Returning to reality after lockdown will be a huge trial for loner teens
IT must have been absolutely terrifying for Conor Freeman’s mum, when a group of guards from Special Crime Operations and the Garda Extradition Unit landed at her f ront door at 8am on a Thursday morning i n May of l ast year. What must have been going through her head as officers demanded to be shown to her son’s bedroom, where t hey sei zed hi s computers, data devices and what were described as ‘luxury goods’?
And then they arrested him, possibly leading him off in a pair of handcuffs, while explaining to his shell- shocked family how authorities in the US believed the 20- year- old was a member of a highly skilled cyber-criminal gang, responsible for the theft of more than $2million worth of cryptocurrency.
How on Earth did his mother cope in the immediate aftermath of that early morning arrest in a quiet cul de sac on Dublin’s southside? Who did she ring for help? Who explained to her the complex and intricate details of her son’s alleged crime?
It’s the kind of nightmare scenario few of us could ever imagine. For a start, it’s all so dramatic, l i ke the plot of a Sunday-night TV mini- series, This starring big household names.
This week, as Freeman was sentenced to just under three years in prison for his part in the elaborate r use, his mother must have wondered, not for the first time: how the hell did he get caught up i n something like this?
Certainly the court reports of his case shed little light on what exactly led to his involvement in this extraordinary crime, which spanned two continents and a group of early 20-somethings who gave themselves the rather portentous title ‘The Committee’.
What we do know is that he came across these five young American men online sometime in late 2017, early 2018, when he was still just 18 years old.
And together they masterminded a multi-million dollar scam to steal cryptocurrencies, or digital currencies, including the likes of Bitcoin.
Using their hacking talents and contacts who worked for phone companies, they got access to three cryptocurrency accounts. I’m not even going to pretend to know how they did what they did. Suffice to say that they stole more than $2million in May 2018 and split the proceeds six ways.
Naturally, an investigation into the theft was l aunched, and within a year all six men were identified by US Homeland Security, which then contacted the gardaí about Freeman’s involvement. By the time they arrived at his home in Glenageary on the morning of May 9, 2019, Freeman had spent €130,000 of his share.
The total amount stolen had risen in value to over $2million, thanks to a boom in Bitcoin. He immediately admitted his guilt.
The only detail that came out in court about why he got involved in such a high-stakes illegal scheme, which has landed him in jail for the next couple of years, is the description of him as a ‘loner, who as a teenager retreated to the online world’.
For parents of teenage boys everywhere, it’s enough to make your blood run cold, isn’t it?
It’s the one thing that my friends with boys over a certain age complain about most – screen time. Of course some worry more than others. A lot of youngsters are naturally sporty or hugely sociable: their teammates or group of friends are their life.
But a smaller, yet significant proportion, of kids struggle with what are considered the social norms. We’ve heard a bit about them through this pandemic: the ones who were delighted when the schools closed and they were confined to their homes and encouraged to stay in touch with people they knew online.
The ones who happily spend hours upon hours gaming with friends via headsets in darkened bedrooms so they can see their screens better. Who save up whatever money they can to buy bits to add to their already-bewildering digital setups.
Pleas to ‘go and play outside’ are met with serious resistance. Huge efforts are made to make sure they get regular fresh air breaks. For some f amilies, Covid-19 has seen kids who struggle to socially interact retreat even further into their shells.
It’s offered them a respite from the pushing their parents do to try to train them for life outside the home.
Because no matter who they are or what they end up doing, they will need to have social skills of some kind to cope with adult life. Being a ‘loner’ is totally fine, and I’m not suggesting for one second that being one naturally leads to nefarious activities, such as cryptocurrency crime.
But all this isolation forced on our teenagers is bound to have some sort of impact on some of them. Most will bounce back, the pandemic of 2020/21 a distant memory as they get on with the rest of their lives.
Others, however, will be left struggling even more than they did before as life goes back to normal, when they will be required to rejoin society. Any work that concerned parents had done before t he first lockdown damaged or reversed.
For those f amilies, reading about Conor Freeman’s case this week must have struck at a particularly raw nerve, with a strong dose of sympathy going out to his mother, who presumably was clueless about the seriousness of his online activities.
In this time of uncertainty, there is one thing we know for sure: that the full consequences of this pandemic are yet to reveal themselves.
Who knows when or where the next early morning knock will land on a front door.