Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Investigating A Multi-Million Dollar Mortgage Fraud Scheme | Infamous Ghost Money

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Investigating A Multi-Million Dollar Mortgage Fraud Scheme | Infamous Ghost Money

But I notice from a lot of the cases that I look at, yeah, the more confident fraud says they go in, especially if you bring in a fake ID that's from a different state. You see the shit on it, but unless you're going and you're looking at the high D guys and all that, you don't really know what the fuck you're looking at. A lot of times they were coming in and as you will see with this case, that was pretty much what they were doing. They were going in and getting the things cleared. If they do their things right, there's a high probability that the bank will release that money. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm going to be, I'm not really going to be interviewing, but I'm going to be taking part in a discussion with infamous ghost money. He's got a YouTube channel where he dissects different types of frauds that are going on. He contacted me and asked me, said, hey, look, here's a scam that's happening.

And I'm trying to kind of dissect it what these guys were doing, you know, in this scam. and these guys end up getting arrested and I don't know what kind of time they got. So check this out. All right, y'all. So today we're going to be talking about a recent case that came up late September involving a hip-hop artist known as Khafani.

To be honest, I never heard of this dude. I tried to listen to like one or two of his songs. It wasn't my thing. So I kind of turned that off ASAP. But with that being said, this man is a all the way fraudster. And I say that respectfully, his resume speaks for itself and you soon will see. But this gentleman's method of doing fraud

involve mortgage fraud. You know, the ghost knows about a lot of different methods, but for this, I had to reach out to Mr. Matthew Cox because if I'm not mistaken, Matthew, that was your thing, right? Absolutely. All right. So if you want to just tell to the people who don't know who you are, you want to explain to them why you are a qualified individual to speak on mortgage fraud? But, let's see. I owned a, so you want, you want a five minute version or you want, what do you want? We're just Jones and Matt. Okay, I basically, I own a mortgage company for about five years. I was a mortgage broker for about six years, and I was on the run for three years.

Plus, I committed fraud in Tampa additional. So basically 10 years I was committing mortgage fraud. I owned a brokerage business. I was a FHA approved lender and a VA approved lender, subprime broker, and a conventional broker, and I committed roughly 55, well, my company committed roughly about $40 to $55 million in fraud. I personally committed $15 million in mortgage fraud as a fraudster or a con man, whatever you want to call it. And I was number one on the Secret Service's Most Wanted list. I was eventually captured. I was given 26 years. I served 13 years

for fraud for for bank fraud and so that's basically i've i've that's that is essentially what i guess my um you know my qualifications are that i i know underwriting guidelines and i know mortgage scams inside now in fact uh one of the ways that i reduced the cent my my federal sentence was i wrote what's called an ethics and fraud course for the u.s government that is used to teach ethics and fraud to the nation's loan officers and mortgage office officers under the dot frank act so i ain't even got to say anything after that yeah i have extensive experience in in bank fraud mortgage fraud absolutely and it's just two things i want to add to what you said before we we jump into this that is crazy i didn't know that you you created a course that they're using around ethics

and fraud like you said that's to teach loan officers is that who you said it was yeah you know it's it's basically goes over there's there's like seven or eight different types of mortgage scams and there's different variations of all all of them obviously but also it's basically just about ethics and fraud and just or ethics where it just kind of explains like look you know you're you know people people basically convince themselves brokers will often convince themselves that by a lying on an application or changing a document that they're really helping their client. And that's just not true. You know, and so it's more than just me explaining like, this is a fraud and that's a fraud and

this is a fraud. It's more than just that. It's also like, look, don't get, don't get, don't get sucked into this trap by telling yourself that you're helping your client because that's not what's happening at all. So, you know, it's more than just fraud. But yeah, yeah, go ahead. sorry you know just just along those lines which you said saying you said really resonated me and um sometimes people could convince themselves that they

think that they're helping somebody but really you're not and this is something i kind of wanted to get into my channel but speaking specifically in some of the communities i grew up in sometimes people view those things as a hookup you know what i'm saying like even if you think about the pp loans and everything that was happening people that didn't know any better that was being put on to these scams, they didn't know all the way that, hey, this is illegal and what comes behind it because they see the person that's putting them on,

like, this person's hooking me up. And in a lot of the, a lot of communities that's seen as a positive thing, same thing with tax returns and all these different things. And just like you said, with loans, because I spent a little bit of my professional career, you could say working closely with someone who did mortgages and this guy was a beast. But some of the tactics that he did in just the cold calling alone, it's like it was a little

dirty. But like you said, at the end of it, it was funny how a lot of these people ended up, you know, feeling like this was a good thing. And many times it was a good thing, but I can only assume a lot of those people, they couldn't really afford those homes. And after a matter of time, I can only imagine where those people was at now. But hey, it is what it is. The way I view a lot of those things is, and some people might not agree with me on it, there's so much information out there that if you get caught up in something, it's kind of unfortunate that you didn't do your research prior because there's so much information. But people are just so quick to believe what they want to believe and not want to take the time to try and look into like, what's the other side of it. But anyways, all right. So there you have it, guys, Mr. Matt. And also I wanted to say another funny thing, like I told you when we first spoke, if you ever are watching TV like at four or five in the morning, there's a chance you might see Mr. Matt on the screen because he's used part of like some commercial around identity theft or something like that.

It's a title theft, which is one of the things that I did, which was a title fraud. It's committing title fraud on people's on people's homes. people actually very similar to what this guy does like the what the case we're about to talk to very similar he that's why I really feel like yeah I'm I'm positive what this guy did in fact what he did actually there was a Nigerian guy shout out to the Nigerians Nigerian Nigerian team really was a head by led by the main guy was a Nigerian I feel like so many scams start with just that the head was like They called him the king of the king of the helix. And he, I forget what it was like $80 million.

He was believed to have done in helot loans on other people's properties, just like this guy. Just like this guy. But let's go ahead. Let's get into it. What's up? Yeah, man. You see, this is what I want. I want to enjoy the conversation.

Now we're vibrant. So, but yeah, you know, those Nigerians, I don't mean to say those Nigerians, I am. We talked about ancestry. I got a large part of Nigerian in me. Pause. But yeah, like so many scams. Like there was one I was looking into. I wanted to look into it.

But for some reason, it's so hard to find information on the people who's in Nigeria. You always got the people they use in the United States as mules to kind of like funnel the money. But to get the people who are actually running the shit, it's kind of hard. Like there was one of big criminal enterprise out of Ghana, I believe. But they were doing business email compromise scams, romance scams, trust, they were doing all sorts of things and just funneling it funneling the money through individuals in the United States. So when you look through the paperwork, it's not, not too interesting because it doesn't really give any details around how they were doing the business email compromise scams, which is certain a lot of my people have been wanting to look into. But, all right, anyway, let's let's get into this case, y'all. All right.

So who is Khaffani? Like I said, he's a rapper. Bling, bling, bling. Kofani is a rapper out of Oakland, I believe. And please, y'all, don't come at me if I say the wrong thing. I am not a hip hop channel. I know a lot of people say I'm kind of similar to academics. Shout out to him.

But I am not a hip hop channel. I never listened to this dude before with all due respect. But he's out of Oakland. And based on his Wikipedia page, his name is Amir Rashid, but in the paperwork, his name is Mark Hicks. His stage name is Kaffani, and he's an American rapper from the Funktown section of San Antonio, California. San Antonio, Oakland, California. He graduated from Oakland High School in 1998, where he played varsity basketball, and he eventually signed to FISN nation, a subdivision of the late. Mac Dre's label, Fizz Entertainment. Are you into hip hop, Matt? No, I listen to country music.

I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida. You know, I got a funny story about Tampa. A couple years ago, I was in Tampa, right? And I'm used to living in big cities like L.A., New York, you know, sections in Texas. But anyways, I was, it's like, I was, it was like not really, much to do. So when I walked out, all I saw was a bunch of alligators and cons. So I'm like, this is crazy. So, and I didn't have a car. So I took a lift to a mall. So I'm just like, all right, I'll walk around the mall and see what's going on out here thinking I'm going to see something interesting. It was nothing interesting. So I'm like, all right, let me, let me walk outside. And then when you walk outside, it's nothing but highways. So I'm just walking in

in between a bunch of people's cars. And imagine a black dude just walking in between a bunch of people's cars it wasn't a comfortable situation to say the least uh anyways let's keep it going so a little bit more about kaffani on september 28 2013 kaffani was shot several times in east oakland after shooting a music video he was permanently paralyzed from the waist down and on october 18th 2013 he spoke for the first time since the shooting in which he said took five shots they say i might not walk again, but I'm on God's team, so I know I'm going to win. Holla back. Kofani has launched a crowdfunding campaign with a concert on September 12, 2014 to acquire

an assistive robotic device to walk again. And it almost seems as if you got it, because I found these pictures here. And this is not funny. I mean, you know, with hip-hop, they do a lot to appear real. and in the in the you know let me even say that because a lot of these people they do come from rough backgrounds but unfortunately this gentleman he got shot five times could never walk again and this happened in 2013 i think that's when he was his hip-hop career was actually doing well but it does seem as if he got those legs because look at that that's pretty interesting um all right so that's a little bit about him i wanted to talk about him before we just jump into the fraud but this is what we were here for and this is why i put bookmarks in the comments for y'all that say, oh, you talk to, go to the bookmark. Simple as that. Let's talk about his career in fraud. Mark Hicks' criminal history dates back to his juvenile days. At 20, he was arrested for bank fraud and sentenced to six months in jail. Less than two years later, he was

arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 32 months in prison for Yit credit, use others' IDs. He was on probation for that offense when he was again arrested. This time for false information to law enforcement. One year later, in 2008, he was arrested yet again, this time charged with being a violent felon in possession of a firearm. Matt, I kind of have an idea of what Get Credit Use Others IDs is, but do you have any, you want to talk a little bit about what that is? He was arrested for bank fraud and sentences.

six months less than two years arrested for a get credit use okay I don't know maybe it's a what do you what do you think it is get credit use I mean it is using someone's ID to get to get like a credit line or something I mean that doesn't that's what I assume like maybe just get credit like I don't know that I've never seen this as a federal term yeah that's why it was a little weird to me but I assumed it was probably using stolen identities to get credit because that kind of seemed to be this guy's thing as we go on you know or is he like to me that that would fall under he would have been hit with 24 months for aggravated identity theft that this may actually be where he's getting other people using other people like a straw man scam to get them

credit uh get credit use oh so maybe he's charging people to acquire credit for them and then then they get the credit card and then he gets paid through. the credit card or some system or something i'm not sure this might might have to look into that in another episode i don't know a little vague um all right but let's let's keep it moving uh none of the arrest or convictions deterred hicks because from 2018 to november 2012 hicks participated oh wow from 2008 through 2012 right hicks participated in oh go ahead i'm gonna start that over because you just like exposed me for i can't read Anyways, none of the artists or convictions deterred Hicks, and from 2008 through November 2012, Hicks participated in a complex, multi-defendant scheme to defraud MoneyGram and USAA Federal Savings, employing the same modus apparendi he would use, in this case, in the USAA and MoneyGram fraud, Hicks and his co-conspirators, obtained personal identifying information of his victims, made telephone,

calls to the bank impersonating them and working with co-conspirators, obtain fraudulent proceeds from the victims. He was arrested in 2013, and despite this arrest, Hicks continued to engage in a sophisticated, insophisticated fraud schemes. In 2014, he was arrested and charged with grand theft and felon addict possessing a firearm. And according to the PSR, Hicks would hack into the Federal Express package tracking system and was rerouting packages where he had, had co-conspirators picked them up. He was observed picking up one of these packages from his co-conspirators in April 2015, the Honorable Phyllis J. Hamilton sentenced Hicks to 39 months in prison for the Money Graham and USAA fraud and ordered restitution of $258,400. And in 2016,

he was sentenced to three years in prison on state charges. So a lot. This man has done a lot of fraud in and out of prison for doing fraud and his modus apparendi seems to be using people's identities to then apply for some sort of credit and the different variations of cashing out right so to me in in this one you know the the quick version is he's obtaining people's information sounds like he's calling from a cell phone but he's probably using like the spoof app so the bank thinks they're calling from their home phone number and he's then applying online and getting some kind of a getting them to issue him a check and then on the when they overnight the check he's having the checks which the bank thinks they're overnighting the check to this person's home

address when in fact he's having those checks rerouted to another address so they get a hold of the checks and then they could deposit those checks because it doesn't say that he's acquiring identification in those people's names he's got their information so he's just calling on the phone saying yeah my name is this my date of birth is this my social security number I work here you know and I'm applying for a whatever a $5,000 cash or a $5,000 you know personal loan or a payday loan of some type and he's saying USAA so he's actually probably getting um it looks like he's he's getting a a personal loan could be 10 5,000 they go up to like I think you can get them like $20,000 for a personal loan and he probably is providing some kind of a pay sub to verify

their their um you know like they're two weeks or sometimes they ask for like a month's worth of pay stuff so you get providing two pay stub. and, you know, and they'll lend you, most banks will lend you double whatever you make in a month up to, like, $25,000. When I used to do this, it was up to $15,000. I think they go up to $25 now. But anyway, so then he's getting the checks sent, you know, oh, well, send it to my house, which they verify on his on their, when they pull the credit, they see this is his home address. So they don't have a problem overnighting it to that address. And then they, he somehow or another has it rerouted.

not sure how he's rerouting you know they're saying he hacked in hacked in could have simply been him just simply having the the password to their account and having it rerouted yeah and also i would imagine during this time if you had like the address and just basic information on someone in the routing and i'm saying the routing the tracking number you probably go in there and just switch it up if you had that information right yeah so it's not like they act like it's hacking like he hacked in and he didn't want to rewrite the code and everything he probably just made a phone call or went online and had the correct information but yeah so that's what i think he probably got in trouble here for and uh you know this this happened like like it said 2008

2012 uh from what i understand it seems like now people are more aware of how spoofing works so i can imagine during this time you know you get a number a phone call from a number that you think you could trust they would probably pick it up and go for it immediately because i know as of like the past two three years it seems like more awareness has been raised around spoofing and more people are aware just because if you see that number doesn't mean it's necessarily that person but that's a big part of how he did a lot of his thing as we as we're going to see uh all right so with that his most recent scheme that he has have uh that he has had to spend some time in for so bay area rapper Mark Kofani Hicks and two co-conspirators sentenced to prison for multi-million dollar

mortgage fraud scheme. The Bay Area rapper Mark Kofani Hicks, aka Amir Rashid, was sentenced to 87 months in prison for his role in orchestrating a complex fraud, loan fraud, and identity theft conspiracy. So loan fraud, identity theft, a lot of what he did in the past. You know what I'm saying? he was a one-trick pony in different variations. So I guess he was riding different ponies. Yeah, well, he's up to his game. When he moved to the mortgages, it's way, it's big money. Yeah, yeah.

But still pause. I said he was, yeah, whatever. Anyway, these are the individuals involved in the case. And he has an interest, because he goes by Amir Rashid, but then Mark Hicks and, of course, Kofani, his stage name. But his name is Mark the Django, Hicks. Then we also have Tyrone, Alex, Zander, John. Jones, Suzanne Ariola Martin, and I had to laugh when I read that name a couple of times.

Christopher Poole, DeMarcus Hicks, aka Smurf, Dion Sios, Donny, Costello, and Leaf, Scrochard. And a whole list of violations there. I am not going to go through all of that, but clearly they was going in, all the way in. all right so i'm going to break this down because i'm not about to read all of this uh but this was the conspiracy beginning at a date unknown to the grand jury but no later than in or about may 2018 and continuing through a date unknown but at least in or about february 2020 the way they write these things is just like i know i know you could have wrote this in a way that was much more simpler to just well you know they want to cover like like they don't want to get

they don't want to indict them or write them up on a on the motion and not cover everything so it ends up being even if they said well your honor that's not true because this happened six months they then they say they said we said around or about me said it's like gee but it's it's a nightmare to read it really is and that's why you subscribe to my channel because i make it interesting for you there you go but anyway their their scheme had several layers in it all right so the objective of the scheme was to defraud were among other objectives. First, A, to obtain stolen personal identifying information from identity theft victims, B, to use that stolen information to open bank accounts in the identity theft victim's names. From there, they would establish emails using the

identity theft's victims' names, to use the identity theft's victims' identities to obtain refinance loans using the identity thefts victim's property as collateral. Then they would direct the loan companies to wire the loan proceeds to the bank accounts that they opened earlier in the victim's name and they would cash out or extract the money from ATM withdrawals, doing store purchases for high-end goods, and they also purchased a ton of gold. And then they would resell a lot of that go for cash for personal use. So several layers to this scheme, but Matt, please correct me if I'm wrong. It seems like it was just gaining, getting their hands on people's information, opening bank accounts, establishing emails and phone numbers. Then they apply for these refinance loans,

get the money sent to their account, and then they have these various ways of cashing out, which included ATM withdrawals, store purchases, and purchasing gold. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I absolutely what I'm wondering about is how you know the listen that the hardest thing is for unfortunately this is you know this this wouldn't be hard at all for me any of this but the hardest part for a typical person other than if they had access to the information right which there's various ways to get that information um you know the problem is opening the bank account right like like now maybe if you have the person's credit card I'm sorry, you have the person's

a copy of their driver's license and you have their date of birth and their social security number and then you could probably open it up online. But if you get a large transaction on a new bank account, then they'll usually freeze that bank account. A lot of them. But I also notice that, you know, they're getting the,

like where are they getting the ATM card mailed to to pull the money out online? Where are they, they're either getting those ATM cards rerouted or, and I know, I know a guy that used to do this, he used to get like he'd apply for a credit, he'd use a spoof app, get your information, apply for a credit card and then get like a 30, 40, 50,000 dollar credit card and they would overnight it to you. He would go and sit in front of the person's house and wait for the, wait for the UPS guy or FedEx guy to show up. And then he'd get out of his he had a nice car like a brand new lincoln he would on this is like a million dollar house two million dollar house he'd parked in front and when the eight when the um UPS guy pulled up he'd get out of his car and start walking towards the house like he was about to walk in his house and so you know keep in mind that the actual owner of the house is at work and so he'd start walking he'd turn around and see the UPS driver he'd be like oh hey

Are you looking for, you know, John Smith? And he'd go, yeah, are you, Mr. Smith? Yes, I am. He'd go, okay, here I have a delivery. He'd give him the card. And then he'd open it up and the guy, a UPS guy would get in the truck drive off. He'd get in his car drive off. And he'd call with a spoof app and he'd activate the card.

And he'd start using the card. So these guys, but opening the bank account is probably the hardest thing because you're going to need a real ID. Unless you want to do it online, I guess you can open them online. but if you get a you start getting large wires sent to that account a brand new account it's going to be a problem hmm you know first with the gentleman that you spoke of did you have him on your channel once was he the black dude with the glasses no no that's uh that Zach's boy Zach is brilliant he's he could be you guys you guys were classic together man he's great that that video was really he it's funny for as brilliant as he is as brilliant as

brilliant is he and funny super funny but as brilliant as he is with his scams he would have this amazing intricate scam that would make millions and then he'd do something completely stupid like use a a stolen credit card to buy or to rent a room that he's staying in or rent a rental car it's like you've got four million dollars you can't pay for your own rental car what are you doing or you buy it with you buy a ticket a $400 ticket with a stolen and it's like you're going to be on that plane you just paid $400 for a plane ticket with a stolen credit card now you're attached to that stolen ticket for the next three hours while you're flying across the country you're going to land and they're going to grab you it's that easy like why would you do that and you know that's what I love about my channel because a lot of these cases and a lot of what you said you're already catching on to where they fucked up yeah it's just really it's You already catch it out to where they fucked up. You put all this thought into it. And the problem is I think you get cocky.

Absolutely. And you're just these guys make mistakes. And it's like they don't right, especially when they don't run it as a business. Like they don't like they don't want to invest a dollar into their scam. That always upsets me. It's like you don't want to put a dollar into your scam. You're about to make half a million dollars, but you don't want to spend $2,000. But how are they going to, how am I going to get icy?

though, Matt. I got to get the bling, bling in the nice car and post it on Instagram. What are you talking about? You have $498,000 left. Chill. No. So this looks to me like, yeah, it looks to me like they're opening accounts. Maybe they're seasoning those accounts for a certain period of time. Or maybe they're getting a fake ID, but I don't say anything about fake IDs. Without jumping too far, I do want to kind of challenge one thing you said. It's very easy to open bank accounts. with fake ID because social engineering like even what your boy did that's just like flat out social engineering and just someone thinking all this is all right and if you think about a lot of these employees I don't know if you're familiar with that Wells Fargo scandal but a lot of these

banking employees apparently they get paid for every account that they open and they have sales quotas and different things like that so someone comes in and they're telling you I'm going to open an account and it's going to soon have $300,000 wired into it that's dollar signs for whoever's service in that person, and they'll turn a blind eye, but they would put extra scrutiny on someone else who's coming in, like a teenager or a younger person, for example, just opening a basic account. They would not trust that person more than the person who's coming in and appears a certain way and may, you know, come off a certain way, and they will believe it and turn a blind eye to a lot of things. And that's a lot of what happened in this case. It's just a lot

of people who didn't catch clear red flags or they decided to just not pay attention to it. Right. Okay. Well, let me give you an example. When I say, you know, look, opening and I opening it with a fake ID is easy. You're right. How did you get the fake ID? Well, we can't talk about that on the video. And that's the problem. Getting the fake ID, then you have to go and have all their information and a fake ID that will pass mustard. That's not hard. The bank employees don't give it. They're not checking. opening that account. But here's the other thing is that that bank employee isn't seeing the wires that come in. This is an automatic algorithm that detects that this this account

was open three weeks ago and they just got a $250,000 wire sent in from another bank. It will shut it off automatically. A lot of times they'll shut it off. And I know this because I've had bank accounts where I had a real ID. I opened the bank account and then the bank count had been open for six or eight months. But I was putting in like 3,000, 5,000, 20,000, 10,000. Then one day I got a 250,000 wire. And they immediately closed off my bank and said, you have to come in the bank. Now, because it was me and because I had a real ID in someone else's name issued by the DMV, I actually went into the bank. Now, my girlfriend was freaking out. Oh my God. I'm like, you don't understand. This person is a homeless person that lives

under a bridge. He didn't complain. I have credit cards in his name. I have a car in his name. Like all of this. There's nothing. There's no way they're going to catch me. And I actually went into the bank and they said, and I asked them what happened? What's the problem? You shut off my account or you froze my account. They said, well, look, the problem is it's less than a year. You just had $250,000 wired into your account. Like, Money's going in your account, you're draining it. Money's going in your account. You're draining it.

I'm like, no. And I explained, I owned a development company and this and this. And we had just, that was a loan from a refinance and blah, and of course, they turned it right back on. They apologized, but they only did that because I was willing to walk in the bank. I'm pretty sure these guys would be terrified to walk into a bank, especially they had a fake ID. They had a real ID from the DMV, but these guys have real victims.

My victim was a homeless person that I knew wasn't going to complain. These guys are stealing like doctors fucking driver's licenses and cops and CPAs and like, you know, insurance salesmen. Like their fear is if the bank suddenly said, you need to come in the bank, they'd be like, oh, Jesus. He might have figured it out. I'm not going. That's why I'm saying the bank is a crucial issue for these guys. because everything else they did, although it takes brains, most people could figure that out.

The balsy part is how did you open the bank account? Did you have a real ID? Do you have a fake ID? Do you do it online? But I also see that, you know, obviously they're draining the accounts using, you know, ATM car. You know, like where was that card mail? Matt, you, we're going to get to that point, man.

You're like, jump at the gun. I like to build this. I see. I love it. I love the conversation because I can't even get past this slide because as you say things, things are coming to mind. But the last thing I'll say on everything you said, pause real quick. Your connection was breaking up a little bit. Just want to let you know that. Oh, was it? Yeah. I don't know if it was me, but I pay a lot of money for my internet. I'm just kidding. But I'm pretty confident in my internet. I don't know. But I'm just saying it could be on either of our sides, but it did break up a little bit. Okay. Well, I mean, let me know if it happens again. got you and i'll repeat i'll repeat whatever it is just tell me to repeat that got you uh but what i was going to say is exactly the way that you walked into the bank um a lot of banks don't want to take on that reputational risk so if you have all the necessary papers and you're a thorough enough fraudster to take the time to make the paper the paperwork and go in it's it's just the the the fronters who do not have the skill don't take that next step so once the account is

It's an L. They're not going in. They're not doing anything. But I notice from a lot of the cases that I look at, the more higher class or more, what's what I'm going for? Yeah. The more confident, fraud says they go in and there's some really good fake IDs, especially if you bring in a fake ID that's from a different state, a lot of times it's hard for them. If you get in an ID from your same state, that's one thing. You're used to see in this year. You're, you're saying. ID looks this exact same way. But when you're getting an ID from a different state and you're not exactly sure how it looks and even if you put it underneath the thing, you see the shit on it, but unless you're going and you're looking at the ID guys and all that, you don't really know what the fuck you're looking at. So I can imagine a lot of times they were coming in and as you will see with this case, that was pretty much what they were doing. They were going in and getting the things cleared. And if everything is what it is, the bank is not. going to take on that risk to deny you the money if you bought everything that they're asking

for to get it cleared so even if the account was open 30 days or whatever if they if they do their things right there's a high probability that the bank will release that money if you're willing to walk in and everything passes mustard they're going to they got to give you that money absolutely i'm just saying that a lot of times they'll call you and they won't me i would go in because my dm my passport, sorry, my driver's licensor ID had been issued from the state DMV. It's a real ID. It's not me, but it's a real ID. It was my picture.

I went in the DMV. I sat in the line. I gave them the document. They took a picture of me. So I'm willing to go in the bank. Most people, they order something offline. They're like, geez. Like to me, I'd be concerned.

Mm-hmm. You know, but if these guys weren't, they walked in and passed scrutiny, more power to him. Let's go. Let's do it. Yes, yes, yes. Law enforcement often questions him, not because he's suspected of a crime, but because they find him fascinating. 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. All right. So there were nine victims that Kofani and his crew victimized. That's the right word in this scheme. And all of them came out of California. And a key theme that I noticed with a lot of these individuals, they were elderly. So they were elderly or had different people taking care of their affairs. So, you know, they weren't all the way caught up in their finances. But these are all of the nine victims here. And it's funny, even one of these victims lived in. on like the same block as him apparently, which was pretty interesting. So how did they do it? How did they do their thing? Let's find out. This is one of the first victims that Mr. Mark Hicks orchestrated this scheme on.

So on May 14th, 2018, between May 14, 2018 and June 2018, Hicks orchestrated the scheme to defraud by using the personal information of victim one to obtain a, refinanced loan. Specifically, on May 14, Hicks contacted Individual 1, an employee at Selective Motors. This is very important. Shortly thereafter, Individual 1 acts now calm to run a full credit history report for identity theft victim 1 without the victim's authorization, obviously. Within days of the credit report run, victim 1's personal identifying information was used to set up a fraudulent Google email address and to apply for an unauthorized American Express card. And on or about June 18, 2018, Hicks falsely purporting to be identity theft victim one,

applied for a $785,000 refinanced loan using as collateral the identity theft victim's property in Palo Alto, California. So with this, the thing that I found very interesting, and the reason I put this here is because he used this same method, and this is just a concise way of breaking down how he did his thing. After he got the information, it seems as if he had an insider that worked for a car dealership, selective motors, and this individual that worked at the car dealership

had the ability to get people's credit report through the now-com system. And when I look that up, you probably know more about that than me, but it seems to be some kind of system that's around pulling credit history and things of that nature. And like I told you when I reached out to you, I feel the main reason they were doing that was to see what kind of assets that these people had, specifically real estate. And from that credit report, you'll see what their mortgage balance is or if they had a mortgage in the past and you can easily look up the property values of someone's property. And from there, get an idea of what the extra.

equity is in that person's property, which allowed them to now go for the refinance loans. What do you think about that, Matt? No, I mean, that's, that's exactly, you know, I'm not saying it's exactly what happened, but it sure sounds like it's exactly what happened. You know, it's funny. The other case I was telling you about the guy actually would draw just, he would like drive through the neighborhood and find houses and look. And then he would, he would use Lexus Nexus.

and order LexisNexis reports and slowly kind of dismantle these people's entire lives until he'd eventually figure out what they get their social security numbers like he was he was amazing but these guys were being given all the hard stuff to get he was he was being handed all of that stuff and then he was going out pulling their credit and finding out hey these people lived in this house for 15 years, you know, that means that half the mortgage is paid off and that how, well, close to half, let's say. And the house has been increasing by 3% a year for the past, you know, 15 years. So this million dollar house that they live in, they now owe roughly $600,000 and that house is worth, you know, worth $1.5 million. So there's easily $750,000 worth of, or $785,000,

dollars worth of equity there. So they go online, they apply, they say, hey, they know how long the guy's been on his job because when you pull your credit report, and that's what that system does, it pulls a tri-merger, it pulls all three credit reports and lays them all out. So they know, they know the house, the address, they know how long the guy's been on his job, they know, you know, they know all that. And how hard is it, even just if you called, they could just call and say, hey, call his job. Bob. Hey, is he here? I'm sorry, I'm calling to verify his loan application. How long he's been there?

The receptionist will tell you, oh, 11 years. So, I mean, I think all of that's very easy. The only problem is, is when they apply for that, that 785,000 refi, they're going to ask for, most likely they're going to ask for his last two years, W-2s and pay Tubbs. Now, that's not hard to do. You can generate those very easy using QuickBooks or TurboTax or any of those software programs that are used to run businesses. And of course, do your taxes too, but they also run business programs. They'll, they'll, you can easily print out W-2s and pay stubs using those programs. So once they get those, they don't even have to be accurate. They just have to be enough money to cover your ability to make that payment. That's not hard to figure out.

So then they have to mail that to the bank. And all of this is done over the computer. These people don't even have to walk in the bank. It doesn't sound, you know. Most of that's done over the computer. You're not even walking in until the closing. In some states, you can do mobile closings. They just, you just meet, you meet a, you can meet a notary anywhere at a Barnes

and Nobles, at a Starbucks coffee. shop you can meet them anywhere to sign those documents you don't have to go into the the bank or the title company and uh i think that's what they played on because if you think about it you're leaving a random notary and they're supposed to be thorough and verifying who they're dealing with but at the end of the day you're working with a random notary if you're probably getting paid like 50 dollars or i don't know how much they get paid to do these things uh to verify all these documents and then it's just sent off. So, you know, a lot of, a lot of room, once again, social engineering. It's like a common thing. All these things is different variations.

All right. So this is another victim and I put this here just so you can see it's the same method. Between August 7th, 2018 and August 21st, 2018, Hicks, once again, using the identifying information this time of victim three to obtain a loan. Same method. He had this Insider, get the credit report. Then from there, they used that information to open bank accounts. And then on August 21st, they received the wire of $713,000 and some change. So you see from, wow, that was less than, what is that, like three weeks? That's efficient. First off, because I know when I was dealing with mortgages, it seemed like the average turnaround time for a refi, he lock, whatever, depending on how fast everyone got the documents over, sometimes it'll be like two months.

these guys are efficient this is crazy um but there you go you see that fast 700 grand just like that one two three oh wait you're this is a um hold on uh how long did it take them to do this from august 7th to August 21st. They opened the account on August 9th, and they received the wire on the 21st. You're right. That is fast. That's, that's, and that shows, because I know a lot of these brokers, they get paid, obviously, they get paid off of these loans that they give out. So I know when I work with this mortgage brokerage, you really, like the big thing that the guy taught me was you always want to make sure that the individual, before you even get the process started, they have all their docs ready so you could just submit everything you got everything you need so if any hiccups

come up you already have whatever is needed to get it cleared yeah so um yeah you want to you don't want to have a whole bunch of what stipulations you want to have everything you want a perfect package going in it's almost like these guys but then again honestly these are there's these houses are probably worth and are obviously in the millions it's in california i can imagine the it's funny because the LTV the loan to value on these homes is probably so low that the bank is desperate to close as quick as possible and these people aren't complaining like if they're getting a 12% interest rate they're probably not bitching and moan and what do I whatever make it so they're like yeah the house is worth $2 million $3 million and I only want $700,000 and I don't care what my interest

rate so the bank thinks yeah well if it's this is great close this as fast as possible not realizing they're just being they're being they think they're taking the customer and the customer's taking them at the end of the day it's not like they're going out of business so the new bemo V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket

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Get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash the iPorter to learn more. Says what it is. Well, listen, I guarantee you that, you know who really got screwed is old republic title. Okay. Why do you say that? Because they're the title company.

Talk to me because I don't really understand the titles and everything. They insure against fraud. Mm-hmm. So you just, you guys were in charge of making sure that the person that showed up is the correct person. The ID matches and to sign all the documents. So a lot of times in my own case, let's say I stole a $200,000 from Bank of America. A lot of times Bank of America made a claim against the title company, the title company paid them back. now sometimes they would put up a fight and they'd split it so bank of america would get hit with a

hundred thousand and the title company would get hit with a hundred thousand but in this case they they may just cut those checks and that's why i wanted you on this those little areas that's that's so good to know good to know all right so this is where we got how they did their thing boom by the bang get the information open the account refi get the money uh but we're going to dive into how they did their thing a little bit more and a lot of what they did required using people to go in and sign off on these documents as part of the closing for the loans they applied for and that's where they did a lot of impersonations and um for example on may first and and with this this this part here This shows how after someone already got scammed, how they were able to realize, like, hold up, there's a refinance on my property that I have no idea about.

So one of the victims received an unexpected bill for $360 from their attorney for services rendered in connection with a loan letter she prepared. Victim One had not asked for the attorney to prepare any loan letters. victim one immediately contacted their attorney and they determined victim one was a victim of identity theft and fraud so boom oh shit what happened i did what not me not me was it me all right so according to the victim's attorney in late october 2018 unbeknownst to the victim an individual who identified himself as the victim's son contacted the attorney by email from a telephone number to request a copy of his mother's trust. The attorney compiled and gave him a copy of the victim's trust. Based on the investigation, including a review of text messages

obtained via a search warrant for a Google account tied to the number, they determined that the phone number was associated with Mr. Hicks and was you, and he used it to perpetrate fraud on victim one. What I found the most appalling out of all this was that point number 14, that attorney should be fired like ASAP. Like, how do you just have someone call you over the phone? And I just felt the way that they verified or tried to confirm they were speaking with the white person, they should have took a little bit more.

But just like that, they called social engineering and got all this information sent over to them. But like you also said, Matt, where a lot of these guys screwed up. He was using a Google phone number that was associated with his real identity. So he doesn't seem as if he took the time to even try and cover that part up. No. Well, you know, it's funny. Here's the other question you should.

You want to ask yourself as this. Why is it that they contacted this person's attorney to get a copy of their trust? So how do they know they have a trust? How do they know that they have an attorney? And I know the answer to that, by the way. These people's house, when they pulled the title to the house, obviously, and they found out that the house was in a trust. On the trust, it says who prepared the trust.

So they then contacted the attorney for the trust and got the attorney to write a letter saying that they were allowed to place a lien on the title. for the trust. So they needed that letter. Why they didn't move on to another victim, like that's guts. That's, to me, this is gutsy. As soon as I saw that, I was like,

man, I don't want to get an attorney involved. This attorney might make a phone call. They might call the victim. They may call, like, this guy calls up as his son. The attorney may have said, listen, I can't talk to you about your mother's trust or your father's trust. That's what she did.

they may have said before they even called them back or took the phone call, they may have called them and said, listen, your son is on the phone. He wants a copy of the trust. Are you okay with that? It would have been over right there, but they didn't. Just like you said, the attorney, what, what are you doing? Why would you send him this? Is he the trustee? And if he is the trustee, you've probably spoken with him before. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why I said at the start of this, this whole scheme was successful because it was so many people who were just not doing their job correctly if you ask me yeah because it's like the social engineering and it's like at the easiest and i didn't put all of the parts in it but he did a lot of fake calls and like changing up his voice

and stuff it's it's hilarious but even with that his first slip up was the phone number uh but let's move on so with this same victim December 2018, the individual claiming to be the victim's son, which was Hicks, again contacted the attorney by email and said the mother was trying to get a refinance loan. As part of the approval process, the son said the loan broker needed a letter from the attorney's office, stating that his mother was capable of handling her financial affairs. Did I call it? I didn't even see this and I knew that's what happened. And that's why I said Matt, at the beginning, you were jumping the gun like then. Give you a boy a chance.

And that's why you're on this. Oh, wow. I'm not impressing myself. You kind of spoiled the whole video from the first fucking slide. I just want to let you know that. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Sorry.

But let me read through this. And I just want to tell you the part that really was just like, wow. But the mother was capable of handling her financial affairs and understood the loan was a high-cost loan, like you said as well. The number he provided was Hicks phone number. and said he could be reached at that number. The victim's attorney sent an email to the victim's son with the letter that he requested. So just like that. So what stood out to me?

You're a whole attorney. You're like a whole attorney, right? And someone calls you saying they need a letter stating their mother is capable of handling their financial affairs. I don't know the exact regulations behind it. I think it's taking advantage of vulnerabilities or whatever the hell it is. But right there, that's a red flag. That is a huge red flag where they should have been like, hold up.

This is a little weird, this letter to ask to me. And then it says for a high cost loan. This attorney was just collecting whatever fee they collect. And I don't think they really were doing their job thorough. And I don't know, that's a little crazy. The son is saying he needs a letter saying that my, I need you to write a letter saying that my mother or whoever is capable of making their own financial, decisions for the broker, well, here's the thing, like, why didn't she, why didn't this attorney

call the victim? Or maybe, I guess maybe they knew who the victim was. And it's like, oh, yeah, I know your mother. Yeah, no, she's perfectly capable, but still, why not make that call? Yeah, if you're able to handle your own affairs, why didn't she call on her own? First of all, you don't know who the son is. Like, I don't, I know your mother, but I don't know, and you're she is capable. of making her own financial decisions, but I don't know you. Let me call your mother. And if she is capable of making her own financial decisions, then why am I talking to you? But listen, in my case, I can tell you right now, in my case, there were many times when people

would see things that were clearly wrong, that they should have done things. And they just kind of were like, yeah, that makes sense. sense that they just kept going. It's like, you could have picked up the phone. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and, you know, a lot of my viewers, I have a wide, uh, variety of viewers. Some seem to be scammers, some interested, but also have a lot of professionals, fraud professionals who watch my videos. Guys, we got to do something about this. We got to, like, have a class for these attorneys on how to spot red flags and mortgage fraud, because clearly there's an up, you know what, hire Matt. I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, I wrote a

a red flags course when I was locked up actually. I'm going to put this on LinkedIn and we'll split whatever you make 50-50 deal. No, just kidding, just kidding. But I am going to put it on LinkedIn because like this is ridiculous. All right, let's keep you moving because it gets crazy and that. And I highlighted it here because I ain't trying to read all of this. As part of the scheme, Hicks began recruiting co-conspirators with one of the co-defendants Deontes called Costello who recruited.

co-defendants Suzanne Ariola Martin and Leif Crochaud, who were both homeless at the time and addicted to heroin and methamphetamine to impersonate victims and sign and notarized fraudulent loan documents. Ariola Martin impersonated Victim II's wife. Hicks admits that he obtained a fraudulent driver's license in the name of Victim 2 and Victim 3, but with Scroeder and Ariol-Marer. Riola Martin's pictures and using the IDs along with the fraudulent email, Google Voice, and bank account he and others had created, applied for a $250,000 loan in the victim's name. So that's who he used, Matt, to go in and sign these documents. I was wondering that how did a bunch of young black guys walk go in as old or, you know, as old people, but apparently some of the homeless people. and there's a lot of cases that I see involving homeless people and sometimes they're being

manipulated in a way where it's clear that they're not aware of what's going on but but these two folks here they was all the way with the shits because he used them multiple times he had to clean them up I would hope so I mean they're homeless he's got to probably take them get a get a motel room clean them up get them better clothes like you know you know scrub them down and get them presentable. I mean, and then they have to watch. They get all this money. They're going to just get more drugs. It's like a vicious cycle. Oh, they're not getting it. They didn't get $250. They got $1,500. I had a guy signed, listen, I had a guy one time he signed for probably $300,000 worth of mortgages. I paid him $1,500. Wow. Wow. Same thing. Fake ID. He was a drug addict.

Fake ID walked into first closing. He did it for $500. box the second one using a fake id knew what he was doing second time he did it for a thousand he saw the and he saw the money that i was getting he saw it he saw a hundred thousand dollars minimum of checks going to different people so the next time he said i'm not doing it for 500 bucks bro i said i understand he goes this time i want a thousand Ooh, oh, oh, hey. Whoa, whoa, big shot caller. Hey, moving on up.

I said, that's excessive, but, okay. Oh, boy. All right, let's keep it going because you got to see how he used these individuals. So back to the story. So the same individual now. On December 13th, 2018, a notary was contacted by a mobile notary service, just like you said, Matt. oh you you like you're looking like you're looking like Kobe in the fourth quarter man you can't miss I'm so shocked at that I'm I mean you know I like to think I know what I'm doing obviously but

it's always nice this is this is why I wanted to do this video with you and it's going great all right so boom so contacted a mobile notary service and acts victim one to schedule a document schedule a document notarization. Once again, the email included Hicks phone number and an investigator from the ACDAO. I don't know what that is. Interviewed the notary who stated that the first time the notary called this number, it was answered by a female.

On the second occasion, it was answered by a male. On December 13th, 2018, notary one telephoned Hicks phone number, and the number was once again answered by a male who said he was driving his mother to meet the notary. Later that day, Notary One met with the woman claiming to be the victim and notarized loan documents for her. Notary One stated that she obtained two fingerprints from the individual claiming to be the victim for her notary journal and took a photo of the individual's driver's license. This investigator examined the driver's license and identified the picture on it was the individual that he recruited,

as Suzanne Ariola Martin and the fingerprints from the notary book were submitted and at the point of when they submit when they wrote this paperwork it was pending but I can only assume

that it ended up being a match. So there you go Matt they're sending this person in and even though this once again this notary saw some red flags they ran with it and it's clearly a fake ID

because it had the picture on it so I don't either the ID was really good or this notary ain't shit at checking IDs. I don't know. But in my experience, I know a lot of notaries aren't doing things correctly. Like they, it's crazy. Sometimes you give them a document to already sign like, hey, notarize this. And it's like, are you going to ask for my ID? Oh, yeah, here, here. Let me get your ID. This is the same.

I've seen it multiple times. But, um, let's keep on moving. This is another occasion where he used these individuals on March 8th, 2019. second notary met with a woman claiming to be victim one to notarized documents related to a North Coast financial loan. Notary two's husband went with her. Notary two and her husband were interviewed and they both stated that and they both met the woman identifying herself to be victim one. So her and her husband both went in and they met this person that they were doing the notaries for. At the time of doing the notaries, notary two said that she had that she was suspicious that victim one's ID was fake.

But her husband told her, you always worrying about stuff. Don't worry about it. Just notarize the documents. I'm trying to go watch the game, lady. Just kidding. But her husband told her not to worry about it, and they notarized the loan documents. Notary two and her husband were separately shown double blind photo lineups and both identified Ariel LeBarton as the individual who signed a notary documents and showed them the ID for

victim one and showed the thumbprints and that was submitted and um but they were unable to find a match on the thumbprints but the pictures matched they felt the ID was fake and clearly it turned out that it clearly was a scam but once again an example of how easy it was despite them feeling nervous and seeing different red flags they just went with it anyway and I'm sure there's something in a notary handbook that says you shouldn't have another person that's not related to the transaction in it, like for security purposes or something like it. But her husband's just sitting there like, come on, lady, let's go. But yeah, what do you think of that, Matt?

I wonder why she felt it like it was a fake ID. I wonder what the issue was. But keep in mind that, you know, I don't, I don't, it's banks and notaries. It's funny because, like, it's not like they have, like, extensive classes on how to spot a fake. And honestly, a lot of the fakes, like, there are some shit. websites out there that they provide really crappy fake IDs but there are some that are amazing the quality that you can provide you can get from a fake ID online is amazing so you know I don't know I know I know one time I had somebody go into a bank to sign for a loan

and the person at the title company looked at her ID and it was her picture on on the ID. And she looked at the ID and looked at the picture and said, this picture is not you. It doesn't look like you. But it was her. It was genuinely her picture. But the person said,

wouldn't refuse to give her her check. It was like a $200,000 check. Refused to give her the check said, I'm going to make some phone calls. Let her sign the papers. Had the check there, but wouldn't give it to her. I'll call you when I look into this a little bit more.

And she left. But everything, like it wasn't that it was a bad fake ID was even her picture. She just got suspicious. And the fact that this woman was suspicious, she probably should have just said, hey, listen, something's wrong. I'm not doing this and gone somewhere else. Or what I would think is like if you're suspicious, but you don't want to make that call, like I understand, you don't want to offend anybody. Maybe ask for additional sources of ID. Like, hey, do you have a secondary, something else? Because that's even a better idea. Do you have a driver's license? Or I'm sorry, do you have a credit card with your name on it? Do your social

security card. The problem with you had done that with me is I would have been like, yeah, I got the credit cards. I got this. I got my voters registration. Like I never went in with one. I was when I call it, what they call it pocket litter where you have other little pieces of of documents, other documents that also have. So, but yeah, I hear you. That's it. That's probably a really good idea. You know, sometimes I just don't feel comfortable. So the problem is is what, you know, look, What if she said, I don't feel comfortable making that call? And then said, I'm not going to do this and left. And then they called another notary.

The other notary went in. The other notary signed. It wasn't a problem. So next time the mortgage broker or the lender orders a notary, they end up saying, we're not going to use this one woman. She gave us a hard time before. And it was a legit person. It was a legit. So I can see her kind of being like, I'll go ahead.

Well, my husband says it's her. I'm going to sign. And that extra part that you said, I would imagine a lot of these notaries, because I know people who do notaries, you're not getting paid a lot of money to do these notaries. So it's usually like people who just want to get some extra money. And if you're pairing with this brokerage or whichever company that's sending you out, they don't want you giving their clients a hard time. So it's like, hey, look, they have everything.

We verified everything. Do the notary. So just like you said, it's a lot of pressure that they were getting. Yeah, she's got a driver's license. What are you doing? Exactly. exactly because at the end of the day everyone just wants this loan to close because that's when everyone gets paid correct um all right so nice nice okay so here just wanted to call out how many

times he used these victim uh these uh not victims these co-conspirators to pose as different victims so you got victim seven and victim eight they were a couple and uh they were sent in same game plan, notary scanned the doc, stamp the documents. And this time it was for a wire for $300,000 that was sent to a bank account that they recently opened. So that scam went from September 11th to October 1st still. And all their things are like within three weeks. Wow. And you know what's funny too? Look, look at how divert. You understand, do you understand that every bank has different procedures? So this guy is hitting banks across the spectrum it's not like he figured out bank of america's underwriting guidelines and stuck

with screwing over bank of america he's hitting city looks what is this was it city group c i don't think that's city yeah oh of course cit um and he's hitting is this oh coast to coast the other one was some other there every one of these is a different bank and isn't that crazy each time he's more or less doing the same play and like you said we're getting the accounts opened, sending in these drug addicts that he was sending in, and these employees were falling for it and somehow, yeah, $470,000 on that one. 785 on the other one, or over 750, over 700 on the other one. I mean, these are, these aren't little licks, bro.

Yep, yep. And I just want to say, if you have, and I'm going to be honest, I'm not the most knowledgeable person on fraud. like I learn a lot of stuff from just reading and speaking to people like you, but, and I mean, that in the most respectful way that kind of sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. But this shows, it's very easy to do fraud. If you just know what to do, but as easy as it is, as you can see with this, you're going to slip up somewhere because something's going to be tied back to you. That's a common theme I notice in a lot of these things. And these folks get greedy. Because I would imagine, if you probably did one or two licks, he probably probably no one would know about it but you keep doing it over and over and like you said

you get cocky and um you know nothing lasts forever and it's like what the hell were you doing with that well we're going to find out what the hell he was doing with that money let's let's keep going on them going so how they cashed out dollar dollar oh wow I didn't I didn't notice that wasn't US currency in the back oh it's not that's a blooper but how did they count cash out because that's always, it's always one thing to do the scheme. You get the money. But just like you were saying at the start of this, like, how were they getting the money? So let's see. Proceeds for the fraud. And this is also where they slipped up a lot. On multiple occasions, Hicks would contact gold dealers by phone, altering his voice and impersonating

the victims to order gold bars and gold coins, which he had delivered to a trailer home in Vallejo, California owned by the sister of DeMarcus Hicks spouse. So this is someone that he's related to. That's stupid. But the gold laundering the money through gold, good idea. You know, and I'm going to kind of jump the gun a little bit because there's a couple of cases I looked over. Whenever it comes to gold, I notice the feds or whoever's investigating it, they always do the same thing when it comes to gold shipments. They get in contact with whoever's shipping the goal.

They tell them send something different. They send them something. Then the people call and get all pissed off. It's like, oh, that's not what I order. So then they send it back. And I always imagine why do they do that extra step? And I can only imagine it is to just like confirm for sure that this person is actually doing this. But I notice they always do that.

It's at least three, four cases I covered where they did some kind of thing like that. but anyway so hicks ordered nine hundred and sixty four thousand dollars in gold bars and coins through the u.s gold bureau and at least another two hundred and seven thousand from gold line ink hicks also admits to spending parts of the proceeds from the two hundred and forty one thousand dollar loan from victim six via ATM withdrawals and other ATM card purchases Matt, most of what I cover on my things is a check fraud and a common thing that a lot of check frost is just like, like, why did you do that? ATM withdraws.

ATM withdraws, ATMs, do you not know there's cameras around every single ATM in the ATM? It's all up in your face. Yeah. But, yeah. You got to wear a, you got to wear a mask like you've got, like you've got, but that mask is actually what's the name of the um the the guy fox which one that's a guy fox mask oh the one i have on yeah notorious uses guy fox you know i never knew the name i always just called this the the zoro mask because i think in zoro that's when i first saw this mask look up guy

fox they actually have guy fox day he actually was a member of an organization that was going to blow up the building of Parliament with Parliament in it. All right, let me take this mask off. In the UK. In the UK. It's a great story. I mean, it's super interesting.

They still have to this day, they have Guy Fox Day. And that mask is also used in the movie, V for victory. That's, I said Zorro. That's where I saw it from. But I also got the Deadpool mask here. And to be honest,

the issue I have is I can't C3D shit. Yeah, I like the Guy Fox one. But anyway, go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me talk about a whole different thing. Um, so, so also the Marcus Hicks and co-defendant Tyrone Jones, who remained a fugitive at the point of writing this. I don't know if that's still accurate, uh, took at least some of the gold coins and bars and exchanged them for cash at a jewelry store. Some of that cash wrapped in distinctive colored rubber bands was then deposited into a safe deposit box in the name of Hicks, mother, and sister, getting mom, getting mommy involved in his dirty work. Law enforcement later searched the safe deposit box and seized $484,920 in cash that Hicks

admitted was part of his fraud scheme. One thing I could say, at least he tried to stash some money away, at least. You know, maybe he was looking, you know, if things go south for my, for his mother insist that at least they got something to go to but clearly they were able to track those gold purchases right back to what he did so it wasn't that effective um all right so oops and so here you see some of the transactions that he did wires in which he was purchasing gold you have one on december 2019 280 ounces of gold coins for four hundred thousand dollars uh some ridiculous things And you got more over here, some of the big ones, 12, 17, 2018, $144,000, $56,000, $155,000. They were going all the way in.

And these were all transactions. And like you said, I don't know how the bank were allowing all these things to go through. And even with dealing with gold, I would imagine a lot of banks would find that as like a risky thing that they would want a new business to be dealing with. Or a new individual, not even a business. I'm not even sure that the bank knows necessarily where those wires are going. But here's the thing about gold is that typically gold dealers charge between one and a half, around one and a half to two percent. So if you're buying $100,000 with a gold, you can buy bars. Usually bars have stamps on them, though.

They'll have like a serial number. Not that they're tracked. They're not tracked. But you can use that serial number to say, hey, you know, you just take a picture in case it's stolen, but it's not tracked by the federal government. So, but you can buy bullion. Bullion isn't, doesn't even have a serial number. So you could say I want $100,000 in bullion and they'll mail it to you through Federal Express or through a courier.

They'll bring, give it to you, you sign for it. You can then turn around and go to another, another, um, gold dealer and say, hey, by the way, I have this gold. I've been in my family for 10 or 15 years. My father gives us a couple pieces every single year. I'd like to sell it to you. Then they'll charge you 1.5 or 2% to buy that gold from you, and they'll cut you a check. So it's like for three to four percent, you've laundered your money.

Like so I get the gold makes sense, you know, selling it to a jewelry. store. I guess he didn't know where a, I mean, you would think you did know where a gold bullion, where our gold dealers were because he's buying them from gold dealers. Exactly. Exactly. But I guess maybe the jewelry store, I don't, maybe the jewelry store was willing to just give him cash. Exactly. In patience. Yeah, you, because you can, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, cut, you know, that you could go and give it to him, say, hey, cut me a check to my corporation. Like your mother or somebody opens a corporation for you and you cut these checks to the corporation for the mom you know whatever there's there's ways to do it they don't know that obviously they were getting somebody to buy it for

cash who knows what they were giving them on the dollar but so i can see the gold or any precious metals for that metal matter even even diamonds um but as we will soon see a common red flag was the accounts they were using to do these purchases were tied eventually right right back to their actual identities with the phone numbers and the addresses and you're going to see. Let's let's keep it going. So their downfall, whoop who. Guess who's calling the police. Downfall, as always. And if you watch this far, girlfriend. What? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, not the girl. Well, you keep calling it out. But what I was going to say is, if you watch this far, Matt already done called out everywhere that

they went wrong. Oh, just the stupid mistake of the phone, right? There's several, but for the sake of just tying this all together. It started getting investigated on July 2019. The FBI began investigating a mortgage loan fraud conspiracy targeting individuals in San Francisco Bay and the LA areas. The investigation started with a referral that they received from the Alameda County District attorney's office and now involves the Secret Service in Los Angeles County's district attorney. The evidence that they got from all the things that they found developed points to Hicks as the ringleader of this scheme. And as we mentioned, Hicks 40 is an Oakland rapper and musician with an extensive criminal record dating back to 1995. So a lot of the things that they investigated

ended up going right back to Hicks. And with the way he was doing his thing as successful as he was, he made a lot of clear, you know, mistakes. So let's see. First, this investigator obtained and reviewed applications and bank statements for the accounts that were open. The documents used to open the accounts, which victim won, has confirmed she did not authorize, included the actual social security number, date of birth, and a mailing address in Richmond, California. Remember that. that gold purchases were proceeds of this and other frauds being perpetrated by Hicks and others were sent to this Richmond address.

So there was a common link to this Richmond address. On February 2019, the mailing address of both the Bank of America account in Victim One's name was changed to an address in Vallejo, California. And if you remember earlier, that's where they had that trailer park home or whatever it was called. Yeah. Where multiple shipments of gold coins and bars were purchased. So once, and I find a job that a lot of these investigators do very interesting,

because this is the part that I liked, like, you know, just connecting the dots. And they're probably like, oh, shit. I can imagine them, like, laughing their ass off when they start making these connections. But proceeds from this fraud conspiracy have been shipped here and after, and then they gave the residence a name the gold delivery residence. So now they got to confirm this is a target location. On December 2018, a $300,000, $300,000 mortgage loan. was taken out through North Coast Financial

with Victim One's properties in Oakland as collateral. In March 2019, a second loan was taken out for $250,000 using their second residence as collateral. On the corresponding loan application used for both loans, the applicant's name was listed as Victim One, which, or that's supposed to be with Hicks phone number as the number that was on the application and that same Richmond address. So even though everything was in this victim's name, he put his phone number and his

address on it. So, you know, that there's clearly a screw-up. And once the loan closed, the loan proceeds were wire transferred to these bank accounts that were opened. So you see all the connections, you got the two addresses that they commonly used on the bank accounts that they opened and that they also had gold shipping. sent to, and the phone numbers, everything. So let's keep going because there's more to how they got caught slipping. Based on the investigation, including a review of text messages obtained from a search warrant, they determined that that 510 number belonged to Hicks, and we saw that earlier. Also, the Bank of America account, one of the Bank of America accounts that they opened

had that phone number associated with it, and they obtained subscriber records for the phone number from AT&T and they saw that that number is an active account associated with Hick's mother once again and it's so sad you know I could imagine your mom don't even know what I could imagine his mom wasn't even aware and she just wanted to see the best for her son and look what he's doing like come on y'all your mom's love you so much it's crazy you know what kills me is that let's say so he's using the his sister's you know brother-in-law's address or whatever what Christ's cracks me up about that is that people are like, yeah, yeah, I would talk to these guys in prison, they go, yeah, yeah, I had the credit cards or whatever, mailed to this address, but it wasn't my

address. I'm like, well, whose address was, oh, it was my, my sister's, you know, it was my sister's stepbrother or my sister's, you know, whatever, you know, baby daddy, his sister. And it's like, okay, no, wait a minute. Does that person know you? Yeah, yeah, they know me, but it's not me. So when the cop, when the FBI shows up, and knocks on their door and shows them a picture of you and says, do you know this man? Do you know what?

Most of these guys think that because this guy is a plumber and has never been in trouble, they think he's going to say, no, man, I don't know who that is. The problem is that that guy, that plumber is a decent citizen. And a decent citizen when the FBI knocks on the door

and asks, know who this person is. They say, oh, wow, that's my sister's, or that's my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, I must be for him, for some, like, the average citizen helps. So for you to think the average citizen helps. So for you to think the average citizen is going to lie to law enforcement for you, you're crazy. Yep, yep. You're better off using one of your co-defendants. You're better off, right, you know what I'm saying? And you know, on the flip side of that, when you do have those, it's a couple of things.

And this is what I always wonder when people use different individuals to cash out on. It puts that person in a position, especially in a lot of the cultures that these folks come from it's like is this person going to snitch now right because that's a common thing it's like oh is this but you're putting this person in a tight position so now if they don't snitch if the if the feds have a warrant on you and they're questioning you nine times out of 10 they already know the answer yes already know the answer so now if you lie that's going to be held against you and i've seen it in many paperwork where they lied to in an investigation or whatever it is there's penalties that come with that so now you put in this person a position

to get involved in your nonsense and they now have to are they going to snitch if you ask me say what you want if I had nothing to do with that like Matt just said I'm talking that's it if I was in on it and this is what

a lot of people who do fraud I wish I could ask them it's one thing to do fraud make money get away with it have fun do whatever you got to do but when that shit comes crashing down what are you going to do are you going to tell or are you going to take the rat but listen everybody says i ain't saying nothing but the truth is when they tell you you're about

to do six years trust me six or 10 first of all they're not kept telling you six they're going to tell you 15 or 20 you're going to get scared to death you're going to get scared to death and you're going to say yo bro look i'll tell you the other guy because you know i didn't know it's going to be all this man i barely made any money at all i can't and your lawyer is going man you better tell them you're about to do 15 years the truth is you're probably only facing six or seven but it doesn't matter six or seven's too much for two hundred thousand for making two or three hundred thousand because this this guy hicks even though it ends up probably being a couple million dollars it doesn't matter that it's a couple million dollars he had to share that

with a whole bunch of other people and just just so i'll talk a move on from this um a common thing a lot of people in my comment section do or does part of me i'm trying to fix my you know that's a lot of my videos are scripted. The way I'll be talking is a little off the wall sometimes. But anyway, a common thing that a lot of people in my comment section do, and I blocked a lot of these fools because they were saying some wild shit, is like, oh, that's nothing, four years, three years, five years. But I'm telling them, first of all, if you do the math, just like Matt said,

they didn't get all that money. They had to split it with multiple people. And then if you do the math, for the amount of years you spend in jail for the crime you did, you probably didn't even get to spend all that money. a lot of it was probably seized taken away you might as well had got a job at home depor or McDonald's or something because you would have made more money yeah and you wouldn't be in legal trouble but you want this fast life and y'all y'all's is not thinking about it right because you think oh they went to prison and they just have all this money when they come out no it doesn't

work that way like you see this guy hicks he was in and out of prison for over like 10 years since 1995 that's that's ridiculous i don't know if you noticed this or not but they got the money that was in his mom's name. They got the money that was, trust me, all that money that you stick in your mom's name and those properties that you bought in your step sister's name

and your buddy's name, listen, they're going to come and they're going to get all that. They're going to take it all. Well, no, no, it's in my mom's name. Shut up, you don't know what you talk about. They'll take that shit from your mother in a heartbeat. They don't care about your mom.

Like, you know, and you're not, first of all, as they're investigating, you're about to plead guilty. They're going to come to you and say, you've got to sign over this, you got to sign over this oh i ain't signing over that okay well guess what you're not pleading guilty you're getting 15 years you're not getting seven they start going oh man oh man listen and then those

guys oh four years that's nothing oh okay well you must not have kids or or a wife that loves you just everybody's a gangster till they're sitting in that visitation room with their fucking wife and their three kids crying their eyes out going how are we going to survive without you and two years into their their four year bid which they didn't care about somebody else's wife's banging somebody else she's you got the divorce papers she barely lets let let you talk to your kids your kids are calling somebody else daddy oh hey daddy my new daddy just brought us to disney world my new daddy oh oh yeah they're all gangsters till that happens oh man you know that was that was very real and i'm happy you share that matt because um i'm a big i'm a big fan of learning from your

mistakes but I'm an even bigger fan of learning from other people's mistakes and I think what you just what you just shared there I think a lot because let's be real a lot of people watch my channel because they think I'm teaching them fraud I'm teaching you how to end up in jail prison like don't think I'm doing this and I'm a regular guy I don't do none of this shit but just like Matt said you got to see what comes with it and you might be a young person now and you're probably not thinking about your future that way, but you always learn from other people's experiences because you might not get as lucky. And if you could learn from where someone else screwed up for you to alter the way you live your life, you got to take that, you got to always take

that into consideration and appreciate when people share things like that. Because you never know what you're going to go through, never say never. But if you could think back and be like, oh, I heard Matt said, no, it ain't worth it. It ain't worth it. I'm at Liza, man. I got out at 50 years old, starting my life over at 50. I walked out of the halfway house at 50, starting my life over with nothing at 50. And I'm, listen, honestly, I'm about as sharp as you can get. And I wasn't sharp enough.

You're going to screw up. You're going to screw up. I know the banking industry inside now, real estate inside now, and I still got grabbed multiple times. So if you think you're so sharp, do it. do it you know like you know I mean put in as soon as you get there put in put a cop out in try and get a two man two man sell join the softball team you're going to be here a while go ahead and sign up for vocational tech teach a GED class you know you're going to be here like settle in start reading a book series that you like you're going to do some time I'm getting like

Like, I'm getting like, I don't even know the word, but just thinking about that, I don't want to spend a week in prison. I don't care. I don't care what nobody says. But, all right, let's let's get a little conversation. But yeah, one of the victims that was associated with the phone number that he was using on these applications and loans, the mailing address associated with the number was an address of Hicks' mother once again. and the residence is on the same block as both the victim's residences. So pretty much his mom lived on the same block as one of the people that he did one of these fraudulent loans on. And when I was looking through the paperwork, I don't think I sniffed this exact part, but I think one of the, I think it might have been this victim.

They knew he was doing this and he kind of tipped the FBI as to what was going on. So I don't know if that's probably what led to everything, but I think he was hit that this guy. is doing all this fraud in the neighborhood i mean hicks his mom must be doing pretty well she's living in the neighborhood where they're stealing they're getting loans on houses for 750 000 like well no these were small there's probably smaller ones but even there's three 400 000 but it's california that too that too and with the way property values shot up someone could have easily owned a home in the 90s you know yeah and then now suddenly it's just worth all these hundreds of thousands, probably even millions, depending where you're at. But with that, another place where

Hicks screwed up, text messages, emails, and IG, Instagram, linked to Hicks loan fraud conspiracy. And this is what I like to see here. And just like you said, they're going to find you, especially now with all this technology and location tracking. They obtain account information, location data, and text messages from Google Inc. directly from Google. for Hicks phone number. On November 17, Hicks phone sent a text message that said, we good. I just need a granny. That's when they were looking to recruit Ms. Suzanne Ariola. He was like, everything is good. We just need somebody to send in there. Based on the timing of this conversation, I believe Hicks here is referring to the need for

an older woman to impersonate victim one who is an elderly woman. In fact, less than a month later, that's when they attach ariola who is age 69 on that heron um impersonated victim one to do the notary uh then on yeah oh then on march 14th 2019 there was the following exchange of text messages between hicks phone number and another phone number with a two one three area code jeesh let me get into my impersonation back for this right here we go i blinked out the the, you know, bad words. The really bad words. Yo, that's fucked up. I didn't get my chop off that 142 that was in that account. No matter what the situation old girl signed for that shit. What the fuck is a block?

Nah, I'm talking about all that Neiman, Marcus, and all that other shit I heard. It was blocked. I want my chop off that 142 that was in there. All that shopping smurf was going came out to 142. Brough, I deal with my bro. So here Looks like one of the co-conspirators That they was dealing with Was mad that they didn't get their cut And just like Matt said

All the money's not going to the head of the scheme Everyone's getting the cut And one thing I've learned There's no honor amongst these Sometimes you're dealing with a scammer And you don't even know that scammer is scamming you To do the scam for them And then they can always say

Oh this didn't work, that didn't work And in reality They made all this money And they just cutting you out And at the end of the day many times you being used as a mule or whatever it is. But based on the investigation when they looked into this text, they know that Hicks' brother is Smurf.

And they also know that someone using the funds from the Bank of America account and victim one's name made approximately $74,000 in purchases at different stores in San Francisco area, including Neiman Marcus, Macy's Best Buy, Nordstrom, Sunglass, Target, Barney's, Ugs and Guitar Center. Ting-a-Tick-a-Ting. Music lover. Yeah. Well, you know, he was a musician or a rapper. Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Probably buying different things for his studio, trying to get lit. But it seems like he was a better fraudster than a rapper, because I don't know him for rap. But anyway, the purchases were made from approximately February 19 to February 28th, 2019. So within that, what's like a week, week window, $74,000 in the day. debit card or whatever it i'd imagine debit card purchases from all these stores and homeboy is mad he's

like did you get me some Gucci did you get me some frada am i getting some valenciaga or balenciag i don't know i made a video yesterday on a scheme where they was stealing credit cards and and buying luxury goods that they'd then resold so i'm hip to some of these designer names dior chenelle anyway uh let's keep it going all right on february 2019 for loan $31,800 was withdrawn from victim one's fraudulently open bank account with Bank of America in ATM transactions. They reviewed the ATM surveillance videos because there's videos everywhere and identified Hicks brother as the individual withdrawing the money in at least one transaction. In a separate transaction, they were able to identify an individual they believe is Hicks brother's girlfriend and roommate as individual. individuals withdrawing the funds. So once again, fashion out, caught on camera. And I can

imagine, and this is once again using somebody else to do your dirty work. You give them the pin number A, just just go do this for me. I'm going to give you a cut. But this person doesn't know any better. They just, oh, I'm about to get $500. They get that knock. Is this you withdrawing all this money out of an ATM? Who's that with you? Who gave you the ATM car? Oh my God, that's my boyfriend's brother. I didn't know. I didn't know. I swear. I didn't realize. But before that, they were on

Instagram doing the money phone, you know, and just like, hey, made it. Just being silly. Anyways, without reading all of this, y'all's can pause it and read it. I've been doing a lot of reading. But they also linked

his IP address that he used to do transactions on one of the fraudulent bank accounts. And they had his IP address and they tied it to the different things he was doing, the different logins. And I could tell you one thing, banks, from when you log into online banking, they know what device you use, the IP address, the location, they know all of that. So they got all that information and they were able to tie it with a service address in Antoc, California that they identified was being used as Hicks residence. So all these IP addresses was associated with his residence. I know this was Hicks

residence from U.S. probation records and from physical surveillance of the address during which they saw two vehicles registered to once again Hicks Mama. These vehicles were a 2007 Cadillac escalade on 22s, parked in the driveway, and a 2012 Nissan Central. That's a very efficient car, parked on the curb. I also saw a 2005 Accura sedan parked on the driveway, registered to Hicks girlfriend. In addition, this address was provided as Hicks and an anonymous tip to the FBI. So I think that's where I saw it where that maybe someone in the community that got scammed was like, hey, it's him who's doing it. And like you said, there's a bunch of this, you won't believe how many innocent law abiding citizens they are out there.

And everybody on this not snitching stuff. Everybody wants to have a nice community where people's doing things the right way. And they will gladly work with law enforcement to get you shut down. But with that being said, all these IP addresses was tracked to him. They were doing surveillance. They saw it was his. And it gets worse. A lot of the gold that was being delivered was being sent to this gold delivery

residence address in Vallejo, and they obtained three audio recordings of telephone calls made from Hicks' phone number, where he was claiming to be victim one, attempting to conceal and change his voice. They listen to these calls, and they believe that Hicks, whose voice, they believe the person impersonating, person who is doing the impersonation's voice was Hicks because they recognized it from watching public videos on his Instagram. So they were all the way up in his social media, verified his voice against his Instagram. Also, and this is where I was speaking about the controlled delivery.

On January 28th, the FBI did a controlled delivery for a goal that was ordered on January 22nd. Did I say July 28th? Let me start that over. Jones was involved in a controlled delivery for gold that was. was sent to the residence in Vallejo. On January 28th, the FBI conducted a controlled delivery for the order that was paid on January 22nd for $24,000. However, the FBI asked them to send, instead of gold bars, to send silver bars that were worth $300. So that's a big difference.

The shipment was sent through USPS, and the delivery was video and audio recorded. The surveillance was set up around the exterior of. of this gold residence in Vallejo and before and after the package was delivered. Prior to the delivery, a car registered to Hicks Brother, being driven by a black male, was seen dropping off Jones at the Gold Delivery Residence. Later that day, they observed the same vehicle

arriving at Target location to the residence of Hicks Brothers. So all these connections they were making. They reviewed corresponding video and identified the person who received the packages as Jones, who was sitting outside of the residence when the delivery was made. Just like you said once again, Matt, Jones identified himself as David and said he lived at the residence and signed for it. No ID was requested, so he did not produce any identification.

So controlled delivery, they were on to him. They knew what they were doing, and they confirmed it right there. Here it shows where, oh, let me just read it. I've checked probation records for Jones and confirmed that he currently lived at Target Location 2. The controlled delivery of the silver bars and coins made by the U.S. Gold Bureau in January 2020 was served being taken by Jones once again at Target location 2. Hicks brother, who was captured on ATM surveillance with drawing funds from the Bank of America account in the victim's name, also lives at Target,

location two, as does his girlfriend, who was also captured on ATM surveillance, withdrawing funds from the same account. FBI agents assigned to the investigation observed vehicles one and three at Target location one on multiple occasions. Most recently on February 1st, 2020, they were told by Hicks probation officer that vehicle to a 2015 Mercedes-Benz was kept in the garage at location number one. So all these connections between Kaffani, Hicks, Jones, his sister, his sister's boyfriend, all these connections, and the FBI was investigating and surveillancing all of this, including the ATMs. This is the funny part where, let me make sure.

Okay, so this is the funny part where they also confirmed one of these vehicles was associated with Hicks, specifically to Mercedes-Benz. because he was on a Facebook live broadcast and Hicks can be heard bragging about having a Mercedes 550 and the inside of what appears to be vehicle to visible. Additionally, a 2015 Mercedes-Benz S-550 is registered to Hicks' mother and to a foundation

that take-a-step foundation that is tied to Hicks. So he was getting flashy on Instagram or Facebook, didn't even notice the feds is watching and they're like, oh, yeah, He definitely owns this car. Look at this guy. From a previous investigation, sorry,

from a previous investigation of Hick. I knew a guy one time that robbed a bank. And actually robbed the bank, actually still had the bands that were wrapped around the money with a stamp on it. And he laid them all around him and took pictures.

and posted it on Facebook. What a genius. And was bragging about how he was bawling and making money and this and that. And he was in and some some friend of a friend, oh, some friend of a friend turned him in. He had also left a prescription bottle with his name on it in the getaway car that they abandoned. Like, I mean, it's just like, you're just the dumbest person ever. And like you said, eventually they start making stupid mistakes like that.

Yeah, cocky. Yep, yep. But with all that being said, on March 23, 2022, in a plea agreement with the federal prosecutors, the popular Bay Area rapper known as Kaffani pleaded guilty this week to four federal offenses, including conspiracy. Records show Kaffani, who goes by the name of Amir Rashid and Mark the Django Hicks, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy,

aggravated identity theft bank fraud and wire fraud can i mention some are we sure about popular i mean really like you don't know who he is maybe in the bay area you know popular maybe in the low yeah i guess just the bay area is still pretty big but yeah hey but um that's how we get to square one 87 months and uh if we look at the other individuals kafani got 87 months months. Hicks, who was his brother, 48 months. Deons Costello, that was the individual that they used to recruit the drug addicts and other people to impersonate 54 months. Suzanne Ariola, that was the lady who kept going in to do the notary. She got 84 months. That's crazy. Age 72, 84 months. She's going to die in prison. She's a drug addict. Well, she may live longer in

prison. Oh, man. But I don't, I mean, I'm definitely not a drug addict. but wouldn't they go through like some crazy withdrawals or I don't know well you know keep in mind too I don't know some of these people may have gotten sentence reductions after yeah they usually happens that way usually happens that way I notice yeah so you know I can't believe he only got 87 months he's been in federal prison before he's he's got an extensive credit history and he keeps having a gun yeah like they don't like you to have a gun if you're doing these things. Do you know, like the difference between walking into a bank with a gun, you're probably going to get 10 years. You walk into a bank with a note, you're probably going to get two or three years. This is a way big, bigger difference.

They don't like, they don't care if your gun's in, in your closet, in your house 15 miles away. They don't like that. Don't mess with those firearms. He's been known to cure insecurity, just with his laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma. His smile is so contagious.

Vaccines have been created for it. 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. But that's the story, and it was a whole lot in that. and uh i wonder you have it folks yeah yeah what was the final dollar amount

when i looked into that it said he had to pay restitution of like 1.9 million dollars which i found a little odd because they did it so much no but that but i think that's because they probably remember they recovered what they recover three or 400 thousand in cash then they're going to sell all the vehicles they're going to so And there was also another thing. Sorry to cut you off. They did also call out that a lot of the money was unaccounted for. There was a part. When I read the paperwork, I should have included that. They did say a lot of the money was unaccounted for. Right. Well, that's what the unaccounted for part is what he owes. That one point, he still owes that because they couldn't recoup it. Okay. I mean, what's that? Can you hear me? yeah my sound just got all weird sorry sorry about that uh but yeah one point nine i think it probably sounds to me like it was more like two and a half million so because think about it just the numbers we came up with there were about three or four transactions that were around 300,000 so that's

so let's say there's 300,000 that's 900,000 plus we know there were two more two loans or two mortgages taken out for in at roughly 750,000 well that's one. 1.5 plus 900,000 you know that's 2.4 there was a couple other ones that were like you know 150 100 so let's say 2.5 they recovered some of that but a chunk of it obviously 1.5 they didn't recover so he still owes a huge chunk of money that he didn't give up which is odd so that makes to me that makes me feel like he may not have cooperated you know he may have just taken a plea he may have cooperated but to me i i feel like he would have gotten a lot more time if he didn't cooperate only because of his record so he may have gotten a a 5k1 and that's why he was down

around 84 months that's why it seems on it seemed like the woman that signed think about it 70-something years old she got the same amount of time almost yeah so he probably had he probably got you know more like 10 or 12 years and then they just reduced it because he cooperated against everyone else you said it not me um i'm saying that that that seems more reasonable because otherwise that sentence he got hmm makes you wonder right especially what is with his record and yeah especially it's really the record if it weren't for the record i'd say that's probably the sentence he he under the federal guidelines he probably should have ended up with about seven years six or seven years they but that's if you exclude his his already his history

with fraud once you've been hit with fraud a few times they don't they don't now they're they're they're going to hammer you so but anyway um yeah i i think that's uh you know he's you know just he has all these little tiny he just never really explored his scheme from anything other than just getting away with the money didn't explore it from the angle of how can they track these things back to me like you know getting like getting things mailed to an address that's unassociated with me or anyone I know like an abandoned house like find an abandoned house, mail some things to it. Mo, if you, I've had houses where I mowed, I was mowing the yard. I was paying someone to mow the yard for a house that I don't live in or don't own

because I was constantly getting mail sent there. You know, or getting even the phone number. Like if you're able to steal these people's information, why didn't you get phone numbers using their information? You can then have those phone numbers mailed to the houses. You can then have the the ATM cards for the banks mailed to the multiple different house like that's a those are usually the ways that people get get fucked up or you know they because of where where are these things being mailed but even with that and another story that I had went over um there was a gentleman he was also doing the gold but what he did was online he would set up uh virtual offices yeah underneath other people's identities and he was a little bit more thorough on covering his tracks

so he would do that and they would ship it to those virtual offices and he would just go pick up the mail but even but even with that he eventually got track he eventually got track because they did a controlled delivery they saw him get into an uber they pulled up the uber records and from that that's how they associated with his identity probably use his credit card exactly on his legit uber account but everything else he did right but when they when they did the controlled delivery they saw the uber he went into and then they they uh did a warranted a warrant on the records for that and they were able to piece it together like another thing about my scam was that I would set up a scam completely independent just for this scam buy two or three houses

get the money out close the whole scam down throw everything away moved to a different state start over from scratch you see what I'm saying like it's like you're no you're not tracking any of that none of that's following me here you know you don't want to be sitting in your house one day and get a knock at the door from something you did two and a half years ago you know never put anything in my name so not never but in most of those games just didn't you know initially i was making those same mistakes like he made same ones but then when i was on the run like i couldn't afford to fuck up yeah trust me he's laying in bed right now he's in his bunk right now telling himself kicking himself at all the mistakes he made do you think he's kicking himself

considering he's done similar schemes to this in the passing not caught up no i i i think he's kicking himself because he he made such stupid mistakes not because not because he's kicking himself like oh i did the wrong thing what was i thinking i think it was more like i fucked up i should have covered my tracks better you know i i don't see him you know i don't think he's he's like wow i should be a decent human being i really need to find jesus and i don't think any of that's going through his mind and if that does it's usually temporary yeah yeah most it's funny the christian there would get these guys who come to come to prison pick up a bible read the bible and preach jesus the whole five years they were there and then put the bible down the as soon as they were walking out the

door you're like you're like you talk to guys that would say this is just how i do my time i'm I'm like, yeah, but you've been locked up three times. Yeah, I know, I always go with the, you know, I study. Yeah, but as soon as you leave, they're like, well, you know, I'm a drug addict. I mean, I, you know, it's, what are you doing? It's funny, but it's also very sad. No, it's super sad. But listen, most of what I laugh about is, is pathetic, sad, horrible behavior, even on my own part.

Because I don't have, I can't, because I can't walk around crying all the time. Yeah. You know? So I try and find humor in the. absurdity of my own mistakes and other people but uh anything else like i mean this was great like do me a favor and hit the subscribe button and hit the like bell so you get notified of videos like this if you like this format and the way we did this and let me know in the comment sections i'd love to know like maybe uh you know maybe uh infamous ghost infamous ghost money that's too

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