“It’s hard to build a startup. Its full of negatives, everything is against you, but in the case of Cryptext we didn’t just have everything that a normal startup has against you, we had an entire fucking government.”

— Mayer Mizrachi

Location: Skype
Date: Saturday, July 21st 2018
Company: Criptext
Role: Founder

In September 2013 Criptext, a startup led by Mayer Mizrachi, a citizen of Panama living in the US, started working with Panama's National Authority for Government Innovation. Criptext tailored its encrypted messaging service to meet the needs of the Panamanian government.

Mayer viewed the government contract as a huge opportunity and a potential stepping stone to other governments and large corporations around the world. The initial contract with Panama was for $200,000, followed by a rolling subscription.

Initially, the integration of the system appeared successful; however, in July 2014, not long after Criptext had completed their work, the President of Panama left office. With this came a shift in personnel and Mayer's relationship with the government body changed. Traffic on Criptext dropped significantly, and his new contact Irvin Halman was not replying to his emails offering to help with onboarding.

After trying and failing to maintain contact with Halman, Mayer and Criptext were accused of defrauding the Panamanian government and became subject of a criminal investigation, instigation.

In December 2015, Mayer decided to take a break from the stress of running Cryptext and the criminal investigation and went to Colombia to celebrate the New Year with some friends. When he landed in Cartagena, Mayer was met by Interpol agents, arrested and told he faced extradition to Panama.

While fighting extradition Mayer spent month's in Colombian prison, but on September 7th, 2016 Mayer was deported to Panama where he was banned from leaving the country.

In this interview, I speak to Mayer Mizrachi, Founder of Criptext, to discuss how, while fighting extradition to Panama he managed to launch an app, run a business and not only survive but thrive while in Colombian prison.

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Timestamps:
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