Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Indictments Are Coming... | SEC Cracks Down On Influencer Crypto Scams

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Indictments Are Coming... | SEC Cracks Down On Influencer Crypto Scams

Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Neeson. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog. Not included. The Naked Gun. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. His sheet got leaked that he would send to potential people and it was like 25 grand for a mention of your token. Like 50 grand for a full video of your token. It's like astronomical money and it was like 100 grand for him to do like a full-on thing about it. They try to act like they're, oh, you know, we're trying to help you guys out. We're trying to show you the next big thing. And it's reality like they're all just people scamming trying to get some more money for themselves. The truth is a, a U.S.

attorney gets a hold of that. And next thing you know, you're being indicted. You're in front of it. And the whole time you're thinking, this is ridiculous. If you're lucky, you talk to a lawyer that talks sense into you and says, you don't seem to understand what you just did. Yeah. They're like, what did I do wrong? Right, they don't even realize. Because they think intent. What happens is most people think intent. And the problem is that about 95% of our laws, especially financial laws, like intent is irrelevant.

Yeah, 100%. It doesn't matter what your intent is. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I am here with Brandon Keys. Brandon has a, would you say crypto channel? Finance channel. Finance channel. What's the finance channel? Green candle.

Green candle. And we're going to be doing a, we're going to be, yeah, we're going to do a reaction video to, to the, to what, it's the, the, they, it's like influencers essentially getting sued or caught up with the SEC. Oh, yeah, this was the SEC. We're going to talk about the SEC just came out with, what did they come out? What was it? They came out with something where they said, where they're going after them, like they're charging them for promoting, for promoting, was it crypto?

Yeah, essentially, like, promoting, like, any of these, like, crypto tokens, and then they didn't disclose that they were paid money to do it. Right, so they went into the, they went into, like, Twitter or something and said, oh, man, I've just invested this, it's amazing, such good this is, not realize, nobody's realizing that, hey, wait, this is a paid promotion. Yeah, exactly, like, not realizing it's a paid promotion, and then the crypto token or whatever goes up, and then, you know, whoever it was, like Jake Paul was, like, probably the biggest name right so Jake Paul gets it it tells all these people his million subscribers or whatever his

number is and then the token goes skyrockets and then Jake Paul's like all right I'm out makes a bunch of money and got paid for it too so did he did he actually buy um so this is like the kind of like hairy part is like I'm not really sure if they like how they paid him out um you know I've seen a couple things on it like whether he got paid like 40 grand or something like that to promote it and then if he got paid you know in that token or whatnot but i think in this video that the guy goes over some of that stuff okay because you haven't seen this video no i have i i listened to it um a few hours ago so you want to play the video and see what the SEC just announced charges against one of the largest

name in crypto just in sun as well as eight massive celebrities who illegally promoted crypto coins without acknowledging they were paid to do so this is a bombshell case that uses celebrities own tweets against to show their illegal activities and many of the celebrities realizing they were caught have already paid back all the money they earned as well as massive fines to the SEC to avoid more serious consequences now before we get into the celebrities let's talk about crypto kingpin Justin sin who is in the most serious trouble Justin has been a controversial name in crypto for many years with many people praising him and others have been calling him a scammer since 2017 with the allegations revealed in this filing if proven true, it clearly shows Justin's son has no regard for the laws and we'll do whatever it takes to get his coin to the time. Who is that? So I don't really know who Justin's son is, to be honest with you, but there's like plenty of people that are like him. The one that really comes to mind is his name's Bitboy Crypto, and he's like one of the bigger crypto influencers or whatever, and he got big with like the NFT craze and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I mean,

people have been calling these guys scammers for quite a long time but the problem was it was like it was like a bull market so anything you put money into essentially went up right and so like people were making money off of it so they didn't care but then you know when they pull the rug and people start losing money and then now we're in like hard economic times or whatever and people are like well I lost like my life savings and then now the FTX scandal like you can't pull your money off any of these things it's just like well everybody's just kind of now reverting back and be like well I wouldn't have gotten into this if it wasn't for Justin Sun or if it wasn't for Bitboy Crypto or Jake Paul or whoever it is and now they're pointing the finger at all these guys. Right. Go ahead.

Of the crypto world. Justin's son, along with the businesses he owns, were charged with unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities, Tronics known as TRX, and BitTorrent known as BTT. The SEC also charged Sun and his companies with fraudulently manipulating the secondary market for TRX through extensive wash trading, which involves the simultaneous or near simultaneous purchase and sale of a security to make it appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership and for orchestrating a scheme to pay celebrities to tout TRX and BTT without disclosing their compensation. To make that simple, the SEC is claiming Justin and his team were selling their crypto tokens back and forth to themselves to make it appear

the token had many people trading it on exchanges without there actually being much interest. This is highly illegal, and if all the charges are proven to be true, Justin could be in a world of hurt that could even give Sam Bankman-Fried a run for his money. The SEC is also cracking down and starting to label many crypto coins as securities. Doing so requires much more stringent regulations around selling and trading these coins and has allowed the SEC to go after many formally unregulated crypto projects and the celebrities who endorse them. While the case with Justin's son will most likely drag on for years, many of the celebrities that were charged in this case for promoting Justin's crypto coins without acknowledging they were paid have already settled with the SEC. It seemed that every scummy celebrity during the period of 2017 to 2022 were promoting a new crypto every day, and now that seems to be changing.

With the SEC going after these individuals, eight celebrities were charged in this case including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soldier Boy, Austin Mahone, adult, film star Kendra Lust, Lil Yati, Neo, and Acon. What's really interesting is that the case details exactly how much each... If you were taking financial advice from Lindsay Lohan and a porn star. Well, I mean, it's not even them, though. Like, I mean, it was like everybody, like NFL players, NBA players, like, they were all like selling these stuff. Like, I did just think of, I mean, D. Aaron Fox, he's a point guard. I think he plays for the Kings now, I want to say, but he was selling some NFTs. Like, I follow some former A&M football players.

So, like, Vaughn Miller, he's a big linebacker for the bills now. He changed his Twitter or his Instagram avatar to his board ape. And so, like, it's like all these things like that. They talk about that. They talk about that, well, keep playing, because they talk about the chick and, like, they only paid her a little bit of money. This guy makes some crack about that. Yeah.

That's a porn star check. He was paid as well as how much in fines they have to fork over. Two of the celebrities, Soldier Boy and Austin Mahone, appear to be fighting the charges or have yet to work out a deal with the SEC, as there are no details about them agreeing to pay any fines. The rest of the celebrities have agreed to pay fines totaling over $400,000 to the SEC to settle their case without admitting or denying the SEC's findings. All of these celebrities, which I'll show you in a moment, got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, so there was really no reason to fight this. Let's take a closer look at each of these celebrities, allegedly illegal dealings, with Justin's son. First, we have Lindsay Lohan, promoted the Tron token on Twitter on February 11, 2021, stating she liked the Tron token and linking the creator Justin Sun in the tweet as well. Lindsay had 8.4 million Twitter followers at the time, and the SEC said she was paid a total of $10,000 from Justin or his team to do this, which she never made clear that this was a paid promotion.

With the SEC's evidence against her, Lindsay has agreed to pay back the $10,000 payment she received, as well as prejudgment interest of $670, and an additional penalty of $30,000. That's quite a hefty fine, and it shows the SEC is starting to crack down on what used to be the wild west of crypto, where celebrities would promote anything. After this turn of events, you can bet any other celebrities thinking of endorsing of crypto are now having its second thoughts. From there, let's take a look at Adult Star Kendra Lust, who is listed, it in the documents under her legal name of Michelle Mason. Kendra, just like Lindsay, promoted Tron to her Twitter followers in February of 2021, claiming people should use the Tron

token because it's fast, cheap, and hot. Sadly, for Kendra, she was raw-dogged by Justin's team and was only paid a measly $955 for that tweet. After fees and penalties, she now has to pay a total of $3,844 to the SEC as punishment. Having to pay almost $4,000 for such a small initial payment, sounds like a hard pill to swallow, but based on her line of work, I'm sure she'll have no problem gobbling up that fine. Next up was Little Yachty, who tweeted he would be getting a TRX tattoo when the crypto hit 50 cents. That tweet earned him a payment of $10,000 from the Tron team, and now he's required to pay it all back, as well as additional fees for a total of just over $40,000. Following that, we have the infamous Jake Paul, who has promoted many

cryptos over the past few years, as documented by CoffeeZilla and others. It's very likely that this will just be the start of Jake's fines as the SEC digs deeper into many of these coins. Jake retweeted Little Yottie's tweet and simply added the hashtag TRX. Doing so earned Jake a whopping payment of $25,000, but he now has to pay back with fees for a total of just over $100,000. Next up was singer Nio who tweeted to his audience asking what they thought was a good crypto bag, while listing the TRX and BTT tokens. He was paid a total of $12,000 worth of crypto for that tweet and is now required to pay a total fine of just under $50,000.

Finally, we have singer Acon who tweeted hearing a lot about TRX and tagging Justin's son as well. That tweet earned Acon a total of $42,000, which included fees. He has to pay back for a total of $170,000. All of these tweets happened within two days of each other in February of 2021, and Justin Sun retweeted most of them, trying to claim that mass adoption of the TRX token was about to happen. Lots of people saw through this and started to make the claim that they were paid tweets. Justin and his team initially tried to deny the claim that they were paying celebrities to promote their token,

but clearly the SEC didn't buy that, and now that the celebrities have agreed to pay fines for promoting Tron, this will undoubtedly hurt Justin's case going forward. All the celebrities listed also agreed to not promote any crypto coins for the next three years, as well as their fines. Now my personal opinion is that this is just the start of the crackdown on celebrities promoting crypto and getting paid for it without the government getting their cut. I've watched crypto since 2017 and know how easy it is for these celebrities to make massive amounts of money, completely unregulated, to promote terrible products to their followers. My hope is that even more celebrities will get punished for doing this, and I'm sure Logan Paul is sweating bullets right now, hoping they don't come after him for his crypto zoo debacle.

Now, most of these celebrities got off fairly light, in my opinion, but I do feel that the SEC will try and throw the book at Justin's son. He's been a very controversial figure in crypto for years, and he's made a lot of enemies that want to see both him and his crypto coins go down. Let me know in the comments below what you think about this case and what will happen in the future with celebrities promoting crypto. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think that's just like kind of a start. Have you heard of Fire Fest, like before that? That's what it kind of reminds me of. I mean, Firefest was the festival where they had it on some island.

Yeah, they bought an island or whatever. And then they had a bunch of influencers kind of start. What was the name? Billy McFarland. I think he just got it to jail too. Yeah, I saw, I mean, I watched like the Netflix. Yeah, there's like a Netflix and a Hulu thing. I think they're like the Hulu one gets him to actually talk about it.

But, yeah, I mean, it's just kind of the same thing, right? It's like influencers getting paid to do a bunch of, you know, know promotions and stuff like that just like blast to their audience obviously this one's like people like investing their money and like people kind of poke fun at the fire fest one but i mean like if you're going to pay like 10 grand to go see like blink 182 because kendall jennar posts an orange tile i mean it just shows like how much influence that these people have over their audience and that's just like the same exact thing right i mean it's kind of become popularized to talk about investing and crypto is kind of like the new fad or whatever and because of that like all these places have

their CEOs marketing departments all that kind of stuff I mean they're just throwing money around a bunch of venture capitalists are coming in like hey you know get Tom Brady get you know all these other people so to me that would make sense if let's say I was whatever I was selling a real estate or if I had something to do with real estate like I was promoting whatever homeowners insurance something then you would go to a bunch of people that have have YouTube channels that are related to real estate, either real estate investing

or real estate development or they are, or Graham Stephan or something, or something at least semi-related. Like, even though Graham-Stefan does a lot of financial stuff, then at least it's semi-related where there is some real estate-related stuff on his channel, obviously.

It started off more real estate-related. So I could get that, but you're going to Lundie Lohan, bro. You're going to a porn chick. I mean, to another, to a porn chick who does, porn like yeah like to me you're immediately saying hey i'm trying to sell crypto and i don't want to go to sophisticated people that will know better i'm going to go to people that just have a lot of fans you know and i'm going to offer them 10 grand and see if they'll take it because i think i feel like

well i was going to say this was actually a mistake i was actually going to say because you would think that sophisticated investors or people that are in that niche would know hey this probably isn't a secure investment, but then again, look at FTCS and look at all these, you know, all the guys that, I'm not saying that Tom Brady, like you, like to me, it's like if Tom Brady told you to go buy this, I don't care if you're a fan or not, you should kind of say, hey, what the fuck does Tom Brady know about that? But if Graham Steffen does, then you kind of. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus,

IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. You got to go, well, you know. Yeah, I mean, well, it's like that Kanye video where he talks about Lady Gaga, who's like now the CEO of Polaroid. And he's like, what the fuck does she know about cameras? Right.

And I mean, it's like, you know, it's the same kind of thing where, you know, all these people. like you said they just have so much influence and I think you know it was during a time where everything was shooting up like you could throw five dollars at something and you can yeah you can make a thousand and so like you see lindsay lohan tweet about this thing she has 8.3 million Twitter followers nobody really gives a shit about what's behind it they're just like hey Lindsay lohan tweeted about this I'll throw five bucks I'll throw 10 bucks or if you have more disposable income I'll throw a thousand or whatever and so see if it shoots up because a bunch of other idiots are going to do the same thing.

A problem is that if seven years ago you went into real estate and you became a real estate broker or investor or a real estate agent, man, you right now, like as of, let's say, a year ago, you thought, I really know my shit. Like I entered this market. I'm kicking ass. I'm making a ton of money. I'm doing great. And it's because I'm like that.

Like, I'm just amazing at this. No, it's not. you can't lose yeah exactly you know so but now those same people are like man I wonder if Walmart's hiring like you know I mean it's not so bad if you have to work at McDonald's lots of people work at McDonald

yeah no I mean that's like kind of like the running joke on like Twitter and everything especially in these crypto worlds like oh you got to survive the they call it the crypto winter where it's everything's down and whatever and then everybody jokes and says they're going to go work at McDonald's because they lost a shit ton of money where

I mean like I mean for those people who invested smartly and didn't follow like a Lindsey Lohan or this porn star acon or whatever it is like sure that's fine but there's actually people out there who like you said they phomode in saw it go up and they're just like all right i'm gonna keep throwing more and more money on this like i can't lose i'm a genius when it comes to this and then then they get fucked and then you know then they're sitting here like pointing the finger at other people then they're blaming lindsay lohan i mean i i believed in her you know she's got such a massive background in finance i just assumed that she knew yeah i mean it's ridiculous i mean i don't know it's you know you think that all right each person isn't

one dimensional right like lindsay lohan probably has other interests outside of acting or you know whatever it is but you know like i mean like like modeling yeah i know exactly she's a designer well i mean that's what people that's what people think i wasn't one of those those people but you know that's why the SEC has to crack down on all this stuff because it's like i mean like we talked about last time with the FTX and all that like it's been an unregulated industry for such a long time it's like the wild west so now they're trying to come back and and do all that kind of was Lindsay lohan in shark nato who was she in shark nato i don't know somebody was in shark native wasn't lindsay lohan listen 50 people will say we'll say in the

comment section who was in shark nader they'll like give me somebody will give me like the entire cast um what did i say i am db or whatever it is yeah i said the other i did a video one time where i i said that the guy was buying he was buying up companies that had military applications but i couldn't think of military applications i was like you know that it had military um you know like he only bought stuff that had military like the use and i go god what am i trying to think of and i couldn't think of it and listen now if you go there half the comments on the video are military applications you meant to say military i still get them like three or four times a week i'll get a comment on trying to help you out there you go four months later there's say i'm like look i i am like

you're right i know my bad sorry so lindsay lohan shark nato somebody let me know yeah um i was going to say yeah i i just have a hard time believing that lindsay lohan on her off days is crunching numbers on crypto um but yeah i i think would it be amazing really the people somebody's like no actually she's really she's a genius she's worth like a hundred million dollars yeah just in in bitcoin crypto and they started the list that I was like yeah I feel I feel like I've made a pretty solid statement that she's not well yeah I mean it's it's it's it's it comes back to it like all right do your own research when you're investing in something like look into it don't just fucking jump in on somebody who's

tweeting something like I mean you know you saw the Jake Paul tweet all he did was quote little Yadi's tweet and he got 25 grand yeah and just put hashtag Tee or X or whatever it was. Can you imagine somebody on Jake Paul's team, which is really just, I think it's just his manager. Somebody on his team came to him and said, hey man, I can get $25,000 for you. All you got to do is just this guy's going to tweet.

He probably like, who? Oh, yeah, yeah, I think I know who that is. And then you just have to retweet it. That's it, $25,000. It's cool. Like, give me your phone. I'll do it. Yeah, yeah, go ahead and sit in right now.

Okay. It showed up. I got it. There's a wire. Okay, yeah, we're doing it right now. Yep, oh, it just came through. Well, let me retweet it. Okay, there, we're good.

They're good. You just made 25 grand. Yeah. That's it. Fastest 25 grand he's ever made. And he's like, yeah, okay. And now suddenly, boom, four months later, he gets a letter from the SEC. He's like, the hell happened.

Bobby, Bobby, what happened? You said retweet. You said it was not a big deal. Well, I mean, Jake Paul's been, like, hammering this stuff a lot. I mean, the guy kind of touched on it in the video. Like, this wasn't the only thing he did. Like, I mean, he's kind of getting it. to boxing now, too.

Crypto Zoo. He did crypto zoo. He got into the Pokemon card shit, too, for a while. I don't know if you saw that. He's running all kinds of scams. Yeah, he, like, walked into one of his fight. I went to prison. Can you imagine, though?

Look, you're just an influencer, right? Like, you just do YouTube videos, and it took off. You didn't know it was going to take off. You took off. Like, you didn't really have a job. Like, let's say you just want some guy who started doing him. And I give an example. There's a kid at the gym.

And I used to work out at this gym. It's too far now. Now I work out of like LA Fitness. But I used to work out of this gym. And it's also a boxing gym, right? Oh, yeah. So there's this kid who was like, I don't know what? He was like 17, 18 years old.

Did I tell you this? No, you haven't told me this. So just a young kid, listen, a nicest kid. You know what always cracked me up when I went to work there? What? Like kids would come in and they'd box, right? And, you know, normal kids, 18, 19 years old who are working. out they have an attitude yeah every one of the kids that boxed was so overwhelmingly polite

it was insane like you'd watch these kids you're talking about a 17 16 year old 15 year old 17 year old and you and you'd see them and you'd think oh that kid's lethal like that kid would knock he'd take me you and and connor out i mean these kids are and we're still only 160 pounds like they're just lethal they're so fast and so polished um and yet you would see them or you I mean you you you talk to them and they be like yes sir no sir yes of course yeah I'm so sorry I left my my stuff behind the thing you know behind the counter I mean when you get a chance it's no I can wait and I'm like no I got it bro yeah all of them are super nice and my buddy treon who runs the gym said and I was like you ever notice like all these kids are really polite really polite he's like oh yeah he's when they come in their assholes and I go what do you mean he says yeah most of them come in maybe they got beat up or maybe they think they're tough guys. He is when they come in and they start boxing, he said,

but after about six months of just getting the shit kicked out of them, he said, and realizing that other kids that are more trained and smaller can beat them up, he said, something happens to almost all of them, where he said, even if they have a major attitude, they start getting respect for everyone that they come in contact with,

and they start to realize how much training is involved in the sport. in just anything in life he said and within six months he's like you take a real jerk and put him in the ring and he will be polite to every single person he said within six months they're super nice very polite treon son lethal nicest kid you've ever met yeah super polite um actually got into a fight at at school some kid was messing with him and he goes come on man stop it quit playing quit playing he goes because i'm telling you i'll knock you out stop i'm not playing yeah he's a big kid and he's a big kid and he He goes, and he goes, oh, yeah, what you're going to do? And boom, got him on, like, I mean, had him, like, in a headlock on the floor. And suddenly his teacher jumped, like, get off him, get off him. He's okay, I'm going to let you go. I'm going to let you go. I'm let you go.

I'm going to swing on, boom, put him back in a headlock. He's on the floor. And he was like, he's like, I told you, I told you. And the teacher was like, whole, he was like, he told Triani. I think he told Triana, he said, and he's frighteningly fast. He's like, yeah, I know. He's like, he's so nice. He's so.

Yeah. But so anyway, back to my story. There's a kid that was like 17 or 18 years old started a YouTube channel on his phone. I think he just graduated high school or had graduated or was about to, whatever, started on his phone. Just him boxing, boxing with other kids, watching other kids, does a little five, 10, 15 minute box video. Afterwards, he talks, hey, we did this today and this. and just a silly, really thing, and I was posting him.

I think in four or five months he had 80,000 subscribers on YouTube. And Triang was showing me, he's like, look at this kid. Now he's got something like 200,000. Yeah. Blue up was making, Trian was like he asked him one day, and this is when he had around 100,000. Like, how much, what kind of money are you making? He's like, I'm getting checks for 6,000, 7,000.

This is a kid who's an 18-year-old. His dad probably makes $50,000 a year driving a truck or something. Your son's making $8,000 a month. And that was $100,000 ago. But the problem with that kid is that then he starts getting endorsement deals. Yeah. Two, three years from now when he's got a million subscribers, never had a real job. And by the way, super nice kid.

But he's the kind of kid that somebody would come to and say, look, man, for $100,000, all you've got to do is post this on your Instagram. Do a little video. And he probably is like, yeah, not realizing, hey, hey, hey, what you're doing is you're helping to promote people to invest what some people are going to invest because maybe they have an unnatural fixation on you. And as a result of that, they may pull $20,000 out of their savings or their 401k and they may buy, you know, jumbaya crypto. Yeah. and jumble i crypto i you're a boxer and you're great guy you're super nice but you're not really in a financial spot to determine if if if that's really a good investment and he's thinking no no it's just a paid thing i'm just a i'm just a i'm just a kid like i don't know any better

all this and that like i mean there's so many instances of that too and like you know it's just like athletes too like you know bigger big name athletes who get a bunch of money they're trying to make endorsement deals outside of their sport i mean it's but six months later somebody from the cc a hundred percent listen uh listen little jimmy and he's like what what what did i do i oh yeah i think i remember yeah they paid me like a hundred thousand well here's the problem yeah now you owe half a million dollars because so many people lost money you didn't say it wasn't a you weren't a financial advisor you said it was a great investment

you didn't tell people that it was promoted you sent something on Instagram on TikTok on this oh no no my manager said it was okay well yeah but manager's not going to have to pay that bill exactly that's like trying to that's like having somebody do your books for the IRS and the IRS shows up and you go no no no I don't even do my books

Jennifer over there does them they're like yeah I know we're not coming after Jennifer yeah that's your fault Yeah, you didn't pay your taxes for five years. Right. Or you miscalculated something and now you owe $6,000. And by the way, by the time the IRS shows up, it's not $6,000. It's 13,000.

Yeah, 100%. So, but I'm sorry. I'm just, I was just saying that. No, I mean, that's the problem. Is that poor kid? No, 100%. And that's where I think that that's where we're going essentially is like, you know, all these people, like you said, they're blowing up.

They're not used to having this many eyeballs on them and they don't know what the fuck to do with themselves. And so when you get approached for that stuff, like, sure. all right you we just lined it out right takes less than three seconds to do what jake paul did he made 25 grand right and that i mean that's happening the and in the course of his day or his week that's happening constantly um so he's not thinking anything of it i i saw um i want to say it was a documentary it was definitely a documentary i want to say this is the name of it was called a being paris hilton i think okay i haven't seen that one but i think i've probably 20 years old yeah this

was when she was she was hot shit yeah um i mean you know not that she's not so hot but the point is is that she was super like she was famous just for being famous she was one of the first people before the Kardashians that was just famous for being famous was had no talent yeah rich and famous so and this killed me when it really broke down how she made money like you know of course the um you know the hilton you know hotel line or whatever yeah Like everybody's like, oh, well, that's, you know, she's super, right. That was her as a kid. And she has a trust fund, but she doesn't dip into any of that money.

She doesn't have to because they had, they were showing how she made her money. And literally, there were clubs that were opening up. So you've got a club in New York City that's opening up. And they're saying, look, one, we get to promote that you're going to be here on Friday night. You have to, you pull in in the front in a limo. And she would say, okay, for a hundred. It was for like, I'm going to say $50,000 or $100,000. I want to say it was like 50 grand.

For $50,000, I pull up in the limo that you pay for. I get out, I take photos, I stay for 15 minutes, I go out the back, like I'm going to the bathroom, but I slip out the back, I get into a vehicle, I leave, that's $50,000. Now, if you want me to stay for $100,000, I'll stay for up to an hour, I'll take photos. She had a whole lineup, and this chick was literally making two and three hundred thousand dollars on a Friday night just driving from one place to another walking in the front, staying for an hour, walking out the back, getting into a limo, driving in the next place, picking up 50 grand, driving in the next place. I mean, it was outrageous. She was making, I forget what it was, five or ten million dollars a year, just going around the clubs. and if you wanted her to wear your outfit or your bag, then that was, the bag's free, it's a $20,000 bag, it's free.

This is free, and we're going to pay you $50,000 to show up here and get photographs when you walk in the front and walk out the bag. I mean, it was insane. It was insane. Well, I mean, that's all happening right now, too, but it's with influencers and you don't even have to leave your house, right? I mean, like, I can't put, I don't remember the sheet, but Bit Boy Crypto, one of the guys that I brought up, who's like, just like the Justin Sun guy,

his sheet got leaked that he would send to potential people. And it was like 25 grand for a mention of your token, like 50 grand for a full video of your token. Like it's like astronomical money. And it was like a hundred grand for him to do like a full on thing about it. And it's like, you know, this guy, I mean, Justin's son, like I don't know the details about him as much. But I know that Bit Boy Crypto, like the SEC is going to come knocking on. his door and he always tries to pull some shit too like he's he's tweeted out like all right name an instance where i haven't disclosed that i got paid to do this and then somebody like another

big name disclosed it like literally five minutes later oh like you like i mean they try to act like they're oh you know we're trying to help you guys out we're trying to show you the next big thing and it's reality like they're all just people scamming trying to get some more money for themselves we saw that was the logan paul thing where he comes out with his own coin and they're they're talking about running a pump and I mean, 100%, and he acted like he was the victim. Yeah, he's like, I didn't know, you know, but I mean, come on, dude. Like, I, like, I don't know, like, like you said, if you're trusting Logan Paul and his brother

Jake Paul with all this stuff, like, what are you doing one? But two, like, Logan Paul, Jake Paul, like, how do you guys not know this shit is going on? Well, you know, here's the thing, like, I would, you know, had I not been through the system and seen how wrong things can go. Like, I would think, oh, it's innocent. What's the big deal? People know better.

They know this. They know that. But the truth is a U.S. attorney gets a hold of that. And next thing you know, you're being indicted. You're in front of it. And the whole time you're thinking, this is ridiculous. If you're lucky, you talk to a lawyer that talks sense into you and says, you don't seem to understand what you just did.

Yeah. And you're thinking, I'm just a nice. guy that does YouTube videos and so I said this but I say all kinds I tell people what kind of you know what kind of shirts to wear and what kind of a boxer briefs are good and you know what razors I use and you know I do stuff like that they're like yeah but this is different this can be financially devastating to people and even if it's not devastating it can really harm people and they take that seriously and there are there's licensing involved but yeah if you're like a guy who started a YouTube channel who's basically been

pampered for the past five or ten years and every even when things go bad they you still manage to spin them in the right direction like you don't see it coming and the next thing you know you get hit hard and now you're indicted and your lawyer is telling you either you pay the two million dollars that they're fining you or you know and you get put on probation for three years or you go to trial and it could go so badly you may do 10 years in prison I think to some somebody in most of these guys position like they they they a lot of them would would think to themselves like there's no way that can happen yeah they're like what did I do wrong right right they don't even realize because they think intent what happens is most people think intent and the problem is is that about 95% of our laws especially financial laws like intent is irrelevant yeah so it doesn't matter what your intent is um you know this is what You know, this is what you did. This was the result.

Yeah, but my intent was this would happen. That's irrelevant. You know, and this is what happened. And this person, these people lost money. And, yeah. So it could go bad. Like, these guys, and you're seeing it go bad. But it should go bad, right?

Yeah. Don't you think, like, don't you think this is fair? Oh, 100%. Yeah. Like you said, I mean, like I've kind of hit, if a token or whatever has a CEO or a marketing department behind it, I mean, their incentive is all money driven. You should look at really where the incentives lie when it comes to a lot of these things.

And the incentives is usually for like the CEO, whoever's like holding the bag to make more money. And because that that's the incentive behind it, I mean, you're just, you know, you're looking to get scammed unfortunately. And yeah, I mean, just don't listen to influencers when it comes to that stuff unless they're saying like, hey, this is a paid for ad or not financial advice or other things. like that like those those disclaimers now have been you know i guess pretty regulated because like even like we were talking about a little bit earlier like with fire fest stuff right now if you get paid to post something on your channel you have to either put like on instagram if this is a paid sponsor or paid promotion or whatever or like hashtag ad like that i think that the whole thing is just getting to start like just starting where it's like you know the whole influencer culture is now like

going to get pretty regulated with everything right i mean and i think i mean i think it should i was just thinking like i get i told you i told you this last time where i was like i've been hit up for to to to do bitcoin like not bitcoin i'm sorry to do a cryptocurrency that was coming out we had meetings we talked everything but in the end it was like i don't know if this is a good investment i'm not going to tell people that this is a good investment i'm not i'm not matter of fact i don't even want to be involved in this but i mean i get hit up all the time like hey promote our game i don't play video games. Yeah. Like, what am I supposed to do? I'm supposed to do a little, a 30 second video about how this is amazing video. I don't play video games. Yeah. Like, you know, I mean,

you would think I would be more apt to do something, some, you know, jump on the bandwagon and do some scumbaggery type stuff and wouldn't have an issue with it, but it's like that kind of behavior is what led me to go to prison. So it's like, I'm not going to say that I'm wearing your tea. Oh, I love these t-shirts. I'm like, I don't wear those t-shirts, bro. Yeah. Like, you never hear me, listen, you never hear me talk about my T-shirts. I actually have T-shirts. I don't even wear my T-shirts.

I have a store. I don't wear them. Yeah. They don't feel good. They're all cotton, and I like these better. And so I told Jess, we need to go and we need to make our own T-shirts. We need to buy T-shirts that I'll wear that I like and actually iron my logo. And then I said, those, then I'll do it.

But these guys don't have any scruples at all. And the fact that I'm telling people that you should have, you should have, like, that's really a problem. Like, that's, that's wrong. I was going to say, I have a buddy named Vitali, Joseph Vitali. I actually wrote a story about this guy called Atonement. He was legitimately raising money for a startup. You're only allowed to charge, let's say 8%, okay? He was charging like 15% or something, right?

Something outrageous. which, you know, 8 to 15, it's not that much of a difference. But the problem was he wasn't disclosing what he was actually charging. So they're promoting this, they're promoting, or they're raising money to dump into a business. Yeah. And your money you give is really going in that business. The difference is you think that, let's say, he's charging 8%. but he's really charging like 15

so is the money really going in the business yes but not all of it he he improperly disclosed to you he's broken the law they indict him he's now being he was then being charged with like running a boiler room or whatever it was it's like it blew up and went so wrong so quickly

and then it's how much money was raised so you're like okay well okay well I'll pay a fine no now there's 15 million dollars raised how much money did you defraud these people out of you're like no they really put the money in the into this thing yeah but they lent money based on lies that you told he didn't think was going to go that wrong but it did next thing you know he's doing four years in prison yeah i mean that's what happened like we i keep reverting back to this fire fest thing because he had like in the documentary he had one big investor that was i forgot her name but it was a female that

he was basically like charming back and forth he sent her like basically fraudulent books right to to basically tell her like hey we're actually making a lot of money off of their app which was like some side project and so this will blow up eventually you just got to keep giving me money when in reality it was just yeah ponzi scheme just pump and dump kind of thing but yeah i mean it's it's just kind of like this whole world just needs to be like a little bit more regulated and you think that when people have money that they would know i guess have some sort of awareness towards this thing because they're like hey you didn't have money at one point in time especially a lot of these you know people like whether it's an influencer or rapper athlete whatever

but when it comes down to it they didn't have money at any point in time so they're willing to do a lot to for a few bucks i mean you saw the porn star she did this all for like less than a thousand dollars while everybody else was like four grand yeah exactly yeah i'm wondering how i wonder how many uh yeah it had to be, I don't know, had to be something with why she got so paid still it. Maybe she just, they threw a thousand out there, and she said,

all right. It was probably based on, like, her influence, too. I bet she didn't have too many followers, but there are a lot of horny dudes on the internet. I'm sure she, sure she had her decent size following,

to say the least. Yeah. We'll see. I'll check it out later. Um, are we good? Are we wrapping it up? Yeah.

How much, uh, how long was that video? 40 minutes. 40 minutes hey this is matt cox 40 minute video that's not bad on a subject that i know nothing about okay so um thank you brandon for stopping by somebody in the comment section said bro you know you never thank these guys for coming by come on man you don't know that i don't thank anybody he thanks me off camera maybe there's all kinds of having off camera so thank you for stopping by

and i appreciate um everybody watching and if you like the video share it and see this another thing I need to do all this beforehand because by nobody's watches at this point they're all watching I mean they're of all right now if you look at the algorithm I mean sorry if you look at the analytics it's like it's like it drops off and then people watch and then when I actually start saying okay well go let's go it boom yeah done so nobody's listening at this point I appreciate it share the video hit the like button hit the bell I think very few people actually hit the bell I looked at that the other day I was like 25% or something, or 20, 25% actually hit the bell.

And for notification. For notification. So it's like they subscribe, so kind of go in their feed. I get that. You're saying, hey, kind of put this guy on my feed. But you don't hit the bell so you don't really know. Yeah. And then I do like a live or something.

I get all these people like, bro, I wish I, oh, man, I didn't get notified. You didn't get the, hit the bell. Well, the notifications for the, are for the live stream, I think, are a little different than like an actual video popping up. I don't know if that YouTube is like super friendly to the live streams. Really? Yeah. I know it's like supposed to be good to like help your channel or whatever, but it does it.

I don't know. I don't know. It's just eking along. Yeah. All right. So thank you very much. Leave me a comment. And hey, I wrote a bunch of books when I was in prison.

So check out my books. And then... Forgeries and bogus identities. Matthew B. Cox. One of the most ingenious con men 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. Marshals, 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 Greed. 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 alive, 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. Bozziak'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 plans,

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 Audubord. 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 citizens. 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 Racine at Leavenworth Penitentiary, and another story emerged. A tale of FBI corruption and complicity in murder.

You see, Pierre Racini 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. The devil exposed. A twisted tale of drug trafficking. corruption, and murder in the city of angels. Available on Amazon and Audible.

Bailout is a psychological true crime thriller that pits a narcissistic conman 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 Shringer, available now on Barnes & Noble, Etsy, and Audible. 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 the survivor-like atmosphere inside of the government-sponsored rehabilitation unit.

While navigating the treachery of his backstabbing peers, Cox, simultaneously. 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.