworld.

JOW CASTALDO: So Top Gold was a forum for people to promote their investment programmes.

TAKARA SMALL: Joe Castaldo is a business reporter with the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto.

JOW CASTALDO: It's, that's the mattress delivery. Can I have that yet?

TAKARA SMALL: Again, covid is made all of our interviews a little bizarre. Joe was followed Jerry's movements online, just like you did before him, scouring what's known as the Wayback Machine, a digital archive which stores past versions of websites.

JOW CASTALDO: Hi, sorry about that. So Toggled was a forum for people to talk about digital currencies. This was in the era before Bitcoin.

TAKARA SMALL: These were the earliest forms of Internet money.

JOW CASTALDO: Somebody would set up a website, accept digital currency from investors, promised some exorbitant return and it would pay out returns for a little while. And then the website would shut down and the operator would abscond with people's money. And one of the strange things is like, well, why would anybody put any money into these online investment programmes? Like if you look at any of these old websites, they're just super, super sketchy. And so part of the answer is some people were legitimately duped. But another part is people who knew what was going on. It was a bit like gambling. So the idea is you put money into these programmes, you get some return, but you take your money out before the operator shuts it down. So it's this weird mix of Ponzi scheme and online gambling, and that's really what Talk Gold was all about.

TAKARA SMALL: So this is what young Gerry signed up for during his summer holidays in 2003. And it wasn't long before he would be running his very own high yield investment programmes in the Internet archives. You can see by that winter sceptres promoting something he calls SNS investments. He plugs it by saying, "I'm afraid I'm not going to fill this section of the page with the usual bumph about how your returns are made. We do not invest in stocks, bonds, shares, precious metals or antiques. All I will say is that we will generate your return and that we are not what is called a Ponzi or pyramid scheme". Nothing says pyramid scheme, quite like the denial of a pyramid scheme. He continues, This is an absolutely amazing opportunity, which not only offers but delivers returns that exceed most Ponzi or pyramid programmes, you invest a sum of money into the programme and within 48 hours, usually within 18, you will receive a return of anything from 103 percent to 150 percent, possibly more. Pretty quick, Sceptre is posting daily. For its part, SNS. investments didn't last long, sceptres seems to have been unable to keep up with investors demands, and early on he announces that refunds will take some time. WILL is in all caps, and he adds, "I cannot guarantee that they will all be made quickly". But he's willing to do his best. Yes, everyone to be calm and patient. Sceptre even comes up with a schedule for how you will pay everyone back, people with curious aliases like Mozart, Skunk Toes, Braveheart and Hula Hoops. It looks like it's going to take months with his more agitated customers, Sceptre is outright petulant, with one he threatens, "If I see another post by you in regards to a refund, you will be null and void in your right to a refund". Enraged by the impertinence, the investor complains again, this time Sceptre responds saying, "your name in the database shows do not refund". All caps.

SCOTT JQRU: And you can see two in the messages on talk gold, the pattern of behaviour, the common thread is a complete lack of empathy for victims, if you like, and a complete carelessness about customer funds.

TAKARA SMALL: Eventually, Sceptrewould vanish from SNS investments, leaving Hula Hoopes and the gang wondering if they'd see any of their money again.

JOW CASTALDO: It took in money from hundreds of users on this site and it was shut down and disappeared. Shortly after that, Sceptre launched another programme called Lucky Invest did the same thing, took in money from people, then went offline.

TAKARA SMALL: There's another scheme which popped up around then, too, it jumps out because of its name quod gold. It promises that in just 60 days you will receive a four hundred and thirty two percent return on your deposits exclamation mark. Now, we can't say for sure whether this was Gerry, but the site did share the same registrant as SNS. Investments, a company in Arizona providing anonymous hosting. Hoe Castaldo became determined to learn as much as he could about Gerry during his tawakkol days, so using a web of old emails, Joe tracked down someone who had heard from Gerry from a Hotmail account,

JOW CASTALDO: and he emailed saying, I'm setting up this investment programme called UPI. And the email said, you know, I'm actually in some financial trouble. I need five thousand dollars. Quickly, can you help me promote this Web site? And so I started looking into UPI.

TAKARA SMALL: UPI stood for United Private Investment Enterprise, and Joe discovered Jerry was running it from yet another fake name.

JOW CASTALDO: He went by the name Voltaire. Voltaire was the operator of UPI.

TAKARA SMALL: Voltaire, as in the philosopher. Clearly these high yield investment schemes were not a passing fad for Jerry. By now, he'd moved to Toronto, where he's living in residence. It was his first year of university and he was studying business. But few could have imagined the unusual experience he was getting outside the classroom.

JOW CASTALDO: And the weird thing about this one is I came across a post on that forum from somebody who said that he actually met with Voltaire in person. We knew that Gerry was running UPI, but to actually meet with investors in person is kind of taking this these Ponzi schemes to kind of a new level. Right. It's not just anonymous online anymore. You're doing this in person. Like it was just a strange to me, like, did this actually happen?

TAKARA SMALL: It would have been out of the ordinary for sure, people who run these programmes are pretty much always anonymous, fake names, phoney addresses, anything to stay out of hot water. So if Voltaire were to have made an appearance, it would have been pretty wacky. But on the archived UPI site, you can kind of see how it came about. Voltaire's responding to questions and concerns, one person remarked that something is fishy about the programme. Another, a potential investor, asked where UPI is located and how it invests. Voltaire's response is vague. He says they're not in any one place and that he can't share private records. But the good news was he would be, quote, "providing full disclosure to those whom I meet on my upcoming trip to Toronto, Canada. If you are willing to meet me in person, I will be willing to share the sensitive UPI information". And then on November 16th, 2006, Voltaire posts, "I'm currently sitting in an Internet cafe downtown Toronto in between meetings, despite the rain, it is great to be here". Joe reached out to the guy who claims to have met Voltaire.

JOW CASTALDO: I didn't expect this guy to talk to me, but he was open and he suggested we actually meet in person and he wanted to meet at a Jugo Juice in north Toronto.

TAKARA SMALL: The guy looked to be in his 50s, Joe says, and though he was willing to discuss Voltaire, he wanted Joe to keep his identity hidden.

JOW CASTALDO: And so I asked him about the dinner. You know, like did this dinner actually take place? He insisted this dinner happened. There were other people there. But I really wanted to know, like, who was Voltaire? Did Voltaire show up? And he said Voltaire was a young guy in his 20s with sandy blonde hair. And he showed up in a in a business suit and he said that his name was Dan Vanaman. And he was actually from Florida and he was only up in Toronto on business to meet with some of his investors. And so I really wanted to know, was Dan Vardaman in fact or was he posing as somebody else?

TAKARA SMALL: So Joe pulls out his phone to show this guy Gerry's picture

JOW CASTALDO: and like, my heart's beating really fast because I want to you know, I really want to know the answer to this question.

TAKARA SMALL: The guy studies the photo for a good long time and finally says,

JOW CASTALDO: I don't recognise this person.

TAKARA SMALL: The man that Gerry's face shape was different and that he didn't think Dan Vanaman would have lied to him. Joe was a little disappointed, but then the guy mentioned something else that might help.

JOW CASTALDO: He told me one other thing, that his friend took a photo of that dinner of Dan Vanaman posing with some of these people. And so I was like, oh, my God, a photo that would be perfect. And so I got super excited. And then he told me about my friend passed away. I don't know where the photo is.

TAKARA SMALL: The proof gone. Still, we know Gerry had set up UPI and he had gone by the pseudonym Voltaire. We also know that Voltaire claimed to have travelled to Toronto and that he'd met investors. And then when a Dan Vanaman turns up to a vegetarian restaurant, he matches Jerry's description, a young blonde businessman. We also spoke to the man who claimed to have met Dan Vanaman. He had a long, rambling chat with one of our producers. He seemed quite happy to talk about anything other than the mystery man. He even did his best Bob Dylan impersonation. Ultimately, though, he did say he wasn't sure whether he'd met Gerald Cotten. If indeed it was Gerry, it was a brazen act, he would have been 18 years old, a childhood friend told us this might be the biggest surprise of all that this kid they knew was able to trick grown ups out of money. But what does any of this mean is the fact that a young Gerald Cotten ran Khan's online evidence that Quadriga-CX was a scam from the start? Or could it be the antics of a smart kid who made some dumb choices, someone who may have fallen down a dangerous but alluring rabbit hole? But it is worth noting that just a few months before Gerry signed on to talk gold, another person using the screen handle, Patrón, joined the forum. Pattern would become sceptres friend on his profile.

JOW CASTALDO: They were posting a lot in the same threads, they were sort of promoting the same services.

SCOTT JQRU: You know, sceptre and pattern, two peas in a pod. You look at the pattern of posts on Torkild where they're kind of running flank and running cover for each other.

TAKARA SMALL: A little more than a year after sceptres signs on, a rumour emerges, it's about the sudden disappearance of Patrón from the forum. Someone writes, This individual is in a world of trouble. He has been dealing with some very bad people. And those sceptre may have lost his pal from Talk Gold. There's evidence the two would meet again several years later.

[Music]

TAKARA SMALL: Coming up next time on a death in crypto land.

VOICE 1: it wasn't always a Ponzi scheme, it became one. A Ponzi scheme is more successful if it doesn't start as a Ponzi scheme. That's a great way to build trust and goodwill in your system. If it starts legitimate, we can feel the legitimacy and then we can't feel when it stops being legitimate.

MK: We'll continue with the original CBC podcast, A Death in Cryptoland Tomorrow. Q is coming up next on CBC Radio one. Tom Power will be talking to acting legend Danny Trejo. He's cool. So listen in. I'm Mark Kelley. Thanks for listening to The Current.

Thursday 15 July, 2021 Full Transcript

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