Ex-Party Producer Charged in $2.7 Million Bitcoin-Laundering Scheme

Thomas Spieker’s clients included dark-web drug dealers and a cellphone-hacking identity thief, prosecutors said.

Thomas Spieker in court on Thursday. Credit... Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times

Jonah E. Bromwich

March 24, 2022

Dark-web drug dealers selling ketamine, MDMA and counterfeit Xanax in every state in America. An identity thief hacking into his targets’ cellphones. A member of an Eastern European organized crime syndicate.

These, prosecutors said, were just some of the customers of Thomas Spieker, a former party producer who was charged on Thursday in state court in Manhattan with laundering more than $2.3 million in Bitcoin for criminals around the world from 2018 to 2021.