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support. Go to l-e-e-s-a.com/NPR and

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get 20% off site-wide. to

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l-e-e-s-a.com slash NPR and get

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20% off site-wide. Heads

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up, this episode has a few

0:22

curse words in it. This is Planet

0:25

Money from NPR. that I've

0:27

not been able to stop thinking about

0:29

since I first saw it. It's a short

0:31

video, just 39 seconds long, of a bearded

0:33

man with a tight hair cut, a white

0:36

t-shirt, and a gold chain. And he is

0:38

filming himself, selfie style, but he

0:40

seems to be holding the phone at

0:42

this weird angle, as if he's trying to

0:44

hide it from someone. Hello, my name

0:46

is Segren Gambarian. I'm a head

0:48

of financial prime compliance for finance.

0:50

I've been detained by the Nigerian

0:53

government. for a month. I don't

0:55

know what's going to happen to

0:57

me after today. If this is

0:59

ringing a bell, it first made

1:01

the rounds last spring. I've done

1:03

nothing wrong. I asked the United

1:05

States government to this. I need

1:07

your help, guys. I don't know

1:09

if I'll be able to get

1:11

out of this without your help.

1:13

Please help. Then, the video just

1:16

ends. It's haunting. I first heard

1:18

about this guy and this video

1:21

from legendary reporter, Dean and

1:23

Temple Rasten. Hey, Deena. Hey

1:25

there. You've been following this

1:27

story, the story of Tigran

1:29

Gambarian, since day one. Yeah, I

1:31

knew Tigran. He's a former IRS investigator.

1:33

He's American. And I had interviewed

1:35

him for a bunch of stories.

1:37

So I found out pretty quickly

1:40

that he'd been detained at Nigeria.

1:42

And I thought they'd hold him

1:44

for a couple of weeks. I

1:46

had no idea that it was

1:48

going to become such a saga. Yeah,

1:50

and that's saga is our episode today.

1:52

Hello and welcome to Play to Money.

1:54

I'm Nick Fountain. And I'm Dina Temple

1:56

Rastin, the host of Click Here, a

1:58

cyber and intelligence podcast. Tigran's story

2:01

is about more than one

2:03

man in a notorious Nigerian

2:05

prison. It's about how people

2:07

and places without stable economies

2:09

have found refuge in cryptocurrency,

2:12

how crypto can undermine state

2:14

power, and how that state power

2:16

fights back. So today, that story

2:18

from Tigran himself. We landed the

2:20

first recorded interview with him since

2:23

his release, and now we know

2:25

all the details of his eight

2:27

months in captivity. and how we

2:30

got out. Oh my gosh, you look

2:32

great. I'm so worried doing

2:34

it. Hey, how you doing? Good

2:36

to see you, too. This message

2:39

comes from Charles Schwab. When

2:41

is the right time to

2:43

sell a stock? What is

2:46

the best way to

2:48

steer your portfolio through

2:50

an unsteady market? Financial

2:52

decisions can be tricky.

2:54

Financial Decoder is an

2:56

original podcast from Charles

2:58

Schwab. Host Mark Riepi,

3:00

head of the Schwab

3:02

Center for Financial Research,

3:04

offers practical solutions to

3:06

help overcome cognitive and

3:08

emotional biases that may

3:10

affect our investing decisions.

3:12

Listen at schwab.com/Financial Decoder or

3:15

wherever you get your podcasts.

3:17

This message comes from Amika Insurance.

3:19

As Amika says, empathy is our

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best policy. Whether you're seeking auto,

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with you to choose the policy

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that best serves you and your

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family. Discover how amika can help

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protect what matters most to you

3:34

today. Go to amika.com and get

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a quote today. Let me tell you

3:38

a little bit about Tigran Gambarian.

3:41

He's this Armenian American guy. Super

3:43

smart, really easy going. The type

3:45

of person who has a squat

3:47

rack and a gaming chair at

3:49

home. And a few weeks ago, I

3:51

went to visit him at his

3:53

house, about an hour outside of

3:56

Atlanta. Should we take off shoes?

3:58

Sure. Are you guys hungry? Some backstory?

4:01

Tigran made his name working for

4:03

the IRS. He was a

4:05

special agent there, a financial

4:07

investigator, and he focused on

4:09

investigating cryptocurrency in cyber cases.

4:11

And Tigran is a legend

4:13

in this world. Before him,

4:15

just about everyone in law

4:17

enforcement thought crypto transactions were anonymous,

4:19

totally untraceable. In fact, that's

4:21

exactly why criminals in particular

4:23

seemed to love it. They saw it

4:25

as a way to commit a crime and

4:27

leave no fingerprints. But Tigran suspected that

4:29

these transactions were not as anonymous

4:32

as people thought. So night after

4:34

night, with his infant daughter on

4:36

his lap, he stared at long

4:38

strings of letters and numbers, trying

4:40

to figure out a way to

4:42

follow transactions from one place to

4:44

another. And through just a termination, he

4:47

was able to do it. He was

4:49

able to trace transactions. This completely

4:51

revolutionized high-tech crime fighting. He

4:53

was involved in just about

4:56

every crypto-related bust or investigation

4:58

in the 2010s. Alpha Bay,

5:01

Mount Gocks, those were him. Silk

5:03

Road? Yeah, him too. When I was reporting

5:05

on this and calling around

5:07

law enforcement circles, people kept telling

5:10

me Teagrin figured out how to

5:12

track all this. They even called

5:14

him the Bitcoin wizard. And over

5:16

the next decade, he became...

5:18

Kind of this evangelist for

5:21

crypto. He believed that if done

5:23

correctly, crypto could solve a lot

5:25

of the problems in the financial

5:27

system, and maybe be more

5:29

transparent than traditional banks.

5:32

And so, in 2021, Tigran

5:34

decided to leave government and take

5:36

his talents to the largest

5:39

cryptocurrency platform in the world,

5:41

a company called Binance. Binance

5:44

is what's called an exchange, a

5:46

place to buy or sell crypto.

5:48

And it had this kind of

5:50

sketchy reputation as a place for

5:52

money laundering and criminals. He was

5:54

hired as the global head

5:56

of intelligence and investigations, which

5:58

meant working with lawn coursemen

6:00

across the world, showing them the

6:03

ways in which he tracked crypto

6:05

transactions. So in many ways,

6:07

his job at Binance wasn't

6:10

that different than what he

6:12

was doing at the IRS. I

6:14

don't handle business. I have nothing

6:16

to do with any products. My

6:18

whole court duties, and which is

6:20

all I do is assist law enforcement

6:22

and compliance. Unofficially, he was sort of

6:24

an ambassador for finance and for crypto

6:27

itself. He was there to send the

6:29

message. Cryptos Wild West days were over.

6:31

That shady stuff finance was doing was

6:33

in the past. Today's finance is law-binding

6:35

and we're here to help. Which is

6:37

why, in February of last year, he found

6:40

himself in Nigeria. He was there to meet

6:42

top government and law enforcement officials. We agreed

6:44

to go out there and meet with them,

6:46

being like, okay, you know, if you

6:48

need anything, just to go above them

6:51

and beyond and beyond and help them

6:53

out and help them out, and help

6:55

them out. Now, Nigeria, as a country,

6:57

has a complicated relationship with crypto. By

6:59

the time Tigran had arrived last

7:01

year, their currency, the Nira, had

7:03

been through years of turmoil. They

7:06

had unpagged the Nira from the

7:08

US dollar. Inflation had been high,

7:10

like 30% annually. And so, people

7:12

had been buying up crypto as

7:14

a kind of store of value.

7:17

Instead of putting savings at a

7:19

bank, they would buy Bitcoin or

7:21

Ethereum. In 2024, Nigeria had the

7:23

second largest cryptocurrency adoption rate

7:26

in the world. For the

7:28

Nigerian government, the rapid adoption of

7:30

crypto meant less control. As more

7:33

people started using finance to trade

7:35

Nira, the central banks hold on

7:37

the value of their currency felt

7:39

like it was slipping away. And so

7:41

they were starting to blame crypto

7:43

for a lot of the country's

7:45

economic problems. Which brings us back to

7:47

Tigran. Tigran's trip to Nigeria was going

7:49

to be quick, just a few days of

7:51

back-to-back meetings. He didn't even check a bag.

7:54

The most important meeting was at the

7:56

big law enforcement intelligence agency in Nigeria,

7:58

known as the National Security. agency or

8:00

NSA. Teigam was excited about the

8:03

meeting when he showed up. They're like,

8:05

oh just just come in to sit down

8:07

they'll come in a little bit. We waited

8:09

for a couple of hours. Were you worried

8:11

that you were waiting that long? It

8:14

started getting a little weird. Teagam

8:16

was there with a colleague named

8:18

Nadim Anjawala. Nadim was younger. He

8:20

wasn't a former cop. He was

8:22

more like Binance's business guy for

8:25

Africa. And the two of them were

8:27

waiting to meet with the head

8:29

of the NSA to talk through

8:31

how Binance and Nigeria could work

8:33

better together. But that meeting never

8:35

happened. Instead, eventually a bunch of

8:37

Nigerian officials filed into the room.

8:39

None of them were really making

8:41

eye contact with Tigran or Nadin.

8:43

And when the meeting did start,

8:46

Tigran realized it was not what they signed

8:48

up for. One of the guys who was

8:50

actually responsible for this. He comes

8:52

in, kind of slaps a folder

8:54

on the table, starts saying, you

8:56

know, you've, you know, destroyed Nigerian

8:58

economy. The Nigerian authorities told

9:01

them that Binance had tanked their

9:03

currency, that they'd laundered money, and

9:05

that they'd evaded taxes. According

9:07

to Tigran, they basically said, we

9:10

are not going to let you leave until

9:12

we are satisfied that Binance is on the

9:14

up and up. Among other things, they said

9:16

they wanted Binance to pay those taxes

9:18

and also some fines, and they said

9:21

they wanted more control over the platform,

9:23

including information on Binance's

9:25

users. We want a user records

9:27

for every single Nigerian user. Until

9:30

that's done, you can't leave. We reached

9:32

out to the Nigerian authorities for this

9:34

story. They declined to comet. What we

9:36

do know is that the Nigerian government

9:38

has a history of being quick to

9:40

find companies and seize their assets. But

9:43

Binance had no assets to seize

9:45

or to hold his collateral. In

9:47

a sense, Teagrin and Nadim

9:49

became collateral. And where might

9:52

the Nigerian government have gotten

9:54

the idea of detaining someone

9:56

from Binance and slapping them

9:59

with a... We do have some breaking

10:01

news on a major crypto company, Binance, the

10:03

CEO. Oh yeah, it was us, the

10:05

U.S. We are here today to announce that

10:07

the Justice Department has secured

10:09

felony guilty pleas from the

10:12

world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. A

10:14

few months before Tigram was detained

10:17

in Nigeria, the U.S. Justice Department

10:19

announced this huge case against BINETS.

10:21

They'd been investigating the company for

10:23

years, and they had reached a

10:26

plea deal with the founder and

10:28

former CEO. a guy named Chung

10:30

Pan-Jao, also known as CZ. And

10:32

he and the company agreed

10:34

to plead guilty to

10:36

a bunch of federal

10:38

charges, including flouting anti-money

10:41

laundering laws and violations

10:43

of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act. They

10:45

were fined $4.3 billion. This is

10:47

one of the largest penalties

10:49

we have ever obtained from

10:51

a corporate defendant in a

10:53

criminal matter. The announcement

10:56

rocked the crypto world. Yeah,

10:58

it might have planted an idea

11:00

in the minds of Nigerian officials.

11:02

Back in Nigeria, Tigran and the

11:04

business guy, Nadim, told officials, we're

11:07

not top finance executives. We can't

11:09

pay that fine. We can't release

11:11

that user data. That's way above

11:13

our pay grade. And Nigerian

11:15

officials were like, okay then, call

11:17

your bosses, because until that gets

11:20

cleared up, we're keeping you here in Nigeria.

11:22

Authorities took them to a safe

11:25

house in the capital. Apparently, the

11:27

conditions there weren't all that bad.

11:29

Tigran had access to a phone. He

11:31

could talk to a lawyer. Nadeem convinced

11:33

the guard to buy satellite TV so

11:35

they could watch movies. And the food,

11:37

Tigran says, it was good. There was

11:39

a cook in the, that was assigned

11:41

to the house. That even was ridiculous

11:44

the whole time. It was crazy. He

11:46

would like make crazy requests. He kept

11:48

asking for like smoothies in the morning.

11:50

The cook would make him like two

11:52

smoothies, like avocado smoothie and whatever.

11:54

a lot of smoothies. Tigran took

11:56

to push-ups and pull-ups to stay

11:59

fit and... the edge off his

12:01

anxiety, but Nadin was getting more and

12:03

more freaked out and Tigran tried to

12:05

comfort him. And then one day, about a

12:07

month after they were detained, things took a

12:09

turn. Tigran went to Nadin's room. It

12:11

was dark, the lights were out, so I went

12:14

up and knocked on his door, he didn't answer.

12:16

He opened the door. I was like Nadin,

12:18

Nadin, were you there? No response, I

12:20

just see, you know, just a

12:22

mountain of, like, blankets. Right. Like,

12:24

pillows. And I'm like, there's a

12:27

foot stick enough from underneath the

12:29

blanket and pull it off. It

12:31

was, you stuffed the water ball

12:33

inside a sock, put it there, so. Oh

12:35

my God. Yeah. Nadin had escaped. And

12:38

Tigran says, at this moment,

12:40

he felt his heart sink. For

12:42

weeks, he and Nadin had been

12:44

in this together. Surely Nadim

12:46

had at least left an

12:49

explanation. But when Tigran looked

12:51

around for a note, he couldn't

12:53

find one. And in this

12:55

moment, Tigran realized it was going

12:58

to be just him, all by

13:00

himself, against the government

13:02

of Nigeria. When I'm like, I'm

13:05

alone. And so I'm trying to figure

13:07

out, how do I handle this? What

13:09

should I do? He knew he had... minutes

13:11

before the guards figured out that

13:13

Nadeem had escaped. And he knew

13:15

that once that happened, all hell

13:17

would break loose. At the very

13:20

least, he'd probably lose access to

13:22

his phone and the world. So we

13:24

tiptoed out to the courtyard where no

13:26

one could overhear him and he pulled

13:28

out that phone and hit record.

13:30

Hello, my name is Seerren

13:33

Gambarian. I'm the head of

13:35

Financial Crime Compliance. Yeah, this

13:37

was that haunting video that

13:39

made the rounds. Two days

13:41

after he sent that video

13:43

Nigerian authorities started officially charging

13:45

Teagrin with tax evasion They

13:47

also said he was complicit

13:49

in helping Binance launder 35.4

13:51

million dollars in illegal transactions

13:53

and that Binance was operating

13:55

without a license and once he was

13:57

arraigned he was not sent back to the

14:00

guest house with the satellite TV and the

14:02

chef. This time his treatment was much

14:04

worse. The treat to me, had a lecture when

14:06

they're transporting me, it was ridiculous. Like

14:08

two trucks were full of like people

14:10

with a rifle, one in the front,

14:12

one in the back. It was insane.

14:14

The prison he ended up in is

14:17

infamous. It's called Kuzia. It's where

14:19

Nigeria puts ISIS militants. It's actually

14:21

one of the largest prisons in

14:23

Nigeria. Tigram wasn't put in general

14:25

population. He wasn't gonna be bunking with

14:28

some ISIS guy. He got his own

14:30

cell. It was just a cell

14:32

with nowhere conditioning, nothing, cockroaches.

14:34

There's a mattress and a

14:36

ton of cockroaches everywhere, just

14:38

like infestation. By then, the

14:41

authorities had taken away his phone,

14:43

but as he looked around him, it

14:45

looked like all the prisoners had their

14:47

own phones, and he said, how do

14:49

I get me one of those? And

14:51

the first night he was there, he

14:53

gets an opportunity to buy one. One

14:56

of the guard comes in, then

14:58

an ask, he just opens the

15:00

door, sits down in bed, and

15:03

says, like, I'll sell your phone

15:05

for $25,000. I'm like, okay, what?

15:07

It's like, yeah, you're a

15:09

finance executive, you're a

15:11

billionaire, you can afford

15:13

this. I'm like, I'm

15:15

sorry, you got that wrong guy.

15:18

It's like, okay, fine, $5,000. I'm

15:20

like, no, I'm like, I'm not

15:22

a billionaire. Yeah. The Nigerian

15:24

government had been painting

15:27

this picture of him, as

15:29

not only the cause of

15:31

all of Nigeria's money problems,

15:34

the inflation, the speculation, but

15:36

also as a billionaire, an

15:38

evil one, and a crook. How

15:40

was Tigran going to get out

15:42

of here? That is after the

15:44

break. This

15:53

message comes from Gramerly. At

15:55

an enterprise level, nothing is

15:57

more important than communication. Gramerly...

15:59

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16:02

work smarter and faster. Other AI

16:04

tools can't quantify business impact, but

16:06

Gramerly gives you actionable insights and

16:08

measurable results with features like their

16:10

effective communication score, which tracks key

16:13

metrics so you can make data-driven

16:15

decisions to improve outcomes. Learn more

16:17

at gramerly.com/Enterprise. Eventually, Tigran did get

16:19

a phone, and he was able

16:21

to talk with his family. He

16:24

says he spent hours on video

16:26

calls with his 10-year-old daughter. They'd

16:28

talk while she played video games,

16:30

late into the night. And on

16:33

those calls, he says he tried

16:35

to pretend things were normal, that

16:37

he was just on a long

16:39

business trip. But later, he found

16:41

out that she'd known all along.

16:44

She'd googled him. Months go by.

16:46

And even though Tigran's a strong-world

16:48

person, spending that long in a

16:50

seedy prison cell started to wear

16:52

him down. Not just mentally, but

16:55

physically. We just can't believe that.

16:57

I'm still here, you know, it's,

16:59

I spent my, you know, 40th

17:01

birthday in Nigerian prison, I forgot

17:03

say. And then one morning, he

17:06

wakes up feeling sick. It feels

17:08

kind of like food poisoning, so

17:10

next thing I know I'm throwing

17:12

up. In May, about three months

17:14

into his detention, Tigran got malaria.

17:17

Pretty common in Nigeria, it's treatable.

17:19

Think like a bad flu, but

17:21

worse. But if it is not

17:23

treated, it can be debilitating, even

17:26

deadly. And Tigran was not getting

17:28

good care. His malaria led to

17:30

pneumonia. Eventually he became bedridden. And

17:32

that aggravated some of his back

17:34

problems. He ended up unable to

17:37

walk. He needed a wheelchair to

17:39

get around. But according to Tigran,

17:41

when he was in public for

17:43

court appearances, Nigerian officials wouldn't let

17:45

him use the wheelchair. There were

17:48

local journalists showing up, and he

17:50

said officials thought pictures of him

17:52

in a wheelchair would be bad

17:54

press and show that he wasn't

17:56

being taken care of. Yeah, there's

17:59

this incredible video from last September.

18:01

Tigran is in this echoy courthouse

18:03

hallway with a single crutch. He's

18:05

struggling to walk and he's getting

18:07

more and more frustrated. Because there

18:10

is a guard in brown fatigues

18:12

trying to get him into a

18:14

courtroom. But when Tigran keeps reaching

18:16

for the guard's hands, the guy

18:19

will not help. Every few steps,

18:21

Tigran has to rest against the

18:23

wall. This video? showing how much

18:25

Tigran's health had declined, made it

18:27

onto social media. And it seemed

18:30

to shift things in his favor.

18:32

Yeah, but the key thing that

18:34

turned the tide for Tigran was

18:36

when Nigerian prosecutors actually started to

18:38

lay out their case against him

18:41

in court filings. The only evidence

18:43

that they had in my charging

18:45

documents was my business card that

18:47

said I was head of the

18:49

global intelligence investigations in my entire

18:52

charging records against me. My business

18:54

card is the only evidence in

18:56

there. Tigran was expecting the Nigerian

18:58

prosecutors to at least have gone

19:00

through the motions of building a

19:03

case against him. But instead, what

19:05

they had tying Tigran to these

19:07

alleged crimes was a single sheet

19:09

of paper, a photocopy of his

19:12

business card. And that was the

19:14

moment, it seems, that Tigran's case

19:16

really changed for the US government.

19:18

Yeah, the whole time Teagrin had

19:20

been detained in Nigeria. I'd been

19:23

calling sources at the Justice Department,

19:25

the White House, and even one

19:27

high-level State Department official, saying, what

19:29

are you doing to get this

19:31

guy out? They wouldn't go into

19:34

detail, and they weren't authorized to

19:36

speak on the record. But I

19:38

got the impression that they were

19:40

dragging their feet. Maybe because the

19:42

U.S. saw Nigeria as a partner?

19:45

Maybe because at first blush Nigeria's

19:47

case against Tigran seemed so much

19:49

like the US's own case against

19:51

Binance. But after prosecutors submitted their

19:53

evidence, it became clear that Nigeria's

19:56

case against Tigran was nothing like

19:58

the one the US had brought

20:00

against CZ, the founder of Binance.

20:02

The US case was years in

20:05

the making. They had reams of

20:07

evidence, emails, voice messages, transactions. Nigeria

20:09

had none of that. And when

20:11

this came out, US officials seemed

20:13

to kick it up a notch.

20:16

The US strategy to get Tigran

20:18

out was, it seems, pretty simple,

20:20

a full court diplomatic press. For

20:22

months, US officials were told to

20:24

bring up Tigran at the beginning

20:27

of... every meeting they had with

20:29

Nigerian officials, with the foreign minister,

20:31

the finance minister, the national security

20:33

advisor, but also the minister of

20:35

culture, the minister of sports. And

20:38

this strategy went all the way

20:40

to the top, all the way

20:42

to then President Joe Biden. According

20:44

to four people close to the

20:46

case, Biden was scheduled to meet

20:49

with Nigeria's president Tanubu. That was

20:51

last September at the UN General

20:53

Assembly in New York. And U.S.S.

20:55

officials had signaled that Biden was

20:58

going to raise Tigran's case in

21:00

those meetings. And according to my

21:02

sources, President Tanubu ended up skipping

21:04

the entire UN General Assembly, maybe

21:06

to avoid the embarrassment of that

21:09

meeting. Tigran's health, meanwhile, continued to

21:11

deteriorate. And eventually, the pressure, maybe

21:13

the embarrassment, became too much. The

21:15

Nigerian government announced they were going

21:17

to release Tigran on humanitarian grounds.

21:20

They said they were just releasing

21:22

him so that he could get

21:24

medical care. Binance set a private

21:26

plane to pick up Tigran. They

21:28

flew him to Rome. And then

21:31

he took a commercial flight back

21:33

to the U.S. All told, he

21:35

spent about eight months in detention.

21:37

He's still recovering from the medical

21:39

issues related to getting malaria. And

21:42

he still works at Binance. By

21:44

the way, we did reach out

21:46

to Binance for the story, and

21:48

they did not respond to our

21:51

questions about Tigran. He was away

21:53

for so long, they brought in

21:55

someone else to do the job,

21:57

temporarily. Tegan initially went to Nigeria

21:59

to help the government. use crypto

22:02

for their law enforcement efforts. But

22:04

that project is pretty much dead.

22:06

Tigran says Binance doesn't cooperate with

22:08

Nigerian officials anymore. Neither do many

22:10

other crypto companies. People in Nigeria

22:13

are still using crypto, but now

22:15

it's back to the Wild West.

22:17

And Tigran is kind of over

22:19

helping them change that. Would

22:22

you ever go back to Nigeria?

22:24

I don't think my wife would

22:26

let me go back to Nigeria

22:28

that once. By the way, Tigran

22:30

and Nadim haven't spoken since Nadim

22:32

escaped. We did reach out to

22:34

Nadim. He didn't get back to

22:36

us. But as for what happened

22:38

to him, Tigran suspects that he

22:40

hopped a guest house wall, got

22:42

an Uber to the airport, and

22:45

caught the first flight out. He

22:47

had a second passport. In November...

22:49

Nadim sent Tigran an email, saying

22:51

he wanted to explain why he

22:53

left and why he did what

22:55

he did. Tigran waited two months

22:57

to respond, and when he did,

22:59

he basically said, I don't have

23:01

that much to say to you.

23:03

He could have at least given

23:05

me a heads up. I almost

23:07

died in that prison. When

23:19

I said that Dina is a legend,

23:21

I meant it. We worked in the

23:24

same office for a few years, and

23:26

I learned so much from her by

23:28

osmosis by watching how she reports. And

23:30

I'll admit it now to you, Dina,

23:33

by eavesdropping on your phone cover situations.

23:35

If you want to hear more stories

23:37

like this one, you can check out

23:39

Dina's show. It's called Click Here. It

23:42

comes from Recorded Future News. This episode

23:44

of Planet Money was produced by Emma

23:46

Peasley and Sean Powers. It was edited

23:48

by Jess Jane. It was fact-checked by

23:51

Sierra Watas and engineered by Sina Loefredo.

23:53

Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Special

23:55

thanks to the great Karen Duffin. I'm

23:57

Deena and I'm Nick

24:00

Fountain. This is

24:02

NPR. you for listening.

24:04

Fountain. This is NPR. Thank you for listening. This message

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