Guest · 52:02
Tiny villages 400 miles west of Kampala in Uganda, where everyone had invested in one coin. So the speed before the regulators even knew it was happening, it reached every corner of the globe. And that makes it very difficult. And no single country really took a lead on this, and not Bulgaria because Bulgaria is the most corrupt country in the EU. And I'm not just saying that, multiple surveys and studies find that. She was very well connected in Bulgaria. So I think she was a bit of a safe haven for her, which meant that the company could and still is open in Bulgaria, which made it hard for the regulators as well because they would say in The UK, well, this is really a Bulgarian company with the holding companies actually in Dubai, but they're not doing anything about it either. So no one really did much. It was really only The US authorities that actually started to crack down on this because they launched an investigation into OneCoin and into Doctor. Ruger. They ended up arresting quite recently her brother, her lover, her investment manager, her co founder. And as of three weeks ago, she's on the FBI's top 10 most wanted fugitive list.
Kara Swisher · 53:18
They're gonna get her. They'll get her.
Guest · 53:19
Well, they will now, I hope. But everyone complains about America, but they're the only country that actually can ever do anything to stop this stuff.
Kara Swisher · 53:26
That's true. So where do you think she is right now?
Guest · 53:31
I have received over the course of the last four years of doing this, but especially since the FBI notice, probably hundreds of absolutely certain tip offs. I've seen her at Heathrow Airport, it was definitely her, she bought So a I've had to try to sort of work out which ones tally up, which one works with her lifestyle. All right, give
Kara Swisher · 53:54
it to your best guess.
Guest · 53:56
As I believe, she is currently most likely to be living on a superyacht in and around the Mediterranean and Black Sea, periodically going back to Bulgaria.
Kara Swisher · 54:08
Wow. It's actually Scott Galloway. Don't... I'm just turning him in right now. It's it's
Scott Galloway · 54:13
As long as I could get Ari Emanuel to hose me off. So I... I'm fascinated by the notion of of disappearing or trying to disappear. Do you think it's possible? What what are the best practices here? Is it is it paying off a country? Is it giving Pakistan a $100,000,000 and then retreating to the hills and having the government try and hide you? How do you... Can you disappear?
Guest · 54:36
Are you are you planning to
Kara Swisher · 54:38
Yeah. I know. I was like, do have a go bag, Scott?
Scott Galloway · 54:41
I just find it.
Guest · 54:41
Scott has a go bag. Do you know he does?
Scott Galloway · 54:44
But now, I mean, just to talk about it a second. I I I can't I can't imagine it's a very nice life sleeping with one eye open all the time. I think it would be almost as I mean, not as bad as being in prison, but it's a fascinating thought that you think I'm out. And this is a woman who was gonna be rich. Yeah. She had... She might have gotten rich slowly, but she was gonna be rich. McKinsey, PhD.
Kara Swisher · 55:07
Bulgaria.
Scott Galloway · 55:08
You know? It was gonna happen for her.
Guest · 55:11
Yes. Well, we actually got a private investigator involved who specializes in finding people who have gone missing, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. And for those who intentionally disappear, everything is about planning. So she had multiple passports, she had a safe house to go to at a moment's notice, because she left Sofia, Bulgaria with just a passport, a handbag, and a bodyguard. Went to Athens, was met by two people in I think a black Range Rover or one of those kinds of 4x4s. And it was all planned out in advance. So it was a phone call probably on her encrypted line that was the prompt to get all of that sorted out. She booked more than one flight as well when she disappeared, so everything had been planned quite carefully to sort of cover her tracks. But the private investigator told us everything is about lifestyle. People cannot ignore or cannot sort of
Scott Galloway · 56:13
Keep a low profile? They can't do it?
Guest · 56:15
Well, they just can't change their habits. If they are accustomed to a certain style of life and a certain type of restaurant and a certain type of club She
Kara Swisher · 56:23
likes a Gucci bag. She likes a
Guest · 56:25
Gucci You will end up making a mistake and going back to that. Sank on
Scott Galloway · 56:28
Sank and Saint Tropez.
Guest · 56:31
Precisely. Precisely. This is one of the reasons why in and around the Mediterranean, but she's very, very well connected, and she needs a lot of money. Because the FBI is offering $100,000 for information that would lead to her arrest, which I think is probably targeted at bodyguards, port officers, chefs, drivers, her entourage that she needs. So she's got to keep them happy. And it would golden be cage. It really wouldn't be an enjoyable lifestyle at all. You'd be extremely paranoid. But that's one of the reasons I think she might spend quite a lot of time asking.
Kara Swisher · 57:09
Well,
Speaker · 57:10
let me just say we gotta go, but this sounds like a
Kara Swisher · 57:12
Bond movie, honestly. The... Or Mission Mission Impossible.
Scott Galloway · 57:16
Oh, it's definitely on Netflix. Who's gonna play her?
Guest · 57:19
Funny funny enough, there is a movie in the works, one of the Scottish investors that we interviewed in our podcast, Jen McAdam, who'd invested €10,000, but also got her whole family to invest as well.
Kara Swisher · 57:31
Oh, no.
Guest · 57:31
She is being played by Kate Winslet.
Kara Swisher · 57:34
Oh, well, Oh, you wow. Kate Winslet.
Guest · 57:38
Kate Winslet is playing... Is the victim. As for the the woman herself, I don't know.
Kara Swisher · 57:45
We don't know yet. Jamie's new book, The Missing Crypto Queen, The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con, and The Woman Who Got Away With It is out now. Suggest everybody read it. It's a really... It's a gripping, tale. Thank you, Jamie Bartlett.
Scott Galloway · 57:58
Thanks. Thanks, Jamie. Good luck with the book. Cheers.
Kara Swisher · 58:01
I'm gonna start calling you Crypto Queen, Scott. That's gonna be my new name for you.
Scott Galloway · 58:05
Just call me Queen.
Kara Swisher · 58:06
That's true. Alright. Well, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
Speaker · 58:14
Fall has never looked or tasted this good. Sweetgreen's fall harvest menu is back with seasonal favorites dressed to impress and made to be devoured. Warm roasted sweet potatoes, crisp apples, maple glazed brussels, and crave worthy flavors in the autumn harvest bowl, maple glazed salmon plate, and roasted bacon brussels side. The season's most desirable menu has returned to Sweetgreen, featuring fall's best dressed. Make your move. Order on the Sweetgreen app.
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— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 59:13
Okay, Scott. We're back for predictions. Before we do that, I have to make a correction from last week. Adrian Ohne, who runs Forward, wrote me a note, a text just now saying, Stop calling us Concierge Healthcare. We're literally less expensive than using your deductible. Even better, almost half of our members are uninsured. The cheapest ACA plans are twice our price. You're killing me, Adrian. All right. It's a nicer version of One Medical is what we said. Don't think we called it con... Maybe you did, Scott. It wasn't precisely concierge medicine. It was a nicer... Having used both, forward is nicer than One Medical. So, I'm not sure what to say, but there you go. You're not concierge medicine. Sorry.
Scott Galloway · 59:51
He must be a friend.
Kara Swisher · 59:52
He needs
Scott Galloway · 59:52
to work
Kara Swisher · 59:53
at Google. He showed me Forward. I thought Forward was fascinating in many ways, but predictions, Scott, predictions.
Scott Galloway · 1:00:01
I think this one medical Amazon thing is huge. And I think that Amazon is gonna use smart speakers and the information they have, credit card information on your purchases, around food, around lifestyle, to create a digital corpus. And I think the first entree to gather more data will be preventive care. But I think the industry that is almost the ripest, so healthcare is the ripest industry in the world for disruption, but it's a $3,000,000,000,000 industry. And within that industry, the ripest of ripe for disruption will be the second place they will go, and that is insurance.
Kara Swisher · 1:00:40
Agreed.
Scott Galloway · 1:00:41
And if you ever meet somebody who's not that intelligent but likable and makes $500,000 a year, chances are they work in insurance. Is any industry that has a lot of golf, any industry that has a lot of like former fraternity rush chairman, if $0.45 on the dollar in insurance goes to profits and administration, they will, at some point in the next twenty four to thirty six months, you will walk in and Alexa will say
Kara Swisher · 1:01:08
Health care insurance.
Scott Galloway · 1:01:09
Swiss your family.
Kara Swisher · 1:01:10
Health care, not car.
Scott Galloway · 1:01:11
Health care insurance. Well, could go there as well. But I think they're going to say, Swiss your family, are you interested in cutting your health care insurance costs in half? If yes, say, Alexa, tell me about Amazon Prime insurance. This is they're going to be able to create the ultimate actuarial table because they'll be able to look at your zip code, your relationship status, how old you are. You've talked about before.
Kara Swisher · 1:01:34
You've talked about it.
Scott Galloway · 1:01:35
They'll know your body mass index from the clothes you order. They'll know they will get information on your health and your diet habits, they'll be able to say, the Swisher family, without running commercials, we can insure the whole family, and we'll be able to reduce their health care with offensive preventive care using one medical. And we'll go into the businesses that are profitable vertically. We'll go into dermatology because it's profitable. Pediatrics will just put on our platform similar to where they go into profitable businesses in retail. And then they just charge unprofitable businesses to be on their platform. But here comes Amazon. I think it's going to be and what's interesting, what would be really interesting, and I'm doing it right now for my No Mercyna Malice blog this Friday, is if you look at the 10 most valuable retailers twenty years ago, that's changed dramatically. Only like two of them are left. It's gonna be really interesting to look at the top 10 most valuable health care companies right now and imagine what's gonna happen to them over the next twenty years.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:32
And by the way, Walmart's gonna get in here. They're building their own. Don't know if you realize that.
Scott Galloway · 1:02:36
Well, have dental clinics. They
Kara Swisher · 1:02:37
They're gonna absolutely get in here. And by the way, speaking of Adrian and Forward, they're gonna get bought. Like, some... Everyone who's been in
Scott Galloway · 1:02:43
this 100%.
Kara Swisher · 1:02:44
Is is in a great spot because all these big companies like Walmart.
Scott Galloway · 1:02:48
No. I I invested in a company called ninety eight point six just because I thought eventually these companies are all gonna get But Walmart's gonna go low, and Amazon's gonna go high. Amazon people make the mistake of thinking that Amazon is kind of a value retailer. Wealthy people love Amazon, wealthy households.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:04
Yeah. They trust it. Let me just say, also, Lina Khan is gonna come for them on this one. Don't see how she can stay I out of this have heard so much noise about this this week from people in DC is if she doesn't go for them, she doesn't go, you know what I mean? For this one.
Scott Galloway · 1:03:20
I'll take the other side on this. And I'm someone who thinks Amazon should be broken up. I think that AWS should be spun because they shouldn't be subsidizing a retail platform with profits from another division. I don't think they should be advantaging their own products on a platform. But, but when it comes to an industry that has not enough competition and where consumers have paid outrageous rents, I'm all for Amazon coming into those sectors. People think I don't like Amazon or hate these companies. That's not true at all. I like competition. And if Amazon, with their deep pockets and excellent execution and data and technology, can come in and fuck up the health care industry, I'm down with it.
Kara Swisher · 1:03:58
See, I find that it'd be more interesting for them to go into logistics. I just had a go around with UPS that was... Literally, their website is unusable. Their information is unusable. I had to call six different people about picking up three packages at my house. It was crazy. And someone said, well, you're gonna have to call Amazon on this. And I said, once again, it's not an Amazon issue. I want you to pick up packages at my house. And I said, it was Amazon, it would be resolved online and easily. Like, you know, and I was sort of thinking they really need to get into, you know, the logistics business. But of course, they face... Even if you don't think that they should be in this competitive space, I also think the MGM thing shouldn't be a problem either because I think there's plenty of competition in Hollywood. Need a headline, and this is it. This is it. Like, health care's scary. Amazon, I think this... I think they're gonna go here. I think they can't not do that. That's... You know? That'll be interesting. Because the other approaches to Amazon are harder. The other approaches, the much harder cases, the marketplace, which are the real cases, which is competing in a marketplace against other retailers. Much harder, harder to understand. Everybody gets this one. I just, I think they're gonna be here. They just do. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. That's the talk of the town. In any case, that's a great prediction, Scott. We'll see where it goes. Okay, Scott, that's the show. I'm going to bring this to a close right now. We'll be back on Friday for more where you will be hosting with someone else because I will be in Scotland where you're from, right? Is that correct? With Louis Swisher and the and the young kids out
— Predictions segment ends —
Scott Galloway · 1:05:26
in Lasweasian.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:27
Yes. Yes.
Scott Galloway · 1:05:27
That's right.
Kara Swisher · 1:05:28
All the kids are gonna be doing falconry. We're gonna be doing haggis. Anyway, we'll be driving around the locks. That's all I know. Anyway, please read us out.
Scott Galloway · 1:05:36
Today's show was produced by Laurinem and Evan Engel and Taylor Griffin. Interdot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros and Miel Silvero. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Are you a big tech executive? Then I'm single.
Speaker · 1:06:02
Fall has never looked or tasted this good. Sweetgreen's fall harvest menu is back with seasonal favorites dressed to impress and made to be devoured. Warm roasted sweet potatoes, crisp apples, maple glazed brussels, and crave worthy flavors in the autumn harvest bowl, maple glazed salmon plate, and roasted bacon brussels side. The season's most desirable menu has returned to Sweetgreen, featuring fall's best dressed. Make your move. Order on the Sweetgreen app.
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Guest · 1:07:01
See you
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Scott Galloway · 1:07:01
for details.
