Client 9 from Outer Space
The news this week is heavily slanted towards the resignation of New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who was caught in a hookergate. Spitzer is an easy target, since his years of billing himself as a self-righteous prosecuting crusader virtually guarantee that when he crashes, he does so in the big, explosive way of the caught-out hypocrite.
Mr. Spitzer was caught dallying with a 22 year old hooker whom he imported from New York to DC to canoodle with him in the Mayfair Hotel, scene of much political canoodling. He was caught because his bank, HSBC, filed a suspicious activity report to the Treasury Department related to wire transfers that the former governor made to shell companies acting as bookers for the hookers. Once the government became interested in the unusual transactions, the FBI used wiretaps and surveillance of "Client 9" (as he was known) including monitoring his electronic transmissions such as text messaging to figure out what Spitzer was "up" to. They quickly discovered the he had been paying the escort service thousands of dollars through wire transfers to fund his ho-habit.
Wouldn't you think that of all people, Eliot Spitzer would have known better about the kind of trail that electronic fund transfers can leave? After a decade of electronically-fueled political scandals, not least of which being the infamous Clinton-Lewinsky embarrassment, he should known not to leave the record.
For future reference, if anyone famous out there is reading this and planning on screwing around:
- Use a pay-as-you-go cellphone from 7-11
- Transfer money via credit card through reputable companies (or use cash or better yet Paypal)
- Stay at an Embassy Suites or something. The Mayflower is so used to wiretapping , they probably have a special suite devoted to the FBI
I wonder if anyone, any more, will be able to get away with anything; given a sufficient level of scrutiny.
Posted on March 14, 2008
