Tonight on 360, slim or none, the Trump administration says it wants transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and Gellain Maxwell, but a new court filing reveals how narrow they want our view to be. Also tonight, the ripple effect and then some, what happened at sea and on shore after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever. And later, the dark, endangered reside of cryptocurrency, namely the growing wave of violent attacks on those who have it by those who will go to any brutal length to take it from them. Good morning, good evening, I should say.
John Berman here in for Anderson, and we begin tonight keeping the monest with the difference between real-time transparency and just the appearance of it. We got a demonstration today, our latest measure of the gulf between what the Trump administration could reveal about the investigation and prosecution of sex predator Jeffrey Epstein and his convicted accomplice Gellain Maxwell in what it is actually doing. Because as we keep being reminded lately, the president is all about transparency on this. Donald J.
Trump, I'm telling you, he's got nothing to hide, his administration's got nothing to hide, and that's why he's been an advocate for whole transparency. So that's the vice president on Monday. The same day the president debuted his newest account of why he broke ties with Jeffrey Epstein, a story about his own victimization by Epstein, with not a word set about the victim's victimization, upwards of a thousand victims according to the latest FBI and Justice Department estimate earlier this month, none of whom were mentioned by the president yesterday, except one, Virginia Jafre who took her own life in April, and 2000 she was an underage teen working at Mar-a-Lago, she said she was recruited there when she worked there by Maxwell, groomed, and then forced by her and Epstein to have sex with a series of famous men. But the president talked about none of that when asked about her, instead here is what he did say.
I think she worked in the spot. I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her.
And by the way, she had no complaints about us, you know, none whatsoever. He characterized her and others several times as being stolen, certainly an odd way of referring to human beings, at least one of whom was the victim of sex trafficking, but beyond that, also notably lacking in any recognition, let alone civil acknowledgement of her victimization. None of the surviving victims are getting any of that from this president. As for whether they are getting any transparency or even any steps in that direction, we got the smallest hint of an answer today with a court filing from the Justice Department telling a New York District judge why grand jury testimony from the Maxwell and Epstein cases should be made public, which certainly sounds like something.
In it, the DOJ argues that there is a quote clearly expressed interest from the public in Jeffrey Epstein's and Elaine Maxwell's crimes. The filing goes as far as the site, the case of atomic spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, suggesting that in this case, like that one, many questions remain unanswered, and the public interest remains. It all sounds good from a transparency standpoint. Until you see how small a sliver of it, the administration is actually asking for.
As the filing puts it, there were two witnesses, the same FBI agent from the Epstein grand jury proceedings, and a detective with the NYPD, who was a task force officer with the FBI's child exploitation, and human trafficking task force during the Maxwell grand jury proceedings. That's it. Two witnesses, both of whom told grand jurors what others, including victims, told them. That's all.
Secondhand accounts, at best, some of which have already been given an open court at trial, a sliver at best of the evidence the prosecution presented, a sliver of a sliver of the vast amount of evidence that federal investigators gathered and verified about what the late predator Epstein did to whom and with whom. And just to be clear, the New York judge could easily say no to opening any of this, any of this even tiny foggy window into the case. A Florida judge already has. It's within the court's power to do that.
By contrast, it's within the administration's power without asking permission from anyone to make public and responsible, sensitive, and legal appropriate way, almost every other single thing to do with all of this. It's what Republican Congressman Thomas Massey and Democratic Congressman Rokana have tried to make happen without any success so far, and it's what the Senate's top Democrat is now trying to do using a nearly 100-year-old law to demand all the DOJ turn over all Epstein-related files no later than August 15th. Our request covers all documents, files, evidence, and other materials in possession of the DOJ, the FBI, related to the case of the United States versus Jeffrey Epstein. The situation with the Epstein files is very simple.
Donald Trump promised transparency, and he has broken that promise. It is the kind of thing an opposition leader would say, but he is not the only one saying it or suggesting as much on both sides of the aisle. But speaking of the president, he is not speaking. Alright, with us now, the anchor of the source and Senate's chief White House correspondent, Caitlin Collins-Caitlin, one of officials in the White House saying tonight about the president's handling of questions surrounding Epstein-Maxwell.
Well, I think one thing that White House officials have been saying is this story is going to go away. We're going to stop talking about it. This is not important, and it doesn't matter. Some of the president himself has said privately to Republicans who have been pushing for this, questioning why they are focusing on this now.
But then when you look at what the president does say publicly, John, I mean, obviously he has kept the story very much alive by yesterday revealing that and confirming that Virginia de Fries was someone who worked at Mar-Lago and was recruited away by Jeffrey Epstein that she worked in the spa when he was talking about the falling out that they had. And in another moment, in the Roosevelt Room earlier today, a reporter was asking a question about the Russia investigation and some allegations there. The president couldn't quite hear the question, John, but then he answered about Jeffrey Epstein and about the files being released saying that if things are fair, that they can be allowed to come out. And so you're dealing with that inside the White House in terms of what the president is saying publicly, what he is saying privately, but also this intense pressure that is not just coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill, but also from Republicans who have been hearing about this while they've been home for recess, after they were sent home early by the House Speaker Mike Johnson to avoid that vote on releasing the Epstein documents.
And so that has kind of been this crossroads where the White House is at in terms of a lot of bewilderment, honestly, from White House officials that I've spoken to, that this is a month-long story now that has gone on for so many weeks. And yesterday, you could kind of see the president's irritation when he got back to the White House, and I asked about that comment that he made about different Epstein stealing people away from his spot, Mar-Lago. I asked, you know, did that not raise alarm bells if he was taking young women who were working at your spot, including teenagers, like Virginia de France, she was just a teenager at the time, she said. And the president basically said, be quiet, and that he turned to answer a different question there, John, even though he had just been taking a question.
It's just kind of a snapshot into how he is handling this and dealing with this. Though the White House seems to recognize this isn't dying down as much or as quickly as they had hoped. Yeah, he didn't seem to like that question. Is it clear why the president has refused to rule out a pardon for the lame as well?
He doesn't like to put himself in a box. I think if you asked him if he was going to a pardon pretty much anyone, he did this with Diddy as well when his trial was very much still underway. And I think that there is an option here. I mean, there is a reason that the Deputy Attorney General went and met with the lame Maxwell as they were hoping it would kind of quell the outrage they're hearing from his own base.
It's not clear what the Justice Department is going to do with the information or what Todd Blanch learned from the lame Maxwell that day. And so I think, you know, what Maxwell seems to be clear, John, is she is seeking a pardon or a reduction in her sentence, and only the president can offer her that. And so I think it is notable, and I've asked people around the president if they agree that he hasn't ruled that out. And they've all said yes, because obviously it is very much still an option for him.
And Elaine Maxwell's attorney seem emboldened by this. Caitlyn Collins, thank you very much. We will see you at the top of the next hour for the source with the San Politico White House bureau chief, Dasha Burns, senior white senior writer for political magazine, and former federal prosecutor, Enchor Cardori, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinziger, and former editor of the National Enquirer, Barriely Veen, who has reported on the Epstein saga for years. Barrie is also the author of the Spider inside the criminal web of Jeffrey Epstein and Gellane Maxwell.
You know, Dasha, Caitlyn, it was interesting, said the White House continues to think this story will go away. Maybe they were hoping it would go away. Then what do they think when they hear the president, White House officials, start disclosing new versions of how he broke up with Jeffrey Epstein years ago? It's a bit of a hands emoji, John, like this is not what the White House wants the president to be doing or talking about, because they also know that behind closed doors, the president is furious about this.
He wants a story to stop, and he frankly doesn't care, and he knows that his supporters are upset about this, but this is just not his priority. This isn't something that he's interested in. He's sort of rolling this out in a drip-drip fashion that's frankly extending the news cycle here. They keep trying to do these things that they hope will quell or quench some thirst for the base, but there's no ripping some band-aid off that they're doing that can just put a stop to this whole thing.
And so I have never seen this White House or the president or Trump himself on a back foot like this with his own base. They seem a little frozen, a little paralyzed, because they just have never been here before, where there's this narrative that they can't seem to change to turn, to move forward from. Okay, what stands out to you? One of the things that the White House has done, the administration, to try to quell some of the uproar about this, has pushed for grand jury testimony.
So what stands out to you about this latest DOJ filing, urging this New York judge to release this testimony? Look, I think it makes it even clearer what was honestly pretty apparent to most lawyers who have had experience in the federal criminal system, which is not likely to produce much new information that materially changes much of anything. It's common for federal prosecutors to charge criminal cases by putting in agents who worked on the case. Their job is to summarize the investigation and to provide the grand jurors with information to summarize for them the information that supports the allegations and the indictment.
Now, what that means is that you are not likely to hear irrelevant information from those agents, nor are you likely to hear them discuss evidence that the government was not intending to introduce a trial, or to be particularly addressing defendants or charges that were not at issue. So I think the fact that there are just summary agents who are testifying in those proceedings is not actually that surprising, but it strongly suggests that even if they manage to get the court to approve, one of the judges to approve, they release that it won't change the complexion of what we already know. By definition, it's almost a limited request for transparency. It's limited in its very nature.
That said, Barry, this is something that you've been focused on for a long, long time. Is there anything that could come out of that that you think you might find interesting or new? No, John, we make a few little nuggets of information. We know everything that was in the charging documents when they arrested Jeffrey Epstein.
We also went through the full trial with the laid back swell where they put out four victims and ended in her prosecution and sent her away for 20 years. I don't think we're going to get much, and this isn't what we want. This is not what the victims want. They are being traumatized every single day by hearing these crazy stories that this woman was stolen from Donald Trump's Mar-Lago Sfa.
Maxwell, who they all believe is a liar. The government said that she committed perjury. When she say in her nine hours of interview, we're getting so many more questions now as this thing goes each day, and it's not going to get solved until we can get a look at full transparency with redactions of victims and third parties and really get to those documents. And why they're putting us through this, I just don't understand.
You know, Congressman Kinzinger, it's interesting, here at JD Vance, that are open, say that the president wants transparency. House Speaker Mike Johnson talking to Jake Tapper today was saying he wants full disclosure. Yeah, House Speaker Mike Johnson is the one who sent Congress home early, so they didn't take any kind of a vote on requiring the Justice Department to release the information. So how transparent is that?
No, they're not transparent at all. And here's what drives me crazy is we now as a country have just accepted that these people lie all the time. Mike Johnson will say, yeah, we're trying to be transparent and we know he sent Congress home early. Interesting, they had time for town halls.
I didn't do those though. But he did that, and we know that's not true. I mean, the reality of it is, John, this is one of the very rare losses, big L's, for the Trump administration and communications. Usually they're pretty good.
They're pretty good at obfuscating, at least, you know, getting their base off of this. But the thing is the Epstein issue to the base, particularly a certain part of the base. This is like a religion for them. I mean, literally since Epstein was out there, they accused people of all being pedophiles, all their opponents, all these Democrats, which, by the way, is actually a Russian thing.
It's kind of a Russian tactic. And so now Donald Trump has to answer. And honestly, I think had they just put out, you know, their statement and ignored it after that. It would have died down, but instead right now, they're basically sitting around feeding this, particularly with his big truth socials.
And the last thing I want to say is this, you know, narcissists at least can pretend to have empathy. In this case, I have no clue why Donald Trump cannot just say once that he feels for the victims. It's always about him. I was speaking to a trauma therapist who deals who has dealt with some of these victims, the Epstein victims, who said a lot of the language is being used right now is simply triggering.
I mean, they are suffering again, by the way, that public officials are talking about this. Dasha, you know, Caitlin Collins was saying before that on the issue of a pardon, the president doesn't want to be boxed in. And she brought up the example of Sean Combs, who the president hasn't, you know, hasn't replied definitively while they're here back, pardon Sean Combs. The difference here is that no one has made any suggestion that President Trump, his name is in the Sean Combs files.
You know, we have reported others have reported that President Trump's name is in the Epstein files. He was told his name was in the Epstein files. You talk about the president not being able to control the base the same way he has almost every other, in almost every other instance. Where does a possible pardon or dangling of a pardon or not ruling out a pardon fall with them?
This is a difficult issue for President Trump because there are a lot of risks, even the dangling of a pardon. In a case where this is somebody that was convicted of horrific crimes that his base is very angry about. Look, when I talk to White House officials behind closed doors, they say that this is not something that the president has been seriously talking about. He may not have ruled it out in public, but as Caitlin said, he likes to have optionality, he likes to have off-ramps and a bunch of different options.
That doesn't mean that this is under serious consideration behind closed doors. I do think that from the beginning of this, John, the White House and the president himself, they really thought that this was an Internet bubble problem, that this was some maggot influencers that maybe if they got them under control, they made the calls to their friendlies online, that this would go away, and this is spilled so far, so much farther out of the online bubble than they ever, ever thought. And so now they are scrambling to have all of the different options to try to mitigate this, and I think, frankly, are hoping for some kind of other major news cycle to come and save them from this. You know, Uncle, she's going to blame Maxwell as attorney to make all kinds of demands on the House for her testimony.
How do you think the attorney for Gley Maxwell feels right now because he comes across as emboldened? I think he is emboldened, and I think actually as a sort of lawyer, like a professional matter, he's doing the right thing, because he has a client who's interested in signing to advance his job, and the Trump administration and House Republicans have exposed themselves to who have been involved in the House. And so they've exposed themselves to this vulnerability now, and entertaining this idea that she might have some valuable information to offer, and creating an expectation among some people in the public, at least, I don't know how many really, that this might be a good idea, when in fact it's a pretty terrible idea if you ask me. I mean, she's in prison on terrible charges.
She was charged with a couple of counts of perjury. She contested her innocence, went to trial, unanimously convicted her child sex trafficking and other crimes, and she has plenty of reason to lie or shade the truth to curry favor with the administration in order to get a pardon, or even just a reduction in her sentence would be a victory. So this is not someone who the typical federal prosecutor would go around indulging, and it is kind of bizarre to me that it's just as a legal matter that you have so many people taking this notion seriously. You know, Barry, you've been focused on this for so long.
The President introduced this new sort of timeline yesterday of his relationship with Epstein. You've had a chance to digest it. What stands out to you? Well, what stands out to me, John, is that he said that Jeffrey Epstein stole this woman from him, the Mar-a-Lago spot, tended.
Two years later, he was calling Jeffrey Epstein a terrific guy in a New York magazine interview. A year after that, the Wall Street Journal reports that he was writing a birthday message for Jeffrey Epstein. So even though he said he was beginning to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein, the relationship continued for the next couple of years, up until Jeffrey Epstein's arrest in 2006. That certainly raises questions.
It doesn't make the story go away. That's for sure. The President disputes that he wrote a note. It disputes the Wall Street Journal report.
That's the main. That's worth it in the timeline. Barry Levine. Everyone, thank you very much.
When we come back, I want to get journalist, best-selling author and podcaster, Kara Swisher's take on all this and where it could be heading. Plus, the latest on a huge earthquake on Russia's Pacific Rim, one of the worst on record, the tsunami threat it created half a world away, and why things happen to the world. And why things happen to the world away, and why things happen to the world. It wasn't all so much worse.
I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, Terms of Service, the idea of writing a car with no driver can feel daunting, and this technology raises questions about safety and the future of transportation. That's why I'm here with Nicole Gabel, head of Business, Development and Strategic Partnerships at WeMo. We've always been about safety, no distracted driving, no drunk driving.
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We're talking about what Watergate co-conspirator John Erlachman once told his boss, Richard Nixon, should be a modified limited hangout when it came to coming clean or not about the scandal. As opposed to what at the time would have been known as letting it all hang out, known better today as transparency, or in the case of the administration's handling of the Epstein affair, modified and very limited transparency. Here to talk about a Cara Swisher, host of the podcast, on with Cara Swisher and co-host of the Pivot Podcast. He's also the author of Burnbook, a tuck tech love story.
And Cara, we were talking before about this language that the president introduced for the first time yesterday and his explanation for why he and Epstein broke up his friends. And he say Epstein stole employees from him, including Virginia Jeffrais, who of course was abused by ex-beam, trafficked by Elaine Maxwell. What do you make of the word choice there? Well, you know, sometimes I think he's just kind of clotted with words, right?
And at the same time, I think he probably thinks about a lot of things he says. He also used the privilege, I didn't have the privilege to go to Epstein Island. That's an unusual word to pick for a place where sex trafficking happened, right? So Stole, you could say to yourself, okay, maybe he's thinking, you know, in a real employment self, he stole my employee.
But in this sense to say that word, when there's sex trafficking involved, he sort of strikes you as an unusual thing to pick. And you wonder if it's subconscious or on purpose or something. But it certainly pulls him even further into people's work, you know, into the conspiracy theory of things he's saying. And he also said he never had the privilege of going to Epstein Island, but he did say he was invited.
Right, correct. Which was interesting too. Right, that's right. A lot of people were invited to.
Sure, but it does beg more questions about it. Absolutely, because he was on the plane, he was friends with him during those critical years. He wasn't friends with him later. He was friends with him during the time a lot of this was taking place.
So it's normal to, even if you're not a conspiracy theorist, and this is so full of conspiracies, whether it's the orange shadow in the video or the minute missing, it creates a situation, especially in this internet age where everything is written in indelible ink. And so you go, there's nowhere not to go and you have all these people doing things and it just creates a really bad situation if you're trying to do what looks like a cover-up. You're a really terrific discussion. Would you like a round?
And Antonio Sullivan, would you like a round of your focus? I think on the victims and how the victims are feeling throughout all this, and you've been vocal about the president's refusal, aggressive refusal to rule out pardoning. Right. Elaine Maxwell, what message do you think that would send if he ever actually did it to the victims?
Well, besides looking like a cover-up, like that he's paying her off, that's what it begins to look like, but the fact that he's even considering it. And before that, he was rather kind to someone who's a monster. And of course he's asking for clemency now or pardon or anything like that. I mean, I joke last night, they should give her warm cocoa and a blanket.
Like, are you kidding me? This person was worked with Epstein on this. He killed himself or died in some fashion, and she's left, and she's not a victim here. These women are the victims, and now they're definitely not going to speak because the president looks like he's trying to not be transparent.
She's not a victim here. Speaking of that, I want to play for you what Newsmax, who's Greg Kelly, had to say about Elaine Maxwell. She just might be a victim. She just might be.
There was a rusty judgment. There was a lot of chaos there for a while. Alright, granted she hung out with Jeffrey Epstein, and I know that's apparently not good, but she's in jail. I don't know what Greg.
She's a victimizer is what she is. She is a monster, and she worked hand in glove with Jeffrey Epstein. She's convicted for this. She's in jail for a reason.
And to say this, the message they're trying to put out is maybe she's sympathetic. She's in no way sympathetic and belongs in jail and does not deserve clemency. I have been sent a lot of transcripts from a lot of these discussions with the victims. You cannot read them without being sick to your stomach, and she's right in the center of it.
Absolutely. And the idea that she is in any way a victim is repulsive. I don't know what else to say. You're talking, you talk for about how a lot of the things said and done are written in a delible ink now in a way.
So I want to play again what Joe Rogan had to say about his podcast and the administration in his podcast, but the administration refused to release more reps and information. We thought Trump was going to come in and a lot of things are going to be resolved. We're going to drain the swamp, going to figure everything out. And when you have this one hard core line to say, that everybody's been talking about forever, and then they're trying to gaslight you on that.
Of course, Rogan did endorse President Trump just prior to the last election. He's actually been going against my number of things, not just this, including college speech on college campuses suddenly. I think he's right. I mean, whatever you think, if you're a part of conspiracy theory, they did say, what Trump did is he created this situation and he fueled the conspiracy theories, and then he's pulling the rug out from under them.
Then it begs the question, people who don't believe in conspiracy theories go, well, what is happening here? Who knows what's happening? And so it does, if he promised to do this, he should do this. And the fact that he's not doing this raises questions.
And it's going to continue because I don't think Trump does understand how much the internet will churn this forever. And it's a pillar of QAnon, it's a pillar of conspiracy theories, and now it's a pillar of the mainstream. Thanks so much. Hub next, the latest on the huge earthquake that struck Eastern Russia and the tsunami that followed, also CNN goes to the front lines in Ukraine where Washington forces very much now on the move.
Tonight, the tsunami advisory that was issued for all of the Hawaiian Islands has been canceled. The same goes for warning sent out for coastline communities of the western United States. This huge earthquake in Russia, like yesterday, set off fears in nations around the Pacific Rim. The dangerous and potentially deadly waves could strike.
Let's get more now from CNN's Will Ripley. Tsunami warnings across the Pacific Ocean. A massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia's far eastern coast. Waves first slammed into Russia's shoreline towns.
Panicked sea lions dove into the ocean as rocks tumble. Furniture shook inside homes and buildings. The tremors damaged an empty kindergarten, even forcing surgeons to hold down a patient on an operating table. Waves also crashed into the Japanese coastline.
People rushed to rooftops for safety. The threat reached parts of South America on Tuesday. Authorities in several countries evacuated coastal areas due to fears of a tsunami. And in the U.S., parts of the West Coast and Hawaii were on edge overnight and into the day.
A lot of anxiety and stress from folks during these types of situations. And the decision as a captain of the port to shut down commercial harbors to evacuate the whole vessels off. That's not a decision I take lightly at all. This ring camera video from a business in Haleva shows timelapse footage, water surging from the waves.
The water can be seen getting very close to the deck of blue planet adventure company. In Hilo, the waves flooded parking lots. U.S. Coast Guard ships went out to sea for safety.
We pre-staged these Coast Guard assets, essentially docked them out of the harbor, in order to be able to quickly respond to any search and rescue cases. This Coast Guard is the Alverberry, just returned to Homeport here in Honolulu. The tsunami advisory for Hawaii has been lifted, but the National Weather Service urges people here and in other affected areas to stay cautious because strong currents and dangerous conditions may continue for the next day or so. John.
Alright, important reminder there will riply thank you very much. President Trump's latest deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face new sanctions is just about nine days away. That deadline, though, provides literally for Ukrainians, who are already under constant threat from Russian drones. Since Nick Payton Walsh is near the front lines, seeing the impact of Russia's summer offensive.
After dusk, the war has fallen silent, but got deadlier. This tiny military medical unit near the town of Pukrosk, which Russia is close to encircling, is waiting for patience. In total darkness and quiet, just for survival. That bright light, we're told, is a Russian spotter drone, and look at how their other attack drones riddle the dark.
The first warning is gunfire. Ukrainians aiming at Russian drones. We just have to keep every kind of light source or heat source indoors in case Russian drones are passing overhead. That makes it impossible, frankly, to go outside for this unit to welcome in the wounded, instead listening to the eerie noises in the dark trying to work out what's the threat and what's not.
But imagine how hard it must be for those actually at the front lines trying to bring wounded out with constant drones above them. So close. You can actually smell the explosive now in the night air. The medics tell us this is a quiet night in the skies, but no injured here is no relief.
The fact that you haven't had patience tonight isn't necessarily a good thing. It might mean they can't get out. Yes, it's true because the situation is not a good thing. The first warning is that the enemy is not a good enemy.
I don't know if you've seen a bad enemy attack in the cold, but you know what's wrong with the fire. Don, is when the injured usually come, when the changing light disrupts drone cameras. But the only patience, six men with suspected concussion after their vehicle, was hit by a drone on the road, who drove straight here. Some of the badly wounded trapped as this video shows Ukrainian wounded evacuated here two days earlier by police from the front line.
Their injuries infected after the long wait. They light doesn't stop the hunt. the hunt. We rush to our car to leave.
There's a problem. Two elderly locals hear the noise, one runs and the other brave it out. Our car won't start and we've just noticed locals running away from a drone and so we're trying to get out of here as quickly as we can. Our vehicle is under a tree but SUVs are a priority target.
We manage to go. The need to leave when you have to abandon your life is constantly creeping up on people here. This is Dopropilia where yesterday the normal bus service ran but today it's cancelled and the way out is with the police in an arm of the van. The drones closing in fast.
Katia explains she and her baby's son truly have nowhere to go. No plan for what's next. It's happened that fast. Days before Russian drones struck many civilian targets like this coffee shop.
But every day the map of where police can go is changing. This is Bilitzky, a flame, Russian troops on its edges. Police taking out those who, like many here, simply didn't see things changing so fast. As they leave they use this device to intercept Russian drone signals and recognise that one is flying above the same road they are on but the escape options are shrinking.
Ukraine normally catches Moscow off guard but now Russia's summer offensive is shifting the ground beneath their feet, perhaps irreversibly. Nick Payton Walsh, CNN, near Picrovsky, eastern Ukraine. Thanks to Nick and his team for that. Up next.
How a new and brutal kind of criminal is targeting people with cryptocurrency and later one last ride on the crazy train as family and fans say goodbye to Ozzy Osborn. Cryptocurrency has seen its popularity explode over the last few years and braced by not just the tech world and celebrities but also retirees looking to boost their nest eggs and with cryptos rise and plenty of people making millions, some flaunting their wealth very publicly, would be thieves have taken notice too targeting crypto holders and engaging in what are known as wrench attacks. That's one would be fee threatens or violently attacks someone in order to gain access to their cryptocurrency holdings. Let's get more now from Cenaszio Moprokipes.
Kaitlin Siragusa's attackers came under the cover of darkness guns drawn with one demand. They point the gun at me from the hallway and I tell me to stand up and so I'm freaking out and I'm standing up and there's a chair over here and so they're kind of all come towards me because there's three of them and they corner me into the chair. And that's when they start like pistol whipping me you know, asking with a crypto is holding me at gun point. Siragusa is a famous streamer and only fans model known to her millions of followers as Amereth.
And while she's no crypto kingpin, she believes that a tweet nine months earlier, alluding to her investments in crypto is what prompted the attack. So you're sitting on the three of them are like around you like this, sort of, masks on, guns, and then one guy. Yeah, he was on the side of me holding the gun to my head and the other one was here hitting me. What Sarah Goose's assailants didn't realize, the entire attack was being captured by surveillance cameras and Caitlyn wasn't alone.
She called her husband Nick when the attack began and he was listening to the entire frightening episode from another part of their home. I got to hear kind of all the dialogue that was happening and then hitting her. I'm right over here. I go to the, you know, a little safe thing I have here and I type in my code and then it pops open.
I grab the handgun and then I slip this on, grab this, and I'm rushing down Sarah's. Fearing for her life, Sarah Goose had decided to lead her attackers towards her husband. So you at this point you're up. What do you tell that?
Oh, I remember where it is. I'll take it to you too. It's like so comical, honestly. Stop playing.
And so how does this, this is blood here? Yes, it was my hand bleeding through it. It was touching, you know, it was my head dripped onto my hand. Surveillance footage captured Sarah Goose sprinting across her driveway, leading them to what she hopes is an ambush.
Go, go, go, go. I see what I turn to corner of these stairs. He's there waiting at the top and he tells me to get down. And I'm about like right here when I do, I just hug beside the wall.
I fight three shots. I hit the guy at once. I believe in the lower abdomen area. Attacks on prominent crypto holders have been growing.
Police say in May a man in New York was kidnapped, held hostage and tortured for three weeks by men trying to gain access to his Bitcoin account. He escaped with his life, beaten, bloody, and barefoot. That same month, in France, gunmen ambushed the daughter and grandson of a French cryptocurrency boss, attempting to abduct them off the streets of Paris in broad daylight. And it's not just a crypto elite being targeted.
In 2023, an elderly couple in North Carolina was held hostage by two men posing as construction workers. They zip tied the couple before threatening to cut off the man's toes, genitalia, and rape his wife before making off with more than $150,000 in cryptocurrency. Both men were convicted and Justice Department officials say the ring leader is now serving 47 years in prison for his involvement in a series of similar attacks. The other is awaiting sentencing.
Ari Redboard is the global head of policy for TRM Labs. There are blockchain intelligence firms that tracks wrench attacks. They issue to report this year analyzing wrench attacks and identify three key factors contributing to their rise. The perceived anonymity and irreversibility of cryptocurrency transactions, the public visibility of wealth, and the ease with which personal information can be gathered online.
We've seen a spate of these recently. I think in part because you're seeing copycat type activity, you know, one gang says, Hey, we can see we can do this. And then we can steal these funds and move them at the speed of the internet. And another kind of does the same.
So these are the bullet holes actually. And there's that there blood still, and where they were bleeding from. This is the blood from one of them. Yeah.
So these are still bullet holes. Yes. Some fragments. Caitlin, Sarah, Gusa, and Nick Lee are now taking more precautions.
They've hired private security and installed a 12 foot high steel fence around their property. As for her attackers, the man who was shot survived and all have been arrested and charged in connection with the crime. The crypto thing now is there's a lot of concern over security for people who own crypto. Yeah, I would say if you have a crypto and you're probably about it, definitely make sure you live somewhere where you can have a gun.
What a story and clearly not a one off here. It's a trend. So, Shimom, what is law enforcement doing in trying to stop these attacks? Johnny, you're absolutely right.
It is a trend and it's happening all across the world. One of the things that law enforcement is doing is they're trying to work with people all around the world, partners all around the world to try and learn more about this, to work with them because this kind of crime is now stretching everywhere. The other thing, there's a lot of misconception about crypto and the idea that it can't be traced. Well, as we saw in some cases, they have been able to trace the crypto.
And what the law enforcement law enforcement is doing now is they're trying to work with private partners, people who know how to trace this stuff. It's called blockchain tools and working with those firms to try and find some of these culprits, some of these bad guys that are doing this to try and prevent it from happening. So it's a lot of work, but certainly stiffer penalties, more prosecutions. That's what we're going to be seeing in the future, John.
It'd be interesting to see, as I said, Shimom, what a story. Thank you very much. Just ahead of final send off in Birmingham, England for the Prince of Darkness, heavy metal icon Aussie Osborne. Aussie Osborne was known to heavy metal fans as the Prince of Darkness in Finland.
He was given a royal send off in his hometown of Birmingham, England, where the black Sabbath frontman was considered a legend. Thousands lined the streets as his funeral procession passed by the crowd singing Crazy Train. Love that they're sharing. Aussie Osborne, his wife for more than four decades, was surrounded by her children and other close family members that she acknowledged the outpouring of love for her husband.
Aussie Osborne died last week at the age of 76. That's all for us. I'll see you tomorrow morning at seven o'clock Eastern lawnside. Cape Baldwin for CNN News Central.
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