Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Con Man Reveals the TRUTH About Life on the Run | Matt Cox Evades Federal Law Enforcement

Episode Date: December 31, 2023

Con Man Reveals the TRUTH About Life on the Run | Matt Cox Evades Federal Law Enforcement

Hey, it's Matt Cox, and I'm going to do a video on being on about what it was like to be on the Secret Service and the FBI's Most Wanted list, what it was like to be on the run for three years, and basically about how I evaded capture for three years while being pursued by federal and state law enforcement. But before we get into all that, do me a favor and subscribe to the channel, hit the like button, leave a comment for the algorithm, and make sure you share the video, hit the bell, you know, do all the things that you're supposed to do, like if you're, as if you were supporting me and wanted me to do well and wanted the channel to do well. That's, that's what I'm asking you to do. I read the comments, obviously, and I would say maybe two weeks

ago, I had, I want to say it was a woman had suggested that I do a video about being on the run, you know, from the, whatever, about what it was like to be on the run. And I thought about that and I thought, you know, it's funny, I've done a lot of, I've done a lot of podcasts where I was interviewed and nobody has ever, like I'll mention being on the run and what I did, but I never really go into like how I did it or what I did specifically. So I thought, you know, that's actually probably one of the better suggestions. And it's something I could talk about for at least 15 or 20 minutes. This is this is probably my fifth cup of coffee today. Okay, so I'm going to skip ahead because I think a lot of people probably know my story.

I, you know, I was on at this point, so at the beginning of this kind of little saga, I guess. You know, I'd owned a mortgage company and then I'd gotten in trouble for essentially lying on an application. I was placed on federal probation. And while I was on federal probation, I started another, I started a much larger scam than simply changing numbers on a W-2 or pay stuff and the other types of things that I was doing that got me in trouble to begin with. Well, I started a scam where I ended up, I ended up borrowing like $11.5 million in, I don't know how many people's names there, how many maybe 10 or 10 or 11, I forget fake names, synthetic identities, and I borrowed a bunch of money on real estate,

pulled money out. And so I think that's where I'm going to start. I was at work one day, and an investigation had been sparked that led to, like, a task force being put together. And task force investigated, was investigating me, and it was like Tampa, Orlando. There was like four or five different jurisdictions, and they essentially that they figured out that I was doing something that involved real estate. I was borrowing money. And it was a larger, more complex scheme than they were used to. So what they did was they handed that task force and all their findings over to the FBI. Well, the FBI got a hold of it and looked into it. And it turns out that one of the police departments that was involved in it, and I don't know if you know anything about how task force

work, but they're essentially under their jurisdiction of the state police typically. So the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was involved. And they handed over the findings of the task force to the FBI. The FBI looked at it and they realized, okay, this guy's definitely doing something. You know, he's committing some kind of a fraud, a major fraud. He's borrowed at least $10 million. On the task force, there was a woman on the task force that had been, that was a member of the Tampa Police Department. And she had dated a guy that was, that she had dated a police office, I'm sorry, she dated a sheriff's deputy at one point. And that deputy's name had come up during the investigation because I'd done a bunch of loans for him.

So she went to him and contacted him and told him, hey, listen, this friend of yours, Matt Cox, is about to be arrested by the FBI. And you have to understand, I'm already on probation. So it's not hard to arrest me. They can just come pick me up. They don't need that much evidence to just pick me up. And I'm not getting out of prison.

I'm sorry, I'm not getting out of jail because I'm already on probation. And I'm dealing with fake identities. and so their fear is, of course, that he may take off and how would we catch him. He's dealing in fake identities. He may be able to change his identity. So it's going to be very difficult for me to get out on bond. She contacts this guy, Steve Sutton, who's a sheriff's deputy, he comes to me and says, hey, listen, you know, I used to date this chick, and she was on the task force, and she said

they're going to come arrest you. His name had come up and that the FBI is probably going to come arrest you very shortly. So, you know, I remember just thinking, I had always kind of known, I don't know, you know, I wrote a book, I wrote a memoir about this, and I mentioned this. I'm not sure what I say in the memoir about it, but I'd always kind of known that it was possible that at some point they would figure, the authorities would figure it out and they might come for me. So at that point, I figured, it's possible. The problem is, although I had a bunch of, we a bunch of money. We probably had a million or so dollars in the bank and a few different bank counts. And we also had millions of dollars in real estate. As far as cash is concerned, I didn't have a lot of cash. And so I had to get out about $80,000 in cash within up like a day. I mean, literally, this is like Thursday at 4 o'clock. And Steve Sutton, this guy, the sheriff's deputy shows up and says, they're coming to arrest you like any day now. So over the next 24 hours,

was really only able to get out about $80,000 in cash. So I get $80,000 out in cash. I was dating a chick by the name of Rebecca Houck. And she shows up at my house and she's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm leaving. And I explain the situation to her. And she says, I love you and I want to come with you. And it was just a complete, it was just a mess.

And I made the mistake of letting her come with me. So I take her with me. we go to Orlando. I remember we went to, we didn't go to Orlando. We went to Atlanta, Georgia. I remember I ran up all of my credit cards just before, just before I took off on the run. I ran up all my credit cards, have about $80,000 in cash. I traded in my vehicle and got a new vehicle because it had a temp tag. So I got a vehicle with a temp tag. So I got a vehicle with a temp tag. And I just remember thinking, you know, I wanted something with a temp tag because the temp tag didn't go to me. It went to the dealer.

So I figured if they're looking for me, I'll have a temp tag on the car. But if a sheriff or whatever, police officer runs it, it'll go to the dealership and not to Matt Cox, who they may or may not be looking for. I remember we packed up the vehicle. We took off. Went to Atlanta. And because I'd always kind of known like something was going on, I remember I had had. I had a fake, I had a, I had one guy's information, one guy's, you know, his identifying characteristics, like his name, date of birth, social security number, mothers made name, all those things.

And I had already ordered his birth certificate, his, his social security number, like I had a bunch documents of his and what I did was I also had some other stuff what else did I have I'm trying to think I remember renting a hotel room the first day I rented a hotel room I was super nervous I'd rented the hotel room I want to say I used one of my my synthetic identity's credit cards that I wasn't sure they knew about. And I was very uncomfortable about the whole thing. Is that what happened? Forget how I, I don't think they, we didn't use the credit card. Like, I don't know if they ran the credit card. I think we gave them the credit card, but they said they wouldn't run it.

I paid in cash, but they didn't run the credit card. That was the only reason I was willing to do that because it's very difficult to rent a room without a credit card. So I don't think they ran the credit card. I think they just took the credit card. But I don't think they did anything with the credit card. Regardless, I only needed the room for a couple of days. I immediately, I remember I went and made a pay stub. Well, first what I did was, the first thing I did was I went and made a fake ID in the name David Freeman.

So I made a fake ID in the name David Freeman. The way I would make these IDs was I would take a Florida driver's license and you could sand off the information, just a little bit of your information on the actual driver's license. So I would sand it off and you basically ended up with a card, but you still had the holograms, just in a little bits and pieces of the hologram. Most of the hologram is rubbed off, but you still have pieces of it. And here's the thing about the hologram is that if you keep your driver's license, in your wallet or whatever. I mean, after two or three years, a lot of that shininess and the hologram and stuff is worn off anyway, at least on the older driver's licenses. I don't know what the newer driver. I don't know the newer ones. Oh, yeah, these are more difficult. I sanded off the information that's on the driver's license. I then printed the new information of a guy named

David Freeman, which was completely fictitious. It's just made up. So I retype that and I printed it out on a piece of transparency only in reverse. That way, when I had my credit card with no information, I could laminate the transparency over the actual driver's license and glue it on there with a regular glue stick. Then I trim off the, you trim off the excess transparency. And what's cool about that is because I printed it in a mirror image, right, on reverse, you're now seeing through the transparency into the ink, which is sealed between the transparency, you know, the transparency paper and the actual driver's license, the plastic. But now your actual, the actual image of the, of your name and all your, all your text information,

you know, your height when it was issued, the driver's license number, everything. All of that is now correct. It's no longer in reverse because you're now looking through it from the opposite side. So now it's all correct. So it's sealed underneath that transparency. The great thing about that is that you can't scrape it off. So it doesn't look like a forgery. So I would then buff off the edges.

Of course, once I trimmed it off, I'd buff them off nice and clean. and then I take the sandpaper and I hit it a couple times so it wasn't quite so shiny so it looked like it was beat up and now I've got a driver's license that looks pretty good it really did look pretty good

so I took the driver that driver's license and I remember I immediately got a secured credit card in that name but you know they have to mail it to you so let me put it this way

so I got that I did all of that everything I said I told you I just did I did it like a they used to have these things called kinkos and now they're basically it would be like a uPS store so i went in i did all of that at a 24-hour kinkos had the driver's license made one also for becky forget the name we used we then turned around and we immediately went to an apartment complex in in midtown Atlanta on a peach tree everything's everything is called peach tree there's peach tree drive peach tea avenue

piece of tree boulevard so that's what i did so we went in there looked at an apartment found a a little efficiency apartment uh becky ends up filling out all the paperwork by this point we've already got a cell phone a couple cell phones so she puts down that she's been working i forget where she put she'd been working but she'd been working but she'd been working somewhere, you know, express tax services or something for five years. We already have a pay stub made. We give them the pay stub. They make a copy of her driver's license.

They say they're going to call her. She already tells them, they said, oh, we're going to pull your credit. And she said, I just got divorced like six, eight months ago. I don't really have any credit. I was on all my husband's credit cards. And, you know, I don't think I have any credit. And they were like, okay, well, we're going to pull it anyway. Well, we go and we go, we hang out. And like an hour or so later, they call her employer, which I have the cell phone for. So I answer express tax services. And they say, hi, you know, is whatever name she had used, you know, whatever, Betty Jones. Is Betty Jones work there? Yes, Betty Jones does work here. You know, who is this? Oh, this is, you know, Richard, whoever. And I verify her employment. She's been,

here five years, you know, great employee, you had no problem. They don't ask anything about her income or anything like that. Hang up the phone because they don't need to. They already have a pay stuff. They hang up the phone. They call her five or ten minutes later and they say, look, the problem is, you know, we verified your employment, but the issue is this, you don't have any credit, so we would need double the security deposit. This was some post apartments, post apartment midtown, I think. In, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, in Atlanta. So, of course, we go back immediately and we give them double the deposit. So if the deposit was, you know, a thousand dollars, we give them a couple thousand dollars. We move in,

and the first month's rent, we move in the place, we get the electric turned on, and everything's great. So, you know, we've got a place to stay. We then turn around, we get business cards made. We go open up a couple of, a couple of, they used to have these things called UPS boxes. now they're all basically, they're all owned by, is it UPS? UPS boxes, UPS stores. So we open up a bunch of fake mailboxes or they call them, what they call them personal mailboxes or something. So we open up a couple of those. We end up getting what's called an HQ.

So we get an HQ. We then get, it's called, it's for head, HQs for headquarters. they're basically their virtual offices when we end up making a bunch of business cards and we then around the same that same time i remember we had a discussion i go over all this in in the book i end up mentioning like you know my concern was i was driving around on a driver's life First of all, I'm driving, I'm driving like a $90,000 or $100,000 Audi, and it's in a, the tag is going to, I had a 30-day tag. So this whole process already took us four or five days just to get into an apartment and get the electric turned on and get, you know, cell phones and get all the services that we need and get everything turned on and get up, get furniture and everything. And of course, we're going through cash pretty quick already.

couple thousand for a deposit, whatever it was, you know, $900 or $1,000 for your first month's rent, you know, deposit for your electric, all of that. So all of that's costing. My issue was I can't get pulled over. If I get pulled over, I can't get pulled over and hand them a piece of plastic that says my name is David Freeman. It's a Florida driver's license. I'm in Georgia. They're going to run the Florida driver's license. They're going to see that it's not a real Florida driver's license and I'm done. So I need a real ID. That's the real issue is you need a real ID. Well, I did have the guy Scott Cugnows information. And I had his birth certificate. I had everything I needed for him. But when I called the DMV in Georgia, you know, they want,

in Georgia they want a thumbprint. And although they don't actually run your thumbprint when you first give it to them. They only use it for identifying characteristics. It's a state database. Like, I didn't know that if they were, I didn't think they were, they were going to run it against, against the, uh, through in, you know, through the, uh, through aphus or anything, which is, uh, basically it's, it's the, the national fingerprint identification. They weren't going to run it or anything, but they may. At some point in the future, they might. Who knows what, what, who knows what was going to happen. So what I did was I drove to it. to Alabama.

We drove to Alabama. We're also, by this point, we're wanted. Like, by this point, the FBI has raided my office. They've got a, they put a warrant out for my arrest because I was on federal probation. So now I've absconded. So I'm now on the run. I've absconded from federal custody. And they're looking for me.

They're looking for, they've got a hold on Rebecca Howl. So we can't give our IDs to a police officer. And I'm driving around. And that's an issue. Every time a car got behind us, a police car got behind us, we're terrified. So I need a driver's license. Obviously, I drive immediately. We drive to Alabama.

Was it? We're in Alabama. I went to somewhere in Alabama. I forget. So we drive to Alabama. and I went and I rented, as soon as I got to, let's say it was Birmingham, Alabama. I don't know if it was, but I'm assuming it may have been. I go to Birmingham, Alabama.

As soon as I get to Birmingham, Alabama, we rent a, it was another UPS box or mailboxes, et cetera. So I rent a box. Here's the thing about Florida. In Florida, if you go get a driver's license, they, print the driver's license right then and they hand it to you right then in alabama they don't do that they mail it to you they give you a piece of paper like give you like a little piece of paper as your driver's license until you get your real driver's license in the mail whatever so i knew i needed

a place to mail it so i i made a box which was a mailboxes etc uh personal mailboxes So I go get a box and then I go and I, we print off a lease agreement and I put down that I'm leasing, I'm not leasing the box, I'm leasing an apartment and of course I use the box as that apartment number. So the street address and everything looks good on the lease. So it looks like I'm renting an apartment and the box is actually the apartment number. So you can mail something to my apartment and it will go in my box. and they always tell you that those places like oh you have to put down box number this you can't put apartment number we won't accept it they always accept it when you run a box they always say make sure you put box number you know because we won't accept it if it says you know apartment

if you get something mailed here and it says apartment number we won't accept it well that's not true they do accept it like i they always tell me that and i go oh okay and i always mail it there with apartment number, and they always end up putting it in the box. All right. So you have to understand, I now have a lease agreement in the name of Scott Cugno, which has that box number on it. I then go to the DMV with his birth certificate, his social security number. What else?

Did I have his, I want to say I had his, I want to say I had his school records. I may have had his school record. I think I ordered his transcripts, a certified copy of his high school transcripts, which you can use as a secondary piece of identifying characteristic for as far as your driver's license is concerned. So I go into Alabama DMV. I give him my birth certificates. You need one primary. So I give him my primary piece of identifying documents. That's your birth certificate. So I give them that. I then give them that. I then give them the social.

security card, which is a second, it's a secondary identifying a piece of, or document, verifying who you are. So I give my social security number. I then give them for, you need two secondaries. So my other secondary was his high school transcript. So I give him the high school transcript certified high school transcript. There's you too. So you need one primary, two secondaries. So I had a one primary, two secondaries. You also need proof of residency. So I give them lease agreement. So the guy looks at the lease agreement. And of course it has to have an address where he can mail it. Like I can't say, hey, here's all my stuff, but don't mail it here. Mail it over here. They're going to be like, no, we can't do that. We have to mail it. We have to mail it to

wherever you're living. We need a physical address. Obviously, they can't put a PO box on there. They won't put a mailbox receiving station or a personal mailbox on there. They won't do that either. but I put down on the lease the mailbox the the personal mailbox and they don't know that they think it's an apartment so I give them the lease and they go one the lease proves your resident two it's got your address where you want it mailed so that's taken care of too so they say okay go ahead and sit down so I I have a seat I sit down I wait a little bit they call my number I get up I go I give the woman at the desk all the information she checks it out

because I don't know if you've been in the DMV back then I don't know what it is now but back then when you went in they have one guy that looks at all your stuff to make sure you have everything then they have you sit down they give you a number I've gotten I've gotten driver's licenses in like seven different

states they do the same thing in every state so I sit down they call me up I give them all the information they type all the information in then she says have a seat or stand over there I go stand over, stand up next to the yellow line. She says, smile, I smile. She takes my picture.

She comes back. She prints out this little card and she says, okay, here's your little card. Woman at the DMV says, we will mail you your original in a few weeks. So I have to drive all the way back, all the way back to Atlanta, Georgia. I've got to get rid of this vehicle, by the way. I'm driving around in this Audi. Well, we end up taking the Audi and we leave the Audi and like, well, we don't do anything right now. We actually put it in a garage.

So right now we put it in a, well, first we drive it, we go, we take the Audi and we drive it and we go to, I forget the name of the Honda dealership, but I go in there. I've got a couple pasteubs, a business card. I have my piece of paper that says Scott Cugno on it. It's a driver's license from Alabama. And I go in there and I buy a vehicle. Now, he doesn't have any credit. You know, I don't have any credit, but because at this point, I'd had a new credit, a new social security number issued to him.

And that's a little bit difficult to explain, I guess. Without getting too much into it, I, at this point, point, I basically convinced to social security to issue me a social security number to a child that doesn't exist named Scott Cognow. So I've got this social security number or this social security number and card. I go into the car dealer and I finance a vehicle. Now, granted, I don't, he doesn't have any credit, but I got two pay stubs. And, you can call his employer and verify it because Rebecca would verify it. We had a cell phone. I think he also worked for express tax services or, oh, no, no, no. I remember, I think we were

using Lloyds and Associates. That's right. We were using it. We had created a company called Lloyds and Associates. And we come up with a website for Lloyds and Associates, too. That's right. And so I had a, I remember I had a business card that said Lloyd's an associate with the website and all the phone numbers and everything. And you could call and the phone would ring. It'd go to either voicemail or Rebecca would answer and she'd verify my employment. So I go in there. I have to put down, I forget, like the vehicle was like $20,000 and we had to put down like $4,000 or $5,000 to get it financed. So we put down $4,000 or $5,000.

At this point, I've already gone and opened up several bank accounts as Scott Cugno. And as David Freeman, I've also opened up several bank accounts. And Rebecca has opened up several. So we've got like six bank accounts at this point. And so we start funneling money into the account. And then taking that money and then having all that money go into one account so that I could write a check or get a cashier's check so I could get the vehicle. So I put down like $4,000 with a cashier's check and we get financed, they finance like $16,000.

And now we have a new vehicle. I have a vehicle now in the name Scott Cugno. We then take the Audi and we place the Audi in long-term parking. We then end up running a scam. I'm not going to get into the scam, but we end up renting a house from someone. So I rent the house from the guy. And then when I rent the house, well, I'm sorry, actually, Rebecca rented the house. Actually, at that point, oh, this is funny.

This is funny. We were already getting new identities. By this point, I was running ads. I was running ads in like the flyer magazine. There used to be a magazine in Tampa. They actually have them everywhere. And it was called the flyer magazine. I remember for like three or 400 bucks, I put an ad in a flyer that said, good, credit, bad, credit, no problem.

call now government loans available or home loans available and people start calling and they're applying for they would apply for they would apply for a mortgage even when they had bad credit they'd apply but in the course of them applying for the loan I would get copy I get their name I would get their so I could get your full name your date of birth your social security number where you lived what high school you went to if you'd ever had a passport you like there's all this information people would just give me because they think they're applying for a mortgage. Now, of course, I would call them back and say, hey, we pulled your credit. Or I would actually take their information. I would call another mortgage company. I'd send over the

application to another mortgage company and have them called them back. So people would give me everything. They would give me all their information. And then if it was a decent, if it was a decent person, like it was a person that I was like, okay, this is somebody I could, like, they were roughly my age, like if some 60-year-old guy calls me, I can't pretend to be a 60-year-old man when I was 33 years old. The guy was 33, 30. I mean, you gave a lot of calls. So it was, you know, I very quickly honed in on four or five guys. I would, I then would then order their information online. Of course, I could, I would apply for your, I would apply for their, their birth certificates online. I'd find out, of course, where they were born, go to the vital records

department, get a copy of an application for a birth certificate, print it out, fill it out, go get a money org, mail it in. And the thing is, you know, there's lots of information that they ask for for you to do that. They ask for a copy of your driver's license or a copy of your, you know, like they want your state ID, your driver's license, copy of your passport, or they want your military ID. Well, here was a great thing. One of the things they would ask for if you didn't have those was you could give them like your student ID or your, you're your employer ID. So I started making employer IDs and I would make a copy of the employer ID and I'd mail it off with the application. To get their social security numbers, I would mail the original

employer ID because they asked for an original. So I'd mail the original one off and they would mail it back to me. I killed two birds with one stone by making that employer ID. So I'd get their information and then I would turn around and I'd go and I'd get a driver's license. It's like we would go to South Carolina or North Carolina, do the whole process over again. I'd end up getting a driver's license in their name. I was using those guys' information, and I was getting IDs, but I was concerned about driving in one of their names. I was concerned about Scott Cugno. What if Scott Cugno gets a DUI?

What if any of these people? And that was the big concern was I had talked to a guy named Michael Eckert. Michael Eckert had told me when we were talking when he had applied for the morning. that obviously there was no mortgage, but when he applied for it, as I was talking in, my acity had ever had a felony. I mean, there's no reason for me to ask, but these people don't know what the questions are. So anything you ask them, they assume, oh, they need to know. And people often think, like, oh, the bank knows. They know if you've ever been arrested or they don't know any of that. Well, I would ask them, hey, do you have any felonies? And the guy

was like, yeah, you know, I was arrested. I have had a couple of you. I've had a couple DUIs. I lost my license for like a year one time, but I got it back. And it was like, oh, okay. And I remember thinking, what if he gets another, like if I stole this guy's information and I get an ID in his name, which I did. And I got a driver's license. And I've actually got a vehicle in his name too. What if he gets another DUI? I could be driving around using someone's ID in Georgia with their South Carolina ID and in Florida, the guy might get a DUI. And then next thing I know I get pulled over one day and they say, hey, your license is suspended. You have a DUI in Florida.

And it was the same fear with Scott Cugno. So I was talking to Rebecca about that or Becky. And one day I remember we pulled off to the side of the road and she was like, well, what do you want to do? I said, we need to figure out how to get our own identities or get identities from people that aren't using them. And she was like, like what, dead people? I was like, no, because the problem with using people's identities that are dead is that

Social Security has been notified. So when you pull their credit report, Social Security has reported to the credit bureaus that this person is deceased. So when you, so three months after they're dead, they get a quarterly report and the bureaus know this person's deceased. That's an issue. it shows up suddenly you're trying to get a credit card in a guy's name that's deceased or you try and get a driver's license and a guy's name that's deceased that's an issue

like you don't want that you can't be asked answering those questions you know how do you explain that obviously you deny it but regardless you're not getting your driver's license you know, getting a credit card in the name of a guy who's dead. So I said, no, we need somebody. You remember she was like, what about, what about, like, what about inmates? What about guys that are locked up? The problem with that was, like, what if they still have warrant out for him? Like, I don't know what, like, if I get a driver's license in your name, I don't know

that some cop pulls me over and pulls you up, doesn't know that this person is incarcerated. This person has multiple felonies or he has a warrant out or he's already, you know, whatever, he's locked up? How is this you? You're locked up right now. I don't know what they were going to be able to figure out. I was like, no, no. I remember she said mental patience. And I go all through this in the book. It's hilarious. So I was like, no, no. And we had pulled up to a stop. And there was a guy who was holding a sign that said, you know, it will work for food. Yeah, we'll work for food. And I went, that guy. That's the guy we need. someone like that. So I pull over and I get out of the car and I remember I talked to him. And as I was talking to him, he basically said like he didn't have a driver's license because he said it basically was it had expired. Like he had been on the street for whatever, five, 10 years, didn't expect to get a job, didn't know if he had good credit, didn't know anything. Like I just went up and gave him like, I gave him 20 bucks and then I gave him another 20 bucks

to answer some questions. I just told him I was curious. He was like, what do you want to know this stuff for? And I was like, I'm just. I'm just nosy. But he answered all my questions. And during the course of that conversation, I remember he asked me if I was a social worker. I said, no, is you a surveyor or something? I go, no, I go, you get a lot of surveyors out here?

And he goes, no, he said, but, you know, we get asked questions by social workers. And by, you know, when we go to the Salvation Army and stuff, sometimes they have us fill out a questionnaire. And I thought, okay, well, that's good to know because that means that this guy, these guys are prone to being asked questions like that. to filling out surveys.

So I went home and I made a survey. I called it a statistical survey form number 4605 or whatever it was and put a logo on it from the federal, like a federal government logo, and it looked very official. And I got a clipboard and I went out and I surveyed homeless, started surveying homeless people. And I was amazed to find that most of them, like they didn't have like, like they didn't have like, you know, I was thinking, well, they have DUIs or their driver's licenses have been suspended or really they just, they had expired. I noticed that a lot of them, the reason they were on the street was just be from alcoholism or addiction of some kind or mental illness. So you've got a lot of guys, and I would ask them, one of the questions I asked, one of the last questions I asked in that survey was do you expect to be gainfully employed within the next 12 months?

Not one person said yes. And I've surveyed 50 of these guys. Not one of them said, oh, yeah, you know, I'm going to clean up. All of them were like, probably not. No, no, I don't think so. Nah, I'm not doing that. Nah, I'm not getting a job. Nah, this is it for me.

I mean, all of them were like that. It was amazing. So I end up surveying homeless people. I don't remember at some point, Becky and I were driving, and we saw a couple, a homeless couple. And I pulled over and I remember I got her the chick's information. I also had gotten information on a woman when I made those phone calls. Oh, sorry, when I run the ad and got in the phone calls.

So I had a couple different identities for Rebecca Halk. And here's why I mentioned this, because at one point, I remember, we went back to Alabama to get her a driver's license. And we had a newly issued social security card. Now, the driver's license that I had gotten for Scott Cugno was in Scott, using Scott Cugno's real social security number. So it wasn't a fake one. It wasn't one that was recently issued to like a child. It was a real social, his real social security.

Social Security number. When we went to the DMV to get Becky's, we used a newly issued Social Security number. I remember we walked in there. She handed them all the documents. The woman goes to pull up, to get her a driver's license, to pull up her information, or to punch all the information in. And I remember the woman was like, that's weird. she says it says a social security number doesn't match and we were like like I'd never heard that before I'd gone into Florida and gotten them issued before but in Alabama they're apparently they're running a different system so the woman actually got up for first shit what she did was she was this is weird she's this is your your social security number I mean we have the card

and she's we're like yeah she's looking at it and she says huh Huh, hold on a second. She calls to the back and a sheriff comes and walks over. Becky and I are sitting at the desk, and I mean, we are, you know, we probably didn't look nervous, but we are freaking out. And I mean, I'm sitting there. My heart was jacked. Anyway, the sheriff comes and he takes a look at it.

He looks at it and he goes, what's it say? And he looked at it and he goes, huh, that is, that's weird. and she goes hold on a second so the woman goes in the back office and calls social security she comes back and we were like well what's going on what she says well i can't do anything yet we called social security i'm waiting for a for a call back can you guys wait and i was like um god you know i said we'll have to come back because we have something in like 45 minutes and it's like a 30 minute drive i'm sorry i said we just can't wait she's like i'm sorry this never happens I've never seen this before.

So weird. And, of course, you know, Becky's like, yeah, we got to go. Okay, this is, gosh, I can't believe that. We're complaining and bitching and moaning. We gather our stuff up and jump in the car and take off. Never go back there. And using the same information, though, we went to South Carolina, got her an ID, or a driver's license, got her a driver's license.

I think she had driver's licenses in Florida. North Carolina, South Carolina ended up getting an Alabama driver's license. Oh, back to my Alabama driver's license. So I'd gotten that, they eventually mailed the actual hard card. So they actually mailed the plastic Scott Cugno driver's license. You know, at this point, we had abandoned using the synthetic identities, identities that were all fabricated. And we just gotten rid of all the information. And by this

point, we had, we had credit, no, sorry, we had driver's licenses in the name of, like, Richard Grokey, um, I'd wanted the name of somebody Phillips. I'd wanted the name of, uh, Michael Eckert, uh, Becky had a couple driver's licenses. Eventually we, I remember, eventually we took that Audi and We left it at a police substation. Like we drove it to a police substation. This was after we moved into a house in Georgia, in Alpharetta, Georgia, just outside of Alabama. I'm just outside of Atlanta. So just outside of Atlanta, we rented a house in Alpharetta.

And I went downtown and I satisfied the loan on the house. The thing about their public records is they're way behind. So we had to wait like a month or so. a couple of months for the mortgages on the property to get satisfied. Once those mortgages were satisfied, I called up three hard money lenders and had the hard money lenders come out and look at the property. And so because now I'm basically living in a property that is, we're now living in a property that has no mortgage on it. It's in the name of a guy named Michael Shanahan. I ended up making a fake ID the name Michael Shanahan.

We called some hard money lenders. I told them that I'd owned the place for 10 years, which the true Shanahan had. They come out, they look at it. We tell them it sort of rental unit. They look at it. They each agree to lend $150,000. I close on both all three of those loans within like a day of each other. They all cut us a check or cut me a check.

We end up after fees and stuff, it was a little over $400,000. I then deposit that money into the various bank accounts. that we've opened. We then wait for the checks to clear. We then start pulling all the money out in cash. It took maybe, I don't know, a couple weeks, two, three weeks to pull all the money out in cash. We get all the money in cash and then we take off on,

we take off again. I would say it's a couple, two, three weeks later when the payments start being due. So when the payments are due and they're, these hard money guys are realizing that there's no payments coming, they send letters and Michael Shanahan goes by the house one day because he's not getting his rent

he goes by the house and he looks and he opens up the mailbox and he sees all these foreclosure or these collections collection letters saying they're going to foreclose on his piece on his house and of course these are all mortgages that were taken out in his name I didn't use his real social security I didn't actually use his real social security number

I didn't use his real date of birth and I didn't actually use his real name I used a different middle name but on his deed the name was Michael Shannon it was Michael S. Shanahan and that's all I needed to borrow over 400

it was 450 I think $450,000 we pull out the money we take off he figures it out he contacts the authorities the hard money guys at the same time are starting to realize that they've got to foreclose that two of the the guys end up knowing each other and realize that they both lent money on the same house,

which is shocking. They end up going to the police. The police obviously knows. Secret Service gets well, the FBI gets called. The Secret Service gets called. They come in. But by that point, it's been a month and we've been gone for a few weeks. So the FBI Secret Service shows up. They realize, hey, it's Matt Cox. He's struck again. And I take off and that's pretty much it. So, you know, listen, that's, that literally is the first four, three or four months of a three-year-long, epic on-the-run journey. And that was the first three months, but that was the toughest three months. You have to think by the time we had done that, we really had it down on how to steal the identities, how to create new identities, how to create identities, how to create identities that didn't. didn't really leave a trail because by that point, we figured out how to get Social Security

to issue new Social Security numbers. And I did that by actually making fake birth certificates. I would make a fake birth certificate, and I would make a fake shot record for a child that was 10 months old. I'd go into the DMV, and I'd say, hey, my name's Michael Eckert. I'd give my driver's license. I'd say, hey, my son's name is Michael Eckert. the third or the second or junior. And they go, oh, do you have him here? I said, no, he's, he's in Brazil with my wife. But here's his, you know, birth certificate.

I'd give him the birth certificate. And they'd say, and I'd say, here's his shot record. I called somebody on the phone. And they said, if I didn't have to bring him, if he's under 12 months old, I don't have to bring him. I just have to bring the birth certificate and shot record. And they said, you know what? You're right.

And then they would issue a social security number. So I get a new social security. number for a 10-month-old child with whatever name I want, even though he doesn't exist. I would then take the real Michael Eckert's real birth certificate and that that newly issued social security number, and I could go into DMD and get an ID in his name. You have to think, once you get an ID or a driver's license, it's not difficult to get a passport. I'd fill out the passport information. I'd go get my picture taken. They don't ask for fingerprints. They don't ask for fingerprints.

To this very day, they don't ask for fingerprints to get a passport. You know how I know? I just got my passport. So I love it. There's always these guys who are like, well, that wouldn't work anymore because now they ask for your fingerprints. Well, then you're an idiot because they don't ask for fingerprints. I just got my passport. You'd walk in.

You'd give them your two little pictures and you give them your birth certificate and you give whatever information. They look at it. They take your ID. They look at your ID. you, you have your birth certificate, they take your birth certificate. They do something with your birth certificate. They mail it back a week or a few months later. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles

with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Mail it back. And then back then you could expedite it and you could get your stuff done in like 10 or 15 days. get your passport and everything. Now it takes months to get it. Months. But I did get it. Regardless, so I would get a passport. I mean, you have to think I've been, I've been all over the place on fake passports. Passports issued to guys like Michael Eckert, Richard Groke. I mean, I've had almost two dozen passports. I've been all over the place. I've been to Croatia. I've been to Italy, I've been to, where else?

I've been to Jamaica, I've been to Mexico, I've been to Bermuda, I've been to Greece. I've been all over the place using fake passports. Anyway, like I was saying, by the time, by the, our four, the first four months, by the time we got that 400,000, we'd gone through 50,000 of the 8, 50 or 60,000 of the 80,000. And if you think being on the run, you know, it's not a full-time job. Like fraud's not a full-time job. So we were going on vacation. We'd gone to Orlando down here to Orlando.

And we'd gone on vacation. We'd been there for a week. We went to all the different theme parks. We went to Jamaica. We went to New Orleans for like a week. We did Jamaica for almost two weeks. We were all over the place. We were doing all kinds of different stuff.

We were mountain climbing, we were, listen, I could go on it. We went to Vegas, like we're gambling. It's just, it's ridiculous. But so after the first four months, we really had it down. And also, if you have to imagine at this point, I've now gotten several tickets. Like, I'm getting tickets. I drive like a maniac. Oh, yeah, that's right.

as the first scam was winding down we started a new life in different name in the name Michael Eckert and who was Becky was it was she oh she had gone with Michelle something so as we were Michael and Michelle Michael Eckert and Michelle gosh I can't even remember what her name was but we had rent Shaw. I think it was Rebecca. I think it was Michelle Shaw. And so we had gone to Charlotte, North Carolina, and we'd rented an apartment in the name of Michael Eckert.

So we rented an apartment. And remember, I bought, I bought an infinity. We bought an, I bought a new, like the sports infinity. It was, they were like $50,000 something thousand dollars back then. I think they're like $70,000 now. but, you know, 50, that was a while ago, it was 16, 17, 17 years ago. So that was a nice, that was a nice car. I had like 370, 380 horsepower.

It was awesome. So I bought that vehicle. We bought that vehicle. We bought Rebecca got, she got an SUV? She got like a Mercedes FU? No, no, she got an infinity SUV, whatever their SUV was. So we got a couple of Infiniti's. Oh, we got a, I think we had a Nissan.

I think she also got a Nissan. Like the new Nissan come out was like the 350 or something. I don't know what's out now, but brand new Nissan. So we got a couple vehicles. I remember we spent like $30,000 on furniture. We rented this really nice apartment in downtown Charlotte. So by the time the FBI and Secret Service are showing up, we've already taken off with the $400,000.

But we only have like around $400,000 some odd thousand dollars at this point. And we bought all these new vehicles and everything. So as soon as that ends, as soon as we leave Atlanta and go to Charlotte, we all, I already have to run another scam. We're down to a few hundred thousand dollars at this point. We're down to two, three hundred, maybe three hundred thousand dollars. And we'd gotten surgery. Like I, I'd gotten a, did I get a nose shot?

Rebecca had, Becky had gotten liposuction. She got a boob job. She got. What did she get? A tummy talk? Like, listen, they, oh, I remember it's called the Swan Center and it was in Atlanta.

They did some nice work. I mean, they did some good work on her. I can't complain. I mean, they knew what they were doing. They took this chick. I mean, she was, you know, she was all right. She's all right looking.

Listen, she was a gangster, though. I mean, she's ready to take off with me on the run. That's a gangster. But then she gets to. surgery and I mean she looked after that surgery I remember she she looked good and you have to think money makes you look good I mean you money you get women can get their nails done they can eat right they can work out they can get their hair and like they can do all this stuff that if you're broke you can't do so if you have money and a little bit of discipline you can tighten up pretty quick so

she tightened up pretty quick and by the time we got so like I said by the time we got to by the time we got to Charlotte, we had a whole new life set up, and the Secret Service and FBI show up, and I remember when it hit the papers, it was in the Atlantic Journal Constitution, it was in the St. Pete Times, Tampa Times, it was in the Chicago Tribune came out. We were in all these newspapers about just these different scams.

You know what's funny? I just forgot. while I was running that, while we were running that very first scam, you know what else we did? We went back into Florida to, back into Florida to Tallahassee, and we rented a house and refinanced that house and pulled out like 50, 50 or 60 grand. We actually got two loans on the house for, it was 110,000 total. And I remember Rebecca at the last minute. She went to one of them, but she wouldn't go to the other closing. We got to an argument or something, and she's like, I'm not going to do it and forget this. And it's too dangerous.

And I was like, well, I'm about to close three of mortgages. But whatever. I remember thinking, I wouldn't have let her do it. I was going to actually rent the house in a fake name and borrow three or four different mortgages on the house. Get like $150,000. It was a little shitty cracker box house. but I was going to do that and instead she said

no no let me do it let me do it well then we did it and by the time it came time to actually borrow against it she suddenly we got into an argument she didn't want to do it and no and you're being a jerk and I was like all right forget it so we just got the one loan which is like 55 $56000 and I forget

I have the exact amounts of all of this stuff I have all the addresses amounts everything in the book and actually I have that argument in the book had this huge argument and ended up, ended up leaving. I remember, too, she got her, she got like a boob job right after that. Yeah, so we leave, we leave Atlanta. We're spending money. We have the 50,000 from the one to the 400 and some odd thousand from the other.

About 30 grand left. We go to Charlotte. We reset ourselves up. we probably spent $100,000. You have to think those vehicles, those vehicles were financed. Like most of those vehicles we got were financed because it's very easy, very easy for me to obtain financing because I know what the underwriting guidelines are. So it's not hard.

And if you have cash, it's not difficult to, you can have no credit and still get financing if you have cash because I can put 20 or 30% down. And I can prove that I've got been on the job for five or six years. You only need two years. I can say I'm on five. here's my pay subs. And obviously I debt the income ratio. Great. The point is, we had set up our entire new life in Charlotte by the time the scam hit in Atlanta. And then I ran another scam in South Carolina. And that scam, I borrow $1.3 million. Now, I'm not going to get, it's, this video is

over an hour long. So I'm just going to wrap it up. But You know, like, that's the thing about when I was on the run. Like, we had to figure out how to do all of this stuff off the cuff. Like, we don't, you don't know how to do it. I didn't know how to do any of this. I had to figure it out as I'm going. And that was, you know, that's the interesting thing about being on the run. Like, you know, you're just, you're left to your own devices.

And it was. You know, it was stressful, but it was also extremely exhilarating. It was extremely exciting to be on the run. And that's not like, that's not the popular thing to say. But I wasn't working. You know, it's not like I was on the run and I was working a manual labor job. And I didn't have, like, I couldn't get a vehicle. And I can't get that.

Like, I can easily assimilate back into society and was able to. to very quickly build my credit and borrow money and obtain money illegally. So I wasn't living like a pulper. So being on the run wasn't a horrible situation for me. And I know that's not popular. And people like, you're supposed to say it's stressful, and it was horrible.

And it was, but it wasn't. You know, it wasn't. Like we're wearing, we've got Rolexes. We're going on vacation. We've got plenty of money. you know, that's, that's pretty much, that's, I know that's the wrong thing to say. And I'm sure I'm going to hear about it in the comments, but, you know, it's, I'm just trying to be, it's just honest. I'm just trying to be honest. So being on the run for me was exhilarating. And it was, I was left, you know, to my own devices.

And it was something that, that someone with my skill set thrives on. That's it. so if you like the video hit the like button share the video leave a comment for the algorithm and subscribe to the channel and tell all your friends and share the video to your friends and let them know that this is the kind of horrible stuff that you're spending your time working or you're spending your time watching instead of you know working or on your time off instead of instead of playing with your kids and or maybe doing something constructive with your life, you're watching a video like this, which is, you know, which is ridiculous. I mean, you could be watching Netflix.

You could be binge watching something like, oh, you know what's great? The Handmaid's Tale. Great series. You ought to think about checking that out. Or you could, you could buy my book or you could buy Boziac's book. You know what, Boziac's right here? Look. That's John Boziac.

And his name of his book is Bent. So you could buy my book, which is Shark in the Housing Pool. You could buy Boziak's book. Here's a guy right here. This guy right here. That guy's name is Derek Nolan. I wrote a story about his story. That's actually on my channel.

So check all of those out. Check out my book. Everything's on Audible, too. And that's what you should be doing. I don't know why you're watching this video. All right. That's it. See you.