The Psychonaut Files

The Psychonaut Files

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The Psychonaut Files
The Psychonaut Files
Smurfing through the Psychedelic Underworld

Smurfing through the Psychedelic Underworld

In the 1990s, setting up an international money laundering operation for a drug empire required teamwork and cunning

May 20, 2025
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The Psychonaut Files
The Psychonaut Files
Smurfing through the Psychedelic Underworld
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In early 2014, I began a series of phone interviews with Gordon Todd Skinner about one of the biggest problems facing international drug dealing: how to launder money so that it doesn’t link back to you. Over the course of three candid calls, you’ll hear breath-holding conversations that shuttle from jailhouse paranoia to globe-spanning money-laundering tutorials in a single breath.

Why These Calls Matter

  • First-person mechanics of the trade. From “smurfs” ferrying $427.32 money orders to debit-card laundries in St Kitts and Nevis, Skinner details how raw street cash became invisible electronic wealth.

  • A window into ongoing surveillance. Skinner believes every word is being recorded; he dissects the psychology of living under a microphone while plotting around it.

  • Unsettling proximity to power. The tapes hint at back-channel relationships with DOJ officials, alleged FINCEN moles, and private-jet fixers who blur the line between criminal enterprise and covert cooperation.

What You’ll Hear

  1. “They’ve always been on my ass.” – Skinner’s running commentary on being monitored and his fear of suddenly “going dark.”

  2. Cash to Code: A step-by-step guide to moving duffel-bag money into offshore digits, complete with Bahamian banks, smurfs, and prepaid cards.

  3. Cutouts, Youngbloods & Mules: The human architecture that kept his name off tickets, hotel ledgers, and jet manifests.

  4. Airports as ‘facial-recognition hellholes:’ Pre- and post-9/11 flight hacks, including the two-ticket shuffle and buying first-class fares you never board.

  5. Flash vs. Low-Ride: Why flashy jets get seized, and how turboprops, Cuban banks, and Latvian disasters shaped the LSD economy.

Why Now

A decade later, the tactics sound both antiquated and eerily relevant to today’s crypto-laundering headlines. These raw recordings peel back layers of mythology around the largest LSD case in history, and they expose the logistical spine that made the counterculture’s illicit economy hum. For researchers, true-crime aficionados, and anyone tracking the gray zone where law enforcement and outlaw chemists intersect, the tapes are a primary source like few others.

Access

The full audio (with time-stamped transcripts) lives behind the paywall for Founding Members of The Psychonaut Files subscribers. Paid members will get:

  • Links to 3 high-quality MP3 interview recordings with Skinner: The Money Laundering series

  • A downloadable PDF fax by William Leonard Pickard associate Michael Bauer describing Pickard’s money laundering techniques.

Tap in, buckle up, and follow the money.

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© 2025 Michael Mason
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