The title is a bit missleading.
There is no official statement, neither by Gizmodo nor Wired, that they both were wrong.
There is a very good summary by some guy on reddit how the story probably went.
I think Craig is a scam artist, and it is not unreasonable that "Bitcoin Belle" might have played a part in it, knowingly or unknowingly.
Here is my theory on his end-game from reviewing the various leaked documents.
The Hotwire administrator report makes it pretty clear why the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) was after him.
http://www.mcgrathnicol.com/app/uploads/D14-140526-Hotwire439AReport-BFK.pdfIf you look at page 9, there is a description of how Hotwire was funded via bitcoin from Craig, and then used that bitcoin to purchase IP rights from the Wright Family Trust. That trust itself had received the IP from Craig. Extract is below
https://i.imgur.com/xEyxdvR.pngPretty circular, right?
Page 5 says that the initial equity of the Company came from a $30m bitcoin investment, and that $29m of that was paid, in bitcoin, to the trust. As Wired notes, that $30m of bitcoin would have been 1.6% of outstanding bitcoin at that time (June 2013).
Now the interesting thing is that based on "investing" in that IP, in 2014 Hotwire had claimed a $3.1m GST refund, and an R&D credit of $9.6m. The report notes the ATO was investigating those claims before paying them. The report also notes prior R&D credits were paid in 2013. See Page 20.
So it looks like other than the $1m of bitcoin supposedly retained, the major cash source was expected to be tax rebates.
Now, leaving aside the bitcoin questions, I would not be surprised that the ATO was skeptical of the circular nature of the transaction. Were the assets fairly valued, given the related party issues? But I'm no Australian tax expert.
But given the size of the bitcoin "investment", I further wonder if that bitcoin ever existed, or was transacted. The report doesn't have any meaningful discussion of how the bitcoin was verified to have been funded and then paid to the trust. It may have been smoke and mirrors. For example, Craig could have claimed to just assign the private key to the company and then the trust, so no blockchain record could be found. It is interesting that the ATO transcript does note on page 2 that what was previously called a "transfer" was actually an "assignment of rights" in bitcoin, and no bitcoin was "physically exchanged".
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2644013-20140226-Meeting-Minutes-Redacted.htmlSo where does the Satoshi angle come in?
ATO comes in, starts asking difficult questions. Craig knows that at some point they aren't just going to rely on legal documents talking about the transfer of bitcoin among the entities, and maybe they'll start to understand better how it works and want to see blockhain evidence and private key signatures.
Craig knows he not only doesn't have the bitcoin in the IP trust, but can't show any reliable proof that he ever earned that much bitcoin. Not paying taxes is bad, but defrauding the ATO for R&D credits that they pay out in cash, REALLY BAD. What to do?
If only you were actually Satoshi, you've got tons of bitcoin! And you really didn't want to tell this to the world, that is why you initially hid it from the ATO. But then you got outed - against your will! Extorted even! Can I get some sympathy?
Ok fine, but if you are Satoshi, prove it, and we're glad that you now have a good source of funds to pay any liabilities.
Ah, about that, Craig now says. In those leaked documents the hacker got from me, you'll see I actually put it in to another trust, way back in 2011. (In fact, I may have been a little guilty of trying to hide that money from ATO at the time, but it was unclear if it was taxable in those early days, and even if it was, the value at the time of the transfer was not that much, so the penalty for that should not be too much. Sorry!)
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2644014-Tulip-Trust-Redacted.htmlAnd that trust provided the bitcoin would be locked up until 2020. But the trust provided the trustee could loan it back to me for bitcoin related businesses, such as Hotwire. So that is why I don't have proof of owning the bitcoin, it was really just a bitcoin denominated loan from that trust, to me, then to Hotwire, then to the Family Trust.
Oh, and by the way the trustee died. He had some health and mental issues towards the end, his affairs were a mess. We can't find the private keys. Poor me!
As for Bitcoin Belle, other than her performance on that video, I don't know much about her. But a little google-fu shows she is a tax denier who recently owed the IRS over $600k. See description and link to a video here:
http://www.pappastax.com/wacko-tax-protester-says-shes-no-slave-and-therefore-doesnt-have-to-file-tax-returns/Tax deniers are the epitome of gullible conspiracy theorists. It doesn't seem a stretch to think that Craig scammed her to get on this panel by hinting at the coming reveal.
