Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - From FBI’s Most Wanted to Scam Expert | Cybercriminal Exposes Modern Scams

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Matt and Brett talk about many scams including chargebacks911 and Frank Abagnale. Brett's Channel https://www.youtube.com/@UCu9abuJiEXwNPecsZGqHXpQ Follow me on all socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrime Do you want to be a guest? Send me an email here: [e-mail] Do you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime 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

I know something's wrong when someone tells me about a scam and then my first thought is nice. I'm serious. And then I have to catch myself and go, oh, wait, hey, whoa, wait a minute. Going it to the manager, she's doing this with the ID. Oh, that's, that's, am I, why am I sweating? They pull up your credit with that. You go, huh? And I go, you know, it's everything in me not to go, what?

He realizes, wait a second. I haven't been sentenced yet. And he's like, I got caught, like, mid-act. It was actually a Buccaneers cheerleader. I mean, what am I going to get a chance to hit a Buccaneers cheerleader? Buccaneers cheerleader. You got to. I mean, to me, that's like a, that you get a pass.

I mean, remember, stranger danger. You know, I feel like that book will lose me a lot of people. People will read that and be like, you've got some issue. Like, it's not. I mean, it's, it is hilarious, though. But it's, yeah, it's deserving to me. I watched them. video mine the other day and I thought

damn you subscribed your own video exactly you're good you should you should be huge yeah I feel like this should go on its whole this is not what we're here to talk about well okay so we're here to talk about the apathy I'm going through right now right yes the disappointment all that bullshit so so a few things man it's it's like you know me I'm the guy who

calls out bullshit. I've made a career these days of calling out the bullshit that's going on, both on the bad guy's side and with companies and everything. So recently, it started before that, but it started with Blue Acorn and Wompley. So there's been a few reports that both of these fintech companies helped to facilitate. What is a fintech company? So not a traditional financial institution, which you are more than familiar with. Okay. So this is like PayPal, The people who aren't traditional banks, but do banking-type business. Okay. Would also like payday loans and where they cash advances?

So you do have some fintech companies that do the payday type stuff that aren't brick-and-mortar. Okay. So that would be fiend-so. It's more internet-based. Right. Okay. So these two companies, specifically these two, there was a report that came out a few months ago talking about how they helped facilitate P.P.

fraud, the pandemic stuff, all right? The payroll protection program, whatever the hell of the PPP stood for. A couple of these companies, they process, you know, 60,000 loans and profited like $2 billion. One of the companies profited $2 billion. The other company profited $1 billion just from processing the loans. And there's just an exorbitant amount of fraud that's connected to every single one of those loans that they process. So this company could go out and say, hey, your company is available, is, is, is, is, Were they actually soliciting business or were people going to them and saying, hey, I have a company, I need to borrow PPP money.

Can you help facilitate that? So what happens is, is, okay, let's backtrack into stimulus fraud. What happened was is as the pandemic begins, we used to teach on shadow crew to never act out of desperation. When you act out of desperation, poor choices result, all right? The government did this. They realized the economy was going to go tits up. So they started to implement these stimulus programs. They did unemployment insurance.

They did EIDL. They did PPP. Most experienced fraudsters went toward unemployment, all right, because it was instituted with such rapidness that it was very difficult for the more experienced, skilled people out there to set up bank accounts, HM out, get traffic on them, everything else in time to get that $2 million loan that was coming through PPP. But it was still done, all right? What was going on on Telegram, on the dark web, on some of the four, forums, you had the exchange of information.

You have people saying, hey, we're doing this type of fraud. The easiest institutions to hit right now are Wompley Blue Acorn. So it was known within those circles, all right? At the same time, Wompley and Blue Acorn, they're not really good about K.YC, know your customer. So they were allowing a lot of bullshit going through without verifying a whole hell of a lot of stuff. Right. All right. Well, plus it's for them, it's, they make money of them.

They're just brokers, right? That's kind of like they're just trying to get the government's money. Yeah. That was really one of the main problems of all of this is you had banks that was processing it. The banks would realize, traditional financial institutions would realize it was fraud and see it, not their money. Why worry about it? So they were allowing this to go through. Two of the biggest offenders, Wompley, blue acorn.

All right. So report comes out about this. And this is where this whole apathy bullshit starts with me. Report comes out. It's issued on LinkedIn. They talk about it across all the fraud channels, you know, good guy fraud channels and everything else. Nobody says anything.

All the fraud professionals out there keep their mouth shut. All the financial fintech companies keep their mouth shut. Nobody calls them out. The report comes and goes, all right? Nothing ever said. I'm like, I get pissed off that. I bitch a little bit about it two weeks ago. Well, why do you think that is?

I think that you're dealing with a bunch of people, whether it be conferences, fraud professionals, or other institutions that were either doing the same bullshit, knew what was going on, profiting by it, blah, blah, blah, blah, across the board. So instead of coming out and saying anything, they keep their mouths shut for fear of losing profit, losing contracts, losing clients, friends, upsetting somebody. Right. That's what I think. And I don't think I'm wrong on that.

No, I was just thinking I got caught by like Washington Mutual multiple times, you know, and they, I mean, I got called by numerous banks and they were like, you know, refinanced the loan, get us our money back or, hey, pay us our money back or, and they never called anybody. Like, like, even if they threatened to call, it was always like, well, if you don't do this, we'll call the FBI. Sure. But in the end, you know, they didn't call the FBI. Now, why do you think that is? Because they didn't, you know, at the time, to be honest, even at the time, I thought that they don't want anybody, no matter what, they didn't want anybody, the FBI looking through their files. And at one point, I was actually had a guy with a bank called, it was Pinnacle Bank Corp. It was a small bank in Chicago.

It actually went under. But the owner was the guy named Gary Bond. And he actually came down at one boy They caught us with a couple million dollars in fraud They sold it to household bank And they basically were like, look Just promise me if these loans come back on us You'll help us get rid of them

And we're like no problem Because I don't have two million to pay you He actually came down a few weeks later And met with me and some of my brokers And during that conversation He had a couple drinks that night He took us to dinner Like didn't cut us off

Knows that we gave him $2 million in fraud Like he's like keep him coming But you gotta watch this So he comes And he says to me, he's like, look, to be honest, he's like, nobody wants the FBI going to their files. Sure. He's like, at all. He's like, he said, because they're going to come in, you could give them these two files, but he's, but you don't know where that's going to end.

He's like, they may say, well, look, we're subpoenaing all your files. He said, nobody wants to be in, in that position. Right. And he even told me, I really don't care about. He's, we're not so concerned about fraud as long as it goes past the one year clawback. Now at that point, it was one year. Now it's like 30 days. Right.

So he's like, as long as it goes. past that one year and they can't come back on me he said i don't care and and it was it was i remember being i was just like oh my god i couldn't believe it so so and that's my issue right because i'm like this recovering alcoholic right okay i am i don't say that i'm reformed i say i'm reforming right that the longer i go without committing the crime the chances i'll continue to go that even further without committing all right but as that alcoholic as that now reforming criminal I'm also this black and white guy. Just do the right damn thing.

I end my show with that bullshit. Just do the right damn thing. I can see it from the criminal side. I can understand that bullshit. I don't understand people who actually sign on to a career of doing the right thing and then don't. I don't get that. And it's fucking with me, man. It's fucking with me hard.

It's not, not three weeks ago. The FTC and Florida, they come out with a complaint against a company called Chargebacks 9-11. So say you buy something from a merchant someplace, from a store, online, and the store charges you improperly or doesn't deliver the good as advertised. It's broken, what-a-a-a-have- Right. What you do is you contact your credit card issue or your bank and you say, hey, I want to do a chargeback. I want my money back. It wasn't as described. The bank then notifies the merchant, hey, we're going to get that.

money back from you. Right. Now, give them an opportunity. Right. That's what's called a chargeback. Now, that dispute sometimes is handled by the merchant. A lot of the times it's handed over to a third party company like Chargebacks 9-11 who fights that dispute for you. They'll send in the documents, everything else to the issuing bank and say, hey, we're disputing this. We don't agree with this and they'll fight it tooth and now. Chargebacks does that. All right. So the complaint against chargebacks 9-11 is they were using deceptive and illegal practices to fight those. chargebacks, thereby defrauding legitimate consumers. Right.

All right. And the way they were doing that is when you would go on to sign on for like a free trial of something, the consumer would see one screen. However, there was another screen that only the bank would see. All right? So what was happening is, is chargeback 9-11, they wouldn't show the consumer screen that didn't have any of that bullshit at all. They would instead take a snapshot of the bank screen, say the consumer saw this screen,

send it to the credit card issuer, and win the chargeback. So they were using these deceptive practices to do this kind of shit. Illegal as fuck, all right? Not only that, but chargeback's 9-11. See, what happens is when you're one of these fucked up merchants that's committing this type of fraud, say new free trial fraud or what have you, you get a lot of chargebacks. Once that chargeback percent hits a certain amount, it not only raises your credit card fees, but Visa and MasterCard, they'll boot your ass out where you can't take through credit cards anymore.

So what chargeback's 9-11 was doing, according to FSTC, what they were doing is they offered what was called a value-added program. We've got this set of prepaid debit cards, and we'll allow you to run fake transactions through these cards to boost up your overall transaction amount, lower the chargeback ratio. Right, right. Okay. Again, illegal as fuck. Yeah, yeah, they're manipulating the system so that you stay below that 2% or 0.002% chargeback rate.

So here I am, comes out clear as a day, all right? Now, there's tons of merchants, tons of what they call fraud fighters out there, everything else. I start bitching about it. Who doesn't talk about it? None of the merchants, none of the fraud professionals out there, none of the conferences that chargebacks 9-11 is sponsoring. Now, why is that? Well, it's because of fear of losing profit, fear of being fingered. Maybe you were a client of theirs.

Maybe you knew what was going on, everything. else and that's this issue that I've got man is again I can understand this shit from criminal view I get I get the guys out there that are stealing money I understand that right I don't understand these son of a bitches that signed on for a job to do the right thing and then don't right so that's what I'm struggling with um and I've been raising mortal hell about that I was I was gonna say it it um I was going to say, well, one, I was going to say that it's funny because, like, yeah, it's when people are like, you know, oh, you know, where they always say? Like, I'll say, you know, my name is Matt Cox. I'm a con man. They'll go, well, you, you know, you want to say like reform, or do you want to say that you want to say, and I'm always like, I mean, you know, not really because, you know what I'm saying? Because the truth, because the truth is is, I know something's wrong when, you know, someone tells me about a scam and then my first thought is nice.

I'm serious. And then I have to catch myself and go, oh, wait, wait a minute. Listen, you need to think about this. You hear about the crime. You start chuckling like, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Listen, what I used to do. And it's like, I'm going to, here, I want to listen to this.

And then I think, what are you doing? Exactly. Like, bro, you're this close to going back to president. Like, what are you doing for? And then you do this? And did you do this as well? Yeah, what did they say at the bank? So, you know, how'd you cash scam?

so yeah but it just it just it just it just reminds me when these it's like these guys like the credit cards right like for for like what two decades they were saying put the chips in the card put the chips in the car right you know first all to stop fraud which was funny because when they were doing that I was actually writing Boziac's book and and I was in prison with John Boziac writing his book and I said yeah but now all that's shut down because the chips because of the chips right and he just started laughing he said you fucking serious he was man the fake chips were on the market before the people were getting the real ones in the mail right he said that's not going to stop anything plus he said it doesn't matter anyway you can try it twice and if the chip doesn't go through it says oh swipe the card that's exactly right and and i was like well i don't i don't understand i said well why why the banks fought it or the banks weren't even interested in in implementing it because the banks had already calculated in the fraud and we've got a calculation of fraud built in so it costs us more to try and stop the fraud. And the fraud, we then pass those fees and those charges onto the customers.

So the only person that's being hurt from fraud is the customers, which we really don't care about. That's exactly right. Why would we go out of our way to take our own money and update all these systems that it's not going to cost us money that in the end we can really just pass on to the customer? And that's it. You're getting it now, right? So you're looking at going out and doing speaking gigs. All right. I've been doing this for a few years.

years now. And again, it's started to fuck with me a little bit because when I'm talking these days, what I'm talking about is, hey, you know, you know what's causing the problem? What's causing the problem is that there's so much shit out there that you guys have been told to do and you're not. That's what causes this entire threat landscape that's out there. It's not cyber criminals who are really sophisticated that are doing zero-day attacks, all this other bullshit. It's 90% of all the attacks are known exploits the shit you guys have been told to do that you're not. Why aren't you doing it? Profit.

You don't want to cause any friction. You don't want to scare a consumer away. You want to pocket all that money, walk away with it, and you want the consumer to eat it. You're just going to pass those costs right on to them. That's exactly the problem. And it's like, you know, I've been saying recently that my outdate from cybersecurity, I'm 53, my outdate is January of when I turn 60.

That's it. I quit in a little under seven years now. And I don't know what the hell I'll do, but it won't be bitching about this stuff anymore because it's like, come on, guys, it's beating your head up against a wall every single day. You've got a select few people that call out bullshit, but most to everyone else, they're scared of losing their little piece of the pie. Right. And that's it. So what are you going to do? Yeah.

You know? I was going to say, like I mentioned that I'll, you know, talk in front of law enforcement. and I was talking in front of the financial crimes guys. And first of all, one of the things that shocked me, and I know you talk in front of these guys too, is that some of the things I was saying when I was just explaining how I got like the DMVs of different states to issue the driver's licenses.

And just as I'm kind of going through it, they're like sought like, like, they have no idea. Yeah, and I thought, like I'm stopping. And then somebody, and then I keep going, and when I mentioned that I got the U.S. State Department to issue passports, they're literally a woman said, well, how did you do that? And I thought, yeah, and I sat there and I thought, like, you've been doing this 15 years. How do you know that, like, how do you not know it's this easy? How do you not not know the process? And so as we're taught, so I'm saying they're going

on and on, but they were like, you know, well, when you were making the synthetic identities, Like, well, I don't understand. I thought the, I thought like, well, how could you stop something like that? Like what, they said, what kind of procedures could be put in place that could stop someone from, from, or the bank, from going forward with the loan? And I went, well, the procedures are already in place. They just don't follow them. That's exactly right. And they went, they go like what?

I said, well, almost, not every time, but a good majority of the time when I would actually go. Because a lot of times I'd go into the bank. The reason I'd go in the bank. and show my faces because if I call on the phone, you're already thinking I don't know this person, but if I walk in, I give you my ID and I'm standing in front of you already don't think fraud. You're done at that point.

They're like, this guy is good. He came in the bank. He's sitting here. So they would pull my credit right then. I apply right then. They pull my credit. I've got the W-2s. I got my pay stubs.

I got everything. Oh, you bank statements? Yeah, I got my bank statements. Are these enough? Yeah, yeah, I got those. And so they pull my credit and they would go, and this is something you don't want to hear when you're sitting in front of somebody

is where they pull up, They're sitting, they pull up the thing, right? You hear that. And then they go, huh, like, huh, huh, is not what you want to hear, sit in the bank. My first thought is, how close did I park? Exactly. They're typing. They stop and it's like, huh.

Or even worse, when they grab your eye, I've had them take the ID and go, hold on a second. And stand up, it's like, oh, my God. You know you have to get that ID back. I'll need that back. He just walked away to my fake ID. he's showing it to the manager she's doing this with the ID oh that's that's am I why am I sweating so and then you know they would sit down and they'd go huh sometimes they sometimes they pull up your credit without you go huh and I go you know it's everything

in me not to go what you know and I go what what's up and they'd say well it says that you're it says your social security number was issued within the last year and I go really yeah then I'm going huh can I get my idea no um then and I go really they go yeah they go and you know you've your credit cards are only not they're all about a year old and I go right right and then I go what does it say my date of birth is like knowing that it's going to say the right thing because I'm the one to input it you know when I applied for these credit cards it populated it it automatically created a credit profile right so they would go um yeah says you were born 1970 you know I'm born in 69

but I always use like July 7th 19th so all I have to remember is 7th that's it 7s they go yeah it says 1970 and I'd go huh and they go this is your social your social security card and I your number and I go yeah they go have you always used this and I would go yeah it's all my W2s

and they would say then they have already have two so they look and they go yeah yeah yeah you know what I said hold on a second I always have one that was like five or six years old pull it out and I'd go here same thing see and sometimes I'd even have 1040s like the actual tax rate I go I got my tax return from like 10 years ago pull that out and they'd go yeah all right and they go huh okay then and let's be honest that that that's because if you'd have tried that bullshit over the phone no no they probably would have said let me get back with you let me check this but one I'm in person but two they're also

thinking I want this to go through because I make a fee like it definitely works on brokers mortgage brokers I wanted to go through he's given me a reasonable explanation it's it's an it's an issue I have this stuff maybe somebody else will catch it well it just got through you were the first line of defense it just got through you the next guy you're giving him a package of all the stuff the likelihood that he's even going to recognize that little that it said fraud in this one part is very unlikely, especially when you just gave them a full package, W-2's pay stubs, you gave them, I put money down, there's bank statements, there's an appraisal order,

like everybody thinks I'm legit, you've got a driver's license, like all he had to do was call Social Security. Or go on, it's a US citizen, like, dot-gov, I think, or dot-suff. You know, take the name and the number and the date of birth and put it in. It would have said it doesn't match. Right. There's all these little things you come. could have done, but you saw a fee.

I gave you a semi-reasonable explanation. If you had any training at all, you would have known synthetic identity. Like you would have known, no, let me check. It's worth a call. But they didn't care. They didn't care. He's going to make $2,500 or $3,500 for a broker fee. Maybe he gets 60% of that.

He works at a bank. Maybe he gets less than that. What is it matter? He still has a close so many loans. If it's a broker, he's getting 50, 60% of a $3,000 fee. He wants this to go through. Sure. So, but yeah, so, like, there's all these systems that are in place.

They just don't, they don't follow them. They don't. So, so here's, you know. He wants Khan Bank of America out of $250,000, using nothing but a fake ID and his charm. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, It's bank fraud. Stay greedy of my friends.

Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. So what year was this year doing this? I mean, this was 2000, up to 2000, late 2006. Okay. But I mean, that same system. Same system.

Exactly. It got easier after 2011. Yeah, I think a CBN fraud that was going on. It's not easier at that point. I was going to say, listen, now you can go online and just, like, I used to have to make my W-Choose and Pace. I used to have to know. some math right now you don't know anything it's like how much do you make an hour i don't know

it was 30 dollars how much does that come to oh 40 hours a week it'll populate everything for you so and i want to talk about i want to i want to i want to move over into the how criminals actually act in a little bit but what i wanted to ask you about is how do you fix that problem where you've got these assholes that care more about putting money in pocket than they do about stopping the problems that are, in your case, literally right in front of. I would think some kind of a benefit to them. Like if you were going to make money on reporting that fraud and if it was prosecuted or even catching it, maybe they could make, they would, but there's no benefit for him to catch that fraud,

that broker to catch that fraud, or even, let's say, the employees that knew what was going on in those companies that clearly see it, that they know what's going on. For them to say something isn't beneficial to them. They lose their life or they lose their job, most likely. There's an investigation. It costs them tons of money to go meet with the FBI. They lose days at work.

They lose all these things. They get labeled as a snitch or the person that brought this company down. The whistleblower laws are bullshit. Like they don't almost nobody's getting paid. Every whistleblower is always screwed over. Yeah, they're always screwed over. So if you actually utilize the whistleblower laws that are already on the books and gave people 10% and gave them this much money and gave them an incentive to turn to to actually follow the laws

that are already there, then I would think that people would start, then I'd be looking for fraud. Well, sure, sure. I want to find some fraud. It's quick. I get a check quicker for returning the fraud than I do with this loan. Probably a loan might not even go through, but I know, I know that's fraud. But then you would have all this false reporting of fraud. Would it be false?

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in that case, I don't know what else. what that other than that could be you know there's some stuff that I think it's just education there's just no education that these people some of these people just don't know oh they don't but you know it's like you said the tools right didn't matter whether you were back then doing synthetic like that if you're if you're current day doing CPN fraud or what have you

the tools to stop bank fraud have been in place yeah they're there it's just nobody's implementing the tools right it's easy enough it's easy enough to walk into a bank and set up this stuff. I did that with new account fraud all the time. Why do it on the phone? Go in with the ID, hand it to them. Yeah, I'm nervous as hell the first few times. But after you do it a few times, you're like, okay, we're good to go. What's even worse is when a little thing goes wrong here, a little tiny things and you get past them, then I got to the point where I'm, I was walking the bank. I'm ready to argue. Like, they're like, well, we're going to call the manager. Call them. Right. You've got $80,000 of my money in this bank. Raise a seat. And they're like, damn.

yeah I'd be pretty upset about that too you know and you're saying this and you're like I don't know who you need to call but and they're like oh wow Jesus you know it just cut this guy check yeah we we yeah let's wait wave that policy let's say it's like he's all right just get out of here yeah because I'm also thinking to myself like in my case

like if the cops show up like I was so confident about it like I have a real ID right I have a real like I don't the cop's not going to show up to say we're going to run your ID run it yeah the DMV five miles away issued it That's my picture's coming up. So if that's the case.

But some of these guys are using fake IDs and fake this and fake that. But if they still were to walk in, you know, that you get so good at knowing what their bank's procedures are. You know them better than, like I would know if I walked in and said, hey, if I asked for over $3,500, then on a new account that it had been issued within the last six months, I knew they had to call another branch to talk to somebody to get clearance. even though I had $100,000 in the bank. And I would go in and I'd say, so I knew,

I either walk in and I asked for $3,100 or I might as well ask for $9,800. You know what I'm saying? Go bigger. Exactly. So it's like, yeah, $3,100, why? Because I got six more banks to do today. Or I'd say I got three banks to do today, $9,500. You know, I'll wait in 10, 15 minutes.

Oh, you're going to make your call. Yeah. You're going to want my ID. you're going to want my credit card here's my social security number also you're going to want to know my home address it's such and such you know like i knew what the questions were coming before they know all right so so i don't know who's interviewing who here man but but okay so here's one of the things that i've been that i've noticed too all right so you and i really good social engineers we know what the hell we're doing yeah but the reason we know what we're doing is we're motivated for a

completely different reason right all right the reason i mentioned that is there's a whole shitload of gray hat or white hat social engineers out there. Okay. That I don't really think they're worth much of anything to be honest with you because they're motivated for a completely different reason. If the if the shit that we're doing doesn't work, at the worst case scenario, we don't eat that night. I mean, at the best case scenario, we don't eat that night.

Worst case, we go to jail. Yeah. You're all right. You're calling somebody on the phone. Exactly. Put some money on my books. So, you know, the thing is, is. that, you know, when you're looking at security services at these people who are giving the

training, all right? And this is where you and I come in as being valuable to financial institutions, to merchants, to across all these different verticals in there. You take a security guy that comes in that's never done anything like that, who's trying to teach social engineering as a job. Right. Versus the guy who is a social engineer because he has to be and he has to be effective at it where he doesn't eat or he goes to gelat end of the right there's a difference in the way in the way that you approach that and the way that you train that yeah the bar is at definitely a different level so you know and that's that's one of the things that's one of things I've been bitching about I bitch a lot on LinkedIn these days you may have noticed

I I a little bit but you know it's you did a show on Frank Abingnell the fake criminal guy yeah yeah all right we've got a lot of that bullshit that goes on yeah You know, you know your shit. I know my shit. Boziac knows his shit. I was going to say, and if I don't know it, I'm more than happy to say, I never did that. I don't know. I don't.

Because I have people ask me, you know, hey, will you talk about, you know, stock fraud? Will you talk about pumping dumps? Will you talk about like, I don't know anything about it? I can Google it. Yeah. Like, I mean, I watched Wolf of Wall Street. I understand the basic concept. I was in jail with some guys.

Oh, we'll get Jordan if you want to talk about that. Yeah, but I couldn't, you know. it's so funny too because you can always tell the guys that know it because suddenly they're talking about well you got to well you know the first thing you got to do is you got to file for a such and such and this and that you got to fill this out you got you got to start rattling that shit off yeah and it's like okay I have no clue what's happening so I don't talk about it because the thing is you know like you know like you know a fisherman knows a fisherman you know so if somebody's you know it's just it's like with the cops for a cop to go undercover people think oh well they go undercut listen that's difficult it's dangerous it's dangerous. criminals talk in a certain way and drug addicts and drug dealers know they have a certain and they will know very quickly like oh man you don't know what you're talking about

no you don't have a clue right so I remember when I started working when Secret Service brought me in I'd been there maybe three four days all right and they were like we don't want you to start reaching out we need we need credit card numbers I'm like okay dude so here I am I'm on on my little laptop looking for credit card numbers

I'm talking to a seller and I'm like look man it's going to take time some time to talk to this guy. No, get the card numbers. Get the card numbers. I'm like, okay. So, send him a message. It's like, do you have any card numbers?

He's like, yeah, man. I was like, I'll take anything you got. And he wouldn't sell them to. No. I was like, and they're like, agents are like, what the fuck's going on? It's suspicious. Well, a week later, the guy's telling me, it's like, you didn't ask a goddamn thing about the names attached to them, the genders, nothing else like that.

How are you going to use them? Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. That's because I got two fucking agents behind me screaming in my ear, get them, get them, get them. And that's one of the things that you see on all these forums is you see some security guy coming in,

you see some law enforcement guy coming in, and they'll start using this terminology that nobody in the fucking world uses. They'll use synthetic fraud. Well, nobody calls it synthetic fraud. They call it CPNs, is what they call it. They talk about different things in different ways. And all of a sudden, you've got the other guy that comes in

that's asked these pointed questions that nobody ever asked before. And it's like, yeah, we know who you are. are yeah go from there yeah um it's it's so funny too i was going to say i i know multiple guys that um literally like that they would come in they'd interest so you know you'd have a a drug dealer or something introduce another guy and they start talking for five minutes and the guy would say yeah he's a cop and they just walk away like they're walking away like how did he know you know how did he's like i don't know what i said i don't know this i don't know that he doesn't know what he's talking about

yeah yeah or even if you said the right things you didn't say it correctly right you know what I'm saying you're you're saying for you know I need social security numbers it's like okay well nobody's going to say social security numbers because you have to say it over and over they're going to abbreviate and what are the abbreviations for all of these different things you know just like if I talk to somebody in the business like or as a mortgage broker you know somebody because nobody in the mortgage industry says uh a a mortgage loan application you know they call them 1003 because that's the form you know right hey is there do you have a 1008 do you have a 1003 do you have it they know they know they know they know they know they know

they know the forms and it's easier to say and you're in the industry and you see it all the time and you hear it all the time so yeah so you can you can so you've got the commonality of the language and use that right and that I think that's something that you've got that it's no longer that formality

of things because you're communicating on the same level as everyone else right so for you to go on and do that because I've talked to guys before because I wrote a story recently where and I talked to an ATF agent who went undercover for a long long you know for a long time right uh multiple times and and he he had explained like like it

it's he's you have to really be that person like he he's like like i literally would let my uh you know my beard grow i wouldn't shave i wouldn't shower for a day or two i'm wearing the same clothes over and over again he's like because he said you have a certain look with these guys in the gun community have you know and he said it's it's he's like and they say certain things and he said so i had to hang out with these guys to get that down he said even then he said it It takes a while before you're comfortable enough. He is because he's dealing in guns. Like, it could go bad.

But also, we were talking about how a lot of times they have to introduce you slowly. And then they have to get rid of the main guy and then kind of hand you off for, you know, your credibility. You know, their your credibility. So, but it's the same thing on Bozac was, it's the same thing when he was buying plastic. and he was, you know, he has all these things, how he had to buy this, how he had to do this, how we had to repackage this, how he had to put, because they would, you know, he'd bubble wrap this and he'd vacuum seal this and he'd stick in an invoice. He's like, you know, he's like, you learn this stuff after getting caught so many times.

I mean, that's so, and okay, so you were caught too, several times and you keep getting away. It's the same thing with me, man. I mean, he's absolutely right. You get caught. This is how I got caught, so I'll fix that bullshit for the next time. and it's a learning process over and open and you know how how you got to that oh yeah like i know how do i know well because one time this happened but if it's it undercover and they say how'd you figure that out he better have a story you know uh well the CI told me this is how it

has to be done exactly my guy told me yeah he didn't walk me through everything but he told me um oh man i got i i i just it was the guy the dark what did you call him the the kingpin dark Dark web kingpin. Who was this? This guy, listen to this. Actually, if I had a couple of these guys. Real guy or not? No, no, real guys.

Real guys. Listen, I'm going to mention the ATM guy. So listen, I have an ATM guy that contacted me. So he had from a Bitcoin machine. I didn't even know they had Bitcoin. We're cash machines, right? Like, he had to explain it to him. I was like, are you serious?

Yeah, then you get idiots that try to steal the damn Bitcoin ATMs. Yeah. No, no, he didn't do that. What he was, he was the, he worked for Loomis. He worked for Loomis. Okay. So he's going and checking the ATMs. He checks the ATMs.

He said, well, there was a problem with the Bitcoin machines. He said, you would, they never knew. Like the other machines, they would say, look, you have to go refill the machine with, you know, here's a, it's, you know, 300,000 or 200,000 and you put the package of it. He said, then you pull whatever the deposits were. He's, but they know it's out of money. Sure. They know how much. he's like the bitcoin wasn't like that the bitcoins because they're like privately owned he said

they go in and they're like hey check that machine see if there's anything in it he's like what do you mean see if there's anything in it he's like you'd go and i'd come back and i'd be like yeah there's there was nothing in it or i'd go and i'd say yeah there was like 20,000 dollars you know and he said so at one point i realized like they like the company knows but the my company Loomis doesn't know So one day I went And I swung by to check it And he said

I took 10 grand Yeah stuck in my pocket He's like there's no He said there's a camera It's over there He said but they can't It can't see I just looked in the machine

I stiff in my pocket I close it and I leave It's like a week Like a week later They call them in the office Can you come in here And he's like Yeah what's up

They're like So we don't really You know We feel like something happened There's an issue There's some money We feel there's a problem I think he said

He didn't even really know How much money was They didn't never really said How much money was even missing He's like I don't even know That they knew how much money was missing But anyway they basically said Look

Like You know You basically you can keep showing up You can keep coming to work You know But eventually we're going to figure out something Or you can just like And he said basically

I felt like they were saying They're going to figure out a way to fire me Right He said Or you can just leave leave and he said I was like yeah I'm just going to leave he is so he left so for 10 grand he just left for 10 grand right which is nothing but he never got caught he sends me an email says hey you want to hear this story he tells me basically the story and

I was like sure so I talked to him on the phone I go okay okay and he goes um and I said okay so what do you want to do and he said well what do you think it's a good story I said yeah I think it's an interesting story do you want to come on the podcast and tell it he goes yeah I should I nice and so he came on the podcast and and ran it himself out. And I told him, and I told, even before that, I said, you know, I said, let me explain something. I said, I have a lot of guys. This is what happens.

They'll come on the podcast. And I said, I said, look, I said, I'm going to tell you right now. I said, if it's a, if it's a Zoom interview, I said, you're looking at getting between five and 10,000 views. You know, if it's an exceptional interview, maybe 15 or 20, you know, if it's in person, I get about 40% more. views that's what i and that's just my you know calculation sure uh based on really very little but i feel like i probably right right about 30 40% more someone's in person generally based on yeah yeah yeah periodically you get somebody they just they're here and just nobody's interested that's right right but for the most part i think it's about 30 40% more

so i explained it to them and and i said so here's the problem i said i've had guys come on we do the podcast they say some things that that they weren't thinking at the time like they forget the cameras are there. I said, and then they end up, the podcast comes out, they then tell all their friends about the podcast.

And then two days later, they call me up or they start texting me saying, hey, listen, I should have never said this about Jimmy. He's furious. Exactly.

Or, hey, listen, that's going to cause me problems at my work. My boss said this. And I had one guy that went so far. And I came back and I was like, yeah,

listen, bro. I said, like, like I spent money to have, you know, a guy come here and do this and so you know come and i's like that's a couple hundred bucks you know my i i have uh you i have like i have an agreement with someone like i can't be putting stuff up and taking it down we had the conversation right and the only reason any of these people know about your like it didn't

come up on their feed you called these people because you're nobody like your name's john john you're nobody yeah i mean i'm not trying to be mean you did and then you're upset because you're like you know jimmy calls them says hey me you fucking use my name you said that fucking up shit that we did and nobody knows about it. So Jimmy's in trouble with his wife and so and so now I might lose my job. And then so this one guy literally got worse and worse and worse, right? Like within a week, he's calling me up saying, you know, oh, he's talking about his kids are getting picked on.

He's going to lose his job. They pulled him aside. And you don't think of any of that. Yeah. And I sat there and I was like, and I knew it was all bullshit. Like I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay. Right, right.

Okay. All right. Yeah. I said, look, let me talk to Colby. Let me see if I get it taken. down i called colby i said yeah this is what the guy's saying colby's like you know look yeah we'll take it down we'll take it down so i call him back and i say colby said no no he's a dick he's a dick i blame everything on colby i'm a nice person i want to help i want to help you he's

unreasonable i don't know what this problem is he doesn't care about you like i do says the show's going viral everyone likes he said you're a criminal he said this could be a five hundred dollars This is going to be $500, $600. Like, I mean, how much money do you have? No. He's shaking. I know. That's what I said.

I said. I said, Kobe, we can't shake him down. So, yeah. So what happened with the Bitcoin guy? So the Bitcoin guy. Yeah. I tell him this whole thing. I tell him like, look, don't call me up later because of anything that you've said.

He's like, that's fine. They chose not to prosecute me. They're not going to prosecute me. Yeah, they've already, they've already this. He said, plus he said, it's a small town. I said, look, keep in mind, don't be calling all your buddies telling them. fucking idiot i said no so i told don't do that i said because and he said would you think i'll get charged i said no i don't think you might no he's i don't i still don't think he's going to

but he did get upset i would he posted it because this fucking people in the comment my guys are like what the one guy what's the top comment keep me posted on what he pleads to yeah keep me posted on what he pleads to it's a top comment but i mean guys are coming back going like bro so here he is he's he's got the hard on wouldn't read the comments all the feedback of the first one. Let me know what he pleads to. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, listen, it gets worse. It keeps like, and there's tons of people go. And then, of course, they're calling him names and stuff. And so, you know, and they're, they're calling them name. And, you know, look, these are not professional speakers, um, um, um, um, that you're talking. Um, um, people are mean. Like, really mean, like they

started like, you know, could this guy say, um, one more fucking time. Or this guy fucking, I can't hear him or he this. Oh, I, like, nobody's going to recognize him. Cause what? He's got his fucking sunglasses on who what's this fucking guy's problem you know like they're going on was he wearing sunglasses he was wearing sunglasses in the and it was dog um but but so we he goes on and on and i'm you know i come back first he says look bro can you do me a favor oh this was the worst somebody used like a spoof app oh someone tracked out his phone number and spoofed him saying they were from loomis's home office and and and texted him and he's like yeah they texted me said, listen, Loomis is not going to text you.

He's not, well, it says it's from Loomis. It says, Loomis, you know, whatever, home office. And I said, bro, I said, call him back. Call him back. Tell him to email you. I guarantee you he's not going to have a Loomis email. And he goes, okay, so he calls back and he goes, oh, it's like a Google number. It's like a Google.

You know, I was like, okay, bro. He's like, yeah, I knew it was bullshit. I said, yeah, he did. So then it goes on. Then he comes back and he said, can you please blur my face on the thumbnail? No problem. I blur it. Colby, we, so you did that.

Yeah, yeah. Then Colby, then another week goes by. So you're much more charitable than I would be. Oh, no, typically, typically I would be like, like, if he started saying you got to take it down, I'd be like, no, I'm not taking it down. Like, I agreed to come on. Right. Like, you knew this. And we had a conversation.

I didn't lie to you. We had a conversation. Anyway, so Colby. I told you how this would go. Yes. And, and so he, he, he, so anyway, then he comes back and he asks, can you, can you blow? Blur me, my whole face out through the whole video. Oh, wow.

You can do that. Colby did it. Was it hard, or was it a pain? It takes like 10 minutes. So you went that extra step of just blurring him out there too. Blurt his face out. But then again, he did, like, put his name on the thing. You can't do both?

You can't blur, can you? You can't blur and then cut. You can't, like, cut outside of a segment. Right. And people don't understand. Like, you could if he took the video down. But he's not going to take the video down. Like, because it once it's posted.

If you take it down, you're reposting the video. It starts all over And then I have to listen To a thousand people scream This was on last week Motherfucker Where's my comments? So, you know, I told

And he's okay with that He's like, look, I'm okay with it You blurred me out You did this, you did that I'm fine I'm good with it I appreciate it I'm not trying to tell you

I don't run your channel That's fine Well, so that's one guy That calls me Second guy that calls me Was put a little more forethought into it And this was This guy's name was Colby too

This Colby tells look some guys some guys in there are in the comment section are like you know like you can't tell a story the truth is

he told a fucking phenomenal story you would love love it he's selling he's selling stuff on the the dark web right

he used Torah whatever he goes on a forum he becomes a vendor he's selling he's selling drugs on you know on a

counterfeit you know counterfeit drugs so he's and the thing is now people are bashing them because it was, you know, I don't want to say, you know, it was, I can say, can I say it? The active ingredient?

Fentanyl? Yeah. Right. Well, see, I'm worried at the YouTube. Trust me, we're constantly badly YouTube. We say stuff. So I told him, don't say it. Oh, I said, like, you want to say it once or twice, that's fine.

But then stop saying it. And he goes, no, I'll just say the active ingredient. And I said, okay. So he did say it like once or twice and then said the active ingredient. Then everybody's hammering him like, oh, this guy, he doesn't want, he knows what he's selling poison. He doesn't want to say. I asked him, my comment section,

it's, it's a sewer. They're horrible. They are vicious to people. They hate them. So were they mad that he was, that it was selling drugs or just fake drugs? I don't think they were just fake drugs.

If, if you're selling anything with, with that product in it, people, that's a problem. Right. That is a problem. Well,

people feel like, like you're selling, like you're trying to kill people. Like to him is like, one guy's like, you know, he's killing people. Listen.

this is the U.S. government. If they could pin a murder on him or even, you know, they would. Like there's no. And listen, he sent me his PSR. Like I read his PSR. Like the government never says anything about there being any deaths related to in any way. And if you're absolutely right. If they could have,

they absolutely would have. Right. Absolutely. So we have this long conversation. He and I have this conversation, one about prison afterwards. We talked about prison and what to do, what not to do.

I thought he would, he does laugh a lot. Like he's very jovial guy, right? Which is great. Right. I'd rather talk to that guy. Like, people make fun of that, you know, oh, if he's always laughing and joking about what he did, like, come on, he's just a fucking happy person.

Yeah, man. I mean, it's like I, you know, I laugh all the goddamn time. Right. But the thing is, is that you laugh or cry. They get angry about that. But that's almost the defense mechanism. It allows you to talk about stuff that you would never really be able to talk about unless you're sitting there joking about it at the same time.

Right. I'm not happy that I ripped off a shitload of people. Right. I'm not happy about that. I'm not happy that I was a liar and a piece of shit. shit for years. Right. I'm not happy that I had to do all that time in prison. No, I'm not happy about all that time in prison either. People always forget about that. Walking the bathroom, but two o'clock in the morning, you see four feet in the shower.

You're not happy about that shit. No. It's like, where am I? I was constantly seeing stuff going, what did I do to myself? What did I do? Um, so yeah, so anyway, that guy, uh, that video is actually doing great. It's got like, what, over 30,000. 30,000. Oh, that's not. yeah since in two days so in just over two days over 30,000 years right on a on a on a stream yard but that we did it like a month or so ago and then after like just as we did it he called he like he he he realizes wait a second I haven't been sentenced yet and he's like and so I'm sitting there talking to him like we're still on the thing we I turned out the recording.

Or did you hear that conversation or had I shut off the recording? No, I shut it off. He asked me. Yeah, I did shut it because I remember he goes, are you recording? I said, no, I shut up. He was, yeah, listen, the more I think about this is, can you hold this for a little bit? And I was like and you keep in mind too, as he's telling the story, like I don't hear the whole two hour story.

Like I heard some pieces of it sounds good. He sent me some documents. I read them. It looks legit. Let's go. Like I'm not you know, I'm not Woodward and Bernstein here. I mean, this is a fucking YouTube show. So I was like, yeah, let's do it. So as he's talking, I start to realize like he was raided. They arrested him. He got out. He this, he that. And I'm like, okay, so when are you, so what did you get? He's like, oh, I haven't been sentenced yet. I'm thinking. And here you

are talking about this show. And we kept talking because I thought something, something, he's going to say something. Something's going to happen. I was like, so you haven't been sent. No, no. My lawyer's saying I'm going to get this much time, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, when is, when are you going to max your ass out if they hear this? Yeah, when are you getting sentenced? And And then so once we shut it off, he starts thinking about it. He goes, yeah, listen, I'm thinking about this. Matt, I'm maybe, yeah, can you hold this? Now that I think about it, and I was like, he was because I would really hate to be being sentenced and they start playing this.

And I was like, yeah, that might be an issue. That might be. But he ended up, so it was so funny as he ended up contacting me, whatever. two what a week ago like a week ago this is so it had been like two almost three weeks and he contacted me he said hey I was sentenced and he said

no you got five years he got the minimum mandatory minimum like keep mind they couldn't it's through the internet so they had ordered some stuff from him tracked it back and rated it as off which is not difficult to do that right so he he didn't think it was going to be as

easy as it was they never do but he had a you know but then think about it, he wants to be sentenced because he had a much longer run than they knew. Get it over with it. Yeah, like he's realizing, you guys got me for these packages. Like, I need to plead guilty to this. Exactly. You know, because if they really look into it, like, what if they end up finding out this is the run?

You know, it was just right now it's just this and you can minimize it. You don't have the stuff. And so he played guilty. He got five years. And then we talked about him going to going in. And I, you know, and he's a big guy. shaved head beard he'll be fine chubby and very he looks very soft so i was like listen do yourself a favor don't go into you're probably going to go into low don't go in and say like like i don't want

if somebody says what are you here for don't say my lawyer said not to talk about it yeah don't do don't do that don't say computer crime yeah don't do that i know that for a fact that's a mistake right don't say that don't tell them a whole bunch of information but be supposed to but do tell them exactly this is what i'm here for yeah I said, so that's it. And yeah, he's a... Don't play Billy badass. Don't do bad.

Yeah. Don't, yeah. Don't borrow money. Don't gamble. Don't borrow money. Don't talk shit about people. Understand that there's a spot in the TV room just can't go in there. No.

Start watching. He, uh, oh my God, there was a guy. Listen, let me tell you right now. I tell you this. I don't know if you had one of these guys. We would have some guy show up. I think I told you this. We'd have like a white guy would show up.

A soft looking white guy. guy would show up he's 50 something years old soft looking scared comes in he could they you know they come in around just after like or just before count right right right they come in and then they they get their cell they're they're their their their slacks and a white torn up t-shirt and they're they're looking you know so he's got flip flops on and he's walking around so they would that they would come in and then everybody just kind of ignores him right and then they go to chow they come back they they lay in their bed and cry um you know then the next morning pretty much Regardless of what, regardless of what crime you've committed.

That's typically the first night in prison. You just lay there like, like, I slept like a baby. Oh, really? Sounds like you were sniffling a little bit. And then they then, or sometimes that night, usually that night when they come back and they lock everybody down, they start to work their way into the TV room. Right. Or the next morning. They would walk in the white TV.

Right. And then they just car room. Yeah. They come and they sit down. And we had a guy, they called them Kenny King. And what's so funny is, like, his initials were like KKK. They were like, yeah, they were. So it was like, Kenny King, so Kenny, Kevin King.

And so Kenny would go, the guy would come in and sit down. We'd be watching the morning news waiting for, waiting to leave. And all of a sudden, Kenny would go. and we listen i i knew i knew it so well when a guy would walk in and sit out i'd get up and leave because i thought i don't want to be here for this humiliation and he would do he was always the same thing he'd go listen up home boy and the guy would always and he's a i don't know what you're here for but if it got anything to do with pictures a little kids or looking at video or touching somebody you can't be in this room you understand me they go oh no no no no I'm here for

Medicare fraud you understand look you've got about three days to come up with something that shows something and they be oh no okay okay and here's the worst thing you knew if he was lying because he wouldn't even come back right like if he really was there for Medicare fraud or for selling drugs or something three four five days later he's got something in the mail he's walk around going, boom, that's what my charge is. There you go. You know, I got 10 years for guns. Most of the time, they wouldn't come back. Right. But if they really, if they had nothing, then they just don't

come back. You see, I was, I was the guy. So when I, when I got there, it was, it was. I was horrible. I want to be in that position. I used to think, Kenny, you've got to be miserable. I was the guy. That was my job. Brett, go talk to this one.

So it was, it was that conversation. But I was tried to, I try to be nice. Hey, man, don't know if you're in here for something is fucked up but if you are now's the time to tell me don't care what it is but if you lie those guys over there will fucking kill you

yeah yeah I'm a nice guy I want to be not I hear you I'm not going to I'm not vaugh it's society's fault I get it I got you I hear you it's a horrible thing but there's no rules

fucking kill you um what's so funny is Kenny would come to me and go he go Cox and I'm like and it's not like Kenny was even a big guy. Kenny was tiny. Kitty was like five foot five or something. He was tiny.

He weighed probably 140 pounds, but he was just, he was just a hate bill. And he would cocks. And I go, yeah, Kenny, what's up?

Go talk to that guy over there. Why? Because you know, he's saying this. Well, because he would say, he'd go, he says it here for fraud.

Yeah. And I look over and I'd go, fuck. Because if he said drugs, then they don't ask me. Right. They, Kenny can talk to all.

But all the pedophiles said computer crime. Yeah. And credit. Yeah. Yeah, fraud. Yeah, I always love that. I told you, I must have told you that when I went up to the one guy. No.

Oh, yeah, I went up to one guy. I go up to one guy and I said, hey, bro. I said, I heard you were here for fraud. He's like, yeah, yeah, I'm here for credit card fraud. I said, what were you charged? I said, that's what you were charged with? He was, yeah, charged with credit card fraud. I went, hmm.

What's the actual charge? That's the actual charge on your indictment, credit card fraud? He goes, yeah, it's credit card fraud. And I went, okay. At this point, Kenny's. You did the bank thing. So Kenny comes walking slowly walking down the hole and he's walking up slowly and I went so what did you do? And he goes, I was removing I was removing money out of credit cards and I went no I get that. It's credit card for all you do. But how are you doing it? Like did you were you in like a position like at a bank where you were able to charge the credit cards or did you work for did you work for the credit card company or were you manufacturing credit cards? Like were you using an. access device of some kind where you and he goes oh he goes it it it's not a learning experience

and just then Kenny walked up and I go he's a chomo and he's a chomo and Kenny goes I knew it and and I walk off Kenny comes up he goes can he goes how'd you know I said I've never met a fraudster in my life that didn't want to brag about how smart he was yeah to let you know I'm super smart and this is how I did it, and I figured it out. I said, plus, I said, there's no such thing as credit card fraud. You know, it's access device fraud. It's bank fraud. It's financial institution.

There's a dozen, you know, it's wire fraud, something. I said, there is no charge that. And I asked them three times, he said it over and over again. And I said, yeah, so no. And so then another, this happened all the time. I remember this other time, this guy was, this is how good I was getting at it. This is how good I was getting it. And I felt bad, you know, I don't want to put somebody.

in a position where he's being... But you knew, the thing is, is you knew who the Chomos were walking off the bus. Oh, yeah. And what's funny, too, was how they would congregate. You know, like they would group...

And it was... And not just that, even if you had four guys that I knew all four you were lying. You've actually convinced other people that it's not true. That you four fucking guys hung out together.

You're always talking about how you hate shows. But you guys are all hanging out. And you're all lying. You said you're here for Medicare fraud. You said you're here for wire fraud. You said you're here for pot. You said you're here for this.

And you guys all hang out. out together. And you talk about the Joes. So this one guy, one time I'm sitting there, Kenny King comes up and he goes, he goes, got, see that guy over there? I looked over and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. And he goes, says he's here for a, fuck, he said, some kind of scheme,

a, I go, Ponzi scheme. He goes, and he goes, yeah, that's it, Ponzi scheme. And I went, okay. And he said, I want to go talk to him, see if he's a, see if he's a show. And I go, no, he's a con man. And he goes, man, man, you just looked at him. Go talk to him. And I said, I'm going to talk

to him. I'm going to tell you right now. I said, that's a con man. And you could fucking, the look, listen. This dude. Not a big guy. Checking out everybody walking by. His back is kind of towards the, you know, in the corner, kind of towards the, just checking

everybody out, not being a jerk, but the look on his face was he was in a horrible environment, a dangerous analyzing everything, and confident. Right. Not a big guy right guys my height but i looked at that dude and i was like huh walked right up to him said hey bro i said uh you're here for some kind of a posse scheme or fraud or something i said kinney told me that you were he's like yeah 57 million dollars largest prosz scheme and immediately went into

okay reading off his resume did it for 15 years but just immediately starts bragging about it i thought yeah yeah because that's what you do right you have to give your rest it's like damn i i'm here for this Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and I did this. And they called me this, bam, bam, bam. Starts telling me all the papers he was in, all this. He's just proud of it. How much gold he dug up, how much went. And I was just like, damn, like, you're overboard.

Like, you're as bad. Like, I thought I had it. I thought I had you peg, but fuck. That's me. You know, yeah, good times. Good times. What's going on? What are we at?

an hour and 18 minutes that's it that's not bad not bad at all so what did you say about frank abing now um since we're talking about crime well and the fake son of the bitches better out first of all you should talk to that guy i know him oh you we're at the same conference in uh next month he's an interesting guy yeah right i've spoken to him on the phone we had a zoom meeting as well um did you do a a podcast? Did not do recording.

Did not. I mean, I'm just saying, I don't know how you're going to run your show, but you might. So what happened was is the ACFE last year, they were like, will you come in and keynote this? Like, absolutely, let's do that. Because I love the ACFE. They don't pay shit most of the time. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

You understand he's going to put this probably in. That's fine. I still love them, all right? But, but, so I'm like, absolutely. So didn't know who any of the speakers were, anything. else like that. So about, this has been probably six weeks ago, the woman who brought me in, she was like, I just wanted you to know that Frank Abagnale is coming as well. And she sent me a note on LinkedIn. I was like, well, that means they were going to kick me out because Frank Abingnell refuses

to meet me. So I sent her a note back and I was like, hey, I understand if you, if you're dismissing me, I understand completely Frank's a bigger draw and everything else. And she writes back, she's like, no, no. You're there with Frank. And I'm like, seriously, you know what I've said about this guy. Right. You know I'm going to bury his ass. And she was like, it'll be fine. I'm like, okay. The whole industry is right? Right. So four days later, this LeVir guy, he messages me. And he's like, I'm showing up at this conference too. So I started, and he's on this pretend podcast. I'm like, holy shit. They're all. I'm marrying Abignale all of a sudden. So, Levere and I talked, or however you say his last time. We talked, he's a great guy.

And he was like, have you watched my show? He's like, no, I've not watched your show. He's like, well, I've watched your show. So he was talking to me. He was like, I'm planning on giving all my proceeds to the victims of Frank Abagnow. And he's like, what do you think about that? And I was like, shit, if you can do it, I can do it too. Let's go.

Okay. So, of course, two days later, Frank Abignal. He drops out, right. But, I mean, it looks like the industry is actually finally taking, you know, that to heart that he didn't really do anything. But now that being said, he's done something. Yeah. Like, like, you know, so first of all, I like to say that I read his book in prison. Same here.

Not once, but over and over and over again. Multiple times. I can't say that I read it in its entirety. I probably read it in its entire. entirety three or four times at least. But I read sections of, if you add up all the sections, I probably read that book a dozen times, like just to see how they condense things and how he, like I really, really loved that book.

And then I even read his second book. See, I didn't read the cycle. Second book was pretty good too, although it mostly just talks about scams in general. The Art of the Steel. Art of the Steel. Then he has a third one they did with AARP, which he didn't know that. He didn't write that one at all. Okay.

Oh, yeah, I didn't even know that. But, you know, and I always, so I had been on podcast where I talked about Frank Abagnale. And then guys were in the comment section were saying, no, no, he actually worked for, because I was saying he actually did like all of his time. Like in the first one, he basically does. He gets turned down for parole several times and then he gets out on parole. And I said, to the truth is people think, oh, he got arrested and very quickly based on the movie. They let him out to work for the FBI. I said the truth is he actually did all of his time, got out on parole.

and he talks about how there were issues. In the second book, he talks about how there were issues on parole. He kept getting fired. Okay. Yeah, the PO or the PO would show up and get him fired. Another time he worked. I remember reading about some of the issues that he had. Right.

He worked in a grocery store, got dismissed from that. Right, right. Like, the problem is, who knows if any of that's true anymore. And I liked the story. And so when Levine, I think it's Levine. I don't whatever when when we talked you know he was talking about how all of these things there was always one thing that bothered me and it has always bothered me and I kind of just shrugged it off like okay well you don't know you don't really know right so and it was

always the the toilet in the airplane so when he escape um he gets in the toilet he sneaks out through the toilet and he somehow another gets into the gear where the landing gear assembly is and then he jumps out through the landing assembly and takes off and I always remember thinking well I would think

it would be a close a closed system that would be separate and I would think well maybe sometimes they have those panels that have been bolted on I was like but he didn't have

like a wrench with him and I'm sitting there going well obviously it's the suspension of disbelief I see it I believe it I want to believe it my issue with him the entire time

was the escape from Atlanta because I know U.S. Marshals and they've told me how that shit actually operates. There was no forgotten paperwork as he claimed at that point. No. Because you've got two marshals that deliver you there and you've got to check some balances there. So Abagnale was claiming that the reason he was able to escape, they didn't deliver the paperwork. The marshals didn't. They had forgotten the paperwork. So he was able to social engineer his way out of the prison at that point. Right. He has the girl, he gets the FBI card and, and, and, and, And actually they call and he says, hey, I'm working with the FBI as a CI or I'm an FBI. Let me talk to my partner and they actually let him go to the car to have a conversation.

He jumps in the car and take it all. Right. Like it's a whole thing. And granted, it's the 70s. Like, things were a lot more laxed. But even when I was watching that, it was, but he would throw these little, these little tiny details in there where he said later in the newspaper article came out, they said that I had actually was a violent escape that I'd harmed somebody, pulled a gun, or done some things, he said, which was later disproven.

And it was like, like, those are the little kinds of things that make the story seem more real. Like, he's, he's an amazing liar. He is. Absolutely is. But Levine, the guy that I interviewed, he was like, he and the other guy that had written the book because Levine didn't write the book. He just did a podcast based on the book. He was saying, like, he didn't understand.

understand why a documentary hadn't been made, why they didn't jump on it. And he was saying it was like, and I was like, yeah, right? So you, so you interviewed Javier. Did you interview Howard? Yes. Alan Logan, too, or not? No, just Javier. Okay. So he was saying he believed the reason people had not jumped all over it was because, um, it was like being told that, you know, there's no Santa Claus. Like people don't want to believe it. They don't. And I admittedly, like I had guys, in the comment section before where I had talked on concrete, I talked on concrete

about Abagnale and how he'd done all his time and he did because people were saying oh you're like Frank Abagnale. Right. And I was like okay, well no, because Frank Abagnale didn't get his sentence reduced. Right. Even he did all his time. In the movie they say they let him out, but he really did all of his time according to the book.

And in fact he did all of his time because in general he just had a bunch of little tiny bits. but the point is that like I actually got my sentence cut for writing an ethics course for working with the FBI for writing these doing two different courses and being interviewed so and then

this guy said there was a whole there's a whole thing on where he's talking in front of like the FBI I think and it's on YouTube and he's talking about working as an undercover with the FBI and that is I've never heard that before my life it's like you know he's getting more and more

advent of right so the problem is is you listen to that guy and it is it's disappointing that he's taken he's taken one or two small things that he did and he's ballooned them

into these massive stories now I wouldn't blame him for what the movie did for what Spielberg did like I wouldn't blame him because they're going to do whatever they want to do well you know that now

I mean you've talked to production companies I have too once they buy the story they do whatever the fuck they want to do with that you have no say so in that anymore that's done But the two books? Yeah.

That's a problem. Right. So really, he was just a low-level guy. He's been arrested for stealing a car. He's been... Oh, and Javier actually talked about how he had kind of conflated two separate stories in the book where he takes the stewardesses on this... And that, listen, that scam in the book, that's a great scam. It is.

Like, I could see that working. Like, that's why I sat there and I thought. thought wow that would work based on what he was doing that was a great way to maximize what he was doing um but the point is is that uh Javier said that what really happened from his some their investigation was that Frank Abagnale at one point had worked at like a nursery and everybody was saying oh we should all get they were all kind of friends and said we should do something over the weekend and he took them all to Puerto Rico flew them to Puerto Rico and they said like a couple days before they were supposed to leave or a day before they were supposed

to leave or something he said something went wrong and he immediately was like look we got to go we got we got to get on the plane we got to get back I got to get back and he rushed everybody back there and as soon as they got back there he stole the station wagon to the daycare or school whatever it was and took all and left and they never saw him again and they they did a report saying hey this guy stole our fucking car right so that is kind of and he also would go he'd dress up like a pilot He would go to universities, and he would interview sorority girls or college girls to be stewardesses for Pan Am, let's say. I think it was Pan Am. They said he also would do physical exams.

I read that bit. Yeah. Wow. Which none of that gets talked about. No, no. Nobody brings that up. Right. So, yeah, there was a bunch of stories that I was like, okay, so he kind of conflated the.

the movie thing where he, and it's also in the book where he does this thing, goes to college and he interviews all these women and he picks some of them and he flies them all over to Europe and then he gives them checks

and he also gives them reimbursement checks that they have to cash and give him the cash. So they're doing this everywhere they go. He's also not paying for any of the photography. He's telling him to Bill

to Bill paying him. So he's running up photography bills all over Europe. The women are thrilled. They get to go to Europe for a month, but they also end up making him like 20, 30, thousand dollars in cash because they're cashing checks thinking it's just a part of how this works

we cash this up we pay we have to pay for our own fees but they reimburse us they give us a check we cash it give it to him um so so you read the book how many times 12 yeah let's say roughly six to 12 yeah and that's my problem with frank is that the reason i'm a speaker these days is frank abing oh oh yeah why because he's oh yeah i mean he laid that path yeah you know when i when i was working for Secret Service that entire time, I'm going to get out and I'm going to do exactly what this son of a bitch was doing. I'm going to speak. I'm going to consult. Well, why doesn't he like, why doesn't he want to be on the same? So with Frank, and I found that out when I started working for AARP, Frank doesn't do Q&A sessions because he didn't want to answer in questions.

He can't answer the questions. Right. All right. The book that he wrote for AARP, scam me if you can, he didn't write a single word on it. He comes to AARP and he's like, hey, you can have the book. I'll give it to you free. Just hire me to work. And he charges AARP 20 grand a day. Jeez. And he screws him over.

He did like, during that entire, he worked for him for, I think, a year, year and a half. And during that point in time, he had two Q&A sessions. And during those Q&A, he answers the questions about as bad as you possibly could.

Right. He gives advice that no one on the fucking planet would do, doesn't support the advice because he doesn't know anything he's talking about. And it looks like what's going on these days is somebody gives him talking points. So he gets up there, he rehearses his speech, he gives his story, gives a few talking points at the end, doesn't really understand the damn thing he's talking about, walks away with his, you know, 30 grand for the speech and goes like that. Right.

Is what's going on. But the time, the first time I was supposed to meet the guy, he was doing a podcast for AARP. I forgot what the name of that damn thing was. But I was supposed to meet, I flew into Washington to meet him. and he calls in sick that day. Yeah. Okay. Why?

Because he didn't want. He just doesn't want to have a conversation with you that's going to, where it's going to be obvious. I think it's that whole thing where a fisherman knows a fisherman. A fisherman knows a fisherman. You know immediately, are you full of shit or do you know what you're talking about? Right. And that's the problem.

So he doesn't do anything like that. Javier, easy enough. They had Javier. So Frank Abagnel was going to be opening keynote. The next speaker was Javier. Oh, he would have walked in and just gutted him. Yeah, Frank would have to go on first because he's not going on second. He's not going on second.

So first, second was Javier. And Abinell was contractually obligated to it. Everything else for this conference violates the contract because it's like, fuck, no, not showing up to that shit. I am, you know what's, okay, sorry, go ahead. But, you know, I did my show. So I've spoke about Frankstown twice about this fake criminal stuff. First time I came down pretty hard on the guy.

The second time I'm like, you know, he still defrauded a whole shitload of people with his story. Yeah. So he's very effective in what he's doing. Yeah. Who gets out of prison and says, and as a con, well,

really as a petty criminal and reinvents himself as a con man to do keynote speaking and get paid. for it. Like, that is, especially if you don't really have, you don't have the pedigree. Exactly. And that in an arguably more famous than Charles Ponzi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody knows Kesheme if you can. They might not know exactly Frank Abagnale, but a lot of people do. Right. So I'd say if somebody knows the movie Catch me if you can, probably 25% of them can actually say Frank Abbock. Exactly. Exactly. But the very least, he can say, would you see the movie, see the movie if you can? Oh yeah. It's good movie. You're the guy.

Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah, and you're right. Like, just like I said, yeah, not everybody knows what a posse scheme is. So he, he, he, small time crook to most successful con man ever. Yeah. With the Catch Me If You Can story. Yeah. But also, he actually does some good along the way, right?

He's got 11 patents for check security. Okay. I don't know that. And he raised awareness across the board on security for checks. Right. And Javier said like he came up with the, he, he's, he's, legitimately got like a securities company or whatever it is yeah he's he's he's legitimately and apparently it does decent work like he's like there's nothing he's like

they looked into that he's like there's nothing out there that says that that's a scam like it's a legitimate company so how do you i mean how are you supposed to look at that the guys he's built his his entire life on this foundation of lies but he goes off and he does some good and that's one of things that he makes a hell of a lot of money doing a lot of money it's easy to do good things if you're profit yeah yeah yeah but you know he actually said that in i don't know if you saw that uh that ambush interview that Javier did with him yeah i did saw it it was only it's like a minute like 90 seconds but you know Abingdale makes that statement I wish that people would would judge me on what I've done with my life right not what I did with it way back then right

which I'm like okay dude I kind of yeah yeah get you I kind of get you on that yeah I still don't know how to view it all but I'm like I think you know what's what's funny is it's like cheating on your wife this is another one of those rumors so I give these examples sometimes and and like like when we were not on camera like you're like don't go with that one again like I said something the other day the other day the guy made a comment about people with like a thyroid problem like well you know it's not her fault he was talking about like his sister like was super overweight he was he's angry with this this particular it's a fraud that's happening um and he's angry he's talking and he shows picture of his his sister he is you know and i went he says you notice anything

about her and i thought well uh she's a she's uh like i didn't know what he wanted me to say but all I could think of was she's a big and big big big girl and he and he goes it's not her fault he has you know thyroid something such and such and I said yeah I said I don't buy that. I said, I said, because I said, I know for a fact that I said, in all the pictures I've seen of like concentration camps, there's never like one fat person that they say, yeah, she's getting as much food as everybody else, but she has a thyroid issue, so she can't lose weight. Like I said, I don't think that's the way it works. And so anyway, afterward, he said to me, probably don't want to use that example. Afterward, he said, you know, he said,

I understood what you were saying and it was funny. He said, but you might want to stay away from anything that has to do with skinny people in a concentration. That's true. And I thought, That's true. Let's edit that out. Like, that's not. You took it wrong. So, um, but, yeah, but Frank, uh, I don't know where I was going with this. Cheating wife.

Cheating wife. Thank you. So it's kind of like like if it's like the guy, listen, people will, like, like, really a woman in general. And I think men for the most part, they will forgive like infidelity, but what they're more upset about. every time I when I was when I was younger not now I'm an adult now um you know but when I was you know in my teens or 20s and I would run around my girlfriend and get caught the few times what I realized was when you just deny it it drags out for six months to you they never let it go right but if you just say yeah look okay I did this and this and we were having fights and we're

not doing well and I thought we were going to break up and I saw your friend Jennifer and she's always flirted with me and so yeah I went back to her place and I hit it yeah I I met, yeah, yeah, she's not a good friend to you, by the way. You know, it's horrible things to say. You know, if you just own up to it. Lay it on her. Yeah, yeah. A good friend to you. Yeah.

You know, I said, the whole time I said this isn't right. But if you just own up to it, then it kind of shuts it, you know, and if you're like, look, I. Just get it out. Listen, I got caught like mid-act, banging this, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, um, literally mid-act. Well, no, I'm not. So I was, you know, going, you know, it was working out. It was just, you know, it was a, it was actually a Buccaneers cheerleader.

I mean, what am I going to get a chance to hit a Buccaneers cheerleader? Buccaneers cheerleader. You got to. I mean, to me, that's like a, that's, you get a pass. I mean, I should have gotten a pass, right? Like, so, I mean, I'm never going to have this opportunity again. Yeah, I like you. We're good, but.

So anyway, I love you, but it's the bus. For God's sakes. So I'm, I'm just, it's just happening. And I remember, I'm, we're naked and boom, I'm just, you know, things are just going and good and just then I hear teet-tee and I thought you know the alarm system the door opens and I went oh god

I never got that key back from Jana and I was like and I remember she was like oh my god is that and the girl I was dating was a fitness trainer and she was that the fitness girl is that I was like ah wait a second I get up and go in there and literally my girlfriend's got this chick's purse out

on the in the in dumping out her stuff flipping it open looks at the and starts screaming like she knows her like she's like barely even knows her she starts screaming ah this are yelling and and and so the girl ends up coming and I we scoop the stuff back in the girl's got her clothes on she takes it she runs out the back um I turn around she's like did you you know did you fuck her did you fuck her no I didn't no what I I I mean I'm done I said yeah you want to know the truth I said yeah yeah I was a little bit I was starting it was work things were going it was half yes you but you ruined it for me but i said i said look you know it's it's it's forget us it's over just just just go just

go she's but i love you and then i couldn't get rid of she hugged me and we she stayed the night and we dated again for the next three weeks and we broke up again because we were always breaking up right the point is is that listen for the frank all that but i'm bringing it back around i see that disappointed look that where's this going finish it's going so to me the denying or not addressing it. To me, one, you probably get, you get a lot more if you, if Abagnale were to just say, listen, let me tell you what happened. And you still won't have to be that. Like you can say, look, this is what happened here. This is what happened here. You know, this is what did, you know, when I wrote it with the Stan, you know, reading or whoever I wrote, you know, when I wrote the

book, you know, was there embellishment? Absolutely. It just got away from it over the years. Got away. It kept going. I started getting the gigs. I was scared that if I corrected it at that point, I wouldn't get the gigs. I was making a good living. I have a wife. I have four beautiful children. Did I mess up? Should I have corrected a long time ago?

Absolutely. I was broke. I was in a bad spot. Here's what I did. I didn't correct it. I'm correcting it now. My bad. You don't, you know, here's what I have done with my life.

I mean, the dude's what, 75, 76 now. What do you say at that point? People are like, yeah, he didn't have to. What are you going to do? Absolutely. So that's what you do. Right. But to not address it, then what happens is it festers.

It's worse, it gets worse. It gets worse. And that's what happened. I mean, so Alan Logan comes out with his book. Nobody reads him. Let's be honest. Nobody read the fucking thing. Right.

But it continues to build traction. Yeah. Until now you've got the ACFE trying to do a hit piece on the guy. Yeah. I mean, it's going to shut him down completely. I mean, luckily he's, I'm sure old Franks got more than enough money to just kick back. I hate that ways to make on residuals and everything else. I mean, listen, to be honest, at this point, you could kick back, do a video and laugh about the whole thing.

He could mock the whole thing. Yeah, that's what I did. be done with it you know he couldn't even he didn't even have to be apologetic if he didn't want to he's like I'm 75 years old what are you going to do I got to ask we know that the women want men to be honest with them yes but do we want the women to be honest with them I don't want to know yeah I don't either I don't know my deal is did you give him a blow job that's going to end it right yeah I you know to me listen I had a girlfriend this is um I I had it I I I remember her name. I'm horrible with names too. Her name was Janine Hutchinson. He said, I remember her

her name. Yeah. She was so sweet. She was very nice. I dated her for a little bit when I was in college, the first like year or so. And she, I remember she was going back to, I think she's from Wisconsin or something. I don't know. She was going one of the square states up north. So she's going back up there for like a month or two and then coming back. And I said, listen. I said, I know your ex-boyfriend's up there. I know he's friends with all your friends. You know, I know all this. Like, we've been dating like a year or so. I said, I know this.

I said, I know there's no way you're going to see your friends and not end up seeing him. And she goes, probably. She said, yeah, probably. I said, so if things take the natural course of nature, I said, and you end up sleeping with this guy. I said, do me the favor and the courtesy of not letting me find out. Right. And she goes, and she said, you'll never find out. And I said, okay.

Because she knew what time it was. She just laughed. She says like, something's wrong with you. I'm just saying, I don't want to know. Right. Like, I don't want to know if something is like, you know, nothing's going to happen. As a man, that shit eats at you. Yeah, I don't want to know.

Because I'm sitting there going, okay, you've told me this, but there's more. Yeah. I hated it the whole time. Yes, I know. The guy's six foot two. He weighs 195 pounds. He's got a full head of hair. Right.

You hated it the whole time. All time. Okay. Now you're a liar too. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. yeah i don't know um i need to call jess

before i speak about it i need to do so i like to drop by every once in a while just pull in real quick in my little chick jeep there you go it bounces all over you they got this big thing and i bounce up i pull up i jump out and well you know i i ordered a bronco did are you serious they're fucking ridiculously expensive i the sticker the sticker price is 40 they're selling for 95 i know so i so here's the deal i guess i We got, October I bought an Accura, TLX type S. Fantastic fucking vehicle, all right. I bought that ostensibly for the wife.

And then my Bronco was arriving in January, which it did. It just didn't have one of those Chinese chips in it? No, no. My Bronco arrived the exact same day that... The tree fell? No. The exact same day that Arcos, the company that was paying me upteen amounts of money to be the chief criminal officer,

they decided that the economy was going bad and they laid me off oh yeah so my bronco got sold it was black on black the wild track sticker on it 73k i was like fucking love it how long had you ordered it it took uh nine months to get it in that's what it took oh so you probably did you make money on the sale no no i didn't get it at all didn't buy it oh okay i thought you like i thought you're i paid it and just arrived no and of course they marked it up 15K on top of course i was going to say they probably sold it for 90 yeah so that's my bronco story but hey are you going to come on my show yeah okay yeah yeah you know i went and looked at bronco this is scary they're nice vehicles they're not because you know why online it said it was

like 38000 dollars i was like this is great i i actually listen i went so far i went and got a loan from my like i applied for the loan through my credit union look at the bad lands or what remember which which which which version bronco it was like the cheap one okay it was the cheapest one two door uh two doors are nice mine was the four yeah ragtop are they all right this thing i had a hard hard top it they look like are kind of a rag top yeah i've ordered the rag top because at that point the hard top hadn't been fixed it was leaking so you had to get the rag top on it okay so i i then drive out to the dealership i get to the deal i called them by the you know you do the text thing texting the guy and the guy's like yeah i'm like hey hey i'm like hey

I know the sticker price is this Can you work on the sticker price? He's like, and he's like, well, we could talk about it when you get here. So he's making me believe that the sticker price is a price. Like, I didn't know what had happened. Right.

With cards, I get out there. They had added, like, they put it a little lift on it and put like a roll bar in the back or something. Like stuff I don't want. I don't need, but I don't care. It's there. And somehow or another,

that extra $2,500 worth of bullshit they added on, ended up jacking it up to 70, like two or 70. From 38 to 72. Yeah, it's like $75,000 or something. And I went, I was like, are you fucking with me? We were driving as we were driving, we were driving out of the place, right?

So the guy's taking me out and he said, so why did you decide to, you know, get the Bronco? I said, well, I mean, I couldn't beat. I mean, $38,000. I love these things. And he goes, oh, no, no. He said, that's sticker price. And I went, right. He said, no, this has got the upgraded such and such.

We put that on. He said, so this one's like 74,000 and something, whatever it was. And I went, what? I said, bro, just turn around right here. Just take me back to my fucking car. And he goes, you don't want to drive it? I said, no. He was, well, maybe we could talk about the price.

I said, you ain't talking it down to $38,000. I'm ready to pay sticker. I'm not paying. He's like, well, we can, let's see what the numbers come to. What are you? What the numbers come to? Do you special number? Do you find anything for a hundred years?

Like, I don't care. I don't want them. I'm not doing that. Turn around. And he was like, are you, I said, yeah. Put you on 96 months. You'll be all right. ridiculous so I had them turn around I mean I went in I did let they didn't pull my credit but I did say you know he said well let me at least get to the numbers that's all right bro but I'm that takes 20 minutes and then after I got the first set of numbers I said yeah I'm done give me my keys yeah well I don't know where Paul is has been cut the shit you I know you got my keys come on don't don't make me get don't make me get don't make me be an asshole I like the Jeep um my Jeep yeah the little tiny baby girl Jeep I've not seen your Jeep I you're it's in the I'll have to look it's it's in the I'll have to look it's it's

It's a little white, it's a chick jeep. Like, I mean, you hit it. You punch the gas and it goes, ooh, it doesn't go, though. They're dope. Like, it's not like it throws your, like, Jess will be like, oh, you did you hit the gas? And I'm like, that's me hitting the gas. And she's like, oh, it's so, it's so bad. I'm like, right?

It's so bad. It's so bad. I, I, we bought, we bought furniture for, for Jess's daughter. And I had to run a U-Ha. That U-Ha had more pickup than my jeet. And I mean, I'm not even like, it's not like, I'm kind of, no, you hit the U-Haul and it was like, like you really, I threw you back a little bit. So you hear it now, kids, he needs to sell more of these. Yes.

So you can get a more powerful vehicle. Yeah. Remember, stranger danger. Yeah, I feel like that book will lose me a lot of people. People will read that and be like, you've got some issue. Like, it's not, I mean, it's, it is hilarious, though. But it's, yeah, it's disturbing to us. All right.

Can I ask you a question real quick before we get into it? Because this is a question I get all the time. I want to know how you answer it. Well, I've got multiple questions I get all this. Come on, shoot them out, man. You know what I'm saying? Like, these are the questions people ask me, and people always look shocked when I answer them. And I always think, oh, that's the wrong answer.

Like, that's not what they expected. So one of those is, do you ever think about committing fraud? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm like, if people ask me that, I'm like, every single day. Dude, pandemic. It was like, shit, that's some money.

You know, it's like, damn. I'll see a real estate commercial where they're buying real estate sight unseen. And I'm like, oh, stop it, bro. Stop. What are you doing? Like, oh, God, dear God, what are you doing, man? What's happening? Well, that, that criminal mindset never leaves.

It never leaves. It's always there. So I am asked that. I'm also asked, would I ever commit a crime again? Right. And they, you know, news or whoever's asking that wants you to say no. And the answer is not no. It's never no for me either.

That's right. It's like, you know, I'm recovering. The longer I go without committing to crime, the chances are I'll keep going. But right now, I'm just recovering from all this bullshit. I actually told my probation officer. Well, I've actually told several people. Did you take ARDAP? Yes, I took ARDAP.

I almost caused a riot at Fort Worth Prison taking ARDAP. So I've told the doctor that was running the program this, and I told my probation officer, She was, I was like, yeah, yeah, I know I'm going to bust my ass. I'm going to get a job. I'm going to bust my ass for the next year, hopefully pull some shit together, get myself on my feet. And I kept saying, I guess I said a year too many times. And she goes, well, what happens if it takes longer than a year?

I go, if it takes longer than a year? And she goes, yeah, I go, if I'm, if in a year from now, I'm living in someone's spare room, I'm taking the bus to work. I can barely pay my bills like that. And she goes, yeah, I said, I go, I'm going to commit a massive, massive fraud. That's what I was about to say. Then fuck it, balls of the wall at that point. Yeah, if I can't feed my.

myself in a year from now, then I gave it a good shot. Okay, so that's, I mean, that is the answer, right? I mean, unless we've got, you know, I wanted to turn my life around, but if you don't have that support group, if you don't have a way to make a living, you're, you leave prison with the exact same tools you go in with. So you're going to do what you need to do to survive. Yeah. I mean, that's a fact.

Yeah. So, you know, that's what the justice system and family members and friends and anyone who interviews are they don't understand that. They're like, oh, no, no, I would never commit a crime again. No, no, no, listen, listen. Listen, you would. And here's what I told the doctor, by the way, was I had said to her. I said, she says, well, crime is never an option.

I said, listen, let's assume that your husband leaves you for his secretary. Let's assume the economy goes south. I said, which we all know it can. And it is. Right. Well, at that time it wasn't. Let's assume that I said they don't have the budget to hire, to hire people like you at $100,000. I said, and you go out and you try and get a job in a bad economy.

I mean, you can't. You find yourself and your two kids living in your car with no support from anybody. I said, and there is a loaf of bread four feet inside of the supermarket's front door. I said, if you steal that loaf of bread, your kids live another week. I said, you wouldn't do it? I go, the difference between you and me, I said, is my, the bar for committing crime, for me, it's just lower than you're right. Everybody will do it. Everyone will do it.

That's a fact. And of course, that's the argument. And what people don't understand is, okay, yeah, you'll steal that baloney. steal that bread. But you know, if you're going to steal baloney, shit, why would I eat baloney if I could have steak? Yeah, I don't have to. If I'm willing to do this, I don't have to live in my car anymore. That's exactly right. My kids deserve better. So here's the other question is where, and this always kills me too, is they're like, well, man, when you were on the run, you must have been like, were you scared all the time? Were you worried? Was it horrible? And I always say,

and I know this is the wrong one. I'm always like, bro, honestly, like the best, the best period of my life was being on the run. I loved to be on the run. Have you read Shantaram or not? No. So Indian guy, I'm sorry, Australian guy, a true story, but he novelizes it. He escapes from an Australian maximum security prison. Or no, I'm sorry, New Zealand, maximum security prison, makes his way to India and starts running black markets for medical goods, everything else like that. But he talks about that escape and being on the run and how every single day was like the highest day of his life because he's free he's beat the system again another day everything else and and so with me it was I took a road trip I did the route 66 Christ

and spent a lot of time in Vegas a lot of time out in LA but every single day I mean it was very lonely but at the same time it was like shit I'm beating the system every day yeah it's just you and your wits against everything there's no there's nobody goes wrong there's nobody I can call that's it so i've got no help i have to figure out how to do every single thing by myself and see but that's the thing right i mean the we when i that criminal mindset we are used to doing things on our own and we have the will to do it right and a lot of it i was i gave an interview just yesterday i forgot who i was talking to but it's just that sheer force of will that sees a lot of this stuff through yeah um okay so so let's let's rewind here where were you where were you where

where you're born? Oh, dude, I'm from, I'm from Hazard, Kentucky. So if you've seen the news lately, all those floods, that's the epicenter of all the floods, and that's where I was born. I come from hazard. It's coal country. My dad was a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army captain. So I grew up overseas in Germany and throughout the 50 states, things like that. My dad was forced out of the military. They did a downsizing. He was forced out around 78, 79, becomes a coal miner. And at that point in time, you were paid pretty well, except they were on strike all the time. So it was feast and famine frequently. My mom, so my mom was just kind of a fuck.

Addicted opiates, she cheated on my dad constantly. This is a woman. I talked about in my presentations, but no shit, man. She would bring men home in front of him. He would sit there and cry, beg her not to do it. And by God, she'd do it anyway. Have these conversations with him. You know, hey, I'm leaving you for him and she'd be gone a couple weeks to come back and he'd take her back.

I mean, this was my dad. He was a good guy, but, you know, if you want to call him a cuck, you can call him that. But he was overwhelmingly in love with this woman. Yeah, and he grew up in a, he grew up in a really good family, a really good family. When he went to tell his mom, he tells me the story today. When he went to tell his mom that he was about to marry my mom, she literally passes out. And don't do it, Ray, don't do it. Not only that, but when he goes to tell my mom's dad, Paul, that he's going to marry her,

Paul sits him down. He's like, Ray, Jean, if you knew what I knew, you'd take off running and you wouldn't look back. And he wouldn't listen. Right. So he marries her. She was definitely the criminal in the family. This is a woman. She steals a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer at one point.

She takes a slip and fall in a store at another. This is a woman that used to go to the drug store. She'd get the empty capsules and fill them up with bullshit to try to sell them as speed and amphetamines or everything else. I mean, anything and everything to try to get money. My life, my first crime, I was 10. My mom had left my dad. Let's backtrack. So my dad was a good guy because I've not told this story before.

But my dad was a good guy. He never really committed any crime on his own. If my mom wanted to commit a crime, he had co-sign on to it. So, yeah, let's try that bullshit. The two times that he tries to really go in to commit a crime. The first time was, we don't want to do the first time. The second time, he's watching 60 minutes one night. And they've got a show about the Miami drug trade.

You know, they're showing the stacks of cash, the tables of coke and everything else. And this man is just focused on that damn segment. And we're all sitting there kind of watching it like, what the hell, dad? And my mom's looking at my dad like, Ray, are you okay? So he gets through watching the segment, turns around, looks at her. And he's like, I think I need to go to Miami and be a little. a police officer and she was like maybe you do and his plan was to get down to miami become a cop happen upon some drug deal someplace keep the cash they keep the drugs retire and my point was won't they

just shoot your ass and he was like ah no it won't happen so they sell every single they sell everything they've got round up like i don't know six thousand dollars rent a uh-huh head south on i 75 end up in miami the night the 1980 riots broke out in Miami that same night. So city was exploding everything else. My mom's like, holy shit. We get in a day zone right across the street from all these homeless people. She's like, kids don't go outside. So my dad goes to cop school the first day. He comes back and he's like, I think it's going to be all right. Second day he comes back. He's like, shit, we got to get out of here. So it turns out the Miami-dayed cops, the real ones had burst into the training

session, arrested like six people without standing warrants, and they all had the same idea of happening upon a drug deal and keeping the cash right so from there we had back up i-75 they're running out of money and they decide on panama city florida because when they were kids they had spent spring break there so go there my dad the only job he could get was has a 7-11 store clerk making $140 a week my mom was an lpn she gets a job in a nursing home keeps the job long enough to see my dad off to work so she can start cheating on his ass again and we slowly go broke And that's a lot of the motivation for me over the years. I mean, when we were in Panama City when I was a kid, we would be without power, without water.

We would literally be out in the backyard of the house. We were renting, catching water in buckets so we could flush the toilet, brush her teeth, shit like that. How old were you at this point? Eight, nine. So my mom leaves my dad. I was 10, Denise, my sister was nine, moved back from, moved back to Hazard, Kentucky. And at that point, my mom was just a fucked. dude. I mean, just an abusive parent was what she was. She would beat us, but that wasn't the

worst part. The worst part was the mental and the emotional stuff. You know, she had, this is a woman who tells us, I gave up my life for you and I'm going to leave one day and never come back and you'll find me dead someplace, you know, just constantly like this. So what happens is she moves us back to Hazard, Kentucky. We're living in an apartment underneath of her parents. And they were absolutely insane too. This is her dad. We couldn't eat upstairs. We didn't have any. We didn't have food couldn't eat upstairs because they would always you know tease us and and talk about how poor we were he would make sure that we when we bathed we were allowed a bath a week inch and a half two inches of water no more than that if he found that anymore he'd raise absolute total hell right

so we were living in that environment my mom out partying all the time sometimes she'd take us with her leave us in the car we'd wait in the living room as she went in the bedroom and got it on with somebody most of the time she just left us at home and what happens is the crime First crime ever committed. Home for a few days. No food in the house. I'm the kid that used to, you know, I'd be scared mom wasn't coming home. That's the way I took it all.

You know, she said it. She's not going to be back. So I'd post up at the window or walk out in the driveway. Denise, nine years old, angry as shit. You know, she didn't worry about that. And to this day, Denise still has those angry issues. But my first crime, no food in the house. Denise walks in one day.

Got a pack of pork chops in her hand. I'm like, where'd you get that? She's like, I stole it. And I was like, show me how you did that so she takes me over to a mp shows me how she's stealing food and i'm like good idea and we get to where we're wanting a sandwich man and um denise had been stuffing the the food down her pants that's how we're getting the food out of there kmart across the way and you can't you can't put a loaf of bread down your pants i looked at my sister and i was like let me see

what i can do walked into kmart 10 10 10 years old walked into kmart got a hoodie off the rack took the tags off of it put it on wore it out got out and i was like shit. So stuffed a loaf of bread down the sleeve, walk out A&P with it. Kmart, of course, start stealing toys and games and books, clothes, everything else. Mom comes home, sees the shit. Where did you get this? I stand up. We found it. She's like, you didn't find this. Denise stands up. We stole it. My mom looks at my sister, show me how you did that. So she starts running us as little shoplifters, calls her mom. So it's this intergenerational shoplifting ring of all of a sudden. We start taking these road trips. They go to JC Pennies until clothes and drill.

bullshit like that i was the book guy so i'd always stop at the bookstore and still a load of books and take them back and you'll devour them but first crime i committed right there and uh usually at that point in the in the present and you know this i'm sure you know this shit too i don't know how old you were when you started crime i was 10 and uh you know when you're a kid you can't help what the adults in your circle do you're going to do the shit they do yeah but when i became that adult you know i chose to do that yeah but i had that path laid for for me. My sister, other than that shoplifting, she's fine. I mean, well, anger issues out the ass. But Denise is a parent. She's a, she's a teacher. She works hard every day. Doesn't break

the law anything else. I was the guy that just kept on going. And so that's the first crime I committed right there. And I found out quickly that not only my mom, but everyone on that side of the family were criminals. It's a whole whole ring of content. I grew up, man, Doing insurance fraud, you know, faking accidents, burning cars for cash, burning homes, faking accidents as well, trafficking drugs, growing pot, illegally strip mining coal. I was on the Alex Friedman show. He got a kick out of that bullshit. But document forgery, I grew up knowing how to do that until I branched off on my own.

I faked a car accident in 94, 96, got the money to get married, moved from Hazard, Kentucky to Lexington. to go to UK. I was an English major and theater major. Do you have a job during any of the time? It's just one lick after one licks carrying it on to the next. No, I have. So that's a good question. The first job I had, my stepfather, my mom gets remarried, my stepfather, he, uh, he was a coal miner. She talks him into quitting his job going into the coal business. And he was, that's where the illegal strip mining comes in. He couldn't afford to get the permits, the two acre permits. So he does what's called wildcatting. That's where you just go in and take the coal out and you don't worry about reclaiming the land or anything else. And that's how you make money. A lot of people do that in

that area. So he goes broke doing that. And we ended up living in a 40 foot trailer. Me, my sister, my stepdad, my mom, and a work hand, we're in this 40 foot trailer for 18 months living off literally deer meat, cornmeal. And I remember saying to my sister, I'll never do this shit again. So another motivator all of a sudden. But what happens is, is, I forgot your damn question. No, I was asking if you had a job during this whole thing. So the first job I got is he finally rebuilds himself, starts logging. So he hired me.

We didn't have any money. He's like, I'll pay you $20 a day to go out and log with me. So I logged 10 hours a day, $2 an hour, was the first job. The first company I worked for was Domino's, Domino's Pizza, became a manager and ripped him off for probably $30,000 in a year. until they found out about it. I mean, I was living pretty well and everyone got pizzas. So that was the first job.

The second job was I worked at J. Peterman, you know, like from Seinfeld. Yeah, yeah. I worked the real J. Peterman company for a while, ripped them off. Then I moved over to, I was at a deli assistant manager at Kroger for a while. Didn't rip them off because that was a corporation.

They'd find that out. But I did eat well from the deli. Then I went over to, there was a place called the Lexington Diner's Club, gave you this discount. They sold telemarketing, this discount card for restaurants. You'd go in and you buy one meal, they'd give you another free. I ended up stealing. They sold those cards for $60 a piece. One night I just did a B&E, went in and stole like 300 of these cards and set up my own telemarketing shop, selling them until they found out about it.

And I got charged for that. So that was another one. I worked for the, for the Shriner Circus for a while. They ran the Shriner Circus. This company ran Shriner Circus donations and Kowana's donations. So I set up my own Kowana's charity and would do telemarketing to get the donations to go in my pocket. Got caught, did three months on that. After that is when I find the internet.

So that was all the little scams going up to that. So I'm, you know, I'm online. day, found eBay, and I was like, shit, I like eBay. Didn't know how to make money on eBay. So I used to watch Inside Edition, idiot Bill O'Reilly. He was the host of Inside back then. And they were doing a show that night on Beanie Babies, profiling Peanut, the Royal Blue Elephant.

I'm sitting there watching like $1,500. Shit, I didn't find me a peanut. And I was really naive. I was like, well, you know, I'm in Kentucky, got all these little rural stores and everything. I can just go around to all these stores, and surely there's one in the bin. Yeah. So six hours of that the next day. I'm like, no, there's none in the bin. Their asses are on eBay for $1,500. So what I did was they had the gray beanie baby elephant, the exact same elephant, just a different color, had that thing for $8. And I'm like, buy the gray beanie baby elephant for $8. Stop by a Kroger on the way home, pick up a pack of blue writ dye, go home, try to die, a little guy. Turns out they're made out of polyester, don't hold dye. You literally get them out and you see all the ink draining off the day. damn thing. So here I am. Tried to dry it with a blow dryer so the ink stays.

And it looks like it's got the mange when you get through with it. And what I did was, found a picture of a real one. Posted it on eBay. Woman wins the bid. As soon as she wins the bid, I'm like, send her a message. Because I want to put her on the defense of not me. So I sent her message. I was like, hey, congratulations on winning the bid.

We'll get this right out to you. The problem is that we've never done any business before. I don't know if I can trust you. what I need you to do, go down to the U.S. Postal Service, pick up a couple money orders for $1,500. Send those to me. Once I get those, I'll send you your animal. She believed that. Sends me the money orders.

I cash them out. I send her this creature in the mail. Immediately get a phone call. I didn't order this. My exact response was, lady, you ordered a blue elephant. I sent you a blue-ish elephant. And right there is, for me, that was the first lesson of cybercrime right there. Delay a victim long enough.

You just keep putting them off. A lot of them, because they don't know who to report to anything else, they get exasperated, throw their hands in there, walk away. None of them complained. Law enforcement. So first crime I committed, got away with it, kept going. We got to where I was another inside edition. They were selling autographed baseballs of Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire.

So I was watching that. And I was like, shit, I can do autographed baseballs. Go down to Academy the next day by a case of baseballs. Stop by that same Kroger, pick up a Sharpie, go home, start trying to sign it. And I was like, shit, that doesn't look anything like their signatures. So then I was like, well, okay, so they're signing it at the field. Certificate of authenticity.

So I printed my own certificate of authenticity. Sold them all $60 apiece. About three weeks later, knock at the door. Bam, bam, bam, bam. You know that cop knock? Bam, bam, bam. I was like, I was married at the time. I need it for you.

Yeah, my wife, she's just looking at me because she knows what that knock is too. You know, you've never heard it before, but you know right there. And I'm like, okay. Or they hang out with you long enough. They get to know. They get to know at that point. I open the door. And the cop's name.

He was Sergeant Pat Tingle from the Fayette County Sheriff's office. I opened the door. He's there with a detective. He's like, are you Brett Johnson? I'm like, yeah. He's like, can we come in and talk to you about some baseballs? I was like, sure, come on in. So my wife, Susan, she's just looking at me.

She stands up by this point. She doesn't even look at them. She's just looking dead at me. So they're like, autographed baseballs. So I'm like, yeah. And they're like, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire. Yep. where'd you get them bought them off ebay with certificates of authenticity yep off ebay yep mr johnson we've got

a sample of their signatures down at the office and it doesn't look anything like him i was like huh that's weird they come with certificates of authenticity i have i was going to say i have a certificate and they're like mr johnson we think you printed those off and i was like no sir and mr johnson we think you signed those baseballs and i was like nope not me so then they're like you're going to send these people their money back or we're going to put you in jail. Do you understand? I was like, I understand that. So they leave. My wife, Susan, the whole time she's looking dead at me. Finally, I look over and I was like, what? And she's like, you son of a bitch. That's why you bought all those goddamn baseballs. And I'm like, yeah. So that was that was one. There was another where Microsoft front page

they were giving out free trial versions of front page 98. So I had the crack that would turn it into the full version. So I post on eBay. I had the full version of like 30 bucks. And there was of kinkos down the street so one night two p m i walk in and look at the guy behind the counter i was like do you mind if i take a few of these trial versions he's like dude you can take all of them if you want to i was like yeah he was like yes i just pick up the entire stand walk out of the door with it go up post them on ebay sell them all for 30 dollars a piece that gets a knock at the door as well as that same deputy same guy he came like four times man he would be like brett come on now but what was happening is they were all everyone i sold the the stuff to they were all

out of state yeah and they weren't going to come to kentucky to file charges and will is he was like who like at that point you know who the fbi it's not like they're really used to this quite yet right he wants con bank of america out of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars using nothing but a fake id and his charm he is the most interesting man in the world I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy of my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon.

So those were the first little scams. And I kept going, got better at it. Finally, I started selling pirated software. Pirated software leads into mod chips, first into gaming systems so you can play the pirated disc. Then I started putting mod chips into cable boxes so you can watch all the pay-per-view, all the porn, all that bullshit. then finally started programming satellite DSS cards so those 18 inch RCA systems you pull the card out of it program it turn on all the channels started doing that Canadian judge right as I start doing that Connor shaking his head he's always disappointed it like whenever I tell stories he always halfway through he starts going like what we're like shit what are you doing so a Canadian judge ruled that this was like 97 98 Canadian judge rules that it's legal for Canadian citizens to pirate RCA signal And his exact language in court was RCA doesn't sell the systems here, so it's legal for my citizens to take those signals.

So overnight in the United States, a little industry pops up. You go down to Best Buy, buy the system for $100, take it out in the parking lot, open the system up, pull the system out, pull the card out, throw the system away, program the card, ship its ass to Canada, $500 a pop. Started doing that, making a lot of money, had so many orders, couldn't fill them all, quickly. And I mean, by God, quickly thought to myself, why do I need to fill any of the orders? They're in Canada. I'm down here. Who are they going to complain to? So I didn't fill any of the orders, stole even more money.

I was still in like $4,000 a week at that point, making a pretty good living and was getting worried about things. I was like, man, I'm going to be looked at for money laundering. So I got it in my head. I was like, what I need is I need a fake driver's license. I'll use that driver's license to open up a bank account, laundered the money through there, cash out at the ATM, no one will know me. I'm at UK. I have no idea where to get a fake ID.

So I get online, look around, think I find a guy, send the son of a bitch, $200, send him my picture. He rips me off. You said you're at UK. What? University of Kentucky. Oh, okay. Okay.

So dude rips me off and I got really pissed. My fuckers. Scam artists. Scam me. So I got really upset and started to look around. Well, back then. the only real avenue you had for online crime was IRC, internet relay chat. Rolling chat board, no idea who you're talking to.

If you can trust them, if they've got a product or service, if they've got it, if it works, or if they're just going to rip you off because those channels were loaded full of fucking scammers. So what happens is, I first find the only site that was out there was called Counterfeit Library. And it was a tutorial site on degrees and had some bullshit identity stuff on there. It was just not really good. What year is this? This would have been 97, late 97, early 98. So find this site.

They had a forum that literally no one was using. I was like the third person that was registered on the forum. So I start going on there and the only thing I'm doing is just bitching every single day about getting ripped off and how I need this. Well, about the same time that I register, two other guys come on the scene. One is a screen name Mr. X out of Los Angeles. The other one's screen name is Bielzebub out of Moosechaw. Saskatchewan. So we start bullshitting around every day. And I, you know, I'm talking about my eBay fraud that I'm doing everything else like that. And one day, Beelzebub, he gets me on ICQ. That's how we, we used

to talk all the time was ICU. He gets me on ICQ. And he's like, you know, I can make you a driver's license. I'm like, well, shit, dude, do it. And he's like, no, but I'm going to charge you. I'm like, yeah, you're going to charge me. He's like, no, I'm going to charge you because if you're going to do this kind of stuff, you've got to learn to trust people if you're going to be in this business. I'm like, well, by that point, I'd already established a pretty good rapport with the people who owned counterfeit library. They knew me. I was emailing. They were emailing back and forth all the time. So I thought to myself, I was like, well, shit, he's going to rip me off. I can at least get his ass booted off this site. So I was like, bet. Let's let's go. So I sent him a picture,

sent him $200. Two weeks later, in the mail, I get this Ohio driver's license from a guy in the name of Stephen Shwecky. Turns out he's a real dude, works to this day at ADP. payroll. So I saw that damn thing. Now, looking back at it, that driver's license was not great quality, but I didn't know that. To me, it was the prettiest thing in the freaking world. So here I am. I'm running checks through check cash in places, setting up accounts, opening drop addresses at mailboxes, et cetera, all this other bullshit. So start using it extensively. And what happened was Belsabub, he made driver's licenses. Mr. X made a very passable. social security card, which is very easy to do. And then I didn't really have any skill at all except

eBay fraud. So Beelzebub said, hey, why don't you become the reviewer on this site? That way, any product or service that comes in, you get to look at it, get to see how it's used, learn everything that you need to do. And you're not selling anything. So you're more trusted than somebody like me that would review people. And I was like, let's try that. Well, that is really like the field of dreams for cybercrime. If you build it, they will come. And they did because the only avenue you had other than that was IRC. No one wanted to be on that bullshit. So they started to come on counterfeit library. Counterfeit library. So the genesis of modern cyber crime, three sites. Counterfeit Library, Carter Planet, Shadow Crew. I ran both Counterfeit Library and Shadow Crew. Dmitri Golobov,

Ukrainian National, builds Carter Planet. And the way that happened. was he saw what was happening with counterfeit library. He liked that. He was a spammer at that point in time, getting all these credit card details. And he thinks to himself, you know, I wonder if people would buy stolen credit cards. Turns out they will. So the dude picks up the phone, picks up the phone, calls his, he's in Odessa. He picks up the phone, calls his buddies, they call theirs. They have a physical conference in Odessa. 150 these cyber criminals show up and they launched the idea of Carter Planet. And that's the genesis. of all modern credit theft that we see today. So counterfeit library over the next couple of years, transitions over to Shadow Crew. The people who started Shadow Crew, Seth Sanders built Shadow Crew. Me and Kim Taylor,

I was the head of Shadow Crew. Kim Taylor was a second in charge. Seth was the third, but Seth was just an ID guy. He never really liked the credit game at all. So he ends up kind of dropping out over the years. The first two guys that started with me. Lucky him.

Yeah, lucky him. The first two guys that started, me, Beelzebub, Mr. X, X gets picked up in Las Vegas, cashing out cards. Beelzebub was hooked up with Mark Engel up in Canada, big-time pot grower, who then snitches on everybody. So Beelzebub goes back to growing pot in there. And at the end of the day, I'm the only guy left standing. So at one point, in those forums, every single business transaction that took place went

through me. That was the, I was the trust mechanism. And what I said was, is, hey, if I vouched for someone, if I give someone, if I give someone to review. If you get ripped off, I'll cover you. I'll make sure that you're reimbursed or you get a like product that you can use. So that built trust within those environments. What happens from there is we get too big. By the time we actually transition over to Shadow Crew, I can't do it myself. So I sit down and over the space of, you know, a week, I come up with this review system that you still see in place today. So today, you know,

we've got reviews, vouchers, escrows, things like that. So are you actually making money doing this is just something that's just you're just loving loving doing it you enjoy it certainly you love doing it i was i was online uh anywhere from 14 to 18 hours a day i made or i said made i stole anywhere from 12 to 24 000 a month until the credit card scene hits once the credit card scene hits i'm stealing profiting 30 to 40 000 a month so i'm doing pretty well um credit so so So counterfeit library starts out as an identity theft site, identity theft, fake driver's licenses, eBay fraud, PayPal fraud, that. Once Dmitri Golobbath comes on the scene, I'm the guy that brought the Ukrainians in because they didn't have a way to cash out in their area. So once credit hits that scene, we transition almost overnight from that identity theft site over to a credit fraud site.

And it blows up big. And that's where we get in a lot of trouble and finally get caught. So what happens is we had this thing called the, they call it the CVV1 hack. It's not a hack, but that's what it's called. We were spamming all these details. And back then when you launched a fishing attack, you could have 20 fields. You know, you could ask everything in the friggin world and they would answer it. So we would get complete identity profiles just from one fishing attack.

Because people weren't used to it at that time. They had never seen anything. Right. So you have no clue what happened. Yeah, you send them an email. It looks like it comes from Bank of America. And they think, oh, my bank. Yeah.

What's your account number? Social DL, Mother's Maiden, you'd get everything right there. So we were getting card numbers and pins as well, and we were using those card numbers to commit C&P fraud. So just online credit fraud. For you to encode that on a counterfeit card, you have to have complete track to data. So on the back of that creditor debit card, the mag stripe there, there were three data tracks. First data tracks, the customer's name, second data track, the card number, 16-digit algorithm outside of it. Third data track, indiscriminate data, no one uses it.

What's sold is that second track. All right. Now, back then, we didn't have that algorithm. We weren't doing skimming. We were just doing fishing is what we were doing. What we found out, though, like I said, in order for you to encode that and take it to an ATM and cash out, you've got to have complete track too.

Back then, none of the banks had implemented the hash, which means you've got the card number, you've got the pin. You can take the card number forward slash, and any 16 digits out beside of it, it would encode, you could take it to an ATM, start pulling cash out. We started doing that. So up until that point, a Carter doing... What year was this? This would have been up through...

So that CVV hack went on from 2001 through 0708. Jeez. It was when it started to really die down. So 2001, none of the banks had implemented that hash. So an online carter was profiting, a good one, was profiting 30 to 40K. And that's working your ass off, okay? 30 to 40K a month is what you'd profit at that point. Once that moves over into cashing out at ATMs, that's $30,000 to $40,000 a day.

That's just as fast as you can get the money out. As fast as you can pull the cash out. So you'd literally map out a route of ATMs, stand there until you feel bad and move on to the next one. Well, my forum techie, fucking genius that he was at the time. And he was. He was a really bright guy. Albert Gonzalez, he starts, he gets involved in this. We hired the guy as our forum techie. He goes into credit card sales, under the screen name Scarface, does all this other bullshit.

So he's in New Jersey one day, broad daylight, doing the CB1 cash out, broad daylight, standing at an ATM, 40 minutes, 40 minutes standing there, feeding one counterfeit card in, pulling $20 bills out, stuffing them in his back. back 40 minutes of that this is in the document yeah yeah so just so happens a couple of cops notice the kid one of them's like odd let me go over and ask him what he's doing so he goes over albert falls apart flips goes to work for the secret service now the thing is back then law enforcement suffered from what i like to call f i s fucking idiot syndrome all right they didn't know anything about cybercrime at all. Didn't know how to track you to anything else like that. So we would see, on the server side for ShadowCrew,

we would see IPs coming in from DoD, Pentagon, FBI, Secret. We'd see all these IPs. So we knew what time it was. At the same time, you'd see local and state forums, law enforcement forums, that would mention Shadow Crew explicitly. Not only that, but we had this kid named Enhance. So Enhance is the guy back in 2001 that publishes Paris Hilton's phone contact list.

I don't know if you remember that bullshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's this kid. He not only did that, but he intercepted text messages of the United States Secret Service investigating shadow crew. So all this was out and I'm sitting there going, huh, this does not end very well. Now, Albert gets picked up. I had happened upon this thing called tax return identity theft right before that.

It'd been 2002. The drop. The drop. So 2002, I start stealing $160,000 a week, 10 months out of the year, committing tax return identity theft, basically filing taxes on dead people having everything deposited to a prepaid debit card. Did that manually, would file a return every six minutes, do that for three days of the week, fourth day plot a map of ATMs, next couple of days, cash out the cards. This is before there's any. So this is at the infancy of that scan, which is blown up now. Right. Wide open, no security in place whatsoever. As a matter of fact, it took the IRS. That was 2002. The IRS actually starts putting security in place 2011. So it took them nine years to start looking at IP ranges, velocity of attack, all this other bullshit. So it takes some nine years to do that. I started doing that. Albert, and because I saw the writing on the wall, I was the head of Shadow Crew. I'm sitting there going, and I,

Whether it was real or not, I was sitting there going, okay, I'm worried about RICO. I'm worried about I'm going to be charged with everything that everyone under me is doing. So I'm like, I quit. Deservedly, by the way. Deservidly. It's not like I did. They're going to try and get me. They're going to try and pin that on me.

No, no. They're going to. That's why guys like you are exactly why, well, and to a degree of me are exactly why they, that law. That's why that's there. The, uh, CCE or, you know, uh, continued. And they're going to give you 25. or 30 years. Yeah.

They're going to do that. So I'm like, I quit. So I stepped aside. What keeps me from being arrested on the Shadow Crew bust? So Shadow Crew makes the front cover of Forbes, August 2004. Headline, Who's Still in Your Identity? October 26, 2004, U.S. Secret Service, 33 people, six countries, six hours. I'm the only guy publicly mentioned as getting away.

A few other guys got away just weren't talked about at that point, right? What keeps me from being caught. is I stepped away from ShadowCrew right before Albert Gonzalez comes back in. And here's what that story. What actually happened was he goes to work for the Secret Service. As I said, Secret Service had no clue about how to track these guys. So they literally looked at him. How would you catch these guys?

And he was like, well, have you thought about a VPN? And they're like, what's a VPN? So he has to explain to him what a VPN is. And they're like, good idea. So I quit. He comes back in, takes over Shadow Crew. bans anyone who ask any questions so that no paranoia is out there, bans everyone and says, hey, in order to be safe, we need all traffic to go through

this VPN that I've set up. That way, no one can monitor us. Well, the Secret Service owns a VPN. They capture like $7 million worth of traffic coming through, and that's where the bust comes from. So the bust is October 26, 2004. I'm picked up February 8, 2005. Can I, let me interject here.

So when you're watching these guys get cracked in the head and there's a there's an article here and newspaper article here and newspaper article here like you're seeing all this kind of circling around you are like how are you feeling at that point? Are you thinking I'm good? I'm going to be good. Oh, no. Okay. No. Oh, no. So what happens is I'm in Charleston, South Carolina. And I'm going through I'm going through the shit on my own on a personal life. I was married for nine years. My wife, I lied to her all nine. I mean, took her three years to find out I was a cruise. I'm going through. I'm going through the shit. I'm going. I'm going through the shit. I'm a Brooke, the next six years were literally this story right here. I'm going to stop. I will stop. She's trying to wrangle you in. Like if I could just get this guy. It's like just a little while longer, dear, until finally it became me looking at her and saying, hey, you like spending money, don't you?

I use that one a lot. Yeah. Where do you think this money comes from? What do you think it comes from? You knew what you were getting into. So she leaves me. And so my mindset, mix my dad and mix my mom. My mom, criminal mindset, my dad, that fear of the loved ones leaving.

So my first wife, Susan, leaves. I go through this depression and get suicidal, everything else. Roman around the house in Charleston, South Carolina had a house on the river, everything. So roaming around the house, realize I'm getting suicidal, figure, hell, I need to do something about that. Pick up the phone book, call psychologist, cry to the psychologist on the phone. I mean, I broke down completely. She's like, come in today. So I go in, tell her everything.

she's like for four months tell her everything for four months i'm like do you have to report anything that i might tell you as long as you're not actively breaking the law i'm like okay so tell her everything she's like for four months she's preaching about how i need to go into real estate and not crime and i'm like is there a difference between the two so what happens is i don't start drinking until i'm 34 i was 34 at that point i don't i didn't never drank until that point so i started drinking had never been to a strip club One night I get lonely, I get horny, and I'm like, shit, why not? So I go to strip club, and I'm literally that guy.

I am that guy, dude, that falls in love with the first one that he sees. I walk in, she walks by, I'm like, that's the one I need. Move this chick in with me. Yeah, yeah, it's nuts. Move this chick in with me. After I move her in with me, find out she's addicted to Coke. Not only, and, you know, now I know all this bullshit. Not only is she addicted to Coke, but she's prostituting herself to support her habits.

And, you know, I laugh about it, but the truth of the matter is, I love the shit out of that woman. I did. I absolutely adored that woman. And I get it in my head. I was like, you know, if I can fix her, we'll be together. You know, I keep feeding myself these tails. So I used to take road trips for a lot of the fraud.

It gets to the point where she stops Coke, quits her job, and she gets this, you know, just dependent, co-dependent. personality don't leave me attitude so i can't take a road trip anymore i slowly i've got all my money overseas go broke all right so where i find out about shadow crew i'm in the grocery store one day happened just happened to walk past the magazine aisle and i i see this article about identity theft on the cover and i'm like huh might be a good article so i open it up and it's like shadow crew and I'm like oh fuck so go sign on to shadow crew at that point under a different name and the response on shadow crew was it was initially this fuck yeah we've made it followed

almost immediately by a oh this ain't good yeah so that was the response um of course four months later august two months later shadow crew gets popped okay so the day that shadow crew gets popped by that point I'm monitoring shadow crew because I know something's going to go all right so i'm monitoring shadow crew almost every day go to sign in and of course the secret service has altered the face of the website saying you know you're no longer in the shadows they've got to change the screen on it uh you could still access the site at that point and there were a couple of other sites by that point had that had been set up so i'm going over these other sites to see what the news is and no one really knew at that point what had happened of course uh

John Ashcroft, the head legal guy in the U.S. at that point, Attorney General, at that point. He comes on CNN, and he's talking about Shadow Cruz. I'm sitting there watching all day, and I'm like, shit, God. Yeah. I'm just a fucking old. I'm just a country boy. I'm from Kentucky. Yeah.

Wow. I'm the only guy that was publicly mentioned as getting away. The other guys. Not you, but you're like your screen name, right? The screen name. Okay, okay. Gallum was the only one that got away from that. Okay.

what no one else knew, there were other guys that got out. For example, the Secret Service literally in the air, they timed everything for like a Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern is when the bus happened. Because that's when most people were online at that, but they wanted to get everyone at the same time. Some of the guys that got away, one of them was named Tron, and this kid was over in the Ukraine, and he was very effective about getting into Bank of America.

Very effective. So they were in the air to arrest him. They called the local PD in the Ukraine saying, hey, we got a warrant. We're coming down to arrest him. Local PD is like, oh, yeah, come on down and get him. So they get in the car before the Secret Service gets there. They get in the car, go to this kid and say, hey, they're coming to get you.

We're going back to the station. And the kid takes off on the run and gets his ass down in South America. And he's a few years getting caught at that point. But there were different guys who got away that weren't mentioned. I was the only guy. They picked me up four months later, February 8th of 05, Charleston, South Carolina. FBI picks me up, Charleston PD. Within 45 minutes, Secret Service comes in, takes over the investigation.

What happened was, is I was being interviewed, 45 minutes in the interview, door opens up, two agents pop in, sit down and they're like, we're U.S. Secret Service, we'd like to talk to you about some credit cards. And I'm like, fuck. So they let me sit in the county jail for a week. Okay, wait a second. Sorry. Maybe I missed something.

How did they get to you, though? exactly done so just explain that no no i did okay so what happens is i go through i was like were you one of the guys that went through the vpn that was set up by oh i was i was in love with a stripper right all right i go through all my stateside cash like i hear you yeah you know what i'm not wrong i'm not wrong okay so go through all my state side cash can't get over to latvia to get the rest of it so when when shadow crew is busted the way tax season ran, it ran from January 15th through October 15th. The bust is October 26, so I'm not filing taxes to get any more money. I can't run credit cards because the forums just got

shut down. I don't know who to trust anymore. So what I'm left with is running counterfeit cashier's checks. Bam, bam, bam, bam, looking for COD orders, cashing out bullion, stuff like that. Of course, that's a go-to move. Of course. And it's stupid as fun, all right? Because I used to preach that. I was like, don't do this shit. You're going to go to prison. So what happens? is they identify that some guy in Charleston, South Carolina is doing this. They reference the forums. They're like, oh, it's

this guy. So they set up a controlled delivery. They knew I was cashing out Tiffany Diamonds at that point. So they set up a controlled delivery for these, like a $30,000 order for Tiffany engagement ring, not engagement, wedding bands of all things. But

FBI does that with controlled delivery. Charleston PD does that. Secret Service had been notified. I was going to be picked up. So they were all ready to go. So they picked me up on this controlled delivery. What happens is UPS driver pulls in. I had a drop address. UPS driver pulls in. I pop out of the car, walk up and I was like, you got a package for me, don't you? And like, yeah, you got an ID? I was like, yeah, show him my ID, give them a counterfeit cashier's check for 30K, turn around 30 people in the fucking parking lot. All cops. I'm like, oh. So get popped

there. I got popped February 8, three weeks before I was scheduled to be. married. My stripper girlfriend had no idea what I did for a living. So she finds out at that point, they let me sit in a county jail for a week. Two agents fly in from New Jersey because that's where Albert was arrested. The centralized location for all cybercrime investigations was out of New Jersey at that point. So two agents flying from New Jersey pulled me out of a cell and they're like, we got your laptop. I'm like, yeah, you got anything on your laptop? Yeah, well, you're going to be charged for it, I figured, and then they looked at me. They're like, anything you can do for us. My exact response was, you let me get back with Elizabeth. I'll do whatever you want me to do.

So then they're like, we're going to get you out. I'm like, good. They let me sit there 90 days to get a taste of everything. Yeah, yeah. Got to get a taste of. So they popped me out after 90 days. First person I call, by this point, my sister has disowned me and everything. First person I call is Elizabeth. And I'm out. And she's like, I'll be there. So this chick, midnight, I'm standing in the parking lot of the Charleston County Detention Center. This chick pulls up in a limousine. No shit. She had a friend on a limousine company. She pulls up in a limousine.

Me and the agent are watching this. Trunk pops open. She gets out, walks around to the trunk, gets out these two plastic storage containers that have my clothes in them, comes over, drops the clothes in front of me, hugs me, call me later, gets in the car, drives me. away. I'm sitting there crying. Oh, yeah. Oh, I thought she's like, they're like, come on in, baby. I'm sitting there crying. Agent looks at me. He's like, is that your fiance? And I'm like, yeah. He was like, man, I am so sorry. I'm like, yeah. So I had $30 to my name. The agent has to pay for my hotel room that night and pay for my food that night. So he checks

me in. Soon as he leaves, I've got $30. I'm like, time to start. So. So walk my ass to Walmart by a prepaid debit card that night so I can get back into tax return identity theft. And long story short is I continue. So the 90 days wasn't a good enough taste. Not a thing. So I call Elizabeth. I beg her to get back with me. She does start breaking the law, break the law for the next 10 months from inside secret service offices with them in the room with me.

So yeah. Until they find out about it, at that point, they revoke the bond, judge reinstates the bond. I go on a cross-country crime sprees, still $600,000 in four months, make the United States Most Wondered List, go to Disney World, get caught, get arrested, escape from prison, get caught again, serve out my time. So how is it escape from prison? Is that a camp? You went to a camp? It was a camp. You know, I'd like to be a helicopter, a gunfight, that kind of.

shit. But it's always a camp, right? Yeah. So my dad had... Yeah, because I've been in mediums and lows and you're just not getting out. Like, it's like, unless it's a helicopter. Well, you know, you say that, man. They sent me to Big Spring Prison after that. And the week before I got there, these three friggin idiots, they had, I guess they'd got some dental flaws or whatever the fuck they had got. And they had cut the bars from the culverts that led out of the prison, had climbed through the culverts, got outside of the fence. And they were supposed to have a ride, didn't have a ride.

They're like, well, we need to go back in and call. They get caught coming in? Yeah, yeah. Caught coming back in. So you can get out. But the way I escaped, my dad, I hadn't seen the man, hadn't had a conversation with him in like 20 years. He shows up at my sentencing, stands up in front of the judge. I want to make sure Brett gets a good start.

He can come and live with me when he gets out everything else. How much time did you get? Initially, 75 months. Okay. Okay. So, God. Jesus. that thing my my guidelines were 60 to 75 and I had told everyone in the pod and I made it known

that if I got any more than 60 I was not staying so they have so they so the counselors and everyone in SIS everybody already knows this he's not staying no so what happens is they of sentencing Dean Eichelberger was the was a prosecutor he stands up and this dude is screaming at this point he's like Johnson has manipulated the secret service the prosecutor and today your honor we want the upper limits of the guidelines i'm sitting there going so judge looks at me and she's like i agree 75 months well i never used drugs before i got arrested in Orlando guy in Orlando takes me in under his wing he's like you know the only time you get off is the ardap hard out and i was like i don't have a drug problem he's like well you can't

you and i was like i can find a drug problem yeah so they give me diesel therapy on the way back to stop at all these county jails. Every county jail, I'm like, cocaine and alcohol. Get back to Columbia, South Carolina. I get a psychological evaluation order. Psychologist comes in, four-hour evaluation, about halfway through. He's like, use any type of drugs? I'm like, yeah, what do you use?

Cocaine, smoke or snort? Snort, how much? An eight ball day. He looks at me. It's like, that's a lot. And I was like, yeah, you got any trouble out of that? Yeah, I can't get an erection. And he looks at me.

And I looked at him, and I got that shit from watching Boogie Nights. that money shot at the end where Mark Wahlberg just can't stand to attention. I'm like, that's got to be right. So I'm looking at the psychologist. And finally, we're both sides of it. And I'm like,

is that right? Right. He looks at me. He's like, it could happen. Is it still happening? And I was like, no,

but not that I want it to be all right right now. So that makes it into my pre-sentence report. So the judge, she gives me 75 months. I looked at my lawyer. I was like, can you get the drug program for me? So he's like, I don't know. I'll ask.

So he stands up, Your Honor, where you order the drug program for Mr. Johnson? She's like, no, but I'll recommend he gets evaluated. I looked at my lawyer. I was like, what does that mean? Well, you're probably not going to get it. And my exact words were like, how soon can you get me to the camp? And he's like, if you don't appeal, I can get you there pretty quick. Exact words.

Fuck the appeal. Get me to the camp. I'll take it from there. He looks at me like I'm the biggest. idiot in the world. Six weeks later, I'm in Ashland, Kentucky. I had had family and friends research camps that weren't supposed to have a fence, get to Ashland, 14 foot fence, a razor wire on top. And I'm like, shit, go in through processing, look at the guard. And I'm like, any jobs outside of the fence? And he's like, well, you can work in the national forest. And I'm

like, no, I'll die out there. He's like, well, you can do landscaping. I'm like, I can run a weed eater. So I go into about a week later, you know, once you process through and go through all that bullshit, walking to the guards office. Behind his desk, the entire walls, this aerial photo, the compound blown up with the outlying area. So I can literally sit there, plot the escape. As I'm talking to him, my dad starts to visit. About the third visit in, he's like, you know, I've been reading about you online. I'm like, yeah, he's like, yeah. He's like, that's a lot of money you've made. I'm like, yeah. He's like, you think you can teach somebody how to do that. And when I used to tell that story, I started outlying, I said that, you know, I thought my

dad was back in my life and he wasn't the truth of the matter was my dad hadn't talked to me in 20 some years he and i really believe that he saw me through the frame of my mom that criminal mindset and i think that's the only way he thought he could talk to me like that and i manipulated the man and helped me escape he had four thousand dollars cash to his name got that got an idea a change of clothes and a cell phone and um ran off was there at the camp for six weeks left you U.S. Marshals, they canvass a three-state area, find me hold up in a hotel, and I get another, so sentencing on that, spent eight months in solitary, a day of sentencing, go in, secret service is there, prosecutor's there, prosecutor stands up, and he's like, Your Honor, you should consider that when Mr. Johnson was arrested, he was arrested with a laptop, prepaid debit cards, he stole that identity information, looks like he was involved in this stuff yet again. Judge looks at him and says, no. If you were going to charge him with it, you should have charge him with it. Because it comes to find out they came in the room, took the shit without a warrant, just scarfed it all up.

Didn't, weren't able to use that as evidence. So the judge says no. Because the escape happens so quickly after the initial sentencing, they use the exact same PSR. So the judge starts going through the PSR, looks at me and he's like, Mr. Johnson, it appears that before you got involved with all these drugs, you were a pretty good citizen. I was like, yes, your honor. Yes, I was. Yes, sir. So then he looks at me, he's like, so what I'm going to do?

You need Ardap. Yeah. You need Ardap. I do need Ardap. What he does is he's like, I'm going to give you 15 months on the escape. I'm like, okay. And I'm going to order the drug program for you. I'm like, all right.

So 15 months extra, but Ardap gives you what? 18 months with that six months out of the way out. So I ended up by escaping prison. I got out of prison three months earlier than I would have without the escape. He once got plastic surgery because he didn't like the photo on his wanted poster. His legend precedes him. The way indictments precede arrests. He is the most interesting man in the world.

I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. So that's what happens. Like I said, I did eight-month solitary confinement until they sent me to Big Spring Prison. Big Spring Prison is out in West Texas. It's a disciplinary, medium-low, converted Air Force compound.

So hot, no shit, Matt. So hot that warnings would come on the radio telling you that you couldn't drive on certain streets because the asphalt was melted. It got that hot there. Went in and, you know, at a camp, it's completely different. Completely different. And when I got there, that's when you were. realize that guards don't run things. Yeah.

The inmates run the shit that's going on there. So I met as I get processed out going up to the barracks. Treasurer of Aryan Brotherhood, he's standing there. I'm the first white guy walks up and he's like, hey, how many more white guys came in? I'm like, shit, I don't know, four or five. Next question. What are you in here for? My answer, computer crime.

Big smile on my face. He looks at me like, thinking, I thought you were a show. Yeah. Yeah. So he goes against his buddies because they thought I was a child. molester they circle around what you say you're in here for so i'm sitting there trying to tell them this shit and they're and end of the day they're like sounds good can you see something yeah you need to see something well by that point nobody's letting you travel with bullshit right all right so first 30 days

everyone thinks i'm this trial molester until wired wired magazine hits the compound i'm in the magazine right it's about max butler all those other bullshit i'm in the magazine i'm like shit i've read the article there you go there you go i'm like shit i'm good to go i'm good to go Until I get to that one line that says Brett Johnson, comma, secret service informant. So those magazines hit the compound at 4 o'clock mail call. Chal call, they're already talking about it in the hall. So next morning, the entire compound gets shut down. Brett Johnson, Warden's office.

So I go in, they've got SIS there. Is this at a medium? This is at Big Spring disciplinary. So it's a medium, low discipline is what it is. So Warden brings me in. First question is out of his mouth, SIS. counselors are there. First questions, did you give an interview to Wired Magazine? I'm like, yes, sir. He was like, when? At Oklahoma detention? Without going through the public, what do they

call it, the public information officer? Exactly. How did you do that? In 15 minute increments, sir. Yeah. So he was like, he was like, don't you know they'll fucking kill you in here? I was like, so then he's like, do you feel safe? And, you know, I knew by that point, you tell him, No, they're going to throw you back in the hole until they transfer your ass. So I'm like, completely safe. So he looks at me as like, he's like, if anything happens, anyone says anything to you, you need to come and tell us. I was like, got you.

They do a locker search, try to get all the magazines off the compound. A couple days later, I walk into the barracks. There's Nick Sander for the treasurer. He's got the magazine reading it. I'm like, fuck. So I walked up to him. I'm like, hey, Nick, what's you doing? I just doing some reading.

Anything interesting? It's getting there. Let me save you the trouble. Take the magazine, point the line out to him. He looks at me. He's like, man, I already knew. I was like, are we going to have a problem? He's like, did you snitch on anybody that's on this compound?

I was like, no. Until someone gets here, you told on, we're going to be okay. I was like, all right. But I had a couple jobs I had to do. So the first job I got, you know, you have to work in feds. So I got a job in education teaching a lit class. All the Aryans sign up for the lit class. And we taught fraud every Wednesday, 6, 8, 30 p.m.

So that was the first. first job and then i was you could call me the liaison between the white chomos and the the arian so i would be the guy that as they come off the bus you know as well as i do you know who they are as they come off the bus i would be the guy that had that conversation hey don't know if you're in here on some sort of fucked up charge but if you are it's best you tell me because if you associate with these guys later on they will fucking kill you yeah they're just going to swing on you that's right so And most of the time it would be, man, I just want to do my time. And you knew, you knew at that point.

Okay, you're not allowed in the TV room. You're not allowed to talk to anybody. You talk to your own kind. Somebody wants to extort you. That's the way this shit goes. You're on your own. You're on your own. And I understand.

And that's how I got out. You know, it's funny. I used to get the guys that all the shows, when they would just ask them what they're there for, fraud. Yeah. Which used to irritate me because I was. I would be like, you know, you can't pick another fucking, you can't pick another crime. It's got to be fraud. And then, of course, then, so what would happen is some guy would come in the unit,

some white, it would be some, you know, white guy fucked up looking white dude. He'd say, oh, I'm here for a credit card fraud. And then they'd come to, then the guys would come to me. They go, Cox. And I go, yeah, they go, go, go, go, go, go, go, he says he's here for fraud. He don't look right to me. And I'd look over at him. And I'd go, yeah, I'd walk over and I'd go, hey, bro, what's going on?

I heard you're here for fraud. And I'm like, yeah, I'm here for fraud. And I go, okay. Like, what kind of fraud? Credit card fraud? I go, well, they charge you with credit card fraud? Yeah, they charge me with credit card fraud. That's the charge, right?

Yeah, well, there's no credit card fraud. And I was like, okay, well, what did you do? And they go, you know, I took money out of credit cards. Well, did you work at a bank? Did you like, how did the fraud work? I'm here for fraud too. And they go, well, it's not like a learning experience. And I go, okay, he's a chow.

And then I just walk on and it's like. So you had that basic same job. Yeah. Oh, well, because you're a fraudster. And I taught the real estate class for 10 years. Now, at the medium... Now, when you taught the real estate class. So at the medium, when I was at the medium, you could say anything.

You could say, look, here's how, you know, so you get the money, the down payment, say what you do is this, this, the guy gives you money back. Start a company and you get the money back here. Like, I'd break it down exactly how to get your down payment back, how to do everything. Get to camp, can't pull that bullshit. No. You can once. Right.

Like, then you get the talk. That's it. Are you telling people how to do things fraudulently? No, someone said that? That's crazy. Who would do that? I'm in here for fraud. I would never.

So then I realized like, fuck, I'm going to have to really fine-tune my class here. And so I did that, taught GED also. Yeah, I taught game theory, public speaking, and then the lit class. Right. So you do the things that the sharp guys do, that give you credibility, that make you an important person of value. That's what it is. And then nobody bothers you. If you have value, you're absolutely right. If you have value in that system, you're okay. If you don't, you do pretty much anything. Like, yeah. Yeah. Well, because what happened with me was I was in the

medium and the St. Petersburg Times came out. Now, now keep in mind, the St. Pete, I had already been on Dateline. But when I was on Dateline, I had just been arrested. Okay. So I haven't talked even done anything yet. Right. I was interviewed later, but I'm not cooper. I'm not doing anything when I get first grabbed. But then what happens is once I get sentenced, get to the medium. I'm at the medium. And suddenly St. Petersburg Times comes out, front page article where I've been talking with a reporter about a politician that I had bribed.

That's what to do. In it, and in it, it talks about how I cooperated with the FBI and the Secret Service for like seven or eight days where this is my lawyer. saying that, oh, he cooperated more than anybody I've ever had 15 years. I'm like, wow, don't hold back. He just sang and sang. He wanted to work some more with him. Desperately, straight to the fucking shoe for 45 days.

I'm telling him, look, I'm fine. I'm fine. Put me back out of mine. Because they're not going to do anything to you. No, no. The worst that happened was I had a guy come up to me and say, one of the white guys, comes up to me, he goes, hey, Cox. I'm like, yeah, what's up?

And he goes, look, who was the guy's name with Bubba? Bubba was the guy who ran. he was a shot caller yeah yeah yeah so he was he was bubble wanted to let you know wanted me to tell you you can't walk the yard and i went what you can't walk the yard and i went and i thought and i already kind of come to my conclusion like i was like either i'm going to one there's two multiple things one shut my because i got a slick mouth right so i'm going to shut my mouth right i'm not going to shut up right i'm not going to shut up for 20 something years right so you shut your mouth for 20 years or you just run your mouth and say smart as shit and you're

going to get slapped every once wrong right five foot six I'm not beating the shit out of some six-foot-tall biker. So you're going to get slapped every once in a while, but you're going to have a good time. Right. And two, you're either going to get beat, you know, guys are going to beat you up or you're going to spend all your time in the fucking shoes. So you know what? I'm just going to get beat up everyone's while. So I looked at him and I said, well, listen, bro, I'm going to be out at the yard tonight after chow.

So if Bubba wants to talk about it, he can talk about it then. And I walk off trembling. Sure. Sure you do. I go get my cousin, who happened to be there. And we get a couple other guys. And we go and we walk the track for about an hour. And they see me.

But nothing happens. But they say nothing. Right. And that was, like, there was one other small episode where he told a guy that was talking to me in line. That guy's a confidential informant. He didn't even call me a rat, which I appreciate it. That was nice. You know, didn't say snobled.

I was called the rat. Said confidential event. I thought that was very, that was, you know, nice above it. And told the guy, you know, you keep talking to him. You ever need our help? First, you're not going to need his help. But you ever need his help? You can't rely on us.

So the guy goes, okay. blah, blah, and walked like 10 people back. And I'm like, that was pretty much it. Like, I never really had a problem. You get the smile comments, but that's it. Yeah, my problem with Ariens, there was this one kid who was, who was trouble with them anyway. His name was Adam, and he was the only one. He'd catch me in a crowd and he'd just start running his fucking mouth, you know, trying

to get somebody to get me. And so one day we're all in the unit together and we used to, you know, we'd bullshit together. I'd bullshit around with Aryans. And Adam was running his mouth and I looked at him. I was like, Adam, I want you to know. I'm getting scared of you. And he looks at me, he's like, good. And I was like, well, the way this is going to work out is you're going to be asleep one night.

I'm going to stab a pencil in your eye. And he looks at me and he's like, tell you the truth, man. So the next day, they make his ass check in. He's causing problems. They don't want problems. You get in a routine and your time's going good and you know, they didn't want any problems. Yeah. So, and the head guy there, his name was Farmer, big fucking Nebraska boy.

I mean, huge dude. And I still remember, man, this, this, this, this. guy he was talking about I'm sure you saw it to you take the domino right and you'd shave the domino down are you serious you know look you know boziac knows

and we talked about that the other day and they fucking cut the penis shove the domino in there pack it with ointment so that was the first thing the dude did and we're like shit we ain't doing that

so he comes in one day he had been talking about getting a tattoo and he wanted the punisher symbol right on the head of it So we're like, you're not going to do that, dude. We've got to be pretty close. Yeah, we're like, no one's going to do that. So he comes in one day and he's like, got it done.

And we're like, no. And he's like, anybody want to see? And all of us at the same time, fuck, yeah, we want to see. So we're gathered around. He drops it and I was like, that is the Punisher symbol. So, yeah. Oh, man. You know, and that's the thing.

I mean, it's, you're right. You can, you can. You can shut your mouth, or you, and, you know, I talk a lot too. You can shut your mouth or you can just be you. And as long as you got, you got value, not every day is horrible. Yeah. I found, I found happiness and had fun every frigging day while being scared to death sometimes. Yeah.

How, no, I get it. How much time did you do? Total. Seven and a half. Seven and a half year. You did what, 20? No, I did 13. 13.

I did 13. That's the hell of a taste. Yeah. But I got 26 and four months. So, you know, it wasn't game time. No, no, it was not. It was, yeah. Did you go initially to a max or a medium or?

No, so, you know, first of all, I went in with camp points. Right. Even though I was on the run, like I never got an escape or anything. So I was on the run. I got, I had like two, I had like two points. Okay. You know, I should have gone straight to a camp. But you got 26 years.

You know, unless you're under 20, you got to go to a medium. Go to a medium. I'm there three years because you have to do 23. Then I go straight. Then I go to the low. Okay. Okay. But I cooperated. The problem is, in the cooperation, it was at the beginning of the financial crisis. So they were like, look, these crimes are three, four, five years old. We've got him for the stuff he did. And these other people, like, fuck, we got banks that are going under for, you know, $800 million or half a billion dollars. Like, these are bigger crimes. And so they just never really went back and grabbed these people that I cooperate against. Well, so now I'm screwed, right?

Like, I've been locked up. Then what it ends up happening was that I had been asked to do Dateline, NBC. I'd been to be interviewed. I was interviewed. They said they'd consider it substantial assistance. Well, the U.S. attorney said, we did consider it. It's not. So, oh, no, it gets worse.

It gets worse. Then American greed comes to me. They come to my lawyer. The U.S. attorney says, look, I want him to be interested. interview, I will definitely consider this substantial assistance. Great. I do it. I'm brought into the lieutenant to the warden's office for two days of interviews. They have my me on there. They run the program. We go back. We say, okay, you said you'd consider substantial assistance. She goes, I know we did. It's just not enough. I'm sorry. Then I have this guy that runs the

national mortgage brokers like education program in the United States. And all mortgage brokers have to do three hours of ethics and fraud. So he comes to me, he says, you have to actually owned a mortgage company. You were a FHA lender. You were the, like, you're the only person that's hit every crime on the mortgage spectrum and you were a broker and a loan officer. I mean, you owned a company, mortgage company. Could you help me write this course? I said, yeah, he flies. I say, you got to get, go to the U.S. attorney, flies to Atlanta, get on paper. I do the course. They start using the course. We go back to them and we say, you said you consider it substantial assistance. She goes, it's just, it's just. Jesus, dude.

I know. So finally I have, I end up getting a guy who files a 2255 for me. And we go back and forth, back and forth. And eventually the government offers me one level off my sentence. But they will allow me to go in front of the judge and argue for more. Okay. They fly me up there. I argue for more.

I get three levels off. That ends up being seven years. Now, do you plea out or go to trial? I plead. Okay. So did you get the three points of that for the plea or not? Yeah, I did. Still didn't have, what, 26 years?

Jesus, man. So I get seven years off my sentence. Then I come back. I'm at the low. I come back. I'm walking around the compound. There's a guy on the compound who did a $57 million Ponsi scheme. And he likes me.

He's cooperating. Of course he does. Like I'm openly telling people, they're like, hey, Cox, how much time you got? I'm like, well, I got 26 years. But somebody might fuck up and tell me where they was body buried and I'll be out of here next week. And they would go, they'd look at me and say, damn, it's like that. Cox. I go, it's exactly like that.

bro. Like, we're not friends. I don't care what happens to any of these fuckers. Exactly. Jesus. We're not breaking bread when we get out. And now I'm at the low. You know what I'm saying? Like you could be pretty cocky at the low. You could run your mouth. So, so I'm walking around with this guy and just a vicious character all the way around really reminded me my dad. He liked me. He was cooperating as some other guys. We're walking around one day. And he's telling me, man, they're not going to give me anything for my cooperation. I go, why do you say that? You know, you might testify. Who knows? And he goes, yeah, I know, I just don't think so. He goes, they think I hid Ponzi scheme money. And I go, well, you didn't, so don't worry about it.

Right. And months and months go by, he mentions it a couple times. So finally one day, I look at him and I go, I go, bro, I said, you keep mentioning that you hit, that they think you hit Ponzi scheme money. I said, if you didn't, they won't find it. So don't worry about it. But he did. And he looked at me and he goes, can I trust you? And I went, I said, probably not.

And he started laughing and he goes, I did put some money away. And I thought, ah, you're fucking up. So he ends up telling me a little bit of the money. But this guy got, like, my brother got like $30,000. My ex-wife, or soon-to-be ex-wife got like $150. I'm afraid they're going to turn it in. And, you know, because my ex-wife found out I was having an affair, you know, blah, blah. My brother's just scared.

They do tend to frown on that. Yeah. So what ends up happening is I don't actually say anything. I'm actually disappointed in myself because I waited months, months, for I happen to be talking to my lawyer and everybody's like, dang, bro, so you really struggled. No, my struggle was I didn't say anything because I thought they didn't want to give me anything

the first time. Right, right. Why would I tell? It's not going to work, be worth it. Yeah. And so it just happened. I was talking to my lawyer. She said, hey, everything going on,

what's going on? I was like nothing. And she happened to say, this is a woman who never wanted to help me. She was a weird thing. She said, anything going on in there? And I went, like, you didn't give a fuck when you were representing you didn't.

I was like, no, not really. she has nothing that you want to talk about i thought that was just it was just weird and i went well you know what there's a guy in here named ron wilson and i tell her a week later i get called into s is they put me on phone with a uh secret service agent i get him on my email i start telling him what's going on with wilson he starts asking me and ask ask ask him this ask him this ask him no shit oh yeah this goes on for six months and he's asking me questions some of the questions i'm going back like bro you want to get me killed yeah like i can't how am i going to bring that up right I've never even heard of this person.

So, anyway, I work with him. Eventually, they file for, you know, they re-indite Wilson. They indict the brother, the sister. They get one, they both basically get, they get probation. Right. He gets six more months. And I think that, but they recover half a million dollars. Okay.

And I think they're never going to give me nothing for that. So I end up, they never do. They say, we don't, they even said, we don't even know what Mr. Cox is talking about. We didn't know, we don't have no idea that he's even working with you as attorney. I mean, working with the Secret Service. Anyway, the point is, I had an actual email from them. So I sent them the email. I had multiple emails.

So I sent him the email. I hired that. The same guy, this guy, lawyer, ends up representing me again. He's in prison with me. Was it in prison. I end up getting my sentence. He gets my sentence to reduce again five more years. By the time that hits, I'm gone.

Like a year and a half later, I walk out of prison. I mean, and listen, it was, and when that one hit, too, same thing. listen everybody knows I'm cooperating everybody and I'm just you know you're either it just to me it is what it is I mean I get into I get guys that are like oh you fucking snitch okay well you be a stand up guy and do 20 fucking six years oh I never said nothing I never I understand that you got a DUI and you did fucking 10 days or I understand you got fucked up and you went to jail for 18 months okay but you weren't looking at 26 fucking years and you don't fucking know me and first of all I I never thought I could get 26 years that's insane it is

it's crazy for filling out paperwork. And you paid out at 26. Right. But it's the same thing. It's like, look, bro, I'm filling out paperwork. I didn't break into someone's house. Right. I didn't, I'm not carjacking people. Meanwhile, you got the child porn guy doing 10. If that, you got the child porn guy doing 10. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You've got, you got to me bank robbers that are zip tying people and taking over banks and getting away with granted, no money, but you're terrifying people and they're getting six years, seven years. So you got out when? I got in July 2019. All right.

So now when I got out, I was in three years of probation, couldn't touch a computer. Oh, wow. Yeah. Had job offers from Deloitte, from no before, payment processors. Actually had offers and wasn't allowed to take them. Got to where I was trying for fast food. Well, that cash register, that's a computer. No.

Next thing was, what about a waiter's position? Computer and credit cards. Fuck no. So couldn't get a job. So what kind of trouble did you have trying to get a job? And I'll tell you what happened to me after that. I mean, my judgment commitment says that I cannot work or consult in any finance, real estate, development, or construction for some reason. So you can't even consult?

No, I had to take, for one year, I had to take a behavior, modification, class where you meet with a psychiatrist once you know once one hour a week right of course i have the financial where i have to fill out the form but i also have to fill out of paperwork every month to tell them how much money came in to come up with my restitution i still owe like six million okay i'm good for it yeah i know you are um so have they charged that off we're just going to take your tax returns for the rest of your life oh yeah no no they're going to take them forever um but i other than you know obviously i can't i have to do the piss test and i can't travel or doing anything like that. Although I have traveled, I just had to get permission from

the court. Okay. Um, had to get my passport back. Now, keep in mind, two of my charges are passport and, uh, well, one was fraudulent application of a passport and one is actually use of a fraudulent. So you bought one or someone else's name for renewal or something. No, I had like 24 passports. Nice. I had two dozen passports. I say that. I shouldn't say that. I still, that's pretty fucking nice. Pretty good, right? 27 driver's licenses in seven different States from the DMV. That was the next question because we had a contact out of Knoxville that would shoot us real Tennessee ones.

Real ones. Real ones. But the problem was is when that guy got popped, they just pulled everyone that he had issued driver's licenses to. And I just went out from there. Just went in. Yeah. And we were doing that to a degree.

Find a little rural one someplace and going like that. Yeah, I would go, you know, as long as, I mean, as long as, like, I get your information in South Carolina, I can go to Tennessee. Right. Because they didn't have reciprocity that. Yeah, they don't have, they can, they work on a hub system where they can request, immediately they can request like the data, but they can't get the photo for like 48 hours or 72 hours or something.

And it's like, okay, if he gives me the ID, I'm good. You know, if there's a question, they just don't give you the idea. They're like, I don't know, something's not right. But it wasn't not right because I would walk in with the real social, the real person to do, the real this, the real that, I registered a vote, I got this, I got this, I got the register to vote. I mean, that's, right? That's one of the steps. Yeah.

You got to do that. It's good because these are all real documents. So you're sitting there like, I'm ready to argue. You have a problem. I'm ready to argue because I know everything's good. So how did you get 27 passports? Through the State Department, they don't ask for it. This is pre-9-11 or after?

Oh, no, this is all after. This is after. I remember that night. Everybody always says, oh, they ask for your fingerprints. No, they don't. As a matter of fact, I just got my passport a year ago to go to Amsterdam to do a show called Inside the Mind of a Con artist. Okay.

I got my passport then. No fingerprints. I did get stopped on the way. Yeah, we were doing the way we were doing passports was filing for renewals on people who had never been issued a passport. And they were shooting passports out like that. Yeah, these guys had never had passport. I was getting homeless people. So I'd go and I.

Not bad. Not bad. I like where your hands are. Not bad. You see? That's what we like. We like that outside of the box thinking. I actually had, I made a.

a statistical survey form and it looked so good and it was a couple pages it was like 17 questions and I would go out to where the homeless people were I made a Salvation Army badge and I walk out there and I'd say hey can I talk to you real quick

and they'd look at me and they'd go oh yeah what's up I go listen I work for the Salvation Army we're trying to figure out where we're going to put our next indigent our next homeless shelter so you like crackers I got some crackers I gave 20 bucks you know

know, I'm not, $20 or mad dog, what do you want? $20 and then would go and borrow like a million, million, $1.5 in their name. So, you know, maybe not fair trade, but still, they were happy. I had nobody said, I, well, they couldn't have done it themselves. No, no. There you go. And so I would just say, hey, by the way, 20 bucks were trying to figure out, you know, where to put our next homeless facility, just a survey.

And they were like, yeah, what's up, man? I'd say, okay, just quick, real quick. I'd give them, you know, here, let's do this, name, data borough, so secure number. Mother's made name, you know, where you live? Or last known address? Where did you live? You ever been a member of the military? Do you get Social Security disability?

Have you ever had a U.S. passport? Have you had any any identifications? And if so, in which states? Yeah, so basically you're just fishing in person. What high school did you go to? Because you can get their high school transcripts. So I get their information. I then order all their information.

Right. Get it all in. And then I know he's had an ID here and here or driverized here. And then I just go two states over. It's going to be all right. walk right in, say, listen, I just moved. I lost my license and the move. I don't know what you need.

And you start, I know what you need. Well, it says here you're a 5'4 black man. I know, but I identify as a white. Yes, yeah. With a good pair of shoes. So, yeah, so I would get, they would just go in and they give me the ID. Then you turn around. You immediately go and fill out for your, I would immediately fill out for my, you know, my passport.

Go get the passport photos. Walk into the U.S. Post Office. where they have a passport control you walk in there you sit down you do your little boom boom boom they go okay great they sign off they give you your stuff they take your birth certificate they mail it back 10 days later used to be if you paid extra within about six weeks you got it now it's like three months before you get it right uh but yeah i would get them and i just get them and i've been in and out on the run i went to greece Croatia bermuda mexico jamaica uh Italy um I just already say Right. So yeah. So I was, you got called stateside. Yes. Yeah. How'd you get called?

Girlfriend, girlfriend. Girlfriend. You know. Stingray. Yeah. Stingray. Oh, yeah, yeah, the stingray. Yeah, that's what got me. So yeah, so yeah, so yeah, so I guess I'm turning in an interviewer. No, no, no. Well, wait, I, but okay, but you were saying so that that those were the constraints on me. Like I was ready to work at McDonald's, by the way. I was okay with that. So did you have trouble getting a job or not? I got lucky, and a buddy of mine owned a gym. Okay. And hired me in the halfway house. And then by the time I got out of the gym, I was being asked to go on different people's podcasts. And I'd written a book. Okay.

So I had published the book. I'd written like seven books. So I started publishing books. Self-published, you have a publisher? Well, so one of them was published by a publishing company. Okay. But I mean, I got like a, like a, you know, of course, I'm. was in prison, you know, like a $3,500 advance, barely make any money on the thing.

I got made more money publishing on Amazon, self-publishing. No kidding. Then I've ever, oh, way more, way more than I ever made on that. You know, but I also had optioned the film rights to some guys I got him in Rolling Stone Magazine, optioned film rights. Nice. Got out, optioned a couple more film rights. So I got out.

So I had a little bit there coming in and I had, and I started painting. you saw some my painting i like it for those who who don't know his his work is outstanding on patreon yeah exactly that's where you need to go so i managed moved into somebody spare room and and but i wasn't like i had all these job offers and every time i call my probation officer it was no no no right right um and so yeah it i would have been back into real estate very quickly or finance or something but i'm i'm i'm restricted from doing that for how long five years five years so And I can't get off probation early because I owe $6 million. Yeah, you're not going to get off that early.

Right. Unless you violate, then they may kill it. Yeah. Which is what happened with me. Oh, is that what happened? You violated? Dude, so, yeah, I'm out. I can't get a job.

I'm out in Panama City, Florida. No money. Literally cannot get a freaking job. No money. I'm bumming money from my dad and my sister. I've got a roommate taking her half the rent, getting food stamps so I can friggin' eat. And, you know, I guess they gave you the same speech, you know, when you get out, find something you care about and a job and you won't recidivate.

So, shit, I can't get a job. What I cared about had a little cat and had the money to feed my cat. I didn't have money to buy toilet paper, man. So went to the Dollar General store, bought the cat some food on the way out, kiosk there, toilet paper. And I'm like, first crime right there. And, of course, you know, it dovetails quickly from that point. But my wife now, Michelle, so my turnarounds, my sister had disowned me,

she comes back in my life after the escape the my wife michelle she i ended up meeting her right after those thefts like that move in with her because i was getting ready to get kicked out of my house moved in with her finally got a job and uh the job the only job we could get was pushing a lawnmour that was it uh 10 hours a day 400 dollars a week was the pay on that pushing a lawnmour busted my fucking how old were you geez i was uh 42 at that 43 at that point 10 hours a day pushing manual on more and uh busting my ass i'd come in so tired of a night literally fall asleep wake up the next morning take a shower hit it again um and i was happy doing it though i was doing so you know i was finally doing something yeah and uh job ends you know

grass doesn't grow what it gets cold i'm in north florida grass isn't growing those four months so job ends and that that reason i commit crime you know i got to show michel i'm worth it I'm like, well, I can bring food in the house. Get on the dark web, get credit card details, start putting food orders in. And, of course, again, it dovetails because you're like, okay, food, kids need clothes. Christmas is coming up. She could use some stuff. I get popped.

Controlled delivery on a food order. Michelle had no idea what I was doing. Go back to prison. At my sentencing for that, U.S. Marshals, prosecutor, probation officer, me and Michelle, Michelle stands up. She's like, he's a better dad of him. my kids and their actual father is. I'm sitting there crying. Prosecutor stands up. We the prosecutor. We think he's a good guy. We think it's just a one-time thing. Probation officer,

same thing. Judge, one year. Probation officer stands back up, says, Your Honor, if you'll give Mr. Johnson a year and a day, he can get the good time, get back to his family. Judge amends a sentence to a year and a day, so I do 10 months. They send me, yeah, yeah, I mean. It's a whole different group than I had. Lucky as fuck. So go go back to Texas for 10 months. And have this big awakening moment. I'm like, you know, Michelle didn't need me for the shit I could give her. She just needed me for me. Yeah.

So do my 10 months, get out. They kill probation, because I violated. They kill probation at that point. I can get a job. Get married to Michelle. Can't get a job, though. You know, I'm the guy that steals everything. Yeah.

So can't get a job. And I'm sitting there, you know, trying to find work at doing anything, can't. And I guess you may be the same way. I know what my triggers are. I know what gets me back into crime. Back then, it was, I know I'll go so far before I do it again. So I looked at Michelle, I was like, let me see what I can do. Signed on to LinkedIn, reached out to this guy named Keith Milarski, FBI out of Pittsburgh.

He was involved with all of these arrests back in those days. And I sent him a message. I was like, hey, you did a great job, no hard feelings, a lot of respect for you. I'd like to be legal. Dude responds within two hours, man. Takes me under his wing, references everything else. From there, identity theft counsel does the same thing. the CNP group, card not presence,

they're for online credit card fraud. They hear about me, hire me to be a keynote speaker. From there, Microsoft hears about me, hires me to consult with them, and that lays enough trust in the industry where today, you know, I've got my show with Brett Johnson show.

I speak at Quantico. I, Ambassador for AARP. This year, Arcos Labs, they started this new sea level position called Chief Criminal Officer, the first one on the planet, all those other stuff. talking to Ridley Scott, all these people about doing the show.

And I'm, you know, I'm serious. And I want to ask you about this stuff, too. But I leave a very blessed life these days. And I don't deserve it, but I'm damn grateful to have it. And the question I have, you know, we've laughed a lot about 27 passports, shit like that. But it's, you know, we can laugh about that. But at the same time, there's, with me, there's been this. this just shift in the mentality.

Yeah, I think about breaking law all the time, but I'm not going to do that. And where did that shift come with you? Good question. So, well, it's not a good question because, like, I've had such a good interview, you know? And it's been fun, and we've been laughing, and... And then we get sober.

Right. And the problem is, is emotionally, when I start to talk about it or think about it, I tear up. Like when you're like, you know, I cried like that, listen, cried like a small child at my sentence. I mean, just like, yeah. And when I think about the person I was and the person I am,

although I laugh and I love that time in my life. And I love doing those things. But I think about, like when you went to jail. Right. The one thing I know when the one thing you never once laid in bed and thought about was, God, I miss that. car. God, I miss that nice house. You don't think that shit at all. All you thought about was I miss Michelle. I miss my fucking kids. I miss my cat. I miss like that's it. That's it. All I ever gave

a shit. You don't worry about that material stuff at all. Absolutely. And that's exactly what happened was I went to prison, angry, pissed off, furious, didn't deserve this much time. These piece of garbage. Same. And I did and I was reasonable. I was like, you know, yeah, okay. I broke the law, but I didn't deserve this much time. Right. And even to this day, I'm like 26 years. Come on. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of time, but it's like you don't get to choose. Right. So, you know, you're putting yourself at their mercy the moment you do that. So, you know, I think that I started thinking that way, met a buddy in mine. He got like 30, he actually got 40 years. Um, and, you know,

we started talking. Um, and one of the things he had told me one time was, you know, you can't go to prison and continue to think in the same manner that led you to prison and leave prison and not expect to come back. Right. And I was, you know, and that's that's more than just, oh, no, no, but I'm not going to commit crime. He's like, it's not the crime. It was your thought process. Yeah.

So, and you'll eventually commit a crime, you know, if you keep thinking like that. So what happened is, you know, went to prison, wrote a memoir, my memoir. Okay. And when I was writing that memoir, I ended up writing the first. draft, which was horrible. I had to rewrite it, read several books about how to write. Right. And ended up writing this little tiny book and I wish I could remember it. And the woman was like, look, you need to look into your life. One of the things you need to do is look in your life and figure out what the key moments were that helped create the person that you are today so that it

will explain to the reader, it will give the reader reasons what helped craft you. Sure. And I used to hate to think about, to complain about my childhood or anything. You know, I don't want to say that because you meet I mean you meet guys that were like chained to fucking they were locked up in the basement or their parents beat them almost to death or they you know horrible things that it was like I didn't have that you know my dad's an alcoholic you know and it's like what am I crying about daddy didn't love me enough like but the truth is I rewrote that book and as I wrote that book and really started focusing on that I started realizing that there were definite things that led me to be the person that committed those crimes and then the other thing I focused

started realizing was like what a selfish narcissistic prick I am and I say and I say today I fight it to this day like guys are like well if you if you know that about yourself you can you know at least you can help change that I'm like I try I mean I like being an asshole sometimes I agree I I and that's the worst part is it's like you're trying to change someone who just loves himself yeah yeah but but one of things is like I what really started bothering me was I took art at they're doing you good it did after for me I think it I it did great for me although I had learned most of these lessons by the time I got in it right but I really felt like it it helped me really kind of figure out what my issues were and I remember I didn't notice it so much but everybody that talked to me on the phone

I talked to my ex-wife and five minutes in she'd be like okay what's going on yep and I go what She'd go, we've been talking for five minutes. You know my kids' names. You're asking how Nick is. You're not just focusing on you. Yeah. You haven't fucking said, you haven't told me what's going on with you. And I've asked twice.

And I'm like, I mean, nothing. I'm here. I'm doing whatever. I was just wondering whatever happened with, you know, with Ethan. I know he was sick. She's like, what's going on? So because the truth is, when I have most conversations, I am typically barely listening.

And most of the time, I'm really just waiting for an opportunity. so that I can turn the conversations that I can talk about me. Right. And that is such a selfish, fucked up thing. And when I see myself telling myself at the beginning of a conversation, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And then 20 minutes later, I realized we've been talking about me for 10 minutes. And I think, you're a fucked up individual.

I mean, we are. Right. We are. But, you know, that's the thing, though. So even today, like, I took this nine-hour drive to come down and talk to you today. Which I appreciate. which I even asked Tyler over, I was like, he's driving? First of it was he was driving.

Secondly, because when he was saying to me, when we were talking, I was like, you're telling me, Pat Johnson's going to come on my pocket. He knows I can't pay him, right? He knows I'm broke, right? Did you tell him? He didn't ask for any money? No, no, you need to make sure. Nothing?

Nothing? You know, and he, yeah, I was. No, and the reason why, I try, I do every podcast for free. I don't ask for cash on that because it's also a type of therapy for me. You know, I try to find out something new about myself every single time. I wanted to talk to you because we've got that South Carolina relationship. You know, you have that U.S. most wanted thing, too. So I was like, this will be a good conversation.

I wanted to ask you that question that I just asked you. I took a nine-hour drive, and I do these long-ass drives because I used to walk this track when I was in prison. And I would think every single day about my life, the people I had fucked over everything else. And on these drives, I get to do that again. Yeah. I get to consider everything, work through these issues, everything. It's not surprising me what you were talking about, you know, writing that. That's that therapy again, where you, if you're truthful, which, like I said, the first time, I wasn't.

Right. I wasn't. And that was a problem. But if you are, I mean, you really sit there and you examine yourself and you get these answers that sometimes you don't want, but by God, they're there. And you know what? What's funny, too, because I've anybody watching this is. Washington like I've probably said this a thousand times is that you know had millions all the money I needed in the world before a prison I'm on I'm on uh uh Zan I'm not well yeah I've got a prescription

for Xanax um Paxil uh I'm miserable I'm unhappy I've got I got a girlfriend and a girl my girlfriend's got a girlfriend I've got tons of money I got great vehicles I've got I'm traveling nonstop. I'm living great. I'm not concerned about being on the run. And even prior to that, when I wasn't on the run, I was just committing crime. I was just miserable, unhappy. And then I get out of prison with nothing. And I used to love to tell people that I wanted, they were like, what are you going to do when you get out? I'm like, I'm going to work at McDonald's. And because, and they were like, why. I was like, because I want to work at McDonald's. I want to live in someone's spare room. I want to start at the bottom because I was so much happier in prison.

and so much happier getting out of prison than I ever was prior to that having everything I ever fucking wanted because to me it's like I'm so like you know it is it's the whole I hate the term I'm blessed you know but I am blessed I'm thrilled I'm happy I have people around me that like me because they want to be around me not because I'm going to make them 300,000 next month or they're getting 50,000 here or 100,000 here or they're just hanging out with me to fucking hang out with me. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, you know, because when you get arrested, you find out that those friends ain't. Oh, no. No, the more money I made for people, the quicker they hung up the phone if they picked it up at all. The people that I never made

any money for showed up and came to see me, would come visit me, would send me, would look stuff up for me, send me books, would, it was such a reality fucking check for me to go to go to prison. You know, with me, and I'm really no different on that. It's, uh, If I would have gotten out and immediately went into, you know, the speaking, the consulting, the bullshit I do today, I wouldn't have appreciated any of it, any of it. But I didn't do that. It took me years to build up the trust in that industry and, you know, applying this, you know, 16, 18 hours a day of bam, bam, bam, bam. You mentioned before, you know, you wake up, you work 80 hours a week. I work 80 hours a week. I wake up working. I go to sleep working. And, you know, it's that. The ability to build yourself up from nothing to that success in a legal way screams.

I mean, it's just by God, yes, at that point. I've done it. I did it without doing anything wrong. And it's me. And, you know, yeah, you were a criminal. I was, I was too. But to show that we're able to succeed in a legal lifestyle as well talks about the character of the person.

And I, you know, I'm giving myself credit too. But you too, man. I mean, it's really, there aren't many people out there able to do that. You think of everybody that comes out of prison. You know, at least, you know, under 40, you're an 87% recidivism rate right now. Most of those guys are going to go back. They don't have a support group. They don't have the ability to turn their lives around.

And it's just a circular thing. And you're right. We're very blessed that we've been able to do that. That we've got that support group people that help us. And then what else can you say in that? Yeah. You know, it's funny the support group thing because like I used to like I can't mess up. Like it's like if you had a support group, I think it would almost be detrimental to me because I'm like, I'm like, I had nothing. I can't. You understand I cannot screw up. I cannot. And listen, it was so bad. I think I told Boje at this the other day was somebody I was at work and somebody said, like I was saving every penny.

Right. I had. Somebody goes, hey, Matt, I'm going to, where are they going? whatever a sandwich shop we're going to the sandwich shop you want me to get you something and i went um no i'm good i got i got a bag lunch from the halfway house you know right right right peanut bird jelly or mac or whatever it was bloney and um i said no i got i got a bag lunch and and and it his name was leanne and leon she said um do you matt she goes it's come on you eat that every day she says get a sandwich from jimmy johns and i went no no i said i'm good she goes come on and i went she was i said honestly i don't have any money i don't have money to do that And she looked at me and she was, it's fine.

I'll get it for you. And I went, okay, listen, Leon, you're not understanding. Let me be perfectly clear. She was there. My boss is there. Another employee is there. And I said, if out of the goodness of your heart you want to buy me a sandwich, I said, I said, that's fine.

I'll take it. I said, but if you're expecting some kind of a reciprocation from me, I said, like two days from now, I'll give you the money back or next week I'm going to buy you a sandwich. I said, I am not in a position to buy you a sandwich. I will not be in a position to buy you a sandwich for years, possibly, at the rate I'm going. And I said, At the rate I'm going. I said, so if you want to give me a sandwich, that's great.

I will take it. If not, I have a bag lunch. Thank you. And she looked at me and she went, I looked around at everybody. And she goes, I'm going to get you a sandwich. And I was like, I was just that. I was that like, like I bought $300 worth of clothes from Walmart in the halfway house. I still have blue jeans that I'm wearing to this day.

And I could afford by it. But it's just like the materialistic stuff. just drop down to nothing for me. Like, I don't want it. Everything I buy is from Ross or Marshals. That's it. I'm not, I'm not, I couldn't, I don't think I physically could, would be able to pay like $150 for a shirt now.

And back then I was paying $3,400 for blue jeans. It's like blue cheese. They sell them at Walmart for $29. Are you serious? What was your brand back then you're paying $300 for? Oh, they were diesel. Of course. Diesel, diesel.

I don't even know if they're still out. Like, I know nothing about clothing. now i barely knew it then but i had the girl i was with she's like oh these are diesel you have to get yeah my my my my stripper fiancee she likes sevens that's what i remember she tells me why i i never done anything like that you know i was the i was paying like 80 bucks for luckies back then and uh she looks at me one day i need some jeans i'm like where do you want to go sacks and i'm like so she we walk in the sacks and she goes over to this counter and i'm looking at shirts i'm like shit that's two 300 bucks for a shirt i'm not going to buy that bullshit so i look over

over at her and she's at the gene section she's just taking one pair after another is bam bam bam bam bam i'm like holy fuck so i walk on like how much are those oh they're 230 a pair i'm like how many pair you got and that was it man i'm like shit they're expensive they're expensive they're expensive they're expers i mean yeah they're expensive yeah they're expensive yeah they're expensive yeah they're expensive they have high tastes she was from what i understand she was able to turn her life around So I'm thankful about that. But, I mean, Jesus Christ. So now you're doing the, you're doing the channel and I've got, so speaking gigs.

I've got the speaking. So for those who may be interested, we've got the Brett Johnson show on YouTube, tune into it. But I, I'll put the, we'll put the link in the, put the link in the description. I appreciate that. Yeah. I've got, speak across the planet. I mean, I literally travel all over the damn place speaking. I mean, got the documentaries in the work, I'm talking with North South Productions for a Discovery TV show, which is basically Brett Johnson scams you, is what it is.

Okay. So talking about that, got a book in the works. I'm actually talking to one of the guys that's responsible for the Irishman. Talking about it was Friday on that. Chief Criminal Officer of Arcos Labs. I mean, I, dude, I'm doing all right. Yeah. I'm doing all right, you know.

It's funny if you just try and just kind of, it sounds so hokey. I hate to even say that, you know, you just try and do the right thing. It's like, like good things start to kind of happen to you. It does. And, you know, my motivation these days, and it really is one of these wake-up calls when I talk to somebody and they finally realize it. I'm like, don't give a shit about money. Yeah. It's about doing the right thing.

And I'm going to call it out. Don't give a shit who it is. I'm that guy typically piss off somebody every week about calling out a company or something like that about doing wrong. But that's who I am these days. Are you? Well, we're going to. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for driving.

Thank you. Okay. And what am I? What? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Sorry.

Hey. Hey. I don't know if I can. But if you like the video, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so you get notified videos like this. Share the video. And please share the video because people leave comments like, I don't understand why your channel doesn't have more subscribers.

And I don't understand why you don't have more viewers. And it is specifically because you did not share the video. to your friend and family that's why I don't have more subscribers it's because of you not because I'm not amazing it's right you are outstanding I watched a video mine the other day

and I thought damn you subscribed your own video exactly you're good you should you should be huge what's happening so leave me a comment in the comment section I try and respond to most of the comments and also I wrote a whole bunch of true crime books

when I was locked up Colby's gonna play the he's gonna play a bunch of trailers that I made. I made the trailers myself. So if you say, hey, who did your trailers? I did them. And all the links to my books are in the description box. And we're going to leave the, we're going to leave a link to Brett's channel. It's the, it's the Brett Johnson show. It's on YouTube. We're going to leave a link on that. And I appreciate you guys watching. See you. Using forgeries and bogus identities, Matthew B. Cox, one of the most ingenious

comment in history, built America's biggest banks out of millions. Despite numerous encounters with bank security, state, and federal authorities, Cox narrowly, and quite luckily, avoided capture for years. Eventually, he topped the U.S. Secret Service's most wanted list and led the U.S. Marshal's FBI and Secret Service on a three-year chase, while jet-setting around the world with his attractive female accomplices. Cox has been declared one of the most prolific mortgage fraud con artists of all time by CNBC's American Greene. Bloomberg Business Week called him the mortgage industry's worst nightmare, while Dateline NBC described Cox as a gifted forger and silver-tongued liar. Playboy magazine proclaimed his scam was real estate fraud, and he was the best.

Shark in the housing pool is Cox's exhilarating first-person account of his Stranger-than-Fiction story. Available now on Amazon and Audible. Bent is the story of John J. Boziak's phenomenal life of crime. Inked from head to toe, with an addiction to strippers and fast Cadillacs, Boziac was not your typical computer geek. He was, however, one of the most cunning scammers, counterfeiters, identity thieves, and escape artists alike. and a major thorn in the side of the U.S. Secret Service as they fought a war on cybercrime. With a savant-like ability to circumvent banking security and stay one step ahead of law enforcement, Boziak made millions of dollars in the international cyber underworld, with the help of the Chinese and the Russians.

Then, leaving nothing but a John Doe warrant and a cleaned-out bank account in his wake, he vanished. Boziak's stranger-than-fiction tale of ingenious scams and impossible escapes, of brazen run-ins with the law and secret desires to straighten out and settle down, makes his story a true crime con game that will keep you guessing. Bent, how a homeless teen became one of the cybercrime industry's most prolific counterfeiters. Available now on Amazon and Audible. Buried by the U.S. government and ignored by the national media, this is the story they don't want you to know.

When Frank Amadeo met with President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss NATO operations in Afghanistan. No one knew that he'd already embezzled nearly $200 million from the federal government. Money he intended to use to bankroll his plan to take over the world. From Amadeo's global headquarters in the shadow of Florida's Disney World, with a nearly inexhaustible supply of the Internal Revenue Services funds, Amadeo acquired multiple businesses, amassing a mega conglomerate. Driven by his delusions of world conquest, he negotiated the purchase of a squadron of American fighter jets and the controlling interest in a former Soviet ICBM factory. He began working to build the largest private militia on the planet, over one million Africans strong.

Simultaneously, Amadeo hired an international black ops force to orchestrate a coup in the Congo while plotting to take over several small Eastern European countries. The most disturbing part of it all is, had the U.S. government not thwarted his plan. He might have just pulled it off. It's insanity. The bizarre, true story of a bipolar megalomaniac's insane plan for total world domination. Available now on Amazon and audible. Pierre Rossini, in the 1990s, was a 20-something-year-old, Los Angeles-based drug trafficker of ecstasy and ice.

He and his associates drove luxury European supercars, lived in Beverly Hills penthouses, and dated playboy models while dodging federal indictments. Then, two FBI officers with the organized crime drug enforcement task force entered the picture. Dirty agents willing to fix cases and identify informants. Suddenly, two of Rossini's associates, confidential informants working with federal law enforcement, or murdered. Everyone pointed to Rossini. As his co-defendants prepared for trial,

U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller sat down to debrief Rossini at Leavenworth Penitentiary, and another story emerged. A tale of FBI corruption and complicity in murder. You see, Pierre Rossini knew something that no one else knew. The truth. And Robert Mueller and the federal government have been covering it up to this very day. Devil exposed. A twisted tale of drug trafficking, corruption, and murder in the city of Angel.

available on Amazon and Audible. Bailout is a psychological true crime thriller that pits a narcissistic con man against an egotistical, pathological liar. Marcus Schrenker, the money manager who attempted to fake his own death during the 2008 financial crisis, is about to be released from prison,

and he's ready to talk. He's ready to tell you the story no one's heard. Shrinker sits down with true crime writer, Matthew B. Cox, a fellow inmate serving time for bank fraud. Shrinker lays out the details, the disgruntled clients who persecuted him for unanticipated market losses, the affair that ruined his marriage,

and the treachery of his scorned wife, the woman who framed him for securities fraud, leaving him no choice but to make a bogus distress call and plunge from his multi-million dollar private aircraft in the dead of night. The $11.1 million in life insurance, the missing $1.5 million in gold. The fact is, Shrinker wants you to think he's innocent.

The problem is, Cox knows Shrinker's a pathological liar and his stories of fabrication. As Cox subtly coaxes, cajoles, and yes, Khan's Shrinker into revealing his deceptions, his stranger-than-fiction life of lies slowly unravels. This is the story Shrinker didn't want you to know. Bailout. The Life and Lies of Marcus Shrinker. Available now on Barnes & Noble, Etsy, and Audubes. Matthew B. Cox is a conman, incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a variety of bank fraud-related scams. Despite not having a drug problem, Cox inexplicably ends up

in the prison's residential drug abuse program, known as Ardap. A drug program in name only. Ardap is an invasive behavior modification therapy, specifically designed to correct the cognitive thinking errors associated with criminal behavior. The program is a non-fiction dark comedy which chronicles Cox's side-splitting journey. This first-person account is a fascinating glimpse at their survival-like atmosphere inside of the government-sponsored rehabilitation unit. While navigating the treachery of his backstabbing peers, Cox simultaneously manipulates prison policies and the bumbling staff every step of the way. The program How a conman survived the Federal Bureau of Prisons cult of Ardap.

Available now on Amazon and Audible. If you saw anything you like, links to all the books are in the description box.