This ambitious tech innovator's start-up was going to revolutionize the crypto economy. His wealthy investors had no idea that he was really Boaz Manor, a notorious Canadian white-collar criminal. From the archives:
n late 2016, a tech start-up debuted in New York, one that would eventually come to be known as Blockchain Terminal. It was founded by a man who called himself Shaun MacDonald, a dark-bearded Torontonian who wore thick-framed glasses and had an awkward, self-effacing air, as well as a faint, indiscernible accent that most people attributed to his Irish roots.
Shaun MacDonald had an uncanny ability to inspire confidence in strangers. Wherever he went, he promised people money. And for this, people are willing to overlook almost anythingThe man who called himself Shaun MacDonald is a great financial opportunist, a brilliant confidence man, a nerd in search of a cult. Over the course of two decades, he convinced thousands of trusting investors to give him their money, and he did this not once but twice.
Boaz Manor, posing as Shaun MacDonald, sent his top executives to promote the company’s product at road shows across the world. Employees Al Leong and Gabriel Ortiz eventually unveiled his true identity One of the key hires on his team was Gabriel Ortiz, an American-born Afro-Latino hacker with a background in animation and AI, whom Shaun recruited at a New York tech conference in 2017. Ortiz spoke to me extensively for this story, though it took months to gain his trust. Over time, his anxiety relaxed into charming eccentricity. He wears a bow tie and big chunky non-prescription glasses, an affectation he says he assumed in university because it made his professors notice he was smart.
From Monday to Friday, Shaun held 9 a.m. Zoom sessions. Staff were expected to check in each day, no matter what time zone they were in. Half of the employees had only met briefly in person; the rest were scattered around the globe. The number of advisors and contractors and board members on these calls ballooned by the week, giving the staff a sense of momentum. “Shaun created a black box,” one staffer told me.
Many staff speculated that both Rose and Page were involved in casual sexual relationships with Shaun—though he has denied this, and a source close to Page says theirs was just an intense emotional connection. Whatever the case, over time, the two women became openly at odds, sniping at each other in meetings, and before long, the tension escalated into a full-on turf war.
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