Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The $400K Nigerian Scam That Changed My Life

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm traveling with all these rappers and I'm in these nice-ass hotels and I'm around all these women, but they get in the money and I'm not. So I got to survive. Mike taught me the game. Like, he's Nigerian. He's the one I seen run over the 400,000. He's in prison right now for 13 years. I never really thought about whether they catch me.

Starting point is 00:00:14 I'll think that's something you think about a lot, you know. So this was saved my life. This is the situation that made me believe in God. I never really looked up to like, you know, people like look up to like Michael Jordan and, you know, people like, I always look up to my uncle. So everything that you see the rappers do on TV is like I've seen in the real life The first time I ever seen South was like When I was four years old

Starting point is 00:00:36 My uncle had some capsules I'd never forget, he had some capsules And he was like, you know what this is? I was like, yeah And I was like, you know what this is? I was like, you know what it is? So I was like brought up around that And my uncle always had nice clothes

Starting point is 00:00:48 I always had women, I always had cars, I always had money So that was the first person that I looked up to my life You get what I'm saying? So I guess I was So you thought that's the way to go about getting it? Yeah, I don't know if I thought it because I also seen the military side as well, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:01:01 But I don't know it was just like intriguing to me. You know what I'm saying? He was just like a hero to me, you know what I'm saying? And that was the wrong person to look up to. My uncle got killed 1991 with he was 17, actually protecting his friend. So that was really hard for my mom or whatever. So she didn't want to date the type of man that was like her brothers. Like all our brothers was like in the streets.

Starting point is 00:01:21 My uncle was a professional kickboxer, Tracy Barrett. He got kicked out for, you know, doing drugs. You know what I'm saying? So he got kicked out. Fatway ended up going to prison for selling drugs and deads end up getting killed. So this is all within the first few years of my life. So she met my baby sister, father, married him. We end up moving to Germany, stayed in Germany for about two or three years,

Starting point is 00:01:42 end up moving back to North Carolina. She met my new stepfather. And like 95, she married him a year later. And we stayed in North Carolina for like one more year. And then we end up moving to Alaska. So that's how that happened, like in the military. Are you also staying on base in Alaska? Yes.

Starting point is 00:01:57 Yeah, we stayed on base. Okay. Living in Alaska is definitely a lot more white people than black. It's mostly white people, you know what I'm saying? Everybody that asks you about living in Alaska is like, you're seeing Eskimos and igloos and things like that. But how can I compare? I can't really compare Alaska to anything because it's like it's on, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:02:16 You ever been to Colorado? Yeah. So it's like just like a cold mountain. It's just a bunch of mountains. It's just, I don't know. I did a lot of, I want to say white activities, you know, say like snowboarding. playing hockey, you know, skiing, snowmobile, you know what I'm saying, things like that, hunting, fishing, things like that. So my childhood was pretty, you know, it was different than leaving from the hood of North Carolina to going to Alaska.

Starting point is 00:02:41 So it kind of like changed my life like overnight, you know what I'm saying, getting away from what I've seen as a child, you know, been around my uncles and my family and things like that. So how old were you when you come back? By this point, you're what? You got to be held. I was like 13. Yeah. Once I lived in Columbus, Georgia with the middle school. partially of high school, I quit high school in 10th grade,

Starting point is 00:03:01 and then after I quit high school, I ended up going to Jile Corps. So going to Jive Corps, it's kind of like what really taught me like hustling. You know what I'm saying? Because I got kicked at the house when I was 15, so my mama told me she was like, either you're going to have to go to school. Why? Just being a bad-ass child.

Starting point is 00:03:16 And so as I got to my teenage years, and, you know, especially living in Georgia and start, like, feeling myself, you know, I'm out in the streets, I'm fighting a lot, you know, getting in trouble. That's when I started getting into, like, doing like, B&B, I mean, B&Bs, you know what I'm saying, like breaking into houses. You know,

Starting point is 00:03:29 it's just like little dumb shit that I was doing. Do you get caught? I'm trying to figure out why your mom just threw you out. They didn't throw you out because, you know, like something's got to be happening

Starting point is 00:03:39 that she's not. Yeah, she would tell her, I would get suspended a lot from school. I stay getting to spend it from school, but I never got caught like red-handed, but this is why, you know,

Starting point is 00:03:47 I learned a long time ago as a kid to do crime by yourself, you know what I'm saying? Or do anything by yourself because, you know, one particular evening, you know, because in the military,

Starting point is 00:03:57 like a lot of, military guys, like, it's a lot of money on military, especially in the houses. You get what I'm saying? So that was like something that, how we got money breaking their houses. You know what I'm saying? That's teenagers. And, you know, one night we had broke it to somebody's house and it was me and three other guys. I was 16. My boy, Dink was 19. The other two guys is 21. So we break it in the house, boom, boom, on story short. And then somebody end up seeing us and ended up calling the police. So we had leave in the middle of the robbery and shit. So me and Dink, I live around the corner.

Starting point is 00:04:25 So me and Dink actually got away from it with the other. other two guys got caught by the police. And, you know, so we get to the crew, you know, dink in the room, throwing up and shit from, you know, from running from the police. And the next day, the police come to my career up and said, asked a moment, there's like, well, we need your son. He was a violent robbery last night.

Starting point is 00:04:42 I'm always like, no, not my son, my son, been here all night. He was like, nah, we just need to ask him some questions. So by them even knowing I got caught was the dude that got caught and put me in that, you know what I'm saying? So it was just like situations like that, that it was just all away from drama. Even when I'm not there or I'm there, the police always coming to my crib, you know. So my mom and my stepdad were just like kind of tired of, you know, just me getting in trouble, you get what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:05:06 So that makes sense. It was another situation where I had quit school, so I never get up in the morning. And I remember there's one morning in my home boy, James called me. He's like, man, my girlfriend over here and she got a friend over here and she wanted to meet you. And he was like, come over. So I wake up at 6 o'clock of the morning to go over there. And my mom was like, where you're going? I was like, I'm going to go to Janehouse.

Starting point is 00:05:24 She's like, no, you're not. You ain't going anywhere. where you don't even go to school, you know what I'm saying? So she's basically talking about the lease. So as soon as she left out the room, I did, you know, jump out of the window, end up going to James house. This was like a life learning experience. Like, so I end up going to Jane's house, meeting him, the girl and her friend and me and the girl end up sleeping with each other.

Starting point is 00:05:41 So the girl was a virgin, you know, but, you know, so we end up sleeping with each other. She'd go back to school and brag it. Everybody like, oh, fuck Rajan, boom, boom, boom. And, you know, everybody like, oh, you a hoe, he's a ho he fuck that. You know what I'm saying? So then she ended up saying that I wrote her. You know what I'm saying? And so she said that I wrote her, it got back to the guidance counselor.

Starting point is 00:05:58 So the guidance counselor called the police and said that I wrote her. So the police ended up calling my mom and telling her what happened and said, can you bring your son down to the police station? So this is around the same time around like 16. So I'm like, damn, what the fuck you did now? So we end up going to the police station. We're sitting in there. So they put me in one room.

Starting point is 00:06:15 They put my mom in the other room. And then when I came in the room with her, her eyes was red. And she was like, she's like, you know what you're down here for? And I was like, nah. She was like, well, some girl said you wrote her. And I was like, what? I ain't, you know what I'm saying? Like, I told your ass not to leave the house.

Starting point is 00:06:28 If you want to left the house, you wouldn't have been in this. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, my ain't, or whatever. So I go into the other room, they separate us again, and they're asking the girl. They, you know, they interrogating her. And she finally told the truth because my friend and his girlfriend told her like, now he didn't her. It was like all consensual.

Starting point is 00:06:44 You know what I'm saying? So we're all there in the house. She wanted to come over. Like, yeah. But she was lying because she ain't want to get in trouble about her father. You know what I'm saying? So it was just like little situations like that throughout my life. just always in the midst of something.

Starting point is 00:06:56 So I'm going to tell me she's like, if you ain't going to school, you don't have to go to college or you have to go to Job Corps, the military, or something. So I end up going to Job Corps when I was 16 years old. What is Job Corps? They teach you different skills. It's like a trade school. But if anybody else who a job core is, it's like prison and college. That's what it seemed like to me is like, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:07:16 It's the same thing that's going to prison, going to Job Corps. And it's like you learn in a trade as well. So that's why I learned how to hustle in Job Corps. because you got a hustle. That's not a course. No, that's not a course. What course? What did I study?

Starting point is 00:07:30 Yeah. Well, I really, I studied EKJ, I mean, EKG and phlebotomy. Okay. But I didn't take it serious. And the only reason I took EKG in phlebotomy is because it was just females in that class. So I didn't really go to a job court for a trade.

Starting point is 00:07:43 I went to job court just to, you know, it was something I had to do. So like I said, you had to hustle because you get paid like $20 a week. You know what I'm saying? That's like for deodorant, like toothpaste and things like that. So I would go home in Georgia. I would steal cigarettes, like packs of cigarettes, black of mouths. I get like honey buns and things like that.

Starting point is 00:08:02 And I take it back to Job Corps and then I make money from it. And then I started upgrading it to start selling JobCorps. And that's when I got until like initially becoming a hustler. Do you graduate job core? I didn't graduate but I got my GED. You can graduate though. Like if you finish your course, like they got like painting, HVAC, you know. So they got different trades.

Starting point is 00:08:21 So if the most of me that go to Job Corps and they take a series, if you ain't got a hospital diploma, you can get your hospital diploma, or you can get your GED, and you can graduate with a course. I didn't graduate. I stayed there for like seven months, got my GED, got kicked out for fighting, and then, you know, I'm back home in Georgia. But by this time, now I know how to hustle. Now I'm already selling weed, you know.

Starting point is 00:08:41 So when I get back to Georgia, I continue this, you know. So what I keep wanting to say, when he says, he wanted to say the devil's lettuce. The devil's lettuce. Have you ever heard that? Yeah, yeah, I have, yeah. Sorry. When we were thinking about alternative names and people are, I was, I was saying that, it's so funny.

Starting point is 00:09:08 Sorry, okay, sorry. So, all right, so how old are you at this point? I think I was, I might have just turned 17. 17, no job, living at home. Only money I had, I got a chance. I got a check for finishing job court, like a $900 check. That's not going to last long. No, I wasn't, you know, but you know what I did with that, you know.

Starting point is 00:09:27 Baw some tennis shoes and some clothes. No, I bought some. Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I did. But are you doing this out of your mom's house? She's got to get, she got to figure this out pretty quick, right? Did she ever figure it out?

Starting point is 00:09:39 I don't, I don't know, man. I feel like parents, like ignore it for a little bit. Like, they kind of like, they know something's up. He's leaving. He's coming back. He's coming. He's got some money. Yeah, she kind of, she kind of figured I was doing.

Starting point is 00:09:50 doing something. But, you know, my mom was getting to the point where she was just tired of my stepdad, me and him really didn't get along, you know what I'm saying? Like, we always bump heads. So it's like, you know, now I respect them back then. I didn't respect them. I didn't like him. It was all his fault. I wouldn't say that, but I just felt like I never, I never really had like a real father figure, you know what I'm saying? Like I had a father, a biological father. He was in the military, the first sergeant, but he was more like a disciplinary. And I skipped that part when my mama sent me to live with him on and even want to talk about that part. But And then, you know, my stepdad was in the military.

Starting point is 00:10:20 So I had more so disciplinaries. Right. Then father figures. Never went to my football games. Never, you know what I'm saying? Never did anything that I wanted to do was always like, oh, you got to go to school, get a job, go to college, and go to the military, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:10:32 So it's like I never had no, like, guidance. So, you know, I kind of like took towards the streets, you know, and that's what I related more to the guys that was doing, that was getting the money that I wanted to get, you know, so. So you, your mom, does she kick you out at 17 or do you stay? She kicked me out before. before that. She kept me out multiple times. Yeah, but you still keep coming back.

Starting point is 00:10:50 Yeah, I keep coming back. But this last time, she had to keep me out because I got banned off of Fort Benning. So they banned me because after getting in trouble so many times on military base, you get banned. So they banned you for life. I got banned for life. So they banned me for life because I got the charge, even though I beat it, the B&E charges, the fights, everything. So they tell my son, my father, he's like, either he got to go or you got to go, you know what I'm saying? So he didn't want to lose his place in the military. So they kicked me out. So that's when I end up getting shipped to Charlotte.

Starting point is 00:11:21 So I end up leaving Georgia moving to Charlotte for like a couple of months. To who? To my cousin. I got family in North Carolina in Charlotte. So I ended up going out of there for a couple of months, but I didn't like it. I didn't know nobody out there. So I begged on Mom to come back to Georgia. So she was like, you know, you're not supposed to be here.

Starting point is 00:11:37 If you come back and you get caught here, I'm going to get in trouble. So she'd be the mom. She let me come back. And stay in the house? Yeah, stay in the house. How are you staying in the house? with the father there. Yeah, I mean, he didn't want it.

Starting point is 00:11:49 You get what I'm saying? But you can understand that's my stepfather. I'm her biological son. I'm her biological child. You give me what I'm saying? So she was like, now me being, yeah, now I understand me being older and being a grown man. I understand like, damn, mom, you made a lot of sacrifices for me.

Starting point is 00:12:03 I could have ruined your marriage. I could have ruined a lot of things. His career? Yeah, I almost did that. So they were still living, they were still living in the military base at this time. And so I end up moving back in and I end up getting in trouble again. And this is because it was me and my little sister and my homeboy Mark. And same shit, breaking in the crib.

Starting point is 00:12:22 So I didn't break in the crib. My boy broke in the crib. But we were just in there chilling. You know what I'm saying? Smoking, playing video games. Like, I don't know what the fuck we were doing that day. But in someone else's house? Yeah, it was like, we was like squatting.

Starting point is 00:12:33 We was like, it was like squatting. It was, I guess we call it a squat. I don't know. We were just in there just chilling, smoking, you know, being teenagers. We hear police open up. Do do, do, do. We're like, what? The police?

Starting point is 00:12:46 How do you even know we're in here? So my little sister, we all in the room, I talked about to break the window to jump out of the window. I was like, no, no, break the door. She's like, fuck that. So she, you end up, breaking the window. We jump out of the window. We all run to my mom house.

Starting point is 00:12:57 So the neighbor seeing what we ran to. And when the police came looking for, the police is like, I mean, the neighbors, like, they ran over there. They came over there in my mom's house and they seen us over there. And they was like, oh, we need to talk to you. I can't remember everything they said, but basically like, come outside. Your kids was involved in a robbery or being in you, whatever. So my mom was like, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:16 saying, so we come outside to put my sister over there, put me over there, put Mark over there. Long story short, they end up, they found out fingerprints and found that it was in there. So that was the last strike. I'm already banned on Fort Benning forever. And my first one, my dad, Sergeant Major, talked to my dad and kicked him out of their house. So they had to move off of base. And I was on my own from there. Bad kid.

Starting point is 00:13:40 I wouldn't say I was bad. I would just say. I would. I don't know anybody else in this room that wouldn't say it Yeah, I wouldn't say I was bad I was just I was I was looking for a challenge You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:13:55 Like I don't know how to put it Because I was like a very intelligent kid Like this is my first time like kind of like telling my story like this So I might be like all over the place And I might be missing a lot of things But I was always smart I was always intelligent even back in You could be a bad kid and be intelligent

Starting point is 00:14:08 But I want to tell you Yeah but I'm gonna tell you why I started becoming A bad adult Fucking I'm in Yeah, that's right. Yeah, but I'm saying why I started doing the things I was doing is because I was very talented and I was very intelligent. And you know how some kids get praised for making A's and I used to win the spelling B to come back home with like big big things of popcorn for winning spelling Bs and like A honor rolls. You know what I'm saying? Like the thing that you're supposed to do. And I never really got praise for that. You know what I'm saying? Like I only got, what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know. But if I get a D or F or anything I do bad, I hear that. But when I do something good, I don't hear that. But when I do something good, I don't hear that. You get what I'm saying? I was also good at football. I was good at basketball.

Starting point is 00:14:46 I was good at hockey. I was good at everything. My parents didn't really take that series. They didn't really invest in, you know, I was good at drawing. So I was good at all these things, and I got no attention from my mom. So I felt like I lost my mom to my stepfather. You get what I'm saying? So it's like I felt like my mom was more about my stepfather.

Starting point is 00:15:02 And I was her oldest son and we was close into that. You get what I'm saying? So that led me to start doing other things that get attention other ways. And that's how I got the attention. So you're now off the best. base. There's no more base. Where do you go at that point? I'm in Atlanta now. I'm assuming you're okay. So they, they, um, that was in my own life. I was homeless. They didn't let you move in the new house. No, you're on your own. You got to go. No, no, because I was homeless at this time.

Starting point is 00:15:30 This, this one is really turned up. And I never, I never want to look at myself as a robber. You get what I'm saying? Because I don't feel like I'm a robber because I always felt bad anytime I did in it, you know what I'm saying? But I feel like it was just always survival. I never really did things. Maybe when I was younger, we did shit, but every time I did anything, I did it because I needed to do it. You get what I'm saying? Like, I never robbed an old lady. I never robbed a mom. I never robbed a working person. You know, I always robbed somebody that was doing the same thing I was doing. You know what I'm saying? The selling drill, they robbing, whatever, you know what I'm saying? So, but at this time when I was 17, okay, I guess you could say this is robbing somebody

Starting point is 00:16:04 at working bed. Listen, I had, maybe you when you were talking, I was thinking I interviewed a guy one time four or five years ago. He was following the police home because he knew they had guns. And then he would watch the house to the wife left. And he's like, well, I'd just hang out there for a day or two, figure out what their routine is and knew when they were gone. And then break in the house. And he said, because I knew I'd find four or five guns. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:32 Well, steal the guns. And then hang out for a while, make himself something to you. Do you remember that? He would make himself. He would hang out and make himself a, full meal in the house in the house eat everything and then take the guns a leave i don't know well i was like that's insanity yeah yeah and of course so you can imagine he's knocking on the prison door you can imagine how upset the cops were they eventually caught him knowing putting him together with all these

Starting point is 00:16:55 they knew what's going on they just couldn't catch the guy then eventually they catch him in oh damn yeah that's crazy so uh so at this point you said you're out you're homeless uh you rob somebody yeah so It ain't even just having just like that just run. So I end up staying with my God mom, you know, so my God's mom I had three sisters. It was my God's sisters. And it was like the pretty girls in the hood that everybody knew, you know what I'm saying? But they was always in some shit.

Starting point is 00:17:26 And I was always fighting. And they was always fighting. So this is like I end up when I became homeless, they begged their mom. Can I come live with them? So Barbara is like, yeah, he can come live with me. You know, so I end up coming to live with them. But when I lived with them, we always was in some shit. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:17:40 Like, if it ain't them fighting, it's me fighting. You get what I'm saying? So I remember this particular night, my sister put a play together because she wanted to go fight this girl. So this is how she put it together. So it was me, a couple of her homeboys, she's like, we're going to go to the girl house. And me and the dude going to act like, we're fighting. And she's going to end up fighting the girl. Man, it was crazy.

Starting point is 00:17:58 So that night we went up there. She wanted to go fight the girl. The ladies ended up calling the police and we ended up getting the police chase. So the police end up chasing us, and we got away. We ended up getting away and we didn't get back to the house until like four in the morning. So that night when I got back home, his Barbara was like, you got to go. You know what I'm saying? Like, she told me like it was time for me to go.

Starting point is 00:18:20 And after she kicked me out, I really didn't have nowhere to go. You know what I'm saying? It was more to it. But Ms. Barber just felt like me being there was like keeping Keanu from going to school. Like Keanu got to go to school tomorrow. She's still in high school. I'll drop out of high school. And then we out four or five o'clock in the morning running from the police.

Starting point is 00:18:33 And she got to go to school the next morning. So Ms. Barbara called my mom and she was like, I don't know what you're going to do in him. but he can't live here no more. She was like, well, he can't come here no more either. You know what I'm saying? So now I'm homeless and I'm on the street. So now I'm sleeping in abandoned houses. And the only way that me and my boy Ziggy was eating was, like, we had these apartments.

Starting point is 00:18:49 So it's like A, B, C, D. It's not an E. But we order, like, pizza to apartment E. And so when the pizza man come down and it's no E, we back there and we end up around getting the pizza, eat the pizza. And we did that a few times just to, like, survive. You know what I'm saying? So that was like kind of how we got by.

Starting point is 00:19:05 when I was homeless. Around that time, man. How many pizzas did you? Yeah, I was going to say, is this a lot of pizzas? No, they end up stopped delivering to that neighborhood. But the only person that ever fought back

Starting point is 00:19:23 was the Chinese man. Like, I respect him. Like, he was not going. Yeah, he wasn't going. Yeah, he weren't going, but we got it anyway. It's like you see those videos where these people try to rob, like, the nail salon. And like the Chinese people are like,

Starting point is 00:19:37 yeah, that's one thing. I respect the Asians, but they're not going, but they're not no easy lick, man. But it was, we were, uh, it was two of us and one of him, so we ended up getting it. But just living like, when I think about it now, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:48 it's funny now, but when I think about it, man, it was, it was a hard, I made it hard for myself. I was just going to say, like, yeah, but this is, you're bringing all of this on yourself.

Starting point is 00:19:57 Yeah, but now me being older, 40 years old and I live back of my life and I say, damn. You're 40? I'm 40 now, yeah. Jesus. You don't look 40. Everybody tell me that, man.

Starting point is 00:20:07 I guess because I don't do hard drugs. No, you got to get black skin. You don't get it just crack at all. Yeah, I guess so, man. But yeah, looking back at it, it just stem from my childhood, just been, you know, losing my uncles, going to prison, my other uncle getting killed,

Starting point is 00:20:26 you know, my cousin Daniel. So think about it now. My mom got three brothers, Des, Tracy, fat boy, and then her cousin, Daniel. Daniel, go to prison for, 15 years, fat would go to prison, dads get killed, you know what I'm saying? So it's just Tracy left.

Starting point is 00:20:41 Tracy get kicked out of the kickbox and league because he's on, he's smoking, you know what I'm saying? So it's like all my initial men that was in my life that I looked up to was all gone. You know what I'm saying? So all now I have is my mom and my stepfather. She moved us away from my family to Germany. So it just me, my mom, my stepfather, my kid. And then we move away to Alaska.

Starting point is 00:20:59 You know what I'm saying? So it's like, I think I was, I don't know if I was looking for love, I was lost or whatever, wanted attention, and that just kind of like caused my decision throughout my life. But, okay. So at this point, you're out of pizza men. Yeah. You're still on the street.

Starting point is 00:21:16 Right. What are you doing for money? You're selling a little here and a little there for, I mean, is your mom feeding you periodically? Is it, you know, like, how are you surviving? Just my survival skills, man. I, I, I, um, just hustling, man. You know, everyday hustling, you know, just shit.

Starting point is 00:21:30 I'm like, whatever I can get my hands on the cell, I sell, I sell, whatever I I can do whatever lick I can hit that day, I do it, you know, until I end up, you know, leaving Atlanta. And I was a rapper, too. I know how to rap, you know what I'm saying? So, funny story, I end up this, I was in Atlanta at this time, you know, I left Columbus and I was in Atlanta. Then I ended up moving to Charlotte and I started working at the airport.

Starting point is 00:21:51 So my cousin, she's like, you can come to Charlotte and go to Brock and the school because I wanted to be a rapper. So she's like, it's a Brock and the School in Charlotte, even though it's, I mean, not Brock in the School, it was an art school in Charlotte. And she's like, you can come down here, stay at me for a little while until you find a job, I'll go to school and they figure it out from there. So I end up coming down there, not going to the art school and end up working at the airport. When I work at the airport, I meet a girl named Martina.

Starting point is 00:22:14 And we got real close and we called each other cousins. And she lived in this neighborhood called North Charlotte. One of the worst neighborhoods in Charlotte. And somehow I end up leaving my cousin house or getting put out my cousin house and end up moving with her in North Charlotte. And when I moved to North Charlotte, man, it was like, I don't know. You ever seen The Wire? Yeah. So it was like the wire.

Starting point is 00:22:34 You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like 30, 30 motherfuckers on the block at all times. Every day. Everybody's selling drugs, is robbery, killing. Everything you can think of is in North Charlotte. And I moved right in the heart of North Charlotte. And I end up staying with her. And she was dating this guy name.

Starting point is 00:22:49 Well, she started dating this guy named DJ Unique and he was a DJ. And at this time, he was a DJ for like Yan Twins, Mr. Cheeks. A lot of people that was in the industry. Right. And he wanted to date her, but they wasn't dating. And she was like, well, I got a cousin that can rap. You know what I'm saying? She told him about me. So, you know, if a guy and a girl, he's going to do whatever he can to get to the girl, so she's like, I got a cousin that can rap. And he's like, well, let me hear him. So I get on the phone with him. And then, you know, I start rapping on the phone with him. He's like, oh, that's dope. You know, I'm going to come over there. So that was his way of coming over there to see her. And he ended up, you know, introducing to some guys that. And he ended up, you know, I forgot the name of those guys or whatever. And we end up, you know, I ended up started traveling with him and just, you know, going to different clubs on him while he DJing and things like that. And that kind of, like, introduced me into getting into the to the music industry.

Starting point is 00:23:34 Are you getting paid for this? Not at the time. Okay. So not at the time. So like I say, when I'm in North Charlotte, everybody in my family, like all my cousin Dennis Fort, my cousin Dennis Fort was one of the first kingpins in North Carolina to get locked down. You can look this up.

Starting point is 00:23:50 1991, he had houses, real estate, construction companies and everything. That was my uncle's all of them was part of that. He got locked up and they gave him 35 years. It was in 91. And my other cousin, Jeff, was from D.C., and he ended up being in Charlotte around this time. He was the plug, you know what I'm saying? So while I was in North Charlotte, my cousin knew I was in North Charlotte.

Starting point is 00:24:08 So he had calmed down to his house one time. And he was like, this one I was just, I was just doing like a little petty hustling, you know what I'm saying? Like little nickels and dimes and things like that. I'm going to get to that. But my cousin had called me to his house and he was like, I know you're in North Charlotte. He was like, if I gave you some pounds, you think he can get rid of it? And I was like, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:24:26 But I ain't know if I can get rid of it, but I was like, yeah, yeah, I can get rid of it. So I always heard the story about my cousin Jeff, being a big dope boy. but I never really seen it with my own eyes. I just always seen it with nice cars and nice houses. But now I'm around like 18, 19, 20. So I remember one time I went to this house and he was like, Ro, go to the garage and pick out six pretty pounds for me. I was like, all right.

Starting point is 00:24:47 So I go in the garage and this thing got like, what's some big totes? Toots are we? Like big toes pounds in there. So I'm going out like, I damn, it's like down to the ceiling. And I go in and I pick out six of them for them and I bring them to me, sell it to his homeboy. And he was like, look, I'm,

Starting point is 00:25:03 I'm going to give you some, and I want you to go to North Charlotte, and I want you to get rid of them. And I was like, all right. And so he gave me to start out with 20 pounds of weed. So mind you, I'm in North Charlotte, I'm not known to be selling big pounds of weed. I'm just, like I say, I'm just nickel and diamond. So first thing I do is when I get the pounds, the 20 pounds, I go straight to North Charlotte. He cuss me out because I'm driving to North Charlotte with 20 pounds in the Trump. But I go straight to North Charlotte to my homeboy house.

Starting point is 00:25:26 And I was like, where we on? And I go to each one of my homeboys cribs. And I'm like, I'm going to get you this. I'm just giving out. You know what I'm just giving out. giving out, sitting. And that's kind of like my introduction to like scaling to my hustling. You get what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:25:39 So, and this also is like my introduction to becoming a rapper. So at this time, me, I'm with DJ Unique right now. So I'm hustling and I'm with DJ Unique. So mind you, let me tell you about North Charlotte. So coming to North Charlotte, I ain't going to lie when I first got there. I used to be a little, you know, nervous. And I'm not really no scary dude, but it was like me coming from Georgia and me being in a neighborhood like North Charlotte and you got to walk past 30 killers, 30 robbers every single day.

Starting point is 00:26:07 You know what I'm saying? So it's like I had to walk past them to go home, walk past him to go to the store. And it was like there was always wondering like, who am I? You know what I'm saying? So how I survived in North Charlotte is I used to sit on the block on the porch and just watch, you know what I'm saying? Watch everybody. I don't want to see who loud, who's scary, who the big dog, who the big dog in the hood, I want to get to know him. You know what I'm saying? So with this dude named Don, he was one of the shortest niggas out there, but he was he was just one of the ones, you get what I'm saying? So I end up linking up with him.

Starting point is 00:26:36 And by linking up with him, I got to start meeting tweet and this person and that person and this person, you know what I'm saying? And kind of like, now everybody's starting to know who I am. And that's how I kind of like able to do what I was doing. So how I survived out there doing what I was doing, it was like everybody out there was like North Sala was kind of like, everybody's so, can you say?

Starting point is 00:26:56 No, but you've been saying it. Okay. Hard. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, so everybody in North Charlotte was selling hard. But it was like a competition, you know what I'm saying? So like, if a car comes to the neighborhood, everybody would run to the car. You know, and me, I was like, if everybody's selling hard, I'm going to just sell to the dope boys.

Starting point is 00:27:16 You get what I'm saying? Because I live here. A lot of the boys that was out there didn't live, that they was from there, but they lived in other places. They just come there and sell their dope and then they go home. Because that was a spot. That was a spot. Belmont and Allen Street was like, Belmont. No, I said on Belmont, it was between Almond.

Starting point is 00:27:29 Street and Pagan Street, right there on the corner store. So what I do during the daytime, I sell weed. So nobody, they, mind's there. Nobody paying me no attention. Like, oh, he just selling weed, you know what I'm saying? But when everybody go home, 1 o'clock in the morning, I got me a junkie outside. I'm sitting in the car and I'm giving him the hard, and he's selling it for me. So between the times of 1 and 8 a.m., I'm selling hard while everybody gone.

Starting point is 00:27:49 And then when the dope boys come back, I take a nap. And I come back and I sell weed. So that's how I kind of like stay under the radar. But as I got the pounds, that's when I started. That's when I kind of like fucked up and let's start later. everybody know that I got the pounds and I started distributing to different people. And that's when things kind of start getting like, you know, a little rocky for me. Okay.

Starting point is 00:28:08 Rocky. And in my way? As far as like letting people know what I got, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, in my business, like, oh, he got, you know, so now everybody wants to befriend you and become close to you. And, you know, so my cousin, he'll give me, he'll give me the pounds of the regular. But when it came to like the exotic, this back in the day before, Exotter was like, like, now you can get Exxon anyway. Back in the day, Exotic, a gram, $34. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:28:32 So my cousin, he'll give me the pounds fully, but he'll give me the exotid and, like, little bags. But a gram is a gram, but he'd give me 0.8. A half of gram is 0.5, but he'll give me, like, point. So I'm out, and I'm selling this, and niggas is complaining. I'm like, all this shit, short. You get what I'm saying? So I'm going back to my cousin.

Starting point is 00:28:48 I'm like, bro, you got me out here selling short bags, and nobody know who you is. So we end up falling out. And when we fall out, I tell him, like, shit, I don't want to hustle for you. You know what I'm saying? like I want to do my own thing. So we ended up getting into a fight, you know, a little scuffle, and we go out separate ways. And now all I got left is what I had, and I had to start fresh from that.

Starting point is 00:29:07 And then my cousin wanted to go behind me and start dealing with the same dudes from North Charlotte, and they end up robbing them. You get what I'm saying? So they end up breaking in this house and robbing them. And, you know, that's how that situation happened with that. At what point do you move to Ohio? So there's around like 2009. I moved Ohio. And we moved to Ohio because my baby mom, she was from Ohio.

Starting point is 00:29:27 She was from Columbus, Ohio. So we end up leaving Charlotte to go to Ohio because she was pregnant. And, you know, times, around this time, times was hard. You get what I'm saying? Like, I wasn't working. The music wasn't doing what it was doing. So her mom gave us a welcome. She's like, well, y'all can move to Ohio.

Starting point is 00:29:44 I can come stay with us for a while. And then y'all figured out from there. So we ended up moving to Columbus, Ohio. And I had a friend from Georgia that moved down there with me as well. So when we moved to Columbus, Ohio, we end up sending the projects called South Park projects. And before we moved in there, her mom would tell us, like, you know, stay away. They kind of like gave us a heads up.

Starting point is 00:30:01 Like, don't fuck with them people over there. Don't trust them, et cetera, et cetera. And then the boy that I brought with me from Georgia end up doing the opposite. You know what I'm saying? And this is somebody that I called my brother, you know what I'm saying? So I go to war for him until I figured out what kind of nigga he was. So he ended up being in the project, just getting comfortable with everybody. And he was trying to sell drugs into projects and end up getting robbed, you know what I'm saying.

Starting point is 00:30:22 So him getting robbed in the project made us have to move to another project. My whole plan was we're going to move out of here and then we're going to come back and we're going to shoot up the projects with the new that robbed them. You know what I'm saying? So that was my plan. So we had to figure out a way to get out of South Park to move somewhere else. So we end up leaving South Park, doing what we then, and we moved to Nelson part. Now, go ahead. Doing what you did?

Starting point is 00:30:43 What do you mean? You shot up? Yeah, shout out the project. So my whole- He's kind of skimmed right over that part. Yeah, because I didn't want to say. Oh, okay. All right. So do you guys come back buying a car?

Starting point is 00:30:53 There's two of you and you come back by with a car. Yeah, because we was out there for a while. So me, I was always like, I was, everything that I'm talking to you about, I really never talked to me too many people about. The only people that know what I did, the people that was with me that was doing it. You know what I'm saying? I always was like, stayed under the radar. I could have been the biggest, one of the biggest, but I never wanted to be that title because my family was that. You know what I said?

Starting point is 00:31:11 I always hustled just to survive and I get what I need and I hop out. And if I go broke again, I hop back in. So that was me. I was like, always under the radar. But he was the kind of dude that wanted to brag and wanted everybody to know what he was doing. Right. So he was end up selling. So one of my home girls had asked she wanted to buy some weed.

Starting point is 00:31:30 So I went over there one day. He's sitting in the project in the stairwell and he's looking crazy. I was like, my home girl wants to win. He's like, I got robbed. And I was like, by who? He's like, by your boy. And I was like, what you mean? So, you know, I found out who did it.

Starting point is 00:31:43 I went to the crib. And I was in a dough. When I came outside, he was walking, I was going to walk up to him. Like, you rob my brother and see he's like, he put a gun on me. He was like, boy, don't try it. You know what I'm saying? So he was like, I got you. You got it.

Starting point is 00:31:53 So that's when I made a decision like, we're going to move up out of here, and then we're going to come back and we're going to handle that. So what we did is we found another project to move to, move other projects, came back out, went out there, shouted it up, and then that was the end of that situation, and we ended up moving to Nelson Bart. Shut up, like, I know, right? Well, we knew where they were.

Starting point is 00:32:11 Okay, like, I mean, these guys on the corner, or they just, you know, they stay in that house and you just shoot up. No, it's a project. So it's like, it's different areas at the basketball court. You know, you got areas where these, this MT over here, you know what I'm saying? So we just knew what area they was in. So it wasn't something we just did like overnight. We just, we planned it.

Starting point is 00:32:26 You know what I'm saying? So we planned it. And just we knew what it was that. And then once we moved out, we was good and gone. Went over there one late night. And we just went over there and just shot up. The group of people that was over there, we just don't know who got here. I don't know what happened.

Starting point is 00:32:39 We just shot it up. And then we left. And, you know, it was petty, but, you know, we just wanted to get our get back, you know. So you never heard anything else about it? Not about that situation. No. Okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:48 Yeah. So go ahead. What, I was just wondering what happened after that? Like, you guys decided that? that this was becoming a little bit too hot. It wasn't worth it. And you got regular jobs. Yeah, no, I got worse.

Starting point is 00:33:02 It's worse. We in Ohio, man. Ohio different, man. So we in Ohio, we moved a nothing part. And this is when I kind of like turned up my savage a little bit, man, because it was like my big mom, she, we just had a son, you know what I'm saying, she down there broke, I'm broke, you know what I'm saying? So I ain't got no choice.

Starting point is 00:33:17 And I'm surrounded about nothing but, you know, I'm in the project, ain't nothing but junkies. You know what I'm saying? So I ain't had no choice but to. So I was like, see that we're here, we're going to get some money. You get what I'm saying? So all the girls that was in that project is like me

Starting point is 00:33:30 because I was from Georgia, I had dreds. I was one of the dudes that had a car out there, you know what I'm saying? Like, when you live in a project, especially in Ohio, a lot of dudes live off their women, you know what I'm saying? So a lot of guys didn't really have money, but, and then you had certain boys over there

Starting point is 00:33:42 that did have money. So on my side of the projects, I figured like I could sell hard down here and stay away from there. So what I did, I just got me some hard. I started selling hard over there, and it kind of started bringing, like, jealousy, all right? So in the midst of that, it was a guy named Calvin that stayed, like, two doors down from me.

Starting point is 00:34:00 And he was an informant. I never knew he was an informant. You know what I'm saying? But he'd be down there talking to me, and then he'd be down there talking to the dudes, the money team. And the dude, the MT, they wanted to end up. They used to say they're going to rob me. They're going to break in my house. They're going to do, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:34:13 But he never told me that, but his baby mom told me that. So she was like my ear to the streets. Everything that I was hearing was from down there. So I end up being around this dude named Taco When Taco was like Santa Claus to the hood Like when Taco came to the hood He bought everybody at peace He bought everybody liquor, et cetera, et cetera

Starting point is 00:34:28 So I remember one day we're sitting outside And it's like a regular day So I'm like I'm sitting right here I'm sitting on top of the car Taco, he right here My brother right there His cousin right there And three dudes came no mask or nothing

Starting point is 00:34:41 They came and robbed us While we sitting outside Put a gun to my head Rob Taco Everybody ran itself of me I could have ran But I'm like, if I'm a ride with you, so I stay right there. Like, Brian got no money on me.

Starting point is 00:34:52 I ain't got no money on me. You know what I'm saying? So they end up taking Taco around, Taco, they let him go. And that night, he took me out. Long story short, he, like, he appreciated me because I stayed with him. You know what I'm saying? So that's when he really, like, that was my new plug. Like, he really put me in the game out because he's like, well, you solid.

Starting point is 00:35:07 You're a soldier. You didn't run. You stayed with me. So he put me on or whatever. We set up, you know, a lick, you know what I'm saying? So, and we end up like $60,000 worth of equipment to sell. And so after we end up doing that, we go back to my crib, we put it in my crib, and I sit down and I tell them, I was like, bro, we just did. This shit is federal. You know what I saying? Don't say nothing about it. Anything that we're out here doing, don't speak on it. So a lot of things was going on at this time. The dudes, the dudes that I was running with a dude named Dee Will. He's in prison right now for shooting out with the police. But I ended up with running, I was like, they driver. And they did, like, a string of, like, KFCs and anything you can think of they was hitting. You know what I'm saying? They was hitting. And also, this. So, there's so. So Hollywood outside in the projects,

Starting point is 00:35:48 and he's telling everybody, like, what's going on, like bragging about, we did this, we did that. But the whole time, this dude... He's telling the informant. The informant, you know what I'm saying? So it's already an issue between me and the informant. He already knows that these niggas want to rob me, you know what I'm saying? So he ended up giving information to the informant what's going on.

Starting point is 00:36:06 Now you put me in some shit, you know what I'm saying? So a few days later, I end up having to be and my baby mama end up getting into an argument. So this would save my life. This is why I believe in God. I don't know if y'all believe in God. This is the situation that made me believe in God. So a few days later, me and my baby moment, we had gotten into our argument.

Starting point is 00:36:23 So I'm asleep. While I'm asleep, I got probably like five, about five, six thousand dollars in my pocket. She'd get me super drunk that night and then she kept my pockets open while I'm asleep. So I'm drunk. She cut my pockets open and she robbed me. You know what I'm saying? So she's taking the money out of my pocket while I'm sleep, rob me. And when I wake up, everything is gone.

Starting point is 00:36:41 So my gun gone, the black of mouth. So we had hit a store. and from the store, like we got everything on the store. So I used to have like a little, a little, like you know how to the candy lady sell, like cigarettes and black a mouth. I sold all that, black of mouth, cigars and everything in the projects in Ohio. And so. But your girl was a Delilah, bro.

Starting point is 00:37:00 Yeah. But she saved my life, though. You know what I'm saying? I'm sure that's what she intended. Nah, she wanted to fuck me over, man. But this is how she saved my life. So remember I told you about the informant, Calvin. I told you about my brother.

Starting point is 00:37:14 and I told you about D. Will, right? So I'm running with D. Will, and these niggas is like, these niggas on another level of what they're doing. So the night that I'm, she'd get me drunk, she kept my pockets open, and she arrived me to take my money. So the next day I wake up and I got done going, I'm looking for it, and I come home, but I like, take you find my baby mama, so I go in my pocket and I see a lot of my money gone.

Starting point is 00:37:35 Then I go on my drawer, my dope gone. I go with my gun gone. The Black of Miles gone. The cigarette's gone. Everything gone. She took everything for me that night, right? So I'm looking for her. I can't find her.

Starting point is 00:37:46 So I end up having to go to court a couple of days later. I get back from court and I go to my home girl house Carla. And I'm sitting down on the top of the door with my home girl, Carla. What are you going to court for? I can't tell you. I don't know what the hell I was going to court for it. Okay. Something.

Starting point is 00:38:00 Okay. Yeah. So I end up leaving, I end up leaving court that day. But what I didn't pay attention to those few days was when the feds are on you or whoever on you, they always like seeing like cable men. or it's somebody that just like blend in, you know what I'm saying? So over the past couple of weeks, I was seeing like the kill man, like fixing the shit, construction workers, but I would pay no attention.

Starting point is 00:38:23 But that was them like eyeing. When I got back home from court that day, I tell a call on people to take a nap. And then I sit, I'm sitting on the couch and I fall asleep on the couch. And then I hear a little knock on my door like, a little small knock. Then I hear another knock. Boom, boom, boom. Police. The police is the swat outside of my door.

Starting point is 00:38:39 So I got down, wake up, jump, run up, run up still. Like, brother, swat outside. He hired this shit. I go lay in the bed like I'm asleep. They come in at, kicking the dough, boom, put guns on us, take us downstairs. They arrest us. They arrest us.

Starting point is 00:38:50 So we're sitting outside and they're searching my crib. But everything they was looking for to tie me to the robberies was not there because my baby mama had robbed me a couple nights ago was stole from me. You know what I'm saying? So everything that was in there would tie me to the string of robberies that they was looking for. They didn't have no gun. They didn't have anything, you know. And so they end up like, so when we get in the paddy wagon,

Starting point is 00:39:10 I tell them, I was like, I looked them in his eye and I said, this is going to tell we're really real. You know what I'm saying? Like, no matter. They got us. They got it, but don't say nothing. And I told them that. That's the last thing I told them.

Starting point is 00:39:20 Went down and they had my face circled and they tied me to all these different string of robberies that was happening. And they can't match it. You know what I'm saying? But all they really have is the informant saying. Yeah, that was saying. And that's not enough to, it's not enough to arrest you and question you. Right. But they're hoping to find evidence during the search.

Starting point is 00:39:38 Right. Like that's enough to get a search warrant. That search warrant better provide some concrete. evidence or that case doesn't really go anywhere. Right. I mean, you got one informant. That's not unless your buddy start turning. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:39:51 They, I don't know if they had one or whoever, but a lot of shit that they were trying to tie me to. They was on point with some of them, but they was wrong. But my thing was I was trying to push them towards the shit that I know I didn't do. You go on saying? I'm like,

Starting point is 00:40:02 nah. So, you know, they end up having to let me go at that time, but I was still under investigation. But you, but your, your baby's mama is in possession of all the

Starting point is 00:40:13 stolen stuff. Everything, yeah. You didn't think about telling the cops, like, you know what I think, you know who I think did all this. But they question her. I think it may be Jennifer. Yeah, no, but now, because I, they question her, they question her mom, they question her dad and everything,

Starting point is 00:40:27 brun, they all kept a solid. None of them, nice. Yeah, they all kept a solid. You get what I'm saying? But the night that I was supposed to go to the next one was the night that D-Will and they went on a, went on a lick without me, and they ended up getting into a shootout with a play. You can look this up on Google right here, 2009, in East High of Columbus, Ohio.

Starting point is 00:40:46 And they end up getting into a shootout with the police. And they grab him. They grab both of them. They still gone to this day. Why didn't you go? You just... I can't even tell you, man. It was just so much.

Starting point is 00:40:58 It was just so much shit going on. It was just a lot going on at that time. You get what I'm saying? And I just kind of... You felt like it was too hot. Like, I'm not going to be... There's just too much heat on us. Yeah, it's too much.

Starting point is 00:41:07 Because the dudes that said they were going to kill me. They didn't broken my house. You know what I'm saying? So now I'm just trying to figure out. how the hell to get out this situation. I'm stuck in the projects. You know what I'm saying? I'm hiding the police on me.

Starting point is 00:41:17 You know what I'm saying? The former, right? You know what I'm saying? So there's so much more. All the money's gone. Yeah, the money. I mean, I still got a little bit of money. Like,

Starting point is 00:41:23 it's not enough to go get an apartment in a decent area. Not, not at that time, you know what I'm saying? So I was just kind of like, my back stuck against the wall at this time. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, I just end up, I can't remember.

Starting point is 00:41:36 I end up leaving Ohio at that time and just going, one of my boys called me that was from the game. He was like, man, he wanted me to come to West Virginia and to come sitting his spot, you get what I'm saying? So it's like, do I stay in Ohio and be a father and help my baby mom or do I go to West Virginia and continue to sell dope? You know what I'm saying? So I made a lot of bad decisions in my life, but it was all based off of survival. You get what I'm saying? But every time I either got the SWAT came or any, I always just beat it.

Starting point is 00:42:08 You know what I'm saying? Like everybody that's around me in these stories, a lot of them is dead. A lot of them in jail. And it was like I always had the intuition when to stop. You know what I said? I never got caught. You know what I'm saying? Like I got charged plenty of time in the jail, plenty of time,

Starting point is 00:42:19 but I always beat it. You get what I'm saying? And that what led me to really change in my life and becoming a chef and doing what I'm doing now because it's like everything that I thought I wanted, I got it. I seen it. I've done it.

Starting point is 00:42:31 Everybody that I thought was the biggest gangsters I've seen unfold in situations. You know, I've seen niggas telling each other. You know what I'm saying? So that's what kind of made me like change the life that I was living to- It's going to catch up to you at some point. point. It was, you know what I'm saying? And I told God, I was like, if I beat these charges,

Starting point is 00:42:46 I changed my life, which I didn't at that time, you know what I'm saying? But I was transitioning into changing my life, you get what I'm saying? So that's what kind of led me to start, I was like, if I can leave people to do bad with my influence, I can lead them to do good, you know what I'm saying? I just started, I was like, I wanted a backup plan, and my backup plan was to start cooking, you know what I'm saying? And I just used the money that I made from selling drugs and and doing, you know, credit cars to fund my food truck to fund my restaurant. So mind you, when I'm telling you about everything that I'm doing, I'm a rapper at this time as well, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:43:17 So I'm rapping, but I'm still in the streets. And I remember one time, you know, chop a young city. I don't know if y'all know him, but he was sounding down one time. He's like, bro, you're a rapper now, you know what I'm saying? You're on another level. You can't be doing the things you're doing. But, nigga, you're not paying me. I was just going to say, I don't make any money.

Starting point is 00:43:33 Yeah, so I'm traveling. You know, I haven't been around everybody from MasterPee. to Lil Wayne, to Boys in the Hood, to, you name them. I've been around them. I did shows with them all over the country. But most of this shit was all promo. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, I'm traveling with all these rappers,

Starting point is 00:43:48 and I'm in these nice-ass hotels, and I'm around all these women, but they get in the money, and I'm not. So I got to survive, you know what I'm saying? And I can't be doing this and have a job, so I got to figure out how to, you know what I'm saying? So that's why I always hustle. So mind you, around this time,

Starting point is 00:44:03 after DeWield, I got into a shootout with the police. Well, before that, J.R. came to my career. So was a crew. If a JR came to the crib, and I remember this, like, yesterday, he had on all white, and we sat down on the couch, and he would tell me he was like,

Starting point is 00:44:14 we had a conversation, and he was like, basically, you ain't going to never see D. Will him again. They got in shoot out with the police, et cetera, et cetera. And he was like, I was talked to you tomorrow, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:44:23 So he dapped me up, went to the club that night. I never seen him again. So we're sitting down watching the news. He on the news. He just got killed that same night. So, mind you, the group that I was with,

Starting point is 00:44:35 Dee Will, in prison, in town and prison for shooting out with the police. JR got killed that night after him. How did he get killed just a shootout or? He got somebody after the club. But you ever met somebody and you can just see they look soulless? Like when I seen him that night, man, you just look at him.

Starting point is 00:44:51 He had him all white like an angel, man. It just looked like, I don't know. I didn't think he was going to die, but he just looked like soulless that night. And then he was like, I'll talk to you tomorrow and he ended up getting killed at the club that night. But I ain't find out until that next morning we watched the news. Okay.

Starting point is 00:45:05 Yeah. So all of this is going on at the time. So now my big mom, we got to move out of the project. So she pretty much down with me, you get what I'm saying? So she's going to move around this time, she's pretty much down. This is the chick that robs you already. Yeah, yeah, that rhyme. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:45:21 Why are we even still talking to her? Like, she'd be. But it's my baby mom. We just had a one-year-old child, you know what I'm saying? So she ain't robbed me and, like, give me hurt. She just stole my money and stole all my, you know, everything from me. But at the same time, this is who I'm in Ohio with. I have no family out here.

Starting point is 00:45:35 you know what I'm saying and we live together but at this time she's pretty much done with me the relationship is pretty much over you get what I'm saying so she she wants to leave you nigga you got people breaking in my house you got the police come and look for you you want shootouts you got all this shit going on and we got a baby a newborn baby

Starting point is 00:45:51 so you got to figure out what you're going to do so she end up leaving and going to move back in with her mom until she get on her feet and the plug from West Virginia called me he's like man your trap ain't doing nothing in Ohio you might as well move to West Virginia so he got Got me a Greyhound ticket.

Starting point is 00:46:06 I went to West Virginia, met him, stayed in the trap. How he had to set up was he had me sitting in the trap all days. I mean, there's just one room in the bed, just a bed with bed, buzz, a TV, and a lamp. And just me with an ounce of hard, you know what I'm saying? And how we do it, I just sit in there. The junkie come upstairs. I need a 20, I need a 60, but that wasn't the way I like to hustle. I didn't want to be just stuck in the room, just selling hard.

Starting point is 00:46:29 You know what I'm saying? I wanted to be moving around. But he wanted me just to sit in the trap all day and just sell hard. and how he wanted to do it. He wanted to front me, but he wanted me to say like this, say like an ounce is $1,200. He won't the $1,200 for it,

Starting point is 00:46:43 and then the profit, he won't. So say like I make $2,400 off of it. I give him the $1,200, and then we split the $1,200. Yeah. I didn't want to do that. You know what I'm saying? Like, no, I'd buy my own shit.

Starting point is 00:46:52 You know what I'm saying? But he felt like since he gave me the trap, that's how we got to do it. I didn't agree with that. So I just started moving around, you know what I'm saying? And we kind of, like, fell out. So he wanted to hold the money. He owed me, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:47:04 So now I met a couple from selling hard. And this would kind of like change my heart. This is the last time I ever saw hard this time of my life. I met this white couple. I can't remember their name, but every city I went to when I sold drugs, I always had a different name. So my name in West Virginia was Larry. So he's called me Larry. So the white couple tell me, she was like, you can come stay at our house at nighttime so you can sleep in a clean house.

Starting point is 00:47:29 And then in the daytime, you can be in the trout. If you sleep hot at night, you know how. disruptive that can be. When you're not resting well, everything else feels harder. Your focus, your mood, even your recovery. Ghostbed is here to help you fix that. They've spent decades perfecting how to build a bed that's comfortable, durable, and designed to actually help you rest. Every ghost bed mattress features premier materials, proven cooling technology, and their exclusive pro-core layer, a targeted support system that reinforces the center of the mattress where the body is heaviest. It helps keep your spine aligned and your back supported. So you can wake up ready

Starting point is 00:48:07 for anything 2026 throws at you. Each mattress comes with a 101 night sleep trial and a 20 to 25 year warranty. So you can try it risk-free, knowing it's built to last. Shipping is fast and free. Most orders arrive in two to five days. Ghostbed has great prices to begin with, up to 50% off comparable brands. and inside true crime listeners can get an extra 10% off sitewide for a limited time. Just go to ghostbed.com slash Cox and use promo code Cox at checkout. That's ghostbed.com slash Cox, promo code Cox. Upgrade your sleep with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest bed in the world. Some exclusions apply.

Starting point is 00:48:56 See site for details. So I end up, been in the trap in the daytime, and then at nighttime, I go live with them. you know, stay with them so long as I'm feeding them, right? So one night we sitting down and we talking and she showed me a picture of her and she's like a very beautiful lady and she just cried to me. And she's like, oh, you know, this, she's basically saying like smoking hard, messed up her life. Right. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:49:18 And it kind of made me feel bad in a weird way. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, damn, I'm selling it to, you know, I'm poisoning. You know what I'm saying? So it kind of made me feel bad in that way. And after this moment, that's when I stopped. I stopped selling hard. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:49:30 So me and the deployed. that brought me to West Virginia, end up falling out, kept my money. So what I did is I called the junkies that I was living with. I told him, meet me at the trap house.

Starting point is 00:49:41 So I went to the plug house. I went and got all the money and everything that he owed me when he wasn't there and took everything, left called a junkies. They picked me up. I ran through the back door. They dropped me off for the airport

Starting point is 00:49:52 and I flew to Virginia and then I ended up in Roaring up Virginia after that situation. So if you notice, I moved around a lot. I make a spot high or something and I just kept, and that's how my life.

Starting point is 00:50:02 life was for a long time, man. It was just like all over the place, just continuously like hustling, you know what I'm saying? Up and down, up and down, up and down. You know what I'm saying? And eventually got tired of that lifestyle. So how, I mean, at this point, what you went back to school, got your, I ain't got back to school, no, yeah. Every situation got worse and worse, man. I just kept on digging myself in a deeper. What's the next, what's the next? You stopped selling drugs and no, I stopped selling all. Oh, okay. Yeah. I stopped selling hard. So I end up going to, I end up going to Virginia.

Starting point is 00:50:37 And I moved down there with my dog, my dog, Whizzo. He was a big drug deal out there in Virginia. So he took me in, just like everybody else took me in. I'm down there with him, clubbing with him, partying with him, trapping with him, and things like that. And I end up living and rowing up for about, maybe about six months. And at this time, my Bay Mom left Ohio and she moved in Minnesota, and I'm in Virginia.

Starting point is 00:50:59 But now I'm just selling straight soft. I'm not selling nothing else but soft. and I'm making a good amount of money from South. But I'm in dangerous situations. And it was a dude named Kane. It was a dude named Kane that just got out of prison for 20 years. And my boy, Wizzo, Wizzle was like, he was real known. His family was real known in Virginia.

Starting point is 00:51:14 And this is who I was running with. So I got a lot of respect from being around Wizzo, you know what I'm saying? But also respect of who I am as well. You know what I'm saying? And he had to him, like, fuck with him. Don't fuck with him. He bad blood, whatever. And it was this dude named Kane that just got out of prison.

Starting point is 00:51:28 And we see him at the liquor stone. He was like, that nigga right there. He said, stay away for him. That boy dangerous. Don't fuck with him. And Kane ended up hearing about me. Kane and Ton, and I'm hearing about me in the streets

Starting point is 00:51:37 of what I was doing. So sometimes when you got a name in the streets, people want to test you. You get what I'm saying? So when Kane end up hearing about me, he ended up having me, I don't know how we end up meeting, but he had me meet him somewhere

Starting point is 00:51:49 through a mutual friend town. So I end up going somewhere by myself and it was just me, Tony and Kane. And he's like, where I heard to be hit licks. And I was like, you know, I do something. He was like, well, I'm going to put you to the test. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:52:01 We got a lick, you know what I'm saying? So this is how he wanted to, you know, test me, see if I was going to tell, see if I was about it. And we end up hitting the lick. He said he had a dope boy that had some money in the crib. And I forgot how much he said. It was like $100,000. This is what he said. He's like, it's like $100,000.

Starting point is 00:52:16 But it was bullshit. Yeah. They got this. You know what I said? He got that. So we end up, he put it together. And one night, we went out and did it, right? So, mind you, Kane is like, he probably like $5.9, but he's a stone cold killer.

Starting point is 00:52:28 Tone, he probably like $6, $6,500. And it was me. I was skinny back then. Both of these niggins had A-Ks, and I had a damn, a small-ass 38 revolver going to hit a leg. You know what I remember us going there, kicking in the dough. And when we go in the house, you can smell the smoke that somebody was just there.

Starting point is 00:52:47 You get what I'm saying? But we had just missed them. So we in there searching the house. We couldn't find it dead lick. You know what I'm saying? So we ended up leaving. Nothing happened. So it was another lick that we were supposed to go do in Delaware.

Starting point is 00:52:59 So we were supposed to drive all the way. Delaware and do the same thing. But long story short, it was a bunch of leaks that I was doing with them that was just like nothing, nothing, you know what I'm saying? I really just put myself in more and more dangerous. So we had the club one night and a dude walked up and he was like, boy, the fare's on y'all, nigga, boy, you know what I'm saying? Like, he's telling Canaan, like, the boy, the fair's on y'all.

Starting point is 00:53:18 They're hitting everything. Like, these nigger robbed a dude in the club in front of everybody, slat him on the face, took his jury and then told the club, if anybody's sister, I'm going to kill everybody. This is just kind of niggas that I was around at this time, you know what I'm saying? And so the fed was on them So I remember when I was at the club And the dude was like the fair is on y'all

Starting point is 00:53:35 Long story short We go to the club that night We end up getting into a fight We go back to the hotel And we sit down and we have a conversation And I'm telling him at this time Like I got to go to Minnesota With my kids

Starting point is 00:53:47 You know, sometimes making an excuse to get away Because I know the heat is from to come You know what I'm saying And long story short I can remember how But I end up leaving And going to Minnesota to help my baby mom With our child

Starting point is 00:53:58 with our child and the feds, you know, picking them up a couple months later. And I wasn't a part in that indictment. You go on saying? And I got away from that. And after I got back to Minnesota, I stayed there, left Minnesota. I went back to North Carolina. And that's when I started really focusing on being a rapper. And this was around, maybe like 2011, 2011, 2012.

Starting point is 00:54:22 Yeah, around 2011, 2012. This is when I really, like, put my all into, like, all right, I'm going to lead the streets. I went to jail for some bullshit I stayed in jail for 30 days I got into a fight when I was in jail and then when I went in the hole I ain't had nothing to read but a Bible

Starting point is 00:54:37 you know what I'm saying so I was like man I want to stop rap I want to start the streets I'm thinking about suicide at this time like really like I don't know if you can say that but it was just a thought you know what I'm saying

Starting point is 00:54:46 I'm just thinking like man I'm just fucking up my life you know what I'm saying and I end up reading the Bible and I see something in the Bible that said gospel and gospel means bring good news to the people

Starting point is 00:54:55 so I got to the throat of my head and God was like, don't quit rapping, just rap for me. And I came with a genre of music called Street Gospel. And that's when I kind of like, I got baptized and kind of like changed my life for a temporary time. And my life kind of went on a straight route for like a couple of years. And things went kind of sour after that, you know. I end up doing the saints that I was doing before I got baptized back into robin. How much time did you get?

Starting point is 00:55:22 Like, you were in jail? No, I was just in jail for 30 days at this time. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was just like a little small. I'm all right. I just in jail for 30 days. But I was just thinking about I'm continuously going to jail and I'm continuously beating, you know, missing close calls with the feds. You know what I'm saying? So I'm thinking about changing my life. So I get baptized and stay on a straight and arrow for a little while. But after I get baptized, I end up getting worse and continues to doing the same thing.

Starting point is 00:55:45 You get what I'm saying? And around, this is around 2013, fast forward until 2014, I'm back in Georgia and I meet, I meet, this is how my life changed. This is crazy because around like 2014, I'm in Georgia. And there's these little white kids that used to come to the hood. And it was this girl named Molly. We call her Molly because when she gets on Molly, she just, she'd do whatever. You get on her and her friend used to always come to the hood. And my friends used to, you know, run trains on her, use her, take a money, or whatever.

Starting point is 00:56:13 And I didn't respect that. So I started taking up for him. Like, y'all can't do this dumb more. Y'all can't take her money. You know what I'm saying? Kind of like being a protector for her. So she ended up going back to her house and tell her mom and her dad. They're like, this dude named Roshin'n in the hood.

Starting point is 00:56:26 And he protected. this and whatever, et cetera, et cetera, whatever. So the parents came down to the hood and seen how I was living at that time. And it was like, you want to come to that house for a weekend just to get away from this? And I was like, yeah. So they end up coming to pick me up, taking me to the house in the country. And I sat out with them for a while and they actually took a liking to me. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:56:44 So they let me stay there. So my goal was to leave Georgia and go to culinary school. Because I said, have I ever lost the passion for the rabbit, if ever got tired of the street, so I was going to be a cook. I want to be a chef. So I was going to go to culinary school. So I end up staying with them at that time. And while I'm at home, I'm cleaning up, I'm cooking, et cetera, et cetera.

Starting point is 00:57:02 So she was working for this guy named John Macon, rest in peace. And John Macon was a world-renowned chef. You know, he cooked for Michael Jackson. He did a presentation inauguration for Nelson Mandela, et cetera. And she used to go to work bragging, like, oh, it's this black guy that stay with us. He's a really good cook, et cetera, et cetera. And he told him to bring me in. And he ended up bringing me in and giving me an interview.

Starting point is 00:57:22 And I end up being his apprentice for eight months. And that's how I became the nappy chef. That's how I started my cooking. And how I funded my nappy chef. So they remind you that I stopped doing everything for a couple of years, went straight in their row. And then, you know, I lived with them. I got a job, been a cook, but I wanted to fund the nappy chef. And that's how I got into and start doing the credit cards.

Starting point is 00:57:47 So a couple of guys introduced me to checks, you know what I'm saying? Like you write a check. You find somebody with a bank account, put the bank, put the check in there, write it. you know what I'm saying? Get the money out. So we did that. And then we also learned how to scam like PayPal's and zales, anything.

Starting point is 00:58:04 We learned how to scam it. So we went from, I took boys that were selling drugs to like, say like this, so like we might get a credit card. We get a piece. And it might have $3,000 on it. And I got a PayPal account.

Starting point is 00:58:15 I swiped the call on my PayPal account, signing $3,000 right there. So once I learned how to do that, I started doing that. And then I used that to get more weak And we're soft and I sold soft and Molly into the strip club to the strippers. So what I did is I took a job at the strip club to kind of like get into. So I was a cook at the strip club.

Starting point is 00:58:36 And what I did, I used the kitchen to be able to sell Molly and soft to the strippers and found out who got it, who don't, you know what I'm saying? And that whole time I was doing that, that's how I was funding, starting my own food truck or started my own restaurant. You go what I'm saying? So how is it, how's that work? How are you cash in these? Are you just taking it?

Starting point is 00:58:56 Explain that again? So basically, so it's pieces. So we get them in the black market. So basically you order cards or you order information. So you go to the black market and you order information. So I have your name. I have your birthday, your social career number, where you live, your bank account numbers, your pens.

Starting point is 00:59:16 And all we do, we have like a little, it's like a little machine where you press the cars on there. You put them in there. You press them with all the information. So your data come from the. computer to the credit card and we press them on there and sometimes it hit sometimes they don't hear it just depending on where you get them the cars that you get from russia don't be the big limits and sometimes it's like a gamble too sometimes you might get a card that might got nothing on us sometimes you might get a card that might got $20,000 on it you go on what I'm saying so that's how we did it we just had a

Starting point is 00:59:39 list of different pieces and we just ordered them and then we just had the people and we just press them how are you getting the cash I mean are you going out of the account yeah you just go to an ATM well at first we was doing it at first we was to we got how it was going to like food lines and write like money orders and Western unions and things like that. Right. And then we started just transferred. We opened up a counter until it get hot and then we had just transferred the money to different accounts.

Starting point is 01:00:04 Okay. And then what, and then what did you buy with all this? Like once you start getting the money and you're funding your, your, your. My business. The restaurant. What do you call it? Yeah. It was a food truck first and a restaurant.

Starting point is 01:00:19 Yeah. So go ahead. So you're funding that. I mean, what's the first thing you do? I mean, eventually you buy, you start catering, and then eventually you start. Yeah, I'm catering. Because the club, I'm at, I'm at a club. So it's this African guy, Mike, he's in prison right now for 13 years.

Starting point is 01:00:36 This sort of really got me into it because Mike ran up. I seen Mike with my own eye run up $400,000. How we really ran it up with Squid Clover. You get what I'm saying? So you get you, you know what clover is, right? And just get us a clover machine. Is that the little square thing like the? It's like a, what does it call a merchant?

Starting point is 01:00:53 merchant. Yeah. So what we do, it's like we run in a legit business. Like, I do got a catering business. You know what I'm saying? So what I do is I have a clover machine. We get the pieces. I'm saying I'm doing a catering.

Starting point is 01:01:04 $1,500, $2,500. I'm swiping the car. And I'm getting the money. So it's like somebody, and then we just, you know, like somebody paid me for a caterer. So that's how we took it to the next level. And I seen at first we was doing it, petty, we was having the little squares.

Starting point is 01:01:17 We were just swiping the squares for like $1,300, $1,300, $300, $300, $500. But once Mike taught me the game, like I said, Mike in prison right now, he'd tell me, like, get the clover machine. You're already doing catering. So we're going to, if you get the clover, we're going to swipe more on the little squares. You can only swipe a thousand, 1200, you know what I'm saying? But don't they at some point reverse the charges and want their money back? Sometimes it just depending on where you get the piece from, sometimes.

Starting point is 01:01:41 And sometimes it's too late, too. You know what I'm saying? Like, sometimes they'll reverse it. You know what I'm saying? But not always. Does eventually the, don't, don't, the merchant, the account, don't eventually, do they eventually say, oh, no, there's too much stuff. It's too much.

Starting point is 01:01:53 Yeah. Yeah, that's where you switched it up. But something, they didn't, they wasn't hip to it back then because it was like, I'm already doing sales to it. I'm at a club and I'm selling food and I'm catering. And you just see me make $2,000. You're not going to think it's, I'm swiping a car for $2,000, $3,000 that is illegal. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:02:09 So say like you, you got like a brand new clover or you got a brand new business, you just start swiping out the gate, $5,000. Then it's going to be, you know what I'm saying? But I was already making money through my company anyway. So it doesn't look suspicious. It doesn't look suspicious, right? So a lot of the guys, they were using the money to buy cars and buy jewelry and buy this and by that. Everything I did was all for a purpose.

Starting point is 01:02:29 You know what I'm saying? I didn't buy jury. And I bought me a Mercedes-Benz the first time I started scamming. I used Mercedes-Benz that was fucked up. I bought it because there was a bin, you know. I bought jury and things like that. But my whole goal was to invest into the Nappy Shell. You bought a truck?

Starting point is 01:02:47 A food truck. The first thing you did was a bunch. Yeah, we got. The food truck, we got that with all scam money. Yeah. Do you have to get licensed, though? Don't you, how do you get the truck license? Do you have to get like a license or something?

Starting point is 01:03:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it ain't got nothing to do with how you pay for the truck. No, I know. I'm just asking a question. I'm just asking like once you get the truck and everything, then what you have to get like an occupancy license and you get going? Yeah, yeah, you get your license and you get your permit to move around. Okay.

Starting point is 01:03:18 So it just allows you to go anywhere? Yeah. Just pull up as long as the business, what if the business has a problem with it? Well, yeah, you can't go anywhere. You just like if I wanted to say like you got a business and I wanted to park outside of your business, I would have to get permission from you. You go on saying? So that's what your permits is for. Do you have to or you should?

Starting point is 01:03:33 Like, can you just pull up and start serving people? I mean, I did. If they come out and yell at you. Yeah, yeah, I did. I did a lot of city illegal in the beginning. You know, I didn't even have enough permit in the beginning. Like for the first year, I was selling food without an inspection. You get what if they catch it?

Starting point is 01:03:47 What happened? I mean, shit. I mean, that's just a price you got to pay. I never really thought about what they catch me. You know what I'm saying? I don't think that that's something you think about a lot. You know, so, yeah, but it's like building, it's like doing renovations or something on a house, right? Like, you know it.

Starting point is 01:04:07 And if they show up and they call it a red tag, they pay. Well, you know, yeah, you know it's possible. Yeah, they might have to pay a fine and you have to come back and inspect. That's what I. They're not going to bulldoze the place. Right. As long as it's done right. See, when I got my restaurant, that's when I had to start doing shit legit.

Starting point is 01:04:23 That's when I learned I learned the hard lesson. You know what I'm saying? Once I got the restaurant, you know, I started getting fines out of the ass, you know what saying, for this, for that. And then I had to take shit shit. But when I had the food truck, I still had the street mentality. You're going to understand if I tell you my story, coming from what I was doing to becoming a business owner.

Starting point is 01:04:40 It's like, I don't know. Shit about being a business owner. I just know how to hustle. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm up and, you know what I'm saying? So when I came in, I'm still doing everything in the streetway. And that's how I funded my business. to the streets, you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:04:51 But I knew that it was time for me to have an exit plan. You get what I'm saying? Because I'm doing all this petty shit. And everybody's dying around me, everybody going to prison but me. You get what I'm saying? So it's like I got a purpose, you know what I'm saying? So I got to be doing something legit. So I knew I wanted to be a chef and I knew the only way I'd be able to afford to get a food truck and afford to farm my dream is the streets.

Starting point is 01:05:15 You get what I'm saying? And the fastest way was the credit cause. When you just, well, never mind. Let me say, why you just stick with that? But it's right. It's illegal. Sorry. I mean, if I could, I would.

Starting point is 01:05:27 I would do that if I could. Man, that's the sweetest hustle. And you get the less amount of time for that. You know what I'm saying? Like, you get the least amount of time for, for a white-collar crime. Yeah. But I didn't want to do it to the feds, can't, you know what I'm saying? No, Zach.

Starting point is 01:05:43 Zach, my buddy, Zach just keeps getting hammered and hammered. He must be doing like millions and millions and millions. Yeah. Well, and it's all federal. too. So he's been in state prison like three or four times. And so by the time the feds picked it up, he's his, so in the feds, they do off of your criminal history. Right. Yeah. So, you know, you've got like seven criminal history points. Like first time he goes to the feds, he's already off the chart. He's been a right. He has so many charges. He's off the chart. So if you were to get

Starting point is 01:06:11 caught the first time, you could steal half a million dollars and basically get probation. Right. Yeah. You know, half a million get six months and broke. And you get maybe six months. and then you get a couple years probation. Like, no big deal, half a million. But if you go in and you're off the chart and it's half a million, they're going to hit you. You're doing 15 years. That's why they gave it.

Starting point is 01:06:34 It jumps. Right. Significantly. That's what happened to him. He got like 16 years the first time in the feds. And then he just keeps, even on probation, he just keeps racking up charges in the state and the feds. And then the, you'll get the state, the state will grab them for something.

Starting point is 01:06:49 there's some fraud and then he'll sit there for a year and then they'll say okay well we're you know plead guilty to this and we'll let you go and as soon as they let him go like he's walking out the door and they're like the the marshals are there to pick him up and take him for his federal probation and now his federal probation gives him two years it's like you just did a year you just in three years because you're on paper right with the feds like what did stop it and still do the same time oh it's in now in and now this has been since i got out he's been locked up what twice and now he's in the feds. So this is three, really, the federal sentence is the third time, really, right?

Starting point is 01:07:24 Two new charges and a federal probation. He's in right now. So y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all got me, my uncle, he's going to do it to the feds. Can my uncle, he, he, he, me, I'm in and out. You know what I'm saying? I'm not doing it to the fair. If I, if I got a certain, a certain goal and I need 20,000, 50,000, whatever I need. Once I get my goal, I'm out.

Starting point is 01:07:45 You know what I'm saying? Then I might hop back in. But the dudes I was around, they just constantly, Yeah, constantly doing it. That's me. If I got the 20 grand, I'd be like, that was easy. Yeah. I need another 20.

Starting point is 01:07:56 It was that easy. I can get enough. If I get to 100,000, I'll stop. Then you get to 100,000. You never going to stop. No, that was too easy. You would really, what would really be, if I had half a million. That's what I really need half a million.

Starting point is 01:08:07 I'd have a million. Then I'll stop. Right. But once I started, once I started seeing, like, real money, money never really made me feel like I thought it would make me feel. You get on semi-cubs. When I actually, when I made my first million when I was 32. And I made my first million when I had my restaurant.

Starting point is 01:08:23 You get what I'm saying? Like, all the time I hustled in the streets, I never seen a million. I probably made a million, but never seen a million. I seen a million when I got my restaurant because I actually started taking it serious. But once I started making the money, getting a jury, traveling, living, doing the life. It was like, it's nothing, you know what I'm saying? And then bringing me the feeling that I thought that I wanted, man. I wanted things that money can give you.

Starting point is 01:08:47 And it's like having my kids around me, my family and things like that. So once I started getting to a certain amount of it just was I wasn't money hungry. And I think that's why I beat prison and beat Tom a lot of times because I never did it because I just wanted to have a lot of money. I always had goals. I always wanted to do something, you know what I'm saying? But I was just like didn't have the right guidance. You get what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:09:06 And a lot of things came easy to me. I always was connected with a plug. I was always connected with somebody that was doing something that know how to get money. And once I figured out what I was. really wanted to do that kind of gave me like a goal, a target, you know what I'm saying? That's why when I learned a credit card scheme, at first it was just like, oh, we're doing this, we can go to the club, we can go throw it away. But I was like, damn, we keep doing this.

Starting point is 01:09:27 And we're not saving it. We're not doing anything. We're just going to be in prison. And there's nothing to look, nothing to show for it. You get what I'm saying? That's all I was seeing. Everybody was around me was getting knocked off. So I was like, shit, if it's this sweet, I'm going to invest it in something.

Starting point is 01:09:39 You know what I'm saying? Everybody ain't got to know what I'm doing it for. And I was quiet, you know, like the Africans, the Nigerians, the one that really taught me them some real scammer motherfuckers. I don't know if you know what I'm not Nigerians. Oh, yeah. They're full-time. This is their whole life. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:09:52 So that's Mike. He's Nigerian. He the one I seen run over the 400,000, like, in the club off day. He didn't want to put me on the clover. But I was like, I ain't trying to be like him. I ain't trying to end up like him. What can I invest this money into? And I invest it into myself, you know?

Starting point is 01:10:05 Where's the restaurant? It was in Charlene-Nor-Klan. I closed it. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So I closed it. What are you doing now? I'm still a celebrity ship.

Starting point is 01:10:13 I'm still traveling. But I'm in the kitchen and loose right now. It's probably like 15 minutes away from here. And I just got a new food truck that will be done next week. Yeah, legally. This is legally. Nothing. Nothing.

Starting point is 01:10:25 I don't do anything illegal no more, man. Nothing. The Instagram is at Napi Chef Everything. That's N-A-P-E-F-E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Napi Shep everything. And the other Instagram is Napi Chef official. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so get notified of videos just like this. Also, if you want to follow the Napi Chef, we're going to place all of his links in the

Starting point is 01:10:53 description box. So you go straight into the description box. Click on it. Shoot over there. Follow, subscribe. Once again, thank you very much. I do appreciate it. And also, if you guys want to be a guest, go to our link, which I'm also going to leave in the description box, which is our website. You can go to the Be a Guest page and you can you can click on on there and you can leave you. It's like five questions and you leave like a three minute video. We'll check out the video. We will get back with you. Thank you very much. I do appreciate it. See you.

Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The $400K Nigerian Scam That Changed My Life

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.