The David Sacks Files: Part I
New "AI and Crypto Czar" David Sacks has backed a number of founders with direct ties to organized criminal activity. Is David Sacks really just a venture capitalist investing in speculative tech companies? Or is his VC persona merely a front for organized crime? Let's dive into David Sacks' relationship with disgraced tech CEO Keith McCarty and the Wirecard money laundering network.
In 2019, WAYV's Keith McCarty was living the life of a high flying tech executive. He'd been an early executive at David Sacks' Yammer, which sold to Microsoft for over $1B in 2012. He'd founded Eaze, the California cannabis "Uber for weed" startup. He'd left Eaze to start WAYV and tackle the perceived next problem in marijuana: building a payments network for an industry that, because marijuana is federally illegal, could not be banked.
McCarty had all the requisite media backing him: TechCrunch features, a slot on CNBC, and dozens of articles written about how WAYV was taking on payments and money transfer in the cannabis industry.
Yet, by 2021 Eaze and WAYV had fallen apart.
Two ex-Eaze "consultants" were convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and sentenced to federal prison for running a scheme to trick US banks into handling over $100m in payments to Eaze.
At the core of this case was the usage of fake sites and fake entities to disguise transactions and make it seem that these were not in fact marijuana purchases to Eaze.
The perpetrator of this scheme was Iranian-born US citizen "Porn Baron" Hamid "Ray" Akhavan, who was ordered to forfeit the $17.2m he'd made on the scheme through laundering transactions from 2017 to 2019 for Eaze through a series of British and Cypriot shell companies.
Jim Patterson, it should be noted, is another former employee of David Sacks from Yammer, along with the previous Eaze CEO Keith McCarty.
The Wirecard Money Laundering Connection
One of the largest frauds in history - Wirecard - runs directly through Eaze and David Sacks' former partners Jim Patterson and Keith McCarty, although this fact has been largely glossed over by Silicon Valley and financial media.
If you're not up to speed on the fall of Wirecard, there are a number of resources:
1) Skandal!: Bringing Down Wirecard: a Netflix documentary on the fall of Wirecard.
2) You can read The Economist's takes here.
3) You can watch free YouTube videos on Wirecard here, here, or here.
4) You can read takes from The Financial Times here.
Dollar for dollar, euro for euro, ruble for ruble, Wirecard is one of the biggest frauds and money laundering operations ever. There is no question at this point that this is one of the biggest international money laundering and financial frauds ever to exist.
So why does this bring us back to David Sacks' lieutenants Jim Patterson and Keith McCarty of Eaze through Ray Akhavan?
In fact, even after Ray Akhavan was released on bail he was found possessing two firearms and what was believed to be crack cocaine...
...which Ray Akhavan claims did not belong to him but belonged to his roommate and co-conspirator, Keith McCarty.
You can download and read the full document below:
So we've got:
-David Sacks' two former Yammer executives Jim Patterson and Keith McCarty running Eaze, involved in a scheme to defraud US banks, with Jim Patterson entering a guilty plea and David Sacks financially backing Keith McCarty as an investment in cannabis payment network WAYV.
-Keith McCarty rooming with Ray Akhavan when Akhavan was released on bail, with Akhavan found with firearms and crack cocaine which Akhavan claimed belonged to McCarty who would hide these materials in Akhavan's room when McCarty was entertaining prostitutes.
-Ray Akhavan going to prison, along with his partner Ruben Weigard, for their role at Eaze.
-Ray Akhavan running a series of fake merchants and porn sites processing tranfers for Eaze, linked to Wirecard, one of the largest financial frauds in history.
Open Questions
-What is David Sacks' role in Eaze and WAYV outside of merely financing WAYV to process cannabis payments, given that several former executives of David Sacks' Yammer were involved in Eaze and have faced and pleaded guilty to charges against them?
-Why is David Sacks, if he's such a great VC, backing a "founder" with firearms and crack cocaine in his apartment, rooming with Ray Akhavan, who is a large part of the Wirecard scheme?
-What does David Sacks plan to do to address this? Why is David Sacks involved with such characters if his nose is clean?
-What LP funds, what pensions, what public fund money, what union money passed through David Sacks' Craft Ventures in order to finance any of this or related criminal schemes?
