As Kent Halliburton As he stood in the bathroom of the Rosewood Hotel in central Amsterdam, thousands of kilometers from home, running his fingers over an envelope filled with crisp 10,000 euro notes, he began to wonder what he had gotten himself into.
Halliburton is the co-founder and CEO of Sazmining, a company that operates bitcoin mining hardware on behalf of clients – a model known as “mining as a service.” Halliburton is headquartered in Peru, but Sazmining operates mining equipment in third-party data centers in Norway, Paraguay, Ethiopia and the United States.
According to Halliburton, he had flown to Amsterdam the previous day, August 5, to meet with Even and Maxim, two representatives of a wealthy family from Monaco. The family office has offered to purchase hundreds of bitcoin mining rigs from Sazmining worth about $4 million, which the company will install at a facility currently under construction in Ethiopia. Before finalizing the deal, the family office requested an in-person meeting with Halliburton.
When Halliburton arrived at the Rosewood Hotel, he found Even and Maxim sitting in a booth. They seemed to him a playboy and an ambitious type of man – especially Maxim, who wore a brown three-piece suit and had a very groomed appearance, with his long dim hair parted in the middle. A Rolex protruded from the cuff of his sleeve.
Over a three-course lunch – ceviche with roe, Chilean sea bass and cherry pie – they discussed the outline of the deal and exchanged details about their backgrounds. He was even talkative and playful, telling stories about parties in Marrakech. Maxim was distant; he mostly stared at Halliburton, holding his gaze for a long time, as if appraising him.
As part of building a relationship, Even offered to sell the family office to Halliburton for about $3,000 in bitcoin. Halliburton was hesitant at first, but described it as a peculiar dating ritual. One of the boys slipped Halliburton an envelope filled with cash and told him to go to the bathroom where he could count the amount in private. “It felt like I was in a James Bond movie,” Halliburton says. “It was all very exotic to me.”
Halliburton left in a taxi, somewhat dazed by the meeting but otherwise hopeful that the family office deal would be finalized. For Sazmining, a diminutive company with about 15 employees, this was the promise of transformation.
Less than two weeks later, Halliburton lost over $200,000 worth of bitcoin to Even and Maxim. He didn’t know if Sazmining would survive the blow or how the fraudsters had ensnared him.