1305: Johnathan Walton | How to Spot Scammers, Grifters, and Thieves

23:04The FBI usually handles the other stuff. They're marginally better at understanding when a crime has occurred. But again, I'm not trying to crap on these guys. They're kind of the backbone of safety in our society in many ways. but everybody wants their job to be as easy as possible. And sometimes this is just not the way to do it. Right. Reporting something. Right. And that's definitely a factor. But the other factor that I think is more the majority of cases that people don't consider, you know, when you're the victim, you kind of have tunnel vision and you think everyone's against you. But, you know, I've since made friends with a lot of detectives and investigators and FBI agents and prosecutors.

23:41I've been fortunate. I've done six seasons of that podcast, Queen of the Con. I've interviewed a bunch of them. So I kind of know how the system works now. And it's not that they don't want to do the work. It's that, especially in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles or New York, or even San Jose or big cities, there is so much bloodshed. There are people who got beat up and raped and shot. Those take precedence. Those get everyone's attention and they're overwhelmed. These cops are overwhelmed. So it's almost like being in a triage unit on the front lines of World War II. It's like, you got a guy coming with a little sore and a cut, and you got a guy missing an arm and his eyes blown out.

24:17Send the cut away. Let's deal with the missing arm guy. So it's like that. Your scam pales in comparison to what they're dealing with. And nobody tells victims this, but I say it again and again in the book, the onus is on you, the victim, to make your case. What really opened things up for me, aside from just being a lawyer and seeing some of the inside of this was I just couldn't help but notice that when I was in New York City, if a crime occurred and I reported it or somebody else reported it, it was always, always, always, quote unquote, a civil matter or not a big enough deal for the cops.

24:50If the cop was related to the victim, they had an APB out on the person that took the cell phone from the taxi cab in lower Manhattan on a Friday night. And I was like, aha, they can do things if the incentives are there. If Aunt Mabel is going to find out that her nephew cop didn't do shit when her son's phone was stolen, that's going to be annoying for him. And he's going to figure out how to remedy that situation. If there's no consequence other than yet another citizen is sort of mildly disgruntled with the police, they're not going to give a shit. That's just the fact of the matter. And you're right.

25:25There's somebody else who's got a sexual assault sitting there trying to file a report was shaking. And they're obviously going to be more important in that moment than the fact that you left your Bitcoin to some dude in Pakistan. Now, here's something that won't ruin your life. We'll be right back.

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28:17So what better reason do you need than to learn them for yourself so you can see if they're being applied to you in a way that's white hat or black hat. The best way to avoid being manipulated is to know how these things work. This course is designed for you to be able to apply this in a non-manipulative white hat way. Six Minute Today is all it takes, and many of the guests on our show subscribe and contribute to the course. Come on and join us. You'll be in smart, honest company where you belong. You can find the course, again, all free and free of shenanigans at sixminutenetworking.com. Now, back to Jonathan Walton.

28:48your book is helpful it comes it goes through all these red flags red flag number one i'm here to help essentially somebody who's overly helpful is that fair i would love to go through what the red flag is and then maybe like a brief story of this inaction so that people can really internalize the concept absolutely and the case i write about in the book is the eric kramer case for this red flag most con artists 90 of the time in the cases i've investigated and we're talking hundreds of cases over the past eight years, the con artist enters the victim's life offering to help. Because who doesn't love a helper?

29:21My con artist offered to help me and retired NFL quarterback, Eric Kramer, his con artist offered to help him. He had battled depression on and off for 20 years, probably CTE, but we won't know for sure until there's an autopsy after he dies. So his son died of a drug overdose and his mother died and his father was diagnosed with cancer and he was in a really dark place. So he checks himself into a motel room, puts a gun to his head, pulls the trigger, but he lives. But he's got the brain capacity of a six-year-old for a couple years. And during his recovery, a con artist swoops in, an ex-girlfriend, who immediately sensed upon checking on him that he doesn't remember what happened in their relationship, and she wants back in.

30:04So she gets in his life, convinces his friends and family that she just wants to help. She wants to help him recover. Before you long, she moves into his house. They start to get suspicious. They notice Amazon packages piling up on the doorstep. They're from her. She quits her job. She starts taking hundreds of dollars a day off of his credit card and cash advances and buying Visa gift cards at Walgreens. That is the currency of scammers, right? Gift cards. It really is. The fact that those exist, I would love to see from these companies what percentage of these are legit business? Like, oh, we sold$10 million in iTunes gift cards.

30:38Okay, but what percentage of that was redeemed for songs in Apple Music? And the answer is going to be like 0.1%. The rest of it's going to be scammers abroad. Scammers, yeah. Be suspicious of gift cards. Yeah, so once she figures out they're onto her and they've gone to the sheriff's department and there's a criminal investigation, what does she do? She marries him. Now he's got the brain capacity of a child. So he just says yes to whatever. So secret ceremony, no friends and family. she marries him and continues scamming him. By the time he comes to, he regains his mental capacity. All of a sudden, three years into it, three years into his healing, and he realizes she's scamming him and he tells her to get out of his house, she calls the cops and runs another scam that he beat her.

31:19So the cops show up and because of OJ Simpson, they arrest Eric Kramer immediately. Headlines across the country, retired NFL quarterback Eric Kramer in jail for battery. And I fear for my life. They're quoting her court records that she fears for her life. It was all another scam. So long story short, that woman eventually pled guilty. She was charged, arrested, pled guilty. But she cost Eric more than$700 ,000. Oh, wow. She would have gotten more if not for the people in Eric's life and stepped up and stepped in and helped him. But it all started, she offered to help. And who doesn't love a helper?

31:53So that is red flag number one. Con artists aren't like regular people. When there's a disaster going down, that's when they come out. When everyone's running away from something, a professional con artist is heading towards it because they know there is money to be made in offering to help. You don't actually have to help. People are just blinded and distracted by the shine of the offer. It reminds me of whenever there's a hurricane in Haiti and stuff like that, you get those texts that are like, donate to the Red Cross. We urgently need blood, but your$20 will do also. And then you're like, why is the URL for the donation to the Red Cross ZYXABCW.XYZ slash donate?

32:31That is not an official Red Cross URL. And then you're like, oh, my God, millions of people got this text. This text is preying on millions of people who saw a news report about a tsunami. And these people are just stealing this money. Like, I'm always so curious. I'm like, I want to be a fly on the wall in this guy's house and just be like, what is your life like? where you are this shitty of a human being? I don't think it's that. I don't think it's that they think they're shitty or something bad happened. I think con artists, psychopaths are different people. They enjoy the scam. They don't think of it as evil at all.

33:06They get a sense of a thrill, a godlike sense of, I created this from nothing and look, I'm getting money now. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah. I'm the shit. You and I keep ascribing regular morals and values and feelings to these people, but I don't even think they're people. Yeah, I agree with you. I think they're caricatures of human beings. This is one reason why I'm like, I have like a I guess you'd call it a strong sense of justice. When I find somebody who is a scammer or something like that, I will dox them. You know what that is? Yeah, I will go the extra mile. And I've had FBI agents in my house that are like, why do you want to take this person down so bad?

33:42And I'm like, they're like, do you know them? Do they scam someone, you know? And I'm like, no. And they're like, but why? And I'm like, you guys can relate to this. You're FBI agents. I want to see them just crying behind bars and being like, why me? And being like, because you're a piece of shit. Have fun. You're here for 10 years. Saddle up. Buck up, buttercup. You're going to be here for a minute. That feeling, I will float out of that prison just on a cloud of air. I mean, it's a public service. Yeah. Because you're putting them out of commission and you're saving untold numbers of people from getting scammed.

34:15So if you're doing God's work, God knows. Absolutely. Yeah, it's thrilling. Plus, also, when you can commit a borderline criminal hacker type act against a scam center in Dubai, I'm kind of like, this is a victimless crime. Yes, I'm stealing all of your records. This is a hypothetical, people. Yes, I'm stealing all of your personnel records and handing them over to the FBI. But you know what? Screw you. You're a scam center. I don't really care if it results in a bunch of you getting beaten to death by your Chinese triad bosses. You're scammers. Who cares? It's your problem. You signed up for this.

34:46I don't give a crap. You're going to end up in a Dubai prison getting tortured by the guards. Oh, well, guess you drew a bad hand this time. Should have thought of that. I don't really care. I love it. That's great. Red flag number two, kind too quick. Tell me about Mare, because this was kind of her initial entree into your life, was it not? Absolutely, yes. She was a new neighbor. My con artist was a new neighbor, someone I knew and met and liked immediately because she stepped out of the fray and offered to help. Our building lost our pool. We had this gigantic, tropical paradise kind of pool in the middle of downtown LA shared by three different buildings.

35:21And our building didn't want to pay for repairs. So they took it to court and they blocked us out and we were mad. And I put up flyers everywhere. Let's get the pool back. I galvanized our building and got hundreds of people on board in this effort to get the pool back. And as I say that to you now, I realize me putting up that flyer all over and me stuffing that flyer under everyone's door in our building, including the woman who would go on to scam me. I was inadvertently revealing all I needed to about myself to give her the idea of the perfect con just for me. She must have been salivating, licking her lips, reading that flyer and thinking to herself, wow, this guy's a do-gooder.

36:00I'm going to make him do good for me because that's exactly what she went on to do. So she took over the meeting. She offered to help. She said her boyfriend is this married politician who sued our building and can get the pool back and blah, blah, blah. And we all believed it. she was dating a married politician, but he had no idea about the pool situation, nor was he helping. But again, the help doesn't have to be real to get in because by then she was in. We loved her. And then red flag number two came out, too kind, too quick. She took my husband and me for dinner, paid the$700 bill. She was whining and dining as frequently.

36:31She bought us gifts. She got my sister these 20 designer dresses that she said her client was a costume designer in Hollywood is going to throw them away. They're brand new, like Christian Dior, like big time designers and my sister trying them on crying. She's crying. She's so happy. Con artists are too kind, too quick. They're going to buy you dinner. They're going to walk your dog. They're going to watch your kids. Mare took us on vacations to Palm Springs and paid for everything. It was an investment for her though. She was investing and it worked. Someone takes you on a vacation. How do you not love them?

37:04Two gay guys from LA going to Palm Springs. That name a more iconic trio, I guess. She got your number, pal. Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, no. Listen, looking back, she was just laying out the breadcrumbs, and I was just eating them up, unknowing. But I hope your sister kept the dresses after all this. Oh, yeah, she did. Good. At least you got something out of the deal. So I find some of the details about this person, this mare, are comical, right? I mean, they're at your expense, so I'm sorry to say that. No, it's okay. They are. Absolutely. Like, she comes back, and she's got all these bandages on her legs, and you're like, oh, my God, what happened?

37:37Well, I have lupus and you find out you just had liposuction and it's like, oh, for God's sake. But listen, lupus, someone tells you they have lupus. Number one, do you question them? Of course not. No. And then the other, a lot of these medical scams she was great at. I come to find out she convinced our landlord that she had cancer and was getting chemo. And our landlord let her skate rent free for six months. Whoa. Like when someone tells you they have cancer, you just believe them. Yeah. The reason the landlord believed her, she had evidence, right? So come to find out, my con artist mare was 300 pounds years ago, and she got gastric bypass surgery and got thin.

38:18And part of getting gastric bypass surgery is malnutrition, right? So she would frequently get low blood iron. She would intentionally let her iron get so low that she'd have to be admitted into a hospital for an iron transfusion, which is not a major thing. They put you in a hospital bed, they hook you up to an IV, you get the transfusion, you go home. But it was when she was getting these transfusions that she would create because she could keep her iron up if she wanted to. But she wanted that hospital because she would have the nurse take a picture of her in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes and wires.

38:48And then she texts that picture to the landlord. I'm sorry, I can't pay rent. I'm in the hospital getting chemo. It's so evil, but so geniusly effective. It's nuts. And when people think I would never get scammed, it's like, OK, think about situations like this. I just did a show the other day that was about cybersecurity. And this is very apt because the guy said, whenever I consult for companies or government agencies, they always say we want 100 % security. And the problem with having 100 % security, you then have 0 % functionality. Basically, like you want a secure phone, smash it and burn the pieces.

39:21This actually makes sense here because people go, I would never get scammed. Okay, then just don't have any relationships, don't have any friends, never do any business and don't communicate with anyone. Okay, you're scam-proof kind of, I suppose, now. How's your quality of life? Do you have good relationships? Oh, wait, no, you don't have any friends. You don't have any family that you talk to. You don't have any business relationships. Okay, so you're scam-proof kind of maybe. This is another, I think I'd asked this years ago on this very show. Why are psychopaths still in society? Why haven't they sort of been bred out over the past, you know, hundreds of thousands of years?

39:52The answer is because some psychopaths serve a function, right? They're surgeons, they're CEOs, they're leaders, whatever it is. We need them. The other thing is, though, society doesn't adapt to them because they're one, a small portion of society. But two, in order to adapt to defend everyone against psychopathic behavior, we would have to shut down the level of trust in society that allows things to function. When I go to a restaurant, they don't go, well, you better pay first in cash, pal, because we don't know if you're good for it. And you're like, OK, so you're carrying around a wad of cash to have your dinner.

40:22And no, you order the food. They bring you everything. You lay the card in there and they just assume that you're not going to call the bank and say it was fraud and yada, yada. And that works. Ninety nine point nine nine percent of the time. Society would grind to a halt without trust. Right. Nothing would get done. You wouldn't answer your door or your phone or anything. So like we have to go, oh, she's in the hospital getting chemo. That's probably true because who in their right mind would lie about this? That is a normal human reaction. I know there's people going, I would never let her do this and yada.

40:53Yes, you would. Or you're kind of an asshole. And that's probably other problems if you don't believe somebody who tells you they have lupus and then shows you a photo of them in the hospital getting a blood transfusion. Right. Like it's just it would be very weird to not believe that story. Agreed. And con artists know this better than most. And that's why they engineer these situations and these photographs and these lies to text and email you and convince you of anything. Because the idea that it's all chess moves to gain trust and later abuse it, that's crazy work to even think like that. And in very, very, very, very rare cases, that is what's happening.

41:28So you've got to look out for a, I assume, a combination of these red flags. So red flag number one. Absolutely. I'm here to help. I say this in the book, you know, on their own, each of the red flags is not a warning that you're being conned or you're in the presence of a professional scammer. But as they start to compound, if you see three or four or more, you are being scammed. Right. If someone's waving four of these 14 red flags, guarantee they're going to be waving some others really soon. And this is a game I play with myself all the time now, because I say, if I met my con artist, Mayor Smith, today, knowing what I know now about how con artists operate, having written this book, Anatomy of a Con Artist, the 14 red flags to spot scammers, grifters, and thieves, would I know she's a con artist?

42:11And the answer is, absolutely. Looking back, she was waving all the flags almost immediately out of the gate. She was waving all of them very quickly. So it's obvious now, but until somebody catalogs and makes notes and points them out what they are, you don't know. You just think, oh, what a kind, sweet person with a lot of drama who has this great job and she's always showing me her phone and there's an element of scarcity and beak wedding and she's got a great day job, but she needs a wire and she's had 46 different addresses. Until someone connects the dots for you, it's like, I liken it to this.

42:43Times Square, New York City, right? Thousands of people are just rushing by you. You don't notice anyone. But if I say, look for the guy with the brown bowler hat, all of a sudden you can spot that guy hundreds of feet away coming at you. Like if I point out what to look for, it's not just a sea of humanity flowing over you. You see that effing bowler hat and you know to be on the lookout for it. So these red flags are similar. I point them out. This is what it looks like. How did she come into my life? Oh, that's right. She wanted to help me. That's how they all get in. They want to help you.

43:15Now that's too kind, too quick. And red flag number three, drama, drama, drama. Once you love a con artist, God forbid, once you like or love a con artist, once they're in your life, the drama starts. They create drama. They create emergency situations to throw you off. And then whatever thing you've told them about your life, they will invent stories around that to freak you out. You'll say, my boyfriend's stalking me. I'm worried, blah, blah. They'll say, well, I saw him at your house last night. So now you're freaking out. You're being stalked, but none of that's true. This reminds me of when I lived in Ukraine.

43:48This is like 25 years ago. There were cyber cafes then, so you could see what other people were doing on the internet. and I spent a lot of time in there because I was like, you know, bored and homesick. And I remember there was a guy sitting with like three or four just very bored women, very bored. They would chain smoke and yarn about whatever. And I finally was like, I'm going to look at what this guy's doing because what is this guy doing with these women who are bored being here? He's not playing a game. He's emailing people and he's talking in Russian. And I would look at the screen and I'd see like a British guy who's like, hello, love.

44:21I'm just looking for my soulmate And your pictures were amazing. And he's reading the email to her and translating it into Russian so she can, like, remember the details of the storyline with each of the guys because she might eventually have to do a call with him or something and recount some of this. And then he would reply like, oh, what's really sad lately is that my mother is very sick and she needs medicine. And it's like the dumbest, but the drama. Right. And then I was like, I bet the next email was this guy offering to send her 300 bucks for the medicine that her grandma needs or mom needs or whatever it is.

44:54And it was always that because I remember. So one time I followed them, which is totally not a thing you should do to scammers. But I did because I was 20 and I didn't give a shit. And I followed them and they went to essentially a Western Union office. And I was like, aha, they're getting money wired to them from the people that they're emailing. When I came home from Ukraine, my friends were at the airport and I thought, oh, they're here for me. And I said, what are you guys doing here? And they said, my uncle is meeting a woman that he's been dating from Ukraine. And I said, I'm the last person off the plane because I got detained by customs and I had to fill out a police report because I got robbed by customs in Ukraine.

45:28Typical at that time. Wow. There's no one else. And they're like, yeah, so are you sure she didn't get detained? And I was like, I mean, I can't be sure she didn't get detained, but I am definitely the last one off this flight. Like I am the last one, last one, last one who came out of that immigration office and customs because I was there for an extra 45 minutes or hour or whatever it was. And they were like, oh, and they stayed there for a while. And I called the next day. I was like, what happened? Did she ever show up? No. And then weeks later, yeah, she said she got robbed on the way to the airport and her ticket got stolen and she got beat up and she needs money for the hospital and then money for another flight ticket.

46:02And I was like, this is a scam. I told them the story. I just told you about the guys at the cyber cafe. And basically he said, I can't afford to send you any more money and she dropped him like a hot stone, right? Because he was juiced out. I said, test this woman. If he says, I can't help you with any money right away, watch her evaporate. And that's exactly what happened. He was heartbroken, obviously. Yeah. Because up until that point, he loved her. Yeah. And this is what I say again and again. Love is the most powerful force there is in the universe. People will kill for love. People will die for love.

46:32And if a con artist can get you to love them, that's what they're trying to do. You're sunk. You'll do anything because you love them. The love blinds you. It was sad looking at a guy holding a sign that says, welcome to America. And, you know, and she's just like a bullshitter who lives in Odessa, Ukraine. It was just really sad. Yeah. And again, con artists don't they don't outsmart you. They out feel you. Right. Love is a feeling. Yeah. Fear is a feeling. Sympathy is a feeling. They use your feelings. They get in there and play you like a harp. They play your feelings. So sympathy. She said her mother was sick and needed.

47:05You know, like, how could you not believe someone with this story of woe? And how could anyone not want to help? Of course you want to help. This is someone you care about. And Mare was doing this to you, too, right? Oh, my family tried to, they told me that, what was the story? They told her Tylenol was candy when she was little and she ate the whole bottle or something. Oh, yeah. So she almost died, she said, when she was a little girl in an Irish estate and her cousins would mess with her. These same cousins who had disowned her now over this inheritance money. Back when they were kids, they terrorized her and they tricked her into believing a bottle of Tylenol was candy.

47:34and she ate the whole bottle and she said she died for minutes and they brought her back to life and she said she remembers talking to an angel and saying that her father is praying really hard for her. Really, they snow you with details, right? And this is a red flag further down in the list, but equally as important, a professional con artist will snow you with stories from faraway places. Why faraway places? Why Ireland? Why Australia? Why 20 years ago in Paris? Because stories from faraway places, they're hard to confirm. and human nature being what it is and these people being experts at engineering human nature.

48:09If we can't prove something's false, we just accept that it's true. Help keep me off the streets and out of your bank accounts by supporting the amazing sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Drip Drop. Staying hydrated is one of those things that sounds basic, but it really does affect everything, your energy, your focus, how you feel during the day, all of it. My wife, Jen, jokes that I've got a walnut-sized bladder, which, fair enough, I'm constantly getting up to pee, but staying hydrated matters. The problem is I can't just pound plain old water all day long.

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50:12I also appreciate that it's built for small businesses, not giant corporations with giant budgets. It's flexible, straightforward. You don't pay a cent until you run your first payroll. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash Jordan and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash Jordan. One more time, gusto.com slash Jordan. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do whatever smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment, support our amazing sponsors. They really do make this show possible. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable over on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

50:49Got a little search thing going there, featured sponsors. We try to make it easy as possible. But hey, if you can't find a code, email us, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. We are happy to surface codes for you. It really is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Jonathan Walton. What I noticed con artists are really good at doing, and I would love if you could come up with an example of this because I don't think I can. They're really good at telling you something where you know the basic facts of that premise, whatever, are true. And then your mind kind of fills in the blanks in a way the con artist wants you to fill in those blanks.

51:25And you think that part is true, too. Oh, I have examples. Absolutely. So and this is a very common, powerful tool con artists use, right? Every con has a kernel of truth to it. My con artist said she was from Ireland. That was a lie. But she did live in Northern Ireland for nine years. You know, she'd moved there in her early 20s for nine years, married a local and scammed up a storm and disappeared under the cover of night. So the kernel of truth was she'd lived there. So she knew the culture. She knew the words. She knew how to build a fake story on that tiny kernel of truth. And in my experience investigating all these other victims, my con artist scammed, she did stuff like that again and again where there's a little crossover.

52:10When she met me, I must have confessed early on that I didn't know much about Ireland. And she lit up. Ah, I got a live one. He knows Ireland is a country and that's it. So she could use my familiarity or my vague familiarity of Ireland and start piling on all these other details that I just accepted as anyone would. She had a framed Irish constitution hanging on her wall, big parchment paper. It looked legit, like in a museum. And she'd point to the bottom and say, that's my great, great grandfather, the signatory, the founder of Ireland. And I'm like, oh my God, you're like, the founder of Ireland, the lineage is right here standing in front of me in Los Angeles.

52:53How crazy. And she told that story with variations to a lot of other people. Sometimes it was her great, great uncle to other. But based on my limited knowledge of Ireland, I just accepted all this other crazy shit She would tell me, like, when she was a little girl, her gran, my gran, she'd say in a weird lilt, gran would take her to the top of bridges and teach her how to hurl Molotov cocktails down on British soldiers. Yeah, right. Very dramatic, very detailed stories from faraway places. But they all rang true to me because I knew the ground floor fact. She was from Ireland. Okay. So then I just accepted and believed everything else she said with an Irish base.

53:33But none of it was real. The only real thing about her whole Irish story was she married an Irish guy and lived there for nine years and scammed a bunch of people. Another thing they do that I think is interesting is that it's almost counterintuitive. They mingle the victims like you would think that a con artist wants to keep victims separate from one another, not the other way around. But they introduce people to one another. And I think, one, they probably get a thrill out of that, like, oh, all these people are just one second away from being able to compare notes. but they're not going to do it because I'm controlling the whole play.

54:05But it works in their favor because then you're like, oh, we met the lawyer that's helping us with the pool thing. And he's like, oh, I met the TV producer who's helping her with her TV show. But it's like, you're not doing that and he's not doing that. But you never say that because why would you do that in front of her? Like, it's just a whole thing. It's a whole very odd thing. I think they again, I'm curious what you think about that, why they do that. I got chills hearing you talk. I got to say, man, I've done hundreds of interviews plugging the hell out of this book, but you are hands down the only one who truly understands what I'm talking about.

54:38Really? Yes. Yes. You're absolutely right. Mine did that. They all do that because for the two reasons you mentioned, my con artist would have these cocktail parties and invite multiple victims she's scamming with different stories. Yeah. Looking back, I realize at any moment, one of us could have said, hey, did she tell you about this 25 million inheritance with the Irish family? Hey, did she tell? But we never did because we only ever made polite conversation. We just met and we're mingling and we're drinking. We're not going to compare notes, but she was at the ready. This is what thrills them.

55:14They're not regular people. Could she diffuse the situation quick enough if someone said something? How would she misdirect or redirect or cover that story to explain it? So it's twofold. They do it to, oh, and I didn't know she was doing this. So at the time I met her, I was producing season four of the hit show Shark Tank for ABC. I was a producer on that show. That's true. So when she would introduce me and bring up Shark Tank, I just thought, oh, I'm just talking about what I do. People find it interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. It's a great show. I loved working on it. It was a blast. but really she was trying to scam people by telling them she can get them on shark tank.

55:53And now she's introducing them to Jonathan Walton, one of the producers. So I was confirming her con, right? You know, I was giving her con evidence that it wasn't a con, but it was a con. Right. And no one's going to go, Oh good. Can you get me on shark tank? Cause it's like, Oh, you're blowing it too early. You got to play it cool. So they're not going to say anything. Then you're going to be on. Right. So it's just a little bit of a, all right, they're going to say that they would never say that. And if the person said, Oh, you're going to get me on shark tank. Mare said that she's going to go, I did not.

56:19And also, you're blowing it. And they're going to be like, oh, sorry. And you're just going to laugh it off because. Yeah, I would. I would laugh it off because, yeah, everyone and their mother wants to be in Shark Tank. It's funny. Shark Tank was crucial in my life in getting that cop to take the police report, because when I went to him, he turned me away. He said, it's not a crime. I start walking out of the door. I put my hands on the glass door to leave and something screams in my head. No, this cannot be right. I turn back around. I have a satchel with all my evidence that I printed out.

56:48I got emails and phone records and text messages and bank records and credit card statements. And I start telling him, how is this not a crime? You say I gave her the money, so it's not a crime. But every victim gives the perp the money. Like even a stick up at a 7-Eleven with a gun, you give them money. This is a crime. And all of a sudden, this cop was impressed by my force and my organization and all the evidence. I piled in front of him and he said, what do you do for a living? And I said, I'm a TV producer. and he's like, are there any shows you worked on that I would have heard of? And I'm like, Shark Tank?

57:19And his eyes light up, right? He's like, I've been trying to pitch something to the sharks for years. And I'm like, listen, I'll help you if you help me. And he agreed. But Shark Tank, to my defense multiple times, but yeah, it was a thing she was using. I found this out literally years later. She was using to try to scam people by claiming she could get them in Shark Tank and then introducing me as Shark Tank producer to people. It sounds like the antidote to this, if there is one, is check everything, even if you think it'll make you look rude or paranoid. And you mentioned this in the book.

57:54You say it's especially important to call people they tell you to stay away from. And this is the red flag of isolation. And it's the biggest red flag there is, right? If someone tells you don't talk to so-and-so, be suspicious. and if someone starts turning you against so-and-so, be suspicious. It is so remarkably easy to do to turn people against each other and this makes con artists happy and it's just tragic and sad. One of the cases I've investigated for a couple years is the case of Carol Porter and the con artist, her name is Bina Fink in South Florida. Carol's husband died. She was a widow, kind of a kept woman her whole life.

58:31Her husband did everything for her and Bina, classic con artist style, enters her life offering to help, becomes her best friend. Her husband left her a million dollars, right? And she starts whispering in Carol's ear, listen, this guy, this family member, this sister, this brother, these people who've loved you your whole life, they're trying to take your money. So Carol cut off communication with everyone because she thought everyone was coming out to get her money when really that was the con artist isolating Carol from everyone who would have talked her out of going along with a con. My con artist did that to me.

59:04I had a neighbor in my building who also got scammed. And early on, my con artist told me, and I foolishly believed, but how I didn't know any better. No one knows any better until you do. She told me this neighbor was on the run from authorities in Canada, wanted for murder. Very specific. These lies that con artists tell are very detailed and very specific. The neighbor's name was Sherry. I started avoiding Sherry like the plague. I would see Sherry in the parking garage. I'd run the other way. I'd dodge. And I don't want to have any interaction with her. Come to find out she was scamming Sherry too.

59:36And she told Sherry fake stories about me that I was mentally deranged and violent. And I beat people up and I've destroyed her apartment, the mayor's apartment. I broke things. And so Sherry, unbeknownst to me, she sees me in the parking lot and she's running the other way. And then we're never talking. So Mayor is scamming both of us with different stories and we were none the wiser. And even after, God, it took so long for me to convince Sherry that I'm the good guy. She blocked me on social media. She blocked my number. I had to create a Google account and email her and call her. I had to have other victims send her court records and criminal records of Mare.

1:00:11Finally, she came around, but it took a while. That's how powerful this isolation technique is. It's easy to get people not to talk to each other. Yeah, that's crazy. Mare has some pretty impressive whoppers that she's told and got away with it. So she embezzled money from somebody. She ended up going to jail. And what did she say? Like, oh, I'm going to go through a period of deep mourning and my phone's going to be off and I'll be in Ireland for the month or like a monastery. I mean, it was so ridiculous, but it's like, okay, sure. Yeah. It was the guy she was scamming, Bob. He was an engineer in Newport Beach.

1:00:42He was going to add her name to the titles of his two homes because she was going to buy him this$13 million mansion with her 25 million inheritance. And he had got a realtor. She got a home inspection. She put an offer in on the home. That's how far she got. And she disappears for 30 days. And she tells Bob that, yeah, her uncle, who's in the Catholic church in Rome, died, and the Pope's going to do a funeral, and she's going to take a vow of silence. So she's turning her phone off. She's not reachable by phone or email. She's just silent in the Vatican in Rome. And I mean, he bought it. Yeah.

1:01:16Because by then he thought, she's Irish royalty. She's got billions in Ireland, and now her uncle is high placed in the Vatican. And the details are stunning, but it was all BS. Some of this is just extra levels of gymnastics. So she uses voice changers. There's fake emails and fake texts that she'll show people. It's just a ton of work, man. It is. Imagine you're like, oh, I'm getting a call from somebody. And then on the other end is like a recording of you with voice changer. I mean, it's just, I just can't. It's exhausting even thinking about lying this much. I can't relate. I know, but they get off on it.

1:01:51And that's a major red flag we all need to be suspicious and on the lookout for. Red flag number six, technology. Con artists use digital screens to sell you their story. So Mare was always showing me, hey, look what my barristers, I didn't even know what a barrister was. I had to Google it. It's what they call lawyers over there. It's like a lawyer that goes to court instead of just doing transactional work. Right. Look what my barrister texted me. Look what my barrister emailed me. Look what my cousin Fintan and Tristan and Dermott. Look what they text. Look what they're emailing. So she's building up these characters and I believe they are real, but they're not.

1:02:25She creates Google accounts and their names, texts herself as these people and shows people look, look, look. One of the cases that broke my heart that I investigated right about in the book, dealing with technology. Listen to this, Shiite. So this woman, an airline executive, super smart, wealthy woman meets this guy on Bumble. He's an oil and gas man. and he's always on the go, building an oil rig here, repairing an oil thing here in Russia, in the Indian Ocean. He's like an international man. And she's video chatting with him a few times and she's fallen in love with him. It's been four months.

1:02:58They're going to meet every time, but then he has an emergency. He meets with Obama. He sends pictures of him and Obama. Come to find out, the con man found a guy who looked a little like him and stole pictures and used those pictures. And it was a guy who met Obama, but well, now you can do it with AI, but this was like 10 years ago. So finally he calls her, talk about technology. He says, listen, I'm on an oil rig in the Indian ocean. I need to log into my bank to pay this thing. It's like a$5 million drill bit I need, but the internet is so bad here. Can you log into my bank account and make this payment for me?

1:03:38She's like, of course, but what is that? Have you ever given anyone your bank login credentials? Right. Like, oh, I really trust you. I'm giving you this. Exactly. So unbeknownst to this victim, and this is how sophisticated the con can be, he had created a fake bank website that she logged into and she saw he had like a hundred million dollars in the bank and she made the payment of five million, whatever, and she did it. So that did two things for the con. Number one, it made her think, wow, this man loves me. who's giving me their bank login details this man must really trust me and number two he's loaded i saw you at 100 but all that was fake technology is easy to fake you can create a fake bank account you can create a fake bank statement in a photoshop or whatever so if someone's always using a digital screen to sell you their story be suspicious this reminds me of i have a friend of a friend of a friend that's as close as i'm going to say and he he's single he's kind of a player I don't always approve of his methods.

1:04:39This is one of those methods. It's just, but it is kind of comical. So I'll have someone over and he'll say, oh, I didn't think you were coming over until eight. And she's like, oh, you said 730. And he's like, my bad. Let me just finish this and I'll go take a shower. And he'll leave his like laptop open on the kitchen island. And he's got like a fake crypto account that has like$480 million in Bitcoin in it. And he's like, I'm just gonna jump in the shower. I'm so sorry. And he'll jump in the shower. He knows, like, eventually she's going to walk by the thing while she's getting a drink, even if she's not snooping.

1:05:10And she's going to be like, holy shit. Right. And then he'll just close it casually when he gets back out and just like and he'll go, you know what? You can tell who's seen it because the ones who haven't seen it, their attitude doesn't change at all. Everything's fine because he's picking up girls in like clubs in L.A. or something. Right. So these are, you know, it's casual. And then he's like the ones that have, they're just so nice after that. Like, you guys deserve each other. but it was just kind of a funny method, right? It makes sense. Oh, look how much I trust you. I'm going to give you this bank login.

1:05:40And then when he asks her to do something with her own money, it's like, well, look, this must be legit. He'd let me log into his bank and wire$5 million. Why would he then, you know, not use his own money? Oh, the bank is down or this, then, you know, this, that, and the other thing. Now I got to use my own money. Drama, drama, drama. Drama, drama, drama. Yeah, it's crazy. This is just crazy. Con artists put a lot of time into wanting to seem better than you. You note this in the book. So they are either involved in philanthropy. They're filthy, stinking rich. They're religious and pious like Mare was with her whole Vatican vow of silence thing.

1:06:13They are involved in all kinds of weird charity stuff that's obviously not real later on. Probably. It's so calculated that it makes you think, holy crap, how can anybody really be scam proof? It's very difficult. I would agree. And, you know, as much as I know about scams and the red flags, I still I lose sleep at night worrying when will the next con artist emerge in my life and how soon can I spot them? Because I don't think I'm immune. They're everywhere. If they find a good lure, something I want, the minute anyone makes me an offer or an opportunity, I'm suspicious and I can't not be. But, yeah, I'm better than you, red flag.

1:06:50Your listeners probably already know. But in case some of them don't, con artists is short for confidence artists. because they're brilliant at engineering your confidence. They need your confidence. They need you to think highly of them. And they go about that in two ways. They'll brag about themselves, and it's so obvious now, but at the time you don't know. I'm the best at this. I'm the best at that. I got voted the best at this. My con artist told me that she works for this luxury travel agency. She sells the most Pacific Islands vacations in the world. And the prime minister of French Polynesia flies her out first class every month to inspect all the hotels.

1:07:26And it made me think, wow, I'm lucky to know her. They want you to feel privileged to know them. So they'll be the best at this, the best at that. They'll paint a picture. They donate to charity. They do. They're such great people. How fortunate you are to have them in your life. Right. Yeah. That's the feeling they will weaponize later. But that's the feeling they need to implant, to incept into your brain. They want you to think highly of them. That makes sense. Crypto scams do this. A lot of crypto scams do this, right? They'll ask you for an investment. You'll sort of hesitantly put in a couple hundred bucks.

1:07:57They'll show you, look, your investment tripled overnight. Isn't that crazy? And you're like, shoot, I should have put in more money. And then if you try and withdraw, then they will often let you do it. Like you can take your 200 bucks out now, but you should put it back in and let it roll. And you're like, you know what? I'll put a couple grand in there and see what happens. And then it rolls over and it triples and it quadruples and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when you're like, I want to take out my$300 ,000, then suddenly the system is down or you need to pay a transaction fee using a different currency and yada, yada, yada.

1:08:27But you're like, but wait, I got my money out before. So this part is not a scam. And then it's like, well, wait a minute. Actually, it is. Yeah. Listen, beak wetting. They let you wet your beak. It's very powerful. And my entire family, who did not want me writing about them, and I don't name anyone specifically, but in the book, I write about this crazy case. my entire family, cousins, uncles, et cetera, lost millions of dollars in this Ponzi con. This guy had created a banking investment type website for his con. He was a foreign exchange trader by the name of David Smith. And he did it off the island of Jamaica and Florida and other Caribbean islands too.

1:09:04He got hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. And his trick, he was waving so many flags, technology by creating this fake site, right? So people could log in and look at their investment growing. His return on investment was 120 % a year. First big red flag. Yeah. But the greed, right? Greed is a powerful feeling and con artists don't outsmart you, they outfeel you. So the greed took over. So my family got swept up in it, probably 11 members of my family in all, and they would withdraw money and he would let them take out money every month. They're making 10 % a month. They would take out money, but a lot of them would double down.

1:09:44All right, put it back in. Let it roll. Let it roll. Put it back in. And then another classic technique he used, red flag number seven, scarcity. If you think something's going away, you're going to want it more than ever. So all of a sudden he shuts down. He says, no more new members. It's an investment club. I'm not letting any new members in. So what happened? His investments went up because suddenly the friend of a friend, hey, you're in, can you invest this million dollars for me? Hey, can you aunts, uncles, Hey, you're in. Can you? So suddenly he doubles and triples the money coming in by telling people no more.

1:10:18When you tell someone no, they want it more. So he ended up scamming hundreds of millions of dollars from a couple thousand people. And 11 of those people were my family members. And if you can see some of your money, it's real. This is legit. But it's not. It's a trick. I know now you run a criminal background check on anyone that comes into your life in a significant way. Even insignificant. Really? I'm a freak, man. But here's the thing. It's like Reagan said, trust but verify. I'm friendly. I'm not rude. I'm pretending to trust everyone, but I don't trust anyone. I verify. I look for not just criminal records, but has this person been sued?

1:10:56I look at all the addresses they've lived at, and that's another red flag. Most people will live a total of 11 places in our lives, right? That's a regular person. By the time I met my con artist, she had 46 different addresses. I was going to say, oh, I might have like 15 because when I was younger, I traveled a lot and I worked abroad. But not 46. No, no, sir. And that is obvious because when the gig's up, they got to move on and scam some other people who don't know them. So they're constantly moving around. But yeah, when you meet a con artist for the first time, if you don't know what the flags are, the beak wedding, the scarcity, the technology, the I'm better than you, the good day job.

1:11:34And it's not a red flag on its own because obviously we all work. but professional con artists, even though their main occupation is conning, that's not what it appears, right? They have jobs. They work for AT &T. Mine worked for a Pacific Islands travel agency, a luxury travel agency in Los Angeles. The case I write about, the con artist worked at the mayor's office. Jeez. So you would never suspect she's a con artist because she's got a good job. And that's the thing. The job is just the cover. They're just doing the job for the cover. The real occupation is scamming everyone and no one knows.

1:12:06That's interesting that the real moneymaker is the scam. Yes. So they can afford to be like overly generous with the pay they get from work and they can sort of spend extra time because it's like, whatever, they're compensated elsewhere. How do you run the background? What services are you using to run background checks on people? And also, I'm curious what the level of involvement in your life has to be that triggers this, right? Like you go to the gym with someone, you're not running a background check on them. You have, you have. Oh, I am. You are? Wow. I am. Yeah. But everyone I meet, and I meet a lot of people, I'm friendly, but I check them out.

1:12:38Where have they lived? Where are they coming from? Because I'm looking for two things. Obviously, a criminal record, if that exists, or I'm looking for inconsistencies. Well, they told me they're from Kentucky, but I don't see any Kentucky addresses coming up. So that's weird. I look back at my con artist. She introduced herself as Mayor Smith. Not a real name. So the me now would have immediately run Mayor Smith and come up with nothing and thought, huh, that's a fake name. Why is she using a fake name? I would have snapped a picture of her license plate. I would have run her plate and got her legal name, Marianne Elizabeth Smith.

1:13:11I would have run that name and I would have seen charges for felony, for fraud, for grand theft, for passing bad checks in multiple states. And I would have never talked to her again. I use a couple different sites. One's been verified. One's in Tellius. They're also great at bringing up an address history. A lot of courts, you can search for civil records for free or for a dollar or two a search. Just go to the counties they lived in and see if they've ever been sued. Because if you're meeting a con artist as an adult, chances are they've been busted a few times already and they just get better, but they leave a trail.

1:13:43If you know their real name and where they lived, you can find that trail. And I do. And just like that, trust issues and installed, updated, and running in the background forever. You're welcome. We'll be right back.

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1:15:52Post your first job and get$100 off toward your job post at LinkedIn.com slash Harbinger. That's LinkedIn.com slash Harbinger. Terms and conditions apply. And now for the rest of my conversation with Jonathan Walton. If it's a good con artist, I was just thinking this. Passing bad checks, what an amateur bullshit thing to do, right? A bad check. Oh, this is when she was sort of cutting her teeth on. how to do something that makes real money, like get people to literally just give you$100 ,000 over a period of time and not question it versus like passing a$300 check for some crap and getting arrested for that.

1:16:26Like that's amateur hour. That's white belt shit. It is, but yeah, just like dude, no one understands us better than you, man. You're exactly right. She was a teenager getting busted. And each time she got busted, she got better. The con she was running in high school, she would date college guys. I heard this from a guy she dated. and she would pretend to be pregnant and then she would shake them all down for abortion money and they would pay her quickly. That makes perfect sense. I was actually thinking she was going to say, hey, I'm a minor and I'm going to tell somebody we had slept together and you're going to get charges unless you give me a thousand dollars, I'll go away.

1:16:58But that would be too evil, right? That would just make her look like an evil bitch as opposed to help me. I don't want to have this baby. It's going to ruin my life. Yeah, right. Now it's even better. One thing that you noted in the book that I thought was quite interesting is you said con artists are the easiest to fool because they're narcissists and they always think they're the smartest person in the room. That was a little counterintuitive, right? Because these are people who have this clever scam. They're manipulating everybody. And it's like, oh, no, actually, you're also a sucker. It's just that we're not jerks.

1:17:26That's kind of all it is. Yeah. And, you know, the older I get, I'm 50 now, I realize again and again and again, and I keep these moments keep happening where this is obvious to me. Life is a series of paradoxes, right? And this is a paradox. How crazy that a woman conning all these people would be the same woman that is so trusting. She was so trusting and they all are. And it has to do with the same reason. If you're a victim or you're someone who thinks I can never get scammed, you will get scammed because your guards are down. You think it can happen. So you're not really worried about it.

1:18:00It's only if you're worried about it, can you prevent it? So with con artists, they think they're the lions. We're all lambs. We're nothing. We would never dare to scam them. We would never dare to double cross them. So they're trusting. My con artist, foolishly, and it led to her demise, two years into our friendship, she's like my sister. I love you. I love you on the phone when we hang up. We loved each other. I thought she loved me, but it was all a scam. She calls me frantically one day. I was producing 10 Things you don't know for the History Channel with Henry Rollins. And I'm at my desk and I get a call.

1:18:35She's like, she's stuck in traffic on the 405 in LA. She can't get into her email from her phone. She thinks she was hacked. She asks me, can you log into my email account to see if I'm hacked? She gives me her password. She trusts me with her password. And she was right to, I'm not going to do anything. I logged in. She was fine. I said, just restart your phone. That'll probably fix it. And it did. And I forgot that whole thing ever happened because it was in the middle of my work day. I'm busy. I forgot it. And then after two years later, I realized she scammed me and I still don't remember.

1:19:08And then one morning, a couple of weeks after I went to police, I'm sitting watching CBS Sunday morning on my sofa, sipping coffee. And I remember, I'm like, oh my God, she gave me her password. I know her password. I know her password. I run over, you know, Mission Impossible music's in my head. I run to my computer. I bring up her email. I'm like, is it the same password? My hands are shaking. I type it in. Yes. Oh my gosh. And I'm in there. I'm in there. And immediately I change it. Smart. I start snooping around. I find all these other emails, all these characters she created. They're all linked to that account.

1:19:40And for all those fake accounts for her cousins, Tristan and Dermott and Patriot Clark and her barristers, it's the same password for all the accounts. Oh yeah, of course. So I lock her out of all the accounts and I wasn't the only victim she gave her password to. Another victim she scammed was helping her set up her fire stick on her TV and gave her a password for the fire stick. And I'm like, this is a thing. Con artists never suspect you'll use anything against them. They're the scammers. You're the sheep. She was wrong in this case. It must have felt so good to go in there and you're like, you can see like, hey, you have three failed login attempts.

1:20:18And you're like, I bet I do. Exporting all the email, having it copied to a Google Drive for the police. Did you go in and start emailing people that looked like victims and tell them that they were being scammed or send them court records or information? Or did you want to fly low a little bit when you got in there? I flew high. So I started cataloging everything, thinking police would care. Who knew they wouldn't? It was a game changer. I did find a lot of victims and tried to convince them to go to police, and all of them refused. I found out she was a sugar baby. She had sugar daddies. So she belonged to the site, sugardaddyforme.com.

1:20:53Okay. She had a profile and she had a dozen married men paying her for sex. Wow. For listeners who don't know how sugar babies, sugar daddies work, it's sex work, right? You meet a wealthy guy. They want to buy you gifts and give you money with the understanding that you meet once a week or once a month and have sex. And that's the arrangement. So she had this arrangement. She only chose married guys because every time these guys would try to end the deal, she would threaten to go to their wives. And they would pay her thousands of dollars to go away. Like this was another revenue stream for her.

1:21:21She was a sugar baby. Wow. So I contacted all of these guys and told them my predicament and said, she scammed you too. Will you go to police? I'll come with you. I'll help you file a report. No. No, none of them. None of them went to police. But the best email I found was from a friend of hers who was warning her. So this is how I found out she was on the run from police in Northern Ireland. A friend had tipped her off. Hey, your ex-husband in Ireland posted this on Facebook. Be careful. and it was a screen grab of the post. If you know the whereabouts of Marianne Smith, she's done horrible things.

1:21:58Call the police this number. So I call that number and I left a message and I got a phone call from a detective in Northern Ireland who told me we've been looking for her for 10 years. She scammed dozens of people at hundreds of thousands of pounds. And now that we know where she is, thanks to you, she's in Los Angeles, we're going to start extradition proceedings. Oh my gosh, wow. This is back in 2017. and I thought it was never going to happen. And as the years go by, and as I get her convicted in my case and she goes to jail and gets out early because of COVID, she disappears. I'm constantly hearing from other victims and I'm sending him the victims and sending him the, she's still up, she's still scamming.

1:22:34When is this extradition going to happen? And he kept telling me, I'm working on it, I'm working on it, I'm working on it. Finally, she got extradited last year and she was just put on trial last month. And I was there. Wow. I was there. I flew to Northern Ireland because I could not miss this with a whirl. Of course. As soon as I entered that courtroom, one of the victims recognized me because, you know, there's been a lot of press about me and this. And one of the victims is like, that's the man. That's the reason we're here. And they kind of surrounded me and thanked me and hugged me and cried.

1:23:04And I sat with them and watched the trial unfold. And a jury deliberated for 17 minutes and she was convicted in all counts. And she got sentenced to four years in a Northern Ireland jail. Maybe trials are different in the United States, but 17 minutes is kind of like by the time you sit in the chair, stretch, crack your knuckles and you go, so she's guilty as shit. Right. And everyone goes, yeah. And they're like, all right, let's sit in here for another 12 minutes. So it doesn't look like we had it. Had nothing to say. Yeah. And then they're writing the verdict down in the sheet or whatever.

1:23:32It's like if you're deliberate for 17 minutes, either it's so flimsy that you have to let them go and acquit or it's guilty without any caveats whatsoever. I know. And in my trial, in the trial in LA, they deliberated three hours and found her guilty. Even that's not that long for a lot of this stuff. True. I mean, because, you know, here's the thing. Once you catch a con artist, it's over. No one in the trial in LA for me and in the Northern Island trial last month, she couldn't find a single solitary person to testify on her behalf. Not a family member, not a coworker, not a friend. No one would sit on that stand and say good things about them.

1:24:11that omission is huge. And I think if you're a juror thinking, so no one, not her daughter, no one would say good things about her. So she must be a POS. She must be. Did you not get her own daughter to testify against her as well? I did. I did. That was one of my reach outs. I convinced the daughter and the daughter was on the fence the whole time. But in the last minute at the 11th hour, she agreed. She got in a plane. She flew to LA. She testified. And you know, this is a lawyer. what I hate about the criminal justice system, no prior bad acts, right? So in my case that went to trial in Los Angeles, jurors were only allowed to hear evidence for what she did to me, not what she did to all these other people.

1:24:52Right. The hundreds of other victims in her life. Yeah. The daughter was only brought in to testify to prove that she's not Irish. There is no inheritance. That's it. The daughter was not allowed to testify what a POS her mother is, but she got in some jabs. And this is how I advise people to testify, because this is what worked for me when I was on the stand. As a testifying witness, you're only allowed to answer the questions that are asked. But I would just make my answers so long and weave in everything, and I'd get an objection. But by the time you get an objection by the defense and the judge sustains it, the jury heard it.

1:25:24Yeah, cat's out of the bag. Right. Pretend you didn't hear that. Okay. And it's so funny, full circle moment. During the trial in LA, I would work into my answers. And she's wanted, the police wanted her in Northern Ireland for crimes over there. Objection. All right, stricken. Jury, you didn't hear that. But they did hear that. And her lawyer tried to make me look like I'm crazy, like I'm making up this whole Northern Ireland thing. Cut to, she was extradited last year and convicted last month, and she's got a four-year sentence. So I didn't make anything up. It's also a kind of a dangerous road because if he says you're lying about that, it's like, well, now I get to prove that I'm not.

1:25:57So you might want to tone it down a little bit and just have your little bitty objection, which is too late anyway, pal. Sorry. Exactly. I've only been on the stand a couple of times, but I love doing that. It's like you say, well, I met. How did you meet this person? Well, I actually met him because he had she had scammed this other. Oh, sorry. Allegedly done something with that other person. I don't know how to handle this, your honor. Just keep talking. And then the council's like, objection. And you're like, I didn't actually say the thing, but everybody knows I'm dancing around it because I'm not allowed to.

1:26:26And so it's like, this person is screwed up so much that it's like, why are there so many holes? Well, we're not allowed to talk about prior bad acts. So I kind of had to strike nine out of the 10 pages of things I was going to say. And they're like, okay, that's not good. Like the jury's mind is now filling in the blanks of like, what are they leaving out? because it's obviously a lot and it's probably all really bad because this person already seems like a piece of shit. You know, it's tough. I would love to in that little bit of time that we have left, just con artists, they try to make the scams as complex as possible.

1:26:58It's harder to explain to the police. It's harder to explain to a jury. It's easier to frame things as some kind of weird mistake or something like that. They try and get written contracts because then they could say it's a civil matter. I had a contract to steal all his money through deception. How do we follow up with the police, right? If we're not a Shark Tank producer and they kind of don't really give a crap about our case, what do we do? So before you even go to police, you need to write a detailed timeline up. Use a Word document on a computer. When did you meet this person? What did they tell you?

1:27:28When did the money change hands? Write up the story and make it make sense and make it compelling. Share it with your friends and family and neighbors. Get input. Does this make sense? Read this over for me. Do you understand? And they'll give you input. Get it to a one-page narrative of on this day, this happened and this and this, and she stole this money. Then you need to zero in on the crime. Taking money based on a lie is a crime. If it's over $900 ,000, depending on the state, it's grand theft or grand larceny, punishable by years in prison. Regardless of what a cop will say, it's not a crime.

1:27:58It is a crime. So focus in on the lie that was told and the money that was given based on believing that lie. That's the crime. And then get witness statements. Did anyone witness this? Have them write a statement, get it notarized, get everything notarized. That's impressive. Have notary seals, right? And then have your evidence, have bank records, phone records, texts, print everything out, put it in files, organize, and then rehearse. It's going to be a 10 or 15 minute presentation. Pretend you're doing a college speech class. You're presenting, present it to your family, your father, your brother, make sure everyone can see you perform this.

1:28:31And then when you're ready, go to the police station 5am on a Sunday and present it to the cop. I guarantee you, they will be impressed. You're not just going, I got scammed and you're crying. They don't want tears. They want facts. They want an easy case. Give them an easy case. Do the work for them. That's the trick. And then the other thing most people don't understand, if there are documents involved, save them. If they made you sign a contract that they showed you, save that until it gets assigned to an investigator. Because documents turn police off. Immediately they think business deal gone wrong.

1:29:05And they say, it's a civil matter. it's not a crime. So hold those back. Don't share everything. Only share the compelling things and the obvious evidence that a crime has happened. They took money based on a lie. Oh, and then, even after you get the police report, call them every day. Call them at 6 a.m. Call them at 7 p.m. Call them at noon. Call them every day at a different time. Because every time you call about your case, it gets taken from the bottom of the pile and put at the top of the pile, and there is some discussion. Hey, Jonathan Walton's calling again. Where are we on this Marianne Smith case?

1:29:35And they talk about it. Call every day. And I did. And I got my case assigned in three weeks because I called every day. I became such a pain in their ass. They wanted to get rid of me. And the only way to do that would be to just move it on to the next level. Give it to an investigator. I don't want to hear from Jonathan Walton ever again. Right. Yeah. Now it's an investigator's problem getting called every day. And I feel bad. Sorry, cops. We're creating annoyance for you. But, you know, if that's what it takes to get you to handle this problem, then here we are. Man, I think it's just fascinating.

1:30:04Did you mention doing a background check on the con artist when you report to the police as well? Do we hand them the, hey, she has 46 addresses. Is that normal to you, officer? Absolutely. Do a background check, find out locations they've lived at, and do a civil record check to see if they've been sued. Because a lot of times those civil suits point to crimes. And a lot of times those victims who are suing are only too happy to help you with your case because they want that person going down. You can say, hey, can you write a statement for the police to testify? Or even just show the cop, I found this.

1:30:33She did this to this person, this to this person, this to this person. Show a pattern. I like this. And everybody should freeze their credit. Oh, yeah. Because you don't want people opening accounts in your name. That's just a miscellaneous tip. But I feel like everybody should do that. And it's free to do that. You don't have to pay anybody for that. And it works great. I was leasing a car the other day and I forgot to unfreeze. So I froze my credit with the three bureaus. I forgot to unfreeze it and I couldn't get the car. It came up as they said, you don't have any credit. We're not sharing a credit history.

1:31:01I'm like, oh, crap. Wait, hang on. And I took my phone and I logged into the three bureaus, unfreeze, unfreeze, unfreeze, got the car, freeze, freeze, freeze. So yeah, everyone listening, it's only a matter of time before someone takes out a loan or a credit card in your name because our information is already out there. Those data breaches from Bank of America or the Social Security Administration or AT &T, your name, your social, it's already out there. And scammers are buying and selling it in groups. And it's only a matter of time. The reason it hasn't happened yet is because there are like close to 400 million people in America.

1:31:32Thank God they're not 400 million scammers. So there are a few thousand scammers working feverishly to get credit in your name. So freeze your credit. Jonathan Walton, thank you so much. Hell of a story. It's so satisfying that she got extradited and is now sitting in a Northern Irish prison. That's great. Love it. And she's scamming over there. I heard from the mother of an inmate. She's telling people her name is Maxine and she's in jail because she wronged the IRA or something. So she's still scamming. What is it? Tigers can't change their stripes or leopards won't change their spots. It's one of those things.

1:32:02Exactly. Exactly. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, this is a lot of fun. What if the person charming your lonely aunt isn't after love, but her home, her will, and her life savings? In this preview, Javier Leyva reveals how modern romance scams have evolved into full-blown identity takeovers hiding in plain sight. A lot of con artists, they are very generous at first. They're the types of people that are going to pick up the tab when you go to dinner. They're buying you stuff. They're very generous. And they're doing that. It's almost like they're fattening you up for when they need that favor.

1:32:36When they need that favor, when they need that loan, you wouldn't question it because this guy is so generous. Why wouldn't I trust him with money? From a distance, we're thinking about these romance scams like, how could anybody fall for these things, right? But the closer you look into it and put yourself in the shoes of the victim, you realize that when you're in the center of the cyclone, it all makes a lot more sense. Another thing is when somebody smothers you and just consumes all of your time, that's a warning sign too, because what they're doing is that they're cutting you off from your surroundings.

1:33:11They create the urgency so that you could make stupid decisions and you kind of bypass your reasoning. Don't forget your friends and don't forget your family. Their opinion counts and you should take it. Honestly, when you start seeing all these signs, you recognize that maybe this is a situation where you've got to create personal space. You have to create boundaries. Most victims of any con artist, they feel so ashamed that they don't want to tell their story because they've been violated their trust, and they're no longer trusting people. To hear how predators turn affection into control, listen to episode 1195 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

1:33:53Thanks so much to Jonathan for joining us today and walking us through the wild, twisted, borderline cinematic world of real con artistry. Not over-the-top movie stuff, but the everyday manipulation, the I-just-want-to-help, the too-kind, too-fast charm offensive, the fake texts, the isolation, the pity stories, the urgency, the oversharing. All of it designed to hijack emotions before logic has ever had a chance to show up to the table. We covered how con artists build elaborate narratives, how they recruit victims to vouch for each other, how police departments often don't have the bandwidth to help unless you force the issue, and why you should always, always check everything, even if it makes you look a little bit paranoid.

1:34:30Remember, don't be ashamed. Shame is the con artist's greatest weapon. Sunlight is your revenge. All things Jonathan Walton will be on the website in the show notes. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter is a lot of fun. I really love writing this. I love seeing your responses to it. It's something practical, something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships, in under two minutes every Wednesday. If you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out.

1:35:01I'd love to hear what you think. It's a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. And don't forget about 6-Minute Networking over at 6MinuteNetworking.com. You can use it for networking or, at the very least, know what's in there so that you can spot some of the social engineering stuff for yourself if it's being used against you in a way that is unfair or unethical. Again, 6minutenetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. And this show, it's created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

1:35:35Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's been scammed, might be getting scammed, or is definitely getting scammed, share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. If you like this show, there's another podcast you should check out. If you want to stay informed about what's happening around the world without drowning in noise, check out the President's Daily Brief.

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1:36:42Thank you.