After the scam was exposed, I immediately sought to get Russell to incriminate himself further. Wesley and I communicated on a daily basis, but Russell did not know that we were in touch.
Initially, Russell strenuously denied scamming me, and offered to return “all but £12,000” of the money that I had given him. He claimed that he no longer had this £12,000, since he had given it to his Chinese contact for the incriminating documents. The Chinese contact denied receiving any money at all.
However, a few days later, he got in touch with my friend in London who had met him in person. He then asked my friend to communicate to me that he had received an offer of £55,000 from Wesley to expose me as the mastermind of the character assassination project, and stressed that Wesley could sue me for libel. He also stressed that he had proof that I was the author of the article (the Gmail video). He was willing to keep his mouth shut and commit to a legally binding NDA in exchange for a further payment of £20,000. He made sure that this offer was communicated verbally, with no evidence or recordings whatsoever.
In order to keep him on the hook, I initially said that I would agree to this proposal.
However, this led him to contact Wesley more aggressively, saying that he had to pay him the £55,000 in order to get the evidence that I had libeled him - or else he would sign an NDA, and the evidence would be lost forever. Of course, neither Wesley nor myself had any intention of giving him another dime.
Wesley and his representatives insisted that in order to close their deal, the evidence had to be presented in person, and Russell had to come to the US. This was said in order to lure him to the US, so that he could be arrested by law enforcement. Russell wrestled with this, but eventually decided not to take the bait.
However, he continued to send threatening emails to Wesley to press him for payment.
He also used at least four different phone numbers (including one under a different identity) to continue blackmailing me for payment.
These audio recordings conclusively prove Russell’s intention to scam both me and Wesley.
CONTINUING BLACKMAIL
These two calls with Russell (one with Wesley and one with Ben) took place on the same day.
A call between Russell and a third-party representative who was ‘negotiating’ on behalf of Wesley.
After his scam was exposed, Russell flipped the script and claimed that I was the originator of the ‘Uncovering Wesley’ website, and that I had written the contents of the website myself. He created this video (shared in the ‘Bidding War’ section) to serve as ‘evidence’ of this claim.
No longer claiming to be the victim of a heinous cryptocurrency scam who was also being pursued by thugs hired by Wesley, he was now claiming that I had defamed Wesley because of a prior personal grudge.
Russell messaging me on September 26 as “James”, using a new burner number, after I blocked him.
Russell messaging me on October 10 with more threats and blackmail.
Also, he created a website containing allegations against me, and attempted to use this to extort more money from me.