Mystery Surrounds North End Bitcoin Operation

The following was written by investigative journalist Ken Cosentino.

[Author’s Note: Several days after this article was originally published, this reporter was contacted by Michael Bagley who said that the emails containing my requests for an interview were lost in his spam folder. Mr. Bagley suggested edits regarding company roles. This article has been edited and corrected accordingly. Ultimately, the omitted information does not impact the overall story.].

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

A new technology firm called “9 Lives Digital Group” appears to be busy at work in the old Globe Metallurgical factory, located at 3807 Highland Avenue. Locals are saying that they’ve seen bitcoin mining containers and heavy equipment being moved. The Niagara Reporter has received a flood of emails asking the same questions, including: “Does the new bitcoin business have a permit? How loud will it be? Has the city properly vetted this operation, as nothing has been reported to date?” 

Last August, Buffalo Business First reported; “Anthony Restaino, city administrator for Niagara Falls, said the city hasn’t received any information on the project, including site plans or demolition permits.” Anthony Restaino also told the journal, “From our perspective, we will be monitoring what activity is taking place out there,” he said. “Any project taking place within the city, there are certain permits that have to be secured.”

Despite numerous attempts, representatives for 9 Lives could not be reached for comment; which leaves these questions open to some speculation. There do not seem to be any permits posted on the property at the time of this writing, despite the fact that work has begun on site. What is known is that it took years of effort for the US Bitcoin company to obtain permits and licenses in our city, with a large degree of difficulty and legal wrangling. So if 9 Lives does have the proper paperwork, how did they get it so quickly, since the property was only recently acquired?

As a resident living near the new bitcoin operation, I would really like to know whether or not it will be noisy. Has the city done their due diligence to ensure us that the machinery will operate within the noise ordinance? Families in Deveaux and the North End have already been plagued by the unbearable mechanical grinding coming from the former Tulip plant.

The other question that people have been asking is whether or not the owners of 9 Lives are aware of the crime in the surrounding area. Workers have been spotted moving expensive bitcoin equipment with cranes. That equipment is being left outside overnight, in an area protected only by old broken fencing. More than likely, the owners have already spoken with local law enforcement.

A CHECKERED PAST

Michael Bagley, Owner/President of “9 Lives Digital Group” seems like quite the character. Now it must be said that examining someone’s past should not be perceived as condemnation. Nor do I believe in discouraging any new business owners in our community. People do change and learn from their mistakes, and if someone claims to be reformed then we should believe them unless proven otherwise. “Guilty until proven innocent” is never a good way to think.

Reporter Mark Scheer at the Niagara Gazette has already published a well-written article, focusing on Bagley; who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2019 for helping the Mexican cartel launder drug money. Bagley has spoken to several local media outlets about his crime and punishment; proving that he’s not running away from his transgressions.

Regarding the 2011 formation of Bagley’s previous employer in the intelligence community, Jellyfish Intelligence; WIRED writes, “Veterans from the most infamous private security firm on Earth and one of the military’s most controversial data-mining operations are teaming up to provide the Fortune 500 with their own private spies.” The aforementioned data-mining operation was called Able-Danger, a covert federal program that became embroiled in 9/11 conspiracy theories. In reality, Able-Danger may have actually identified several 9/11 terrorists before they perpetrated their attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Executives from Able-Danger joined forces with executives from Blackwater, a “cloak-and-dagger” private contractor company; to form Jellyfish Intelligence. Bagley was president of this spy agency and one can only imagine the types of operations he must have participated in during his time with the company. Clearly Bagley became involved with the Mexican cartel at some point and he made some terrible decisions. 

A CONSPIRACY INVOLVING MICHAEL BAGLEY

As the former president of Jellyfish Intelligence, Bagley must possess some real deal chops for data-mining (and who knows what else). It’s reasonable to speculate that Bagley’s particular skillsets would lead him into some fascinating surveillance/security scenarios. For all we know, Bagley is the real life version of Liam Neeson’s character in the “Taken” films. Bagley was allegedly involved in at least one interesting anecdote that can be found publicly online.

You may have heard of defamed Alt-Right founder Jason Jorjani, who helped drum up support from Neo-Nazi crowds for President Trump in 2016. According to Jorjani’s own website, his plans to overthrow the Iranian government failed due to “a complex intelligence operation directed against me from out of London (MI6) and Washington (Jellyfish Inc., formerly Blackwater), which included an orchestrated defamation of me in The New York Times, Newsweek, NBC and many other mainstream media”. Jorjani denies all claims that he is a white supremacist.

As Jorjani tells it, he was contacted by a “shadowy Londoner” named Jonathan who introduced him to Michael Bagley. Jorjani claims that Jonathan was the leader of the Thule Society in Britain (the Thule Society in Austria being the predecessor to the Nazi party). Jorjani claims that he didn’t know that “Jonathan” was actually an MI6 spy who was allegedly luring him into a complex conspiracy to drum up Neo-Nazi support for President Trump. According to investigative journalist Kenyon Gibson; when Jorjani tried to expose the operation, he was ensnared. Jorjani says that he was smeared in the media to discredit him as a part of the intelligence operation.

Jorjani also says that he spoke on the phone with Bagley several times about how to achieve a coup in Iran. The two met for the first time in September 2016. According to Jorjani, Bagley told him that the coup would involve a massive satellite dish in Croatia which could “beam anti-regime propaganda” into the Islamic Republic.

Jorjani believes that he was set up by the British MI6 and Jellyfish Intelligence in Washington, DC. Wikipedia carries a version of what allegedly transpired between Jorjani, Bagley and Jonathan up until the point when Mr. Bagley was arrested by the FBI (which ultimately resulted in the operation going nowhere). On his website, Jorjani says that the Wikipedia entry is “very misleading and incomplete.” Jorjani told podcaster Danny Jones that he believes he was ensnared by MI6 and Jellyfish to prevent him from forming an alliance between the United States, right-wing Europe, and Iran.

THE PLOT THICKENS

There is a wildly informative article entitled “The Clintons, The Epstein Brothers and the Humpty Dumpty Congress Members” written by investigative journalist Kenyon Gibson (former US Naval Intelligence) and published by The Frank Report on September 22nd, 2019. In his article, Gibson corroborates Jason Jorjani’s anecdotes about Bagley, before putting more conspiracy meat on the bones of this already “rabbit-holed” to death story. Kenyon Gibson spent years undercover to infiltrate Neo-Nazi groups in New York and London; and he publicly identified the person who Jorjani claims is an MI6 agent/Thule leader as a man named Jonothon Boulter. 

According to Gibson, “Jorjani was told that he would be assisted in making changes in Iran if he joined forces with Michael Bagley, then head of Jellyfish. The two met a number of times, and Jorjani was told that Bagley had presented Donald Trump with a plan to make a revolution in Iran. Not only was Trump supposed to be involved, but so was Michael Flynn.” Gibson says that Jorjani “went to the press with his stories of Bagley, Flynn, and ‘X’ [Jonothon Boulter].”

In his article, Gibson reports that around the time of the 2016 presidential elections; “Bagley was involved in Syria, having been granted secret US State Department waivers (which he showed to me a year earlier) to arm rebels and set up refugee camps, that he said would be used as cover.” Similarly, the Wikipedia entry for Jason Jorjani states “Among the other goals of Jellyfish discusses with Jorjani included the plan of creating what they called ‘micro-cities’ which would function as very large and sophisticated refugee camps that would have been built in North Africa to deal with the refugee crisis.” (The entry cites author Benjamin Teitelbaum’s “War for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers”). 

The Buffalo News reports that “9 Lives Digital Group’s ‘international headquarters’ is listed as Algiers, North Africa.” The new bitcoin operation in the North End plans to grow into a data center in two years, and it is headquartered in North Africa. 

The deeper one delves into Kenyon Gibson’s exposé, the more we learn about Michael Bagley from Gibson’s perspective; as Gibson writes “Wars are good business, and Bagley went on tour with his ideas, going on the radio in NYC at one point. Bagley, rather than come off as a spook, looked more like a Wall Street executive and Jellyfish was presented more as a PR firm than an outfit with black ops in the Congo and Mexico.”

Gibson also writes, “Bagley, after my tip to the officer at the DHS, came under investigation. Shortly before Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest, Bagley was taken in by undercover FBI men for money laundering.” The remaining bulk of Gibson’s article is a conspiracy worm-hole involving Mark Epstein  (Jeffrey’s brother), Hillary Clinton, and the Humpty Dumpty Institute.

BACK TO THE BITCOIN OPERATION

As a lifelong resident of Niagara Falls, I like to know when a former intelligence executive/spy is opening up shop in my neighborhood. The website for 9 Lives Digital Group states that their “development aligns perfectly with Governor Kathy Hochul’s exciting Empire AI Consortium to make New York a global leader in artificial intelligence.” Unfortunately, there is not much information available on the 9 Lives company website, but they do promise a low environmental impact. 

According to the Buffalo News, Bagley “identified Niagara Falls as a location that offers electricity, hydropower and water for cooling advanced supercomputing equipment as well as affordable property close to the U.S.-Canada border in a city that’s desperately seeking revitalization. [Bagley] said the former Globe property has a 100-megawatt power station on site that adds to its capacity for supporting an AI supercomputing center.” 

Bagley also told the Buffalo News that the bitcoin operation/eventual data center will be built with private funds (“about $100 million”); the news reports, “Bagley said he used private financing to buy the property but said it is too soon to name the ‘tech developers’ investing in the venture.” He also said that he plans to create 200 permanent jobs and 500 temporary construction jobs. According to Buffalo Business First, Bagley has additional partners who have yet to be named. 

Consequently, it feels like Mr. Bagley has just strolled into the Historic Town of Tombstone, Arizona circa 1881. He is clearly a risk taker, and there seems to be nothing riskier than starting a business in the City of Niagara Falls, NY during Mayor Restaino’s reign of terror. However, I wish Bagley and his partners the best of luck in their ventures. If their new enterprise somehow enriches the community in part or parcel, then that’s a win. I just hope that it’s not too loud. 

It’s a wild, wild world here in the Falls.