On January 1^st, 2024, Netflix’s documentary Bitconned was released. It told the story of three who men took advantage of the cryptocurrency market to scam investors and take millions of dollars with a fake cryptocurrency debit card. Their elaborate scam consisted of a counterfeit card that would supposedly make spending cryptocurrency seamless in daily life. In the middle of this ordeal: a University of Manitoba professor who was unknowingly the CEO of CentraTech, the fraudulent crypto debit card company.

Dr. Andrew Halayko has been a professor at the Max Rady College of Medicine for 25 years and is the father of two boys. Unbeknownst to him, he was also Michael Edwards, the extremely wealthy and secretive CEO of Centra Tech. Dr. Halayko was contacted by the Royal Canadian Mountain Police on behalf of the FBI in 2019 and was informed that his image had been used for fraudulent purposes. In 2023, he was flown to Los Angeles to be interviewed for Netflix’ documentary. It was during filming that Dr. Halayko learned that Michael Edwards had been apparently killed in a car crash. When internet sleuths had investigated, they exposed “Michael Edwards” as a fictitious invention, after which the perpetrators of the scam claimed the invented CEO, who bore the face of Dr. Halakyo, had died in a car crash.

Dr. Halayko’s main question when he was informed of his image being stolen was “Why me?” This very question was answered in the documentary. Upon being asked, Ray Trapani, one of the scammers, revealed that Dr. Halayko’s picture was selected after they searched “old white guy”, which has since become a new nickname for the innocent University of Manitoba professor. Dr. Halayko took the entire situation in stride, commenting on his “fifteen minutes of fame” in the documentary. Despite the amusing aspects, the situation has also shed light on the very real problem of online scams. What is on the internet can easily be used for malicious purposes and it is important to be cognizant of one’s online presence. Nevertheless, Dr. Andrew Halayko’s experience is a remarkable story of the unlikely involvement of a Winnipegger in a large-scale crypto scam.