Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Rapper Who Scammed The US Government - The Nuke Bizzle story

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Nuke Bizzle is a rapper who boasted in a YouTube music video about getting rich quick by scamming a government relief program.

So this rapper is in big trouble. He's going to prison for his song lyrics. Let me explain. Now his name is Nook Bizzle, and he's 31, and he's a rapper living in Tennessee, and bro is just trying to make money. But like, without getting an actual legit job, because, you know, who wants that? And so instead, he gets a gig getting paid on the side as we'll just call it an unlicensed pharmacist. And this makes him a little cash, but unfortunately,

For him, this kind of business comes with risks. And bam, he gets arrested for it. And then he gets arrested again, and then he gets arrested again. And so pretty quickly, he's starting to think this hustle isn't working out for him and that he needs to find something different. But one day, something crazy happens that changes everything. It's 2020, and suddenly, boom, the pandemic hits all of us. And people are getting sick. Hospitals are filling up.

businesses are shutting down, people are staying indoors a lot more. Now, because so many people are out of work, the government expands unemployment benefits temporarily so that people who can't work can still afford to eat and pay rent while this pandemic plays out. Now, while most people see this as a necessary service, Newbizzle sees this as an opportunity to try and get rich. And he comes up with a plan to straight up scam the government. And so he starts to start to getting together some stolen identities and he gives each of them their own address and their own work history so that it all looks legit. Then he goes online and he applies for all these government benefits for each of these stolen identities and suddenly, pow, he actually gets approved. And pretty quickly

the government starts paying him money and he's like, holy shh, that worked. And so he does it again. And then he does it again and again and again. So he makes more and more money and he ends up applying for benefits 92 different times. Now this money usually doesn't come in the form of cash. It usually comes in these like little debit cards. So now bro has stacks and stacks of these government benefits debit cards. And so the money just keeps rolling in by the tens of thousands, then by the hundreds of thousands. And soon enough, he scammed over $1.2 million in unemployment. Then he apparently takes the cards and uses them to withdraw cash. So out of this $1.2 million, he withdraws $700,000 in cash.

And so now he's got $700 grand. And of course, he's gotta spend this money. And not only does he have to spend it, but he's gotta get on his Instagram and flex. Like here he is buying some new shoes, here he is in some new clothes with a Gucci belt, here he is showing off his new teeth, and here he is just showing off stacks of money.

and here he is showing off more money and here he is with money literally falling out of his pockets and if showing off your stolen government benefits wealth isn't bad enough then nuke bizell gets an even better idea why not write a rap song about it and in this song he could explain how exactly he pulled off this crime because remember he's an actual rapper like he puts out songs he's got a page on Spotify with a little catalog he's even got quite a few music videos out like Like he's really going for it with this whole rap thing. And so he finds a beat and he wraps a bunch of bars about this scam he's pulling. And he teams up with another rapper whose name is, and I'm not making this up, Fat Wissah. And so Nuke Bizzle and Fat Wissa collaborate on this song called EDD. And EDD stands for Employment Development Department because that's literally the name of the government agency that he's ripping off. Oh, but that's not all. These guys make a music video too.

And that video, combined with the lyrics, is basically just Newk Bizzle laying out his whole crime. I just been swiping for EDD. Go to the bank of the stack at least. Teach you hear better than selling peas. I make some rate that I couldn't believe. Now, to spare you the whole song, because I assume you don't want to hear it, I'll just read you some of the lyrics.

It's time to ball like the NBA, 10 cards. I'm swiping 10K a day. You got to sell cocaine. I just gotta file a claim. And one of the craziest parts about this whole thing is that in the music video, he even uses the real EDD envelopes that he used to scam, and he makes it all obvious and he holds them up to the camera several times. Bro, just has no shame.

So anyway, he posts this video on YouTube, hoping that it blows up and, you know, makes him famous, and his fans watch it, and they all seem to like it. But, you know who else ends up watching it and doesn't like it all that much? A special agent of the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General. And so they see the video and they're like, did this guy just make a whole rap song admitting to scamming EDD benefits? And they immediately forward it to another department. I assume this department is the feds because this department looks into it

and they see this music video where the lyrics are literally, I done got rich off of EDD. And so they see this and they start thinking, Did this guy just get rich off of EDD? And they decide to track Nuke Bizzle down, which isn't all that hard because all his social media handles are linked right on his YouTube. So anyway, these guys start investigating and analyzing his lyrics and really looking into this music video

and they're able to pause the video on the part that shows the envelopes and apparently link one of the names and addresses on one of the envelopes to a real person, an actual victim of identity theft, aka one of the people whose identity Newk Bizzle stole in order to pull off this scam. Meanwhile, Newt Bizzle has no idea he's being investigated. And so he just keeps living his new rich guy lifestyle. And he decides to go to Las Vegas and party with a friend. And so they go to Vegas and they're having a great time.

They're hanging around in casinos, cruising around the strip. I mean, Newk pulled off the perfect crime. I don't think he's ever going to get caught. Until... So they're cruising around and suddenly, boom, they see blue and red lights behind them. They're getting pulled over for speeding. And so the police asked them if they can search their car. And for whatever reason, he says yes.

And so they search this escalate he's in and they find almost $50,000 in cash stashed under the seats. Who the hell needs that much cash to carry around? That's what banks are for. Regardless, and more importantly, also in the car, police find EDD debit cards in seven different names. And the police are like, uh, you're not supposed to have all these.

They're not even in your name. And so, bam, Newk Bizzle gets arrested. Here's a mugshot. Now, he later gets out on bail, but not long after, those feds, the ones who were looking into

Newk's music video, they file a criminal complaint against him. To them, him getting arrested in Vegas with the EDD cards is all the evidence they need. And so, bam, they arrest Newk Bizzle again.

Here's another mugshot. A rapper who boasted about stealing money through fake unemployment accounts in California is now pleading guilty to mail fraud. Baines rapped about getting rich by, quote, going to the bank with a stack of these while holding up several envelopes from EDD. And by the way, I don't think Fat Wiza got arrested for anything. So I don't actually think he was in on the government benefits scam. He was just rapping on the song. I guess he's just a poser. I don't know. But anyway, so they charged Newk Bizzle with multiple felonies.

He takes a plea deal and he's ordered to pay all the government benefits money back. And he's sentenced to about six and a half years in prison. Damn, talk about self-snitching. Look, this whole story straight up feels like a key and peel sketch.