Crypto CEO touted by Gov. Burgum was once arrested on suspicion of murder – InForum
FARGO — A man touted as a cryptocurrency entrepreneur whose company was going to bring jobs and investment to North Dakota, including to a long-abandoned missile site in Cavalier County, was once arrested on suspicion of murder for his potential involvement in the mysterious death of a London teenager.
Akbar Shamji, one-time chief executive officer of Bitzero Blockchain Inc., stood next to Gov. Doug Burgum during a press conference and photo opportunity in 2022 when
the state announced the company was going to invest in cryptocurrency mining centers.
Bitzero’s investors included television reality star Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank,” who was
chosen to run a North Dakota investment fund
and who also stood with Shamji at the press conference.
Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation chairman Mark Fox and state director of economic development and finance Josh Teigen were also included.
Shamji and the state later announced Bitzero was going to locate its corporate headquarters in North Dakota and, later still,
Bitzero planned to invest $500 million in developing the missile site, according to a press release.
Shamji was quoted liberally in the state’s media, including in The Forum, trumpeting Bitzero, and Burgum gushed over the crypto company allegedly investing millions in North Dakota.
“This is fantastic news for Cavalier County and our entire state, putting this iconic pyramid on the prairie to innovative use and further solidifying North Dakota’s status as a global hub for data center development,” Burgum said in a statement at the time. “We are deeply grateful for Bitzero’s significant investment in our state.”
Shamji’s background and entreprenurial success, however, was a bit murkier than Burgum, Teigen and O’Leary let on. Shamji was the son of a wealthy businessman who “hopscotched from one business to another” and was arrested on suspicion of murder involving the 2019 death of 19-year-old Zac Brettler, whose body was discovered in the Thames River after he plunged from the fifth-story balcony of a ritzy London apartment building.
It’s the second time a Burgum-backed crypto operation involved a businessman under suspicion of murder. Rick Tabish of Montana-based FX Solutions, which
said in 2022 it planned to build a $1.9 billion data center near Williston,
was
convicted along with his girlfriend in the 1998 killing of Las Vegas casino owner Ted Binion.
Tabish was sentenced to 20 years, but the Nevada Supreme Court later overturned the conviction.
Contributed
Shamji and his friend Dave Sharma, described as “a gangster” who was alleged to be a heroin trafficker and was once implicated in the assassination shooting death of a nightclub owner, were arrested after Brettler’s death and questioned by police. They were released on bail and never charged. Sharma died of an apparent drug overdose in 2020.
Shamji is a key supporting character in the story of Brettler, a young middle-class Londoner who posed as a Russian oligarch’s son to gain access to the world of the wealthy. Shamji and Sharma befriended Brettler, possibly because they believed Brettler was wealthy and stood to inherit hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s complicated and involves very-much-alive Brettler’s parents and London police, who seemed all but disinterested in deeply investigating the young man’s suspicious fall from the balcony of Sharma’s apartment. Shamji and Sharma told police Brettler was a suicidal drug addict; a coroner’s report said there were no drugs in Brettler’s system and his parents said there were no signs he wanted to take his own life.
For our purposes in North Dakota, the key is Shamji. He breezed into the state in early 2022 with O’Leary, who was coined a “strategic investor” in Bitzero, and met with heavy hitters like Burgum, U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, Teigen and others as they promoted North Dakota’s attractiveness as a crypto-currency mining site.
By June, Burgum and the commerce department were announcing Bitzero was going to invest as much as $500 million in the state and that the Vancouver-based company was going to have its North American headquarters in North Dakota.
“You’ll be seeing a lot of us, that’s for sure,” The Forum quoted Shamji, who was identified as the founder and CEO of Bitzero. “We’re torn between Fargo and Bismarck at the moment. We’re working on that now.”
In July 2022, news stories had Bitzero leasing office space in Fargo and Bismarck and later that month the state dropped the bombshell that the company would purchase the missile complex in Cavalier County and convert it to a crypto facility.
The Grand Forks Herald reported the site was expected to employ 35 to 50 people when operational. There were big plans. Waste heat captured from the data center’s servers would be used to heat an on-site greenhouse, the Herald reported. The company also planned an interpretive center and additional community engagement at the site.
As of this week, the progress on Bitzero’s development at the missile site isn’t clear. Public documents show the company purchased the Pyramid in late December 2022. Meeting minutes obtained by The Forum show Bitzero has for the last few months compiled unpaid bills.
Asked for an update on the site, the governor’s office forwarded the message to the commerce department, whose spokeswoman said via email: “Given the state has not invested any money in this project, they are not required to supply us with project updates. It is our understanding that Mr. Shamji is no longer employed by Bitzero. The details of his remaining involvement, if any, are best asked to Bitzero directly,” said Kim Schmidt, the department’s communications director.
To be clear, I didn’t ask about Shamji. I asked for an update on Bitzero’s development on the missile site. It’s likely the New Yorker’s writer, Keefe, contacted the governor’s office about Shamji and they had a stock answer prepared for anybody who followed up.
Indeed, Keefe confirmed in his writing that Shamji was asked to resign in September 2023. He was replaced on an interim basis by a man named Carl Agren. Messages sent to a public relations firm that appear to represent Agren were not returned.
Minutes from the Cavalier County Job Development Authority show in November 2023 that Bitzero had overdue bills. In December 2023, the board reported “issues with bills continues.” In January, the board discussed the overdue bills further and decided to issue a blanket statement anytime the public or media asked about Bitzero, essentially saying the company’s business was private. The board decided the unpaid bills would no longer be discussed at its meetings.
Keefe’s article paints Shamji as a bit of a charlatan, perhaps even a snake-oil salesman, who bounces from project to project. Shamji’s father was a wealthy businessman, but it’s unclear whether the son has ever had a successful venture. In the early 2000s, Shamji ran a London theatre that his father owned before segueing into the music business without discernible success. After that, Shamji became the CEO of a business called CPEC, whose board of directors was made up of Shamji’s family members.
Shamji became CEO of Bitzero sometime in 2022. After resigning from Bitzero, he apparently became CEO of a company called DarkByte, which Keefe wrote posted a press release online that was so convoluted that he could only discern it has “something to do with A.I.”
Shamji’s modus operandi was summarized thusly by a person who worked for him at the London theatre: “Big announcement, and then (expletive) them all.”
Another London businessman described Shamji as being “full of (expletive).”
Shamji and Sharma were arrested on suspicion of murder on Dec. 5, 2019, after Brettler’s body was discovered on the bank of the Thames directly below the balcony of Sharma’s fifth-floor apartment. Both were caught lying to investigators about what happened on the night Brettler died.
According to Keefe’s article, Shamji told police he, Sharma and Brettler were in Sharma’s apartment and that Shamji left and went straight home. But cell phone records and surveillance video told a different story. Sharma and Shamji communicated after Brettler went off the balcony at 2:24 a.m. and Shamji returned to the apartment at 2:34 for a 20-minute visit with Sharma. Afterward, Shamji put his dog in his car and, instead of getting into the car himself and driving away, walked to a wall along the Thames below Sharma’s balcony and craned his body to look over.
It would’ve been the exact spot Brettler’s body was later found.
Neither Shamji nor Sharma cooperated much with investigators and, in Shamji’s case, a subsequent coroner’s inquest. Shamji’s narrative shifted under questioning and years later during interviews with Keefe, the article said.
Keefe and Brettler’s family surmised Sharma believed Brettler to be extremely wealthy and he wanted a piece of the money. He once sent Shamji a text saying, “Akbar, I want 5% of that 205 million and that’s it.”
On the night Brettler died, Shamji sent a text message to a friend saying, “I have been heating up knives and clearing up blood.” Shamji never fully explained the meaning of that text under questioning.
Shamji later left a voice message on a friend’s phone saying, “(Expletive) is about to go wrong. Wrong!”
Brettler’s parents believe their son might’ve felt endangered in Sharma’s apartment on the night he died and perhaps tried to leap to safety, according to the article, instead hitting a wall just short of the river on the way down. Investigators found a smudge of blood in Sharma’s apartment, but never took a sample.
Brettler’s parents aren’t clear on whether Shamji was being conned by their son’s phony identity, or whether he was in on the con and found a way to save himself when it became clear to Sharma that Brettler didn’t have any money.
Keefe describes Shamji as “a dilettante posing as an accomplished entrepreneur.” In other words, a poser. A fraud.
Two and a half years after Brettler’s death, Shamji flew into North Dakota and stood alongside the governor, the commerce director and the TV star O’Leary to tout Bitzero and the $500 million investment he was going to bring the state.