Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Andrew Tate of Dark Web Scams...

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

The Andrew Tate of Dark Web Scams...

Any type of fraud you can imagine, I'm probably done it. 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 300. Give me the money. Now I'm 18, 19. My body's still alone in high school. I'm in Miami with a yacht charter. Just chilling. If I wanted to go make money tomorrow,

I'm totally . And of course I'm using a socks five, chain to a VPN, on an RDP, you maintain complete anonymous minute. complete anonymity with that. So typically the person gets arrested. Is that typically how that happens?

You haven't been arrested. What is the scam that was like the most lucrative? All of them are lucrative, but the most lucrative I would have to say is I'll start off by introducing myself. My name is Angelo. The accent, I'm not from the UK, I'm not from Australia. I just want to let everybody know so the comments don't roast me and call me a bullshit. But I was born on the East Coast, and we're just going to talk about my experience with fraud. How I got into it?

I'm retired now. I've profited. I've ripped my benefits. And as you can see, I'm very much free. I have my laptop. I'm speaking in front of you right now. So we haven't gone to prison. Anything I say, whether it's probably not as it's as the,

current, but it's probably not accurate. So if you're trying to figure out some things, you're going to have a very hard time and I'd advise you to go focus your attention on something else, mate, isn't it? So, I was born on the East Coast in a large city. Um, but I'll fast forward. I had a fairly decent childhood up until, uh, my parents divorced and I went to go live with one of my other parents. From there, I didn't do it too well in school up until about high school, which I kind of snapped into things. I guess my brain was developing a little bit. And I started to get in the running for the valedictorian. So three years, basically, straight A's, A-plus, AP classes, in the running for valedictorian until

about 14. In mind you, I grew up very poor. So that's when things started getting a little bit rough. Things kind of snapped. My parent turned out to be a little bit abusive. Things started getting pretty abusive. We were poor. We didn't have much. But basically, I always grew up around technology. I always grew up around computers. And naturally I was gifted. I mean, to this day, I can type 140 words per minute without even looking. At age 9 years old, I was pirating shit on LimeWire. I'm pirating movies at 8, 7, 9 years old. And one of my parents was very technologically gifted. So I started to gradually learn things from them and pick some things up. There's Photoshop experience.

They're a very talented designer. And IT and all sorts of things, like how to use proxies, how to configure a VPN. So nobody knows. This was just basic stuff that was taught to me. so, you know, we wouldn't get ISP notices in the mail for pirating movies and shit. So gradually, I'm going to high school and I'm starting to notice, nobody, I don't have the same shit that everybody else does because I grew up in a small town outside, um, outside a major city. But it was a very poor town and I would have to, I was one of the kids they chose to go

the other town which was more affluent so i start noticing everybody has i'm very much behind everybody's got white picket friends everybody's wearing nicer clothes everybody's you know they're more they're more they're they come from a better background than i do in it so maybe i start getting into trouble a little bit mind you i'm still maintaining good grades in school all ap classes in it and basically I saw a video I stumble I'm watching YouTube one day and I stumbled upon a video now remember this specifically it was one of those videos true crime videos with a follow around the guy or he's in a red polo I can I can vividly imagine it and I'm sure you could find this

video on YouTube if you wanted to and And he's going around, he's in a hotel room, and the guy's, the, he's following him around for the documentary. And he pulls out the embassar, the credit card embassar, and he pulls out the laptop and the skimmer and everything. And he's, he's writing the dumps onto the magnetic strips of the cards. This was back when they had no chip. There was no 201. 201 in 101. 101's the swipe.

201's the chip. That's the code that's encoded on to the, to the mic. stripe onto the dock and the top is of course what you would buy online or procure yourself through a skimmer on the on the internet on the dark web whatever you want to call it i hate the terminology and these people talking about the dark web uh but anyways basically i saw this video and you know i don't know what it was i have no idea i mean gradually i saw one of my parents there They would tend to bend the rules a little bit. So this, this mentality is not something that's just, it just happens, unless you just want to be, it's not people.

It's something you learn. So gradually seen my parents bending the rules a little bit. That's where the neurons fired in my brain. And I'm like, but I'm poor now, but what if I could do this? This isn't, what this guy's doing? It doesn't seem too hard, isn't it? So, some weeks passed by and I'm doing some research on, I'm desperately trying to figure out what the it is that he's using. What is this equipment?

He's soaking the card in something. What is this chemical? He's soaking the card into to wipe the numbers off because what he was doing is he would get prepaid cards from the store and he would soak it in this liquid in the little, the ink. or the whatever they put on there it would come off of the collar so and then he's got the thing and you press it down the embosser and he's doing all of this right in front of the guy on camera for the documentary and i'm i'm 13 14 years old i don't know shit i'm like this is new to me i don't know anything about this i had sold a little bit of wheat but you know this was all new to me So I'm researching what this shit is for about five, six weeks, and I finally get to see what it is.

But at the time, I was all, when I start doing my research and start trying to figure out how to get the card info as well, how not only the equipment, but how do I get the don'ts? How do I get this information? Because he's saying in the documentary, you buy this information online. So naturally, I figure out, okay, where do I got to go to go buy the information. I go on to some forums, like there's a few, but nowadays, but I'll use a now example to, I don't know what form it was back then. Like Carter Market or Carter, F.U, like I think Carter's market was a while back ago, but now it's like Cardi. So CRD Pro.CC or whatever. They're always getting busted and changing.

There's always a new one, right? They go for a couple of years. I couldn't tell you, Matt, what it was back then. But it was something. And then that linked me progressively to all the dark web markets, the DNMs. And, you know, it was fairly easy to me to figure out how to download the toll. and download it on my laptop and find out what everything was. And mind you, I'm 14 at the time.

I'm a little. But I'm still a freshman in high school. And I finally figured all this out. And I was working a job back then. I had a little bit of money made like bullshit. $500, $600. I'm bagging groceries. I'm doing all this shit.

And I liked working. It was nothing for me. but basically i figure out how to do this and the idea is now in the back of my mind it's not something i'm actively doing i had bought a few pieces of card information on there with my with my working money and i figured out how to buy bitcoin and all this stuff and we used to buy bitcoin back then i wish i had kept it we used to cash deposit uh well i used to cash deposit at the bank so i'd walk in i had my own bank account i was i was a stupid 14 year old so i'm buying this shit my own money so i walk up to the bank i'll go to the tell

and you'd go somewhere like local bitcoins.com and you'd go see the ad to buy the bitcoin with cash deposits so you'd write for bitcoin purchase only on the slip and you'd go in and you'd buy the bit you'd cash the given account arriving number and you'd go in and you'd deposit cash it to the teller into their bank account and then the bitcoins would be released to you once you uploaded the confirmation slip from the teller so that's how i would transfer the money over to a market like alpha bay or something where all this card information was so i had been playing around and i'd bought just bad credit card information online with the billing address or all of this information and i had gotten maybe a few orders through like uh one ipad or something sold it for

six hundred dollars or something like this but nothing nothing crazy but the if i could if i would have but me being 14 now i used to be heavy into video games and i'm playing grand theft on online and i'm playing with somebody don't know we end up talking and this guy mentioned he's a cashier at a mcdonalds somewhere in America. Cashier at McDonald's somewhere in America. And I've been talking to this guy for a while. So I say to him,

this is an African American gentleman. And he's kind of like, he likes to buy chains and do all it. So I said to him, listen, do you want to make some money? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I'll make some money, what's up? So I tell him, listen, if I send you this piece of equipment at the time it was it was called a mini DX3

and it was palm sized in the palm of your hand just a little skimmer if I send you this and you Velcro this to your POS system just out of sight right near you would slip the card through and slide the card through

at the POS I don't even know how much money we can make but we can make a lot of money and he goes okay yeah I'll think about it and I get on again I say, come on, bro, let's make some money in it. I'm 14.

Like, come on, we can buy this. We can buy that. Already, I'm learning how to plant ideas in people's heads to kind of manipulate them and sell them dreams and shit. Because that's what you do to persuade people. You sell them dreams. I'm selling this kid to dream at 14 years old. And he eventually just agrees. So I end up going on Amazon, using my own card, stupid to ship this guy, whatever shit.

and I ship him the Mini DX3 I buy myself an embosser and I buy myself a MSR 605 and that's the pick that you use to write the card information on to

and it was like a brick and you might ask where are my parents during all this my parents are at fucking work I'm not being minded at all so they're getting home at 9% p.m. All of this shit. I'm alone. They don't know what the

going on. I used to store all this. We were on a second floor apartment and I used to store all this in the laundry room of the apartment complex. And there's a little like entryway in a little basement that I used to stash the the embassion because it's a big it's got the dial and everything and it's big. So I store it there and I would know when my parent got home during the day. And then I'd bring it up. I'd do what I needed to do. I would go to CVS. I would shoplift. I'd stuck the green dots in my pants pocket. I'd soaked the rubbing alcohol. And I would

scratch the numbers off with my teeth. And basically, that would wipe off the numbers to an extent. And then I'd press up the card. It took me a while a week to learn how to press up the card information, put in, put the numbers in the right position, because when you go to make a purchase, the cashier is going to check the last four numbers of the card. So if you swipe it through for something over $500 or whatever, they're going to match the last four of the card information to what's encoded on the strip. If it's off, it's going to give them an error message. And I had read this on the forums. All of this, I had read this on the forums beforehand. So I knew what to do, what not to do. And there was also a trick. When you would go see the cash in, an error message

popped up on the screen that pickup card or something it was called, where they would have to call the bike because it was reported stolen. You'd stick your hand out. It's a subconscious trick. You stick your hand out in their face. And naturally, they kind of get scared and they'll hand you the card back. And I maybe had to do that once or twice. But Gradually, I figured out that basically, I had shipped them all of this. He started doing it. He started skimming the card info, and he'd send it over me. And I started trying to use it in a few places, go to Best Buy, go here, go there.

It's not going to, it doesn't work at Best Buy when the card is in, uh, when the card's in Virginia. And you're trying to use it in Philadelphia. Right. It's not going to work because it's a regional luck on the car. card. So I had a little bit of money saved up and he was in one state, in one city. And mind you, my parents aren't watching me. So I said, if I really want to make big ticket purchases with the card, I have to get out there and go use the cards. So at 14, I book a flight JetBlue over to another city. And I'm shitting bricks, bro. I'm sweating through the airport. I have

at least 20 of these cards with the numbers scratched off and everything about all pressed off encoded in my wallet at 14 years old going through airport security tsa i'm thinking oh my god they might check my wallet and all this shit no they're not going to do that and so i go see him he picks me up he's around 18 17 he borrowed his aunt's car something and we go to staples we go to best buy in all of these places we start using the the fucking card information. And we get a few, maybe 10 iPads or something like this. I go back. I sell them. I sent him his cut. And that went on for a little bit. So now I'm in high school at 14, 15. I'm walking in with five, six, seven thousand dollars into class. I'm thinking at these people.

I don't need to do shit. Fuck the teachers. Fuck the principal. Everything. I'm rich. I'm 14. I got five, seven thousand dollars. I'm rich. I'm on top of the world. So now, Now, you can't tell me anything. So my grades are plummeting and everything. And then eventually, I would just use these cards to buy shit anywhere. Like, I remember buying coffee one day. And I used to get sick of flying out there and then we'd have to split the money and do all this shit. And I bought a coffee at Starbucks.

And I remember, I'm like, what if I had bought a gift card with the money? as well like a Starbucks gift card so I say put a hundred on that Starbucks gift card honey and I'll buy my uh I coffee give me a coffee cake and give me a Frappuccino or something so she puts a hundred on the gift card it goes through nothing and I'm in I'm in another city I'm like okay cool so then I get an idea I say I'm gonna go out to the city I'm gonna start riding the subway and see what I can get so I go to a Starbucks and I start riding the subway I go into this the Starbucks. I say, oh, you know, my school's having a baseball fundraiser.

Can you give me seven, eight gift cards with $100 on each of them? She goes, okay, no problem. She's swiping the gift cards, load the money, load the money. Boom, swipe, boom. Okay, great. How am I going to sell these now? I start up an eBay store and there's somebody else's fucking personal information. and I start listing the gift cards on eBay. So now I'm riding the subway every day. I'm not even going to school at this point. I'm going to Starbucks.

Hey, my school's having a fundraiser. Can you put 20 gift cards with 100 bucks each on them? Boom, 2,000, boom, 2,000, boom. Cool. Now, money's starting to stack up in my PayPal account. And eventually, it's something like 20,000. And low on the whole, my partner, who skimming the dumps and stuff he gets he he gets fired from his job they never found out what

he was doing but he was being a idiot he got fired or something doing something else and now then he ran off with the money shortly after like 20 30 000 and that leaves me with jack shit nothing and then eventually like i never got in contact with him again and i tried buying the dumps online they were absolute hot garbage and then i'm go back to work again. And shortly after that, I'm kind of in limbo for maybe a year. And I'm still going to school, but now I'm just thinking about the money. I'm not really doing shit. I'm not getting shit grades. I end up dropping out of high school. And that was that. And then I end up getting kicked out of home. And now, why'd you get kicked out of your home?

kicked out of my home so being that you know the abuse all that stuff going on and I used to get the shit beaten out of me bleeding from my forehead everything I one day I just snap

I get it's my it's my 18th birthday and you know I walk in there's a cake from my mother and it's sitting there and my father's not home yet and I just

Just walk in, there's a cake on that, and my father walks in, and he goes, well, today's the day that you're getting the fuck out of here on your 18th birthday. Now I don't have to, now I don't have to do shit anymore. I'm done. My parental responsibilities are up. And from there, and he goes, get the card. I'm going to what do you mean? I didn't eat. I wasn't even expecting this.

He had no idea what I was doing as far as the cards and all of this shit. So it wasn't because I'm, you know. And he Then he goes Get the out And he pushes me And I just snapped I lay it on the

I take him by the He's shirt I start beating the bricks off He goes down to the ground I start him up He's bleeding down his face And the cops are called He's screaming from the neighbors

Cops are called I end up going to county jail On my 18th birthday That's where I end up On my 18 happy birthday Off to the county jail you go And that was that And I get out

I have nothing but all of my connections which I made on Alpha Bay just from progressively doing fraud over the last few years and I talked to one of my card vendors and he was my business partner for eight, nine years and I tell him, hey listen, I don't have jack shit can you just front me maybe 20 cards or something so I can go do something

with them i had my laptop i had my personal belongings that was it so i come up with a wait a second so the the card vendor was not he he hadn't been your um partner for eight or nine years you started at 14 you're only 18 no to this day he was my okay i know him for a while for maybe one two years then okay but anyways i i'm left with jack shit nothing nothing But I didn't know that one time I, me and my body, we would go out, we would do stuff. I mean, I was 15, 16, eat that nice, nice place. It's just blowing my money. Just doing dumb shit.

But we went to a baseball game one time. And I had used the card information that buy front row tickets. Right behind home plate, beautiful view. You know, you're on camera and stuff you're watching the ballgame. You can look up, you can see yourself on TV. They're coming in and serving you drinks. And I had used the card info to buy this ticket. They were like altogether two tickets were like maybe $1,600.

It goes through easy. There's no verification or anything because they don't want to hold up all the people very into the ball gang. And the idea clicked in my head of gas. I said, maybe I'll buy some tickets. It's a baseball season. Maybe I'll buy some tickets. I've listed these tickets on Stubhop and they sell right away. I get 2,000 to my PayPal.

Now I'm going. You'll find a route for rent on Craigslist or whatever for like $700 and now I'm going again. And I said, oh, that was easy. Now I have a fucking place to stay. It's not only been four or five days. Now I have a place to go. I did this at a Starbucks. I had nothing.

I'm at a Starbucks. I have my laptop and that's it. Boom. And I wait two days. I was staying at a friend's place. There it is, the money in my PayPal account. So I'm looking at Stubhub, and two days later, the Stubhub accounts suspended. Oh, what am I going to do now?

And it turns out they don't like when the tickets charge back, and there's a problem with the tickets, and somebody tries to get into the game, and the tickets are already charged back. Now they're at the gate. But it's still got the money anyways, but they suspend your seller account. I say, hold on. wait a minute. Maybe stubble work, but what if I just list them directly on Craigslist? So I list a ticket on Craigslist, either two or four tickets to this ball game. And I write up a nice description.

Boom, bum, boom, bum, real professional looking, so no idiot wrote this. And I put a Google Voice number on there. So I had 20, I had 20, 30 people responding to my Google Voice. to my Craigslist ad in my Google hoist and the section was not listed I would not list the section I would only list the general area so if it was like Yankee he would be like all the the game and then right behind home plate or the loge box or the pavilion box or wherever area it was and it would be for 50% of the tickets value so volume is the name of the game I had tons of people contacting me for these tickets

tickets. And boom. So I try that idea and I get a huge inbox. And that's the name of the game. Inbox is the name of the name of the game. So I would contact them. I'd say, okay, how many are you looking for two or four tickets to the game? Then say, for let's say. I say, okay, cool. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send you the tickets first. I'm going to send it to you first. It's an element of trust. And I'll send them directly through the team's website. So I'd use the team's website and I'd type their email in. And there was a ticket transfer option. And I'd say, check your email. So they'd check their email and then see the tickets popped up in there already. And it'd be, oh my God, thank you. I didn't even think this was real.

They're so cheap. It's unbelievable. And I said, okay, so now let's talk about payment. you can pay me via Google Pay, you can pay me whatever you want Venmo, whatever. And I had a prepaid card

that I'd register under somebody else's social and that had ACH numbers. So back then you didn't even there were a few cards that you couldn't need you didn't even need to wait for the card the permanent card to come in the mail because the prepaid

send the permanent card as well and I'd link that to Google Pay. Back then like Google Pice send or something and it's send the money it would be available in your ballot so that's $400 and I'll transfer it to the bike boom and it comes with a pin and I go to the ATM pull it out go to the ATM pull it out and now I'm in business now they've taught me 20 more cards I'm going and I start posting in all different cities NFL this that boom transfer transfer and I've had 20 people in day 400 400 400 400 400 400 300 give me the money boom now um 1819 and i'm in my my it's like

senior year of high school and my buddy's still alone in high school i'm in miami uh with a with a yacht charter just chilling because i carded the thing for 14 grand i get on the yacht i'm signing the authorization form for the credit card and i'm working i'm working i'm I'm in Miami, I'm in LA, I'm somewhere. And I'm making $10,000 a week. Just off of all this shit, because I have shit posted everywhere. And of course, I'm using a SOX5 chain to a VPN on an RDP. In the Google Voice, sometimes I'd call you.

But it would be on a VPN chain to a SOX5 proxy. And that maintains, you maintain complete anonymity with that. you're not you think that you know oh the feds they're so advanced no come on bro like you're not you don't need more than two sucks five proxies unless you're hacking the pentagon or something so me now i'm chugging a lot i'm rolling and that goes on for a few years maybe one or two and eventually you know they start catching on and they start you know they people they After I sell them the tickets, first they would get in a little bit. They would start doing it and say, oh, my God, thank you for the tickets.

And then nine out of ten of them, we're not getting in the game. They would text me afterwards. You get every name in the book. You asshole, I'm going to chop your head off. I'm going to run you over with a car. You dickhead. My nine-year-old son I took to this ball game. And I'm thinking, boo-hoo crime your river, bro.

You got scammed on a $400. you're some suburban mom and me I was homeless two fucking years ago so I don't feel bad for you mate sorry to say I don't and basically they start going to the police and then in every city and they start building cases and I would have every once in a while I think it's funny they would leave me a voicemail saying hey can we meet up to buy the tickets let's meet up uh and then And I called the number back. And I'd say, just to try to explain to them that we're not meeting up anywhere. And I would hear Cincinnati District 5 police.

Are you, dumb are you detective? Then I hang up on him. And I get a bunch of these voice skills every time. But I could distinguish the real buyers from the cops. And then I get buyers saying, oh, you know, you scared me. the police at my door and they're gonna get you. Then another cybercrime division knocked at my door and they interviewed me and they're on your ass.

You're gonna go to the penitentiary and I hope your asshole doesn't get sore and all of this shit. And this was years ago and I'm still here so nothing ever happened. But, you know, eventually he got too much and I decided I got a little frightened and I stopped doing that.

but any type of fraud you can imagine except your area of expertise, I'd probably done it. So, you know, I hop from one area of expertise to the next. I'm not only carding now. I'm doing credit card openups. Now, I'm getting credit cards to people's, to people's houses on online. So I'd find a mule,

or I'd find somebody. I'd get a, I'd open up a credit card under somebody else's information. Boom, and I'd have, by now, I have a network. I have a whole network of people, vendors, or document people, people rush into,

you wouldn't believe it. These documents, they draw up. They're on a flat background. It looks like, they look like actual driver's licenses. It's insane. And the bank would ask you to upload, like, front and back. of some of these driver's license and i would say okay fine with me let me just um i'll contact

my russian over here you drop the name date of birth all all the info there the address that you want on the driver's license and you give it to them and they'll drop something nice and even a social security card and you'll upload it and boom then you call the bank back hey what's going on my application, right? I applied for this credit card and, uh, oh, let me take a look at that, sir, we'll review it manually for you.

Blah, blah, blah. And they'll say, okay, sir, you've been approved for Tangrod. Then I contact my other person in my little web and my network. And I say, hey, do you have a credit card process that I can use to, this is how high level

people do this shit. This ain't, I don't give them. Anybody who's came on your podcast, I want to talk about that with you as well. You have this on your podcast. What is his name? No, he's got 10. Boziac! Boziac!

My VPN failed on me. Ah, he says this shit in an interview. My VPN failed on me. The guy is the biggest joke. I don't imagine he was more than a low-level fraudster. He goes, my VPN failed on me. VPNs don't fail on you. I'm high level at this shit.

I'm doing this shit. And I would... This isn't bozy-act shit where you're walking in with face tattoos on your face now. That's the shit I was doing at 14. This is you get a credit card in the mail and you contact your Russian or you're Ukrainian. And you say, hey, listen, brother,

I need a credit card processor. Do you have a stripe for me? Do you have this for me? Do you have a square for me? Do you have any of these? He'll say, yes, I want 50%. Oh, take the car. info credit card declines you call up the bank adds a few uh K YC questions

know your customer or KBA and you're good to go what street did you live on blah blah blah blah we just want to make sure it's you making the purchase blah blah blah then you're good okay can you stay on the phone with me to make sure this charge goes through for seven thousand dollars okay so no no oh it declined again oh sir let me just check verified by visa for a second pull put it through. Well, he said to your cut via crypto and you're rolling again. You're good to go. And this is the shit I do for years. Anything, really. We can talk about anything. It doesn't matter for years. So. And we're tired now. You go on, Matt. I want to let you speak a little bit. Do you have any

questions? How many years ago was this? Oh, this is probably around nine years ago. Okay. So our, well, I'm like, I'm lying. Okay. So was, I mean, like, are you storing this money up in accounts that are, you know, in corporate names or are they in just a fake ID's name? I'm, it's synthetic identity. So I would open up a prepaid or like a chine bank or something in a synthetic identity if I want to spend money or something like go out to dinner. Okay, give me a steak, whatever, little shit like that. And what I want to add is also. is typically, look, I have all this money, but I still know, uh, unlike a lot of other people, they get this money and they start getting this massive ego on them. I am very, very well aware of the fact that I could have been indicted for everything I did. I'm well aware of that shit.

I'm also well aware of the fact that there's, uh, there's SR reports that they generate on you. And I, before I even did all of this shit, I'm, I'm looking honest student. I'm doing my research on, like, on how to do all this shit. What are the flags? What can I do? What can I not do? What gets you caught? Actually, one of the admins of Alpha Bay, which was one of the biggest stocknet markets out there.

The admin, Alpha-O-2, he got caught. His name was Alexandra Kayzes or something like this. And here, you can find it online. now he published a he was one of the first to incorporate a dark net market just like ross albrecht's silk road except it it sold credit cards and fraud info because he started how he funded this project the alpha bay was he was a fraud to himself and when he started alpha bay he published a full guide which i had read when i was 1450 on how to do credit card fraud and how to stay safe online and it's a to Z it's it's like he took 10 Adderals and just have it out of

guide for like three hours it's probably a hundred pages you can find it online somewhere it's alpha O2's guide to fraud or some shit like this but he tells you what to do what not to do what where to spend your money if you get this money from fraud don't spend it in this way so I wasn't going out and buying beavers and 2019 2020 Beavis because I knew I'm going to

like it's not something I'm doing I'm not going to go buy a 2024 if I was doing this now I'm not going to go out and buy 2024

um M550 or M5 and spent $70,000 on a car walking to the dealership with cash or wire it

from a fraudulent account or my own account because I know that's going to start generating SARs suspicious activity reports I think it's called or it's going to catch up with guardless they're going to if they do track it back to the dealership they're going to know that the car was registered in somebody's name they're going to put a bolo out for that tag number for that vehicle and you're driving along one day not even realizing that they're looking for you you get pulled over thinking you ran a red light or something and boom four more cop cars pull up it's too late so exactly and during all this time too even when i was in high school i get pulled every number one time distinctly i got pulled over um with my buddy in the car with my buddy in the car

we're bumping the music. I'm in my little, it was like an old Audi or something like this. I had like, I just buy all the cars, like old Audi, this, that. Nice German cars, whatever, European. Beautiful. They still took up a nice leather end up. You need a new car for it like this. Do you want flat? Don't want to draw attention to yourself. And the cops started, cops pulled me over. And this sparked a whole bunch of bullshit in the high school as well.

Where they pulled me over and they now tell me, you were looking under the, seat why were you looking out of the seat there's a step out of the car I'm sweating shit and bricks and there's I remember in the side compartment or by the passenger's door I had four or five thousand there like in 20s I always carry cash on me for whatever reason and he goes what's all this money for I say I don't know right it's for it's for my rent he goes it's not rent money you don't he starts searching my car for drugs and he doesn't find any and he's like off kid who I'm writing you this ticket. I'm writing you that ticket. And this is in my hometown.

But I remember every single day after that, I would pull out of my driveway to go to school. And there would be a, uh, there'd be a blacked outdoors charger, uh, behind me two minutes later. Boom, boom, boom. I eventually they pulled me over the, the lights are behind me. And I lose my license because they write me some ticket to some bullshit I didn't have done on my car. So I had to wait to get my license back after that. Well, they never actually. figured out they're like i don't know what they're trying to get something right right i'm naturally being a dumb this was back then but being a dumb 14 15 year old i'm walking in the class with 10 000 i said that's your monthly salary if the teacher pissed me up i

say that's your monthly salary that's not even your monthly salary that's like two months salary for you and you know they're starting to talk to the police and figure out what this kid's doing and i think it's like some court mandated reporter shit they had back then the teachers they have to report something i don't know but that ended up getting a little bit of heat on me because i was a little young and dumb but that's about to the fullest extent that's about all that happened except they called my parents in one time and i posted something online about uh it was like the card numbers and shit i was so dumb it was like a picture of stop you know how fast you were going i'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie

the naked gun Liam Nissan Buy your tickets now and get a free Tilly Dog Not included The Naked Gun Tickets on sale now

August 1st Me something with Fogg numbers I forget But they called my parents Into the parent

teacher conference And they They the officer Turns to me And he goes Oh I Look at this We have all the evidence

Do we need to take you in For questioning And then look at What your son's doing He's failing school He's doing this criminal shit. I said, I want a lawyer. I put talking to you. And I just walked out of there. I didn't give up when I was a kid. But fast forward. Yeah, I mean, I was doing everything

under the sun. Anything you could name I'm doing. Credit cards, this, not. And all of this money now, it's going into a crypto wallet. That's it. And Bitcoin was anonymous for a period of time. but then progressively the the federal government realized they can't regulate this shit so anything the federal government can't regulate they don't like so they start cracking down on uh they start training IRS agents on digital forensics and how to crack down on the blockchain and

you know now it's Manaro but I had crypto wallets but back then all that all that it didn't matter because what you could do online is you could type in a crypto you could go to google type in crypto mixer and you can mix your coins you send it it would be an external address that you that you would send to the coins would end up there and these this is shit that all of these darknet criminals are using so you would see what what's vouched so the site doesn't take your money and you would direct your coins over to the external wallet and it would pass through multiple wallet so it would pass through around 100 wallets before i got to your wallet so it would mix it

would tumble it and you'd end up with clean bitcoin and then back then also which it's today is non-existent i haven't seen it anywhere but the european union this happening on local bitcoins back then you could with the cash deposit stuff that that was one thing that still goes on today but they don't like it. You could also sell your Bitcoin for cash. You'd sell it for cash. You'd meet up with somebody at a coffee shop and they'd pull up and you'd sit down. You'd order a latte or whatever. And you'd pull out your phone. You'd pull out the money. You'd pull out your phone. They'd pull out the money. They'd hand you the money. You hit release coins. And it was like an escrow deal. And you'd release the coins to them once they gave you the money or however they

one to do it. And you'd have $10,000, $20,000 in cash, just like that. So now you have clean coins through your tumbler and you sit down with somebody at a coffee shop. You've got 20 grand in cash. Just spend it wherever you want. That's how smart people used to do it, at least. But now it's progressively more harder. But there are services out there. Now, they're actually foreign services. They're, they're, you can generate pretext. paid cards that link up to your phone um that you load crypto onto the wallet there and they're not tied to your social or anything they're foreign services they it's not they don't do u.s banking and there's ways to to procure these accounts and you can buy them on telegram or whatever but if you

were to do it now you could load five 10 grand onto one of these fucking wallets and tap to pay anywhere that you want in the world so that's it so if you did this like you've been doing it like you get to a point where you're it's an enterprise right like your content this is like your full-time job what it's a career it was a career thing yeah i mean of course so what kind of money are you making doing it uh depending on what you're doing so the ticket operation i believe it was every year it was probably 200 grand okay for about for three years right and uh for the other shit you can easily clear over 200 grand in the year if you know what you're doing and and you save some you spend some and before you know you got

a few hundred fucking grand in your in your crypto wallet um so what what is the scam that was like the most lucrative all them are lucrative but the most lucrative i would have to say is probably credit cards. It's probably credit cards. Oh, and one thing I haven't talked about yet. The most lucrative is government is when the pandemic came about. That's the most lucrative. But what was...

I'm not even to say I did this shit. But the most lucrative was the pandemic shit, of course. Where the government is, it rolls around and the COVID starts. And, you know, you can apply for PUA benefits or PPP. PPP came out a little bit later, but you can apply for the PUA and me not having a job of that. But anybody who didn't have a job, you apply for the PUA benefits. And lo and behold, the benefits get deposited into your bank account next day with back pay. So you got nine grand from like it's a month into COVID.

and if you're a fraud stunt and you go fill out an application online on an RDP with with a VPN you connect to your RDP and that's connect and you have a SOX5 proxy on your RDP you fill out of government application for benefits any state it doesn't matter which one it was you say you've talked about this I know you've talked about this and you got it's a month to COVID and everybody's job list and they need to get money out quick and you type in you open up a bank account into somebody else's name and you direct deposit into the account and then you talk to uh some uh some joe schmo who wants to make a little bit of money wherever something lackey and you say listen i need you to go buy some gift cards

and buy this or buy that well we call them runners but buy gift cards with the with the money that was deposit into the bank account here's the card info go look into your tap and pay and go buy gift cards tap tap tap tap boom boom okay upload them to the to the local bitcoin side boom cash out the bitcoin here's your cut go get indicted see you later it doesn't matter and that's what people were doing and then the ppp shit was going on and that was the most lucrative to be honest with you because if you're quick on the computer and you can fill out applications and you have identities

in a fucking Excel spreadsheet boom boom and soon enough there's there's automation and you put in your CSV file and you can go get a coffee and have your the applications on the remote desktop which is always running

and it's filling out applications It's taking the info from the CSV file And it's plugging it It's plugging in personal information Changing the proxy automatically with a Python script And it's going over and over and over again And you would just supply line by line What direct deposit info you wanted to put in there

And that's it And now you're just got to talk to your people And get with this shit Go tap Go shop your money. I got my money via crypto, not me, but whoever. And have a nice day. And that was at 9,000 a hit. You can do the math on that one, mate. Well, I mean, were there ever a time when any of these guys got busted and they were, you know, you were concerned that it was going to

come back on you? Or did they ever come close to you? Who is it going to come back on, right? I mean, I don't know. Like, I'm not sure if these people knew who you were or how, are they trying to set you up? Like, hey, can we get together? Can we? Yeah. It would be over like telegram or something. Right.

So I'm saying at some point, they don't know who the fuck you are. You're running your telegram on two socks by proxies chained together on a remote desktop. Right. How the fuck do they know who you are? Well, what I'm saying is at some point when they could, you know, if somebody gets busted in the store and you don't know it, they could contact you and say, hey, hey, man, I really like to. meet you or can you know did they anybody ever try and set you up no i i during that time anybody who is doing that or who i knew doing it they never tried to set them up not once i don't think i think one guy actually i think one guy did go to jail but i don't

i think he maybe tried to rat or do something but i think he maybe if i don't know if he did or he didn't but he never tried to set anybody I knew up so any of these scams that you were dealing with the people get busted and try and you know try and get you to show up at a location or anything like that because I know guys I just told you I just told the ticket scam is that's it probably the that's it no I mean look look uh when you're only working with a select web of people highly capable people and you come to them and you share ideas amongst one of another and it's only two of them uh it's it's pretty and you you talk to them too like it's like you again you'd maintain your operational security during all this but you talk to them uh you

started you would figure out real quick when they're trying to set you up and none of them ever did so it would only you would never even answer a question like that from a runner or lackey you would never do that why do you ask you me to meet up with you we have to be i didn't have to meet up with you when you were cashing my shit did i so why you asked me to meet up now if they had said that i would have said you block and moved on to the next idiot i would have just posted in some other group who wants to make 20 grand a week just some high ball number get them to come and then do whatever it is you need to do with them it doesn't have to be 20 grand a week it's just enough to catch their eye that's it

and then you go on to the next one you cycle through if they don't want to do it anymore you there's five 50 more people just like you out there doesn't matter doesn't matter to me at what point so at what point did you say hey you know what i'm done with this like this is no you know this is this is this is enough or it's going to catch up with me or was there an actual pivotal moment or did you just say hey i got enough stored away or like what it was actually a few things though It's a, the thing, Matt, is, if you're high level, and you have the money, that's not the shit that you need, that you actually need to worry about is how you're going about your business. If you're fine-tuned already and you know what you're doing, it's running like a well-oiled machine.

It's really how this comes to play in your personal life. Because people like me, I know it doesn't seem like it, But we have a conscience, some of us. Like I say, I'm real low-key, and I do my stuff on the normal guy. I love, like, I do everyday shit. I'm not flashy. I like my cappuccinoes. I like my, everything, right?

I'll go to the grocery store just like you. I don't give up. I'm not dining out five-star restaurants every day. But it comes a point where you start to meet people, and you start to say, I mean, it's not like your situation where you're on the run with this crazy bitch. I don't mean to insult you, but I think I'm describing her angry. And she's like, you only know that for a week. And she's come, I want to do fraud with you, Matt. I want to do fraud with you.

No, it's you meet normal people like, uh, you start dating somebody. And now you gotta go home and you got to meet their parents. And what are you going to say? What are you going to say? Why is he, well, what does he do? Why does he not go to work every day? Why does this? Why this? Why this? Why this? You sit at a dinner table with your girlfriend's mother for an hour. You eat some bullshit turkey that she overcooked.

And you got to talk about this shit? Like, it gets tiring, Matt. It gets redundant, I'll tell you. And then now you got your girlfriend. Come on. Why don't you just go legitimate? And it's kind of like a mind because half the time they want to spend your dirty money. And half the time they want to tell you how you should be living your life.

so it wears on you I'll tell you that so what do you do when you finally said so you finally said okay could I'm I'm wrapping it up what do you do then you start a business I mean what you know it's hard to yeah everybody always says like

oh if you just went you know used your focus your energy and brains on something legitimate you'd be able to make you know a great living but let's face it there's nothing like fraud like that doesn't make sense like fraud money's way too easy but that's why i want to clear up for you man is people i want to touch on that

people say this fraud money is way too easy the way i'm fucking people watch these podcasts and what i want to come on was look people watch this and they think oh it's just easy look at this this guy doing it i'm like i could cite a few guests like well who was it the guy you had on your podcast the true lane brown did he do this fraud shit because i the title was something about fraud he did a little bit it really was more of a drug story but when i say easy i mean once you got it down right like i'm not saying what i what i did was easy because it was difficult but once i had it down it was easy because you got it now well precisely figure it out it to figure it out is hard as hell but once you've got it down it's like man i can create a synthetic identity

buy a house refinance it walk away with 300 000 like like once you but getting to that point obviously is difficult so that's why exactly exactly but actually it is like a full-time job because listen you can have it automated and everything but at some point you still need to procure the identity information and find the right criteria of people that you need for a certain operation but it takes a lot of work but i would say it's more like a 25 30 an hour a week job rather than 40 hours so it's easy to an extent but It takes a lot of brain power. There's a lot of guys out there.

And what they do is not hard. I mean, I hate these fucking guys, mate. I hate them. Like, if they could all rot in a grave somewhere, I would love it. Like, please get them away from society. You're the type of guys to post on Instagram and say, oh, I'll drop this chuck in you.

They only can say that shit. They're like, bring all B-OA, bring all Chase, bring all Wells, bring all TD. And it's like a shit advertisement. on Instagram. They got 4,000 followers and half of them are Shanique was from the hood who need to feed their babies. And they're clicking on it. Oh, I'm going to make $4,000. How do I make $4,000, daddy? Well, I'll tell you, you got,

frame me your debit card. And no, no, no, that's all you need to do. And they'll drop a check into somebody's account and it's bozo from. And, you know, they just rip them off. Like half of the time they don't even get their money. It's called ripping off the head. And the head is the person who owns the debit card, but I mean, that's the type of shit that is like mindless low-level bozo shit. But when you're at a high level and you're doing the shit, it does take a lot of brainpower even when you have, even when you, you have the formula. So it depends. It really depends on what you're doing.

Like, for the ticket shit, back when I was a little kid, that didn't take much energy. And a lot of, what doesn't also take energy is people are a lot dumber than you'd like to believe. A lot of people don't realize how dumb the average American is. They're bozos. Like, if you, if I wanted to go make money tomorrow, I'd post a car for sale. And we used to do this too. Oh, we used to do fake dealerships and shit. Like we would make a fake dealership website.

We'd go on five and we'd hire something dude from Bangladesh who's playing cricket half the day and living in some shack to give, to make a website for us with a live chat option. It looks beautiful. It looks like your local Mercedes-Benz dealer. We have all the inventory would steal the pictures from all those sites, other dealership sites would remove the watermark, would throw them up on there. and we'd upload those pictures you know we'd post on craigs list the pictures the car a very detailed description with all the options for around you know 50% it would be like a ben c class for say it was retail blue book at 39,000 we listed from 25 and we already have the drop accounts from a lackey or from wherever you get on the phone and you go john and belford on him and you go i saw how you do

today this is john from that's also another guy who's good who he knows what he's talking about when it comes to sales because he's his his method his sales method let me tell you first had it works so i call him hi john how you're doing today da da da da i got the bends okay i'm over in Arizona, but I know you're in Wisconsin. But we're going to have to ship the car to you, but we need a deposit down on the car of like four or five grand. We'll give you the wire information. We'll have you wire over there.

And boom, all said and done, you call fucking a hundred people during the day and you walk away that week with $50,000. It just depends on who's stupid enough to send the money. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a stupid person born every day. Right. I'm not proud of any of this shit. It's just the reality of it. When you're born with limited options, sometimes you make the wrong choices.

Yeah, there was a, there were a couple of chicks in, uh, in Florida that were going and running Airbnbs, and then they would list them on Craigslist. So people, I've heard it in this gap. Actually, uh, I know, I know some people actually who did it bigger than that, the girl. She's, uh, I'm talking 30, 40, 50 million dollars. Oh, no. This was, this was maybe not.

I don't think it was even half a million, like 400,000 or something, but, but still, let's face it. Like, that's a, if obviously she's an idiot, like I, I'm, I'm sure the account was in some friend of hers names or somebody she knows that. It obviously led back to her, but it's a pretty simplistic scam that she botched. Well, I'm sure she'll get it when she gets out of prison in four years from now. I'm sure she'll get it right. But I mean, let's face it, that's very short period of time she came up with almost half a million dollars. for somebody who really had no experience in scamming. Yeah, that's like don't level fraud that you can make,

you can make a bad deal of money with it. Yeah, if she had a little bit more, if she had a little bit more knowledge, a few more skills, right, if her skill set was a little bit better, she could have been, she could have made a ton of money.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's very simplistic. There's a lot of shit that you can do. But a lot of people, they'll focus on some. check fraud and they'll focus on some other form of fraud that's like even the credit card stuff I want to actually touch on there's a lot of things that they were very easy maybe years ago that hell not easy now right if you try to buy a credit card online you try to use it I mean even if you know what you're doing even if you buy a socks five that matches up with the location of the cardholder which you'd still have to do back then there's a you need to go beyond like

like just just beating the system because the the site system is just going to catch it there's AI algorithms now that will catch certain details that you don't even know like different browser information and all sorts of shit like this that you need to configure your Firefox browser to get around just just for the order the pass through it's bullshit i mean if you really want to do it now you just call up the merchant and you'd sell them some bullshit story how you need the item to go to a different shipping address billing address, whatever.

But it's low level fraud that's honestly not even worth doing. And what you see it nowadays is, you know, if I was 14 today getting into this shit, I mean, which there are now surprisingly, back then it was very uncommon.

It was unheard of for a 14 year old to be doing this shit. But now, It's, you got, social media has evolved in these kids. There's rappers who rap about this shit now. And they see this shit on the internet, pops up on their TikTok, and they're coming from some shit circumstance.

They have some bright idea. But now it's, it's oversaturated. Unless you really, you have, you know what the, you're doing, unless you can get on the phone and sell somebody something that doesn't exist, and you know you really know what you're doing when it comes to bank policy when it comes to deal with the bank and what specific policy each bank has it takes a lot more of work now it's not as easy as where it really ended was the pandemic i think a lot of people started realizing how badly they could be hit with fraud once the pandemic rolled around because it wasn't it was a trickle-down effect because the states

these states in the the SBA had flawed systems they were just giving out money like candy the banks were affected by it as well because now the banks are liable

for the shit that they they did when opening up the accounts because people would go and open up fraudulent bank accounts to deposit that money in and now they're realizing oh we're big time now we're asking to the government why we didn't follow their KYC laws and shit and uh the Patriot laws we we just opened up accounts for

whoever I mean you could open up a Wells Fargo account I shit you not um if somebody had a Wells Fargo account or you opened one up it was extremely easy to open you could deposit 20 different people's benefits into one account before they even flagged it from different names like certain banks the direct deposit name had the match Like, it would have to match the person who owns the bank account. It would have to match the benefit name, the beneficiary of the benefits. But well, it's far going to give up. Like, you could do 20 at one time before they even started to realize anything was wrong.

So I have no doubt that these banks need to answer to the government on why they had such lacklust of security. What are you doing now? You're retired. What are you doing? Are you retired? What's going on? I mean, typically, so typically the person gets arrested. Is that typically how that happens?

Yeah, but you, you, you haven't been arrested. What's talking about that? Typically, what do you think would happen in my circumstance, Matt? I mean, I don't really, I don't really know, like, it depends on how they can, like, it sounds to me like you're constantly switching out your communication, your location, you're the whole thing. So I would think someone close to you would have to basically. just rat you out somebody that some girlfriend that knew what was going on would would suddenly

one day say you know what we're breaking up or I'm sick of this guy and he cheated on me or can't i did cheat on a lot what what's then they better not know what's going on so what you know then one day one some girl gets upset and she goes to the cops and says listen i'm going to tell you about what this guy's doing and next thing you know they come in they get your computer they check you out. Even then, I don't think much would happen because you don't seem like

the kind of guy that's going to keep evidence around. You know, you're... Oh, it indeed you're right, Matt. It indeed you're right. So a lot of other measures that I'd take is...

At one point, actually, I was manufacturing fake IDs for this shit. And I'd ship them out to my runners and all that good jazz. But that was like the quarter, the midpoint of things. I mean,

like even when i was doing that i'm the type of guy who's paranoid i'm very paranoid like i'm the type of guy and some people say oh i don't like living like this i don't like looking over my shoulder but let's say you get i'll make the analogy let's say you get to a bar fight and you somebody you haven't gotten to a fist fight yeah okay when they hit you in the face do you feel it that much you think it's going to hurt right not not if you're no not not unless you're just cold cock like if you're already if you're already in the thing and your adrenaline shot up no your adrenaline exactly right so you're when you're throwing you're much more sharp when you're in the action so when you're in the action at least for me i'm much

more sharp i'm looking over my shoulder every minute and that's just when you're doing that it it makes it It propels you to win. You need to be on top of your shit if you're going to do crime. Because if you don't, you will get indicted. It's going to happen. So me, I'm looking over my shoulder. I'm thinking of my neat little details. Like, this shit's on the ground.

One rule I had was my computer is always encrypted, 256 Q by AES encryption. And that's with Veracrypt. So if I'm in another room, if I'm going to take a shit, I'm so paranoid that if I go take a shit, I'll shut my computer down. If I even step out of the room, I'm shutting my computer down. Because what happens to a lot of guys is, is they'll get up knocking the door. They'll be on the toilet in the morning while they're logging in or something. And that's what happened to two dock vendors, the guys who are in the markets.

they they take they go do something they have some diversion or something and they don't shut down their computer i had a kill switch on my computer what was the guy named max butler do you ever hear about that one he they got him like just happened to grab as all of his stuff like he also had something he could wipe his computer and everything but they tracked him and they they got the drop on him like he just couldn't get to it in time maybe so yeah but the thing is if you can't get to it in time then you do it something wrong right because if i'm here matt easy easy right you can kick down the door boom boom touch the button kick down the door if you kicked out my door right now boom it's done but if you're going to take a shit or you go in you in public let's say you don't know what's

behind you you you're on the computer in the library you got your back to the wall right but you don't know what's behind you so some guy checks you takes you down to the ground and now they can't everything's all that's what happened with aldrich right Aldrich, right? They got them in the library. Yeah, exactly. It's like the San Francisco Public Library. And mind you, I'm growing up, I'm hearing about, I'm reading, what I used to do

is I'm a scholar of I'm a scholar of the United States Department of Justice. I'm a US DOG scholar. I love reading indictment to see where people slip up and, well, I used to I'm talking in present tense

and that's not the case. I have retired, but I used to love reading I still do, actually. I love reading indictments because it tells you where these people slipped up. You can just Google credit card fraud indictment and you can read 10 of them. You'd be like, he made that mistake there. He made that mistake there. You say prisons like school for criminals, you have to go to prison to learn how people.

It's on DOG's website, DOJ's website, basically. Right. So, I mean, there's, when you're paranoid, there's a lot of shit that you, you start shredding things. You start, you really start being on top of your game. You don't talk to people who about your shit. You don't buy high price shit. You don't leak personal details of yourself online. And again, switching up locations is part of it already too.

It's like, if you feel like something's happening, you should be. probably get the thought of where you're going. Don't shit in your backyard. That's one thing. If you want to ship something, all of this can be thwarted by just shipping to runners. That's it. A lot of these guys are just not putting shit in your name.

Like, if you read 90% of fraud in diamonds because they deposited something in that own bank account, why would you do that? Well, so I think a lot of the fraud guys is that, you know, They have a certain, you know, it depends on your skill set, right? Like, my skill set was varied. So, you know, a lot of guys, they might know how to commit, how to make the fake eye, or not fake out of it. They might know how to make a, you know, I'm sorry, a fake credit card.

Or they can, they know how to take the reader, writer, and rewrite the information, or they can acquire the information. Or they can, they can do certain things, but they can't figure out how to get an ID. and open a bank account. Do you see what I'm saying? Or like there's little things like they don't have all the pieces. They get frustrated. And how many times you heard this? Like they'll have their cousin or their buddy's girlfriend

open up a bank account in her name. Well, the moment she gets grabbed, she tells on you. So they thought that was clever. Well, it's not my name. It doesn't matter. She immediately said all the checks came from Jimmy. It's over. Yeah, I mean, look, Mike, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's like, you go on Instagram, who, who's got this shit. You don't think that they're gonna, stop following your Instagram account. Is that not, does that not, it doesn't cross through your P-Bray that they're gonna, they're gonna do that. They're gonna subpoena Instagram for all that, all that, all your communications. I think a lot. I think a lot of these guys think to themselves.

like or maybe they don't think of that far in advance i think a lot of them just think to themselves they just need um like they just need to get the money right like they're only concerned about getting the money as soon as possible and they're not thinking three months down the line or six months down the line when they get indicted they're not thinking that far they're thinking oh it'll probably i'm sure it'll be fine because they're going to get $15,000 and they're excited and that's all they care about it's more money than they ever see And then when it works, so then it works, and they think I made $15,000. Wow, nobody came to arrest me.

They don't realize it's only been two weeks. So they do it again, and they do it again. Now they've got 30 or 40 or 50. And then they switch it up a little bit. And they got, so six months later by the time the whole thing starts to fall apart and the investigation starts, then that takes six months. So now it's been a year. After a year, you become so emboldened by it. You think you've...

I was about to say emboldened. It's all about... It's about being fucking involved. You don't realize that you've worked your way up to half a million dollars or a million dollars. And so when the indictment comes down, it's devastating. It's a million dollars. And you're going to do, you're going to do. If you've already got some convictions, you're going to do five years for a million dollars.

Exactly. So it's, it's definitely a fucking conundrum. I mean, what people don't realize is this, this shit goes on every day. It's, it's insane. The shit, you got 14-year-olds doing this shit. 15 like you got anybody walking down the street they could be doing this shit there was it's become so widespread now that basically you've got guys during the pandemic there there was something that came out it was it was some ATM glitch that was happening with santander and you had i

shit you not in Brooklyn and the Bronx because that's where these low-level guys are in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Miami-Dade and the hood and Compton and shit there's pictures of these motherfuckers. They're lined up the block like waiting

like in the 80s where they used to wait for cracking shit lined up the block to go do this shit to go take money out from the ATM all by it was like one night I saw this on the telegram or whatever and you're in the group and they're like

Santander it's going Santander's going you need to do this this this this this to get the money out it was some glitch and it can only be an ATM that's 1990s or under some shit it's going to be this model

of ATM the ATMs were cleared out every single Santander ATM in Brooklyn in the Bronx and Flatbush it was cleared out by the next morning what was a glitch like I mean is it like

if you made it a deposit it before 12 o'clock and then take the money out afterwards like is it some something along goes on if i never did the shit yeah it was over in like two days right but you know what this you could like it's like using these the the automatic um the check thing where you automatically or you sorry you you electronically deposit your check you know you scan it and and then it automatically deposits it gives you like whatever four hundred dollars or something immediately yeah that's also what they do is don't deposit them They'll go to the ATM to have a stack of checks, and they'll go start dropping the checks in 400, 400, 400.

And each check has like an immediate availability. I'll tell you the truth, Matt. I have no, to this day, I'm really surprised. I had no fucking idea, no clue. I'm an honest guy. I'll tell you, I'm not going to tell you I know everything. I have no fucking idea about checks, bro. I have no idea.

Like, you hear all these. guys it's it's it's intriguing but you have all these guys saying oh now Chevy is going on away and always going on Chevy always like Bank of America and Chevy's Chase does Chevy Chase I get it like it's stupid these guys but I don't I couldn't tell you what what the they're talking about like it's like every now and then it's like they figure something else out and then that's patched up in two days and it must be exhausting you going to bat with the banks just to figure out all this shit but me myself when i was doing it it's i would rely on tried tried and tested logic you have to think when you're doing this shit what would

a real consumer do how does a real consumer act what are they going to do like you're going to call you sometimes you got called the bank a lot of these guys are afraid to get on my family yeah i know I had a buddy that when I was locked up that was doing the tax scam, right? You know, he'd get people's information and file taxes and their name and get the money direct deposited onto like a, you know, whatever, a prepaid credit card. And he said, then they came out with the codes, right, you know, where they started giving everybody like a PIN number. Yeah, yeah, the AGI PIN. Right. So he would, he said, I was like, well, how did you get around that? He was, I just call him.

I go, what do you mean? He said, I just call the IRS and said, I can't find my PIN. pen and they'd ask me some questions and he said i always had the answers i he said if i didn't well then i hang up here's the fact is is that if it requires the code and you don't have it he said if you're it's a fraudster he won't call because he doesn't he's afraid he doesn't think he has the answers he doesn't he says i just call he said and sometimes i didn't have all the answers i was like okay well i know this i know well what about this address he's like i don't i don't know what that address is and they would he said they would you know ask a couple more

questions they go okay we'll direct deposit you'll have it by tonight okay thank you click is they put the money on the thing you said i don't even have all the answers any that's right right i mean all you got to do really and it's even easier now i mean you got russians the russians you have no idea of how involved in how tapped in they are to our financial system like they got access to the dmb they're tapped in the dmbs they're tapped into all sorts of different services they're tapped into lexas nexus tl o xp they have 10 accounts if one gets shut down they got another ready to go

and they can just look up you they type in your name they set some documents in as a private investigator and they got access to it and they type in your name but there's your social and then it's all coded in Python to go on a telegram bot

and you add the balance via crypto and now you the consumer of the Russians bot can go type in whatever name you want and boom, it'll all pop up. And you can even search by zip code. Okay, Matthew Cox, this zip code,

boom, social, this, that, anything. Phone number, anything. Even if you think you've hit your phone number, guess what? They're tapping the law enforcement databases as well. It doesn't matter. If you're somebody, I can get anything I want on you. I'm you now.

Sorry, you shit out of luck. Like, not you, but if I want to be you, I'll be you. There's nothing you can do about it. Nothing whatsoever. You're not protected. All this shit on this protect this consumer knowledge and all this bullshit. Like, oh, protect your passwords. There is nothing you can do.

When I was doing my shit, if I wanted you, there was nothing you could do to stop me. If I wanted to you, if I wanted your money, mate, I'm getting your money. There's nothing you can do about it. Nothing. You would lock your car. Guess what? Same thing you said. I'll call up TransUnion, Experian, Equifax. You think you've brought in me? Okay, let's play ball. I'll call them up. Hey, mate, uh, I lost my, uh, do you have your pen? Same shit. Okay, what street did you live on in 2014? Okay, I'll look at the Russians report. Okay, cool. I'll pull the Transunion Credit Report.

Oh, okay, what card did you own and what cards have you owned? Okay, I'll go to Guy Coe. I'll type in your first name, your last name. your street address, okay, it'll auto feel what cars that you've had to select it to get a For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Quote, it doesn't matter. Now I know your cards.

I have to pay your thought of anything. I don't care. Like, you think you've locked your credit? or you bozo like it doesn't matter i'm not saying these people they're just normal hard-working people but there's i'm just making the point that there's today there's nothing you can do i mean the banks don't want to change anything these people want to make it as easy as possible for the consumer to go on about their business and to do that you need to sacrifice security sometimes nobody wants to have to visit a branch every time they want to make a transfer do they people got their business

to take care of they can't walk and chase every time what's their national They're out of the country. They're doing something. They have a meeting at eight. They don't want to sacrifice convenience. So the bank's just going to ask our KBA questions, knowledge-based authentication. And that's where a lot of it goes wrong. It's crazy.

There's shit out there. You wouldn't even believe by it. I mean, people think in the dark web, there's some place where you can go and hire hit men. that's all fed it out, mate. Like, if you go on one of those websites, you're either getting it ripped off, or guess what? Now you've got the feds at your door

because you try to kill your ex-girlfriend because you've got a guy named Jimmy. I don't know, like, who gives this shit? I mean, you're done. This is not the dark web. The dark web is you buy drugs, you buy credit cards, you buy anything. You can't buy livers.

You can't buy organs. But anything in the realm of reasonable possibilities, you can buy anything you know get cocaine delivered to your doorstep it didn't matter it it doesn't but for drug dealers the problem with them is why fraud is so lucrative now is you do have to procure your product you do have to do all this shit you do have people who are going to rat you out with fraud it if you it's very easy to go on about your business work with one person who doesn't know your name does not be addressed and they're never going to rat you out you're you out because they can't it's as simple as that i don't think most people i don't think most fraudsters

are and i'm not saying you i'm saying most fraudsters i don't think are disciplined that discipline they they like you said like we both said you get emboldened you start to feel after you're done it for a year or so and keep getting away with it you start to feel untouchable and you start to make mistakes you know suddenly these guys these guys you've been doing fraud with on the computer suddenly you guys are buddies next thing you know you start sharing information together about you know like i've seen it happen over and over again like the guy was cool we decided to go ahead and meet up oh man you know what you know what i'm saying like no he was good no he was good because he didn't know you now he knows you and soon something goes bad he's going to come after you

or he's going to you know he's going to rat you out like that i've seen that happen i i've you know i've listening to these guys stories and it's always like what happens is they they just get they get sloppy because they start thinking they're just untouchable. I mean, that's it. I mean, yeah, it's the lack of discipline. I mean, it happened with me, you know what I'm saying? Like, I know it did.

I got sloppier and sloppier. Like, when I was on the run, I kept saying, like, if anybody ever finds out who I am, I'm leaving immediately. I'm packing my shit up and I'm leaving. The chick I was dating found out who I was. And I stayed. It was just sloppy. Like, I've been really, really disciplined up to that.

point but it had been two years two and a half years at that point and i thought you know i'm good i'm just so good at this like they're never going to catch me we just got cocky yeah i mean it really depends on on who you are in this whole game i mean it it's about building your network the more people you know the more you're going to be able to do you can call somebody you have one guy in another part of the world and he's going to cash out your money for you and you have one guy in another part of the world, and he's going to go into the store for you. It really doesn't matter. But I mean, man, it's crazy.

It's crazy stuff. You know, like I said, like most people's ending to their story is I got caught and then I went to prison. You know, and you don't have an ending like that. And hopefully you, you know, hopefully you don't have an ending like that. And you just say, hey, you know, I took my money. I ended up opening a whatever, you know, a little shop or I opened up a business or I opened up, you know, whatever you decide to do. But I do feel like that's tough to do because I think once that fraud gets in your blood,

it is addicting and it's such a thrill. I think it's hard to walk away from. I would say not in my case. I mean, another thing is like it is in your blood, but I would say when you're doing fraud, it's like a heroin addict because it is heroin. I mean, when you walk into a store and you can get whatever you want or you can, you know, pull out 10,000 ACH to pass a 10,000 in a bank account without doing any work and that's somebody's monthly salary.

I mean, it's a rush. You're addicted to it, honestly, but I would say in my case, as long as you keep a level head and this is hard for a lot of people is keeping a level ahead when you're committing crime. saying crime is a good thing at all. What I'm saying is that certain criminals operate certain different ways. And most criminals, they get, they keep, they get involved and they keep chasing that hit. But for me, I looked at it as something like, listen, I can lean myself off of this. I can, I'm good with my money. I weed myself off of it. I can still do fraud. And nobody's going to, uh, I can get, I can get it out of my system. Like, look, if I want to go buy something online, I mean, nobody, you're not going to, nobody's going to investigate this shit.

It's common nowadays. You can go by a, there's tracking number services where you can just buy something online and say it's like some clothes or something. You go on and, you know, go on this tracking number service and they'll make it look like the package was lost in transit. You call up the store and you say, hey, I didn't get my shit. It was lost in transit. the refund it back to your card i mean if you're really trying to meet off of fraud uh which is kind of what you have to do either you go to jail and you start cold turkey like a heroin addict going into jail or you win yourself off of it and you just start progressively doing less and less

i mean that's at least how it was for me it's like i already have all this money what do i do with it i mean there are legitimate businesses out there you can you dive it to and in my case i really never have to work again at all. I don't have to work in my life. Not one bit. Me, I'm in another part of the world. I'm in fucking Thailand, living it up.

I mean, look at my Red Bull. It's beautiful. Have you ever seen one of these, not? No, what's the little baby? But you can just, you lean yourself off of it, and you go on a very extended vacation, and you figure something else out. If you have a lot of money, it's not hard.

You can start whatever business you want. And I think part of the thrill of it for me was, at least when I started getting into it, when I was 14, 15 years old, I said to myself, if I could just make $4,000 a month, I'd be rich. I'd be happy. If we're getting into the psychology of these things, you start, you make that $4,000. I want to also want everybody out there just because I get on this podcast and I say, I got away with this. Listen, I'm not proud of any of this shit I've done.

I'm a religious person. Like, I, I, I, I repented for everything I've done. And that doesn't make it right. I'm sure, I'm sure, even that I, I think maybe something could happen. But with the statute of limitations, I think we're way beyond our time here. It's, it's been years. So I think that back when I was 14, I said, if I made $4,000, $5,000, that would have been enough.

But then progressively, this is, if you want to take a journey into the mind of a criminal, you make that money and now it's not enough. Now you make $4,000, $5,000 a month. Now you want to make more and more and more. Believe me, if you think that you're going to make this easy money and you're going to stop, that's, I'm not, again, I'm not going to proclaim that I'm perfect. But like, I did some things that help get me out of harm's way. But also, It happens to everybody almost the same way. Anybody who commits a crime, they want a certain amount. And then they say, oh, I go away with it, but now I want more, and I want more, and I want more. And then it never comes enough. And it's a very dangerous place you can land yourself in. It really is your psyche.

Like, you start viewing the world in a certain way, where now you start looking at working people as suckers, and you start liking good fellas to him. He could just take more and more and more and more. And everybody else was a sucker. Now he's eating egg noodles and ketchup. So I wouldn't even, I couldn't even imagine the, if you start committing crime,

and now you've ended up in prison and the feds took all your money from you, how are you going to feel? You're going to feel like you're, you're unwrought. I can tell you exactly how you're going to feel. It sucks. It's going to suck. And now you've got to pay back restitution.

Yeah. And your paychecks are getting done. and you're fucked. So I would say to anybody who's thinking about committing crime and they watch your podcast and they say, oh, this is a cool thing to do. Yeah, better off, if you want to start a business, go into the gray areas. Get your feet going into the gray areas. I mean, if you really think you're a criminal and you really think you're smart, I'm going to tell you one thing. There's only a few of us out here, mate. You're not that smart. You think you're smart. That's your ego talking. You're not going to, you're not as good as you think you are. You're not as good as me.

And you're not as good as any of the people I know out there who are still living their life. You're not. Maybe it's one out of a thousand of you. So it never becomes enough. And even, and I'm sure you've had the same experience, Matt, even when it sucks. It's bullshit. It's like, it's the worst feeling. I don't know if you had to go through this, but when you're sitting down and you have to answer to your mother.

You have to answer to your girlfriend's family and all of these people, how you got your money. You feel like shit. You feel like a piece of shit. You know how you got your money. Now you've got a lie to them. So if you're going to commit crime, it's going to be a life of, in my experience, it's going to be a life of lies. It's going to be a life of deception. You'll have to lie to everybody about what you're doing.

You lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. What lie leads to another. And before you know it, you. You just, you, it's, you cross this line and you're a whole different person. That's it. You can never go back. It's, you start thinking, you start viewing the world as like, who can I to get this money? You start, you'll be going about your everyday life and you'll be like, well, what if I did this?

And what if I did this? And what if I did that? And, oh, I just got that, that money this way. And, oh, I just got refunded for a simple example. I just got refunded for a product that never came to my door. What if I could do this 500 times make money? That's what you start thinking. And it's a it's a way to view the world.

Blank period. And not everybody's going to be good at it. That's the main point. I mean, in my current situation, I'm still thinking everybody needs a purpose. in life. So I'm still thinking of what can I do? And like, what am I going to do for the rest of my life? Yeah, I have money, but at a certain point, I've done, let me tell you something, Matt. I've done it all. If people really want to get into the entertainment factor of it, you start making this money and you start going everywhere. I've been to the Fontaine

Blue in Miami. I've dropped five grand on dinners before. I've been on yachts on Miami. I've been on yachts out in Monaco. I've done all of this shit. I've been to L.A. I went to the Beverly Hills Wilshire Hotel in L.A. I've got the presidential suite. I've done all of this shit. Anything you can name. And you think getting the car in doing this is going to make you happy until it doesn't anymore. It's all of the, it's the rush. It's what's going to make you happy is your fulfillment in life is doing something. It is. Whether you get up and you run every day or you you lift weights, you do something meaningful, like you want to start a podcast. This is the stuff that's going to make you happy in your life is not the money is important.

I'm a firm believer in making money, but either do it in a gray area or do it in the legitimate way where you don't have to look over your shoulder and you don't have to be paranoid. You can explain to people what you do. you can explain to people what it is that you actually do because you have to lie every day there's no getting around it you're living in Thailand what what uh like why

Thailand like is it uh well one it's it's it's cheap it's it's it's definitely remote or it's inexpensive it's remote but like I have a buddy that wants to go to Thailand like I mean he like desperately like he wants to go he's like this is bro he's been watching watching videos he's been he's all into it how much the well sorry guys the Thailand is it's very cheap they they it's beautiful there's loads of beaches but in my case I'm really all over the

world I mean I've been everywhere I've been Australia Thailand Europe everywhere and for me it's it's also like uh it's a travel thing it's like you want to go you have money, you want to go see places. So I think that's what distinguishes me from a lot of other people is a lot of these guys is they'll get a lot of money and they got their car. And then what? Like now you're driving a nice car and it's like a fake lifestyle. It's not a lot of these, I don't know what the mentality is exactly,

but it's it's all this Instagram shit that's playing into it. Everybody wants to show off on Instagram and all this shit and have the car. I mean, I never see any criminal going out and traveling the world. I never see that. I don't know why. I have no idea. Like, they're never spending their money going anywhere nice. They're always in the ghetto or something driving around a $90,000 vehicle.

It's crazy. But Thailand is just one of the places. I mean, uh, I could name you. if you're really going to dive deep into the mind of a criminal there's a few places in the world where it's very it's very easy to get the shit that you want

done done I mean there's a few countries out there and I have a few people I'm not going to name names and name specific countries or anything that if you want even some European countries it's very easy to get in contact

with a government official and a banker let's say and you go to this banker through somebody you know and you say hey listen i got uh three million dollars worth of our illicit funds that i want to transfer into an account and they will you pay them 15% on the three million and you can their secretary prints up the invoices and the vatis and all of this shit and they pay then another another point another percentage goes to the police and goes to the tax authorities and the government and then another point goes to to the banker and now your money's clean. So and these people end up living there. I mean,

one guy he did the Airbnb scam, uh, he, he, uh, was doing the same thing. He did it some Airbnb scam and he ended up living in some shit country and they, they, they know people in these countries. There are so many criminals out there that you like to imagine. It's a lot. And they, and what happens is a lot of people are corrupt and money talks and you end up paying a bank of paying the government officials to get what you need done that's that's and the story so a lot of criminals will actually end up living in thailand that's actually where um the alpha bay guy went to live that's where they got him nobody really bats an eye i mean can you really distinguish between american businessman and rich american criminal i don't think you can nobody's

going to ask questions because they can't they speak it on the fucking language so it's very easy to live in these places they just think you're just another rich far who's come there to live for two three years but that that's pretty much that i mean if your buddy wants to go to thailand and what the fuck does he want to go to thailand for i just he just feels like it's you can live there for you know whatever you know 10 12 000 uh you know 10 or 12 000 a year he's like you know like there's beautiful women although he's heard all the horror story about the women there um and that you know it's it's just very inexpensive to live there and he's like you know and he's just doesn't want to be here anymore like like it's so you know let's face it being

the u.s you know for it can be stressful you know dating is stressful it's very expensive you know if you don't have a good job you're busting your ass all the time just to make your bills and it's exhausting and he's saying you know you go there and you can you can you can remote work you can there's lots of stuff that an american can do there and live very inexpensively well honestly that's that's one of the things it's like uh for a fraud stuff you become very you would you become very uh very aware of the certain of it's one benefit to be a fraud so you can understand what's what's really going on you can understand the the concept of fraud and not everyday person really doesn't

You can see when the government's committing a fraud and you can see when things are just going to shit. And I think it's a very good idea for your buddy to live out there. That's one of the reasons why I'm not in the United States. It's been years and you can just see the country crumbling that it's massive fraud in a massive scale. And just with the government, their fraudsters themselves. I mean, if you really need justification to my saying you can justify fraud, I mean, they're the biggest fraudsters of them all. And they go after the average everyday person committing fraud and throw them in prison just to make money off of them and just to do this and just to do that. But if you're a criminal and you made your money, it's probably the best idea to get the family of the United States.

That's what I'd say to you. Or actually, I'd say if you're not a criminal, get out of the United States. It's a shit haul. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button in the bell so you get notified of videos like this. also please consider joining my Patreon thank you very much leave me a comment share the video that really helps me see you