Additional Information Regarding ‘The Spy in the Bag’
There’s an FBI FOIA release on Gareth Williams’ murder. Why didn’t Buzzfeed mention it?
The BuzzFeed Report:
On June 20, 2017, BuzzFeed News published The Secrets Of The Spy In The Bag, which was Part Four of its investigation into deaths on British soil linked to Russia. The article tells the story of the 2010 discovery of Gareth Williams’ body in a padlocked duffel bag inside the bathtub in his apartment.
Williams was a codebreaker who worked for GCHQ, was assigned to MI6, and was working with the United States’ NSA. A single source in the Buzzfeed article “confirmed reports that he had been helping the NSA trace international money-laundering routes that are used by organised crime groups including Moscow-based mafia cells. The NSA did not respond to requests for comment.”
Salacious reports of Williams’ alleged “sexual proclivities” were published in the British media after his body was found, and it was insinuated his death was due to “a sex game gone wrong.” Though “secret US intelligence suggest[ed] Williams’ death was connected to his work on Russia,” in 2013, British police announced Williams’ death was “an accident.”
The FBI FOIA:
There is publicly available information that was not reported in the BuzzFeed article, which appears relevant. Given that one of the writers on the BuzzFeed article, Jason Leopold is a self-described ‘FOIA terrorist,’ I would think he’d have been aware of the FBI’s FOIA response to a request made on October 1, 2016 by Joseph Lloyd on Muckrock.
However, several facts in the FOIA response did not make it into the BuzzFeed story. The FBI was asked assist in the investigation into Williams’ death. The FOIA response document states,
“Approximately two weeks before the discovery of Williams body, Williams travelled to Las Vegas, Nevada, to attends [sic] the Def-Con 18 conference which focuses on technical computer intrusion techniques. Williams attended in his professional capacity and with the knowledge of his employer. Subsequent to the conference Williams is believed to have extended his stay in Las Vegas for approximately one week on vacation, staying at Caesars Palace and Trump Las Vegas [emphasis mine], and engaging in expenditures of approximately $2,000 per day.”
According to the Defcon-18 schedule, the conference ran from Thursday, July 29, 2010, to Sunday, August 1, 2010.
Topics included: “Deceiving The Heavens To Cross The Sea: Using The The 36 Stratagems For Social Engineering,” “An Examination Of The Adequacy Of The Laws Related To Cyber Warfare,” “Bypassing Smart-card Authentication and Blocking Debiting: Vulnerabilities in Atmel Cryptomemory-based Stored-value Systems” and “So Many Ways To Slap A Yo-ho:: Xploiting Yoville And Facebook For Fun And Profit.”
If Williams added an extra week to his stay, that would put him in Las Vegas until approximately August 8, 2010. He was last seen in London on August 15, 2010. Though he was expected at work on August 16, 2010, he did not arrive.
“A day later, with still no signs of the spy, the manager said he called Williams but received no response from his phone. By August 20, the manager visited the apartment where William lived but failed to raise any response. Coroner Fiona Wilcox told the manager she was “really struggling to understand why you took no action at this point.”
The witness told the inquest hearing that he had a “gut feeling that he was away doing something that I was not made aware of.” Only on August 23 did the spy’s manager raise the alarm with senior bosses and the spy’s family. His body was found later that day.
“In hindsight, knowing what I know now, should I have taken action? Absolutely,” the manager acknowledged, giving his testimony from behind a screen to protect his identity.”
I am not a lawyer, nor have I ever worked in an investigative capacity, so take this with a grain of salt, but: the wording of Williams’ manager’s response to why he did not report Williams missing sooner is intriguing. A “gut feeling that he was away doing something that I was not made aware of,” makes me wonder if Williams’ was working undercover, or if his “vacation” week in Las Vegas was more of a secret work trip. If that is the case, what was he doing for that extra week?
On August 28, 2010, it was reported in the press that £18,000 had disappeared from Williams’ bank accounts two months prior, and that the money could not be “immediately traced.” On August 1, 2010, GBP/USD closed at ~1.57, which would make £18,000 = $28,260.
The FOIA report stated Williams’ daily expenditures in Vegas were $2,000/day over his week of vacation, so approximately $14,000. What was he spending that much money on?
A document dated September 1, 2010 that was released with the FOIA request states officers from the UK were planning to travel to Las Vegas from Septeber 5 throuh Septeber 12 2010, and had requested assistance from the FBI,
“in order to determine what specific evidence and witnesses might be available for official request which would facilitate the murder investigation and provide whether or not motive was tied to Wiliams’ employment.”
In a redacted document dated September 13, 2010, the writer states he/she was thanked “for the excellent assistance provided by Las Vegas division to [REDACTED] during the week of 9/06/2010.”
A redacted document dated October 10, 2010 states,
“[REDACTED]…advised additional records from Las Vegas were still in the process of being provided. [REDACTED] also advised that there may be a UK citizen residing in San Diego, California with additional infromation and [REDACTED] will advise FBI as more information accrues on that lead.”
Williams’ Las Vegas trip gets no mention in the Buzzfeed story, though he was investigating money laundering and attended a hacking conference there less than a month before his death. Officers travelled to Las Vegas from the UK and requested assistance from the FBI. Given what we now know about Russian organized crime using hackers to launder money, why didn’t Buzzfeed mention Las Vegas?
