Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry

It's known as a large municipal fraud in U.S. history. So look at reading, you're sort of like, wow, you live like a queen for 20 years and served eight. One may argue that crime does pay. So the reason why he was diluting medication and making it spread further was two things. He had a large bill from the IRS that he wanted to pay, and record show was around half a million dollars. And then he wanted to make a million dollar donation to his church. So he wanted to expand his gross margin. He wanted to make a million dollar donation to the church.

This guy made millions. But every two or three years, he would hit everybody across the board for like $39. Just ran out. This guy's a multimillionaire. He's got like 20 gyms. He's got, you know, he lives in a $4 million house. Like he's filthy rich. And this is just a narcissist in me, is that this one.

student said, this female student goes, do you feel like, she was, do you feel like you got away with it for so long because you're so charming? And I mean, I started laughing so hard. I was like, be honest with you. Like, how close are you with your wife? And I went, what do you mean? He said, listen, he was because all the loans are in her name. Mr. Black's sister saying, my brother was in a horrible accident. He's currently in a coma. The doctor said, this is, this is too much. I don't believe you did this is too you did all this and i waited about a month and a half and then i called the police and said i got broke into and then hey this is matt cox and i'm going to be interviewing kelly pope and she is the author of a book about con men called fool me ones and we're going to

be talking about the book and talking about a few different uh con men and uh scams and that sort of thing So check out the interview. What's going on? Tell me about yourself. Well, I am an accounting professor. I'm a filmmaker. And now, well, not now. I've been an author.

But I have a new book out, which is why we're talking. And this is my sample copy, but this is it called Fool Me Once. Scam Stories and Secrets from the trillion-dollar fraud industry. So you can see all of my notes that I take every time I read it. So that is my latest project. super excited and I heard in your intro you said it's about con men it's about more than that though what else is it about so the first part of the book is about perpetrators which is where you're talking about but then the second part or the middle part is about victims and then the last part

is about whistleblowers so I don't know how you feel about whistleblowers you may hate them but there's a whole I love whistleblowers I'm a big man there's a whole section I devoted to whistleblowers And I created a game called The Fool Me Once Fraud Experience. And so when you go through it, it'll tell you what type of perpetrator you would be if you were ever to be one. And what type of whistleblower would you be if you were ever to be one? So in the book, I talk about that there are three types of perpetrators. All perpetrators are not the same. Intentional perpetrators, accidental perpetrators, and righteous perpetrators.

Now, Matthew, I've read a lot about you and heard a lot about you. I'm sorry to say, you are definitely. or your past life, you were definitely an intentional perpetrator. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was your whole goal. Wasn't an accident.

Wasn't an accident. Oops. I deposited that check into my own account. Wasn't that. No. So, but, and what I wanted to do was to offer a new way of thinking because there are people that are following the boss's orders or people that are utilizing their internal resources to help someone, help someone outside of the company. And so what I wanted people

to understand is everyone is not in it for just personal gain. And so I don't think that we should loop everybody together. And so that's what the whole perpetrator section is about. So the game tells you, based on going through these various scenarios, what type of perpetrator are you actually? So it'd be interesting to see have you play it and see if you actually are an intentional perpetrator. maybe, just maybe, you might be a righteous perpetrator. Something tells me you could easily end up, right? I'm sure I could manipulate my answers to make it look that way. But, yeah, I don't think so.

What I wanted to do was to stop, allow people to think that, yeah, you know, you might do something too. Because a lot of times we're so quick to say, oh, look at them. That's what they do. But actually, when we start talking about fraud, it's what we all do. You know, just the other day, you did a presentation with my students, and it was interesting to see how they were mesmerized and in agreement with a lot of the things that you did. And so I asked them, you know, if somebody would you say, you were a little upset when they were saying, yeah, that makes sense. I would do that. You were like, I wasn't expecting them to say that.

But, you know, when you were talking about how you would change. or increase someone's income or change someone's credit or put them in a job to make them look like they had longer employment that they did. And when I turned it to them and I said, so if Matt could increase your exam score on the CPA exam and you just needed three points and he could make it so that you just had the points to pass, would you do it? And they all were like, yeah, I'd do that. So, you know, it's what I wanted to do with the book is allow people to look at, be a little bit more self-reflective, you know, because a lot of us agree to a lot of things as long as we think we won't get caught and we'll do it. So that was, so that was the

perpetrator chapter. So there's three chapters devoted to them. And then, you know, just because of your background, I'm really curious, what do you think about whistleblowers? You do like them? Yeah, I don't have a problem. Like, typically whistleblowers do stuff like some companies overbilling the government or some companies. company is cheating its customers in some way or lying to the public or something. It's like, why would someone have a problem with those people doing the right thing? For instance, look at the guy with, gosh, he did the Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff, with Bernie Madoff. That guy spent four or five years begging the authorities to invest in him.

I mean, I'm sorry? To listen to him and no really did for a long time. He went in and had presentations and they just shrugged it off and laughed. And it was like, now you can say, oh, well, you should have minded his own business. He, there were thousands of people that lost their life savings that could have been saved. If they'd listened to him the very first time or done even a cursory investigation and looked into it, they could have saved thousands of people who are now living with their kids or had to sell their house who lost everything because this guy was just trying to do the right thing.

So it's in it in what tends to happen is when someone comes forward, you know, you turn the, you turn the spotlight on them and sort of pick their life apart to realize to try to figure out why they shouldn't be credible and that shouldn't happen. So in the section of the book about whistleblowers, I come up with three types. There is an accidental whistleblower. You can either be a noble whistleblower. But you could be a vigilante whistleblower. Now, vigilancy whistleblowers, they don't mind their business at all.

You know, they're just sort of the person. Imagine the older lady that's sitting in front of the window watching to see if anybody's speeding down the street. And she'll take down your license plate number and call the police and say, this person was speeding. You need to contact them. That's sort of the vigilante whistleblower. But we need all of them. Kind of like a Karen. Huh?

Kind of like a Karen. Kind of. You're parked in the wrong. You can't part, like, Maya, what are you doing? But, you know, sometimes, sometimes there's a place for Karen, sometimes. I mean, not all parents are bad, not all of them. So, anyhow, what I wanted to do with the book was really help people figure out where they fit

in this sort of the industrial fraud complex. And so in the middle section of the book is about victims. And so I break those into innocent bystanders. and organizational targets. And all of this was inspired. I don't even know if we talked about my documentary, but I have a documentary. And so all of this was inspired by my documentary,

which is called All the Queen's Horses, which chronicles the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history. Oh, my gosh. I totally, the woman who was doing the books for that county, and she had the horses? Yes. Oh, wow. That's my documentary.

Okay. Okay. I did not yet. She was, she was telling everybody, they got to cut back. They have to cut back. She's stealing the whole time. Yes. You don't have enough money. Yes. So that, so that was really the inspiration. So I did the document. Fifty three point seven million. Over what? 20 years. Oh, over 20. Mm-hmm. They had to raise the, that raised the taxes over multiple. Borrow more money, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, so Rita Cronwell was my inspiration because she was an intentional perpetrator. The whistleblower was a woman by the name of Kathy Swanson. And Kathy was what I categorize as an accidental whistleblower. She never suspected her boss doing anything. She just sort of stumbled upon it. And then the residents of Dixon, Illinois are innocent bystanders. And then the town of Dixon is as an organizational target. So that sort of happens. the documentary really inspired the work in the book and so throughout the whole book you learn more about the documentary and so that story of what i learned doing the film is sort of throughout the entire book so watch the film then read the book where is the film or where it lives on

amazon prime so it's there now so you can find it okay they they bought the rights or they yeah it streamed on netflix for a year from 2018 to 2019 and then after my streaming period was up and went over to Amazon. I think I must, I don't know where I saw. I saw it trying to think of where I must have seen it on Netflix because I just got Amazon. So I must have seen it on Netflix when it came out. Yeah. And I actually had spoken.

The only reason I knew about it was someone contacted me and that person was in communication with her. in federal prison and was trying to get her to write like a memoir and she wouldn't right no she wouldn't do it she was not doing but you know this is a thing you know i think um unlike you i think um you've found you've found a calling and a voice for yourself in all of this and so a lot of people don't do that um a lot of people i mean rita has value if she would recognize her value. She does. I mean, think about all of the municipalities she could speak at or do consultant services for it and who would listen to her. I mean, they really would. So I think she's missing a huge opportunity. You know, once you get through the hate, because you're going

to have hate, but everybody has hate. I mean, even if you don't commit a crime, you have hate, people hate me, you know, for whatever reason. So you're always going to have that. So I think that she's missing, she's missed a golden opportunity to actually help other municipalities. in towns because they would listen to her. You know, they really would. So. How did she get? So here's the thing.

She got 19 years and seven months in federal prison. But get this, something called COVID happened. And when COVID happened, she got out early. She got out early. She only served about eight years. So she got out in 2021 because of COVID. If there were no COVID, she would be still in federal prison right now. But she got out.

And she's, by the way, when they, you know, that that ends. at the end of this month, the mandate. But they don't have to go back. But they're not going back. I was going to say, I was always like, oh, well, they're going to pull them all back. No. And so that's the thing. I think under the Trump administration, they might have had to go back.

But the Biden administration decided no, they could stay. But maybe Trump would have sent them back. I don't know. You know, and I can like, so here's the problem, even though, first of all, the offenders that got out were not. you know, horribly violent offenders. They need to be watched. So I get letting these people out because they're just not that much a huge danger to society

as long as they're monitored. But, you know, like if you've got 10 years to do, but usually some of these sentences are outrageous to begin with. So I'm kind of conflicted. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And, you know, the interesting thing about Rita's case is because she was, she's, she's an icon. because she's the largest municipal frauds during U.S. history. So I think it sends a bad message when the icon does less time.

That's the problem. If she had just been an embezzler, and let's say she walked off of $20 million or $15 million and she got off, maybe people wouldn't have even known about it. But when she got released, that made news because even still to this date, she's the largest, it's known as the large municipal fraud in U.S. history. So that person can't get out. even if she was over sentenced, which is what I talk about towards the end of the book, because I talked to some people that do research and sentencing. It's a sentencing guidelines expert.

And I interviewed him for the book and looking at Rita's case and looking at other people that were sentenced in her same class during around the same time with the same amount of money stolen. It looks as though she was oversentenced. So if that being said, she actually served, even still more than though other people in her sentencing class. So it's the publicity, though, you know, they want to make an example. And so, so I just think that her getting out sent a very mixed message. You know that, that age old question does crime pay? And you look at reading, you're sort of like, wow, you live like a queen for 20 years and served eight.

One may argue that crime does pay. Yeah, but she'll probably end up, she'll probably end her, you know, end up spending the rest of her life living in someone's spare room, you know, so it's. She's with family. I mean, so you think about, to think about how this ends. So you live when you live with her, she lives with her brother. And she may age, her brother may, I think he's older, so he might pass on. When he passes on, he might leave whatever he has to her.

Who knows? It may be enough to live off of, you know, you can, you can make it. I mean, one of the things is she's not living in New York City where the cost to live in is crazy. She's in Dixon. So maybe the brother owns his house or, you know, you can keep your, depending on where you live, you can keep your expenses relatively low. Yeah. Yeah, she's clever. Obviously, she's clever.

She's already thinking of ways to get around, you know, her restitution. And once it's final that she's not going back. which it probably obviously is. And she gets a regular job. Somebody will hire her. Yeah. I mean, somebody will hire her. I mean, you know, someone.

I mean, she can do. There are things she can still do. But just imagine if she were willing to create a platform, like a podcast. I mean, she could be. But I can tell you from being in prison with other guys that have committed fraud, I was the only person that was in prison thinking when I get out, like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to figure out a way to make this work for me, you know, doing the things that I want to do in life. I mean, I'm not going to hide, like everybody else was, these guys are talking about changing their name. They're talking about spinning it. They're talking about maybe, you know, getting an article written that says that makes it sound more like it's a mistake, that, that they were, they were erroneously, you know, prosecuted and that it was, there was these other guys and they got thrown in there, you know, whatever. And it was always just like, you know, man, you're going to be running from this the rest of your life.

Like you can't. It's part of you. So, you know, you can either embrace it and find out the good in it or you can run from. And it's hard to run from, you know, it really is. Especially now. It wouldn't all this than 30 years ago. Yeah, you could get out, move to another city, start over and nobody ever has a clue. But now.

Yeah. I used to always, you know, I used to, you know, everybody likes a comeback story. Yeah, you do. You know, what's the problem? Like, you just turn it into a comeback. story turning into a story of redemption. People love that. Pierre Rossini in the 1990s was a 20-something-year-old Los Angeles-based drug trafficker of ecstasy and ice. He and his associates drove luxury European supercars, lived in Beverly

Hills penthouses, and dated Playboy models while dodging federal indictments. Then two FBI officers with the organized crime drug enforcement task force entered the picture. Dirty agents, willing to fix cases and identify informants. Suddenly, two of Racini's associates, confidential informants, working with federal law enforcement, or murdered. Everyone pointed to Racini. As his co-defendants prepared for trial, U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller sat down to debrief Racine

at Leavenworth Penitentiary, and another story emerged. A tale of FBI corruption and complicity in murder. You see, Pierre Racini knew something that no one else knew. The truth. And Robert Mueller and the federal government have been covering it up to this very day. Devil Exposed. A twisted tale of drug trafficking, corruption, and murder in the city of angels. Available on Amazon and Audible.

So something sometimes people ask me is what's my favorite story. And so I always start with all the Queen's Horses because it, because I did the documentary about it, it sort of goes with me and has been with me for such a long time. But there's other stories that are throughout the book. So one of the things that I like to tell people is, although I'm a professor, the book is not a textbook. It's story-driven, character-driven. And it's a fun read. I wish I had met you a year ago because you would have been in it. You would have been great. So yeah, I have to figure out how to incorporate an interview with you some kind of way. You're in Florida, right?

yeah Tampa Tampa Florida okay all right I might have to take I might have to take a team down there and interview you one day where are you located Chicago oh yeah you well I mean are you thinking about doing another documentary a like that one no you know what I'm doing right now is I want to do like a video series that goes with the book so I want to talk to you some intentional perpetrators, some righteous perpetrators, and some, I'm sorry, intentional perpetrators, accidental perpetrators, and righteous perpetrators. So I want to talk to those three and sort of show just snippets when I'm talking to people.

So, yeah, so that's it. So I don't know if I'll ever do another documentary again. You actually have... That's kind of a documentary. Yeah, sort of, a little short. You're just breaking it into episodes. Yeah, yeah, it's a little shorts. But your story, I find you have so many layers because what I find fascinating, you are fascinating. Don't get me wrong. But what's also interesting about your story is the complacency that people have when you share the details of what you were doing. Because when we want something, we will forget all rules to get what we want.

You know, so if I wanted a loan for my business or if I wanted a house and I needed this loan and good grief, I fell in love with this house and it's $600,000 and I only qualify for $400,000, but they're just person that could help me get what I want. I know I can pay for it. Right. That, you know, I might be like, hey, Matt, you know, a lot of us would be that way. I was just talking to a friend of mine yesterday. And she, she's always talking about how, um, she's always talking about how, um, She doesn't have enough money, doesn't have enough money, what she complains about all the time. Yet, she qualified for a $700,000 house. And I said, how? How did you qualify for a $700,000 house?

If you're struggling to pay your rent now. Right. How are you going to double that and not struggle? She's like, I don't know, but I qualify for it. So I thought about you because I was thinking, yeah, something's not right. Like usually you qualify for, for less than you think.

You know what I'm saying? Not more. You're looking for $200,000. And like something that you explained in my students is even with your debt to debt to income ratio, right? That is a real thing. I mean, between your credit score and those two things, you know, they have to talk and make sense.

So even if she has superb credit and low debt, she still has to have the cash flow. So when she told me, she qualified for that much, I'm like, hmm. Yeah. Is there something shady going on here? That's what I thought about because I knew your case. Yeah, you got to, yeah. Well, the big problem is a lot of people, oh, I qualify for it or I want to, I'll figure a way out. Figuring a way out doesn't mean you qualify like that. I can afford it. You think you can afford it. Like if one or two things go wrong and you're going into the hole, then you don't qualify for it because all that's taken into consideration. Yeah. And the tough thing about what you're seeing in our economy is with all these

layoffs is that package doesn't get you that far. So when you think about these types of ethical scenarios, people find themselves in or what they're willing to agree to, a lot more of us are willing to agree to doing some shady stuff than we think because of just tension, life tension and pressure. All your students were, eh, it's a few points. What about like, did you say like if you could qualify, but you know, you couldn't quite qualify, you didn't have enough money, but the guy you were working with was willing to alter some things and they were kind of like, yeah, I don't see that. It's a big deal. Well, I mean, all of that's fraud. Yeah. But they, but they, but they, but they saw nothing wrong with it because when we want something, all bets are off. All rules go out the window. I want this. How can I get it? And so I think that. I think that. that's why stories and cases like yours are so powerful because at least right now it gave them something to think about like they'll never forget hearing you they never will forget that I mean that second class that you spoke to they I mean they rarely they don't stay after class

they were after class talking about you just how wow like they were just 15 minutes after class they were just like I mean he was he was amazing and they were like listen if I'm going to commit fraud. I'm not going to do it. But if I were, that's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to live my life. That's what they heard from you. Well, yeah, I know, I know that wasn't what you were, that wasn't your intention. That wasn't my intention. However, it was, it was interesting, that was very interesting. But the first class had a lot more questions. Right. Well, once, once they started getting going, the second one, once you prodded them a little bit, they started, you know, The problem is that, you know, you can always kind of tell what someone's thinking by the questions.

That's a good point. Absolutely. When they start to, well, how did you get caught? Well, is this still possible? Well, it's like, hey, hey, hey. Slow down. Slow your role. Slow your role. What are you doing? How'd you do this? I don't like that, but you know, what was also fascinating when you talked about how you learned because, you know, one student asked, were you just a genius? And you were like, well, you know, I learned from people. So like you would find, okay, how'd y'all figure this out?

My client did this? How'd you figure this out? And so that was interesting too because you don't realize how much you disclose about your process, which is an internal control weakness in itself. And a lot of people don't think about that. They don't think about when you call a bank or you call any place. And you're like, tell me about the process again. How did that happen?

And people are willing to share. Right. That's an internal control weakness as well. Well, I was going to say, for instance, me being the broker between the customer and underwriting, you know, when I was like, how did you even catch this? And they go, well, like they think we're on the same team. Listen to what we did. What did you do? And as they're telling me how they caught my customer, they're actually telling me how to beat their system.

And you know, something else that is. to our detriment is we're all very trusting. And so they initially, because you have an armor of trust. And something we didn't talk about in class yesterday was privilege. And I think there's a privilege that you have, that you were able to move through the system being a Caucasian male. You know, people automatically trust you. I used to say I have the three Cs going for me. that I was I said I'm Caucasian I'm confident and I'm clean cut they would and and you know it's like so you don't you just don't expect it like especially when I know what they're looking for they're looking for me to get nervous and try and leave they're looking like there's all these things I know like it's I'd be at the teller and they'd say oh well I have to call oh there's something's up with the account I've got to call and get authorization and I go all right

and I just lean there and I look around and look at the you know look I'm looking at the cameras and looking around and like they're expecting me to leave or be nervous I'm not nervous I open the account I know what you're going to find I know it's a new account I know I'm removing over $3,000 any account open within the last 12 months is going to get that they have to make a phone call I know they're going to review it they've reviewed it before at all the other banks they do it so I'm okay with that. surprises. There were no surprises. Right. But most people, why didn't you run? Why would I run? I know what's happening right now. And the worst, listen, if something happens and they say something is absolutely wrong, do you know what they're going to do? I'm sorry, we can't help you. That's it. Everybody thinks they're going to call the police. They're going to have you arrested. They're not doing any of that. They don't know what the issue is. I've actually had accounts shut down where you go online and I went to go transfer money and the account has been it's inactive and it's like I've got like $150,000, $200,000 in that account. And then you called them and the bank says, yeah, we need you to

come in so we can talk about this. Because think about it. If it's fraud, you're not coming in. Of course. I jumped in my car. I'm driving down there. You got $150,000 of my money because I know that I opened the account. I know where that money came from. I know that the person's identity, you didn't go talk to this guy because he lives under a bridge somewhere. So you didn't track him down. You knew the process. Right. So I walk in. I sit down. I'm like, somebody better make some phone calls. We need to get this thing taken care of. This is the thing, Matt. The thing about that is that privilege allows you, and you know that, that allows you to walk in. I mean, if you put on a suit or a sports coat, we're done. Like, no one's going to question.

you right you know so that's something we didn't talk about and um you know given that i don't have a lot of diversity well i have a little bit of diversity in my class but not a ton so i don't know that they get that but but you that's something that's sort of the foundation of a lot of how this happens for some right i don't know even for me i don't know that i could walk in and do that and not, I mean, they might call the police on me, maybe. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure.

I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18th. Won't call the police on you. Well, if you threw a little ghetto in there, did your head did that head thing? You know, you might get the cops call.

like yeah but even even if i didn't i might you know i might so um i was going to say what is another one of the the scams that you go over in the book i'll tell you one um and this one's a disturbing one a lot of times the um the healthcare scott healthcare fraud scams are the ones that are a little bit more disturbing but there's a story in the book Look, it's also, it's in the intentional perpetrator chapter and it's in the victim chapter. And it's the story of Dr. Robert Courtney. And Dr. Robert Courtney was a compound pharmacist. So he's the one that's working in the lab that is making the medicine that then gets shipped to the CVS or the doctor's office.

So he's the pharmacist we never even think about or ever see. Okay. So this guy, what he started to do was he started to dilute medication. Oh, is this for like cancer patients? Yes. Oh, I thought about this. Yeah. So we put him in the intentional perpetrator category, but we also interviewed some of the victims of those cases.

Now, when I talk about this is a perfect fraud, I'm just saying air quotes around this because it's sort of, it's terrible what he did. But think about, when you think about how fraud is discovered, if you have a stage for 75-year-old, pancreatic cancer patient that dies, you're not really going to question it. Right. If you have a stage four breast cancer patient, 79 years old, female, stage four, who dies? They just didn't react well to the, they didn't take the medicine correctly. They were already, it's a good chance he was going to die anyway. Absolutely.

So, yes, so the likelihood of this being discovered was very, very slim. And so the reason why he was diluting medication and making it spread further was two things. He had a large bill from the IRS that he wanted to pay and record show was around half a million dollars. And then he wanted to make a million dollar donation to his church. So he wanted to expand his gross margin. He wanted to make a million dollar donation to the church. So he was a pastor. So he grew up in the church.

Wow. So giving to the church was. more important to him than helping save cancer. This is a thing. You know, this is a thing. Like, we already just talked about. Like, were you going to save the life of a person that's stage four pancreatic cancer, stage four breast cancer?

And you're 80 years old? Probably not. And so what happened, the way it was discovered, was really interesting because one of the nurses that worked in the oncologist, oncology office of the doctor, started getting really concerned because the patients weren't showing the traditional cancer patient signs. So if you have cancer and you're going through chemo, what do you think that you're going to see? Yeah, they're going to be sick.

They're going to get tired afterwards. They're going to. But you were saying he just diluted it. So think about this. Some of the medication had no medicine in it. It was just alien solution. That's not saluting. So what she started to notice was they didn't have nausea.

they weren't losing their hair, they weren't getting thinner, you know, there are some things that you expect. And just like you said, the chemo responds differently to all people. And that's something that we always say. And that is generally true. But my father passed away from non-Hodskins lymphoma. And when he went through chemo, he got sick immediately. So there are some things that are sort of standard. So the nurse started to get concerned that why aren't my patients showing some of the signs. Like, they're not losing their hair. They're not nauseous. They're not extremely fatigued. Now, they had other signs because they were deathly sick. And so what she decided to do was she took a bag of the medication and sent it to the FDA because

she was so concerned about it. That was one thing she did. Let me back up a second. Something else that she had a good relationship with the pharmaceutical sales rep that came to their doctor's office, and she was talking about how busy she had been with all the patients. And the sales rep said, hmm, that's odd, because Dr. Courtney hasn't purchased enough medication for you all to be as busy as you're saying. So those two things in between you're making faces. You understand what I'm saying? No, I understand. It is amazing that those two people were so in sync with well not really because i like i have a couple of friends that work for work in pharmaceutical sales for work in pharmaceutical sales jobs and some of them are friends with the doctors

and some of them are friends with the nurses staff because they go weekly because when they have samples of drugs they are going to say hey give these to your patients let's you know let's run some test let's get some feedback so they can have a relationship um i'm not surprised by that no i'm not talking to the relationship, but that you just happen to get, like the nurse, I understand the nurse catching, I've got 30 patients and in the last two weeks, almost none of them have gotten sick. Like, that's odd. Like, I've been doing with 10 years. And the sales rep, the sales rep is like, why do you have 30 patients?

Because he, that doctor has only, we've only sold for 10. Right. So. The fact that, the fact that, like, what a, like a, you know, a perfect storm, the fact that both of them were aware enough to connect that and both of them go, something's not right. Like, most people just don't do that. Most people go through their jobs and they're just clicking the buttons, you know, they're just clicking the, okay, okay, they're not even thinking. But think about this. Think about this.

She's thinking about how busy she is and he's thinking about his money because he's a sales breath. So his bonuses are being impacted. by the lack of sales. So when she said that to him, like, oh, gosh, we are slam. We are so busy. He was probably like, that doesn't match my records. Why are you so busy? Are you using somebody else?

Well, I understand. It's just that either one of them, that it's, it's lucky, lucky for the patients that they were both, that they, you know, they both had that conversation. They both, she happened to mention it. And he happened to pick up on it. Right. That whole thing, like that's a quince. And, you know, there's some months in time through this. But, you know, you think about that couple with the fact that you have these patients that are not getting sick as they should. You know, so all of these little pieces floating out there. So she took this sample, got it tested, got this particular bag. And this particular bag had, I think, a drop of medication. And so that's how the investigation started. I mean, people just imagine there were 98,000 prescriptions that he manipulated. So,

there were some people that are stage three cancer patients that never even got any medication. So that cancer tumor just grew and grew and grew eventually they died. So horrible. That's a total scumbag. Like move. And not just that. Like that's not even like that's straight. Boy, that's that's just, you know, that's just fucking vicious.

Like thinking about that's not saying, hey, I'm going to take $40 from 100,000 people. Like, they're not, nobody's hurt. Like, 40 bucks, come on. You, you overcharge somebody's visa, $40 or something, you know, that's not, you know. This is, this is killing people. Yeah, this is serious. Because we do know that chemotherapy does work, you know, so we do know that you can. It was questionable anyway.

Well, but depending on your stuff. It's questionable. But like, if you're early stage three, you might be able to stop it. Yeah, you got like a night probably, it depends on the cancer, obviously, but you might have between a 70 to a 95% chance that it's going to work. Not with this guy. No, not with this guy. No.

Gosh, I was just thinking, it's funny because I have a buddy in the gym business and his father knew a guy in Canada that, so are you a member of a gym like L.A. fitness or something. You know how once a year, like you pay your $40 a month. And once a year, they hit you up for like $59. So everybody kind of expects it. Like if you've been there a year or two, of course, you get that $59 and you're all like, damn it, what's this? And they go, look, it's an annual fee.

It's in your contract. We'd always do it. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. He has a, he had a buddy. His father had a buddy who ran a gym. And also I knew his father. He ran the gyms.

So in Canada, this guy made millions. But every two or three years, he would hit everybody across the board for like $39. Just ran out. This guy's a multi-millionaire. He's got like 20 gyms. He's got, you know, he lives in a $4 million house. Like he's filthy rich. But every three or four years, he just hit him across the board.

And he said, anybody that complained, he gave him their money back. He said, but like 75 to 80% of the people did not complain. He says, or if you called up and you said, oh, yeah, that's our annual fee. And they would go, no, no, the annual fees, you took out six months ago. And they go, we did? Hold on. Let me check. Oh, you're right.

I'll refund that. Sorry. You got thrown in with the wrong bash and they give them the money back. He said 75% of the people didn't complain. And so he would just keep the money. He said, you know, it was nice. You get an extra, you make an extra half a million dollars for no reason. You know, it's a nice little perk.

Well, he'd been doing it for like, done it four or five. times over 10 or 15 years and at some point there was an investigation and he got in trouble and it was ended up being like six million dollars or something outrageous and he had to do he got three years I think he did six months in jail and then the rest of it he said you know it's Canada so the rest of it you know they put an ankle monitor on you and tell you to go sit in front of your TV and do it in your living room and he's a multi-millionaire so you can imagine like that's nothing like he gets to live in this big house he didn't even have to work That sounds tortures, right? Not really. But that's minor. Like, that's a minor scam. But this is, but when I just described as, it's evil. Right.

That's what I'm saying. And he probably said, for each one of those patients, who knows how much money he saved. Like, what was each patient worth to him? That I don't know. A thousand bucks, $800, $40, $2,000? I mean, it's cancer medication. They're probably, he did all kinds of stuff, though, Matt. He would do things like, you know, he would, people would bring things, like the reps would bring things.

He would sell the things that the reps would bring. So, like, if there's someone brought diapers or wipes, he would sell those. Right. It's just terrible. Trying to make that donation. He's a good Christian. I mean, you make a dog of bad guys. I mean, the book is filled with so many stories.

But that's one that stuck out for me today. Oh, hey, I have a question. So did you get funding for your documentary? or did you just do the document? I begged people. So this is a thing. For the doc, I've had to fundraise and it's so expensive because the people that I had to hire are real people. They're real filmmakers.

Some of them are Emmy-nominated directors of photography. So I had to raise money. It was so expensive. So expensive. In the end, did you recoup all that money? No. No. Or I'm just saying, are you still trying to.

I'm still trying to recoup. No way, no way. I haven't seen a royalty check in years. So you went to Netflix and what did you, so you ended up doing it yourself. Did you try and do a sizzle reel to get funding? Yeah, of course. This is a thing. This is the thing. What's, what's interesting is what, what sale, and this is just my opinion, what sells a project is not the project. It's the people and not the people. And not the people. in it, the people around it. You need an Emmy nominated Oscar award winning somebody, whether that's a DP, whether that's a writer, screenwriter, somebody. So the story can be amazing. The footage you have could be outstanding. But if you don't have a name, somebody that went to USC film school or NYU film school or Spike Lee student or something, you got to have something to get through the noise. If you're just a regular old person with a great story, hang it up. Pray because it's hard. It's really, really hard. And that's what I was. I was a regular person with a really incredible

story. And so if I had taken this story to someone like, someone famous, it probably would have worked out a lot better than it actually did. So. You didn't partner with a production company that had already done. I did. I did. And that cost me a lot of money too. Because partner means pay for their people. That's what partner means. So because there's not a lot of money in documentary filmmaking. So that's what you have to remember. So know that you're doing this more for marketing than for money. Okay. So did the film get me known in a lot of circles that I would not otherwise be in? Sure. Do I have any other project? that are on Netflix or that was that was on Amazon no so I'm in a space that I might not be in

but it's more it's more about marketing yourself than it is about money well yeah I was going to say that but now you can say I've had a you know my my documentary was ran on Netflix it's currently on well would you rather have would you rather be able to say that would you rather have money in your pocket well but if but if you do another one then you're that much further ahead if you did another dog. This is the thing. If I do another, if I ever do a project again, it's got to, I got to walk into it with the funds. Like someone's got to, you know, there's got to be a studio attached to me that wants to just, um, give me the money. You have to do a sizzle. You have to do a sizzle and you have to be able to walk into Netflix and have them say, look, we're going to give

you a million dollars to do this project. And now that Netflix is dominated by the stars, like that's hard as a regular person. So, and you need a broker. You can't just walk into Netflix now. You got to find a broker that does that for you, which probably got to pay or give them a percentage. So I think Netflix eight years ago was probably way different than Netflix is now because there are just too many stars there.

Like the Obamas have movies there. Like, come on. There's no place for me. So, well, you're very negative. I like that. Buried by the U.S. government and ignored by the, national media. This is the story they don't want you to know. When Frank Amadeo met with President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss NATO operations in Afghanistan, no one knew that he'd

already embezzled nearly $200 million from the federal government, money he intended to use to bankroll his plan to take over the world. From Amadeo's global headquarters in the shadow of Florida's Disney World, with a nearly inexhaustible supply of the Internal Revenue Service's funds. Amadeo acquired multiple businesses, amassing a mega conglomerate. Driven by his delusions of world conquest, he negotiated the purchase of a squadron of American fighter jets and the controlling interest in a former Soviet ICBM factory. He began working to build the largest private militia on the planet, over one million Africans strong. Simultaneously, Amadeo hired an international black ops force to orchestrate a coup in the

Congo, while plotting to take over several small Eastern European countries. The most disturbing part of it all is, had the U.S. government not thwarted his plans, he might have just pulled it off. It's insanity. The bizarre, true story of a bipolar megalomaniac's insane plan for total world domination. Available now on Amazon and audible. So listen, I'm going to tell you something, this is good for a scam. So I know, and I'm not going to tell you the name of the guy. So I knew a guy, I know a guy that I've dealt with. And we've been on, you know, he's actually been on like, I don't want to say, we've, we've had some interactions. And after we had several interactions and talks and, you know, he, he says, listen, like, I feel comfortable

with you. I'm going to tell you something. I said, okay. So. he calls me back, he is, I'm only telling you this because you're the only person that will really understand what I did and appreciate it. He said, because I can't tell anybody else. I said, okay, what did you do? So he wrote a book. He said, the book did okay. He said, but I didn't get any offers to turn it into a movie. It wasn't optioned. And he said, so, you know, I was upset. It did okay. So he said, he turned around and he said, the problem is I noticed that people want to option things that have been options. Okay.

I said, okay. So he made up a fake producer. He gave him a LinkedIn account. He connected him to a bunch of projects. He got, got him an IMBD. What is it called? You're right. Yeah.

He started a website, got him an email, paid for everything, started a little production company. He's like like, totally looks legit. And then he did a press release about how this guy had optioned his book. He said, as soon as I optioned it through the website, he was contacted by, it wasn't Warner Brothers, but it was someone like underneath, let's say, Sony or something. He created his own buzz. He was caught. So now the fake producer was contacted and they said, look, we're interested in buying out the option. so he said they then bought out the option from this fake producer he said like i'm i'm signing a name he's

signing i'm signing names i'm doing this like he said so they end up buying out the option and and when he was telling me that he said he's like and i'm telling you right now they they're talking about this actor and this one and this one and then there was by the way then in the hollywood reporter or you know they then did a newspaper report about how they just bought this from that producer who's nobody like he was telling me like i looked it up i was like this is nuts and he goes yeah and i said and i remember thinking to myself the likelihood that movie that book gets turned into a movie let's face it they option two three thousand a year and they never get made three of them get made so i thought okay well i said yeah that's pretty cool and he said yeah right now they're

auditioning or talking to these actors once again they do that they'll connect an actor to a film He said, so-and-so is writing the screenplay. Okay, still doesn't matter. I've been in that situation. It never went anywhere. But guess what? They started filming the thing about three months ago. And he said, as soon as it's done, he said, I'll come on your program and I'll tell the whole story.

And I said, that's incredible. That's a good one. Right? That's great. That's a good one. Yeah. I want to be on when you do it. you've been in that situation like you know the like the idea of being able to do that

having the forethought i mean he wow i mean he created he created his own buzz and so when you create the buzz then the buzz buzzes and other people pick up so how how much time did you get for what you did i got 26 years and four months but i don't like to say the four months i typically just say 26 years because if you say four months it's like you're whining about it matthew yeah How much time did you actually do? Just shy of 13 years. Yeah, I know. But it's the first decades that that's the hardest.

The last three years just flew by. My favorite question of all time that I've ever gotten. And this is just a narcissist in me, is that this one student said, this female student goes, do you feel like, do you feel like you got away with it for so long because you're so charming?

And I mean, I started laughing so hard. hard. I was like, I wish I had recorded. I was like, that's the best question ever. But anyway, but I like writing. So I wake up early and I write and I write stories. And I like, I like crime stories. I don't really like violent crime stories. I have an aversion to, to violence for some reason. But I like scam stories. I like, I like things. I like interesting, unique criminals that were kind of, you know, did things uniquely or maybe, maybe in an ingenious way of some kind. So that's typically what I stick with. In five sentences,

can you tell me about your crime? I owned a mortgage company, took advantage of that system, went on the run for three years between 15 million and 55 million, semicolon depending or yeah semicolon but depending on who you believe and ultimately I was caught and sentenced to 26 years and you did 13 13 yes now now can mind the in the federal system you do 85% of your time so I cooperated I was asked to be interviewed by date by Dateline NBC News which I was I was asked to be interviewed, this was by the U.S. attorney, I was asked to be interviewed by American Greed, which I was. I was then asked to write an ethics and fraud course, which I did, which is taught to the nations and mortgage brokers have to take like four hours of ethics

and fraud. I wrote a course that a national, one or actually two of the national schools teach. I also wrote a federal red flags rules course. And we then turned around and after a lot of legal battling, you know, we got the government to reduce my sentence by, by seven years. Then as soon as I came back on to the, you know, after I went to court and got seven years knocked off, came back, I was walking the track with this guy who was actually cooperating in his case. and he was, his name was Ron Wilson. He'd stolen $57 million in the largest Ponzi scheme in South Carolina history. And we were, you know, talking and he was basically explaining to me that he was, he didn't think, he didn't believe that the government was going to give him a reduction in his sentence for his cooperation

because they thought he was still hiding money. And at some point, after months of just walking around, he told me where he'd hidden. a bunch of Ponzi scheme or that he had actually given a couple of people money to keep for him. So where did you do? I happen to be, this is what's so funny. I'd love to say I got on the phone and called my attorney, but I didn't think the government would give me anything for anything else. They didn't want to give me the first reduction.

You know, we had to go to court and fight to get that reduction. So a month or so later, I was ordering my transcripts. I had my lawyer sending me my transcripts for my reduction because I wanted to include it in part of my book. I was still kind of writing my book. And I, um, we were talking on the phone and she just happened to say. So I, she was like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to order those. I'm sorry. I forgot. You know, okay, okay. I said, okay, well, let me know. I said, uh, thank you very much. And she was like, she said, what's going on? What's going on? Like, this woman never wanted to talk to me. Like, they don't want to talk. You're not friends. And I was like, what's going? What do you

mean? She goes, what's going on in there? Anything happened? And I went, no. And she goes, Okay, nothing, nothing. And I just was like, it was almost like I was like, I said, you know what? Something happened the other day. Listen to this. And I told her. I told her what happened. She was, well, let me look into it.

A week later, I get told by a correctional officer, hey, you got to go to SIS, which is a department. So I go to this department and they say, they put me on the phone with somebody. They said, hey, you got to talk to this guy. He's a secret service agent. And he says, listen, I understand that you know. know where Ron Wilson hid Ponzi scheme money. And I said, I mean, I do, but it's not a lot. And I said, I need something in writing saying, you'll give me a reduction. And he said, yeah, no problem. So they got me something. I ended up. You became a whistleblower. You became a vigilante whistleblower.

Yeah. I became a cross. You're a crossover into the vigilante whistleblower category. I was just saying, see, inmates have a different word for it. You're a deal out niche. So is that what you were? Is that what people thought of you? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But, I mean, it was funny because there's all, like, you're not, I'm not advertising it. But if somebody were to say, like, because they knew I went to court, got my sentence cut, like, guys were like, oh, bro, I heard you cooperate. I'm like, right? And, well, that's some bullshit. I go over there's, bro. I didn't come here to make friends. Like, trust me. You were there a long time, though. You needed some friends, right? Well, look, at the medium,

you might have needed some friends. But I, I did three years in the medium, and then I went to the low. And honestly, a lot of that is for guys that are in like penitentiaries. And in the federal system, the bulk of inmates cooperate. You know, I used to, they say like 95% of them cooperated, but 100% are lying about it. So, you know, and I could, I would sit there and you'd be in the, in the unit, guys would sit there and talk about, you know, oh, snitch is this, niches that and I'd say, well, let's do the math. And you would sit back and say there's 150 guys in this unit, 95% cooperated. We know that it's not these 10 guys because they all went to trial so they didn't have an option. We know it's not these. You start doing the math and you go, so that means

there's five people in this unit that did not cooperate. And of course, there'd be five or six of us standing around. And I'd go, and I'll bet it's every one of you guys. So, yeah, so I talked to talked to SIS. I talked to the Secret Service. And eventually they indicted that guy, Ron Wilson, and the two people working with him. They recovered half a million dollars. And after, once again, government didn't want to give me anything. So we had to fight, we had to file paperwork and fight them in court. And I got another five years knocked off my sentence. By the time I got that five years knocked off my sentence, now it's 12 years knocked off my sentence. I'm basically leaving. I'd already been locked up seven or eight years.

or no, eight or nine years by that point. So within a year or two, I was transferred. So it ended up being 12 years in change, you know? How hard? How hard? Did you have a family? Like, how hard was that transition for you? Well, one, I'd been on the run for three years.

So. And how is that? I'd essentially abandoned my family anyway. How hard was that? Well, you know, I had a son. I had a little boy, but I was divorced from his mom. I'm basically a weekend dad. So like every two weeks, he's coming over for the weekend and maybe you pick him up on a Wednesday.

And he's three years old and he doesn't even really know who I am that much. You know, he knows I'm daddy. But mommy has a new boyfriend and that guy's living in the house. So, you know, so I'm more like an older uncle that picks him up and buys him toys. And that's great. So leaving him, you know, it's like I can't, I'm not taking, I can't take him with me. I'm not raising him anyway. So that was, that was the worst part.

that and leaving my mother. My dad was always such a, just a real jerk. It really was. Like my dad, you know, like growing up, it's funny because one of the things I'm always asked is, you know, oh, well, why did you do it? And, you know, initially I always say, well, I did it for the money. But then you write a book. And then you think deeper. And you have to really think about it.

And you start reading books about how to write books and how to write a memoir and how to, and I probably read three of them while I was locked up before. I even start writing, and while I was writing. And, you know, you start realizing there's just different techniques. And I think ultimately it ended up being like, yeah, that doesn't make sense. Because when you, when you, for hungry now, now, now. What about now? Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, grab an O. Henry bar to satisfy your hunger. with its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating.

Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh, hungry, oh Henry. First started committing fraud. It was a little bit here, a little bit there, and nobody knew that fraud had been committed. And you got the money. You got 100,000, and then you got 300,000, and then it was 500.

So you had the money. You didn't need the money now. So why are you still doing it? You know, and it just continued and continued and continued. And even when I got called, why didn't you start over? Why didn't you move into your parent's spare room, claim bankruptcy, and start your life over again? You could be a car salesman. You could do lots of things.

Why didn't you do that? So I really, when it boils down to it, I think it was just a fact that, you know, I was raised by a very narcissistic father who was disappointed. You know, I was not the son he wanted. He's five foot 10, you know, good looking athletic, smart. everything came pretty easily to him you know made him you know you know had nothing growing up and was now making hundreds of thousands a year and I'm a kid that has struggling with dyslexia is not great at sports you know what I'm saying like I was not the son he wanted or deserved so and and probably made you feel feel guilty for that every chance he could yeah yeah it was always

the snide comments but what's great is when I started making money he really started respecting me. Like, I opened a mortgage company. Like, I graduated high, I graduated high school with C's, graduated college with A's. And then it was still with a degree in fine arts. And I remember as I was graduating, he said, yeah, he said, yeah, you got a degree in fine arts. He said, he said, you'll be able to, he said, with that degree, you're, you're probably your best course of action nowadays is you'll be drawing sweaty tourists at Disney World to think about moving to Orlando. I was like, wow, it's a four-year degree. You know? So, Anyway, I ended up becoming a mortgage broker, ended up opening my own mortgage company.

Now I'm making money. I own real estate. I had like 50, more than 50 properties within a few years. I'm doing great. So, yeah, I continue to commit fraud. And then eventually I got caught and he was like, I do it. Wait, wait, wait. When you opened your company, though, there was a period where your company was successful legitimately, right?

No. Really? I mean, from the very, you have to understand, the very first fraud I ever committed had what a very first loan I ever did had fraud in it. And what was that fraud in that loan? You have to understand. I like banked everything on being a mortgage broker. I had to go away to be a mortgage broker.

I paid the fee. I took the class. I passed. I started working knowing I'm not going to make any money for at least 30 days. And I was working 80 hours a week. I was there before everybody stayed till 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night. They gave me a key. you know so um by the time i had a couple of loans going uh like i'm a month behind of my car payment

might have been two you know my mortgage is behind like it's not good so i really need this loan to close and it turns out that i brought the loan file into my manager and she opens the file and she's fumbling through the paperwork and there's one document she pulled and put to the side and she said and she said it's a perfect file looks great but on this on the verification of rent for your borrower she was 30 days late on her rent in the last two years that's a that's a deal killer it's over you're not lending money to somebody who pays their their rent late they're going to pay their mortgage late if they paid at all so i was i just was like oh my god and i remember she she while she was telling me this she pulled out a

bottle of white out. You know, the old ones, not the spit, but when one of the starts, she's like, yeah, so here's what the problem is. And obviously, they're going, what's okay, what's with the, you know, and then she handed it to me, she said, so if I was you, I would wipe that out. I would make a copy of it and stick it back in the file. She goes, they'll never catch it. I was like, that's fraud. I could go to jail. And she goes, worse that happens is you get fired. Nobody's calling the FBI. You'll be fine. She says, I do it all the time. It's going to be fine. There's a lot of documents in there. And I was like, wow. So I trusted her. I

whited it out, put the document back in there, sent it to underwriting. Three, four days later, I'm freaking out for three or four days. Like I didn't sleep for four days. So three, four days later, they call me, they say, hey, we're ready to close. And we close. We close a few days later. I got a check for like $3,500. I'm thrilled. And then you're back. You're back in business. You're paying your rent. You're paying your car note. Yeah, but the next guy that came in, made 52,000 a year. If he made 57,000, he could get the loan. Wow. It's now the finance degree seems like a good idea. So now I'm changing the 52 to 57. Yeah. And all the corresponding. So let me ask you this. Did the clients know that you were changing making the

changes? Not always. Like sometimes if it was something small, I didn't say anything. Like I'd rather have them deny it if they were going to be asked. You know, it's interesting because in my categories, you are almost a cross between a righteous perpetrator and an intentional perpetrator. And you're a little bit more righteous than you are intentional just based on how your story started. And when in the book I talk about righteous perpetrators are people that have power or privilege with inside an organization that use that power to help someone outside. So, like, yes, you did receive a fee. So you did. But you also knew that, goodness, 52,000 versus 57, if I just change this, this person can be on their way

to home ownership. This feels minor. And like, the worst is going to happen is sort of a slap on the risks, you know. So, and you received your commission, but you got to a point where maybe I'm sure that commission, you didn't need it anymore, but you could still help people. Um, well, I mean, I'm not sure like, like initially, like you said, it started small. It was just to get, get the loans closed, get my commission, get the next person, you know, let's, let's get this. Because, you know, this is the thing it's like were you a mastermind at some massive massive million dollar scheme at first no no but did you think that gosh if i just changed this one little thing i could help i could help them greatly and help me a little bit like yeah well i mean i obviously you want

these people to get into the house right yeah like and and and I had worked before opening my mortgage company I'd work for another mortgage company and their credit line got shut off at one point and I remember getting phone calls from people where they had packed their stuff up and you haul vans because like they have to be out of the house and they're calling me like listen what you said we were going to close I'm like yeah I thought we were going to close the credit line got shut off I don't know what's happening they're looking for new investors they're like it didn't typically happen but they were proving people that with only one outlet to sell those loans. And when that got shut off,

they turned around and went to other ones. They didn't have it. So I've got people ready to close. People's leases are up. They have to be out of their house or their their apartment or whatever. They're loading up lieu halls because we're being told, give it a few more days in a week. You know, we don't know what to tell your customers. So I do remember feeling desperate when people are telling me like, you know, we're staying in their life. I mean, this is their real life. Right. And so somehow you've turned from mortgage broker to almost a therapist, you know, like because you're a part of their lives, their livelihood, the way they're going to live.

I mean, yeah, but I mean, I would love this to sit there and say it was, you know, altruistic. But, you know, I'm saying the truth is. Well, it got big. I mean, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, once it got away from me, at some point, at some point when I started my own company, now I've got my brokers coming to me, they need their loans to close. they need a W2 change or they need a bank statement change or then and then it got to the point

where it was like it's such a pain to change bank statements like it's easier if I just create my own bank online and come up with my own bank statements logos and everything processes and all right and then I can then I can just then you they walk in and pretty much everybody that came in the door if they thought there was going to be an issue with their bank they just put down that They worked at, or their bank was one of their banks. Cots Bank. No, it was Bank of Ebor. There was a place, Ebor City in Tampa.

It was Bank of Ebor. And they'd still put down their own banks. They just have two banks. And so if we needed, if they didn't have quite enough money in their bank or they needed reserves or whatever, well, oh, yeah, well, I've got an extra $15,000 in Bank of Ebor. Oh, I didn't know. Well, yeah, I can use the bank statement. And they could call the bank.

You know, we had some, we'd answer, put them on. hold tell them hold on you know i'll check you can you put it wasn't it was a whole shame no it's all a sham it's all it's all a sham and that way there were multiple banks there was probably like two or three banks there was three banks actually you should have you should let me do the documentary about your life i i was going to say so what happened was eventually i end up getting in trouble right was there a whistleblower how did you get caught well well i mean i got in trouble a lot Like the first, what made me, what, what made it go from changing W2s to be, so when I was listening to your, you discussed the different types of perpetrators, right? Or, whatever, scammers or, so I initially, I started off, I believe the, you know, as I was just an opportunist. I was just in the right place, the right time. I needed it to happen. But then at some point, someone who was,

had worked for me, she went and opened up her own company and she got in trouble with the FBI and wore a wire on me, she and her husband, because she knew what I was doing. And what I was doing was one of the ways that I got so many rental properties, my wife and I got so many rental properties is I would buy a property and then I would sell it. I'd renovate it and then sell it to my ex-wife. So there's something called seasoning where if you buy a property, you have to wait a certain period of time before you can refinance it. So instead if I buy it, fix it up and sell it, I can supersede that. Whatever, I can get around that. And what happened is when I'm selling it to my wife, we're not telling the lender, this is my wife. We tell her just some client, like she never

took my last name, specifically for this purpose. So we end up getting several million dollars worth of property very quickly within about a year or so. All she has to do is collect rent, raise my son. So we're doing fine. Well, this other, this person that used to worked for me ended up telling the FBI so that obviously she could get a reduction in her sentence. And so now I'm, I get in trouble with the FBI. I end up taking a plea deal. I take three, three years probation. But I can't, I can't own my mortgage company now. So I decided what I was going to do was, is like, that's where it was like, okay, well, you could claim bankruptcy and start over, right? So I was in the middle of the divorce. Sounds very stressful. Yeah,

it was, it was stressful. So, um, so I was getting divorced and from the woman that you owned all the properties with. Yes. Yes. She didn't want to be married to a felon. Anyway, um, like, she sort of was one too. No, she, oh, no, that listen, definitely. I mean, but it's right. Like she was, she, she had blood on her hands too. Oh, no, she absolutely did. But in, and here's what's really funny. What's really funny is my lawyer. When I got my lawyer, here's what he told me. He said, listen, to be honest with you. Like, how close are you with your, wife. And I went, what do you mean? He said, listen, because he knew I was living somewhere else by that point, if that makes sense. Like, we were already having problems. So he was like,

about how close are you with it? Like, you're getting divorced? I was like, probably. Yeah. He said, he was because all the loans are in her name. Like, he's like, I mean, it, he said, I could, if you were to cooperate and you were to cooperate against some of your mortgage brokers, I could keep you from being indicted at all. She'd be indicted. They'd be indicted. It's like, yeah, listen, this, this woman hates my guts already. Like, I'm already in danger.

Like, she could cut you. Like, she's an angry person. And I said, I'm, and she's raising my son. And I said, no, I said, besides, I'm just going to get probation. So I end up, I pay my lord $75,000 to give me probation. And, of course, now that I know how the sentence and guidelines work, I realize, like, What a sheister. I was never facing prison time. Like, I could have gotten a public defender for that. So anyway, the point is, is that I plead guilty and I can't own the mortgage company anymore.

So I decided I'm going to start a development company and start renovating houses. But there's issues with that. To get the money, you need money, obviously. You need capital. And my issue with that was that I was going to start renovating houses. But in the area, ibor city where i was going to renovate them which is just outside of tampa it's Tampa properties are selling for like the average price is like 75,000 so you can buy a house for let's say 40,000 put 20 in it sell it for a hundred maybe you make 30 or 40 grand or 30 grand or 30 more like 25 or 30 grand that's it so i need to be able to get these houses to appraise higher so that's a problem well the way you determine how much a house the value of a house

of comparable sales. So I need to be able to compare these houses to houses higher. And the way you can, so I started dating a girl at the title company and she, I know you were going to say that. And so I asked her, hey, how can I, like if I buy a house and I sell it for a hundred, if I buy it for 50, how can I record the sale at 200? And she said, oh, well, you'd have to pay the extra doc stamps and you'd have to switch out the transaction form. And I said, okay. So I do that. I pay the extra. dot stamps, which is nothing. It's like an extra $1,000 in dock stamps. And I buy a house for $50,000. I recorded it 200. And it shows up like a week later in public records as being a sale for $200,000. So I decided I'm going to start buying these houses and recording the values higher. But the problem is people in that area don't buy houses for $200,000. So I need borrowers that will buy houses for $200,000. And the problem with that is if you find those borrowers, they can only borrow so many. And the other problem with those people are that they want part of the profit. and I don't want to give them part of the profit. So what I decided was I was just going to start making my own borrowers because that's really the go-to move. You created fictitious people? Yeah, synthetic identities. I figured out how to get Social Security to issue Social Security numbers

to children that don't exist, right? So I make a fake birth certificate for like an eight-month-old girl. And then I go into Social Security and I say, here's my birth certificate and here's my shot record because if the kid's over 12 months old you have to actually show it with the baby well I don't have a baby to show up with it's 11 or 13 or 14 months old so but if you just show up with a shot record and the birth certificate you're good so I do that and I start getting these people and that you probably well you're not a psychiatrist so I was going to say this is probably okay so I was going to say I name the people not

Not all of them, but most of them were names like Michael White, James Red, Lee Black, Brandon Green, William Blue. Common names. Yeah. Common names is somebody might actually be named that. No, no. Like, the thing about the last names, black, red, white, green, yeah. So there was a movie called from Quentin Tarantino called Reservoir Dogs, and he gave everybody names like that, Mr. Pink, Mr. Black, Mr. And I love that movie.

So, you know, I started naming these characters. those names. I got them all three secure credit cards, made the payments for six months, and after six months, they have 750 credit scores. Okay, I take it back. You are not a righteous perpetrator. Right. It evolved. Like, I knew the credit system. I knew how these things worked. I knew I could take advantage of that system. You know, what's interesting is how easy it is to do. Yeah, once you're kind of in the system, and if you can poke around and figure, especially if you're in a position where you can learn through trial and air, right so every time i made a mistake i learned a little bit more a little bit more and i was able to

to if if a if a bank blamed so if a bank found out about it and came to me and said this is what we just found out i'd say are you serious you're telling me my customer sent me that and the customer you create it yes no well no i'm saying if it was a real customer at the old because i learned most of this while i was a mortgage broker okay changing their documents so if they caught something i'd be Oh, you're telling me my, you're telling me my customer gave me a fake W2. He seemed so honest. And I said, well, I'm not doing that loan for him. Hey, by the way, how'd you figure that out?

And they said, oh, well, it turns out this, really? Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Then I'd alter it and send it to another lender and then it'd go through and they'd close the loan. So I feel bad. There you don't. So what happens is I start creating these fake people. I raise the value.

I start buying these houses for 40 and 50,000, recording the values of the houses at 200, 220, whatever, 190, 250, and so the whole area raises up through the roof. And my borrowers, each borrower buys five, sometimes six houses, refinances those houses after a month or so, pulls out 150,000, you know, 100, 150,000, whatever the appraisal came in at, like 80. 95% 90%. And so once each one of them got to around a million, 1.1 million, 1.2 million. And I'd make the payments, of course. Then I'd just stop paying. And the houses would go into foreclosure. And the bank would take the house back. And the bank would send out an appraiser to say, hey, how much is this house worth? And the appraiser would once again say, it's worth 220,000. And they'd put it on the market and it wouldn't sell. And then they lower the price. Three months later, they lower the price again. Three months later, later, they lowered it. Eventually, they'd end up selling it for $70,000 or $50,000 or whatever. And they'd lose $100,000. They'd say, man, that's crazy. I can't believe how off we were on that. That's, yeah, that happened. So they didn't know there was a scam that had been committed. And you had already pulled the equity, pull the money out. Oh, all the money's gone. No, they owe the bank $110,000, or sorry, $180,000, $210,000. And the bank just takes the loss.

Because that does happen. People buy houses for 200,000. And then they foreclose on them and they resell the house. And sometimes they get 110. Sometimes they get 140. You know, by the time the house is taken back, it's been trashed. And after a year, the windows are knocked out. Someone stole the copper. The AC doesn't work. And so they sell the house at an extreme loss. So the banks never, they never thought fraud. It's now been a year or two since they've gotten these, or a year or so, they, since they got these documents, there's no way to verify anything. And if they did look into it, like if they started, they obviously sent letters or they'd send somebody by to try and serve you with paperwork for the foreclosure, I would, I would type up a letter,

I'd type up an article. I'd take an article from the newspaper and I'd insert my borrower's name into the article saying like there was a 12 card pile up on I-75 and someone that was life-flighted to Tampa General hospital and I put Mr. Black in there. And then I'd write a letter from Mr. Black's sister saying my brother was in a horrible accident. He's currently in a coma. The doctor said, this is this is too much. I don't believe you did. This is too. You did all this? Listen, look, you look at up the amount of articles that are out there. They even talk about Mr. Black, Mr. Green. They're like, they talk to investigators for the bank and the investigator for the bank says, listen, I couldn't tell if this guy was alive or dead. His, his, um, his address was a, his address was a mailboxes, et cetera account.

His like, he starts naming off all these things. He's like, I couldn't even figure out if he was alive, if he'd ever been alive. So, yeah. So it was, it was, but how long did this last for you? That, I borrowed like $11.5 million, about 18 months, about 18 months. Did you live like you borrowed $11 million? No, I, I never did because I'm not really a flashy person. Like, I don't, I didn't have a, you know, I didn't have a Porsche or a Lamborghini. Like I had a, I had an expensive Audi sports car. I actually lived in an area called Tampa Heights, which was kind of an up-and-coming area. It was being kind of, you know, urban renewal kind of thing, you know.

And I owned a bunch of houses in that area. I had almost every house on my block and was renovating them. So, but it, the projects was, you know, a mile, two miles away. and so I didn't live super flashy I traveled I had money I could do whatever I wanted but you know I don't need I'm not living in a two million dollar house I'm not trying I'm on federal probation I'm not trying to I wasn't trying to but you're on federal probation still doing this oh yeah yeah yeah and it's funny too because like my probation officer up at my office one time and I had I'm telling you I must have had seven or eight phones cell phones on the credenza behind my

desk. And I just was thinking, like, this guy's got to ask some questions here. Like, that's not normal. Like, he's got to say, what's up with these phones? But he never did. He just, hey, what's going on? I don't think they're trained to look for fraud. So how are you, how are you on the straight and narrow now? Why now? Um, you know, I got 26 years. Like, like, first of all, there's two things. One, I got 26 years. One, I got 26 years. Listen, I didn't even tell you about going on the run for three years. But let's, we don't want to get in that. Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever, did you ever do any insurance fraud? Yes, but it was minor. Like these are like break-ins. And this is like, these are minor. Like you staged a break-in? Well, one time, only because I didn't have insurance when I got broken into. So then I went out and got homeless insurance and I waited about a month and a half. And then I called the police and said, I got,

broke into. And then I maximize the policy. You know how they have policy limits? Like people think, oh, you tell them $40,000 or you might get $10. Why? Because you said that was $40,000 for furniture. They only pay $10 for furniture. So I went through the policy and I said, okay, there's jewelry is up to $10,000. Great, $9,000. Here's the receipts. Did you create the receipts too? I would create receipts or sometimes you just go and get receipts like you can go and walking if you're walking out a home depot or you're walking out of um people throw their receipts away like at remember circuit city you know you grab receipts from circuit city you have friends that have receipts you know that own stores a friend of a friend knows but the receipt has to match up with the date at least a

date no it yeah but it's obviously it's going to match up with a date and they're not backtracking any of this stuff and most of the time it's just photographs a lot of this i'm doing this um insurance i'm doing this um project for the coalition against insurance fraud and i have been interviewing people that have committed insurance fraud and i was just curious just based on everything that you were saying i was thinking he must have done an insurance fraud scheme so i think you the title you understand that a lot of these things title insurance paid off too so that was insurance um And it's not normal. The title fraud that I've committed is more than your average fraud, right?

Like it's a different type of fraud. But it still falls under an insurance category? Yes. Well, for instance, you're buying a house. So you own the house. Let's say I own a house. And I own a house. and on Monday they do the title search.

So they search the title. But it's not going to close until Friday. So I know it was searched. I know it came back on Monday. You call the title insurance company. You say, hey, listen, did you, when did you get the title policy back? Oh, we got it back yesterday. Oh, okay, thanks.

You immediately go and record a lien on the property for a new roof and the windows and whatever. It's $25,000. So then the house closes on Friday. You wait a week. You go to the new homeowner and you say, hey, what's going on? Where's Matt Cox? Oh, he sold us the house. He did.

Well, he never paid me this $25,000. He owes me. And I have a lien on this property. Who'd you close through? And they go, oh, we closed through lawyer's title. So he goes to lawyer's title and says, hey, I did a bunch of work on this house. And he shows them the $25,000. Then they go and they go, no, we searched the house.

He said, what are you talking about? I have a lien on it. They go back and search it and go, man, we missed the lien. He recorded it two days after we searched the policy during what's called the gap period. So we owe this guy $25,000. So they have to pay him $25,000. Now, they can turn around and go to me and try and get the money from me. I said, nah, that guy did horrible work.

I'm not paying that guy. And they go, we already paid him. Well, that's here's the thing. What I learned from dating the girl at the insurance company or at the title company was this. If there's the dispute over the fee, they have to pay it. So they won't sue me because I have a dispute over this guy, but they missed the title and by law they have to pay it. They cannot sue me because there's a dispute.

So that's a nice little... You did this? Yeah, I've done that a few times. How much? Do you know how much you did it for? No. You didn't get caught for it, though. No.

Listen, there's so much stuff I didn't go. Like, they never charged me. with credit card fraud. Every one of those people that every one of those identities, which I almost never talked about, they also got probably $50,000 in credit cards. They also got per, like if I knew I was about to dump the guy, I'd go out and get three or four personal loans through Bank of America, Wells Fargo. On the synthetic identity. Right. Because I'm about, I can get another $100,000 out of this guy. Like I might have got. I probably got six or seven hundred thousand for the property.

I can get another $100,000. How much did you make doing all this, Matt? I don't, I mean, you know, I, I feel like a lot of that money went to other people. It went back into the properties. So they said it was nine point, they said my mortgage company did $40 million. But keep in mind, that was just basic fraud. There was no real money involved. Like that's money, fraudulent loans going to buy houses.

So that's not really like money in my pocket. Sure. The other one is after they sold everything, it was $15 million that they said I did. Well, first they said it was like $25. Then we got it down to $15. We argued. And then they said, well, there's $9.5 million missing. And then we argued and I got it down to $6 million because they just didn't want to do the paperwork.

So my restitution, $6 million. At one point, it was probably legitimately $9.5 million. I'm sorry. Yeah, $9.5 million. You're amazing. You're amazing. I think a lot of it has to do with your upbringing, though. Like, I think just probably that ongoing emotional abuse, you, like, you were out here.

You're like, guns blazing. I was going to say, it's funny if you read my book, like, there were all these little tiny things that my father, like, when someone, they say, like, you say, like, you. you know, like, think back, like, what's a story you can tell about your father? Like, I don't, all I have, all my stories are like, they're rough. And they're not rough in a, in a brutal way. They're rough in a way that at the time, I laughed about it. And looking back, I'm like, you don't say that to a kid. Like, what, like, that doesn't, what do you, why would you, you know, I always remember this.

And I, this, because I always remember immediately thinking this. Because my dad was an alcoholic, right? But he made, he worked for state farm insurance. And he would get, be sober for a year or two, get drunk. They put him in a rehab, go right back to work. This happened over. And I don't mean like a 10-day rehab. We're talking 45 days, 30 days, 90 days, like outrageous.

One time they put our whole family in rehab. We had to all go to Al-Anon, like twice a week. We're going to these Al-Anon meetings. It's like, why have I got to keep him sober? So what happened was I remember one time we were driving. He and I were driving in his BMW and I have my little Izad shirt on. He's in a suit and tie. We're going to movie, you know, our movie day, right?

Like we would go to go see a movie. And really, we never really would see a movie. He would drop me off and come back like four or five hours later. So, but we're on our way. And I remember looking over at this car that was next to us. And it was a beat up old nose. that was rusted out a bunch of little kids in the back seat mom and dad are in the front and just the kids in the back they just look filthy they look filthy their clothes are messed up

the cars rusted out and I remember being at a stop sign and looking over at these kids and they're staring at me through the window and I just remember thinking like just being like a shame that we had money and like I felt bad for them and remember looking down and my dad instinctively noticed something was wrong. And he looked over at me and he looked over at those kids and he looked at me and he goes, hey, and I was like, yes, sir. And he goes, he goes, I wonder what the poor are doing today. And I just went and then he went and he's kind of chuckled and laughed. And I remember thinking, wow. Like I like and my my thought, what I always remember from that is this is that it was always no matter what you had to do no matter how you had to

behave it was always better to be driving the BMW and and that's how he was he was like he made a lot of money for a lot of people state farms should have fired him 10 times they never did he was always the top produce top 10 producing uh managers in the nation always won the trips always taught the classes. Whenever they had the big wigs come, come to the head office, they always called him in. They asked him to do training seminars. Like, but every two years, we got to throw this guy in a rehab. But that's okay. It's okay. He'd show up one time, he showed up one time and talked in front of a thousand people drunk. They had to practically pull him off stage. Put him in rehab. Get him back to work. You could behave however you want.

If you're a star. exactly as long as you make everybody a ton of money and i just remember thinking that i remember my mom said one time i remember asking her because god they used to fight all the time all the time and i mean and i mean fights like where she'd get all the kids put them in a car and drive and leave for a couple of days come back i remember thinking why like are you that in love with him that we're you know we're going back and she said you know he's a good provider you know so it was like it was like both of them you know what I'm saying like they need they need she had four kids what she going to do so yeah I mean I just that's just how I grew up and I

yeah hey if you like the video do me a favor and hit the subscribe button share the video and you know leave me a comment in the comment section and I try and respond to as many comments as I possibly can also I'm going to leave the book link for fool me once which is going to be in the description. I'll leave the link to the book and any other social media links for Kelly Pope if you want to get in touch with her. And I appreciate you guys watching.

Thank you very much. See you.