Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Ex Microsoft Executive Hunted & Arrested Overseas

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Ex Microsoft Executive Hunted & Arrested Overseas

Same photograph my Caribbean passport, same photograph of my U.S. passport, same photograph in all the visas I have, and everything. And he's like, no, I can't be sure this is the same person. It's not only the same person, it's the same photograph. And he's like, we need a photographic expert. So he goes and gets a photographic expert to do this. But the prosecutor and the FBI and the judge were all in on this. What happened when you were arrested in Bulgaria? Okay. So I was in Bulgaria. I was speaking at a conference. I was one of the opening speakers, not the keynote. I'm often the keynote speaker as well as other, but I was one of the first sessions. We were at the conference center, which is a combination of a holiday inn, which is next to the movie theater, and we were using the movie theater to present. There were a lot of conference attendees, probably over a thousand easily. I was international conference speaker. I was one of the headliners, well known. I arrived in Bulgaria and, um,

nothing really happened. I arrived. I have to look again. I think it was a Sunday. Basically the first day arrived, nothing happened in the other day. We went out to dinner and nothing really is up. And one of the speakers, he said, you know, I saw what I was checking in. He says, I saw a document on the counter there that had your name on it. And I didn't think anything of it. Because I just thought it was like a check-in sheet. I thought there was a check-in sheet and I just happened to be on top because Bulgaria is lots of paperwork. Eastern Europe is all paperwork. And I didn't think anything of it. Nothing at all. Went out to a speaker dinner, came back around 2, 2.30 in the morning. I had a session at like nine o'clock or something. So I got a few hours sleep. I am always

retuning my sessions, even if I've given a million times. So I woke up around 6.6.30, made some tea, put on the TV and it was just doing some final revisions to my session. And around 7 o'clock, there's a knock on the door. And I thought I am, I knew a lot of the other conference speakers, because a lot of us did the same circuit. And one of my best friends at the time, I had brought into the conference circuit. So I basically brought him in. He was very talented. I mean, he did on his own. I'm not saying that his success is my doing. I'm just saying that I did assist him and one thing I did was get him into the conference circuit, right? Right. Somebody who worked with somebody I still respected this day. And we'd hung out the night before. We always hung out.

And so I thought he was coming the door and be like, yo, let's go to breakfast. And so I appeared to the people. It wasn't him. It was five armed interpol agents with guns, all dressed in black. so I left the chain I opened the door just a little bit four men and a woman and they flashed badges and only the woman spoke English and she said

we're here from Interpol we're Bulgarian police but we're attached to Interpol and do you know why we're here and I was like no but I kind of suspected oh because there were some other things that happened before this

gosh I forgot okay so I kind of suspected but I didn't think they were there to arrest me and they didn't show their guns at that time Because prior to this, the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus, although they knew we were in St. Kitts, our house in Cyprus now had the people that live next to our neighbors of Cyprus, they lived in a little tiny house, and they were actually pastors of a church. They were husband and wife. They were pastors of a church. And when we left, they moved into our house because it was bigger and good price. So they knew us. We were good for. friends with them sometimes we would have, you know, breakfast or whatever of them. And they were

just, they were right next door. The houses were right next to each other. So we saw them every day. They were very friendly people. We knew them. The U.S. Embassy sent two people down from the embassy in Nicosia. It's about an hour and a half drive. They didn't even call them. They showed up at the house, pretending to look for us, although they knew we were here. So they're basically harassing the people that were in our house now. And they weren't having any of it because they were, you know, they were the pastors of a church. But they harassed them. And then also the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, and I have a court record of this, by the way. They put it in a court record. So the U.S. Embassy in Moscow set the KGB slash FSB. Now, the KGB, I know they're technically called the FSB. And the Eastern Europeans are like, KGB doesn't exist anymore. You're full of it. Okay. Listen, they got renamed to the FSB. It's the same stupid. It's the same people, right? Right. Okay. And most Westerners, even usually CNN still calls them the KGB. So I call them the KGB. But yes, I know KGB FSB. So if I say KGB, FSP, that's what I'm talking about. So I'd already had some encounters with the KGB FSB prior to this, and I'll explain them if you want in a bit.

But they set the KGB looking for me because at one point we lived in Russia. Now, they knew we were not in Russia. So what they did is they sent them to my wife's parents' house looking for me. Right. It is more and more pressure. Yeah, they produce pressure. Meanwhile, they didn't run saying kids the whole time. So basically, by this time, I had already corresponded with the embassy in Cyprus because I'd emailed them because they said, well, he's not here.

So I'd already correspond to them. I had talked to the U.S. embassy of Moscow. I had talked to the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia. I'd already been in contact with several embassies over this, and I'd already sent them court documents. I'd already explain the whole thing, because they kept saying, we're just investigating, we're just looking for your son. Where is he?

I'm like, well, he's with me, and I'm here, and here's a court document. And they're like, well, okay, I never had any indication that it was anything other than just harassment, right? Because all the U.S. embassies, after I sent him this stuff, they always buggered off. Well, the one, the one invited me to come in for a visit. And I'm like, no, I have no reason to come back to the embassy right now. Plus, oh, the U.S. Embassy and Cyprus, we need to come back to this.

The U.S. Embassy in Cyprus swatted my house. Yeah, so let's come back to that in a little bit. Okay. They told the Cyprus police we were drug dealers and they came and swatted our house. And the Cyprus police had to apologize to us after that. and you're saying the U.S. Embassy did it? Yep. Do you know that?

Well, I know it for a fact. I'll get into that. Let's come back to that story. Put it to Duda, because you want to talk about Bulgaria. We'll come back to that. But no, I know is them. I have proof. Right.

So. We should talk about the KGB and FSB story sometime, too. And we should also talk about the TSA incidents. Mm-hmm. So we should also talk about the foreign intelligence agency encounters as well. That'd be interesting in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and United Arab Emirates.

Let's stick to Bulgaria for now. I told you it gets wild. Right. But remember, I have court documents for everything. Right. I can prove everything. So Bulgaria, so they show up. And by this time, I had had contact with U.S. embassies in Cyprus,

U.S. embassy in Russia, consulate in Russia. So I knew there was harassment. So I thought, like, okay, this is just the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. They know I'm in Bulgaria because it's my conference schedule, my travel schedule, my flight schedule. I mean, I knew they knew I was there, right? And I had no idea as a rest of war, nothing. So I just thought it was the same thing again.

I just thought this time Bulgaria decided, hey, let's do a personal visit on the dude. So I wasn't even scared. And they were like, well, we have some questions. And then I said, I don't know what's about. They're like, this is about your son. Oh, yeah. Okay. He's been known to cure insecurity just with his laugh.

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and so like let's go to the police station and have a chat I'm like I have a session in like an hour and a half and I'm one of the headliners like you're going to need to postpone it and I had a second session in the afternoon so I messaged the conference organizer and I basically told him

I says something's really urgent come up I'm very sorry about this I need to cancel my session I was in the biggest room and I'm like I'm just I'm so sorry I can't even explain right now because they didn't give me any time I said but I should be back for my afternoon session That's the still position I'm in. I'm like, listen, we're going to go.

We're going to have a chat because I had had things like this happen similar, but not quite. And there's always, let's have a chat. We go away. We investigate, okay, you're here. Okay, your sons and St. Kitts and this stuff. And then they go away. Right. But then I figured out something was going on because they said, let's go have a chat.

So I had answered the door in my underwear because I hadn't even dressed yet. And there were four men and a woman. They're all dressed in black. Black and blue jeans. They look like mafia or something, right? Right. And I'd been in places where people pretend to be police. So I'd verified everything.

I checked the badges. You know, they were legit. And I'm checking everything. And they're like, let's go to the police station. And so I saw the door cracked. And she's like, bring your, bring your U.S. passport, some identity documents, and some pants. So, and I've started the, on TikTok, I have a whole series. I've made 11 parts so far.

Well, I made a bunch before I made like 20 parts, but I was really sick when I made those. So now that I've, the last month, the Cuban government's been helping me with medical. They're not, they can't fix me. But they've brought some doctors to me and I've gotten a lot better.

The last three months I've gotten a lot better. I still need surgery. I'm still in a lot of pain. Don't get me wrong. I could die six days, six weeks, six months, six years. I don't know.

But I'm in massive amounts of pain most times. Once you see my health playlist, I pass hundreds of kidney stones a month. I passed a seven by six. a seven by seven by three millimeter kidney stone by my by my own by myself i piss tissue i piss blood i piss pus it's nasty i can show you pictures if you want or check my health playlist on ticot so anyways it was unusual that five of them were there but i just thought you know sometimes these countries they'd like impress the americans you know the american they'd like the americans want

something ha ha ha and i just thought they were putting on a show so i put on pants i grabbed my American passport. I grabbed my identity documents. I had a hidden pocket. I had everything there. I just took my hidden pocket, but I took out my Caribbean passport and left it in the hotel. Okay. And so we get into the hallway and they're like, okay, come with us. And then I noticed they're all armed, okay, except for the woman. I don't think she was armed. But she was there to translate. She told me, she says, these other four men don't speak English. And I'm here to translate. So now I'm thinking, why are there four men with guns who don't speak English and aren't even dressed as police officers?

If they don't speak English, why are they here? Do you really need four of them? Right. Vecna has never even made an allegation of verbal abuse, let alone any sort of violence. I'm a pacifist, generally, because my dad used to beat my mom up and us, and I don't believe in any of that, right? So the worst thing my ex could have ever accused me of was maybe yelling or something, and she never even made that accusation.

So I'm just wondering, why are there four armed men and a woman here to talk to me? All right. So he's not walking down the hallway. I noticed two of them going in front and two of them going back. So now they're surrounding me. They're worried I'm going to run. And I'm at this point, I'm starting to think,

yo, something ain't going right. But I'm still just thinking they're putting on a show because I actually hadn't message a conference organizer yet. I did it. What happened is when we went down the elevator, I ran into my friend who I thought was the one coming to get me for breakfast. And I just told him, he was there about somebody else, I forget, because I ran to him later for sure.

And I just told him, I said, message to the conference organizer. He's like, where are you going? I'm like, I got to go in town. And, you know, he didn't know us with police because they're five people. They're not even in police. He just sees me disappear with five people dressed in black. And it's suspicious. And all the conference attendees are in the hotel in the lobby.

They're making it very conspicuous that they're taking me. Absolutely conspicuous. Everybody sees. So we get into the, we get into the parking lot, and there's an unmarked black, like, intelligence-style car. So now I know that these aren't normal Bulgarian police. They're actually the Bulgarian intelligence service. And they put me in a car.

They surround me with one police officer on each side in the back seat. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGriffon or McGrittle, with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. And there's another car. So I found out there's two cars that was waiting in the parking lot.

It's following us. So now they've brought, like, I don't know how many people there are, but there's two cars in the Bulgarian intelligence service taking me away to the police station. And I don't inform them that I speak any other languages, okay? Because I know at this point, if they don't ask me, I'm not telling them anything. I will cooperate. I will be polite.

They have been polite. They've been professional. They've not been hostile to me. I mean, they've not been rough. Okay. And, but I'm not going to offer them anything extra. So in the car, I'm with Veronica, the one who speaks English. And I'm just asking her some basic questions.

And she's like, well, we're here about your son. And then she gets on to. Oh, actually, I don't think they told me Interpol until we got in the car. I can verify it. I wrote all this down. I have like 50 pages written down. I'm working memory ready. But I don't think they'd mention Interpol too.

We were in the car. And all this police station. Basically, we're here about your son and we're arresting you on an Interpol notice. And I'm like, what? Arrest? Interpol? Because before then I thought it was just like, just let's go have a chat. Yeah, to chat.

But I see the second car. I figured out these are Bulgarian intelligents. And this was not my first trip to Bulgaria. I'd been to Bulgaria several times. I had co-workers in Bulgaria. I had been on a programming team with Bulgarians. I had stayed at friends' houses in Bulgaria before. Alex had been to Bulgaria before.

One time when we lived in Turkey, we took the train to Bulgaria and visited friends for a week or so. So Alex had been to Bulgaria. I mean, they knew that for migration records. They knew we'd been in Bulgaria. And so, I mean, but I knew Bulgaria. And so, I mean, I knew these were intelligence operatives. And I'd been to Middle East, all three East in Europe.

I lived in Russia. But now I hear the word arrest and interpol. That kind of is, you know, changing everything. So we get to the police station and do you want the long version? You want the short version of this? I mean, we're coming up on two hours and 20 minutes. So the semi-short version is probably good. I've seen it.

TikTok where you do the voices. So we don't need the voices. Just the. Well, I can shorten it down to basically they, I would call it an interrogation. Yeah. And then they brought somebody from the U.S. Embassy. He interrogated me. That was one of the dumbest people I've ever met as far as interrogations.

I mean, he was probably, he's not an idiot as a person goes. But the guy from the U.S. Embassy, I think what happened to why is they're like, yo, this dude got arrested in a pole is going to get extradited. Go harass him. And the dude's like, okay, whatever. And he came in completely cold. He didn't know crap. And I played with him the whole freaking time.

I mean, I had him in the pall of my hand. And I'm still making fun of him on TikTok. I'm redoing a new series. And we found him on LinkedIn. I tried to connect with him on LinkedIn. And he's now in South Africa. He has not accepted my connection request, by the way. So I have a former, I have a former Army intelligence officer helping me out now.

I mean, I've attracted all kinds of people on TikTok. I have two other people wanted on false charges by the FBI, and they're on Interpol lists on, I'm in touch with now. I've had people who are actually guilty contact me, and I've just told him, I said, listen, you know, just take a plea bargain or something. But I have two other people, the FBI is accused of bull crap, too, and Interpol can't get them. and I'm in touch with them. And they're not even for custody, they're for other things. But it's just, you know, then the extradition went through. And I could tell you about what they did to be in Bulgaria in prison.

I could tell you the FBI visited me in prison. They sent RSOs after me. They sent the FBI after me. They lied to Bulgaria. They bribed a police officer in Bulgaria. After my extradition was denied the second time, they didn't want me to leave. So they bribed a police officer and convinced them that my Caribbean passport was fake

and that St. Kitts was not a country. And then they complicated things because St. Kitts and Bulgaria at the time did not have official diplomatic relations, which complicated things a bit. Even though we had FedEx official documents from St. Kitts that were apostille. I don't know if you know what an apostille is, but when you move foreign documents, we move documents between countries, there's an international convention that's a treaty, one of the Geneva conventions. You have to have a special stamp from the federal government that makes it official to move to another country. So my wife is back here in the Caribbean getting apostols on all the documents and FedExing them to Bulgaria to prove everything I'm saying.

Prove I'm a citizen, prove I live here, everything. And then this police officer here's like the Bulgarian Studentko from Cheech and Chong. Do you ever watch Cheech and Chong movies? Not in a long time. Okay, but with Cheech and Chong movies, they have a police officer and his name is Officer Stidenko and he's this idiot.

And the Cheech and Chong are always making funny of him. And I met the Bulgarian Stodenko, and I think Stedenko might even be a Bulgarian name, by the way. So after all this way, as they seized my Caribbean passport and they were trying, they opened an investigation into saying it was fake. And I know they bribed this guy because nobody can possibly be this dumb. We went with my lawyer. We're trying to get my passport back so I can leave Bulgaria. Extradition's already been denied twice. And I shit you not. He has my passport in like one of those clear sleeves

that you put a three-wing binder you can see. And there's one staple at the top. And you can actually slip my passport in out on either side of the staple by just turning the bag over and dumping it out. Right. And he's like, we're producing all this documentation to prove who I am. We've sent documentation of St. Kitt's the St. Kitt's consulate or embassy or whatever. I think it's a consulate in London was involved. And this officer was convinced. He's like, your passport's fake.

And we're like, no, he's like, St. Kitt's is not a country. It does not exist. And then we convinced him all this stuff. He's like, so then we present him with a photograph because he wants photographs and he wants somebody to prove that the passport is me. Now, because I used to travel so much and all my visas, they had to have a photograph. I had a stack of photographs that I already preprinted. And instead of going every time I needed one, I just printed out like 50 photographs.

So I've been using the same photograph for like four years. Same photograph of my Caribbean passport. Same photograph of my U.S. passport. Same photograph in all the visas I have and everything. And he's like, no, I can't be sure this is the same person. It's not only the same person. It's the same photograph. And he's like, we need a photographic expert.

So he goes and gets a photographic expert. And the photographic expert is like, these are obviously the same photo. And even the place I was like, well, I'm not convinced. How long are you about a photography expert? And just going on and off. And he's like, we can't get your passport out to look at the photograph your passport because it's in sealed evidence. And it's in this three ring binder with a staple to top. He's like, we need somebody to officially unseal it. And we're like, it's a staple. And not only that, but you could shake my passport out. And he's making this big deal about how it's officially sealed. And it's just

ended like this thing from office max with a stable. And I have all this written down. But we finally ended up getting it back because somebody in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs helped me out. We got this phone call. Like, and the thing is my time in Bulgaria is only three months and I was about to run out. And so what the Americans are doing is we applied for a residence permit. So I'd be legally in Bulgaria and the Americans wouldn't have any of that. And also, when we're in Bulgaria, they seized all my identity documents because they said if a passport is fake. They even seize my driver's license.

I have another, I have another government ID from St. Kiss. my like your social security card in states doesn't have your photo here it does it has my photo and address and stuff on it it looks like a driver's license and an official ID and they seized all of it and they wouldn't give any of it back and under Bulgarian law when they seize your documents if you're in an investigation they have to issue a temporary ID from Bulgaria they have to and this police officer would not issue me a temporary ID and in Eastern Europe you can't just walk around the streets so now I am walking around any ID every time I see a police officer I'm walking the other way because they stopped me to ask me for ID I'm going to jail

for not having ID because they refused to issue it to me. So we finally got, we got a call from the, as the minister of foreign affair, the prosecutor, I know, the senior prosecutor's office to make foreign affairs. They remember which one. And she's like, listen, I'm the senior person in this ministry. And I've been following your case and I was evolved initially and we've learned that the Americans are lying about it.

Your extradition has been denied. They're still trying to block you. They still have a block on you in the passport system. but if you come to Sophia, which is like a two-hour drive, because where I was staying, if you come to Sophia on this day, and it was like the day before Christmas day, it was basically like a holiday where everybody was pissed, everybody was gone. And it wasn't even an official government office. She's like, go to this university and go to the 12th floor and go to this back office.

And we went to this back office. Like we couldn't even get it. It was like a window. It was like a hallway. And there's just like a window. Look like a bank window. And she says, I will transfer your passport to this university, his back office and the university where the inter, I think it was where the law student, like a law

students worked or something, but it's someplace my passport never should have been. But she's like, listen, I will get your passport there. You show up on this day. You take it. I have removed the passport block, but I don't know how long I can keep it to leave immediately. We went and got my passport and then we did the thing that told you about, book the last minute ticket and flew out. So I had help, even from the Bulgarian officials because they were like, you know, something's wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't know if you want to go into all the other stories about, you know, my past with the TSA and the Foreign Intelligence Services because the thing is, it gets wilder from here. Now, at minimum, the only thing that I can prove

is we think the best case scenario is the problem is it's not just one person. If this was just one person, you might be able to just say this is what happened. You might be able to say the prosecutor is doing this, but the prosecutor and the FBI and the judge were all in on this. There are three people at minimum involved this. Plus there's Mary Best. Buchanan who likes to trump up cases. So it could be as simple as Mary Beth Buchanan that, you know, she went to his FBI agent who was telling her the whole time. And then he went to Mary Beth Buchanan. And Mary Beth Buchanan's like, yeah, I screw Tommy Chong. Let's screw this dude too. Why not? Right. It could be as simple as that and now it's a cover up. But if you

look at the history of this case, how hard they've tried to get me, how hard they've tried to cover it up, how much they've blatantly lied. That seems like an incredible coincidence for that number of things to happen for a case like this. Somebody at some point should have been like, what the shit? And drop this. And they refuse to this day. So at minimum, that's all I can prove. Now, if we want to go one step beyond that, the special agent whose name is Kirk Brace, now I can't find it because he seems they've issued a scrub order. They can ask for a scrub order where they basically take most of the public information down around agents and stuff, right? Right. Now I have pictures of him because his wife started posting pictures of Minnesota hat on Christmas

and stuff. And I know where he is. he's in Google now. But I did find an address record that he used to live in Maryland that's still on the internet. And back in 2009, before I was saving all this stuff, I found, and this is coming off memory, but if memory serves me correctly, he was either the part or I believe the head of the Maryland Counterism Task Force. Now, we're filing FOIA requests to find this out, but they keep blocking it. We filed a FOIA request on me last year, and the FBI blocked the FOIA request because they said they don't have to comply with it because I'm a fugitive. They have also blocked, um, they've blocked all kinds of requests.

We have people contacting them. The FBI will not talk about me. They just say they can't comment. And so, no, normally they will at least provide some comment. And even the journalists who have done this are like, why are they doing this? This is so strange. But we think what happened to us because he was in Maryland and I believe he was the head. Now, I can't prove it.

I don't know if he was the head or just a member. But from when I searched before, he was involved in the counterterrorism task force. Now, how does someone go from being either on or the head of the counterterrorism task force for an entire state? to being transferred to a branch office in Pennsylvania, not even like FBI Pittsburgh, not like, hey, let's go to Pittsburgh, it's a cool city. How did he end up in Erie where the FBI doesn't even have a building? They don't even really have an office. It's like two offices with two people in it.

How did he end up at that posting? Now, my theory, and again, I can't prove this, my theory is he did something, he got demoted. Right. And then he's like, well, I need to build my career up. What's the easiest way? Oh, let's frame this guy. build my career up once I catch this international kidnapper because that's how they portrayed me in the press. I have friends and family back in Pennsylvania or, you know,

people I went to school with that have made me not friends that think I captured and killed a kid because that's how it's framed. And if you see me shaking, it's because the medical condition. As I'm tell, this is why it's hard for me to type. Right. And I'm in, I'm actually not in very much pain today. But, um, so we think at minimum, that's what it is. But even then it's kind of hard to believe they go to this extent. And I had some things that happened to me as far back as 2002 that we could go into if you want, but they're even wilder than all of this stuff. And I don't know if they're connected, although I have a lot of indications lately that are indicating they might be connected. But if we weighed into this territory, everything I've told you to date,

I have court records, news articles. I can provide everything to you. If we weighed into this new territory, I'm going to tell you it's going to start to, it gets even wilder. And I have some documentation to support this, but not everything. And I don't know if they're connected or not, but I have a lot of indications, especially recently. We've found some more documentation that potentially links all of this to prior things. But it gets wilder, and I'm even a little bit hesitant to go into that because I start sounding like a crazy person when I can already prove everything I've already said.