Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - FBI Agent Exposes Taliban Glizzy’s Heist Ring

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Tom Simon, a former FBI agent, breaks down how rapper Taliban Glizzy secretly ran a violent jewelry heist crew while challenging Matt Cox to guess real federal sentences from similar high-stakes crime cases.⁣ ⁣ Tom's links⁣ https://www.instagram.com/simoninvestigations/?hl=en⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@simoninvestigations⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@simoninvestigations⁣ https://www.simoninvestigations.com⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Go to https://HelloFresh.com/itc10fm to get 10 free meals + a FREE Zwilling Knife ⁣ ⁣ F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code COX15 at theperfectjean.nyc/COX15 #theperfectjeanpod ⁣ https://theperfectjean.nyc⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ CHAPTERS: ⁣ 00:00 - Disney Adult Embezzlement Case⁣ 08:55 - Fake “Bullet Trading” Ponzi Scheme Explained⁣ 20:00 - Trader Hides $240M Losses⁣ 30:45 - “Rosé” Cash App Scam Story⁣ 36:50 - Taliban Glizzy Heist Crew Breakdown⁣ 49:00 - Murder-for-Hire Plot Stopped by FBI⁣ 01:07:40 - Political Campaign Embezzlement⁣ 01:12:50 - Husband vs Wife Fraud Case⁣ 01:25:00 - Doctor Running Prescription Scheme⁣ 01:31:00 - Dark Case Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Seth Shackner. Check out my new show, Breaking Down the Biz. Every week, I sit down with people who actually make movies, music, and media happen. Executives from Sony, Universal, Apple, NBC. Together, we cut through industry jargon and hype to show you how the business is built. What's key to making everything come together and why it matters to you. From iTunes impact on the music industry to the advent of AI, from the Taylor Swift ticket sales fiasco, to Bad Bunny's Meteoric rise, We break down the stories, the numbers, and the negotiations that shape the industry. I've been in the trenches of the entertainment industry for several decades, with leadership roles at companies like Sony, Paramount, and Jive Records. My guests and I are going to provide the same thoughtful, concise insights that I'm trusted to bring on TV networks like CNN and NBC,

surrounding the industry and its culture-defining moments. We'll touch on the business of music, filmmaking, and streaming, and the emerging technology of our time. If you've ever wondered what really happens behind the scenes of the entertainment business, this is a bite-sized insider guide. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform or watch us on YouTube so you never miss a beat. Let's make sense of this industry together. Matt Cox, you're into Taliban Glizzy? You're looking at me with a blank stare.

You know who Taliban Glizzy is, though, right? It's a person now. He's a hip-hop superstar. Is he free right now? Washington D. We'll get there. There's a phenomena out there. as Disney adults.

Have you heard of these people? Yeah. What do you know about Disney adults? It's strange. I just wouldn't go to Disney alone. It's strange. Like they're... And they'll go like multiple times a year.

They have all the stuff. Paraphernalia. Their houses are decorated in Disney. They get dressed up. It's a subculture, man. It's something. And so I investigated a Disney adult once. Not for being a Disney adult, though.

That's not a crime. As much as it should be. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Hey, I think there's an executive order. You do your thing. I do my thing. It's just Disney adults are just interesting characters.

There's a woman named Gretchen. She, you ever heard of the cigar swisher sweets? It's a brand of cigar. It's actually very popular in urban environments because they're relatively inexpensive cigars. You might pick one up at a 7-Eleven or a convenience store. And people like to, sometimes people, in the city, urban people, you know what I'm talking about, like to slice them open, dig out some of the tobacco, pack it with marijuana, and make a blunt.

You've heard of blunt. I've heard of blunt. Yeah, blunts are often made with Swisher sweet cigars. Swisher, I think, is completely uncomfortable with that. They probably don't want to sell for that purpose is. That's not what they make those cigars for. Swishers based in Jacksonville, Florida. And for a tobacco company, they're a good and honorable tobacco company.

They run an honest business and the people who work there are consummate professionals. This woman, Gretchen, who was a Disney adult, was a kind of an accountant at Swisher. Okay. One thing about Swisher, and I learned a lot about this, about this, and I worked this case jointly with the state's attorney's office in Jacksonville. They have to, tobacco taxes are a very complicated thing. It's a whole different that the tobacco companies need to pay to the federal government. So they're basically giving regular payments the way you and I might, if we're making kind of periodic tax payments for tobacco sales. And then there's a giant reconciliation where you're either getting money back from the government for the overpayment of your tobacco taxes or you owe them money.

Kind of like we do with income taxes or sometimes you get money back. And that was Gretchen's job to kind of compute that. And as part of when she would file these returns with the federal government for the tobacco taxes, if there was money, due back to Swisher, she had to write on the tax form the routing number and account number of Swisher's bank account for them to send that money to. Make sense? But what she did was something rather clever. She put her own, her husband, rather, her husband's bank account and routing number down on the tax returns. So when the federal government paid back the overpayment for the tobacco taxes, it was not in fact going to Swisher's bank account. It was going to her husband's bank account,

who did not work there. Okay. Makes sense? Is it possible? It was just an oversight on her part? Well, the burden of proof would be on the government, and I think we were able to prove pretty well that this was an intentional effort to embezzle money. She also had a false invoice scheme where she was submitting invoices for a non-existent company and having that money go to a friend's account who was then kicking the money over to she and her husband.

Okay. And so what did they do with the money? How much money are we talking about here? It was $5.7 million that she was able to get. And her husband ended up spending most of the money. Oddly, Gretchen was not living large herself other than going to Disney with some regularity, which is kind of what she did before this embezzlement scheme started. The money went to buy gold and silver.

She told the investigators in the case that her husband was putting pressure on her to do this crime. She wasn't describing physical abuse as much as kind of emotional abuse. He denies this. We never got to the bottom of that. Right. Right. I mean, who knows what's going on in the household here. And she said, and I think this might have been an exaggeration, that the money was going to buy gold and silver. That much was true. And her husband was preparing for the fall of the U.S. government. Of course. And they bought a condominium. And condos good investments for the end of the world? Is that a prepper? Is that on the prepper list? It was beachfront condo. And I went to the place on Amelia Island in Florida. It was a lovely condo. And that's where they're going to hunker down. Well, where he was truly going to hunker down was a 460 acre farm in Georgia. Nice. Right? Kind of a compound that he created.

He was also very, he was, the husband Richard was very much into guns. He bought a lot of guns, like dozens and dozens of guns. And nine collectors cars. Like just, he is spending all this money and he and the money is flowing into his bank account. But he's not really involved with the actual execution. of the fraud. He's just enjoying the proceeds. Her story to us was basically that that she was being pressured by him to come up with money and this is the means by which she did it. There was a lot of give and take during the investigation about their individual culpability. We had a little

of a bit of a proof problem with him because his story for a long time was my wife's doing this. I don't know where the money's coming from. I thought she made a lot of money at the cigar company. And she, but then, but that just didn't hold water. It just didn't make sense that he would believe that a kind of low-level accountant that a cigar company would be making that much money. And she's clearly willing to testify against them. Right. Right.

The, I don't know where their marriage stands today, but it looked like it was going, it was not going well at the time. Gretchen was charged with wire fraud and mail fraud. Richard was charged with wire and mail fraud and money laundering because he's the one supplying the bank account. They both ended up pleading guilty. Okay. And I'm going to tell you that they both got the exact same sentence because the whole thing was head scratching about this.

My question for you, with $5.7 million embezzlement, we seized a lot of these assets to get them and to get it to the U.S. Marshal Service to either give it back to Swisher or to auction it off. But that's a restitution question. Let's leave that aside. But the dollar amount here, the theft is $5.7 million. dollars. How much time are you going to give these two in separate but equal prisons? And also, we never really, he denied, and I interviewed him for hours, he denied, he's just a good old boy, likes to ride. Wanted to ride, wanted to ride, I mean, he likes guns, he likes hunting, he likes riding in his four by fours. He says he was not a prepper trying to prepare for the fall of the U.S. government.

That was her. She had a whole separate story. I'm not saying she was lying. I don't know. I mean, I never got the bottom of it. It honestly didn't really matter to me. It was a slacious thing in the news when this broke in the news, but it wasn't the whole thing. The case didn't really hinge on that.

And he never took any steps to make the overthrow of the government happen. He just thought things were going to collapse like a prepper does, is the story. Five years, 60 months? Five years, 60 months for the happy couple. Yes. Okay. The correct answer, both of them got 42 months. Damn.

It's okay. I'm comfortable. It's not okay. I could have sat there for an hour and tweaked you up or down if you'd cause you so much pain when I do that. Nothing hits like home cooking. And Hello Fresh makes it easy to do more of it. I'll be honest. Most nights, I'm busy researching true crime stories or recording podcasts.

So cooking a big meal from scratch isn't always easy. But with Hello Fresh, everything shows up at your door, ready to go. The ingredients are fresh. The recipes are simple. And the dinner comes together fast. And it's actually good food. HelloFresh has more than 100 recipes every week with flavors from all over the world. They've got 35 high protein meals, Mediterranean options, and even GLP1 friendly recipes if you're trying to eat healthier.

And the portions are big too. So everyone at the table leaves full. And the quality is great. They use sustainable sourced food, 100% antibiotic and hormone-free chicken, and even grass-fed steak ribbys if you want something a little nicer for dinner. Plus, seasonal ingredients like apples, pears, and asparagus. And right now, there's three-time the seafood options with no extra charge, which I really like. If I'm ordering meal kits, HelloFresh is the one I'm using. Because when dinner tastes this good, nothing hits like home cooking.

Go to hellofresh.com slash ITC10 FM to get 10 free meals plus a free zwelling knife, a $144.99-set value on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. So there's this crazy kind of fraud that I've investigated a lot and I had some expertise in, but it was nothing I could ever monetize. I've got a case right now I'm investigating with the same fact scenario. There's a story, an urban legend, that after World War II in the U.S., you know, defeated Germany and bankrupted. And Europe was very much bankrupted from this war.

And there was a plan, there are plans in place for the U.S. and other nations to try to rebuild Europe and kind of rebuild Germany so they could function as a society following World War II. Is the Marshall Plan? Yeah, stuff like that. Let's see. Yeah, I think it's the Marshall Plan. Yeah. The story, though, that's told among people is that the means by which to fund that involve the top 50 European banks involving doing a high volume trading program of medium-term notes

and standby letters of credit and called a bullet trading program. And that by trading these medium-term notes in rapid succession, they were able to produce enough profits to fund the rebuilding of Europe. Now, Matt Cox, a lot of people believe this. It is absolute horseshit. It does not exist in real life, but there are hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. who believe that story to be true. And the con artists who are propagating this story, it's like faking the moon landing.

It's an urban legend people believe, believe that there is a secret trading program among the top 50 or the top 100 banks in Europe that if you know the right people, you can get into this trading program, this bullet trading program, also. often called a platform trading program and make a ton of money. Like, like, you know, put in a million dollars and come out with a billion dollars later. And I've worked so many cases with this fact scenario. Right. But to this very day, that is a, that, and that it has evolved over the 30 years that I've

been studying this thing. And I've done, I've gone to conferences and presented these cases to people and presented this to people and done press releases and TV interviews about this particular fraud. And everyone just kind of gets bored and rolls their own. But this is a serious crime problem that has been going on for 50 years. Pension plans in the U.S. have invested their pension plan in these programs and lost everything for pensioners. And so it's a big deal. No one cares when I talk about it, but I want to bring it up today because I have a story about one of these type of cases.

But right now, it's evolved over time. Right now it is all about standby letters of credit. The idea that SBLCs can be leveraged in some way to produce profits for project funding, usually. And there's no such thing in real life. And I'm actually fighting with my clients right now explaining to them that the fraud they invested in was absolute nonsense and was never going to work. Despite the fact that the bad guy took your money and stole it, you're investing in a unicorn. You're investing in something that does not exist. It wasn't really an investment.

It was a project financing plan. I'm like, no, and nothing comes to that. So don't get me started. It's turn my hair gray. And so if you had this opportunity to make 30 to 60% returns on your investment, risk-free, you know, and you believe that to be true, you could do it. So I'm not really blaming the victims here. The company offering this particular investment in this particular story is called

Remain in Control, LLC, in Lebanon, Tennessee. It was owned and operated by a 66-year-old guy named Al Roman. Okay. And he claimed to be a multifaceted businessman. He was offering investments in his profit participation agreements. He called them micro-cap programs, co-share, agreements, and this is where my antenna goes up, bullet trade investments. Notice this thing is bullet trading in real life.

It's something that's specific to this. Medium term notes. When you hear that, there's no such thing as that. So it should make your bells go off. And standby letters of credit. As soon as I hear about a standby letter of credit being used as an investment or profit-making vehicle, I know that we're dealing in this kind of world. Right.

Okay. And so he accepted funds from unwitting investors looking for a piece of this action. None of these things are real, but Al did pay investment returns to some of the investors, but those returns, Matt Cox, were derived, not from any income-producing activity, but from the principal investments of other investors. And what do we call that, Matt Cox? A Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme, right.

And so the thing with Ponzi schemes is they tend, two things, they tend to go viral, because when people start making their 30 to 60 percent returns, they tell other people, and it goes. But the other thing that happens with them is that they collapse because the success of a Ponzi scheme, whether it lasts for a short time or a long time, is contingent upon new money coming in because there's no other income producing activity that's happening. Right. And before he knew it, Al had $2 million. And he was using that money to spend it on himself. Paid some dividends back to people, but not much, living his most extravagant dreams.

Okay. Eventually the Ponzi scheme collapses, and then what happens, the victims begin calling the FBI. And when I was at the FBI, I would be the guy who would receive those calls from Ponzi scheme victims. And I would say, why didn't you call me at the very beginning of this thing? And they said, well, why would I? I was getting investment returns. The net loss was about $1.9 million. How many losers were there in this thing?

I don't know. But, you know, I'm sorry I don't have that information. I know that's pertinent to you, but quite a few. That's, you know, 30, 40, 50. Right. And, but again, they weren't, if you run a Ponzi scheme, you can invent whatever story you want for what the investment is. Yeah. I'm investing in stocks.

I'm investing in bonds. I'm investing in car washes. He chose to invent this crazy story about standby letters of credit and bullet trading programs. Lost to victims, $1.9.9 million, technically is $1,97,857. I don't know that Al had a huge criminal history, if any, but I, but I, you know, I think there were a lot of victims. Did he go to trial? Okay.

Played guilty. Yeah. Thank you for asking. How much time you're going to give a while? When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere. And two out of three women rocked, the Rachel.

While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when West Jet welcomes you on board. Here's to West Jetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at WestJetting. Sjet.com slash 30 years. After 19 years, they're back. Frankie Munes, Brian Cranston, and the rest of the family reunite in Malcolm in the middle, life's still unfair. After 10 years avoiding them how and lowest demand Malcolm be at their anniversary party, pulling him straight back into their chaos.

Malcolm in the middle, life's still unfair. A special four-part event, streaming April 10th on Hulu on Disney Plus. Two million, pled guilty. even if there was a bunch of, a bunch of, even if there was over 100. I think, I think that we're in that neighborhood.

Yeah. He's also, he didn't Ponzi back much of the money. Like, I think maybe 100,000 came back to people as investment returns, which is why he ends up at $1.9 million when he took in a little over $2 million, right?

And he's also spending that money on living and extravagant lifestyle. So it's not like it's going for like, you know, to give his mom a baboon heart transplant or something. like that. Right. There's no sad story behind this. And again, he's creating that illusion of success to bring more investors in the door. Two million dollars. Forty-two, uh, 42 months. Okay, 42 months. Yeah. How many years is that? It's, it's what, three and a half years? Yeah.

Is that three and a half years? That sounds about right. I mean, mathematically, it sounds about right. I don't know that the answer's right. Are you comfortable with that answer? I think I'm comfortable with it. Yeah, I'm comfortable. Yes, I'm comfortable. Okay. Final answer? Yes.

Okay. The correct answer. 71 months. Fuck. Al Roman. You storming off the show? Am I going to do a one-man show? I was never going to guess that much anyway, unless he went to trial or something.

Yeah, it seems high. Yeah. I wonder what the issue. There's some other issue we're not able to see. Yeah. Yeah. The court documents were not specific about whether, like, you know, like some of the victims were vulnerable or something like that.

So let's go on to question three. I think you could run the table, though, for the rest of this and end up 10 and 2. I believe in you, Matt Cox. Okay. You've had jobs in your life, right? Yeah, I've had a few of them. Not a whole bunch, but a few. You ever stuck at a job you did?

You ever had a job where you're just terrible at it, and you're working the job, and you kind of know you're terrible at it? I'm usually trying to be, you know, anything I do, I try and be good at it. You know what I put my heart, you know, it's like, why am I doing this if I'm like, I'm trying to be good. I'm already here. I think the worst job I had was the one that probably I didn't like the most. I was a bus boy.

Even a bus boy at a restaurant. Listen, restaurant work sucks. Really? Being working in a restaurant or food industry, it's just, it was just horrible. What didn't you like about it? I was, I also was a dish while I was bus boy and dishwasher. At a chain restaurant? Oh, it was horrible.

It was people's restaurant and lounge. It basically was like Benigans. Okay. You know? I never heard of Peoples. It was a shittier version of it. Is this still around? No, went out of business.

It was a chain of them. They made an effort. It went under. But yeah, it was, you know, I'm busing tables. And I was, I was 16. Bus and tables doing the dishwasher. You know, how they blow them up and they put it in this thing and they shut it. Industrial dishwasher.

Steams. So you're drenched and sweat and it's just horrible. Were you good at the job? No, I was good at it. They liked me. I didn't get fired just eventually after like six months. I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. Sure.

I'm done. Actually, I had my buddies. We started working construction. And I was good at construction. I mean, I liked, you know, it was young, and I didn't mind doing it, and I liked it. I enjoyed it. It's good. Yeah, I like working.

Well, I don't think you had a good experience of being good at the jobs you were at. My first job as an auditor when I got out of college for a big firm called KPMG. I was doing financial statement audits, kind of at the lowest level. I don't think I look back on it. And I don't think now I would be a better financial statement auditor because I understand exactly the audit process, what audits are trying to drive at, the importance of attesting to the legitimacy of financial statements that a publicly traded company puts out. But I don't know that I appreciated that. Even with my CPA license at age 22, was that mean you didn't enjoy it or you were no good at?

Were you getting things wrong? I mean, I was doing the work, which was then being reviewed by the supervisors, and I think I did the work correctly, but I didn't have a good understanding how that fit into the bigger picture of what the client was hiring us to do by, again, confirming the authenticity of their financial statements. I just, I look back on, I went to work every day, and I did the work, I had a good attitude, I showed up on time, people liked me, I liked my coworkers, my supervisors liked me, but I felt a little bit like an imposter because I didn't quite understand what I was doing and why I was doing it and how it fit into the bigger picture. Okay. Yeah, so, and it kind of sucked, and I left it, but you could become an FBI agent. Um, you know,

which is all I ever wanted to do anyway. So that whole job was a means to an end. But the story I was coming up, I was kind of reflecting on what it's like to suck at your job. And I think I truly did suck at that job. I look back on it. But it's not a crime to suck at your job. But tell that to Dave Smotherton, who had a job as a commodities trader with the private firm in New York called Trammo. His supposed expertise was trading futures contracts in liquid petroleum,

gas. But what no one really knew is that he really, really sucked at commodities trading. Okay. There's just no good at it. It's hard. How am I supposed to know what liquefied petroleum gas is going to be worth in 90 days? Because that's what futures are, right? You're placing a bet on what that price is going to be in the future. But what Dave figured out is that he could make false entries into his employer's accounting system to hide his astronomical trading losses that he was making, to make these stinker trades he was doing look brilliant. The profits you were making on your trades at this firm were self-reported. And so Dave begins doing that.

He's losing money hand over fist because he sucks at commodities trading. And he's able to conceal, wrap your head around this, $240 million in trading losses from his bosses. His bosses had no idea he was losing that much money. And because he was reporting when, winning trades, he gets paid bonuses. He gets $15 million in bonuses for being such a damn guru. How about it?

One day Dave's bosses are reviewing some of the trades placed by their superstar boy, and they see a discrepancy. Hmm, between the actual trading contract and when Dave had entered into the accounting system, they dragged him into a commoner room and Dave confessed to his bosses that he had been putting false information in and that he'd been losing money and he resigned from the firm. I resigned from my job.

It turns out I'm no good. I suck at my job. I'm sorry, boss. I'll leave. I'll pack my step up. Nobody's more upset about this than me, guys. Right. This sparks an audit at Tramow.

They bring in the auditors, hopefully, who are better at their job than I was as an auditor, who discovered that their cash position for the firm is actually in real trouble. Right. Nobody noticed that the quarter of trillion dollars this guy. had lost. And the company is forced to lay off hundreds of employees just to stay in business.

So there's a blast radius around his arrogance. Trammo, the company, calls in the FBI in Manhattan, who gets to work piecing this trading scheme together. So the FBI seizes $11 million in Dave, from Dave, money that he had made from these bonuses for being such a damn guru. And they charge him with fraud. Dave coughs up another $8 million in restitution to try to make it right. But the judge still sentenced him. Okay. What the judge sentenced him too, though, in this situation? Sort of not really an embezzlement scheme other than he's getting bonuses that he didn't otherwise deserve, but he's really just sort of hiding the fact that he sucked at his job. But the dollar amount, astronomical Matt Cox, kind of an interesting curveball, isn't it?

Yeah, I was thinking, I wonder what was he charged with like a wire fraud? Yeah, wire fraud. Okay. Simple wire fraud, George. I wonder if that, yeah, they pled guilty. I mean, there's an argument to him made that the bosses share some responsibility for not keeping their eye on the ball and not, and allowing him to put in the result of his trades into their tracking system. That's kind of dumb, right? You should have a clerk to do that. But we're also talking, again, sentencing guidelines thing, $240 million in trading losses. The question is, is that the appropriate dollar amount?

Or is the appropriate dollar amount the $15 million in bonuses that he got that he would have not otherwise gotten? I have no answer to that. That's why you get to make the guess. 180 months. 180 months. 15 years in prison just for being bad at his job. Yes. And being embarrassed about the fact that he was bad at his job.

I don't care. You're in a position of trust. You knew you were going to cripple this company. You've known it for a long. time. You're going to put this guy in prison for 15 years. Yeah. Wow.

All right. And you want to change that or are you staying to that? I'm staying to that. All right. Well, the correct answer is three years in prison. Get the fuck out of here. Are you serious? Yeah.

That's worth it. Yeah. Dave Smotherton. I'll do that again. Three years. That's not worth unpacking. Commodities trader. Still shit now.

Burger King. All right. Are we? Oh, and three, Colby? Yes. That's what the guys used to say when a guy would, like, self-surrender. You'd be walking around. They'd be like, I'm going to go talk to this guy.

And why? He still smells like pussy and Burger King. Or they say he's still shitting out Burger King. He's still shitting out Burger King. He's still shitting out of this guy. Like, oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, that's ridiculous.

There's no way anybody who's going to guess three years. Come on. That's no way. There's no way. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, you know what that reminds.

reminds me of, do you remember the British guy that was in like Singapore that was doing commodities trading for... I do remember this. It was for, what was the big bank in Britain? HSBC. No, no, no. This was before that. This is like, uh, yeah, it's not, it's, um, it was a huge bank.

It went under. Lloyds of London now. No, it wasn't. Lloyds, Nat West, Barclays. Barclays. Barclays. Went under. Wow.

I mean, it's like a staple. And it, this guy brought. it down. He lost so much money for so long that he actually, the entire, they actually went to the government to bail them out and they said absolutely not. Fucking thing went straight up because he just lost so much money and they weren't watching him. Like they literally, there were multiple times when they flew in to talk to him and he go in there and they, hey, what's going on with this? And we feel uncomfortable. Oh, what are you talking about? It's this. And it's on. He gave him some run around. They were like, okay, well, yeah, let's say, let's go. Let's, you know,

We were going to dinner tonight? They were like, okay, yeah, it sounds like you got everything under control. Yeah, no. Then they sent him in, like, the person that was supposed to be watching him. Like, I forget what it was. Basically, like, everybody they sent in, he kind of won over. Yeah. And because they just thought he was kind of a guru.

He's amazing. And then there was one time he had, like, the market took a dip. And then instead of, like, like, he's like, oh, my God, he actually went and bought so much that it brought it back up. So he didn't lose as much. And he actually like change the market because he dumped so much money. But of course the next day it dips again. And you just lost all that money too.

I think there's something to do with futures contracts. I don't even pretend to understand that industry that there's so much lapping of what's going on and so many bets being placed that don't come to fruition for 90, 180 days at the same time. I guess it must be difficult to track truly how you're doing unless you're really keeping like vigilant track on it. Because one trade can hedge against another trade and stuff like that. It's got to be an accountant's nightmare. There was a movie made about it with, God, what was the guy's name? I'm saying his name, Ewan McGregor.

Ewan McGregor. He played the guy. Oh, yeah? And I want to say he went to prison, I think, in Singapore. Like, I don't think he was. Yeah. I heard Singapore, the prisons are pretty rough. They're the ones who cane you.

Yeah. Yeah, it's very regimented, very, you know. Mm-hmm. The soup Nazi. Did you ever see that? Yeah. That's funny. But yeah, I don't want to say he got, yeah,

he got something like 15 years or 13 years or something. I remember thinking when I saw it too, thinking, oh, my God. No, it's like, no, you'll be right. Yeah. All right. So before the last episode, we went to dinner with our ladies. And it was interesting during dinner with the coincidence that you, You, me, and Colby are all non-drinkers.

Never touch alcohol. Have you never drank alcohol? I've drank alcohol like two or three nights, like random bachelor parties, but it's not like I don't drink. Okay. Just like those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I've never drank alcohol, never drank alcohol, never smoked, never done any drugs, really. I have, did have a prescription for Xanax. I always say that just because. Do you remember that last podcast? We did a podcast like a week or two ago, and the guy was like, Matt, you have a dude Vitz? he's like, yeah, I've had Xanax. He's like, okay, yeah.

So I was like, on five or six Xanax. Yeah, I was like, I'm never taking a whole bar. I was like break them in half, you know, it was like the men of the lowest, lowest it, and I was breaking it out. What's the legitimate use of Xanax? Anxiety. Anxiety. Okay, so they could chill you out. Yeah, at that point, that's when I was, you know, doing scams and stuff.

You know, you clearly needed chilling out. Yeah. That's unanimous. Yeah. So I was like, I had a prescription. I just took one out of. Yeah. This guy was like tripping on them or something.

He'd buy them on the street. Take it five at a time. So you know how you black out? No. I got sleepy. Like I'm going to thinking I'm going to bed at 8th because I took a Xanax. Right. But it's interesting to me that all three of us were, had dates with us who were drinkers.

Oh, yeah, yeah. This is funny that all three of us are teetotlers and our dates were drinkers. Yeah, I don't mind. I'm not offended. I'm not against alcohol. I'm just against me using alcohol. Yeah. What is your non-alcoholic drink of choice?

Like if you were at a resort, All Inclusive Resort or at a bar or something like that. Like probably Coca-Cola. Yeah. What's yours, Colby? If I'm at a resort, maybe a virgin Pena Colada. Nice. You know what mine is? Shirley Temple.

Really? I love a Shirley Temple. You know what I hate? Ordering a Shirley Temple. Yeah. Is there another name? Yeah, so I just got back from an all-inclusive resort in Mexico with a ton of my friends. It was like a destination wedding.

And day one, go to the bartender, lay a $20 bill on him. Say, hey, here's the thing. My name's Tom. I'm going to be here for the long weekend. When the weather cools down, Golden Nugget Online Casino turns up the heat. This winter, make any moment golden and play thousands of games like her new slot Wolf It Up and all the fan-favorite games. Whether you're curled up on the couch or taking five between snow shovels, play winner's hottest

collection of slots, from brand new games to the classics you know and love. You can also pull up your favorite table games like Blackjack, Roulette, and Crapes, Or go for even more excitement with our library of live dealer games. Download the Golden Nugget Online Casino app, and you've got everything you need to layer on the fun this winter. In partnership with Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem call ConX Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. 19 and over.

Physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nugget Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. Four or five days. You're going to be my bartender. I'm going to come to you. And I'm going to order a lumberjack.

And when I order a lumberjack, you are to bring me a Shirley Temple. Right. And we will never use the word Shirley Temple again for the next five days. What did he say? Do you laugh? Sir, yes, sir. And I spent the rest of the week ordering lumberjacks. And it's not that I'm embarrassed to be a non-drinker.

And these are my friends. They know I don't drink. You just don't want to say, Shirley. There's more people than my friends are. There's like bikini girls. Like waiting to get a drink. And so I ordered lumberjacks. I don't know why I thought of that, but...

Yeah. Virgin Pena Colanda doesn't sound much better, does it? Yeah, yeah. Give it a name. And prep your guy, and they're on top of it, these resort bartenders. 37-year-old Christon Brewer of Monroe, North Carolina, gave himself the street name of Rose. I think that's a kind of wine, in it? Rose.

Roset, yeah. Yeah, he spelled it R-O-Z-A-Y. His street name evidently caught on more than my street name of Shirley Temple. And Rose held himself out to people who knew him as a wealthy and experienced stock guru. And he offered to invest money for his clients with significant risk-free returns on their short-term investments. Ron. And what do you and I know? That if there's significant returns, you're going to be risk-free, right?

Right. You and I could go to the roulette table at my little casino down the street, and we could put money on red or black, and we'll double our money. significant returns. You know what else there's associated with that? Significant risk that we don't get it right. The moment someone starts selling you, it's guaranteed, no risk, low risk. But not only was he going to trade stocks with their money, but he was going to put some of that money into a Miami cannabis store, right? Because people like weed and there's, and how could you lose? He's marketing his investment plan to people that he knows in his community. And so he's, only able to get it 13 people to invest with him, and they all invest via cash app transfers to him for a total of $210,000, right?

This guy's kind of a very different level than some of the kind of the more prestigious defrauders that we cover. But my guess is that to these 13 people, $210,000 collectively among them, was like the riches of the Orient. It was a lot of money for them. Okay. And you're going to be shocked to hear Matt Cox that not a penny of that was. spent on stocks or weed store.

Rose just spent the money on himself. I feel like some of it was spent on weed. Maybe. It just didn't. It was not available for resale. He was living like a baller. Yeah. Okay.

And when it came to paying off investors, he became kind of aggressive with his investors. It was sort of funny reading the text messages they would exchange. Full of excuses involving bank delays. I've happened to delay with the bank. And I read his text messages. And what he did was he took. an interesting tact making his investors seem like poor people

and insignificant people like, I can't be bothered with you. I'm Rose. I'm involved in investing. You're bugging me over your $15,000? And there's a lot of that. I live in large. There was a lot of that.

Like, just making them feel small and making them feel embarrassed to be asking for their money. And, um, no shame. Like, they're just bothering him about mere pocket change. Right. Leave me alone.

I'm Rose, man. some of these investors were so persistent, though, because again, it's significant to them that he threatened to kill one of the victim investors if they wouldn't stop hounding him for money. I will kill you. You don't stop hounding me for money. So eventually the victims call the FBI who arrest Rose on fraud charges. When the FBI agents get the case, the first thing I did when I got a case is I ran the guy's criminal history. What's this guy all about? And they see that he had pled guilty.

He had a historical conviction for statutory doing bad things to young girls. Right. Right. Okay. We know the word. It rhymes with grape. Yes. Right.

And so, Rosey ends up pleading guilty to the fraud charges. And my question for you is, given that all the facts that I talked about involving is criminal history, the threats he made, the 13 victims and the $210,000. How much time are you going to give Rosey? It's not a lot of money. It's not a lot of money. It's not a lot of victims. Here's what's interesting. It's not a lot of money to you and I.

Yeah. Right? Because we're ballers. We make a lot of money, right? We go to the all-inclusive resorts. We drink our lumberjacks. But to his victims, this meant a lot. Yeah.

I'm not saying they're vulnerable like Alzheimer's, but I'm saying that poor people. Right. Poor people who trusted Rosei. You stop I'll believe you I'm not even trying to talk you off a guess Because you haven't made a guess

But you're I think you're belittling the victims in this case Me You said They were poor people There's nothing wrong There's nothing ashamed about being poor I know you and I came from First of all they're investing money

They're not bored They're investing They're trying to better themselves They're trying to better themselves Um I don't know I mean he's got a history Yeah, yeah, doing something really bad to a child.

Yeah. Clearly he wasn't rehabilitated. Well, yeah, it's a different type of crime. Yeah, right, right, right. But criminal history is criminal history. 40 months? 40 months in prison. 48 months?

48 months in prison. It's 200,000. It's 13 victims, which is over 10, so it's between 10 and 100, but it's... I'm not seeing you're wrong. I'm just repeating what you're saying. You may be reading a lot into the tone of my voice, but you shouldn't. You should believe in yourself, Matt Cox. That's the one thing we've learned from the show.

Oh, my God. 40, 40, 40, 40, 40 months. 40 months in prison for Rose. Wiping out 13 people for $210,000 via cash app. I mean, if it was, what, sell, it would have been better? It was nothing to do. Even I know about cash. Okay, so, yeah, 40 months.

40 months? Yeah. All right. We've been even going, even beating yourself up over this one for a while. So I'm going to, I'm going to pull the plug on this. The actual time that Rosea got in prison was 33 months. I'm good. Are you?

You are good. I'm within, either way, I'm within a, I, I'm a, I'm a year. 41, no, 41. No, 41. 1.25 was the was the 125%. So yeah. So if you guess 42, you would have been wrong.

You got it. Good job. Proud of you, buddy. Matt Cox, you into Taliban Glizzy? I am telling you. Taliban Glizzy. You're looking at me with a blank stare. Is that, is that the singer? Either you're into Taliban Glizzy.

You're not into Taliban Glissie. You don't like Taliban Glissie. Not a fan. No. All right. You know who Taliban Glizzy. Is that right? It's a person, though.

I know that now. Wow. What? I thought you were hip-hop. I'm not. I am if they played it on WQ-Y-K country. Oh, man. All right, well, we'll have to get everyone up to speed here.

And I'm sorry to the audience, because I know you guys are into Taliban Glizzy. He's a hip-hop superstar. Is he free right now? Washington, D.C. We'll get there. 34-year-old. D.C. rapper, Taliban. Lizzie, most people watching, but I'm going to get you up to speed because you're a country music guy,

know that his real name is Trevor Wright. And at 34, getting a little long in the tooth for the hip-hop game. If you know, if you're not a household name where Matt Cox would know you by age 34 in hip-hop, ever watch that show Logan's Run when you were young? Yeah, I love Logan's Run. The idea behind Logan's Run is that when you reached age 40, was it? No, it was 30. Yeah, that everyone over 30 must be killed because.

is they're just useless to society. And so hip-hop's a little bit like Logan's run, where if you're 34 and you're not at J-Z levels, it's time to put you out to pasture. It's a great remake, by the way. You know what Glizzy means in Street Vernacular? Yeah, you're not going to believe this, but now I do not know what Glizzi means.

A Glizzi is a hot dog. Okay, what's this guy's name again? Taliban-Glizzi. There's Taliban in there. Taliban-Gliz. You know what Taliban is. Taliban hot dog. Well, I think it's also a,

they use the hot dog for, as a, in the word glizzy as a euphemism for a male body part. Oh. But technically, technically if you are in, in some neighborhoods and you say you're going to go get a glizzy, you're just going to get a hot dog.

Like, you know, from the hot dog still. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during the conversation of, of coming up with this guy's nickname. You know what I mean? Like,

that's got to be a great conversation. All right. Well, so, Tallahassee, big deal. But in addition to spit and writings, that's what we call it. We, who? You and the brothers? No, we in the hip-hop community. It's not racial. Okay, it's not racial. Okay. Taliban Glizzy had a secret life, Matt Cox, running a heist crew.

That would conduct armed robberies of jewelry stores up and down the East Coast. Wasn't he making money doing hip-hop? I think he wanted, it's never enough. It's never enough, Matt Cox. It's never enough. Armed with heavy automatic weaponry and sledgehammers, Glizzy and his boys hit two jewelry stores in New Jersey and one in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida.

One of these kind of, you go in there with the automatic weapons, you take over the store, they begin smashing the display cases, taking stuff. They thought this through, though. They rented cars for their getaways, using rental cars from like Hertz or Avis or whatever. But then before they had, actually did the job, they went and stole license plates and replaced the plates on the rental

car with stolen license plates. So they couldn't be detected. The targets were Asian-owned stores selling heavy gold jewelry of high purity. Very popular among hip hoppers. They would make off with the loot. They melted some of the gold into bars and fenced it in Miami with a good dude who would buy melted gold. The total value of the jewelry, they're probably good

for way more than three of robberies, but Glyssie's crew, they got him dead to rights on three of them. They stole nearly $5 million. Now, the whole thing

came undone when a member of his crew left an AR-15 used in one of the heists in the back of an Uber. Right? Sometimes you get out of

that Uber fast. Maybe the guy doesn't... I can't tell you how many times I've left my... The FBI and the ATF are able to trace that weapon to the robberies and begin picking off Gleazy's crew one by one, gaining cooperation along the way. They're all pointing at Taliban Glezy, right? He's clearly the ringleader. He gets charged federally along with 14 members of his crew

who are involved in one or more of the robberies. 14 guys. That's a big crew. Glizzy's hype men are being... Heitman is what we call the people... in hip-hop who are kind of supporting the main guy. They're being sentenced one by one with the early cooperators getting the best deal, so that's what it happens. But Glizzy is the ringleader. So ignore the other his cohorts.

I'm not going to make you guess 15 people's sentences. But Glizzy, ringleader, federal prism, another poet of the streets taken from us too soon, Matt Cox. How much time you think he got? You had to look up this stuff. Did he go to trial? Nope. Play guilty. Figured he didn't want to force his 14 other code defendants to have to testify against him.

There were a lot of people out there who were lining up against him. Let's say he has a criminal history. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this wasn't Taliban. Glizzy's first rodeo. Mm. 25 years? 25 years in prison for three robberies? I'm just asking, my man.

I want to make sure you're comfortable with this. They have, they have, I don't want to say it wrong. Did you say it was an AR-15? Yeah. First you said, did you say machine guns when you said they win it? Or you say, fully, I think it's at automatic weapons. Yeah, automatic weapons. Whatever.

Yeah, I got a gun guy. Yeah. So. I carry one. I don't know how they work. So these got semi-automatic weapons. They're breaking sledgehammers. These are takeover robberies.

Without question. Yeah. He's dead rights. You know, like they're probably telling them you're looking at 45 years. Yeah. Now, do you give him a discount for his contribution to the culture? Metcogs? I think he will have... If he played a banjo, you would.

I think he'll have... I think he'll have more of an impact in prison. If he was in a jug band, you'd like him a lot more, I think. Oh, my God. Let's see. I think 25 years. Years. All right.

What's wrong with 25? Yeah. I have no problem with it. I just want to make sure you're comfortable with it. 25 years is you get your guess? Yes. All right. Taliban glizzy sentence pled guilty, of course.

18 years, three months. I don't think we're there. No, 22 was like the threat threshold somewhere, 22 and a half. Yeah. So today when you're driving home, let's turn off that country stuff and turn on some Taliban Glizzy. I should have said. Pour some out.

Force them out for the brother. I should have, oh, yeah. That's too bad. Yeah. That's too bad. I was teetering between 20 and 25. I think you guessed high because you're not into hip-hop. You have a bias against my culture.

So the old mafia, the kind of lacosa nostra, is pretty much a shell of itself if they exist anymore. Yeah. Due to the... People did a real number on those. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, at the FBI, sort of cutting the head off the beast. And a lot of their games, a lot of what they were doing, you know, was funded by illegal gambling and stuff like that.

And that's legal pretty much everywhere. You know, a lot of the marijuana usage is legal. The prostitution, something you can kind of get anywhere right now. It's kind of all, you know, gone online. You don't need a mafia anymore. If you were to watch television in the movies, they like to dramatize the idea of the Russian mob being a very big thing. My question, for a man who spent some time among the...

criminals. Ever deal with any Russian mobsters inside? I mean, I met some guys that were in the, which, I mean, they made it seem like it was different, but the, like the Romanian mob. I met several Romanian mobsters. Yeah. I don't know that there's a difference, but. Well, no, it's interesting you should say that, because this case that I want to talk to you about is about the Russian mob, but it's the Azerbaijan faction faction of the Russian mob. I don't know how their org chart works, but evidently there's, you know, it's not just the Azerbaijan mob.

Azerbaijan's a country. And evidently there is a faction of Russian mobsters who are Azerbaijani who, yeah, and that's their thing. So some foreign names in this one, some foreign characters. I'll do my best to simplify it for the audience. But our hero in the story is a female journalist named Masi Alinajad. Okay. She's originally from Iran.

She writes books and articles about how bad Iran is, about human rights. abuses and stuff like that. She's a U.S. citizen. She naturalized in 2019, so she's one of us now, Matt Cox. And the government of Iran hates her because she's constantly writing very true stories about the horrific things they do to their own people. And the Iranian government hated her so much that they wanted her dead, Matt Cox. And so they hire two hitmen from the Azerbaijan faction of the Russian mob to murder this American citizen on U.S. soil. Make sense? Yeah.

Okay. So the Russian mobsters were Rafit Amarov. I'm sorry, there's three of them. Polad Amarov with an O and Khalid Mediev. Their names are kind of unimportant because we'll get there. The Iranians pay these three mobsters $500,000 for the hit. Wow. Yeah.

They really didn't like her. Khalid was going to be the trigger man. Okay. The money coming from, so that we're using money coming from the government of Iran. Khalid goes out and buys an assault rifle, two magazines, 66 rounds of ammo, gloves, and a mask to kill this woman, this journalist, for writing articles in books that are true. Now, these Russian mobsters in Iranian government forgot one thing, that the FBI keeps very close tabs on Russian mobsters. and Iranian government officials. Using wiretaps and human informants, my boys were all over both groups.

And seeing them come together like this did not warm their hearts, Matt Cox. It was a source of alarm. And Khalid begins conducting surveillance of Masi, the journalist's home. And while the FBI is conducting surveillance on Khalid, because they're watching this unfold. And they're like, this is too close for comfort, you know, and knowing that he's obtained the, weapons. He's bought the gloves. He's done these things. And now he's outside her house watching watching her. And so they have surveillance on him, right? Like 24 hours save. Yeah. Yeah. And because

there's an investigation open. So the NYPD, which is on a lot of these task forces in our New York office of the FBI works so closely with NYPD. They're almost indistinguishable. They pull over college car and the cops find the AK-47, a ton of cash, the gloves, and a ski mask. All three mobs, they have enough wiretap and stuff like that. All three mobsters, are charged with their role in the murder plot. Collid pleads guilty, and he's awaiting sentencing. The other two guys, Raffet and Pollard, so Cal is the one who actually had the gun.

Leave him aside. He has not been sentenced yet. But the other two guys who were in on this conspiracy, taking the money, planning it on the phone, they got him dead to rights. They go to trial, found guilty at trial. And the other guy pled guilty, the actual Trigger Man pled guilty.

I don't think he cooperated against the other two guys, but it doesn't matter because we're not talking about him. him. Masi, the journalist, lives on, and she keeps reporting on the Iranian regime, but she's constantly looking over her shoulder. Brave lady, I think we have to say. And that's what happens. So both, I'm going to give you this because I don't need, you don't need to separate the two. Both men were given the exact same sentence for their part in this murder for hire plot. But neither one was going to be the trigger man, but both were absolutely involved every step of the way. Collid the trigger man pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing. The two guys who went to trial are the ones who are sentenced in how many years? 20, a piece? 20 years each for a shot that was never fired. Oh, they were going to kill her.

I mean, I don't doubt that they were going to kill her. Oh, I think that's clear. But you know and I know that there's a bit of a discount for not doing it. Yeah, but they went to trial. They did. And they were found guilty. Yeah. 17 years.

I'm not trying to talk you often. I just want to make, no, no, no, I just want to make sure you are fully informed before you make your guess. I want you to consider every angle so you can make an informed decision. They went to trial, 20 years.

20 years. I want to hear it as a sentence, not a question. They came over to the United States. You know what I'm saying? You came here, you got the money, you set the whole thing up. You went to trial.

You could have not, you could have gotten 10 or 12 or something, you know, way less. They taken a plea? Had you taken a plea? I mean, 20 years seems appropriate. Okay. And you didn't, they didn't cooperate.

They went to trial. You could have cooperated against the other guy? Like, come on. I'm not disagreeing with you. Yeah, 20 years. 20 years. That's final answer? Yeah, you're killing a journalist.

Yeah, you can't do that. Yeah, I mean, you can kill people in general, but you're killing a journalist. A human rights journalist. Kind of proving her point. Right? Like, her whole thing is that the government of Iran is really bad. Yeah. And next thing you know, they decide to, or these goons to kill her.

20. 20 years? Yeah. The correct answer is 25 years in prison. Nice. What about the, oh gosh, was it Saudi Arabia? Yeah, the journalist kind of, they dismembered the guy. Yeah.

Did you hear about that, Colby? So he's a journalist writing. Cheshoggi. Writing, you know. For the Washington Post. Yeah, he's a journalist, writing for the Washington Post. about Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and what,

human rights rights rights. And the sheikh or who runs Saudi Arabia? I can picture him. Yeah, I don't know what you call him. Yeah, he's not happy. He didn't say favorable things about his government. So he kind of puts in like, hey, we need to get rid of this guy. And so the guy is going to get married.

and he goes to the embassy and goes into the embassy to get some kind of a license or something that he needs like, hey, I'm going to just sign up, we're getting married and this and that, and to a nice woman, and he goes in there, and she's kind of waiting around. She, like, she like comes around.

He's in there, and he never comes out. And what they eventually figure out is that he did come out. But when he went in there, they kill him, and then they cut him up, and then they slowly walk him out in pieces. Yeah. And drop him off somewhere or bring him back to Saudi Arabia or something. I don't know what happened exactly. Do you know that they didn't drop the pieces off, right?

It just disappeared. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think it was filmed, though, at some point. Yeah, it's all caught on different surveillance cameras. Like, they understand what happened very. And a lot of people are very upset. A lot of journalists are very upset at that. because the subsequent, you know, U.S. government administrations kind of shrugged it off because we have good relations with the Saudis and they're very useful to the U.S. for a variety of things.

And it happened on, on their territories. It was in, you know, I know, I mean. Yeah, technically. Yeah. But he was a, was he a U.S. citizen? Or was he a good question. I don't know what it. I don't think so.

Or else why would he be going to the embassy unless it was for her paperwork? But, I mean, he was a, it was definitely. a legal resident inside the U.S. and a journalist. Yeah. And then the problem, and then like, you know, it's like, but what do you do? Like, they're denying it. They just, wait a time. Yeah.

They're basically saying, I don't know, we don't know what happened in there. We don't know what really happened. Yeah, they shrugged it off to. It's not no comment. Yeah. So it's like, what do you, what's the reality? What do you really do? Tough job being a journalist reporting on human rights violations on some of these kind of more

bloodthirsty nations, yeah. What about Putin? He'll just like execute. He's a poisoner. Yeah, they like poison. Next thing you know, you're having like soup on a train and, uh, or the guy that with the umbrella just tapped them in the back, you know, they dropped the pellet in, what is it?

Riceon? No, I thought it was a, uh, it was like a, uh, radioactive pellet that they pull off of. And they investigated the whole thing, like it tracked like how it was made. They tracked the whole thing. They had a whole, go all the way. back to Russia and figure out, like, they know who was involved. They know the whole thing.

And, you know, Putin just like, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. But the guy, he got, he ended up dying a horrific death, horrific death. Did you ever see hair falls out? Radiation poisoning. Of course, of weeks, he dies eventually. Nightmare. A horrible, horrible, you know.

I don't know. I don't know if that was the plan. Like, hey, what's the most miserable death we can give this guy that he can't possibly beat? Yeah. Beat or is it like we, we miscalculated. He still died, but we were hoping to die. I mean, imagine radiation poison just from like inhaling it,

but having it injected inside you with that kind of thing. God, it's got to be horrifying. Where are we now? This is our halftime show. Let's see. I'm pretty sure I've got nothing. I have two of five.

Two of five. Two of five. Two of six. Two of six. Okay. It's 33 percent. You're coming back. I was going to win the last one.

I was going to win it. No, you weren't. Let's go. All right, let's, I don't think I've, have I ever won one of these things? In the beginning, you have. In the beginning you have. You have. You are somebody, Matt Cox.

You're not dumb like everyone says. You got this. You're good at this game. You're an expert. Everybody needs a good pair of jeans. What I like about the perfect gene is that the moment you put them on, they feel like sweatpants. They don't ever pinch or bind up. As a matter of fact, they're super stretchy.

There's never any point where you feel like they're binding up on you or they're tight or they pinch you or anything like that. They're comfortable in pretty much any position that you sit in. They're really great. they're comfortable and they look great. And the best part is, our listeners get 15% off their first order plus free shipping at the perfect jeans. NYC or Google the perfect jeans and use promo code Cox15 for 15% off. Normally, a good pair of jeans cost anywhere between $150 to $200, but the perfect jeans are

reasonably priced at $799. For a limited time, our listeners get 15% off their first order plus free shipping at the perfect gene. And use promo code Cox15 for 15% off. That's 15% off for new customers at the perfect gene. comyc with promo code Cox15.

Please support our channel and tell them we sent you. Fuck your khakis. Get the perfect gene. You ever mean any soldiers of fortune? Like, you know, guys like that who... That's a thing. We've interviewed soldiers and forces and fortune.

And I've met them in prison and I've communicated with them. What do they like? just regular guys. They're very, typically they're pretty motivated guys. Yeah. Usually kind of, you could be one if you had a little slightly more aggressive attitude. Yeah.

It would be a better shot at probably too. I told him, don't you do that? You got to throw some more bass in your voice. You'd be good, you could do it. You don't think my voice is deep enough to be a soldier of fortune? What is a soldier of fortune? Soldier fortune is a guy who. Tyler Kavanaugh.

Oh, okay. A soldier who hire us in. himself out for other people's wars for pay. Okay. Oh, yeah, you know what? No, I would say Tyler, uh, am I saying Tyler or Taylor? TC, I don't know.

Cabinol. Yeah, yeah, he's actually, uh, no, he, you're right, because he was actually worked for, he was a Navy seal and he were, uh, went into the, French Foreign Legion, French Foreign Legion. That's crazy. Yeah. So, so both of those, he's, they're actually government institutions. So I would say the answers.

I know. I think the French Foreign Legion are that those people are definitely soldiers of fortune. Really? Yeah. I think so. I mean, kind of a part of. Let's talk about this. Yeah.

I mean, it's, no. I'm sorry. I know you have a drive. No, no, no. This is a fantastic segue. But yeah, French Foreign Legion is run by the French government. But they take, they do not take their oath to the French government. They take their oath to the French Foreign Legion.

And they are literally soldiers from all around the world who have signed up to be a part of the French foreign Legion. Yeah. It used to be a lot of action because France had a lot of whole. holdings in Africa. And so there was a lot of kind of like maintaining their control over, I don't know, the Congo, Cameroon, whatever, with those nations there. And sometimes that was tough. Craig Lang and Alex Zwifelhofer, age 35 and 27, were American soldiers of fortune. And this is where it comes in. They, there are a lot of people who did this. They went to Ukraine to fight the Russians for the Ukraine, on behalf of Ukraine for pay. Cool. There were a lot of people in the U.S.

that. Like guys who had left the Army, the Army Navy Air Force, Marines. They were, you know, they had good combat training, but maybe it wasn't so much to get jobs here in the U.S. We weren't at war at the time. Ukraine was paying good money to have experienced soldiers to go out and shoot Russians, and so they brought them over there. Okay. And that's what these guys did. They actually met there, and they became friends. And Alex, one of them, had previously gone AWOL from the U.S. Army in absent without leave, where he just sort of dips. And so he's, sort of a fugitive because you're not allowed to do that. And so he'd been living in the shadows over there. But anyway, these two guys meet over there fighting the Russians. They come back to the

U.S. after their tour. They made some good money. And these two guys are sitting around and they're talking about, you know what, we should go to Venezuela to fight against the regime there. They make that decision. But they had already blown all the money they made in Ukraine. And so, and these two guys are broke as a joke. And they want to get enough money together to go to Venezuela because they're sold as a fortune. There's money to be made there, I guess. So they come up with a plan. Here's the plan, Matt Cox. They post an ad on a website called Arms List, like Craigslist for arms, to sell a duffel bag full of guns and smoke grenades for $3,000. They put it up there for sale, the way you'd put up like an old couch on Craigslist.

And a married couple in Estero, Florida, Danny and Deanna Lorenzo, they contact and say, We would love to buy the duffel bag full of guns and smoke grenades. I don't know what they had going on, but they were interested in making the sale. So Craig and Alex meet this married couple in a parking lot of a church in Estero, Florida. And they shoot Danny seven times and they shoot Deanna 11 times, executing the couple in their car and stealing the three, and steal the $3,000. That's horrible. Terrible. A bad story.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not a happy story. A lot of crimes aren't happy, Matt Cox. The sheriff's department and the FBI team up to conduct the investigation. They reverse the engineer, the text messages and emails. They catch them. They figure out it's Craig and Alex. The mercenaries plan to go to Venezuela never materialized.

Alex was arrested for the killings, but it took FBI more time to get their hands on Craig because he went back to Ukraine to fight and he was resisting extradition to the USA. But guess what? Ukraine at that time was very beholden to the USA. And if we said, you give this guy back to us, Ukraine's like, sir, yes, sir, because we were helping out Ukraine. So he eventually gets brought back. Federal charges. They faced federal charges of conspiracy to commit robbery and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Robbery interfering with commerce, discharging a firearm in related blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, conspiring to kill persons in a foreign country.

Believe it or not, you are not allowed to be a soldier of force. Fortune, conspiracy, conspiring to kill persons in a foreign country is a crime in violation of the Neutrality Act, which I don't really know what that is. Alex goes to trial. Wait, did they get charged with the murders? Yeah. Okay. That conspiracy to commit robbery and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Murder is not a federal crime. So you need to sort of like, twist and turn around it. Sometimes we use civil rights violations. Both guys go to trial, both in separate trials because their timing was different on getting one back. Both guys are found guilty.

And they both got the exact same sentence. Okay, so this is not, you can give me one sentence for both of them, and it will count as a one for not a two-fer unless Colby wants to put his thumb on the scale. Yeah, so that's the facts. How much time these guys get? 20 years apiece? 20 years each. Yeah. For murdering a couple in cold blood and the church are you in charge with murder?

That's the facts, though. But so I'm assuming they got a murder charge in the state. State of Florida, they probably. I have no information about that. I think that the federal charges were all there were. Because, but again, I think, let's keep in mind that the judge is fully aware that the murder took place. 30. I don't think they got life.

Both guys got two consecutive life sentences. And so I think we should give it to Matt because he's up in the 30 year, 20, 30 year range. And there's no real number for life. But we'll give it to him. He's behind. I think we give it to him because it's the Matt Cox show. I, I, I, I, okay, I'm going to take it. I want to take it. You don't think you deserve it?

I mean, you're up there in that, I don't know how, we don't really have, this is the first life sentence we've ever done on the show. And then we get the idea of two life sentences. I don't even know what that means. Well, I don't know how you can get life on, like, it's, well, I guess, double homicide. Yeah, I know, but like you said, they're not charged. with homicide. They're not charged with murder.

I think there's a sentencing enhancement for like every federal crime for if you kill two people type thing. I don't know. Is there? I don't know. I don't know. That's not my, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't do a lot of murders. Yeah. Thank heavens. Last episode, we talked a little bit about politics and sort of what a poisonous thing it is. I'm a little confused on what the law is. Are you allowed to vote as a convicted felon? That's a tough one. I've read two different things.

One says I am allowed to vote, and then one says that I'm, that I'm, basically like almost like I have to get something from the governor, but then I read it something else where remember the guy, Avery? Avery said, no, no, that only deals with state crimes. Yours is federal, you're automatically allowed to vote. You just have to register. So I actually needed to ask chat, JPT.

that's going to be how you make your decision asking chat GPD if you have I need to look more into it I need to look more into it I feel like I remember that the state of Florida allow did something magical in the past decade that allows convicted felons to vote in the state of Florida they did but you have to be complete with your sentence and that

includes restitution ah that's the kicker I don't have a state crime or restitution in the state so what Avery was saying as far as federal government is concerned I'm allowed to vote yeah and who would I be voting for, you know, it'd probably just be in the presidential election. I don't know if it'd be in the, I don't know, that's the whole thing. It's questionable. Yeah, okay. Interesting. No, I was curious about

that. And, you know, I know you have stronger political convictions that I do. And that's probably a right that you care about, isn't it? I do. I'd like to get my gun rights back and I'd like to be able to vote. Okay. Got it. Are you allowed to make political, um, contributions? I've never even thought that you couldn't make. I don't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I'm assuming they'll take money from anybody, right? It's not a trick question. I don't know. My guess is that they will probably also take money or choose to, you know, send your check back or whatever.

Yeah, I mean, which is sort of interesting because, you know, I don't know, what's more impactful toward a presidential election, voting or giving them $1,000, you know, or whatever. I don't, I don't know. But I was thinking just thinking about political donation. I've never made a political donation. Never will. So there's a woman, Catherine Buchanan, she was a campaign treasurer. Her job was basically to handle the finances for several high-profile political campaigns and political action committees. You know what they are, right?

Yeah. One was called one Commonwealth PAC, which supported former Virginia Attorney General Mark Haring. happen to be a Democrat, does not matter for this story. Okay. Right. But she's on the Democratic side of this thing, and your fans can talk about what a monster I am for either bringing this up or not bringing this up. I don't care. A PAC, as we know, political action committee is a group that raises money to support political candidates or causes.

It's like the campaign's financial muscle. Over a four-year period, Catherine quietly siphoned $840,000 from the campaigns that she managed. She's embezzling money from the campaigns, not from the government, but from the campaign fund. Right. Okay. And that's money that was donated by people who feel very strongly for the causes and candidates that she's working for. Right. She uses that money to pay her own credit card bills.

She took some totally awesome vacations, Matt Cox. And she enjoyed some cash advances on the credit cards of the campaign that she was running. She created fake accounting records in the campaign finance records to hide what she's doing. and we've talked about that, how important it is that the person who maintains the accounting records for any organization is a different person than the person who's actually handling the money and has access to the bank accounts. That segregation of duty could prevent most embezzlements. This campaign did not have that. She was also involved with the campaigns for two different U.S. senators, Tim Kaine, who I believe was Hillary Clinton's running mate, doesn't he? When Hillary Clinton ran for president, I believe Tim Kaine was her running mate.

You don't remember. No idea. Yeah, you're otherwise occupied. And Mark Warner. In all fairness, those two senators fired Catherine after her suspicious activity was flagged. But what finally brought her down was an audit revealed discrepancies. The FBI investigation came in and Catherine's pled guilty to federal wire fraud charges and tax evasion because she wasn't paying taxes on the $840,000 she stole from this campaign. How much time are you going to give Catherine, woman with no criminal history, stealing the money?

money from a political campaign, $840,000. We think 30 months? I think 30 months. Doesn't matter what I think, Matt Cox. I mean, yeah, she's 30 months. That seems reasonable. 30 months, right? Maybe less.

30 months? 30 months. I'm going to tell you I was surprised by this sentence. Okay. What you think is it high? I'm not going to tell you that. Well, okay. I'm going to tell you, I was just surprised.

It's $800,000. It seems like... $840,000. And it seems like it's sophisticated. And she's in a position of trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Why? No, I'm just asking what your final answer is. 30. 30 months, you can stick with that? Yeah. Okay. The correct answer, and I don't understand why. It is one year and one day.

It doesn't even make sense. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know either. Maybe the judge just found the victim to be so unsympathetic because they just blow so much money in these political campaigns and no one gives a dam. And the people who made the donations are probably doing it to get some favor in the future. Anyway, so screw them.

I don't know. Plus also the victims probably didn't really want, you know what I mean? They probably don't want like a trial. They don't want like slightly. No, I'm sure the victims did not want them to be associated with this. Yeah. And the party and all that. Yeah.

Like we don't want to make this all over the newspapers that we've got people there embezzling from us. They place a call to the U.S. attorney who's probably a presidential appointee of some kinds and make this case go away. Right. I could see something like that happening where the victims are like, we do not need this headache and this publicity. Right.

And here we are talking. about it on the greatest true crime podcast on YouTube. Bringing it out in the open. So I've got to meet your beautiful wife and Colby's super hot wife, and they are delightful women. You guys both married really well. You should both be very proud of yourself. They were also on their best behavior.

Fair enough. I want to ask both you and Colby, would you take the rap for your wife and go to prison for her? I don't even know Colby's wife that well. like it? That's funny. You always make me laugh, Matt Cox. No, for your wife. Not Colby's wife. What is she? How much time are we talking about? What did she do? So, Colby, you would not take the rap for your wife and go to prison for her to keep her out. That was my first instinct. If I could replace it, most likely, as long as it's a reasonable amount of time.

You would do that, huh? What a romantic you are? She, well, it kind of depends what it is. Like, what she do? Yeah, what she do? How much time are we talking about? What did she do? Well, let's say it was a white color crime, a financial crime of some kind, a fraud. Did I know about it? Am I the victim? No. Okay.

Would you take the rap for the beautiful and talented Jeff? Spare her the prison sentence? She can do time. Honestly, she's done five years. She can do time. She's fine. Interesting. I feel like if I was involved, yes.

I feel like if I had no idea about it, no. All right. Well, let's go through this fact scenario and then you guys can revise your answer when we guess the sentence. So I was going to say, by the way, here's the problem with it. Not that I think this applies to Jess. Yes. But men tend to stay with their wives that are incarcerated, more so than wives tend to stay with the men that are incarcerated. Really? I'm surprised to hear that, actually. So, I mean, I've many, many women will go to prison for five or six years and the guys are there the whole time. They're showing up. They're putting money on the books.

They're bringing the kids. I would have guessed the entire opposite, Matt Cox. The men are the dogs who now they can go out and start dating and get a Tinder profile and all that. And the women are the swans who want to be, who does love the idea of having a man who's devoted to them. No, I don't think so. It's interesting. I would not have made that guess. All right.

So this story is about a husband and wife. The husband's Dr. Andrew Casman made a successful dental practice in Tucson, straightening the teeth of children and adults, orthodontist. He's dentists. We had a dentist in the last episode. I'm fixated on dentists because I'm doing some speeches for dental groups. But he had his wife, Lori. She was the back office. He did all the business.

Now, there's something happening in the dental industry right now that a lot of people don't know about where mom and pop dental places are selling their practices to big corporations and private equity and becoming employees of their own practice. Okay. Makes sense. So you can get a big payday. And now a corporation is going to be. to own your dental practice. But the patients don't even know that's happening because they're still

seeing Dr. Casman, their beloved orthodontist, straightening the teeth of the, you know, the Catholic family of 12 kids. Right. So this happens to the Casman's practice. They see an opportunity. And so they hatch a scheme to steal from their own practice, which they now no longer own, because they keep the bank account open that they had for their own practice. and instead of depositing the money into the corporate bank account that they're now corporate owners have, they begin splitting it, depositing some of the money into the corporate bank account and some of the money into the bank account for their practice and that it was. And the patients don't know any better.

Right. What they forgot to keep in, but Dr. Casman is the one who's seeing the patients. He's doing the dental work. Lori's in the back room doing the back office. stuff. And so she's the one who's actually doing, making the deposits in choosing which account to put it in. And she's able to manipulate patient records to mask the fact that her husband is putting braces on these kids. So their corporate parents don't know this is occurring. But what they've failed to take into account is that these private equity companies and corporations

that are buying these mom and pop dental offices are pretty sophisticated. This isn't their first rodeo, and they have pretty sophisticated software and audit procedures to figure out what's going on. And every once while they audit. Yeah, they audit it. They found out that the parent company audit was able to identify $75,000 in theft. Okay. And they contact the FBI to come investigate.

Both Casman's were charged with this crime. Okay. Now, the evidence against Mrs. Casman is much better against Dr. Casman. Right. Right. So it's one of those things like, how could he not know? Can you see that? My dentist has never walked out when I was paying the bill. He probably may have no idea. But your dentist may or may not be sleeping with the lady in the back office for 35, 40 years of marriage or whatever.

Okay. Where's the money being spent? $75,000. I mean, yeah, who knows? Who cares? I mean, it's small dollar. They're not, he's not living, you know, he didn't buy a helicopter with the money. It's 75. Right. Well, I'm wondering he was like, she buying you. She's shopping with the money and there's no real proof that he ever even knew the money existed?

We don't know. But there was enough to indict him. Right. They pay back the money. Okay. And the government agrees to drop the charges against the husband in exchange for the wife's guilty plea. That sounds reasonable. Yeah.

Yeah. He's going to let his wife take the rap for this thing. Well, first of all, he doesn't want to become a felon. He can continue to make money. I don't want to, oh, no, I'll take the felony. What's my wife going to do? She's a secretary. Like she's not going to, I'm going to not be a dentist anymore or I have to try and get my dentist now.

He's going to stay out. He's going to send his bride to prison. Listen, I'll be a sweet little old lady. How long have you been married? 30 years. Okay. Come on, man. Let's be honest.

I know it sounds good for the cameras. I know your wife sitting here. I know you can feel the heat. How long do you get to get in? I'm not even saying it was a dishonorable thing to do. I'm saying that. Wow, that's a difficult discussion I have with your wife, man. Okay, so he gets away Scott Free.

They drop the charges. He's still married. Not Scott Free. He's still doing time. Oh, I trust me. This is a life sentence for this poor guy. How much time you're going to give the wife, though? 75,000, no criminal history.

I mean, you're saying she actually did prison time. Yeah. There's a number. You know, because she's probably got super. I'm sure she's got supervised release. What's she going to get? Six months? Three months?

You know, I'm going to say 11 because strategically I'm within a year. I hate it when you're playing the game as opposed to giving me the answer from your heart. From my heart? Yeah, from your heart. For 75,000 and she has no criminal history? No, what you truly think the sentence is. Oh, that I would say. Not what she deserved.

That's a different show. A month? Two months? Yeah, a month? I need you to pick a number. I can't pick it for you. Okay, a month. One month in prison.

30 days in prison is the sentence you're going to give her for steep crime. She's going to be on supervised release. You know she's got a supervised release. She's got two years. So let's say she's got one month and two years of supervised release. They already paid the money back. Yeah, they did. I think in one year, take her off supervised release.

75,000. You know, it was a bad mistake. They paid the money back. No harm, no foul. Okay. It's fine. Got it. Got it.

So what's your answer? One month. One month and person. Okay. Final answer? Yeah. Six months. Okay.

Yeah. See, way. That's reasonable, too. You get a point. Yeah. All right. What's the lowest amount of, like, prison time someone can get for the feds? Like...

So, I mean, yeah, I think it starts... Time served for the day that you spend fingerprinting. Yeah, you could... But I'd say that the chart starts at, like, well... It starts at zero. You're zero, then it's one month. So it's probably one month. So you could have someone show up at Coleman.

Oh, I'm just here for one month. You probably do your time at the... I think you could show up for a month. Yeah, because think about if you're out on bond, you would process... I guess I'm used to Chicago and Honolulu where we had a Metropolitan Correctional Center and a federal detention center for sentences less than one year. We're actually serving your time in a jail as opposed to a full prison. No, I think, well, you know what? So, the people that Pete and Gretchen Zeyas, who are the people that cooperated on me in my first case, they were given.

I think Pete was given six months, and I believe that Gretchen was given three. three months for half a million dollars in restitution. Okay. And they were allowing them to do it. They were going to allow them to do it like he was going in or she was going in for three months. And then he was going to go in for six months. Like they weren't going to go because they had two kids. Right.

Like they really worked with them. And I don't know, I don't know whether they went into the local like the U.S. Marshall's holdover or if they. went to, I don't know, I feel like they'd send you to prison. I don't feel like there's a whole, I don't feel like they'd let you go to like the marshal's holder because you're not in the marshal's custody. No, no, it's not. You're in the prison.

You're in the federal, you're there in the BOP. In New York, Honolulu, Chicago, the cities that have a federal detention center or a metropolitan correctional center, those are Bureau of Prisons facilities, not U.S. Marshall facilities, but there are jails that you sit in while you are awaiting trial or serving a sentence less than 12 months. Yeah, Alex. Alternatively, and so technically you're in the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service because that's how it works.

And in Florida, we don't have those, unless Miami may have one. So what they do is the Marshall's rent space in a county prison, county jail for you. Yes. And a pretty expensive route. It's a good revenue source for these counties because they're charging like rich Carlton rates per day to give bologna sandwiches to these inmates. Yeah. Yeah, so the answer is I don't know. We talked a little bit when we went to dinner about doctors and how it's difficult it is to get a medical doctor who commits a crime to plead guilty because they're so kind of arrogant.

Do you ever serve any time with doctors? And what were your thoughts on that? Because we had a nice conversation at dinner. I don't know that we could recreate it completely. But what are your thoughts on that? On the doctors? The medical doctors. Medical doctors and their, what a difficult problem? pill it is for them to swallow than they actually committed a crime. Yeah, that's that they, I've often heard that they would spend like, you know, hour, whatever, 30 minutes to an hour, just to try and convince the doctor that he had done something wrong, because especially if they do

something within the, you know, realm of treating someone where they, they prescribe, let's say, you know, oxies. Yeah. And, and they're saying, they're trying to explain, no, what, this is the, I got the chart and I got this and he answered the questions correctly and this is what I'm supposed to give him. Like how am I supposed to know any different? And they would have a huge, they'd take them, you know, whatever, 45 minutes or an hour just to finally get to them point to realize, okay, I may have broken the law here. Right. And yeah, so that's, it's an issue. And I don't know if it's arrogance as much as it's like.

Rationalization. Yeah. Or maybe it's like how it is like I, I know you're not going to believe this. I know you're not going to believe this. but sometimes the government oversteps. You know what I'm saying? And it is a gray area. And it's like I was my,

I thought, I don't know how I'm supposed to know that this guy is faking it when I have an MRI and he's answering all the questions exactly how somebody who actually is injured would answer it. The problem is that these are typically

like the pill mills. Yeah. And so what's happened is that they're not necessarily looking at each file individually as much as they're looking at, look, there's six doctors here, you guys are coming in, you're seeing patients for three.

minutes, you're writing a script, you're then doing the notes, they're bolting, you're getting paid $150 every patient you see. Like, you're running a mill here. Like, they're paying you to write the scripts and pad the files. And that's what, so yeah, it's an issue. And is it partially arrogance? I mean, probably, aren't these got a lot of these guys arrogant? Yeah.

You know who one of the most arrogant people I ever met was? Who's that? The federal judge. Oh, gosh. He was, did you hear of the, uh, cacch? for kids. Yeah. That was terrible.

So there's two federal, two, not federal judge. It wasn't a federal judge. What am I saying? This was a state judge. Okay. There were two judges who had invested, either they invested in or they were getting kickbacks from,

I think they were just, they were getting kickbacks from a private facility, juvenile facility. And so they actually voted somehow or another to close the local facility, the local state-run facility and sentenced kids to the for-profit. For the for-profit facility. And suddenly, when they did that and they were getting the kickbacks,

kids that were coming in that were going to get three months probation were getting 18 months locked up. Yeah. 18 months locked. So anybody that got more than like- That's revenue for the for-profit company running the prison. And they're getting kickbacks for it. And it was evil. It was so clear, right, that it was happening.

And anyway, They both ended up and they both went to prison. I think the one judge pled guilty to 20 years. Wow. And was that Florida? It's Florida. Okay. And I was locked up with him at Coleman and talked to him multiple times.

But just really just, you know, arrogant. And you could, it's like just talking to you was like, he was like disgusted. It's like, well, you're in here. Like, you were sending kids to prison for 18 months for something for breaking some windows in a house. They should have got three months and paid the window back. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, that's just evil, especially. I mean, it's evil on its own, but it involves juvenile prisons.

It's just even more evil. Well, okay, let's go through a doctor's story then, and you could tell me if the government got this one right by even charging this lady or whether she deserves the key to the city, which is, I think, how you feel. Maybe a parade, a foot massage. A 48-year-old, Anissa Marouf, a successful physician, a psychiatrist, actually. They're medical doctors. in Potomac, Maryland. She's a medical doctor, right?

So she had the authority to write prescriptions. Okay. Right? For her patients, to whom she was providing therapeutic services, right? You come talk to me about your problems. Maybe you've got a screw loose in your head. You need some medication to kind of like level things off. She can write a prescription.

Completely normal for a shrink, right? It's how they make a living. It helps a lot of people. But somewhere along the way, it occurred to Dr. Anissa that she can make way more money taking cash from non-patients, Matt Cox, and just writing them prescriptions with no accompanying treatment whatsoever, no talk therapy, no nothing. So she began writing prescriptions for Xanax, your drug up choice, Adderall, and something called subutex. I don't know what subutex is. You ever heard of subutex? Is it Suboxin?

S-U-B-T-E-X. I don't know. in exchange for cash that was slid under her office door. This doesn't sound bad at all. You put the cash in an envelope, slide it under the door, she cuts you a prescription, calls it in for you, whatever. She never treated these people at all. I want to make it clear. And she never gave them any warnings about the dangers

of combining these prescription medications. Okay. And Dr. Inissa advised her customers. I can't even refer them as patients in good conscience, right? how to split filing their prescriptions between different pharmacies to avoid detection. You've heard about that phenomena? Do you're at doctor shopping? No, no, pharmacy shopping.

You don't go to the same pharmacy and to fill all of your prescriptions for these things. Maybe you go to CVS and then you go to also go to Walgreens and you go to the mom and pop place. Why? To not, I guess. So it's not suspicious? Yeah, so it's not suspicious. I don't know if the farm, if you're, I think my guess is that these people were getting, a lot of pills from her. Okay. Yeah, that maybe even more than personal use quantities.

You know how this works? One of the customers finds themselves in trouble with the law. I know you'd find that shocking. And they decided to play, let's make a deal. Snitches. They're the worst. And so they meet with the FBI, and they tell the FBI how Dr. Anissa's operation works. And the sparks an FBI investigation, I'm assuming maybe with some undercovers, maybe with some cooperating sources, kind of going through this process to make sure they got it right. Because you can't always take the word of a criminal who's looking to play a let us make a deal. You still got to prove the case. And it's exactly as the snitch said.

And they charge her with the federal crime of distributing and dispensing controlled substances. Okay. She pleads guilty, and then she's sentenced. Don't necessarily have a great handle in these cases about the quantity that she's doing this, the volume. This is really just cash transactions. Right. Okay. But based on what they know, how much time you're going to give Dr. Anissa?

Did she go to trial? No, please guilty. Pleads guilty. Three years seems to be like the, like 36 months seems to be what a lot of these guys, if they'll just plead guilty, they give them like three years. Does she get to be a doctor anymore? Most of the time they can get their license back. Especially if it has to do with like overbilling, no problem.

You overbill, that was not a medical thing. And then this, but in this case, I don't know if she'd have to wait and go and explain, like, you know, try to go in front of a board and explain, I've done my time. I did my probation. I know what I did was. And a lot of times they'll kind of tell them like, well, you can't work with, you can't get your DEA license back, right? Like, because you can't prescribe. Well, you'll never go to prescribe. I can see her being a talk therapy kind of, you know, psychologist.

But I don't, I wouldn't give her, I wouldn't give her a prescription pad ever again. No, no, there's different types of prescription pads. Oh, really? Yeah, so, so like she can't, you'll never prescribe painkillers again. Does that make sense? Like you, right. We'll let you prescribe like, you know. Well, again, Xanax, Adderall and Subutex.

I think, I don't know what the, I know Xanax chills you out that you explain that to me. Adderall also kind of gets you focused. I know I got like college kids to use Adderall when they're mind. Subutex, I feel like it's just like Subboxin. It's basically almost like a synthetic opiate. All right. So I think that the, I think that those are DEA registered. stuff you can't provide.

So I think she'd be able to get it. She's just not going to be able to prescribe those medications or any variance of it. Getting back to your teary-eyed monologue before we told the story, was this an overreach? No. She's breaking the law. Okay. We're on the same page. Yeah.

36 months. 36 months? Okay. Correct answer. 15 months. Fuck. 15 months. I feel like 50 months is reasonable too, though.

I just seen so many of these guys come in and they get 30 years, you know. And they complain the whole of time. What if it would be higher if it was opiates? I mean, yeah, it wasn't opiates, was it if it had been on? Anyone even taking that into consideration? I don't think that would have shaken my mind. But yeah. Yeah, interesting.

So that's 10 of the 12 questions I have prepared today. Colby, where's the score? Four of 10. So you need to get two of two or hit one right on the head. All right. So. Okay. Good.

We got two more stories. And you got to do well, okay? I'm rooting for you. I'm rooting for you. Okay. You need a victory. Unfortunately, this next story, is one of those really unpleasant ones that if there are any viewers who are in the car with their kids

or don't want to hear about bad things happening to kids, just forward a little bit, maybe six minutes or so. But otherwise, consider yourself worn. This isn't unmatched shoulders anymore. Now, the FBI runs undercover operations to try to catch people who harm children. And when I was on the white collar crime squad in Jacksonville, just coincidentally, the crimes against children squad was like our next door neighbors and sort of the cubicle farm of the FBI. And so just by sheer proximity, I got to see what they were doing. And I always felt that the work that they did was probably the most important work the FBI was doing. It was nothing that I had an aptitude for or even a really desire to work full time. And someone needs to do the fraud cases as well. But I would

look at them and just really, really admire the work they did. And they did a lot of undercover cases, very similar to this one. They had an undercover agent who was scouring an online platform where child abuse materials are routinely bought, sold, and traded. And he meets a woman online who was using the username Sasha. It's all they had on her at the time. And Sasha moves the conversation and says, hey, let's get off this platform. I don't even know what it is.

And talk on the app, Telegram, where a lot of people like to go commit crimes. And the two begin texting on Telegram. Sasha says that she's the mother of a six-year-old girl and wanted to sell the undercover agent sexually explicit photos of her own daughter. Right. Nightmare, right?

And the undercover suspects that this is some kind of joke or setup because it's never this easy. Right. Right. And so the undercover says, well, I need to get proof from you that this is a legitimate offer. And the Sasha character sends six digital photos of a six-year-old girl being sexually abused by a woman's hands. Okay?

Like, oh, my God. This seems to be real. The photos, obviously, are too graphic to recount here. But let your worst nightmare take control. We don't need to get into that too much. So, but on Telegram, you can kind of see what phone number of the person registered with. Telegram is not going to ever cooperate with the FBI on a case. And shame on them for that because there's a lot of, that's why criminals tend to gravitate toward Telegram.

but there's ways to discern people's phone numbers if they do that. But they find the phone number. And it comes back to a woman, 36-year-old Sasha Abshire of Port Arthur, Texas. Okay. And so then the FBI, before they start doing anything, they hop on her Facebook page. She's there on Facebook, and they see that she has a six-year-old kid. The mattress, sheets, and furniture in the background of the explicit photos that were sent matched the decor in Sasha's home. on her social media postings.

This is real. They got her at that point. The FBI and the police arrive at her house and they meet Sasha Abshire, the mother of a six-year-old girl. And in a search of the house reveals the digital and other evidence sealing her fate. It's exactly what it appeared to be. And they interrogated her, and she confessed to the agents that this is something she's been doing to try to make money.

Her daughter's taken away by Child Protective Services. Sasha is placed under arrest for exploiting children. She pled guilty. In what kind of sentence you're going to give to this mother of the year, Matt Cox? Her own daughter. I know. Has she, is this just the one instance? The one instance they caught her on.

I don't know of her confession discussed other instances. Plus, with this, she's going through telegram. So who knows what went through there before these guys. So they find the digital photos. Yeah. And they have the evidence that she's good. I don't, I don't, there's no indication in any of the documents that I saw that she's being charged with anything more than this instance with the undercover and the fact.

But I guess the photo, the sample photos she sent were plenty graphic. The, it says she pleaded guilty to production of CP. Well, that's a product. Yeah. Yeah. So she's not trading someone else's picture. She's producing it. That's a serious.

charge. It's a serious charge. It's like 20 years. I think that's 15 to 20 years. I'd say 20 years. Yeah. I mean, it's production. Yeah. It's like guilty. Right. Because there's people out there in this of the world who are just trading photos that have been around online for years and that's bad enough and they're getting a lot of trouble for that. But the actual production of it, I know these guys. This is your daughter and she's six years old. Yeah. 20. Yeah, it's hard to have any sympathy. at all. It just shocks the conscience. Yeah.

It's 20 years. I think 20 years. Got you guess? Yeah. Correct answer is 30 years. 30 years. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. All right. So this brings us down to our last question. Also an unpleasant story, but no children involved. Right. Okay. Where are we on the score? Four of 11.

You got to hail Mary. You hit it on the nose. You hit this on the nose. You get it. Okay. You got to do nothing but net on this one, Matt Cox, but I believe in you, buddy. Half court shot. I believe in you.

You got this. You got this. You're natural. All right. Let me set it up a little bit. So the FBI looks at sex trafficking of pimps and prostitutes in a little different way than the police. The FBI regards the prostitutes in a sex trafficking operation as presumptive victims, right? the prostitutes who are out there, if a pimp is out there driving prostitutes around from city to city,

getting a motel room, taking out an ad, taking, you know, and taking their money. Technically, the prostitutes are guilty of the crime of prostitution. But the FBI approaches these things as a means by which to get those girls away from the pimp into a women's shelter, into rehab, because a lot of them are drug addicts, and to build a conspiracy, a criminal case against the pimp. Right. That's how we've approached it. The FBI does a, has done an undercover operation called Operation Cross Country, where I was the undercover agent for one of the operations in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, because I'm really good at playing a 50-year-old guy who can't get laid. It's like the role I was meant to play. No, I absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. I could get any arguments for me. So here's how it went. We would get two hotel rooms adjoining hotel rooms. They would wire my room up for sound and video. then the FBI analysts in the next room are combing through all the websites out there with call girls looking for teenagers, looking for young girls, girls who at least in their photos appeared to be underage, but you never really know. And then contacting them using text messaging and saying, I'm at the ABC Hotel. Can you come? You know, how much is it and all that? And they would negotiate a price. The ads are always make it seem like you're talking to the girl, but we learned in reality you're at probably.

talking to their pimp. He's the one texting you as if he's the girl. And then the pimp drives the girls to the meeting with me. The girls come into my hotel room. I'm sitting there. And we just book them like 10 minutes apart from each other because they're not the most punctual people. And so girl comes in. I'm sitting on the bed with them. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. When you're not resting well, everything else feels harder. your focus, your mood, even your recovery. Ghostbed is here to help you fix that. They've spent decades perfecting how to build a bed that's comfortable, durable, and designed

to actually help you rest. Every ghost bed mattress features premier materials, proven cooling technology, and their exclusive pro-core layer, a targeted support system that reinforces the center of the mattress where the body is heaviest. It helps keep your spine aligned and your back supported. So you can wake up ready for anything 2026 throws at you. Each mattress comes with a 101 night sleep trial and a 20 to 25 year warranty. So you can try it risk-free, knowing it's built to last.

Shipping is fast and free. Most orders arrive in two to five days. Ghostbed has great prices to begin with, up to 50% off comparable brands. And inside true crime listeners can get an extra 10% off sitewide for a limited time. Just go to ghostbed.com slash Cox and use promo code Cox at checkout. That's ghostbed.com slash Cox promo code Cox. Upgrade your sleep with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest bed in the world. Some exclusions apply. See site for details. The idea is that I need to get a transaction of sex for money agreed to. So the girls could be

ostensibly placed under arrest. But what we're really doing is arresting them, bringing them to a third hotel room to talk to our social workers, our victim specialists, and a FBI agent there, to get intel from them about who their pimp is, and offer them the opportunity to go into rehab and to a women's shelter to get them away. But the only way you can ever have that conversation and not have the girls say FU is if you arrest them and detain them for the crime of prostitution. Make sense? Yeah. Okay. So it gives you leverage. It gives you a little, it gives you leverage to have the conversation. Again, we're not looking to harm these girls. We're looking to save these girls. Meanwhile, we have an interdiction team outside the hotel in the parking lot, trying to identify

who the pimp is. It's probably driven them there and waiting for them. That person is also detained, fully identified, you know, searched if possible. And then generally cut loose because we're not looking for a quickie on them. We're looking to build a either racketeering case or a sex trafficking case against them, an enterprise investigation, okay? Not just a quick hit. trying to kind of cut that cycle off of these of these poor girls. So I was the undercover lots of interesting stories, bringing the girls in, trying to negotiate sex with them, trying to keep my clothing on while I'm doing it because there's an entire room full of FBI agents and analysts

watching me on video six feet away. I would then say once the, I would ask them for an upgrade on what was agreed upon, a sex act that that had not been discussed before. We would settle on the price for that sex act. and then I would say the code word, and then they would come in the room, you know, arrest the girl, take her to a third room, and then I would just literally, like, then we'd bring the next girl in the room. And so Operation Cross Country. I think it's a great program to address sex trafficking of teenagers and usually young women.

Sometimes you don't really know if they're always going to be teens. This is a story of a pimp. 26-year-old Angelo Lombardo from Florida. He was a pimp. had four young women in his stable. First recruit was Carrie, and he took her on the road servicing customers, going from city to city, opening up a hotel room, taking out the ad, and then in-call versus out-call. And he promised her a better life, but she got to keep none of the money that she earned through paid sex. Angelo took it all, and he would abuse her and beat her.

It was a bad situation. Second woman, Linda. Also from Florida, Angelo told Linda that if she didn't do what he wanted, she would never see her family again. Okay. When she tried to quit, Angelo took her driver's license from her,

so she didn't have any ID and punched her several times. Third girl, Jesse, homeless and on the streets of Portland, Oregon. One of those kind of street gutter punk kids they have out there. Angelo set her up in a hotel room and then began placing ads on commercial sex websites for men to rent her by the hour. when she tried to quit,

Angelo put a gun to her head and told her that wasn't going to happen. Fourth girl, also from Portland. That was Maria. She had just turned 18. He promised her financial stability if she'd just work for him, but he kept all the money and isolated her from her family. So these are the four victims of him who are out there serving as prostitutes. His trafficking operation makes its way to Boston.

He gets pulled over by a police officer. An on-the-ball officer sees this for what it is. and he separates the girls from Angelo for questioning. I call in another car. Angelo goes sit in that police car. And then the girls are separated and interviewed. And they told the story. They told the truth of their sex enslavement.

They saw this as an opportunity to get away from Angelo. And they gave the address of the nearby hotel in Revere, Massachusetts, where Angelo had made his headquarters during their stay. Right. Okay. Police arrest Angelo, who had $3,000 cash in his pocket. at the time. And they loop in the FBI because they see this as not just a simple arrest of a pimp, but an interstate sex trafficking operation with women essentially being held against

their will. Right. Okay. Search warrant of Angelo's hotel room finds a handgun with a laser site in a completely full large capacity magazine. This is a problem, Matt Cox. Can you imagine why? Why does he have a, why is his gun a particular problem? Because he's a convicted felon. Oh, okay. Okay. And so we got felon with... I was using it to control them. Clearly.

So we got charges. Conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force in being a felon in possession of an of a firearm. The testimony, the truthful testimony of these four girls is critical to his decision to plead guilty. His girls were very brave when he pushed came to shove. Why was he... I'm wondering he's going from city to city. Why is that?

Is it because he feels like he's... That's not unusual. These guys go on tour with these girls. And I think they feel that if they, it keeps them moving. It keeps them moving. And, you know, they could burn out the clientele in Jacksonville and go to Tampa and have a whole new set of like horn dog dudes who this is their thing. Now, I'm wondering if they figure if I move every two weeks, it doesn't give the police enough time. I think that's true too.

Okay. I think that 100% true. And I know when I did my operation cross-country, a few of these girls were out-of-towners on tour. Yeah. and some of them are ready for the help, getting help, while others are not. But let's get back to Angelo. It's time for his sentencing.

He's got these four poor girls, each one with a terrifying story of their own, and we have a lot of interstate sex trafficking. How much time are you going to give him for all the marbles, Matt Cox? Again, don't forget the felon in possession of a firearm thing. I think 25 years? 25 years?

Yeah. Okay. Talk to me about it. One of your thoughts. There's a lot writing on this. I, I mean, I, it's, it, I mean, it's, I don't know if they really didn't hit it like kidnapping, but it's sex trafficking, right? It's sex trafficking. Yeah. It's definitely not kidnapping. Yeah, but I feel like there's a lot of enhancements here, you know, so I think 25 years seems reasonable. Yeah, I'm not saying it's unreasonable. I'm just wondering if you're committed to that to what it was. I'm, I'd have to hit it on the head to win this thing. I'm 25 years,

might as well go to it. I'm not going to hit it on the head. So 25 years that, and he pled guilty, like, yeah, that's something. You get a discount for that,

don't you? Yeah. I mean, you save the government at cost of a trial with four witnesses who probably, you know, they're willing to testify.

They're certainly not excited about it. And they, and let's call it what it is. These girls probably have some baggage. Yeah. I knew a guy who, um, was at my,

unit who he had like five or six girls that were staying at his house he says they were staying because another guy had dropped them off there and he was just letting them stay there he but he pled guilty 25 years yeah it was like he had an AK 47 uh the girls were like literally all of them were like runaways from uh trailer parks and you know bad situations and they're just, they're all young, not underage, but just young. He was probably 35 years old. And he got 25 years. And it's, and to me, who knows what the true story was.

Did he go to trial and lose? No, no. He, did he go to trial? You know, I don't know if he went to trial or he didn't go to trial. But either way, it wasn't, he was saying that they charge him with human trafficking. But I know what the charge was human trafficking. He's saying, listen, when they came up, he said, he said, well, listen, he came my house. All I did was I had the girls. I would just let him stay here. It was another guy.

It was, you know, but whatever, he got 25 years. So that seems like a... Yeah, his charge was a conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and fell into possession of a firearm. So where you think it's less than 25 years? I'm not, I don't think anything. My job's not to think. My job is to make sure you are armed with the facts so you can make an informed decision. Well, I think it's probably 20 years because you're not pushing for me to go higher or lower. I'm not pushing you either way. I'm going 20 years. 25 years. 20 years. 20 years. years. Colby?

Which is it? I'll, I, or see a different answer altogether because he pled guilty. The pledged makes it sound like he's saying go down. I'm not saying anything. I'm making sure you understand the fact. I'm throwing a lot, I'm familiar with these cases. This is the first time you're hearing this one.

You have a lot to absorb. And I, they have a saying in Russia, Pothorania-Sachania. It means repetition is, the mother of learning. If I say these things again and again to you, repetition-wise, you're going to learn. Not to trust you. That's what I've learned. Don't be moved. Yeah, you're right. They also say with the SAT, go with your first instinct. Don't change your answer. They say that to kids who go to community college.

20 years. 20 years. Yes. Final answer? Yes. Correct answer is 13. years. 13 years? That's ridiculous. Judges be wild in Matt Cox. Colby, final score? Five of 12. Ooh, it was like within your grasp.

I guess 13 years. Five of 12 for both episodes today. Yeah, last two episodes were five of 12. Do we need to up the percentage to 30, 40, 50% to help Matt out? No, no, you need to stop moving me all the. over the place. When I was, like, it was like twice.

I was right on, I guessed perfectly, right? You were a successful YouTuber. And then you moved me off. Your name brand celebrity. I went to dinner with you and the crowd gathered to say, to recognize you was insane. So the idea that you have no agency in the decisions you make is crazy. And also one guy walked by.

They will say, hey, Mac Cox. I like your story. I was like, oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. But, no, you're a real life celebrity. good at this and you have agency. I can't move you. I can't move you. Stop. I normally don't come with gifts, but I came with gifts for you guys today. Oh, okay. Yeah, let me show you.

I didn't notice those. Two little Thai elephants for you. I don't know if the camera can see them. In Thailand, the elephant is their national animal, much like the bald eagle is here, but it has kind of, Thai elephants have sort of a rich history. They use them for labor. right, like to like, like, you know, whole wood and things like that. Like, you know, the way we might use a bulldozer and have historically. And they use them for transport. They, you know, back and they would ride elephants to get from point to point B back in the old days. Right now they're big in tourism there.

They're not treating the elephants particularly well these days there. And so there's elephant sanctuaries that are kind of nice, like rescuing elephants. But historically, the elephants were also used as instruments of war. Like the way we might use a tank. today. And throughout history, Thailand has always gone, has been in war periodically with Burma, their next door neighbors. And during the civil war, the U.S. civil war, the king of Thailand, King Rama the 9th, contacted Abraham Lincoln and offered him a bunch of elephants because they had been kicking the shit out of the Burmese using elephants. And he believed that that would be

a really effective tool against the Confederates in the U.S. And President Lincoln, and politely declined the offer from King Robin the Ninth. But what a sight that would have been to see Union soldiers riding the backs of Thai elephants marauding over the Confederate. So I have a Thai elephant for you and a Thai elephant for you, Colby. So the only thing I ask is that you please keep those within about three meters of your Wi-Fi router for me. Let's not talk about why. All right. Nice. So my gift to you.

I know you have a lot of memorabilia here at the studio. and so you can put it in a place of honor, or you can put it at the bottom of your car, your car junk drawer or whatever. I've been carrying that around for months now because I went to Thailand on January 1st, and I bought those for you and just want to make sure you had them. You would have, oh, yeah, yeah, okay.

Because we talked about that. That's where the guy was trying to get me to do some weird hair transplant thing. That's right. That's right. Yeah, John Boziac, my buddy Boziac is in Cambodia now. You know, they're shooting missiles at each other. In Cambodia and Thailand right now?

In Thailand. Yeah, do you know that? No. He's like, I'm, he's like, I get all, he gets all these people hitting them up on like, WhatsApp and stuff. Like, bro, are you okay? He's like, yeah, 45 miles from where that's happening. But he said the last time it happened, which was like, whatever, six months ago,

he said, like, you know, everybody was like, eh, you know, no big deal. He said, but after about a week or so, he said, the locals started being like getting concerned. He said, then I started getting it. He was the first time he's like, if the locals start getting, because they know what's going on. Like, they're like,

oh, this is a big deal. We might need to be to move to relocate. He was like, what are you talking about? Like, you guys said it was fine a week ago. You ever been in a war zone or stuff like that's happening? No. I never have either, but I used to work in Abu Dhabi and right after I retired.

And then they, right after we left Abu Dhabi, there was a drone strike there from Iran right by my hotel against some petroleum, you know, a refinery or whatever. And it was real close. And we're contacting my friends back there who were kind of living in the same hotel that I was living into the time.

You guys okay? And they're like, yeah, it was no big deal. Just water off a duck's back. You know, it just happens. It's like hurricanes that are here, you know, like hurricane hits. It's not where you are. You're going to be okay. Right.

It's funny the way people in war zones shrug it off. It's no big deal with them. Oh, yeah, missiles were falling just like, you know, we had a bad blizzard. Still got to pay the mortgage. What are you doing now, Carl? Well, now I'm a private investigator. So I left the FBI for 26 years of service. Now I'm a private investigator really specializing in financial crimes, but I do a little bit of everything.

And so if anyone out there in the Matt Cox universe wants a free consultation, just give me a call through the link that Matt's going to put down below or go to Simon Investigations. Also on social media, I do these two and three minute crime stories every single day on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And you can find me at Simon Investigations. And again, if you need a private investigator, I work in all 50 states, I would love to talk to you. No charge to a Matt Cox fan, free consultation on the phone. And maybe we can solve your problems there. Also, if you're looking for a public speaker, I'm holding myself out in that field as well. If you go to Simon Investigations.com, you can read about the different speeches I have in the can.

But I'd be honored to come talk to you. And I just want to thank you so much for having me on, my friend. Oh, my gosh. Listen, how come you don't focus on when you say you were with the FBI? How come you don't say you're retired? because I've had FBI agents. I've had government people come on, and if you're like, if you, they don't want you to say like,

don't, don't say former FBI or four. I retired in good standing as an FBI agent for 26 years. I think the idea of, I go back and forth on this as to saying, because I'm not really, I'm retired from the FBI, but I'm not retired. Right. Oh, okay. So that's what you're afraid people are going to.

I just kind of just sort of retired, like I'm done working. I'm sitting home farting in the couch. But, you know, I. I took my retirement from the FBI to open a private investigative firm. I did that at age 51. I'm now 55. Okay. Yeah,

yeah. Well, I was just saying because a lot big, I only know this because guys that have come on when we've said, okay, we're in, yeah, we'll put former.

They'll say former. No, I'm retired. I could see how they get, someone can misinterpret that former means that, you know, something bad happened. Something bad,

like you dropped out. Or I was fired. I found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl and got canned. Yeah. Something bad happened. No, there was nothing like that. I retired voluntarily.

with a full pension. Yeah. But yeah, to me, it's six of one, half a dozen of another. Yeah. Well, some government agents are. That's a fair question. And I'm glad we made that clear to your audience that I didn't run away in disgrace. What else?

That's it. We're good, right? You feel good? Yeah. Okay. All right. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching.

Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button to the bell so get notified videos just like this. Also, we're going to leave all of Tom's links in the description box. So you just click on that and shoot there. You can follow him and you can subscribe, do all the things that you want to do if you want to follow him. Also, you can get and contact him through Instagram. Anywhere. All platforms.

All platforms. I never check a lot of my platforms. But anyway, that's it. Thank you very much. If you're interested in being a guest, we're also going to leave a link to our website. You go to the Be a Guest page and you can leave an application and a short video. We will get back with you. Thank you very much.

I really appreciate it. See ya. Be cool. Do you love dogs? Of course you do. So join me, Rich Napolitano, and listen to the Doggone History Podcast. When you talk to someone about their dog,

you have probably seen the sparkle in their eye, heard the joy in their voice, and felt the love in their heart. People, including me, talk about their dogs like their children, because that is how we see them. They are members of our families, our households,

and they give us joy that enriches our lives. We have come to know and love chihuahuas, beagles, and German shepherds, and all the dogs that have been at our side as our best friends. But they weren't always as we know them today. Dog breeds have evolved over time and taken on a vast diversity of characteristics. Listen to Doggone History, a lighthearted history of dogs, one breed at a time. Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And say hi to your dog for me, won't you?