The Jordan Harbinger Show - 428: Jenny Radcliffe | Cat Burglar for Hire

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Jenny Radcliffe (@Jenny_Radcliffe) of Human Factor Security is an ethical social engineer hired to smash security measures using psychology, con-artistry, subliminal linguistics, cunning, and guile. She is also the host of award-winning podcast The Human Factor. What We Discuss with Jenny Radcliffe: How a childhood incident that took place in '70s Liverpool led to Jenny's resolution that she would never again allow herself to be helpless against bad people. What a thrilling break-in to the local zoo's lion exhibit in the middle of the night and an accidental sleepover in a mortuary with a dead body taught Jenny about the illusion of security. How breaking into places to test security for people went from being a side hustle (with assignments that may or may not have been legitimate or free of life-risking consequences) to Jenny's main calling. The strange, supernatural-seeming things someone might experience while alone in massive buildings after hours or asylums abandoned to the elements. What it was like to track people before the Internet, how social media made Jenny's job exponentially easier, and what you can do to protect yourself against being tracked. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/428 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up on the Jordan Harbinger Show. It had dreams and things about lions, as in the big feline. And I said, you know, I really want to go and see if the lion in this zoo, I sort of wondered if it had like a giant lion hutch. But we got into the zoo, no alarms, no security guards. And I had a sesame street torch, a little sesame street torch. And I was shining it looking for the lion. But the cage was more or less chicken wire, and its face was right there.

And I was right by the cage. to I could smell its breath. Its breath smelled like chicken soup. The fence, bend, and it just was terrifying. And we ran, and I kind of liked it. And then after that, it was like, well, where else can we go? Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger.

On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. If you're new to the show, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies, psychologists, even the occasional arms dealer. Each show turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better

critical thinker. Today, well, a little something off the beaten path, although I find myself saying that a lot, but hey, change is good. Today, my friend Jenny Radcliffe, she's a burglar for hire, more or less. She's a professional con artist, but not really, an expert in nonverbal communication, deception, persuasion techniques. She really is an ethical con artist, an ethical social engineer, a people hacker. Hired to smash security measures. She uses psychology, con artistry, subliminal linguistics, cunning and guile. She spent a lifetime learning how to use the human element to gain access to buildings, data, and information. She's led simulated criminal attacks on businesses of all types and sizes, running teams to help secure client sites and information from malicious

attacks. She's really a pro at breaking and entering of all kinds. And I have a feeling this is going to be one of many with her because I've known her for a while and she is a fascinating character. If you're wondering how I've got all these weirdos in my network, it's because my network is huge. And I'm teaching you how to do the same thing for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. That's our free course about networking. There's no money involved whatsoever. And most of the guests you hear on the show, they subscribe to the course and the newsletter, and they've contributed to the course itself.

Come join us. You'll be in smart company. All right, here we go with Jenny Radcliffe. Jen, your life started as quite the extraordinary tale. You said you grew up on the streets of Liverpool in the 1980s. Is Liverpool the Detroit of the UK? What am I supposed to understand from that? So Liverpool is a, it's a famous city, you know, it's famous for soccer.

Yeah. Or football, if you want to use the correct term. And the Beatles, that used to be it. And then when I was a kid, it was a city kind of on its knees. There was a lot of crime and unemployment. So, yeah, I guess at the time, you would have said that. Not a lot to do. Very politicized city, you know, very rebellious city.

and there just wasn't a lot of opportunity really and now it's fabulous you know there's so much going on in Liverpool now but at the time yeah it was pretty downtrodden I guess it seems like a lot of UK cities are like people that I know in the UK they're like yeah I live in a coal town or I live in a manufacturing town

it almost seems like y'all had the same type of environment as the Midwest United States outside of London where it's like we make air conditioners here mine for coal here and it's that's not doing so well and the global age of everything being made in China, Mexico. Yeah, we were at Docks.

So, LeFour was the Docks. So we would be, the type of cities that we were to align with in the UK would be sort of Belfast, Glasgow, Newcast. So tough people, working class people. And the sort of place where, yeah, I mean, you have to adapt to that life. There wasn't a lot of money, so, yeah. It makes me sound like a Monty Python. There's a Monty Python sketch.

It's like, we had it tough. But it was. You know, it was that type of place. And there wasn't, one thing I always say is you shouldn't underestimate a kid with no money and a lot of time and a brain. That was the problem. You know, we had those things in abundance, you know. We were bored. We were quite smart, as it turned out.

We wouldn't have known it then. And we had time in our hands. And so you're getting to mischief, right? Well, okay. I want to hear about that mischief. But also, it seems like you were abducted as a child. Yeah. And that was kind of a turning point.

And I'm starting to think that maybe I should just have a general. rule on the show because I find that most of the coolest people have been abducted a minimum of one time. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Well, as a child, yeah, so I was playing out in the street with my friend and we were really little, seven or eight years old and there was this neighbor who just said, you know,

you guys must be thirsty, you come in for a drink, you know, orange juice. We went in and then my little friend left and then this neighbor didn't let me go and didn't let me go for a long, long time. And this is like, you know, 1980, 81, a long time before some of the kind of mass sharing of some of these, you know, terrible crimes, really. And everyone was kind of, like, we went out to play in the streets, in the neighbourhood, first thing in the morning, and you came back at night, you know, when it starts to go dark or dinner time. But if you didn't come back, no one really cared. And so I was gone for about nine or ten hours. And I wasn't physically hurt, but it was a woman and she wouldn't let me go. And she made me kind of,

I mean, I hate saying this. I still feel very embarrassed kind of saying it really, but she made me dance and she wouldn't let me stop. And I was only a little, really little kid. This is a grown adult. She was about 17, 18 years old. And she just wouldn't. And what happened was got gradually more and more frightened. She wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. She wouldn't let me do anything. I got more and more frightened. I kind of just, there was something in her face. And I've seen it since, I've seen it as an adult. I've seen it when I've tracked criminals and people that I've kind of interviewed that have turned out to be bad people.

And I just knew I wasn't safe. I knew she was never going to let me go. And I felt that like, I just felt so small. And so there was a knock at the door. And my mum had sort of done a few inquiries and knocked. And she said, you know, is Jenny there?

Her friend said that you were the last person that saw her. I was sort of right by the door. She put a hand over my mouth. And she just said, no, no, I've not seen her. And I knew in that moment if I didn't do something that she killed me. I mean,

I just knew that she was going to really do me harm. So I got hold of a little finger and pulled it back, which I was taught later by a lot of my connections. That's a really powerful thing to do, but I just did it. And I shouted my mum. Mom grabbed me and let me go. But the thing is, because it was the 70s, nothing was ever set.

You know, the police weren't called. That's insane. I have friends who had sort of similar experiences with bad people, as children, she'll we say, it just was never spoken about in the neighbourhood. All I know was she moved out. A few months later, the house was empty, no one you were, they'd gone.

But I knew in that moment when there was that front door between me and my mum, I just thought, if I get out of this, I'm never going to be the helpless again. I'm just not. I'm going to make sure. Like I remember thinking that little childhood brain, if I was a superhero, this wouldn't be an issue. And I'm going to, if I live, basically if I live, I'll be a superhero. And I think it was just a huge turning point because after that, my family let me hang out more with my extended family, most of whom were my cousins who were, you know,

older lads who taught me a lot of sort of street smarts and things like that. And they'd never let me hang out with them before, but I think they realized I needed some help with the way I handle things. That's so creepy of it this person was doing that. I mean, when you said 17, I was like, oh, she's like messing with you and she's a little bit weird and like a bored teenager. But then when your mom comes over, you'd think she'd be like, yeah, she's right here.

We were just playing. Here you go. Bye. But if she puts her hand over your mouth, it's like, oh, I'm going to get chopped into little pieces. Yeah, is this a grown adult. pushed me right against the wall. Yeah.

And I just knew she really didn't tend me home. And, of course, the fact that they left soon afterwards, nothing was ever said. Nothing was ever said. Are you sure nothing was said? Or did they just not tell you that, like, your dad went over there and was like, I'm going to break all of your limbs? So I asked my mom often about it, once or twice, and she said, you know, it was the 70s. It was a woman. I mean, you seem fine.

And she said, if you'd have told your dad, he'd have killed her. Yeah. But I asked my brother, who's a lot older than me. My brother's 18 years older than me. I'm writing it down, you know, because I'm writing some memoirs and things for different projects. And he said, until I read this, I didn't even know. So even my brother didn't know.

That's mind-blowing. As a parent of a one-year-old, I know, right. If I'd found out somebody in the neighborhood didn't let him go for even a couple of hours, I would not only get the police involved, but I'd be like, I'd tell my wife, like, Jen, you have to talk me down right now because I'm about to go in, like, lose my absolute shit and destroy this person. But this is the 70. You'll see social media posts about what it was like to be a kid in the 70s.

And the fact that we never wore sun cream and bicycle helmets and stuff, I guess it's, I always feel that it was in that vein. But it definitely solidified a determination of me never to be that helpless again, I think. We left one of our neighbor kids alone with a neighbor guy to play video games. And my friend, his older brother, didn't want to leave him, didn't want to leave him, didn't want to leave him, took him back like a few minutes later, and then we found out that he had gone over there another time without anyone's permission, and the guy molested him. See?

Yeah. We had a case in the UK of a little toddler that was killed called Jamie Bulger, which is exactly where I grew up. But mum said, like, it was pre-all that. It wasn't as prevalent now. The knowledge of how bad that could have turned out just wasn't a thing, and they just didn't follow it up at all. God.

I mean, I remember, like, next day, day after playing in the same place, seeing that person walking around, just thinking I'll avoid her. That is so beyond bizarre. She's clearly like mentally ill. Well, violent. I mean, you know, there was violence. I mean, she hurt me when she put her hands in for my face. She did hurt.

And I remember being very, very frightened. But, you know, it was a lucky escape and a lot less traumatic than a lot of people get. So I count myself lucky at that one. So all right. So you're hanging out with your cousins and they're like these street kids who are, what are they doing? Because when I think street kids, I think spray painting things or, I don't know, shoplifting candy, I don't know, I'm pretty amateur when it comes to street kidness. I mean, the main thing that we did was in the neighbourhood. So I said the way Liverpool was there was a lot of empty buildings, empty factories, empty buildings at the docks and that type of thing.

And what they did a lot of was just hung out in those buildings. So, you know, they'd be locked. There'd be some alarms sometimes. And they'd just get into the buildings and hang. out in these buildings sometimes. I mean, I'm thinking about it now. We have barbecues and things in these abandoned warehouses in Liverpool. And the first time I ever really remember, and I tell the story a lot, was it had dreams and things about lions. I was really little, and I sort of had these dreams about lions. Lions. Lions. Yeah. Okay. As in the big feline. And I said,

you know, I really want to go to the, and see if the lion in this zoo, which was in a seaside town really nearby, does he sleep at night, ironically. I think I must have heard the son. I don't know. But I wanted to know if it was locked away. And like they just suggested. The lion. Yeah.

You weren't sure if the lion was locked up. I sort of wondered if it had like a giant lion hutch, like a rabbit, or whether they let it roam around. Well, it turns out they let it roam around, right? But we got into the zoo, no alarms, no security guards. I mean, nothing, just over the fence. They actually pushed me, sort of threw me over. I was really small. And they went and walked around this zoo and just looked around.

I mean, we went stealing anything or breaking anything. It was just trespass, but it was trespass. And I knew where this lion was. I'd be with my parents and I walked over to the cage. And I had a sesame street torch, a little sesame street torch. And I was shining it looking for the lion. I'd seen it, you know, a couple of weeks before with my parents. And it flew at the cage.

And the cage was like really thin. I mean, this zoo was closed down for animal rights abuses not long after. It was a terrible place. And, you know, it flung itself at the cage, and we all ran out, you know, screaming and laughing. And so we started to do things like that. And it didn't put me off. I mean, why would it put you off, really, being chased by lying? I mean, when you say chase, did it sort of like walk up to you?

Or was it like, oh, I'm going to eat you for lunch? It was in a cage, but the cage was more or less chicken wire. And it flung it. I mean, I shined the torch and it was like I can't see anything. It's dark. And I moved at another inch, and its face was right there. And I was right by the cage. So I could smell its breath.

Its breath smelled like chicken soup. And I could smell its breath. And then it just like pushed against this cage and that the fence bent. And it just was terrifying. And we ran. And I mean, my cousins are all laughing and everything. And I'm like far behind because I was so tiny. But it didn't put me off.

I kind of liked it. And so then it was the case of. You got a little thrill. Well, I guess so. Because we got away right. I mean, that's the thing. Right. All as well.

That ends well, I guess, when you're that age. And then after that, it was like, well, where else can we go? So we got into museums and spent the night in museums. Did everything come alive? No. But when that film came out, I said to people, this is horrible. This is so real to me, you know. Like, that was what we wanted to happen, but it didn't.

Right. We spent one night, we got into a funeral parlor. We wanted to see a body. Oh, that's about as unexciting as it gets, but also really creepy. Well, it's that stand-by-me thing. You know, you're a teenage and you think you want to see a body. You don't. Like, and we got there.

And it wasn't in a fridge or anything. It was just on the table. Well, it was probably already embalmed, right? I don't know. Because I just remember we pulled this sheet and there it was. And we screamed the place down and then we ran to the way we snuck in and hid under a delivery hatch. And we couldn't get out. We've stuck there all night in the same room with the body.

Serves you right, honestly. Yeah, because it's very disrespectful, right? But, you know, whatever. And it just went from there. I broke into, it became a badge of honor that we wouldn't like, I wouldn't pay you get into festivals like Glastonbury and things like that. We'd always taught my way in. And then my cousins were older than me and they started to work in the nightclubs and the bars and things in Liverpool. And they told me if I wanted to make some money, I could help. Now, obviously,

I'm not going to be security. So one of the things they said was, you can sell these tickets. It's for a special event at this bar. And say the tickets were $10. They'd say, like, you know, you can keep five and we'll keep five. So what you have to do is go and sell the tickets. And it was like a VIP ticket. So, you know, use this ticket on Friday and you get a drink, VIP access, whatever. And I sold loads of them. I said about 300 of them. And then they said, but oh great, give me the money, took their share. Fine. So just don't go to that party though. It's a bit weird. You sold the tickets. I was like, fine. And then, of course, I did. I wanted to walk past and see. And I get to the bar. There's like a fight going on. There's huge amounts of people milling outside the bar. And of course,

there's no VIP event. The tickets were just fake. And I'd sell loads of them. And it was just fake. Gosh. So you were kind of an unwilling participant. Well, I was that time. That time.

And then they taught me a few cons. And by the time I was, you know, sort of 18, I was pulling cons all over the city. Nothing huge and nothing where, you know, there was kind of, I said nothing with direct contact, but nothing that I'd thought up myself. My cousins were like heroes to me. You know, I loved them. And I didn't expect that. they were really doing anything that was dangerous or wrong.

Like it didn't occur to you that that was wrong because your cousins were nice people in your mind. I think I knew it was at some level, but I didn't see that it was particularly harmful until. So they used to ask me to pick up packages and this one time I picked up this package. I've never spoken about this before, but I picked up this package. I had to pick it up at a bar and then take it across the city. This is all coming away from college, right? It was in university and drop it off at another location.

And when I'd put it on the floor and sort of waved to the guy and put thumbs up, there's the package. It clanked and it was metal. And at that point, I kind of thought, you know, this is probably actually criminal. And I kind of stepped back from it at that point. Wow. Yeah. What do you think was in the package? There was a gun.

Yeah, for sure, right? You kind of know, right, when something is this. Because there's just not that many things that are like that size, that weight, that are kind of sketchy. I mean, this is England, but I'd already been to a pistol. club. I was still there probably in Liverpool on our Dock Road and I'd felt it and I felt the power of it and I hated it. I was really frightening to me and I knew what it sounded. Like you say, there's nothing that's got the same shape and clink. It wasn't that everything swamming to view because I knew really at some level. But at that point, I was kind of moving away from

it all anyway. I was getting jobs of my own volition by then. What do they do now? Your cousins? They're not around. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I'm not saying how they're not around, but they're not around. No. Right, right. Okay. Which, you know, is kind of predictable. Yeah, it's kind of, well, I just thought it's going to go one of two ways, right? They're either locked up or it's going to be like, oh, you know, he's fine. He just snapped out of it and he's a kindergarten teacher now and the other guy works at a daycare. Yeah, no. Well, one of them, things went really well, but we can't say what they do and the other one not so well. Neither of them are available. Otherwise, I wouldn't talk about it, right? He was only the prime minister for a short time. Yeah. No. No.

It's funny. You can't say what he does because he's in a public position or because or something like that? Is that why? It was connected with security. Okay, I wondered about that. Like, maybe he's got a security clearance. Doesn't want people to know he's been schlepping guns around Liverpool. I mean, gone.

It's just not around anymore. Interesting. Well, that's a... Sounds very enigmatic, you know, but that's true. But by then, by the time we got to that, I was already working jobs on my own by then, like legitimately. So you're building this skill set. What is the skill set? What does it entail? What are you learning? You're learning how to break into places. So physical infiltration skills, what else? What happened was we'd started to do some legitimate work for high net worth individuals in the

area. And the only people who had any money really in that area at the time was soccer players for two football teams Liverpool and Evan that were in the like more affluent areas of the city. And so I wasn't used to like, you know, force doors open and things like that. What they asked me to do was see if I could talk my way in. So could I, you know, knock and see their girlfriends or their housekeepers or, you know, anyone? And, you know, try and get in that way. And then I could let them in so I could leave a door open, a window open, and then the boys would come in. And they do this full security assessment and breach the security and then say to them, you know, this is how we did it.

And if we can do it, a criminal can do it. A burglar can do it. someone can get into your building. And that's really how it kind of panned out. So you're saying like, oh, I really have to use the restroom and the housekeeper's like, oh, she's an 18-year-old girl. No, I used to say things like I was coming to measure for blinds. And I look so innocent, you know, honestly.

I mean, even now, no one ever suspects me of being a criminal. It's one of the biggest things that I teach is that, you know, a criminal, a hacker just doesn't necessarily look the way you think they're going to look. This isn't Hollywood. And I could talk to anyone and be really, friendly. So we did some of their homes and then we started, they had businesses. We started to get into the businesses. But by then the boys were interested and I started to do it on my own. And the skills were, I guess, influence persuasion. I was reading books on like anthropology and stuff. This is long

before you could sort of do courses on body language and on verbal comms, which I do now. But I was reading stuff about the way people behaved and performed and trust and things like that. And I guess that's the skill set is I was always really interested in people. I always felt that people had stories. And because I was interested, people had talked to me. And then it was just a case of really acting and having a plan but improvising that plan. And in the early days, that was all I really did. I mean, I didn't really know really what I was doing. I didn't plan it the way we'd plan a job now. But I just worked. And then, you know, I used to write up the reports and we'd hand it and they would say, you need to do this, this and this. And, you know, I was starting to get paid.

at the time really serious amounts of money for just a student, just a kid, for helping the guys out. But the boys weren't interested in doing it for much longer, and so I ended up working jobs on my own. So what was this? Like, how do you even get clients? You just go to a rich person and you're like, but I could break into your house.

I mean, how does it even work? These days, it's much the same these days, really, as it was in the beginning. In the beginning, it was words of mouth. Nobody did this. I mean, I was surprised even, you know, a decade ago when I found all people to differ living because it was just this is a set of skills, this is something you can do. And I got one job off a guy who knew the family and just asked me if I could

get into an office in Liverpool and just take a dress book from a desk. Could I take that address book out of the desk and give it to him? And he said that, you know, the company wanted me to do that. If I could do that, I could have done anything? So could I do that before a certain date? And I said, yeah, yeah, you know, I'll call the boys, I'll call the cousins. And he knew my family. And he said, you really need them? And I went, actually, probably, why do I need them? Really? And so I went in and did like a little reconnaissance and I thought it was going to be fairly straightforward. And I just did it. I just went and got this address. But I didn't even think to have a contract in place or anything or to check that this was a legitimate job and that this guy was legit. I just assumed that

if he knew the family, that it was all legal and approved. And I went and got this book and there's a long story behind it. But I went and got it. And once I did that, I was getting a job probably once a month for a while. And then it gradually got more and more of them. I was starstaffed off in Liverpool. Then they moved to London. And this is all the time I was doing my degree. So my first degree. And then getting a job and then sort of doing this job. And I never for a minute thought that this would be my career. And I never even spoke about it really. Once the boys had carried on doing their thing and I kind of grew apart from them, I didn't tell anyone. I just saw it as a fries on the side. You know, something that got me money occasionally.

A side hustle. Yeah. It's like you're working from home. It's just other people's homes. Yeah. How do you know that what you were taking belonged rightfully to the person? Like, no, no, no, we're just testing our security. How do you know you just weren't stealing things for other people that were private? So I think in the beginning, I didn't.

And I think I'm just really, really lucky because that first job that came in, I still know that client. You know, I can't say exactly what he is and what he does. I know that he's a legitimate person. But sometimes he needs something. something like that doing. And mostly I think it was. I think I don't believe that I actually took things illegally very often. Sure. Yeah. Because I can kind of imagine like, all right, we know this guy keeps his bank routing numbers and his, you know, whatever codes in this Mulskin gray notebook that he keeps in his desk. Yeah, I just want you to go in and see if you can get, I don't know,

let's see, I've got a notebook laying around in there. Why don't you see if you can grab that and then bring it to me as proof. And then suddenly somebody's like, somebody broke in, took my notebook and drain my bank accounts. Yeah, well, there was one job that definitely was that. But again, the client was someone who is, well, one of the good guys. And that was a very dangerous thing that happened. And it was exactly that. It was, I was told that the target was someone who didn't think his security could be breached. And all I had to do was get into the house, get to his desk and look in an address book. And if there was a certain number in the address book, I was to leave a message on the desk. It was pre-written. And if that number, number wasn't in the address book, I had to get out. And while I was in the office, completely empty house, this was in Asia. Office was completely empty. House was completely empty. And it was fine, and I picked it up and I found it and I left the message. And whilst I was in the house, a team of security guards, not police, not legitimate, turned off outside with the cars running,

with the engines running. I had to run away and get out. And they were armed and they were, they looked like they had no sense of humour. And I kind of thought, this is not legitimate. This is a burglary, you know, I've been hired to do this and if they catch me, I can't talk my way out of this. I can't smile. No. You know, they've got guns and everything and they were looking for a burglar and I was right there.

I didn't get out like, I was actually outside the house but hiding in the garden. Oh my God. I saw them looking for me. I had really long hair and a braid down my back and their car actually reversed over the end of the braid. I was that close. I was trying to sneak around there. What?

I sort of reached behind, well, like this. And my hair didn't give. I probably would have done if I'd have a really. pulled it, but I knew that that movement, my white arm against the shadow, so I couldn't move it. Yeah. I knew, like, if they caught me, I was dead. And no one knew I was there. And I asked the client afterwards when I was back home in England. And I said, did anyone know what I was? I was on my own, wasn't I? That wasn't legitimate. And the client said, of course it wasn't.

Really? And I retired for 18 months after that. And I said, I'm not doing anything like that ever again. And I said I wasn't going to do it because I thought I was going to be killed. Yeah. I mean, for sure. How did they justify doing that to you without letting you know? National Security. That's what they said, huh? Yeah. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Jenny Radcliffe.

We'll be right back. And now back to Jenny Radcliffe on the Jordan Harbinger Show. National Security. They don't have other people that, like, are trained a little bit with suicide pills or something. Wouldn't you think? Yeah. Send someone with diplomatic cover to go do that crap, man. But that's not always how it works.

And sometimes I think what happened was, I was just... you know, so expendable. Yeah. And I think, I'm just good at it and just there. I was in the right place, the right time. I would just would never have been heard of again. I'd have just gone missing on a business trip. Because it was on a business trip.

This was the thing. At the time, a lot of those really dangerous jobs came in, and there were lots of them. I was doing a normal job. I had a normal career, a legitimate career, as a procurement manager of all things for Fortune 500 companies. The only reason I was in Asia was because I was negotiating, associating electro-mechanical contracts with things like leaf springs and capacitors, if anyone

knows what they are. I don't know what leaf springs are, but I know what capacitors are. It wasn't nearly as exciting as the other things I did. It doesn't sound as exciting, yeah. I think that's why I kept on taking those jobs, but I mean, after that I retired. I said, that's it. I'm hanging up my guns. I'm not doing anything like this for another, well, ever, but in my mind, it was 18 months

when I didn't do anything and I didn't answer calls or anything. but I missed it, you know. Sure. And by then it was legitimate and important way. And then they thought you were just so busy because you were good at your job, right? She's not even answering. She's so busy.

I don't know what they thought. I've never thought about what they thought. Yeah. I just had to hide for a while and recover from it because I was very frightened. Like you said, I'm not trained to do it. No. So how did you go legit?

I know you've broken into banks, stadiums, theme parks, which sounds really dangerous. Oh, that was terrible. Yeah. The theme park was, so I had a few of these. I ended up sort of specialising because after the zoo experience, then I can really like the entertainment industry and the leisure industry. Yeah, word of mouth and everything again. And I got asked to look at this theme park at night.

Obviously, we went in at night to see if you could get into it. Because the idea being that if someone could like sabotage the rides, the roller coasters and things, you know, could you get in, test the security? It was standard really. But then security guards heard us or saw us or something, but they started coming after me. And I had a crew with me at this point. There was about four of us. And I went and hid, and where's the best place to hide?

And I'm not joking. I think it's just a morbid thing. It hits inside the ghost train in the tunnels. The what, the ghost train? Is that like a popular ride somewhere? You know the roller coaster, but with skeletons and things. You must.

So is it like a haunted train ride? A haunted horror train thing. I just went, which normally, under normal circumstances, is very funny. You know, plastic skeletons. But not when you're on your own. night and I had to wait there for ages and ages, hours, till the security guards left.

So there was loads of different places. That wasn't the scariest. The scariest was I had to get into an office and it was a huge building with probably 200, 300 bedrooms in it. Bedrooms in the office? Yeah, it's an educational facility, you know, where students sleep, but then there's this whole... So the dormitory.

Kind of, but it out of term time. But there was about 400 bedrooms. It's massive. And no one else in the building. And there's something so strange and frightening about being the only person in the building. And I knew I was the only person. And I had a team watching the security team. And I had to walk around.

And I got in a room, door shut, couldn't open the door. Oh, shit. And then I could hear, like, glasses breaking, door slamming all down the corridors. And there was no one else there. It was horrible. How were you hearing door slamming in glasses? Was it just in your head because you were scared? Do you know, I don't think it was.

but then it must have been because I don't believe in supernatural stuff or anything anymore Well, no, for sure now So I feel that it's either wind because maybe I left doors open as I ran through and as I look for things or whatever it was

but your mind plays tricks on you and there's nothing worse than being in a huge building but being the only person in that building there's something very strange about it and I find that more bothersome than I've been in tunnels and inside deserted hospitals and offices and all sorts of places

but that big dormitory with all the office space on my own was the weirdest feeling. It's a strange job. Strange things happen and you meet strange people. And I've done it for so long, Jordan, you know. I mean, that zoo breaking, I'd have been about seven or eight, really. And it's the first one I remember. In theory, that's still breaking an engine. That's still physical infiltration.

Sure. You know, I've got 40 years of doing it if you count that as the first one. That is, there's creepy stuff. Like I broke into my school once to get some books. The cops showed up. They didn't catch me. No big deal. But then I broke into like a closed since the 1970s mental hospital for kids and juvenile delinquents.

So it was like where you got sent against your will for medical treatment, usually psychological. That was creepy because the beds were in there. Yeah. And it had been trashed by teenagers, you know, every year since 1971 or whatever it had closed. But like the stuff was there. Yeah. So you'd walk in and there would be like a box of, I guess, IV bags or some sort of medical stuff, and then they'd be strona all over the place.

But there'd be like a gurney that was rusty and tipped over with a dirty old mattress on it. And you're just thinking, like, not only is this old and the people who are here were really aggrieved at the time are really, like, upset at the time, but the people who've come in since, half of them are, you know, 90% are probably teenagers, but then there's been, like, crazy criminals and, like, people on the run and, like, homeless people that are probably sleeping for the night because it's raining. But then who knows what else? Just weird, creepy stuff. And they had underground tunnels in the building that would go from one building to another, and we went in those. And that was next level scary, because now you're underground in an abandoned insane of sound. So I kind of get the

feeling of when you go, I'm hearing something. I wasn't alone because I'm not a total lunatic, but you definitely hear something. And then you realize it could be anything. It could be nothing. It could be a rat. It's probably literally like the wind blowing a piece of paper around. but it still sounds like there's just somebody behind you. And, you know, the thing is that's so true. And then you get your parodolia, you start to see faces in the shadows and in the smoke. But I think a lot of the time there are people who inhabit those underground spaces, those abandoned places that are, like you say, homeless people, people hiding out.

And there are rats and shit everywhere. I never discount the idea of someone hiding out in a building that's a public place and sleeping there. I never do it. I went, we were in one place with a theatre. Oh my God. The theatre and heard all kinds of noises, but there was other people with me, whatever, and we were looking for their office,

and I looked for the office, and then I found a pile of clothes and a razor and like some sort of like plates and things, like as if someone had been eaten. We realised that someone was basically living in one of the cupboards we'd hidden in behind her. Not a false screen, but kind of made a screen out of janitorial stuff. And you know that they're watching and they're there.

Yeah, it's a very spooky thing. And often, I mean, one of those things I always say when I talk about it is that when you think someone's rumble you, we tend not to run out. We run up to the roof and sit on the roof. And I spend a lot of time sitting on roofs. And I can tell you the spookiest story, if you like, of the roof. Please do. But wait, why do you run to the roof instead of running out?

That seems like you'd want to get out. Because it's counterintuitive. So security run, assume that you're running away. And you can go up and you can hide. Basically, most buildings have stairs. You can go up the stairs because it'll be a fire escape. It won't be locked. And it'll never lock.

We can always open most doors anyway, but those doors are very easy. And you can just hide out there, and people just don't go to the roof. So you know that if you can hide there for even half an hour, the heat will die down a little bit and you can just kind of casually walk out. But if the alarm's being triggered and people are looking for you, then going down and heading for the exit is exactly where they go. It's just somewhere to hide. And in truth, I like the solitude a little bit as well.

Tell me about the creepy roof. It was the weirdest shit. So I got on this roof. It was very, very high, middle of London. And I just thought I'd just wait this one out. So I'm paid now, just to be strictly very clear. I'm paid to test the security of a client's premises or their staff in order to expose vulnerabilities in their security, right?

So that the bad guys can't do the same thing and so that we can educate as to what's going wrong, whether that's persuasion methods of the people, psychology, or whether it's something to do with their physical and operational security. I've done this huge building and I said the name of it then in London. And I sort of been in this guy's office, sent myself an email from his computer, sent him an email from his computer, you own me a pint, told you I get in, Jen, this type of thing. Building as a life, it's as an energy. And when that energy changes, sometimes just outside the door, you sort of feel the energy,

you feel things go quiet and then a buzz of noise. And it's like a six cents. And I kind of felt like, you know, I can feel that this has been too easy. As soon as you think you've done it and it's easy, you know the turns onto you. So I thought, this has been too easy. Something's going wrong. I get a feeling that, you know, I've been rumbled and someone's on the way. So I get out and I need somewhere to go and just lay low for a bit and let it all die down.

Go up the back stairs, get up to the roof. And I sat on the roof and I was just looking, you know, across the city. And at the time, I smoked and I got a cigarette and a lighter. And I go like this. And my lights wouldn't work because it was quite windy. And can I just appear from behind me and said, light? Holy crap. that would scare the crap on you.

Right? Well, it did. I mean, it wasn't right near the edge with shit. And he said, it's bad for your gen, you know.

He used your name. Yeah. I looked at him and kind of went, and was lost for words, which is not like me, and I was lost for words. And then I turned back again,

he was gone. And I was stood with my back to the only door on that roof. So I don't know where he went. So I was like, okay, did you jump? And I can't, even went to the edge

isn't the very edge, but like you could have fallen off and gone, nothing, couldn't find him. And never knew, what that was about either. What are you talking about right now?

It sounds like you're hallucinating. Well, you know, I would have said that, but I messed him again. And I did a job in Sweden. Okay, so he's a real person. He's not just a figment of your imagination. Yeah, it's a real person. You think so. Well, he must be right.

But he's a real person. I mess him again on a job in Sweden and just was lost words. So who is it? Don't know. It's some guy that works for one of your clients, though. Yeah, because they knew my name. And I think, you know, what I do is, I'm a, just a private security contractor, you know.

You make a lot of connections. Some people know where I am sometimes, I guess. That is super, super weird. That is beyond creepy. They were just like wanting you to know that they were still watching you, even though you thought, I got away with this. They're just like, well, hold on. Yeah.

This random guy still knows who you are and where you are. I've had things like, I've been in restaurants and things. I was in a restaurant in Brussels, and I was on expenses. At the time, I was still doing a job, a legit job, I feel like a standard career. And I'd gone in and I'd ordered just the, you know, I don't know, whatever you recommend. And they brought the tasting menu, but it was a really expensive restaurant. And like my expenses just would never have covered it.

I realized that when I was on like the 11th course of these exquisite, you know, gourmet, sorbet was in a rose shape. It was just the most fancy thing. And I just thought, oh, God, you know, I can never pay for this on the expenses. And then I got to the end and it was like, it's taken care of. And I was like, it's taken care off by who? And they just said, they said hello. And so the whole bill was taken care of.

And I wasn't on a security job at that point. So I think I've always thought that people kept taps on me. That is really creepy. And like if I didn't know you, I'd be like, oh, poor thing. She's a little bit. It's not all there. You know, it sounds really weird and impossible. I just think it's a strange career and you meet strange people.

And I think by definition, the type of job I do invites theater. And it invites people who take great delight in. spook of me, I think. Or just making me think, I'm not that clever. You know, you're not undercover. But I wasn't trying to be undercover then, but we're either looking out for you or we're just letting you know that we know where you are. And I think that's something that's just been a recurring theme throughout my career, really.

Yikes. Okay. That would creep me out. That would be effective for me. So if y'all want to creep me out, pay for my bill at a restaurant. It was great. Let's test the theory. I mean, you know, my friend said to me, I could just be some guy, you know.

It could be someone sort of hitting on you. But like... Super ineffective when they keep their identity. But yeah, it's like, well, no. I mean, what other explanation is there, you know? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe it was.

So what were you doing to pay the bills then? You had a regular job and you started doing this. Was there any time where these overlapped, right? So like, by day I'm doing whatever, accounting thing or whatever it was. And by night, I'm breaking into zoos. So I was mostly a negotiator in my regular job. Okay. And because I was...

Because funnily enough, I was good of people and persuasion and influence and stuff. And so I was being sent all over the world to do that. And, you know, it sort of enjoyed it. I mean, it was good. I had a good salary and nice colleagues. And I got to travel. But then when I was away, other clients would call and say, while you're in country XYZ, you know, if you want to tag a day on,

I mean, that whole instance in the house with the book and the desk and heavies and that with the guns. I mean, that was the work job. I got a call on the hotel that said, they actually ran me and they said, are you traveling back business class from Hong Kong? And I said, no. They said, do you want to travel back business class? Just tag on a day and do that job.

And I said, yeah. So at this point, I've never really sort of said of how strange this was. It always felt very strange to me. But I had this legitimate career. And I was doing like a master's degree. I was writing stuff for work. I had lots going on. But then every now and then and increasingly frequently,

I would get asked, you know, there's an extra job in this country, or can you take a diversion and do this infiltration job, write the reports and do it. And it was money. I mean, it was good money. I didn't tell work that I was doing it. I was specifically not allowed to do any other job other than their company. But I always think they thought that was like,

you can't do bar work or something at the same time as working for us without asking. And I wasn't going to ask them. I think even up to then I thought of it as a hobby, sort of. And it wasn't something that I felt was good for my legitimate career. And what we weren't in was the world that we're in now, where cybersecurity and privacy work, is such a huge thing that there are people who do that job legitimately. I didn't know anyone else was hired to do it.

Maybe, you know, spies or something, maybe did similar things. But I wasn't doing that. I was just sort of being paid some money to do small infiltrations. I didn't even call it that. I certainly didn't call social engineering. It was just testing someone's system, testing their alarm or whatever. I would sometimes go, I mean, there was a job I did in Brussels, actually. I did a physical infiltration on an office.

I got there at 5 a.m. I did the infiltration. I had to climb down basically a fire escape on the side of a building, very high building. And then I had to meet at like 9.30 with the regular team. You know, sort of walked into breakfast, I had coffee and quass on with my colleagues. And then went and did my normal day, just as if it was nothing, really. Would you ever work in the United States? Because I assume here you can get shot for showing up at the wrong place.

I mean, I did. What had happened by then was there were contracts and there was get out of jail free cards, you know, so you get a letter that says, you know, this is the number that you call, this is a security test. And the US was always a lot ahead of Europe and the UK, certainly, in terms of that being something that was recognised and was a legitimate job and something that, you know, you could do and be kind of touched for doing it and go, well, no, it's a security test and people would understand that. So by the time, I was working in the States and even in some,

parts of Europe different than I did a first, sort of Eastern Europe and places like that. It was a legitimate thing. You know, at least I could see that there was legal documents and things because I would charge a premium if someone could shoot me or if I can get chased by a dog. If there's a possibility of guard dogs, I will charge more money. Yeah. If it's possible for me to get killed, I'm going to get a premium going. Yeah, yeah.

I'm not a fan of guard dogs. Well, no. That's kind of the point in general as you're not supposed to be a fan of guard dogs chasing. Yeah, in the US they probably have to put up bright orange signs and brief the security. Okay, we're going to have somebody breaking in. It's a single woman. Do not shoot her like you normally would today only, right? Like, here's what she looks like.

No pistol whipping. Yeah, there are certain things that you can put in place that mean that when you are caught or almost caught, you can diffuse a situation. Although, to be fair, there's a lot of people in America that can do that now. So I will speak about it and I will educate, but I don't know if you're not. necessarily work as much in America anymore. Just because of the, and it's not just the US, it's anywhere where there's guns to be negotiated, shall we say.

I mean, UK is the same, you know, there was a job that was national infrastructure, critical national infrastructure. Which is what, like bridges and stuff? Energy. Energy, got it. Energy and defence. And there's chances you could be tasered,

you could have the dogs and stuff like that. And all of those jobs require layers, different layers and backup teams and B teams and everything else, because, you know, there's a real chance that you can be injured. Right, so they probably put somebody in the security control room who's like... The security team sometimes know. Can blow the whistle. If the whole team knows, then it's, you know, it says the client it's pointless doing this.

Yeah, they're just going to be more careful than usual. It's not a genuine test, but usually national infrastructure job, it was a four-digit sort of, if you like, a pin code that we could give. And once that pin code went in, they all got on the radio to stand down. I had 11 minutes to do that job. To break into a nuclear power plant or whatever. Yeah, because I had 11 minutes to get to the actual target, which they specified, because after that they had to, because they could stand down law enforcement, as in the real law enforcement for 11 minutes, because in that 11 minutes they could keep an eye, but they said that's the longest they could give me. And after that, they'd stand them back. Just in case, I suppose, real criminals were right behind me. Just, you know, what are the odds, right? So I had 11 minutes to do it. That was scary. Wow. I think of the United States, those nuclear power plants and stuff, they have their own, like, armed SWAT, team essentially that's basically on site ready because they're waiting for somebody to come in

and try and steal the nuclear fuel or just melt it down they're even armed in the UK right i mean you know the arm response from the UK law enforcement at that place was two minutes and so i would have had 120 seconds to persuade someone that i was not a real criminal so we had to have a pin code wow but that client was on site and they knew broadly where it was to the point where they nearly gave me wow several times Wow. I mean, I guess the core lesson here is that it doesn't really matter what security measures are in place. If there's a human element, the system has a vulnerability, right? I mean, that's the thing. You know, I mean, I tell a story there's a, I got into a bank in Germany, and they said, oh, we need someone to get in and it needs to be someone like you. It can't be one. The team that hired me were all huge, big military guys.

Okay. With tattoos and baldy heads and things and muscles. And they just, like, they stand out. They stick out a little? Yeah. And they said, could you try and get in? And it was biotech, it was a fingerprinting lock. I got past it because I think I created a huge fuss.

I had an arm bandage and I carried some folders and things. And I put my finger on the biotech lock and it didn't work. Security guy comes over. It's a very quiet, very fancy bank. And I swore a lot and said, you know, I can't get in. And he said, well, you try the other hand. I said, well, I can. But, you know, the other hand's not really being used for it and tested.

but I try and because it's not let me in and I'm all bandaged and he pushed my hand down really hard to get the fingerprint swipe and I'd sort of cried out and things and I swore, you know, I cursed a lot because, you know, how you're hitting my hand and he just let me in because embarrassment sort of like stopped making this fuss and I look at me, I mean I do. So, you know, I think sometimes it's using those kind of triggers

I got past the guards at the Tower of London because they were embarrassed. I spilled water all over them and sort of passed them down and stuff and they said, I'll just go through. So I think it's a case of tactical adaptation is what we call it in the train. It's learning to work with what you've got and what works for you. I know not a huge lie because if I was to try and make up a pretext or a lie that was massively away from who I am, it would be difficult to sustain. Lies are difficult to sustain if they're complicated.

So we tend to stick with something that's plausible and those are the type of things that work. So lies are difficult if they're complicated. What's something that's complicated versus plausible? It seems like a really dumb question, but I think obviously you wouldn't have. this is one of your principles, if people didn't make this mistake all the time? Well, I think what it is is people get too elaborate, try and keep it as simple as you can, because if the facts are not on your side, you know, if you're creating a story in order to get past reception or to get past security, you've only got two or three questions planned,

almost by definition, you're not living that persona. And so it's easy for it to kind of fall apart for you to act out of character. I think the best thing to do is to stay within your character. Your real character. Yeah, yeah, and not straight too far from it. You know, I wouldn't put accents on, for example. So when I've been in, when I have done jobs in the States, they see my accent, they think I'm Irish as well.

Yeah, I was going to say you just keep this, like, pseudo-Irish accent you've got going here. But I wouldn't attempt a US accent. But you can do a US accent, right? No. You sure? I feel like anyone can do an American accent. But there's a lot of different American accents.

I mean, the city I'm from, there's three different Liverpool or Scouse accents. You can talk like me, though. Every movie has mostly people that just talk just like me. Right. I've already in this interview used some Americanisms that I wouldn't normally use. I wouldn't say mom. I wouldn't say soccer or I say vacation, which we'd never say over here. And I do that when I've been interviewing the States.

Holiday football and mum. Yes. Exactly. I'm very worldly. So what are you doing before you get in there? You've got to have done some prep work, right? Are you just Googling the people that are going to work there? I mean, what sort of resources are you must,

to try and get in with people. I assume social media plays a part in this. Yeah, it never used to be. Oh, my God. We used to have to camp out outside the target. I mean, I used to sit and do surveillance on targets for days and days and days, weeks to find out, like, all the habits. Because what you're looking for is the way that a group of people in a building,

the shortcuts they take. Like, they're all little hackers. The building that people working, they hack. They don't do what they're supposed to do. So we'd look at that. We'd look at where did they hang out? where did they go for, you know, a drink on a Friday, a pint on a Friday, where did they go for a pint, which pub? That was what I said. I said bars and I would never have said bars normally

unless I'd speak to a US audience. And we'd do all those things and we'd look at who spoke to who and cars they drove and everything. But now we can scrape social media. Somebody is talking somewhere about what's going on. Someone is posting photographs of the inside of their office, of the landyards they were, of the security systems that are inside the building. people are talking about colleagues. You can work out from doing a, you know, a social media sweep. Who hate to? Where the power lies in organisations, that's not necessarily a formal structure.

You know, their attitude to hierarchy, their hobbies. I mean, it's like I did a job in South Africa, and we went on to sort of a safari with this ranger. And he told me that I asked if there were ostriches in South Africa for some reason. And he said, we had two in this park. They found them when they were chicks. whatever, raised them for three years, did all the train naturalised them, released them into the park. And the minute that they released them, they walked up to two lion and just walked up to these

lion because they'd never seen lion before. And I said, what happened? And he said, well, the lion tore it to pieces. And he said, the lion couldn't believe that it's dinner, just walked up to it. And that was how I felt when social media became a thing. It was just like, you're telling me now, you're telling me and all the people out there will exploit this, you know, for malintent. A question a couple of years ago before people started to be warned about the security implications, people were putting everything about themselves online. We had a lady who signed her contract to say that we could investigate her and she was hiding, really. You know, she was pretty good. She'd sort of hide her profiles on social media.

But her children didn't. We could connect her to her kids from photographs from, so there were photographs from her office on the corporate site. So she was sitting at a desk. On that site there was pictures of her and her family. We could trace the surname, found the surname on social media, made six or seven different connections. I mean, knew so much about her, not because she was careless, but because her children, teenage children.

You know, they didn't even think about what they put on there. Isn't that how they caught El Chapo? His dumb son was like, going out with dad, whatever. But it's just, you know, any one of it. So you're not, you can't be 100% safe. if you're connected to people, you just cannot be. And then people always ask me, well, does that mean we can't use social media?

Does that mean we need to be paranoid? Well, no, it doesn't, but you do need to make decisions. The point is it has to be a conscious decision about what we post on social media. You have to think a little bit about what could a malicious person do with that information. And then if you decide to post it, well, then, you know, that's freedom of speech, whatever. But you have to make that decision. And I think sometimes when people realize how easy it is, I mean, there was a picture of her with a dog

and we got her address, open source information, got her address, looked at the house on internet maps, if you like, and you could see that she lived in a small village and there was a vet. And we sent an email saying, there's an outstanding invoice. Because you just kind of know she goes to that vet

because it's so close. Well, we don't know if she did or if she didn't, but she'd be familiar with the name of the veterinarian and she's had or has a pet. So just sheer human curiosity is going to get her to open that attachment when she did. And as soon as she did it, if we'd have been criminals, that would have been game over. You know, we've all got these weaknesses and these levers. And I think that's really where social media and sort of technology has come in.

It's made the job quicker, easier and deeper. You know, we can go so deep into people's lives now, which before we would have, I would have had to have done that physically when I first started out. But now we can do it remotely. This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Jenny Radcliffe. We'll be right back. All right, now for the conclusion here with Jenny Radcliffe. As a public figure, then am I screwed?

Because there's so much information about me online. And also this show, I mean, somebody could just get all the transcripts, and there's so many details in here that I can't, like, hide all of this. But that's true of any of us who are out there. You know, you just have to make those decisions and be careful. I mean, the truth is, I mean, we've put together fake phone calls and answer machine messages, splicing together conversation from people who do podcasts and I've got video things out there. So, you know, yeah, you've got to think about we're all potentially a target,

or how much of a target and to what end. You've got to live your life. That's what I'd say. We just have to be more cautious than perhaps we were before. I mean, the only sort of security protocol that I have other than not putting a lot of personal details deliberately on there, like, oh, here's our new dog, his name is this, like that kind of thing. But everybody knows I've got pets and their names and my kids and their names and how old they are roughly, you know, and I guess I don't put things like hanging out at this place, location, and I ask people what I'm hanging out in groups. I go, hey, you know, if you're going to post anything, either post it later.

Later. Tag me in it later or don't tag me at all, or don't put the location. Because early on, when Foursquare first started, I've told the story a million times. So I apologize to the listener here. But when Foresquare first started, I installed it, checked in at some lounge in New York, whatever. And then like a few minutes later, a buddy of mine walks in. And I'm like, oh, hey, how you doing? I didn't know you're going to be here.

And then another person walked in and I was like, oh, gosh, so-and-so's here too. And I'm like, what a weird coincidence. All the places in Manhattan. And my friend goes, well, you did post it on Foursquare, which then posts to your Twitter. And I was like, I bet you that's why this other person is here right now. We should leave. Yeah. And I uninstalled Foursquare right away.

Because basically I was tweeting, hanging out and mesquite bar and grill with three people that I know. And it's like if anybody wants to find out where you are, all they have to do is look at your social media. They know where you're on vacation. It's like, creepy. There's apps. So there's fitness apps and people log their runs, you know, and they go jogging. And then, you know, you can see more or less work out where they live, what time they're doing the runs. It's all logged, you know.

And there's been instances in the UK where there's being people who the police have got there just in the nick of time to stop people being abductors and attacked. I mean, you've got to think about particularly location. How can you put yourself at risk? You made a conscious decision. If people still want to do that, they can make conscious decisions. I had a client who was a celebrity in the UK. And this problem was, and actually it was sort of a, it could have been a lot worse,

but he had a stalker, a super fan. We call it a fixated individual. And he's doing a show in a theatre in a specific location. And the problem is it's the compulsion to constantly post on Instagram and everything else. And he's posting all going for a massage, doing for this. And that fixated individual had saw the room, took a photograph himself, getting ready for his massage, nothing provocative about it. But she knew where he was due on stage that night.

So she knew the city. And she looked at all the interior shots of like all the kind of expensive boutique salons in that area. And so he posts that. And by the time he had had his massage, got dressed and come out, she was waiting outside. And she was everywhere he went, everywhere he went. And, you know, the first piece of advice is, dude, stop posting it as it happens, you know. stop going, oh, this is live on Instagram. This is live on Facebook.

This is live on whatever. You know, do it after the fact or do something that obscures your location. But, you know, this woman, you know, I strongly assessed was unstable. Nothing shows true love, like showing up to someone's massage uninvited after they posted about it out on the internet. Right. Right. That is so creepy. That's somebody who, like, kills you because you're meant to be together or some weird stuff like that, right?

Like misery. That's how it always makes me think when we have those cases in some of those issues. bit like, and you know, I'm not, sometimes people just need genuine help. But for then, for the celebrities to say, but I've built up this following, I need to keep content fresh. Posted a week later. Yeah. No one's going to care.

Posted a day later. No one's going to care. Seriously. Wait four days. Maybe, you know, what, maybe don't. Yeah. But, you know, especially if you're in that situation. I mean, there's been lots of situations like that where, I guess that's where the physical

infiltration is kind of what we spoke about, but a lot of the job has been about looking at something from a criminal perspective. You know, we spoke a bit about some of the jobs that, I guess, in hindsight, maybe weren't what I call legal. But, you know, mostly what I'm hard to do now. And hired by, you know, very high authorities is to look at something with that streetwise, that street smart criminal perspective. But being someone who isn't a criminal and say, this is what I think could be done with that information or this is how I would get into that building or this is how I'd take that picture off the wall or whatever. and there's value in that. And I feel just really lucky that I get to do that legitimately

and protect people now. How much does it cost to have someone break into my office and make sure it's secure? Just sort of ballpark. Depends. I mean, it really depends. During lockdown, it stopped for a little while for about a month in the UK.

I stopped getting asked to do that. And then the job started to come back in. And it depends. You know, the answer is it depends. Do you have guard dogs? You know, is it shared building? Is it a staff? If it's a standard straightforward job, it'd be a different price point than if it was a more secure

facility or if it was a trickier puzzle to crack. Yeah. So what's the price range? Is it like you get the lockdown special? But like beyond that, what's the price range? A couple thousand bucks all the way up to what? Yeah, exactly. That's the range.

Okay. Got it. So whatever I said is this, yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Fine. Fair enough.

It really does depend. Sure. And now the industry, I mean, you can get plenty of people who break into a standard office and do a perfectly good red team pen test for a lot less than I would charge to do the same thing. Because I've been doing it for a long time. You know, I don't run as quick as I used to run. I'm older. You know, I don't need to be doing that all the time.

I do a few a year to keep my hand in the game. But now mostly I speak about it. I talk about on stage, a confidence and stuff. And I educate and I do the jobs that I think are interesting or exciting or important. But I don't do many standard jobs anymore. younger people than me can do it now. You ever break into an office and like eat the birthday cake that's in the fridge for someone's? Do you know, I've said this before, the things I would say, right, when I educate people to do this,

I say, you know, never eat anything, never eat anything that anyone sends you in the post and certainly never needs anything unless, you know, because why would you do that? But I was so hungry. I was broken to this office and I do it every year, same client, same job. They never fix where I tell them to fix. It is fish in a barrel, right? And two things happened, two years running. So the first year, I'm in there.

It was a stormy night and loads of the office windows were wide open. Don't know why they were. It seemed strange. I'm walking through when I heard a cat. And I could see a cat and it was sitting on the, more or less. Don't tell me you ate the cat. That's just disgusting. But I felt compelled to rescue it because I thought it's going to jump.

It's stupid really. But I like cats. Put it in my backpack and zipped it up. And it was peeing. And on the stairs on the way down I ran into one of the people from the office And you know I'm all ready with my pretext

I'm like oh hi I'm just in procurement Working late I'm with you know Jordan's team Which is okay And then she went You smell like cat And she went

Have you got a cat In your rucks And I went Look I've not been honest with you I said I'm actually not working for procurement On pest control And then I said And I'm taking this to the lab

And sort of like Thank you Barbara Whatever she was called And walked off And I laughed and laughed and laughed at the team when I got back. The lab, it's a cat. How am I pest control? What lab?

We're going to need to lab test this cat. You know, and she just kind of, I always think she must have thought, what the hell? We need to make sure it's a real cat. But I couldn't have carried it on. I had to put it in the bag. And I just threw it and the bag away because it's stankly and just let it go in the car park. Oh, my God. The next year, I've been waiting for that long for them all to go home.

God knows these people not got lives. Waiting for ages for having to go home. They all go home. And there was someone to obviously had to be. birthday celebration, huge cake on the desk. They must have just left it to clear up the next day. I showed a pass and ate a piece of this cake, which is really unprofessional and bad. Like someone's birthday cake for the following day?

Obviously, the whole office had someone underneath their whole cake. Oh, okay. I was thinking like a new cake. Like, happy birthday, Janice. They didn't want to ruin the surprise. So they bring it in the morning and they're like, we're just going to sing on Monday morning. And then they bring out the cake and it says, happy birthday, ja. And then there's just a piece cut out.

on the side. But I was just really hooked. Because one of the things that we say is you certainly don't drink anything before a job. Because what we say, and this is very British, teas mean wheeze, right? So you do not want to need to go to the bathroom a lot. So we tend not to drink. But I have some water a little tiny bit in case I cough or anything. So we tend not to do that.

And you know, when you're thirsty, you think you're hungry. And I've been there for ages and I just was hungry. It was just there and there was just this slice. But I've joked about it before in interviews because it's the last thing I would ever recommend anyone did. But I just did, yeah. I mean, there's loads of stupid stuff like that. Stuff that happens as frackers.

I mean, I was in Germany, supposed to get into an office. And I sat talking to rain, sat on a fire escape. And my phone was just getting covered in rain. In rain. Yeah, and just in water. It was raining so hard. And I was just like, oh, my God. And I'm thinking, my phone's going to get wrecked it.

And I, you know, an iPhone is going to get covered in water and whatever. And I couldn't grip anything. I had, I'm not going to go into. because the client will know who I mean, but all the stuff, all my kit to get in, I couldn't have. So I knew that my team were inside and were going to come and get me if I didn't appear. So I just sat on this fire escape and there was lightning and thunder all around the building. And I just sat there with my phone sort of shielding from the rain and just waited for them to let me in. And I remember then thinking that this is the last time I'm doing this frigging job.

I'm not doing this again. This is I retire. I'm always saying I'll resign because some weird stuff happens and then I never. do. You have a calling card? You know that movie Home Alone where the guys are like the wet bandits?

We leave the faucets on on every place where we go. Yeah. You have anything like that? Yeah. I have a little silver octopus. Little charms, silver octopus charms.

It's like some James Bond's shit right there. Oh, it's not. It's just theatre. You can't do this job without a sense of theatre. I mean, there's plenty of people who don't. I got taught to do it,

so I had other mentors over the years. And one guy told me he leaves a knot. So it's a piece of red string and he just used to tighten a knot and leave this just tight a knot. and leave this just tiny piece of red thread with the knot on it on the desk. I just thought that was so cool. And then I thought, you, I never do anything like that.

It'd be really cool if I just did something that, like, if the client didn't believe I'd been in the office and, you know, before I've given the whole presentation, show the photographs, if I was on a call like this or if I was stood in front of them present and I could say, well, if you just look under your desk, there's like this little octopus, like blue-taxed underneath the desk. And so I thought I'd try it. I knew to get to say it, and they were like,

Oh, God, that's really cool. And then I just did it ever since. And it's weird because I ended up leaving them in lots of places then. Sure. Yeah, of course. Because if you go back and they're still there, it's kind of... Yeah, like, you go back to the Roman Coliseum 20 years later and there's your little blue octopus up on one of the columns.

Yeah. And I saw something similar. There was a film that influenced that as well. There was the film called The Last Emperor, and he finds that he had a pet crickets and it was in the throne. And he was the only person that knew it was there 40 years later. Yeah. I remember thinking that was cool and thinking it was a similar thing.

It's not. It's just a distraction now. Yeah, it's a distraction, but it is cool. Is the octopus have any meaning, or is it just like, I need charms in bulk, and the only ones they have are an octopus and a little race car? I think octopus is an interesting animal. Yeah. Probably an alien.

They're smart and they're delicious. That's a rare combination. They are, and I can't, yeah, I really try not to eat calamari. I know. Because I think they're so smart, but yeah. Now, I just think it's just an interesting animal, and it probably shouldn't be here. That's what I think. Do you think it's an alien, octopus?

There's evidence to suggest that a part of it. its structure has potentially got influences from something other than Earth. I don't know. I'm not a biologist, but there was something about it, and I thought it shouldn't be on this planet. That's too smart. It's too weird. Yeah. It shouldn't be. And the idea of something that shouldn't be there struck me. Ah, I

like that. I can get behind that. There's so much that I want to talk about it. I think we should have you back. I want to talk about Conman, I want to get into scams in social engineering and how these different things work from a mechanical level, but this is fun. You know, rarely do I get a chance to talk to somebody who breaks into places for a living

and is not already in prison. Although, you know, I'm trying to find more and more of those. Yeah, well, I mean, the night is young. But no, I mean, we never broke anything. I never took anything. Just some birthday cake. Just the birthday cake. You know, sue me.

But other than that, it's by request. Jenny, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. This is really interesting. Like I said, we'll have you back. We'll go in deeper on scams, cons, social engineering. Awesome. I know you had some other topics that I don't even want to give away

because they're like kind of esoteric and cool. fun and we'll definitely do those next time you come back. Yeah, I didn't mean to be esoteric. I feel like there was an awful lot of kind of spooky stories there, which, you know, you managed to get out to me, which normally I try and, I try not to talk about it too much in case people think I'm genuinely, you know. Oh, you need to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, too late now. Thanks for coming on. Oh, no, it's been great. Thanks for having me. Now, I've got some thoughts on this episode, but before we get into that, I wanted to give you a quick bite of the episode I did a while back with skating legend Tony Hawk.

Tony virtually defined the entire sport of skating and was innovating in the niche before anyone even gave it a second look. His marketing and business savvy and stories of some very close calls really made this a good one. I picked up skating at the tail end of its first boom in the 70s.

That was the trend. And then when I discovered the possibilities and I literally saw people flying out of empty swimming pools, that was my wow moment. There was like a danger factor. There was this edgy factor. And I just devoted myself

to it. I want to learn how to fly. For guys who considered yourselves nerds and outcast, you were pretty tough. That is the defining moment if you want to do this seriously or continue to do it is the moment you get hurt. One of my worst injuries in the beginning was I got a concussion, I knocked my teeth out. I knew when I woke up in the pro shop of the skate park that I wanted to get back out there and do it. I can't believe people still recognize me. I can't believe that I get recognized for skating because that was never something, there was a goal. There was never something that was an option when I was younger, the most famous skaters when I started skating were only known to a very small group of skateboarders. They were in the skate magazines.

They were definitely not on TV. They weren't considered sports stars. I still feel strange that I get recognized. You know, it's weird. Skateboarding now, some people get into it to be rich or famous. When I got into it, neither one of those things was even possible. For more with Tony Hawk, including how he almost lost control of his brain, entirely, check out episode 3-2-4 of the Jordan Harbinger show. So interesting. We definitely have to have Jenny come back and explain some of the psychological machinations of how she's able to pass through security, use people's own psychology and mindsets against them for profit. There was a lot more that we didn't even cover

because we just, we could have kept going. I think the next one we might have to have a beer. It's just absolutely incredible. She's a great storyteller. Obviously, I can't wait to have her back. Links to her stuff's going to be on the website. Please do use the links that we provide if you buy any books or anything from the guests. We always get a little kickback. I think it's a fairly small amount, but hey, it adds up if you do your part. There are worksheets for this episode in the show notes, transcripts for this in the show notes, and there's a video of this interview going up on the YouTube channel at some point. That YouTube channel is at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. I'm also at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or just hit me on

LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems and tiny habits over in our six-minute networking course. That is free. That's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. No money needed. I want you to dig the well before you get thirsty. You'll see the benefits for yourself. That's all I'm worried about right now. And most of the guests on the show, they contribute to the course in some way. So come join us. You'll be in smart company. This show is created in association with Podcast One and my amazing team. That's Jen Harbinger, Jay Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, Josh Ballard, and Gabe Mizrahi. Remember, We rise by lifting others.

The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who's into social engineering, hacking, or just a burglar, I don't know, share this episode with them. Hopefully you find something great in every episode of this show. Please do share the show with those you care about. But in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on this show. Maybe not this particular, maybe not everything you hear on this show.

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