The Strange Story of the Ten Million Dollar MH17 Investigation

For most people, the website Joker.buzz is totally unknown. The site, which offers users the chance to broker information anonymously using the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, has in recent weeks come to the attention of those who have taken a close interest in the shooting downing of Flight MH17 in July last year. At the start of June a new auction was posted online, asking for 10,000 Bitcoins (approximately $3 million at current exchange rates) for evidence collected as part of an investigation by a “private detective agency” into the events on July 17th 2014. It claims to include over 20 sets of evidence, including videos of witness questions, a forensic examination of the wreckage, results of autopsies, and much more.

To bolster these claims two videos were posted on the site, the first showing footage filmed inside a Buk missile launcher, likely part of the 15 minutes of Buk footage listed on the site:

The audio seems to suggest this is the Buk missile launcher that fired at Flight MH17, but it’s impossible to establish if the audio is authentic, or if the video footage is from July 17th. A second video released on June 22nd contains an audio recording, this time between what appears to be a pilot in an aircraft and a second person.

Today audio was released by Life News in an article in which “experts” claim MH17 was in fact downed not by a jet or Buk missile, but by a bomb on board the plane. The audio in the article is claimed to be a conversation between a Ukrainian SU-27 pilot near MH17 and his controller, and includes a claim by the pilot the explosion that downed MH17 was possibly on board. What’s particularly interesting about this recording is it appears to be the same one being sold on the Joker.buzz auction. As pointed out elsewhere, not only does the audio in the Joker.buzz video appears in the Life News video, but the playback device is identical, even down to the precise position and alignment of the smallest screws. The experts who provided the tape said they had to pay $250,000 to purchase the recording, so it is possible they did in fact purchase the tape from the same people selling it on Joker.buzz. That does raise the question of how can it still be part of the Joker.buzz auction if it has already been sold, including the playback device, to the experts featured in the Life News article.

Since the publication of the audio on Life News on July 29th Joker.buzz has announced the price of the information will be raised to 35,000 Bitcoins, $10 million at current exchange rates, justifying the price increase due to the availability of “irrefutable evidence” in the MH17 case.

Another curious audio recording also appeared today, after going unnoticed on a website since July 17th. The article posted on the site Pressbox.co.uk, a site for posting press releases, claims the following:

David L. Stern, a citizen of the USA, working as a CIA agent under cover in international media, in particular in GlobalPost and BBC, in the middle of July of 2014 was near Grabovo village of the Donetsk region of Ukraine where the Boeing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was shot down. The given transcripts of David L. Stern’s phone talks partially clarify the events preceding the air crash on July 17, 2014 in Ukraine. Audio files were provided by people of the ex-head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko after his resignation. For confirmation there is a phone talk with David Stern attached, the audio file is available on: http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=89052498329097996975

The article then has the transcripts of six short phone calls reportedly recording in the days before July 17th 2014, including calls where “David Stern” is discussing the movements of a Buk missile launcher, and preparations of a nefarious sounding plan. The clear intent of these transcripts are to claim David Stern was directly involved with organising the shooting down of Flight MH17 with a Buk as part of some sort of conspiracy.

The Pressbox article went unnoticed until today, when it was identified by users of several forums and social media sites, and it was soon picked up by the Russian media. The Russian articles claims the author of the Pressbox article is Caleb Gilbert, a “British columnist”, but it appears that apart from the Pressbox article itself Caleb Gilbert has no British media presence at all, nor is it possible to find any journalist named Caleb Gilbert. Other Russian sites go further, claiming David Stern has been involved in other CIA conspiracies, with claims of activity going back as far as the 1996 Russian presidential elections.

Despite all these wild accusations there is one fairly major problem with the Pressbox recording. If you actually listen to David Stern speak (for example, in this BBC video), it’s clear his accent is different from the stilted British accent that the speaker in the audio recording has, and that’s ignoring the rather unnatural way the participants in the conversations are talking. But how does this tie to the Joker.buzz auction? In addition to the Pressbox audio file, a 2nd audio file was added to the Joker.buzz auction, and the conversation in this audio file matches the transcript of one of the six conversations on the Pressbox article. It seems these two audio recordings, and the 6 transcribed recordings on the Pressbox article are all most certainly the six “records of mobile phone conversations made by foreign intelligence agents” listed on the auction.

This raises the question why evidence from the auction is seemingly being released bit by bit? If it’s an attempt to drum up interest in the auction why is none of this information being linked to the auction when it’s published? Could it be someone has manufactured a set of evidence pointing to conspiracy around the downing of Flight MH17, and after failing to sell it is now trying to get it into the open piece by piece? It seems that with the continual leak of the information from the auction it’ll only be a matter of time until more is published online.