Manitoba professor going viral after Netflix releases film on an alleged cryptocurrency scam

A University of Manitoba professor is gaining notoriety after a Netflix film is showing just how his face was used in an alleged cryptocurrency scam.

Andrew Halayko is a professor at the University of Manitoba’s medical school, but for anyone who was looking at Halayko’s face on CentraTech’s website, a now-defunct cryptocurrency company, they would have found Michael Edwards, a former banking executive who became CEO of the company.

Halayko is seen in the newly released Netflix documentary Bitconned which examines how three men — Sam Sharma, Raymond Trapani, and Robert Farkas — ran CentraTech, which allegedly scammed people out of their money.

“Somehow my face had contributed to somebody else’s loss, which despite the fact it had nothing to do with my actions, it’s a shame,” said Halayko.

“I spent almost 30 years doing research trying to do ‘good for mankind’ if you want to put it that way and I got famous because somebody happens to steal my face and put it on a scam website.”

Halayko was first notified by the RCMP back in 2019 his face was being used by CentraTech.

The company found and picked Halayko’s face by simply searching for an “old white guy” on the internet, something that people including Halayko’s 90-year-old mother now finding laughter in.

“She watched it and wrote a text saying ‘We are watching Bitconned.’ When they were done, I got an email saying, ‘It was good…old white guy,’ said Halayko.

“I would say 80 per cent of the people who have reached out after seeing or hearing about the documentary have ‘old white guy’ somewhere in the subject heading of their email or they mention it in their text.”

As more people questioned the legitimacy of Michael Edwards, the company scrapped his profile on its website and released an obituary claiming he died.

The film shows Halayko reading his own obituary for the first time.

“I had shivers down my spine. It was sort of a really weird feeling. Even though I’m reading Michael Edwards’ obituary, it’s supposed to be me,” he explained.

Halayko says he hasn’t made any changes to his online identity since his image was stolen. Tech experts say, once we post an image of ourselves online, it is very hard to prevent others from using our identity.

“That’s why it’s really important to go right to the source, and verify the information, especially before you turn over your hard-earned money,” said Ritesh Kotak, Cybersecurity and Technology Analyst.

Brandon Laur, the CEO of the White Hatter added, “Most websites online do respect the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which some people have called broken, but you can use to your own advantage. We have helped some clients of ours successfully get pictures of theirs taken of certain websites because we issued a DMCA claim. Some websites don’t want to deal with that, but some non-NATO friendly websites may not respect that.”

For now, Halayko is welcoming his newfound fame and even recommends the film for anyone to watch.

“It’s nice to see how well done it was, it’s a great watch.”