My god is this an excellent article, investigative-journalist style.
Frank Corve of Bitcoin Magazine is fucking excellent at his job, from political interviews to covering the Samourai trial and now this: debunking this insane Maya persona, getting to the bottom of this drama.
If you're in the mood for 6,000 words of bringing the receipts, grab a cup of coffee and let's go.
This is not a new Bukele... or Milei. Or whoever the fuck we look up to in politics these days (nobody??).
Last year, Maya Parbhoe quickly became well-known in the international Bitcoin community as she presented herself to the world as a presidential candidate in her country, Suriname. She vowed to fight corruption in a country rife with it and to make bitcoin legal tender in Suriname to help get the country’s citizens out of financial “survival mode.” Parbhoe billed herself as an anti-corruption presidential candidate in Suriname’s upcoming elections, which are slated to occur on May 25, 2025.
in recent weeks, some cracks have started to form in Parbhoe’s story. Reports from those who have visited the country say that the image that Parbhoe has been projecting of herself and her candidacy to the world may be in part an illusion.
- overstated her chances of winning and/or local support
- mostly used the bitcoin angle to entice foreigners (and with them, money)
- she lies pathologically about everything, trying to extort money from them
- she's verifiably mean and cruel to others.
- possibly, she's controlled opposition
Tl;dr: not a Bitcoiner. GTFO.
Parbhoe seemed to be taking advantage of the fact that it was easy for her to project a certain image to an international audience, as her actions are difficult to audit for those who aren’t on the ground in Suriname.
Rahim Taghizadegan, Parbhoe’s chief economic advisor, claimed in a recent X post that, when he visited Suriname, he also found that the reality on the ground was different from the image Parbhoe had been projecting to the world.
“She speaks to people based on how they dress and how they present themselves,” the security team member told Bitcoin Magazine. “If they are poor, you can tell that she does not give a flying shit about them.
A number of sources described Parbhoe as “delusional,” “narcissistic,” and “mentally unstable,” but almost all of them were reluctant to call her a criminal. “She’s more delusional than fraudulent,” is how one source put it. “She’s also very good at spinning the truth.”
She claimed that she was an Oxford "Alumni," having taking the sum total of a one-week certificate class at the university.
Offensive to us poor schmucks who sat through/enjoyed the troubles of elite universities (haven't posted about it on Stacker, I don't think, so here's the closest: #847595).
But the most maddening part of this whole scenario is that if Dunford is right in that Parbhoe is “controlled opposition” — that her campaign has been little more than a ruse and that she’s working with “nefarious actors” behind the scenes — then the majority of this piece was written for naught and Parbhoe should simply be classified as the first major scammer of this cycle.
boom, mic drop.