Ray Trapani: How I Lost $800,000,000 in Crypto and Survived Prison | DSH #1585

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If Centra happened under Trump, we would have never got arrested. They removed the whole crypto SEC regulation force.
They removed it.

Right now, Century would be like, if anything, one of the most legitimate projects in the space. Centra was way more legit than all these coins.

Trump would have probably invited you to the White House.

Okay, guys, we got Ray out here in Las Vegas. He's from the BitCon documentary.
I'm sure you guys might have seen it or at least heard of it. It was number one on Netflix for a while.

Thanks for making the trip finally, man. Thanks.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, I know you were dealing.
We were trying to set this up, but you were on probation still, right? Yeah.

And like while on probation, like I just didn't want to like talk about like the full picture of everything. And, you know, I just didn't want to like upset.

Like you always worry that you like upset the PO and somehow it comes back to you. Yeah.
But now you're free, huh? Yeah. You can say whatever you want.
A couple months, a couple months off probation.

It's crazy. Like I still feel like I'm on probation because it was eight years of probation.
Jeez. Eight years.
Yeah. So you had to tell him every time you left the house, right?

Nah, I was like the first two years, basically, I was on house arrest. So then they gave you curfew, but then I had that off.

And I was, it was only like if I traveled out of state, but still like everything was monitored.

Like I'd have to explain like any single, like if I went to, I took my kids to Disney, I would have to tell them how I paid for Disney. Wow.

You know, so like any single little thing, I would have to tell them exactly how I did it, how I afforded it, you know, so like it just, holy crap. It was just like, you know, having someone.

View every single thing you do is just an awful situation. That's nuts.
How did the documentary come about when you first got approached for that?

Were you pretty hesitant to share that story and everything? No, like realistically, it was during COVID. What happened was during COVID, I was so bored.

And then like my boy hit me up because everybody was just laid off and like doing nothing. And then like we started writing a book.

So I just started going to this house every day, one of my best friends. And

we were just like, basically, like, we would record for like an hour and a half, like try like chapter by chapter.

And then we'd like just write out exactly what we recorded and then just like move on to to the next chapter then through trying to sell the book basically we we got an agent and then that agent just like random he was like oh this you know person wants to interview you they're connected to netflix i did that like and it was funny like i did it like i dressed up like real proper like suit and tie and everything like pretty much like like like yeah like a reformed criminal you know yeah

and uh

and then like right away like within weeks they were like reaching out to do a deal and wow try to like you know figure out how to do a documentary and then like it was it was crazy because like they liked it so much that they like a lot of documentaries are done by other production companies and sold to Netflix.

This was like that, like fully funded by Netflix. Wow, that's pretty rare.
So they push it harder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Holy crap. So, oh, so you wanted this to come out.

You were ready to share everything. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Like, I was like, because like the thing is, is when you, when you get like in trouble, like how I got in trouble, like I cooperated.

So you admit to all your crimes already. Right.
So there wasn't like anything I had to hold back as far as crimes go.

You know what I mean? Like That makes sense. I was just able to kind of say every single crime I ever did.
And I knew that in all reality, I was saying it was a scam on TV, right?

It wasn't like I was like denouncing the scam. It was the same thing that I said

in court and everything like that. So

I knew that it wasn't going to hurt me. And I knew it was like kind of...
At that time, I was struggling.

all my assets. So I was trying to just make my way back and it really did work out for me.
It helped me out a lot. Nice.
How did you feel about the reception of how it how the viewers took it?

What what was crazy about the documentary was like the first cut they send me sent me and it was like very Wolf of Wall Street like they put in the party stories like the orgies the crazy stories like that and like that was fun like it was like they lionized me in a way like Wolf of Wall Street like he's still lionized.

He's not even looking at like a bad guy. 100%.
And then like they send it to like a group of like 100 people that Netflix picks.

And when they send that like to the 100 people basically they rate it and they say like whatever they how they feel and then they never showed me like a second cut before they put it out so like I was just waiting to see it come out and then when it came out it was just like fully demonizing me like they took out like all the fun parts they took out the part that like we actually finished building the tech like all like the finalized part like people don't realize that but like we put 50 million into the development even though like we raised the money illegally and we lied when we were raising the money so like the indictment People don't realize the indictment is all about, like, how we raised the money.

It wasn't like what we did after the fact and how we tried to clean it up and do the right thing after the fact. It was all about how we raised the money.
And rightfully so. Like,

you know, so like they didn't paint like the true story. They painted it just to like old.
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Any documentary about crypto on Netflix, it's all about trying to make it look like a scam. Yeah.
Because that's what the mainstream narrative is, right? With crypto, it's like a scammy kind of thing.

Yep. Yeah.
Damn. So this was for a central card you're talking about where you you put in the 50 million yeah okay

yeah we had raised 200 000 ethereum like a bunch of bitcoin bunch of litecoin we raised like a lot of otc ethereum as well yeah so like more than 200 000

um and then like we raised it at 200 and then like the market boomed right after that to like thirteen hundred dollars so we went from basically having like um

you know we had a hundred million centric coins made which like at the start we raised them at like a dollar a piece and then it went to like uh like six to eight dollars a piece.

So that was like an $800 million market cap. And then plus we had 200,000 Ethereum, 200,000, which, you know, at 1,300 is 260, I guess, like roughly around there.

And then, you know, Bitcoin and Litecoin and all that type of shit. So it was crazy.

Like we went from having like, like when we first started raising money, we were raised like probably like 100K over two months.

And then like out of nowhere, some guy like made a mistake with like he uses like AI to put out articles.

and um

his ai messed up and like combined this with the bank and then basically said that we like put out this article and then two million like i was just literally on my balcony smoking a joint and then like out of nowhere like i was always just like sitting and just like updating etherscan for anybody that knows crypto like i was just like checking how much money was coming into the ico wallet

And then like out of nowhere, I did see like 100K, 500K, 200, like these huge amounts. Like people start like, because this guy has had motion.
His name is Cliff High.

And like, it was was just a total mistake on his part. And then, like, two million came in, like, over the course of a couple hours.

And then, like, from there, uh, we like kind of took that money and then just like, we're like, all right, where do we go from here? Because now, like, we have like all this pressure.

Because at first, we're like, we didn't know, like, it was just a general idea.

And, like, the idea was, like, all right, what's like, like, what happened was my partner at the time in the car rental business was, he was trading, and he basically just got like liquidated on a, on a long.

And

he felt like he got scammed because it was like one of those scam wicks where they just flush everybody up.

And he was trying to find like a class action suit against Coinbase or whatever it was.

And through that on Reddit, he found ICOs and seen like all these young kids raising a crazy amount of capital.

So we were like, all right, so like, let's try to create our own ICO and we'll just hire people from Upwork and make a website and whatnot. And like.

like the best concept in our like still to this day and now everybody's doing it but like this is we were way before like um everybody doing it like it was just like a crypto debit card to make it like easy for anybody to use their crypto in real time yeah then we were gonna create like an exchange and create like a we had also like a thing called sebay which is gonna be like you'd buy basically ebay with you know century ebay like where you can buy anything with crypto and um you know like we just wanted to have like the full picture like all in one place so that like it could make it easy and then like ideally down the line we'd make c chain which would be just like central chain yeah and then like we'd have like a chain that essentially is for normies right like there's something similar right now in the space um that they're trying to develop is like uh kita i don't know if you've heard of it at all kta but like they're basically making it it's like a google developer that created its like own layer one it's in testnet right now but like he's basically

um

making where it's like quantum resistant so it's good for normies where they have like a digital passport it's gonna be kyc though

So like that, that that's like the only thing that's like kind of can I can see like onboarding actual people that are like don't trust the, you know, the regular networks. Yeah.
Yeah.

KYC, I feel like sucks. It sucks, but being a U.S.
citizen, you almost have to go that route, right? Um, not really. Like when you start a coin? Um, I mean, nowadays, no.
Like really?

Like on Solana, you don't have to do any KYC. Oh, wow.
You know, you can just launch a coin.

Like there's people right now, the market is insane because like everybody's just launching coins and rugging coins. Pump fun.
Yeah, because PumpFon and all these new launch beds that came out.

Like, it's, it's, none of that, like, is, it's all decentralized.

Yeah. And the current administration seems pretty pro-crypto, too.
Yeah. Like, if Centra happened under Trump, we would have never got arrested.
Really?

They removed the whole crypto like SEC regulation force. They removed it.
Yeah.

So like right now, Century would be like, if anything, like one of the most like legitimate projects in the space, which is crazy to say, like like how we got arrested for fraud but like compared to like what's going on now with all these ai coins like just like rugging and like you know making like tens of millions of dollars like in a couple days it's we were central was way more legit than all these coins trump would have probably invited you to the white house

because him and vance i know advance especially is very pro-crypto they had a crypto ball in dc when they got inaugurated yeah you know i mean i think it's smart for them to be i don't know how much they actually care i feel like it's like somewhat of a could be an optics thing but they have a fund they have companies involved.

Yeah, like I don't know if you've seen recently though, like World Liberty 5. I saw that, yeah.
It's just crashing. Oh, it's crashing? Yeah.
What happened? It went live yesterday.

Oh, the stock you're saying? Well, World Liberty is a crypto, like on ETH. Basically, they had Trump coin.
Now they have World Liberty, which is like led by one of the brothers. Trump Jr., right?

Trump.

I think it's Eric Trump. Okay.
But they're all on the board. And

but that guy, Justin's son, who owns Tron is like a big holder of it. And he put it on HCX.
And supposedly, he's the one that's that's just like straight nuking his like allocation.

He put in like a lot of the people that put in crazy money pre-sale, like they raise like billions of dollars pre-sale. He's just basically nuking because they're up like 10x.

I've heard a lot of negative things about that guy, to be honest, the Tron guy. His story is nuts.
Yeah. Like the stuff that, like, if you read through Tron, like I don't know the exact thing.

I was just reading it the other day, but like he's just escaped like,

like getting in trouble so many times.

And then like he's worked his way to being a multi-billionaire and just like kind of and now like and he's still always involved in like every big thing in the space.

Yeah, well, that's the thing with crypto. If you keep it in the right spots, you can use it allegedly to like bribe people, pay people off with no trail, you know what I mean?

Yeah, like who knows what's actually going on there, but um, it seems like everyone that started an exchange was a target of some sort of government.

Like if you look at the Binance guy, CZ, he got arrested, right? Yep. Um, they were giving U.S.
company exchange owners a lot of shit for a while under Biden administration.

Everyone started moving overseas.

So I don't know. We'll see.
We'll see if it goes mainstream. You think crypto has potential to go mainstream? I think Bitcoin will forever.
Like, I think Bitcoin goes to the million plus. Damn.

For real?

Yeah. I think it really has come to a time where like governments are buying it.

You know, basically like everybody's buying it up like to a point like where Sailor is buying so much through micro strategy that he'll be able to lend to governments.

I think it's becoming like very institutionalized but i think a lot of the times like the people that actually have been holding it forever like the the people that got in early they're selling right now you know so like sooner or later it will become almost like a institutionalized token where like i think it only makes sense like i don't know why anybody would trade like overseas like why send money through a bank or through a bank wire when you can just send like 100 million dollars to somebody in one second yeah it makes no sense not to use crypto yeah international wires take like five days it's not and there's a huge fee.

Yeah. And sometimes it doesn't even go through.
Yeah, it's, it's like, it makes no sense to not use crypto. Yeah.
Yeah, you were too early, man. Now we got all these crypto credit cards.

I have the Gemini one. Yeah.
I applied for the Coinbase one, but you were like 10 years ahead of them, I guess.

The crazy thing was crypto.com, like they were our main competitor back then, and they were MCO back then. And they also lied about having Visa MasterCard.

That was like our main fraud was that we said we had Visa MasterCard before we had Visa MasterCard, but they also did that. But they were based overseas.

And then when it came to like getting in trouble, they settled with the SEC and paid their fines. And then like, I had left the company like a few months early.
But like my co-founder basically like

lied about how much money we raised because obviously he wanted to just like keep as much as possible.

And because of that, that's what made it become criminal. So we could have paid the fine and been owned Stapled Center.

Like if we just paid the fine and just gave them like the crypto that we raised, we could have, we had the protech.

People, customers had cards, working cards we were the first one like our wallet was beautiful was in ios and android stores damn so it's like a shame in a way you know like what if moment right yeah it's such a what if moment seeing them all in stable center like we were first we developed the tech before them is that why they got time and you didn't because they they lied about the numbers yeah and then at the very end like he basically like stole all the eth and then like there was supposed to be like a lawyer holding it and then half of it was supposed to be in like a safe deposit box and then when the fbi came basically like they got those two things and then then it wasn't the right address no way he was they had they had locked him up and then the other kid up and the other kid started cooperating and um he got a year and the other year eight years yeah and then like so like he basically started cooperating and then the other the the main kid sorby he was like the Indian kid he's was like not telling them where like the code like the password was or the private keys were right

and um and then they just raided his house and they found it literally like under like where you put your silverware bro if you're gonna hide that shit why would you hide it at your house terrible that's like the dumbest spot

so he's still in is he out yet or he's out in like a year oh wow you think he'll hit you up he you know he like during the the the whole criminal pro like while we were getting sentencing he tried to put a hit on me no yeah you know that for a fact yeah holy crap yeah like someone like basically like because we went to high school together yeah so like people from my town called me like there's offerings like wow so you were close with him growing up yeah no i wasn't close with him like we hated each other in high school but then there was a mutual friend in the car rental business that he went into business with in selling cars then when i moved to miami my friend was like yo bring him in he's very good with like the finance aspect of of uh getting cars and stuff so wow that's how we got like rekindled and then like back in high school like even in like ceilow one time like i like lost like like my actually my friend lost a big pot to him in ceilow like a couple thousand at the time in high school is a lot and like i just like took the pot i was like fuck you and

so you had beef ever since yeah yeah it was funny like when he first came to Florida that was the first thing he said he's like yo you got that 3,000

that was funny was that in the documentary that he put a hit on you um yeah I think it's mentioned I don't know they cut so much out of it like I filmed for a hundred hours holy shit a hundred hours of film like all over Miami and New York like so like there's even parts that like they cut sentences together to make it seem like I'm like stashing money you know like And then they asked every single person that they interviewed, they asked, do you think Rachel Prani still holds money?

Like still has and and they all said yes, probably. Yeah, because they, you know, what it was is that, like, I think I was a better villain than the kid that was in jail.

And, like, you were moving smarter. Yeah, it was just like, yeah, like, cause, like, after I got arrested, like, I, I, I got married.
I had kids. I, I literally became like a, I got sober.

I was, I was doing, like, hard drugs for, like, my life. Yeah, heroin, right? Yeah.
At like 17, 18, I was doing heroin. I was addicted to opiate since I was like 16.
Jeez.

Um, like, really, where, like, the origin story of drugs started for me is like at

like 12, like like eight to twelve I was getting like uh like sexually abused by my stepbrother and like this is like what made me like into like a criminal in a way besides like my grandfather looking up to my grandfather who was like kind of like a mafia involved type of guy but uh like i was getting sexually abused from like eight to twelve and then like he started giving me xanax at like 12.

so like i just started like from 12 on i was doing like pills and then like 16 17 i got in a bad car accident car flipped like 30 times hopefully face got chopped off.

I still, like, to this day, I've had plastic surgery on this like three times. There's still more glass in it.
Dude, I can't even tell that you have facial reconstruction. Yeah, just like, just like

this eye is really bad, you know, and like there's still glass. Like now it's to a point where like I can pop it out, but it doesn't show.
Like the whole thing. Like it kept resurfacing.

Like every time they do it, it kept resurfacing. But

yeah, that was like, what was that company called? There was a documentary about them. The opiate.

Pfizer. Was it Pfizer? No, someone else.

They went out of of business everyone sued them um i forget the name but yeah yeah it was peak opioid time around then yeah so like 16 17 was peak opioid epidemic and um

so like i went to the doctor just like for like what was going on my face and i was like yeah my back's killing me and they just gave me 120 oxy 30s and i was like this is crazy And like at that time, I was already like selling pot.

I started selling Coke a little bit because like I got like a settlement from that lawsuit. I mean from that car accident.
So like I started, I was selling drugs, you know Yeah.

Did you make a lot off that accident? Yeah, I got well I got 70k. Okay, that's a good amount.
Yeah. Nothing crazy, but it like at 16 17.
Yeah. At that age, that's a lot.
Yeah. Yeah.

So like and I was already gambling like playing poker. Like I probably lost a lot of the like honestly sports betting at that time.
Yeah. I was just like firing away.

Just always like full speed ahead. That was like kind of always my you have an addictive personality it sounds like

adrenaline junkie would you label yourself?

Yeah, especially as like a young kid for sure. Yeah.
Now I'm more like reserved, but I still like love like the gamble. The rush, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, you were gambling last night.

Damn, that's crazy. But yeah, so like I got that, and then like I found out the street value of like the opiates, you know.

So like I had already taken them and paid for them, but like I seen like the like everybody was feeling for them because like the older kids were already addicted to them.

And through that, like I started selling the pills and like I was getting 120 from the doctor every month. He just kept me on it.
And then I like my first fraud was like basically one doctor basically

someone stole a pad from him

and then they basically brought the pad to me and they were like, yo, just give me a couple rocks for this pad. I'm like, fuck it.
Like, I'll just like, let me see what I can do with it.

And then I got this like orthodox kid to write out a script. Like he had, he was like a handwriting, like a specialist.
Yeah. And so I got someone to get like a prescription of Tylenol.

And then this kid matched the handwriting and then basically just left out the name part.

So, like, I had every single kid I knew that was like addicted to opiates go fill prescriptions, and like that was like a money for wow. So, you were just selling scripts, yeah.

Basically, and then, well, like, I'd have them fill the scripts. Like, everybody was complicit in the opiate epidemic.

Like, Walgreens would literally have a line of us of 50 kids or like 20 kids, and they would just be filling the same doctor, just filling script after script.

Like, they had to know if something was up, right?

Like, if you're looking at a bunch of like cracked-out little kids, like 18 to 25 and just like filling the same prescription from the same doctor you'd think you'd like do something about it but you know everybody was getting kickbacks yeah they printed money off those

so like and then like what i would do is i would give them like 20 of the pills for free for filling it and then i would take a hundred so like i was getting like that times a hundred so like my fridge at the time was just filled with like all different you know like as maximum amount of oxies at all were selling for like twenty thirty a pill holy crap people were paying twenty bucks for one pill now it's like 50.

oh my god yeah that's insane that's that might be the most expensive drug right now that's like the hardest thing was that like for me i at the time i was doing like 20 a day oh my god yeah my habit like my drug habit was crazy like even xanax when i was doing like during centra during like the crypto times i was doing 20 xanax a day like 22 milligrams

because you were so stressed or no it wasn't yeah i was just like like my tolerance for drugs has just always been through the roof that like um

like it just builds quickly like where like i was doing 20 and i was still i was still the first guy at the office that's insane had like a fridge full of red bulls i'd balance it out you know so you must have had some nasty withdrawal when you got sober yeah well what was crazy is like when i got arrested it was like a weird moment where like i i knew it was like i was going to be facing like 100 plus years yeah i think because of that it helped with the withdrawals because i knew i was actually going to quit you know like i was like you had no choice yeah and like it was life-saving for me in a way right like getting arrested this time was like truly life-saving Like that eight years of probation, like being away from drugs really did like

actually help me. Blessing in disguise almost, right? I would have died for sure.
Because like what happened was they got arrested a few months before me.

And because they got arrested a few months before me, I knew that sooner or later I was going to get arrested. So like I was just like basically trying to run out, like spend all my money.

I was at the casino every day. I was playing like, you know, like 200K cash, you know, cash games.
Jeez. Like, you know, 50K hands at back ride every day, like all day.
Holy crap.

That's how I met like rulo wow at the casino was that in vegas or somewhere it was in uh in hard rock in in um my in florida oh yeah in florida wow so why did they get arrested way before you think um like i because i had left the company months before them and i think they were trying to get me to like cooperate because they knew like my involvement was less than like in any crime i've noticed they always the main kid is always like they're never going to let that person cooperate unless they have like some higher evidence on some big guy but like if it's if they're focusing just on the case you're always better up being the second guy because they'll give you a lifeline right

i thought it was the opposite i thought they usually they go up so like they arrest the lower guys first and then they save the the main guy for the end is that not the case though because i feel like in the movies that's how it is um i think like it depends if they don't have a strong enough case already like i think in this situation they already knew they would win the case but like it helps having somebody on their side that's from the inside right so they didn't even need me really.

Yeah, they already had so much evidence, right? Yeah. What evidence did they have before?

We were public, right? Like we were like publicly doxxed, like telling everybody, and there was like proof that we didn't have Visa MasterCard at the time, right? Yeah.

It was proof that this guy that we said

was a CEO was like this like old white guy that we found off the internet that went to his house, found him in Canada. And he had no idea.
He was a professor, you know?

They literally like went to his house and like the guy's like the sweetest guy. He's in the documentary.
He had no idea. Yeah.

And it's funny, like in the documentary like he introduces himself like i'm michael edwards the ceo of centra and then like he like laughs like they they did very well like on the editing of the funny type yeah that was before you could just ai someone so you got to use someone yeah someone real right yeah it was like the actual guy and he had a good like sense of humor about it like i should like i still sometimes like i'm like yo should i just hit this guy up and like just say i hope you're well you know like i hit up the guy who wrote like the new the new york times guy who was like um like the main guy that like kind of got us like caught up.

I hit him up and I was just like, you know, good reporting. You know, like it realistically, like we were lying and everything you said was true.
So I can't hate. Well done, right?

You got to give them props where it's due. Yeah.
You know, when it's objective and you're in the wrong, you got to admit it and own it sometimes. Yeah.

That's also what happened, I think, at sentencing too.

Like when the main kid got sentenced, Sorby, he was like, yeah, I know we did what we did was wrong, but like, you know, I tried to take the Silicon Valley approach and like, you know, fake it until you make it and like then build after the fact.

Like, I went up there. I was like, I'm sorry.
Like, I know what we did was wrong. I'm going to try to make everybody as whole as possible.
Like, you know, and I'm, that's it.

That's literally like all I said. I was like, I'm sober.
I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm sorry.

I didn't say anything about like trying to like, oh, but you know, you can't throw butt in there and try to like defend yourself in a speech to the judge the last minute before you get sentenced.

Yeah, they just, they want you to just say you're, you're remorseful, and that's it. Yeah.

You know, like if you start trying to like explain yourself away you're cooked yeah people start losing faith in you right yeah um you said you were facing up to 100 years what what were your lawyers kind of predicting for your sentencing did they give you like a ballpark um i i kind of had belief like i had a really good lawyer they had shitty lawyers i don't know why they hired like why would you cheap out on a lawyer the crazy thing is they hired like some like italian lawyers and i hired like the best new york lawyer possible i mean why if you're facing so many years would you cheap out on a lawyer and they had and they had way more money than me to do it with yeah like like it's a pay-to-play system everyone knows that yeah what happens is like he had been in trouble before like dwis and he always was able to like kind of like figure out a way to like manipulate lawyers like even like during sentra i he got me to lie on the stand for him for a dwi case yeah and like i got a perjury charge like he was just like always thought he was above you know like ego yeah ego once you start making crazy money like that sometimes the ego gets in the way right yeah so like he had a good lawyer at first and then he fired him and then hired another one fired him and then like by the time he got to like actually facing the charges, his lawyer sucked.

The guy was like, couldn't even speak. He was like, just like talking like a New York Italian guy.
And I was like, and then my guy comes in.

He was like explaining to me like, you're a beautiful butterfly.

But like lawyer, you always go to a Jewish lawyer. There's just like, that's like the one thing in the world that like people,

you know, may hate Jesus, but... Jewish lawyers, if you're going to, if you get in trouble, find a lawyer.
I mean, hate them or love him.

I know there's a lot of hate right now towards Jewish people, but they are connected. They are smart and they win in court.
For sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

That's like the biggest thing is like their connections. Like

there was a point like they didn't want me to cooperate. They didn't, they said they didn't need it.
And he just got me right in the door. Oh, yeah.
Oh, so they didn't even want cooperators.

They had so much evidence. They already had the first kid, but then what happened was he lied and then they shut him down.

And then basically like he opened the door for my lawyer to like, he wiggled his way in there.

And like somehow he, you know, he obviously like they all have connections to the judges, to the prosecutors, the good lawyers, yeah. And yeah, then it got me in there.

And then, like, once I like met with them, and they were just like, all right, if you lie once, you're done, right?

And then they tell you, like, tell every, tell us every single crime you ever committed. And they know the answers already, right? So, like, if you lie, you're, you're fucked.

Damn, so you can't hide anything. Yeah.
So, like, they literally went back to like my childhood, like, admitting that, like, I sold kilos of heroin. Uh, they went all the way back to your childhood?

Literally, yeah. Like, in my indictment, it's 11 felonies.
It's everything from like stuff when I was 17, 18, all the way to like, you know, I was 28 when I got arrested or whatever.

But what relevance do the childhood crimes have in this, though?

Because if it goes to trial, their lawyers can, on the, in the defense of you on the stand, can use that stuff against you and say, like, oh, didn't you do this? And like,

I'm at. So you just basically like, those charges basically, you don't get any time for them.
Like, you're not, like, facing time for them. The statute of limitations, right? Not even just that.

It's not

statute of limitations. It's more so about like

they they tell you that, like, those charges won't be added to like your account of like when you're sentencing, but you have to admit to guilt to them and plead out to them,

even though like you won't be, they won't be used against you, like, as far as, but they could if you break your cooperation agreement and do something like where you lie or anything like that.

So, you like plead it, plead guilty with all this risk, you add like an extra hundred years to your sentence, possibly, if you fuck up. Jeez.
But then, like, they

also like kind of like by being so truthful, like really get you off the hook if you do the right thing. Damn, that is nuts.
This must have been the most stressful time for you, I'd imagine. Yeah.

The trial days. It lasted like a year or two, right? Yep.
Well, yeah, like I never actually had to go, like he ended up just

pleading guilty at the end. Oh, I never had to go on the stand.
Thank God. Wow.
That would have sucked. Yeah, that would have been awful.

I heard it's a whole, I just had the guy that testified at Diddy's trial. Yeah.
And he said it was like insane.

Like the psycholog, the psychology behind the whole court, like they lay it it out in a specific way to make you intimidated. Yeah, like they were we were doing like uh like test runs.

Yeah, test trials, right? Yeah, yeah, which was crazy crazy, right? Yeah, I was like, this is so weird.

No, it's people don't know because they just see it on TV, but it's a, it's a pretty like they try to break you down mentally, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Like their lawyers would have definitely, even though like they weren't the best lawyers, they definitely would have tried to say some sort of weird thing that like would have put me like uh like you know who knows what they would have dug up on me.

Yeah.

You know did you have any contact with either of the two people the other two co-founders during this time or no i knew it was best not to like my lawyer was like completely cut them out don't reach out to anybody yeah because they were probably trying to turn on each other too yeah well the thing was is that the third kid that got one year he was the the main kid's um fiancé's brother oh that's complicated yeah so like they basically couldn't they were like

super tight with each other yeah and like he still to this day that kid like defends central like it was like a legitimate company like that's the one thing is, like, yes, I get that we went legitimate, but we still lied in the beginning.

You know what I mean? It's just like, at least admit that part. So, the big lies were the Visa MasterCard and the amount of money you raised.

Yeah, it's sad, too, because we probably would have raised the money anyways without lying. Yeah.
You know, and like, we could have killed it, like, either way. Yeah.

Like, we, once we raised the money, like, once you raised that first 2 million, that's like when we introduced like the celebrity aspect of it, which we were like one of the first crypto people to introduce celebrities.

So, like, we first paid, like, we got Floyd because we knew him through, like, we had an exotic car rental business before this.

And we got Floyd, and we ended up taking like 800,000 in Central tokens and then 200,000 in cash, which was crazy that he took 800,000 in central tokens. Yeah, that's insane.

Because you print those, you know? Yeah, it costs you nothing. And he never sold them.
What? Yeah. Wow.
Well, he probably would have gotten more trouble if he sold them, to be fair.

Oh, like, even before, like, you think he would have just nuked them, you know? Yeah, right. He probably didn't know how to, to be honest.

It's pretty complicated selling an altcoin. Yeah, it was, it was funny, like, guiding someone like Floyd because he is very, like,

he's just not smart at all. He's all about the money and the looks and the flash.
Yeah. There's different types of intelligence.
He's like a street smart, I'd say. Yeah.
But yeah, you got Floyd.

You got DJ Khaled. How'd you get him through the car business? Yeah.
And like, we also knew a lot of people through like Miami clubs.

Like we were like the like the big spenders and like everybody got their cars from us though. So like we kind of knew everybody.
Yeah.

But yeah, like like we Floyd, we paid him like 200K plus 800K in central tokens. Then like 10 million came in.
So like from 2 million, we went to 12 million.

And then like we got Called, a couple million came in. Holy shit.
And then like we like the real, the best move I noticed was doing like paid press releases.

You can do like a paid press release in like all these big publications. And no one reads at the bottom that it says paid press release.
They just read the article. They read the headline, yeah.

Yeah, they just read the headline. And even if they read the article, they don't read that we paid and wrote that article.
You know what I mean?

We were saying we had Visa MasterCard and like big big companies would like publish it with doing no due

due diligence. Yeah, it's like saying you got on Forbes and then you scroll down to the bottom.
It's like this is a contributor. Yeah.

Forbes reach out like every day they reach out to like me or whoever. Like they, I'm sure they reach out to you too.
They do, but they don't have the same like meaning anymore.

It's like completely phony. Yeah.
Like I know if it's a Forbes article, 99% of them are paid. Everybody's like, yeah, I was on Forbes 30 under 30.
You could pay to get on it. Literally, they text me.

Like, I have the text right now. They just text me the other day, like, oh, we're doing another Forbes thing.
If you want to be on this list, let me know. 20K.

You could get on like top 10 lists. If you're a restaurant owner, you could get on a top 10 restaurant list just by paying.
It's all pay-to-play, dude. It's all optics.
That's what social media is.

For sure.

I did want to ask you about this kid, Malone. So there's Netflix documented about him stealing $260 million.
Did you ever hear about his name through the grapevine when you were coming up?

So, no, he was like a young, very young. When I was coming up, especially, he wasn't even in crypto.
Okay. He was playing like, he got his start in Minecraft.

And like back in, like, back in the days, these kids that were born on the internet,

they used to like

basically sell usernames in video games. Like, so like to be like, like, you know, just that one dollar sign is like worth like actual money.
Yeah. You know, like, it's still like on Instagram.

People do that on Instagram, yeah. Like, if you want to buy your exact name on Instagram, you'd pay for it.
Sean would cost like $5,500. Yeah, like I'm trying to get it on Twitter right now.

Rachel Penny, I have it on Instagram and TikTok, but Rachel Penny on Twitter is like, you know, 20K.

Damn. That's not even a common name, though.
And the crazy thing is my old account. I just don't know the past.
Lost it?

Damn. And it has no followers, nothing.
Like, I just want the name. Yeah.
So that it's like the same across everything. So that's how this Malone could start is he was selling Minecraft usernames.

Yeah. So he was just like a Minecraft.
He's not even, the crazy thing is, is like that story, like so focused on my like Malone. And like, it's because he was like the extravagant party guy.

But there's still two guys in Dubai that made majority of that money. Really? And they're like, they were like the guys who called him and did the real social engineering part of it.

Malone was just the guy that found him and got him on basically the whole, like where you get a text that your accounts are getting hacked. Yeah.
Supposedly it was the guy that launched the coin.

It was one of the founders of Venmo. Really? That's like supposedly who it is.
They're like still trying to like prove that it is that guy, but he launched Coin Coin Jelly Jelly.

And supposedly that's like who Malone actually got. No way.
Yeah.

and he wow they basically just like got like remote access to his computer they and he stood they saw he had like money in his account but they also saw that like in his coinbase like all his um receipts and then he had all that money on coinbase jeez so like they were like really just like all right let's focus on trying to like social engineer getting all that money because we can get this other money from this wallet anytime we want it was just like sitting on like an exodus wallet or whatnot did they ever find the money that he stole yeah though well like they cashed out a ton through like this shady crypto exchange.

Oh, uh, what's that exchange called? I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I don't know the name of it, honestly.
I've never used it.

I know you send money to it, and then it like disperses it everywhere, right? Well, they had that, like, like a like they were doing tornado cash.

Tornado cash, that was tornado cash, but like they would do tornado cash first, send it to like monoro, send it to this, but like somehow they were so they were so young and like kind of dumb about it that sooner or later, like they would send little pieces back to their own wallets,

and then like they were cashing it, like that exchange that there's an actual exchange that's like for money laundering. Oh, really? And

basically like it was going from like 20 million in Vom and then out of nowhere just had like hundreds of millions in volume out of nowhere.

Because Malone supposedly was making like 2 million a day like outside of this thing.

He was like supposedly like scamming people price, you know, sim swapping, all this type of, like, there's a ton of those guys that just like all they do all day is just try to scam people.

Yeah, sim swapping was hot a few years ago. Yeah, it still is.
Does it still work? I know it's a bit harder now, right?

Yeah, I think it's harder now, but they like they just find new things, like this whole zoom, zoom thing. Yeah, that one's scary.
Yeah, like because I hop on zoom calls for business.

You know what I mean? Like, fuck, I might have to stop doing that. Yeah, like, I had a guy reach out to me and he was like, I'll pay you

like whatever, 5k if you can just teach me how to trade crypto. And he like showed me a picture, like, of his notes, like a download phantom, uh, you know, download photon, all this type of stuff.

And then, like, he was like, all right, I'm going to, I'll pay you in, you know, ahead of time.

And then you just basically like, we'll jump on a zoom call and we'll go over go over everything and he had some sort of thing where like if you copied on there it would copy like a specific link that was like his zoom link and if you open that zoom link he was able to get like remote access to your computer jeez and like he was just draining like and then send the money to himself yeah i don't know there's so many of those like right now like the whole timeline is like people either they're trying to evade taxes or they're getting drained

dude so basically you can't even have your wallet on your computer anymore. Yeah, like what I have is like I have a computer, two computers.

I have like my laptop, my computer, like my PC that's in my office. And then I have like

two phones, right? So like, I just don't keep, like,

if I'm ever going to go on a Zoom call, it's on my laptop. Smart.
I have nothing on it. Keep it separate.
Yeah, like hack it. Yeah.
Like a personal and a business device, right?

Yeah, what are you going to get off there? Like pictures of me? Your dick pics?

Yeah, that's, that's smart, man. I've always considered two phones because I do a lot of business business and personal stuff.
So I kind of want to keep it separate sometimes.

Yeah, like you can also like just have a second phone and just throw it like in a safe somewhere, you know, like, and just leave, like, especially if you're not actively trading with that wallet.

Yeah. You know, you don't really need to have that phone.
Even if you have it like on a Photon or a trading platform, you can have, use the trading platform with ever having the phone actually on you.

Yeah. Like you're already logged in on a computer.
And they, and like, the only way to cash out like on Photon, for instance, is, is from Photon back to like the main signup wallet.

So, like, you're safe having your Photon on your computer, and even if you get hacked, they can't do shit because it's just going to send it to the phone that no one can get access to.

Yeah, yeah, that's smart. So, this is just like OPSEC things.
Like, I've been in the game since 2017, and I've never once been drained, hacked. You know, God forbid, damn.
Yeah, knock on wood,

which is impressive, though, because I feel like a lot of people will fall for like an email scam or click the wrong link and get fucked. Yeah, I hear it every day.
Yeah, every day.

Crypto Twitter, every day. I scroll on there.
It's nuts, man. So, you're still pretty active in Twitter, though.
Like, that's, is that still the main focus for you?

Like, crypto? Yeah. Like,

I'm basically just like, a lot of the, for like the beginning part of the cycle, I was just trading mainly. Yeah.

But, like, yeah, I've always done like the, like, after basically what happened was, like, I got back in because

a new mutual friend we have, um, Islam, reached out to me after the documentary. The first day he hit me up, and I was like,

you know, I didn't know who he was. He just hit me up.
And like, I was like trying to, because I had never had any social presence.

So, like, I was like, um doing like live streams just to like show like hey what's up trying to figure out where i'm gonna go like direction wise after a documentary came out um

i should have like probably like pre-recorded a bunch of stuff and had content like yeah you should have did what the tinder swindler did yeah just going off but he also bought like most of his followers no one really cares about he fell off now yeah yeah there's there's a difference between like building a following and then maintaining it yeah you know what i mean yeah like i didn't want to like keep swindling right i was like trying to like actually go legit and build a brand yeah build a brand yeah so like like it's a it's a slow cook in a way you know like where i'm still just like like but through him he basically like introduced me back into crypto and then like um

very early on like i started doing well in trades and whatnot and then like uh jason derulo happened like where like he got scammed by sahill and then like i helped run his coin and then from doing that like i did we you know i did really well on his coin made good money and then

because i ran that coin like once you have like a call channel and a Twitter presence and you post any sort of other coin, people just like pay, you know, like people like other projects will pay you crazy money to like promote their coins.

But like where I went wrong, I realized early because like I was like, I missed the whole last cycle. So like I was like trying to figure out this whole KOL game, which is like the opinion.

That was the last cycle, the celebrity KOL coins. Yeah.
Yeah. But it's now still, there's like big KOLs, you know, that now it's more like a pump fund cycle, right?

Like it's more like, it's a quicker cycle. Yeah, it's a weird cycle.
Like before, the coins would last weeks. And then before the previous cycle, the coins would last months.

Now they last days, sometimes hours. Hours.
Yeah. It's awful.
It's terrible.

And because like the worst part about it is that like no average person can get in the game if they can't hold a coin overnight. No, you're cooked if you hold it overnight.
You're waking up to zero.

Every zero, like 99% of the time. And even really good traders get wrecked in this cycle because it's a lot of insider trading right now.
Yeah.

Like I noticed like back when it was like at its peak, this cycle, it was easy to make money.

I would say probably like 60% of people on Pump Fun were making money.

Now it's down to like the top like 50 traders that are really just like consistently printing. They found like just methods that other people don't have.
A lot of them snipe too, right?

They use AIs, snipe a little bit here and there. Yeah, there's a guy Cupsy that just murders it.
Yeah. Like 30 million a month.
I saw that. Yeah, that guy's crazy.

And then Jake from State Farm or some shit, I heard. Have you heard of that Twitter account? You haven't heard of that one? Oh, that dude's a legend.
He likes snipes coins as soon as they launch.

Yeah. Oh, there's a guy called Hard Snipe.
I don't know if that's who you're talking about. Nah, there's a few of them.
But he's like a Newton. There's a guy hard snipe now.

It's like a modern day Sahil. Yeah.
He's like doing like, he did like Morocco coin with French Montana. But basically, like the coin will do like range, range, range.

Then just like the person will post, it'll fly up. And just like one clip down.
One click. Yeah.
What happened to Sahil? Did he get in trouble?

No, he's in those countries like don't get anybody in Dubai, right? He's either in Dubai or India, one of those countries. Yeah, I've never heard of someone getting in trouble over there.
Yeah.

For crypto. Yeah, that's the thing.
They just kind of very lenient on crypto.

Yeah. Also, rugging.
What charge would that be? Like, has someone got in trouble in the U.S. for that? Well, the thing is, is with meme coins, they're not deemed securities.
Right.

So, like, there is no charge. There's no charge.
Especially under Trump's administration, they removed the whole SEC task force.

So, like, there's no charge to even like you're legally essentially allowed to rug people. Wow.
The one thing that they could say is illegal is bundling coins.

What's up? Like where you basically like buy up like 80% of the supply of the coin yourself. There's like

rules to that. That's like why XRP got deemed a security was because they owned like 90% of the coin.
Oh, yeah. We need to hear the truth about XRP.
So you've looked into this.

Could you explain to people what's going on with XRP? Yeah, XRP is literally like.

so useless and then like all day long you'll like scroll tick tock and you'll see like old 50 year old guys like even when i went to like buy like an AC at PC Richards one time, guys like, yo, what do you think about XRP?

I'm like, how do you guys like, why do you guys care about XRP? Like, I don't get it. Like, it's literally a meme coin.
No, like, there's no, they're not doing anything. Like, they're, it.

There's no use for, like, they say, like, oh, like, it's going to be used for like international transactions. No, they just use Bitcoin.
Why would they use like this network?

Banking they always associate with. Yeah, they associate it, but there's no proof of concept at all.
They have no banking things.

They're doing nothing. They might get a card or whatever, you know, like where you can spend your XRP, but everybody has that now.
These days, yeah.

But like, yeah, it's literally 90% owned by like a bunch of guys.

And then like every single time it hits

all-time highs, it like just nukes, right? Yeah. No, typical move.

There's someone investigating the link with BlackRock and XRP. I don't know if you saw that, but there's a lot of overlap.
It makes sense, you know. You know,

crazy times. Yeah, with what the control is, and it's not surprising.
Yeah. Yeah.
I try to not speak negatively about them too much. Yeah.

No, like, like, I know a lot of great j ⁇ s, but, like, you know, yeah, you're in New York. Yeah.

But, like, like, I grew up with, like, in a very orthodox community, but even, like, growing up, they basically like took all the funding from my school and just built a bunch of yeshivas. Really?

You know, so like, they pay no interest on their loans, I heard.

Yeah, like, they're, I just disagree with their religion-based, you know, like anybody who actually, like, believes like that a book tells them that they're better than others is just like a backwards way of believing i'm not a fan of modern day religion yeah i'm totally agnostic to religion like i i believe there may be a god but i don't believe like i don't have any sort of like like i wear a cross and like i i baptize my kids yeah um

i don't really go to church at all you know but i like i believe there may be a god but i i don't have like any sort of opinion on i build up you know you always been that way yeah kind of because like i think like

Like my favorite person is like Socrates, where like I just like don't like I think too many people think they know too much right where like if you really just realize that like none of us really know shit and you just like question everything It's you're kind of better off, you know these days you got a question everything Yeah, literally everything every post you see every news article Every person you talk to like we're all so programmed when you think about it.

We're not our original thoughts Yeah, and then like you'll speak to like anybody on the internet and they're just like literally pushing a like a propaganda or like they'll like talk about the carnivore diet for instance, right?

And it's literally like the same words that some guy on tick tock said over and over and over and they're in like a telegram group chat like it's just regurgitated yeah i i've come to realize no matter how smart someone is there's very few original thoughts these days yeah like we're all just regurgitating other people's beliefs and thoughts and mixing and mashing in into our own yeah it's pretty fascinating when you think about it we're not as smart as you think even if your iq is like 160 yeah you're still pretty programmed We go through the public school education system.

We have parents that tell us shit. You know what I mean? It's pretty scary.

Yeah, it's it's hard to know like what you know like i always try to just say like like even diet wise right like it's like carnivore is probably good for the most part you know but i think like you know mixing in mixing in some sort of like uh like more mediterranean aspects of it is probably good as well like i think both could be good you know there's that guy never die guy yeah he's

full yeah brian johnson he does like full vegan yeah you know and he's like super healthy i think everyone's different yeah you know there's no one fit all diet and i think if if you like try to push this, like, where like, you know, you're right, that this is the best, you're just like ignorant.

It's dangerous, honestly. Yeah.
Some people might not, it could harm some people. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Doing all carnivore is also like

hard, you know. And then like, if you're not doing like grass-fed, it's like terrible for your actual heart and stuff like that.
The hormones that they inject in the cows these days.

You're pretty healthy these days. Yeah, like my big thing is peptides.
I love peptides. BPC.
Yeah, BBC, like TB500, that type of stuff. Like you would take that every day.

You wake up, you feel like you're 20 years old. Damn, I'm going to have to try that.
Is it oral or you inject? Yeah, inject. Okay.
You can, they have oral ones, but it doesn't work.

Like, then, like, also, like, GHKCU, which is like copper peptide, they have it in a stack where it's only one injection.

But that, like, just like maximizes your collagen production. And, you know, like...

collagen just essentially just keeps you looking young right and it also helps like your joints your bones like you'll even like heal faster from sickness like you know uh cuts will heal faster everything heals faster that's nuts so you're a fan of rfk uh yeah i think like at first what he was saying i just don't know if he's following through with anything he's saying i mean it's hard to i don't track that's the thing is like even trump right like i like he was saying like he was going to do all these things and like epstein list yeah like exactly the epstein list all this type of stuff I think part of it's like the approvals and like there's just so much they have to go through and the other half of it's obviously they're just gonna talk a big game to get elected yeah you know what I mean yeah but the thing is is that like back last election cycle, like he kind of did feel like he was more like brazen and like kind of saying what he thought.

Now it seems like he's very much controlled. It seems like he doesn't have as much power and influence.
Yeah, go ahead. I agree.
Like, I feel like

he's under some sort of control. He's his.
That's what it seems like. You know what I mean? Yeah.
You're in New York, though, so you're about to be under Mandani. You looking forward to that?

Honestly, like, I view Mandani getting elected as almost a symptom of what's going on in the world as far as with like Israel controlling the United States. So I'm almost happy it's happening.
Really?

Like as much as I disagree with his politics, I'm happy it's happening because like he's the first guy that ever stood against Israel. And like we need more young politics.
He's my age.

He's 34, right?

So like seeing someone 34 stand against Israel, not taking any funding from the same person that like same AIPAC that funds every single politician and win, that's a good sign in my opinion.

Like as much as he might like his policy, I hate, like, you know, but most of it is nonsense, anyways. Like, who cares that he wants to build like a free supermarket in the hood? Yeah.

Like, that's not affecting me. They're not going to take over the supermarkets in my town.
Yeah. You know, like a rich town.
They're going to just put him in the hood.

No one, no one's going to go there besides. There's going to be people, you know, shitting and pissing in the hallways.

And like, you know, the poor people will get free food. Good for them.
Yeah, I don't think politics affects us as greatly as people think. I've done well under every precedent.
Same.

And nothing has changed for me ever. Yeah, I grew up in Jersey super liberal.
Now I'm in Vegas, a little more conservative. Nothing really changed, to be honest.
Yeah, exactly. I'm still the same.

I'm exactly the same way.

I go back and forth. I used to be more Republican.
Then I became more liberal because the guy I was writing the book with is very liberal. And I was hearing some of his takes, and we debate a lot.

And I was like... Yeah, some of this kind of makes sense, you know, like some of the hate towards like, you know, whichever groups.
And like

through crypto i became more like conservative again yeah more conservative again like more like because like i don't know like some of the gay stuff went too far you know like that type of shit like it just became like too much like i like my whole thing is with that is that like i there's so many gay people that are great people but like don't put it in the schools yeah hell no especially with when you have kids you're like just please just like don't teach them about any sex at all i think uh nyu has the highest gay percentage if i'm not mistaken yeah in new york yeah it's crazy just like i don't know i got i don't get why like like if they wouldn't allow like a straight pride or a white pride there shouldn't be like any of this type of stuff in my opinion yeah another whole month yeah gay month or whatever gay month black month you know

where's my month

for real dude asians don't even get a month nah no asian month out here asians i fuck with asians because we just work hard and stick to ourselves you never see asians beefing yeah with each other yeah um i feel like we're pretty united overall we just respect the work ethic you know what i mean yeah like one of my my close friends is Asian.

He's like, he's

like submissive in a way in his personality, but he works his ass off, right? Yeah, we're definitely not alphas. We're definitely like submissive.
We're not like loudmouthing and speaking up usually.

Yeah, which is good. I think so.
Work ethic is what got me to where I'm at, to be honest.

Yeah, like there's there's not many like people that like I appreciate that help me in the business that I'm in now. And he just like, no matter what, like he gets the job done.

He'll work more hours than everybody else where like other people would just like fade away or like you know take forever to do something he makes sure he gets the shit done yeah you know let's end off with a couple irish uh mafia stories uh yeah like so like

um if you want to lead into it with like uh like

your grandfather

well the documentary like starts with i always wanted to be a criminal okay so yeah when the documentary started uh you mentioned you always wanted to be a criminal was that from your grandfather um yeah so like basically like as a kid i i always looked up to my grandfather because my dad left before I was born.

And like he was basically like a connected guy, started a few unions in New York City. He was like president of a few other unions.

So like seeing like a guy like with like gold jewelry, a lot of cash, like a lot of cash under his mattress, like I was just always like super intrigued by that as like a young kid. And then like...

I just saw like in moments, like even if we went somewhere and like someone like said the wrong thing, he would just like spazz out and he would put them in their place.

And like he just had this very dominant personality.

And I like just always viewed him like as like my idol and like who I'd like strive to be like as I grow up because he was like the only person that I saw like that was he was working from home.

He was always making money. He had a lot of money.
And he like,

you know, like through his connections and like. he really could just do damage to like in any aspect.
And he had respect from people. Yeah.
And everybody respected him.

Even like the town, like if he wanted to put up trees or whatever and like they would come say something he would just curse at them and then they would just leave him alone they didn't want to mess with him vegas used to be run by the italian mob and actually a lot of if you talk to a lot of locals here they said they prefer when the casinos were run by mob versus now where it's like uh private equity and stuff because uh there was just more respect they actually cared about their customers believe it or not yeah no i i think that's that's true like there's always like the bad and the the the good side right like the danger aspect of it is what's the bad part of it right like if you do something wrong, it may be more dangerous.

Yeah, you don't want to owe the money, that's for sure. Yeah, like you don't want to take a marker and not pay.
Yeah, you're screwed. But, like, as far as

actually, like, um, like the fun and the good, like, they make sure that you get that aspect of it, right? Yeah, you know, like, they care about that. No, they do, man.

I buy all my Christmas trees from a mob guy out here. He runs like a whole thing.
He also does a pumpkin patch during Halloween. Best customer service I've ever gotten, to be honest.
Yeah.

Like, I, I've like, um,

I know like a lot of people even like in my neighborhood, like they're all they're all mafia guys that like live near me and um they're all just super respectful.

Like, you know, like unless you're trying to do something like under their nose or trying to hurt one of them, you know, like they, they, their businesses are the best businesses in town every time.

They usually just hurt each other for the most part. Yeah.
Like they rarely involve civilians. And a lot of times it's like the wannabe mafia guys that are hurting each other.
Yeah.

You know, like the associates. Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah.

But so seeing that as a kid growing up around that did you ever want to like become a maid do they call it a maid man in irish mafia i i mean i don't even know but like i definitely want to be like in the mafia that was like my strive right and then like between that and like the sexual abuse making me like basically like distrust the rest of my family yeah i was like all right like this is the route i'm gonna go i'm gonna become a criminal and then like i my first friend was like the biggest pot dealer in in town his older brother was and like so like i walked into his house and just saw like millions of dollars and hundreds of pounds yeah so like at 12 13 so like i saw that plus my grandfather was like a essentially a criminal in my eyes

or like kind of portrayed in that way whatever he did i don't know legal legal did he ever tell you he would never say oh respect right so like he would never be like um you know he but like if someone with him he would be like you know you don't even know who i am like i can you know like that type of asset and people were

intimidated of him you know he definitely was connected so like we know that later on but uh

well respect for him for keeping it. Uh, maybe he wanted you to keep you out of it almost, you know.
Yeah, yeah, he never like tried to push it on anybody.

Yeah, you know, he like a lot of, I think that happens in like the Italian mob a lot where they're like their kids are like almost force-fed 100%.

Well, that probably, uh, because your dad wasn't in it, he probably wanted you to stay out of it too, you know? Yeah, that makes sense. Damn, I need to look more into the Irish mob.

They don't get the same spotlight as the Italian mob, but yeah, the only movie is The Irishman with like

Robert De Niro, like it, and that's like about Jimmy Hoffa. That was was a long-ass movie.
It was a bit too long for me, but it was okay. Yeah, it was okay.
There's better mob movies. Casinos, fire.

All the Italian ones are way better because Italians were flamboyant, right? The Irish were like quiet. Yeah.
They just kind of did their crime and did their, you know, like...

Got drunk and called it a day.

They love drinking, man. When I went to Ireland, they would be at the pubs for breakfast.
My grandma's 88. She drinks Jameson and smokes cigarettes like every day.
Good genetic. And she just kills it.

She's still walking, laughing. They don't make people like that anymore.
Yeah. Yeah, they don't.

Well, dude, this has been awesome. Where can people follow you, support you, and

talk to you and everything? Pretty much, I just send everybody to my Instagram. It's just Ray Trapani.
You can go R-A-Y-T-R-A-P-A-N-I.

And just like, you know, sooner or later, I'll, you know, I'll probably try to do a podcast of my own or something like that. Like, as you said, I should.

But yeah, I just, you know, I just kind of do these to like just keep growing and seeing where it goes. Awesome.
Check them out, my guys.

Check out, is the documentary still on Netflix or still on there? No, always down there. Cool.
Yeah, check it out. And stay tuned.
We'll do a part two one of these days. Peace.

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