It is not a secret to anyone in the poker community that Wesley and I have not seen eye to eye for some time.

On June 1, 2023, an anonymous person contacted me on Instagram requesting a conversation regarding a cryptocurrency scam that Wesley had allegedly perpetrated a few years prior. During a subsequent telephone call, he told me that he was a finance professional from London, and that he and his friend (incidentally also named ‘Ben’) had lost $250,000 in Wesley’s scam. He further claimed that, when he reported the fraud to his bank, Wesley hired thugs to burglarize his home. These thugs apparently stole his storage devices containing evidence of the scam.

He stated that after the break-in, Wesley taunted and mocked him. He then played me an audio recording containing Wesley’s voice.

I have always had a tendency to get riled up whenever confronted with injustice, particularly in cases when a vulnerable person is getting bullied. Naturally, I was shocked and enraged. The caller pleaded for my help in holding Wesley accountable and/or bringing him to justice. Specifically, he told me that he was embarking on a project to expose Wesley’s crimes to the public, and requested that I provide ‘funding’. I refused.

This anonymous person came back to me in August. He claimed that his project was now gathering steam, but that he and his friend ‘Ben’ had incurred expenses of £40,000 to £50,000 (about $50,000 to $62,500) in conducting their own private investigation and information-gathering exercise. He continued to tug at my heart strings, and emphasized that Wesley’s scheme had severely impacted his life. For all intents and purposes, the objective of this project was to bring Wesley to justice and hold him to account for what he did. He further claimed that, once his story was made public, other victims would follow suit. While I entertained these proposals, I did not commit to anything.

On August 24, he claimed that Wesley had somehow gotten wind of our project. He suggested that this might have been due to ‘leaks’ in my network, or that my phone might be compromised. He claimed that Wesley was aware of a conspiracy against him, and suspect that I was the person behind it all. He also claimed that Wesley offered him $35,000 to expose me as the originator of this campaign of character assassination. He made it clear to me that he was willing to send screenshots of our conversations to Wesley that might provide ‘evidence’ of his suspicions, i.e. framing me as the mastermind of the entire effort even though I was initially only trying to help someone who I believed was a victim.

While I clearly knew that he was pitting me against Wesley in a bidding war, I recognized that $35,000 was life-changing money for him, and that it would be very difficult for him to turn down such an offer. As such, I finally made a concrete offer to ‘fund’ his project, after months of not taking it seriously. At this point, I still did not know his identity, but I acted out of panic.

At his request, I sent him a transfer of $2,500 via WISE. It was then that I discovered his name, Russell Thamer.

Following this transfer, Russell sent me a draft document that he had written. The article contained the two aforementioned allegations, i.e. that Wesley had defrauded him of $250,000 via a cryptocurrency scam, and that Wesley had sent thugs to burglarize his home (and pretty much admitted it) after he reported it. However, the document was riddled with grammatical and structural errors. As such, I assisted him in proofreading and editing the document. I did not change any of the substantive content, nor did I introduce any new allegations.

On September 3, 2023, the website ‘Uncovering Wesley’ went live. Additionally, Russell made a Reddit post, reproducing the contents of the website in their entirety.

Around this time, Russell also informed me that a Chinese man with claimed ties to an international business syndicate had contacted him stating that he had documentary evidence that proved Wesley had committed immigration fraud. Apparently, Wesley and his criminal backers had staged a fake marriage in order for him to obtain a green card. Russell suggested that the Chinese man offered to sell him these documents for £80,000, and that they were guaranteed to get Wesley deported from the United States. I rejected this offer. Days later, Russell came back and told me that he had negotiated the price down to £45,000. I still said no.

Meanwhile, in the next 48 hours, the Reddit thread had accumulated upwards of 200,000 views. Russell told me he felt vindicated, and that the game would soon be up for Wesley.

However, a new development would suddenly take place. A few days later, Russell claimed to have received a threatening phone call from a man with a Chinese accent. The caller had correctly identified Russell’s address, as well as his exact movements throughout that day - including the route he took to his office, and what he had for lunch. He claimed that he had to vacate his home and move into a hotel because he feared for his safety. He sent me two voice recordings allegedly sent by these thugs.

Russell sounded absolutely terrified, and I too began to fear for my safety. I was absolutely livid. I thought Wesley had gone too far in resorting to violence and intimidation for a second time, and I was even more determined to bring him to justice.

At this time, Russell once again brought up the matter of the immigration fraud, and suggested to me that the only way to stop Wesley was to have him arrested (and potentially deported) by law enforcement. Stressed and extremely sleep-deprived, I finally relented, and agreed to fund half of the costs. As such, I sent £30,000 in cryptocurrency (broken down into 3 separate payments) into to a trusted friend in London, who then met Russell in person and gave him cash. Russell promised that we would have the necessary documents within two hours, and that the crisis would soon be over.

The next day, I discovered that these documents did not exist, and that I had been scammed. I called Ryan Feldman to tell him what happened, and he said Wesley had been in touch that same day. Wesley was evidently in some distress, and told Ryan that someone was asking him for $35,000 to take down the website and also show that I was the one behind it.

Immediately, I asked Ryan to set up a meeting with Wesley.

The following day, Wesley and I met for the first time in months. He showed me text messages and voice recordings on his phone from Russell. I showed him my text messages and voice recordings, including the ones that were purportedly from Wesley’s hired thugs in London. Following our conversation, it became apparent that Wesley did not have any association with any gangs in London at all. Moreover, it became obvious to us both that his stories on both sides were fabricated.

Throughout the past month, we have been discreetly working together to collect more incriminating evidence against Russell. Sure enough, he has not disappointed. He has been sending us screenshots of text messages from each other, spliced, cut, redacted and taken out of context so that we would each assume that we posed a threat to each other. He continues to hawk his ‘evidence’ to Wesley, while still trying to blackmail me. Obviously I have learnt my lesson, and I will not cave to his threats.

For more specifics on the above events, please see the ‘Details’ section of this website.