Nancy Guthrie: The Person at Her Door May Not Even Know Who Hired Them

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
Been waiting for this conversation. I'm excited about this to learn what is going on here. A blockchain security firm called CertiK tracks crypto related kidnappings around the world. In its 2026 report, it put Nancy Guthrie's name on the official wrench attack list alongside other verified cases in France, the UK and a Scottsdale home invasion that happened the day before Nancy Guthrie disappeared. Scottsdale not all that far away from where Nancy Guthrie disappeared from. The firm counted 34 verified incidents globally in the first four months of the year, a 41% increase with roughly 101 million in losses. A wrench attack, in case you're wondering what the heck we're talking about, means physical violence used to force access to cryptocurrency. Basically, buy that $10 wrench and you can get the money versus some big intricate multi-thousand, multi-million dollar system. Handlers overseas, disposable operatives recruited through encrypted apps and violent home entries. Jennifer Coffindaffer is with us. She's one of the loudest expert voices connecting this model to Nancy's case. As I said before, checks a lot of boxes, but a standalone analysis of this, of the evidence has raised problems the theory hasn't quite answered, starting with the fact that no crypto connection to this family has been publicly identified. This is where the theory meets its hardest question. Here to discuss on a Monday, Jennifer Coffindaffer, retired FBI special agent, and Robin Drake, retired FBI special agent, chief of the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program. Welcome to a new week, everyone.

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (1:57)
New week.

**Tony Brueski** (1:58)
So Nancy's case. What makes Nancy's case belong on this list when a lot of those evidence elements are not there? I guess the biggest question is, Jen, how did it even get on the list? Because this is not what the authorities have been saying whatsoever so far.

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (2:15)
Well, you're right. And it's kind of interesting how I even came across this was just knowing that CertiK is really the number one go-to SME for the FBI.
This is who they go to when they have a crypto case and they have used them in other cases, including that Korean case, which is the big whammy of a case that spiders into different cases. They use CertiK's work for that. So, you know, very interesting. So my question is, CertiK obviously has blockchain information that none of us have.
You know, look at different trends, whose blockchains are intersecting with who, what do they know that we don't know that put them on the list? In other words, were they able to establish that Savannah Guthrie and her husband have crypto? It wouldn't surprise me at all that they have Bitcoin. They're worth $45 million. They should have been investing in it. So it makes a lot of sense. But now to see CertiK say, yeah, to me, that was huge.
It's the biggest public notice we have.

**Tony Brueski** (3:23)
That's a weird thing about it is the fact that it was just kind of like silently released in this document through CertiK. It's not from an official channel like the FBI or Pima County.
I guess the first thing I saw or I thought of when you sent that to me the other night, I was like, did somebody accidentally publish something they shouldn't have published? Was this on like a draft of like, oh, well, we know this. Yes, but the public doesn't yet, so we can't put that out there in this sort of context. I mean, is there something like that going on here or what?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (3:57)
I don't think so. I think it's that CertiK, like any other company, is not bound by those rules.
Because the FBI isn't releasing anything and Pima County. Now, I do want to say what Pima County has said on this. And it's interesting. They have said, we have not had any wrench cases. We have not been notified of any wrench cases. That's literally what they wrote. I don't know. What does that mean?
You notified a wrench case. How about through our investigation, we don't believe Nancy is a wrench case, then who the hell is it? I mean, how can you say something is in negative when you don't know the positive, unless they know the positive, in other words, who their suspects are?

**Robin Drake** (4:47)
Do you think this changes what they're investigating, how they're investigating the resources that they're bringing to bear on this, Jen? Because I just looked it up. In 2023, there were 69,000 type scams that involve crypto in 300,000 in 2024 I mean, it's huge number that involve crypto on 300,000 in 2020 I mean, it's huge number of scams that we've been involved in as the FBI.