Here are the types of problems that rich people have to deal with! Let get right into it with:
5 - Golfer Stalker Professional golfer
and influencer Paige Spiranac had a frightening encounter with a fan who accused her of scamming
him out of thousands of dollars. Spiranac was at the American Century Championship
when a male fan approached her. He asked for a picture with the golfer,
but his demeanor quickly became threatening when he claimed she'd scammed him out of $10,000.
Because it makes sense when celebrities, even low-level ones, ask their fans for some cash.
Security spoke to the fan and warned him against approaching Spiranac, but he showed up on hole
two during the championship. Spiranac's agent was forced to handle the situation himself. However,
Spiranac was upset that security didn't remove him from the property.
The fan's unhinged behavior stemmed from being the victim of a scam run by somebody
using a fake profile to pose as Spiranac. She had nothing to do with the profile or the fake number
attached to it- something the guy should’ve probably known or figured out on his own.
Catfishing Dealing with angry fans
has become a common issue for Spiranac. Men were scammed by fake profiles of people pretending to
be her, who would do things like give them fake numbers and meet on Google hangouts.
Often these men thought they were in relationships with Spiranac
and believed she had ghosted them after they handed over large amounts of money.
The profiles were anonymous,
making it almost impossible for Spiranac to track all of the fraudsters down.
Her anxiety over the situation became unbearable,
and she eventually started wanting to not leave her house.
Spiranic stopped sharing where she was and what she was doing on social media, which is
always a good idea, but she was scared another angry fan would confront or even threaten her.
Without the money and resources to have constant security,
she didn't want to risk being in public where something could happen to her.
Even though she withdrew from the limelight, she still dealt with stalker situations that
worsened her anxiety. Many of her angry fans were relentless in their attempts to contact her.
Spiranic warned the public that if an account didn’t have a blue
checkmark next to her name, then it’s fake.
4 - Down the Drain A Florida car collector
lost his brand new McLaren P1 when Hurricane Ian sucked the car from his garage. Ernie likely spent
between $1.5 million and $2 million on his yellow and black supercar. Thankfully, it wasn't his only
luxury car, if you were worried about his loss, he also owns a Rolls Royce Phantom worth $500,000.
Ernie drove the McLaren all the time and filled his social media with photos of his big purchase
for everyone to see. He posted pictures of himself driving downtown for brunch and on
a Whole Foods run. It’s surprising he could even afford those cars if he’s shopping at Whole Foods.
Ernie’s Instagram looked like it belongs to some grandmother
who overly dotes on her cats, but instead of cats, it’s his McLaren!
Hurricane Ian
Florida residents learned that a massive hurricane was on its way
and began to prepare for the brewing storm. Ernie hit the supermarket for supplies and,
of course, shared pictures of the P1 filled with grocery bags on Instagram.
He parked his two vehicles in the garage of his oceanfront Naples
home. Since his house was so close to the ocean, the damage was unavoidable.
Hurricane Ian, a category 3 hurricane blasting winds between 111-129 mph,
made landfall and caused extreme damage to the Gulf Coast. Places like Ft. Myers and
Ernie's hometown of Naples saw the water levels rise six feet above the normal high tide.
Ernie's garage flooded, and the force of the water sucked his vehicles onto the street.
When the high water levels washed away,
Ernie found his brand-new McClaren propped up by a toilet!
3 - 007 Superyacht A large James Bond-themed
superyacht sank near a Greek beach after a GPS malfunction led the boat to shore. Nicknamed
'007', the yacht was sailing across Greece's Kolona Bay near the popular island Kythnos
when it began to tilt on the port side, or the left side facing the bow, and filled with water.
The crew made several mayday calls to the Coast Guard, who rescued them and
their five passengers while the vessel quickly sank into the ocean. They left
the boat on a Friday evening, and it was almost entirely submerged by the next day.
Swiss Owned
A Swiss businessman named Sami Tamman, who sounds more like a Bond villain, owned the
ill-fated superyacht. It was 160 feet long and could hold up to ten passengers and five crew.
Passengers could enjoy the luxurious finishes on the vessel's interior and
exterior, which had its own helipad and the infamous '007' logo painted on its outside.
It was the third-largest superyacht built by Aegean Yachts, who sold it in 2012.
An investigation into the sinking revealed that the captain, Mr. Tamman himself,
was experiencing a depth issue at the time of the incident, and his efforts to avoid sinking caused
him to hit the bottom of the water. It tilted heavily and eventually flipped on its side.
The superyacht was made of steel hull and had an aluminum structure.
The sinking posed an environmental issue that the Coast Guard rushed to address.
They worked overnight and put up an anti pollution perimeter that
helped prevent diesel leakage and damage to the surrounding area.
2 - Unlikely Partners Hacker and scammer Ellis Pinsky was the
ringleader of a $23.8 million crypto heist. Pinsky was only 15 years old at the time of the heist,
and his friends and classmates said they didn't think there was anything unusual
about the tenth-grader. He enjoyed sports, had good grades, and loved computer games.
Pinsky could be arrogant and once bragged to an acquaintance that he had millions
of dollars and could buy the acquaintance and his entire family if he wanted. So he’s
a real sweetheart. Most of his peers thought he was making money through trading Bitcoin.
The person at the center of Pinsky's elaborate crypto heist scheme was Michael Terpin, a key
figure in the crypto world and co-founder of crypto investment firm BitAngels. A
group of hackers led by Pinsky hacked into Terpin's cryptocurrency account,
where they fleeced and laundered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.
Sim-Swapping
Pinsky's gateway into crime was his love for video games- validating 90’s parents everywhere. He
was a member of private video game chat rooms where people often bragged about their hacks.
He used a process known as SIM-swapping, where hackers remotely transfer a victim's
digital identity from the victim's phone to the SIM card in the hacker's phone.
Once Pinsky had a victim's SIM card, he could steal their social-media identity,
including things like their Instagram tags.
Pinsky quickly graduated from using SIM-swapping to steal social media
accounts to cryptocurrency. The switch might sound dramatic, but he had already
grown accustomed to stealing victims' private information when he stole their nicknames.
The group of around 20 young hackers would identify their targets as people with large
crypto accounts and find out the target's phone and carrier information. They forged identity
information to get the carrier and swap the target's SIM card to one they controlled.
Once the group had full access to their victims' phones, the hackers
would enter the victim's wallets and transfer out their crypto holdings.
One of Pinsky's accomplices was Nick Truglia, who was four years older than the teen,
and once attended Baruch College majoring in finance and economics.
Truglia was responsible for obtaining the target's cell phone and passcode
numbers and conning the cell phone carrier into giving him a new SIM card. From there,
he would hand the operation to Pinsky, who would execute the hack.
It wasn’t the only hacking scam that Truglia was a part of,
and in 2019 he was arrested and charged for a different hack.
Before his arrest, Truglia helped Pinsky access Terpin's BlackBerry. Within 48 hours of the hack,
the $23.8 million Terpin had stashed in his digital wallet had been removed.
Tactics
Pinsky made sure that all the other hackers knew who was boss. Frankly,
he was a control freak and a bully. One of Pinksy’s friends had been a part of Pinsky's
illegal operation and was supposed to be helping him launder money when the friend accidentally
sent $700,000 to the wrong person. Because of the nature of crypto, they never got the money back.
Pinsky demanded the friend pay him back the money,
even if it meant he had to resort to selling illegal substances or his clothes.
Pinsky ran a tight operation during heists,
and every group member was given strict instructions they had to follow.
He would brag that his job was stealing from Terpin and
used the money he made from the scam to enjoy the finer things.
Pinsky had an account with a private-air service, and when traveling on the ground, he drove an Audi
R8. He wore designer clothing and would score expensive Rangers hockey seats- which isn’t
all that impressive since no one watches hockey, much less The Rangers. But that’s what he did.
Pinsky’s parents, who had already thoroughly failed in raising him,
believed their son's sudden wealth came from making Bitcoin online.
They had no clue about what was really happening or what kind of person he was.
Although Pinsky had a designer wallet filled with $100 bills,
he claimed he didn't like spending money,
despite evidence to the contrary, and planned to retire from hacking after the Terpin heist.
However, all of that changed following Truglia's arrest.
Unraveling
An investigation into Terpin's missing crypto revealed Pinsky as the critical player. O'Donnell,
one Terpin's attorneys, listened to recordings of all the hackers involved in the crime,
and their conversations made it clear that Pinsky had orchestrated the heist.
Since he was still a minor, Terpin's legal team contacted Pinsky's mother. Although
her son denied his involvement, shortly after their conversation,
he sent Terpin cryptocurrency, cash, and a Patek Philippe Nautilus watch worth over $100,000.
Pinsky's actions could be seen as his attempt at repayment,
but no legal conditions were negotiated for the cash and items.
Terpin purposefully waited for Pinsky to turn 18 before taking legal action
against him so that he could sue Pinsky as an adult. Terpin intended to sue him
for damages with the expectation of Pinsky paying back three times the amount he stole.
Aftermath Four years
after the crypto theft, Pinsky agreed to pay Terpin a $22 million judgment.
A condition of the civil suit against Pinsky is that he testify under oath against AT&T in
court as part of a separate suit Terpin filed against the cell phone carrier.
Terpin filed a $225 million lawsuit against AT&T for allowing their workers
to manually override the system in place to protect his information.
Pinsky claimed to be broke and unable to pay Terpin the $22
million but will be off the hook if AT&T pays back at least that balance,
being the $22 million, as you can't collect twice for the same obligation.
Pinsky never faced criminal charges over the heist. The court date for the suit against
AT&T is planned for May 2023. Pinsky better be saving his pennies if AT&T doesn’t have to pay up.
1 - Millions in Cash Anastasia Kotvistka,
the wife of Ukrainian politician and tycoon Igor Totvistky, snuck millions of dollars
in cash across Europe in her baggage. She split the money between US dollars and euros,
which she took with her through a refugee border crossing into the EU while fleeing Ukraine.
Hungarian customs found the cash in Kotvitska’s
luggage while traveling with her mother and two Hungarian men.
Igor Kotvitsky denied removing any of his money from Ukrainian accounts
but closed his social media accounts following the backlash he received.
Birthrights
Anastasia claimed she was leaving her Ukraine
to give birth. Her adult daughter dismissed the story as being fake.
The pregnant traveler allegedly didn’t declare the money when she
passed through the checkpoint out of Ukraine. It wasn’t until Hungarian customs officers
discovered the money that she declared that she brought it into Hungary, an EU country.
It wasn’t the first time the couple faced backlash. Igor Kotvitsky was once
Ukraine’s wealthiest member of Parliament and a controversial figure in the country’s politics.
Kotvitsky frequently uses his associates to help him control
the Nuclear Energy Systems of Ukraine and uranium deposits across the country.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine,
many wealthy and elite people have been sneaking their fortunes abroad.
Customs officers and border agents take bribes to turn a blind eye.
It’s turned into a lucrative business, and border agents and customs officers
make three to 7.5 percent of the total amount of cash people are transporting.
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Let us know in the comment section whether or not you believe the saying,
“more money, more problems?”