John Oliver, the host of the political comedy show “Last Week Tonight,” recently poked fun at privacy-based coin Monero, in a short aside while covering the growing threat of ransomware attacks in the United States.

Cryptocurrency and Ransomware Attacks

In the latter half of his segment, Oliver retells the story of a woman who was targeted by hackers on her home computer and forced to pay them through Bitcoin to release her files. He states the cryptocurrencies “have made it much easier to make money from ransomware, and much more difficult for law enforcement to recover payments.”

He follows by taking a stab at Monero in particular, which is designed to be especially anonymous compared to Bitcoin. After playing one of their ads extolling their privacy features such as “keeping their suppliers in secret,” Oliver accuses it of being a deliberate dog whistle to criminals:

“There’s a pretty clear subtext to what they’re selling there. It’s like seeing a cheerful ad for plastic tubs, the size, and shape of a human body. ‘This isn’t for anything, in particular, there are all sorts of human body-sized things you could put into one of these sturdy tubs. Also, they’re scream-proof. No matter how much sound something makes inside, you’ll never hear it!’”

Crypto, Criminals, and Politics

Though Monero was not the primary focus of his 22-minute segment, Oliver’s comments are yet another example of cryptocurrency being framed as a vehicle for illicit activity in mainstream political discourse. Last week, Jordan Peterson matter-of-factly stated on his podcast that the criminal element of Bitcoin is an “immediately relevant” social danger, if any, regarding the cryptocurrency.

Other examples abound as well, such as Steve Mnuchin’s attempts to make sure Bitcoin enters the ‘regulated world’ or Biden’s Treasury secretary claiming that Bitcoin is used “mainly for illicit activity.” 

Despite many hacks and scams occurring across the crypto space as of late, Bitcoin, in particular, may be taking more heat on this front than it deserves. According to Blockchain Intelligence, Bitcoin transactions were already less than 0.5% comprised of criminal activities as of 2020 – a declining number.

Featured image courtesy of Vanity Fair

Monero’s former lead maintainer, Riccardo Spagni, was arrested last month for alleged fraud committed between 2009 and 2011 while residing in South Africa. His crimes have no relation to his work on the Monero network. 

Charges Against Spagni

Court documents state that Spagni’s crime is related to his time as an IT manager at Cape Cookies – a bakery in Cape Town, South Africa – where he worked from October 1st, 2009 until June 8th, 2011, when his employment was terminated by mutual agreement.

The memorandum alleges the following:

“As an employee of Cape Cookies, SPAGNI intercepted invoices from another company, Ensync, relating to information technology goods and services it had supplied Cape Cookies.

SPAGNI knowingly used false information to fabricate similar invoices purporting to be from Ensync, relying on details including this company’s Value Added Tax (VAT) number and bank account information. SPAGNI then inflated the prices for the goods and/or services.”

The invoices purportedly contained a bank account opened and controlled by Spagni rather than an account connected to Ensync. Apparently, Spagni had also generated false invoices from three other “fictitious entities” related to information technology products. Unwittingly, Cape Cookies went on to pay these invoices to what were actually more of Spagni’s own accounts.

The Arrest

The warrant for Spagni’s arrest was issued on July 20th on behalf of the South African government, with “a view toward his extradition to stand trial for fraud.” He was apprehended in Nashville, Tennessee, on the same day during a scheduled fueling stop while aboard a private jet on his way to Mexico.

A hearing will take place on August 5th to determine whether the former developer is held pending trial. He could land up to 20 years in prison if convicted for the alleged crimes. 

Spagni began mining Bitcoin in 2011 but quickly switched to building mining tools for others who were looking into a bunch of “scam coins” in 2012, which he described as “a fun adventure.” He later became the lead developer for Monero after a contentious hard-fork event early in the cryptocurrency’s life. 

Monero is now one of the world’s leading cryptocurrencies, offering increased privacy in transactions compared to other coins. However, developers recently discovered a “rather significant bug” which hurts said transaction privacy of the coin.