New Netflix doc explains how a U of Manitoba prof became the face of a fake CEO in crypto scam | CBC News (2024)

Zubina Ahmed · CBC News

· Posted: Jan 10, 2024 6:00 AM EST | Last Updated: January 10

A University of Manitobaprofessor whose image was used in acryptocurrency scam—just because his face came up when scammers Googled the phrase "old white guy"— is now featured in a new Netflix documentary about the scam.

"[The filmmakers] asked me, 'Do you know whatEthereum is? Do you know what cryptocurrency or bitcoin is?' And I said no — I still to this day don't fully understand the concept," saidAndrew Halayko.

He's featured in Bitconned, a newly released Netflix documentary about Centra Tech— described by Netflix as"a crypto company dreamt up by a couple of South Florida hustlers with a knack for Photoshop and a penchant for living large."

Halayko says that it was his face that was used by the people behind Centra Techto create a fake online profile of their fictitious CEO, Michael Edwards—even though the Manitobanhad noconnection with the organization.

"Not in the least, no. I'm probably less interested in crypto than I've ever been."

In reality, Halaykois a research scientist and professor in the department of physiology and pathophysiology at the University of Manitoba.

According to Netflix, Bitconnedtells the story of three men—Ray Trapani, Sam (Sorbee) Sharma and Robert Farkas — who "exploit[ed] the freewheeling cryptocurrency market to scam millions from investors and bankroll lavish lifestyles," but "were eventually convicted of several crimes."

That involved creating fake LinkedIn profiles of the company's executives on their website— includingMichael Edwards, the non-existentCEO.

Trapani says inthe documentary he and his partners created Edwards"because we didn't want anybody to see that young kids were the owners of this company. We wanted …somebody that's respectable and presentable to the public."

They decided to Google "old white guy" and used a picture from the resulting search — Halayko's.

But Halayko says he's stillcurious about why, from all the search results, they chose him.

"When I wasdoing thefilming for the documentary, they asked me … 'If you could meet them, what would you ask?' And I said I would ask them …'Of the millions—hundreds of millions, I don't know — of pictures of men with glasses anda little bit of grey hair, why did you pick me?"

'Holy smokes, this is all over the internet'

Halayko said he first heard about the scaminMay 2019, when he was contacted by an RCMP detectivewho saidhis photo was used by a fraudulent website and they had few questions for him.

"TheyaskedwouldI be willing to speak with the FBI, because they were investigatingMr. Sharmafor these crimes, and would I be willing to testify at a trial in New York."

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he ended up giving awitness statementto the court by phone.

But it wasn't until months later that he learned the specifics ofhis strange connection withCentra Tech.

WATCH | How a U of M prof became the face of a fake CEO:

"I was telling the story of being interviewed by the RCMP and one of my colleagues just pulled her phone and Googled my name and Centra Tech, and that's when I realized thatholy smokes, this is all over the internet."

That's when he discovered, to his surprise, that "internet sleuths had figured out that Centra Tech was a scandal" and thatthe face of CEO Michael Edwards was actually his.

How exactly they made that connection is "still an unanswered question to me," he said.

Taking '15 minutes of fame' in stride

Then, around February 2022, a Netflix researcher contacted him to talk more about the witness statement he had given atSharma's trial. Later that year, he was invitedto go to Los Angeles for a day of filming for the Bitconned documentary.

That's where he learned that Michael Edwards had "died."

Until the filming, Halayko wasn't aware theCentra Tech team had actually created a fake obituary for the fake CEO.

"So in fact, what's in the documentary is me for the first time reading this obituary," he said. "They slid it across the table and asked me to read it while I was filming."

The obituary claimed Michael Edwards had aFlorida beach house, a bulldog named Stanley, an MBA from Harvard and decades of experience with organizations like Wells Fargo and Chase— a life that"couldn't be farther [from]the truth [than]what I am, which is a simple professor,"Halayko said, laughing.

But on themore serious matter ofonlinescams, Halaykowarns"it can happen to anyone."

"And I guess the message is, think about what you can control in terms of what you put on the internet."

Since the documentary made its debut on Jan. 1, he'sbeen getting a lot of messages from friends and family, telling him they saw him on Netflix.

"Even my 90-year-old mother watched it, and she texted meand ... she just quoted 'old white guy,'" he said.

"I'm a little worried that that might be my new nickname."

The newfound fame"is sort of one of those 15 minutes of fame scenarios," he said, and he doesn't expect much to come of it.

"No, there's nothing next for me," he said.

"I could jokingly say I'm gonna look for a movie deal alongside Tom Cruise for my next film endeavour, but that would be a lie."

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