In this episode of Stolen, host Erin West delves into the complex world of transnational organized crime with special guest Michele Ilich-Daubas. Erin shares her experience at a conference by the International Association of Financial Crime Investigators, emphasizing the importance of teamwork and collaboration in combatting financial crime. Michelle, who works at a small police department in Norwich, Vermont, discusses her role in educating her community about scams and her involvement in Operation Shamrock. Together, Erin and Michele talk about the importance of empathy and proper language when dealing with crime victims, the challenges and strategies in tracing cryptocurrency, and the crucial role of 'Survivor Stories' in understanding the impact of these crimes. This episode is a compelling exploration of the underbelly of digital crime and the importance of community awareness and law enforcement education.
00:00 Introduction to Transnational Organized Crime 02:51 The Importance of Collaboration in Financial Crime 05:47 Michelle's Journey into Crime Prevention 09:05 Understanding Pig Butchering Scams 12:00 Navigating Cryptocurrency Investigations 14:46 The Role of Survivor Stories 19:07 Language Matters in Victim Support 22:55 Educating Law Enforcement on Scams 27:10 Community Engagement and Awareness 30:07 Empathy in Addressing Victimization 33:53 Conclusion and Call to Action
I giant thank you to our first sponsor: TRM Labs TRM Labs - Blockchain Investigations & Risk Management -Investigate, monitor, and detect crypto and digital asset fraud and financial crime stolenapodcast@gmail.com Michele Ilich-Daubas is a former senior legal analyst and records custodian turned crypto fraud fighter and public speaker. Dedicated to fighting the devastating and, unfortunately, prolific crime of pig butchering, her passion lies in the education of the public, especially the elderly, of the tactics used by scammers to lure individuals into these schemes. By focusing on what makes a person vulnerable, her hope is to empower potential victims with the awareness that when something does not feel right, to allow themselves a moment to stop, breath and think before reacting. And ultimately, it is her desire to bring the devastation caused by this crime to the attention of Meta Platforms (Facebook and Instagram) where these crimes are committed extensively through fake accounts and false advertising and convince Meta to join forces with Operation Shamrock to raise the level of awareness for both the public and our legislators, shining a blinding light on the scammers’ sole goal: To strip the United States of its generational wealth. Operation Shamrock #stolenapodcastwitherinwest #erinwest #operationshamrock #pigbutchering #cybercrime #organizedcrime #transnationalorganizedcrime #stolenpodcast #stolenapodcast #scams #fraud #TRM #TRMLabs #norwichvt #survivorstories #trainingthetrainers #locallawenforcementMark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:00):
Hello and thank you for joining me on Stolen, a podcast.
This podcast is going to be a little different than some podcasts that you may havelistened to before.
What I want to do on this podcast is I want to dive deep into a major issue that ishappening in our nation and internationally, and that is transnational organized crime and
(01:23):
how these scams are crushing and stealing our money and our soul.
And so throughout this podcast, you're going to hear from me talking to people from alldifferent parts of industry that have been touched by this.
And I'm excited for you to meet my guest today, Michelle IIlich-Daubas.
(01:45):
She's going to say it better than I did.
I gave it a shot.
I practiced with her yesterday.
But before we even get into the discussion with Michelle, which I know you're going toenjoy, I want to talk to you a little bit about what's gone on this week.
I had the pleasure of being invited by my good colleague, Detective Matt Hogan ofConnecticut State Police to speak at a conference by IAFCI.
(02:09):
That's the International Association of Financial Crime Investigators.
And there's a lot of takeaways from that event that I was at in Connecticut.
And the first is the benefit of teamwork and collaboration.
And what IAFCI is,
is one of the first organizations that brought together banking and law enforcement in thesame room to share information, share ideas, share typologies for the benefit of victims.
(02:37):
How we can help victims by bringing together the different parts of the industries thatare being affected when financial crime occurs.
So they do an incredible job at that.
And in particular, their Connecticut group is amazing.
There were over 300 people in the room that I got to present at.
(02:57):
And I have to tell you a funny story.
When I stepped out onto the stage to talk about pig butchering and transnational organizedcrime, I noticed that there was signatures all over the walls at this theater, some going
back as far as 2004.
And apparently there was a big stint where the Chippendales presented at this stage.
So I don't think my...
(03:17):
conversation was anywhere near as well, I don't know.
mean, definitely it's jaw dropping, but in a much different way.
But this conference was exceptional in that it brought the opportunity for me to presentto 350 people, many of whom I've never spoken to before, and tell them how big this
problem was.
And a lot of them didn't know what pig butchering was before I showed up there that day.
(03:41):
And on day two, I got to have a fireside chat.
with a victim who was able to explain in a way that people can understand and empathizewhat happened to her and how a million dollars was stolen from her.
And I think that's how we make the difference is we tell these stories and we inviteguests and we bring in people who are seeing this on the front lines to talk about what
(04:08):
they know and how they've been affected by this and what their
doing about it, because Operation Shamrock is nothing if not an organization of action.
We don't just talk about things, we do things.
And that's why I am dying for you to meet Michelle.
I can say her name easily, but Michelle came to see me when I was in Connecticut.
(04:29):
She drove hours to come see me.
She brought her adorable husband, Laurent, and we had lunch and it was a fabulous time totalk more about what she's doing in Shamrock.
so.
I'm delighted that she could join me today.
so Michelle, welcome from your car somewhere in New England.
Erin.
It's nice to be here.
Thank you.
One of the amazing things that has happened to me since I began this experiment of postingon LinkedIn a few years ago is that I have managed to meet people who share my passion and
(05:00):
my interest in fighting crime and stopping fraud and
really helping victims.
So Michelle, tell me a little bit about yourself and where you work today.
I am currently working at a very small police department in Norwich, Vermont.
I'm the administrative assistant to the chief of police.
And that's pretty much it as far as my day job, if you will.
(05:24):
And you've also become very involved in Operation Shamrock.
Yes, I have.
It is a pleasure and an honor as far as I'm concerned.
What I have been doing is
giving presentations to the community.
Norwich, Vermont is the wealthiest town in the entire state, which means it is a primetarget for the type of scammers that we're running across in regard to pig butchering
(05:48):
scams.
So I've given now a series of three presentations to the community to educate them onthis, to not only understand what types of scams are out there, but more importantly, the
tactics that are used and
the emotional tactics that are used, the emotional manipulation.
We talk a lot about that.
(06:09):
One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today is something I live by is a what if wecould model and that I see the gaps out there and I think, well, what if we could fix
them?
And I'm always looking for people who are leaders in that way too and who think aboutthings that way.
And so tell me how it is that you came from being
(06:29):
somebody working in the police station to someone who is now out in your communityteaching how to avoid these scams.
Well, a bit of my history, I'll go a few years back.
I was a senior legal analyst on the law enforcement response team at Facebook for sixyears.
And while during my time there, I worked closely with law enforcement in regard to legalprocesses.
(06:52):
We produced all the electronic records in response to subpoenas, search warrants.
and different types of perspective requests as well.
That work that I did there got me interested in fraud.
And I had started then to cross over, but as we all know, there were some big layoffs thathappened in fact, and my position was affected by that.
(07:15):
So I took that opportunity then to get the proper certifications or what I thought wouldbe the proper certifications to move forward.
So I did a study and passed my
certified anti-money laundering specialist certification, my CAMP certification.
And while I was doing that, I went on LinkedIn as I was rewriting my resume and justupdating everything on there.
(07:39):
I ran across this very vibrant woman with purple glasses and she caught my attentionimmediately.
And I thought those glasses are something else.
And that thought went in my mind and this
left just as fast because I started to listen, what she was talking about.
And this vibrant woman turns out to be Erin West, head of operations, Shamrock.
(08:02):
And I just started following and listening to you, Erin.
And I was just, I don't know how to quite say it, moved, but just completely sucked in bywhat was going on moving forward then and getting this position with the police
department.
I have a wonderful, wonderful chief of police that I work with.
He's very supportive.
(08:23):
He knows that this stuff is coming, but he doesn't understand or, or at least he says thatmuch about it, but he knows that I do.
So he gives me free rein to do this.
And it's just become a major part of my life.
I don't really know why, but it is a passion.
So I'm just so pleased to be part of Operation Shamrock.
(08:46):
be able to do what I'm doing in the community.
said so many interesting things.
I need to pick it all apart because I was really, so it's so funny that you mentioned thepurple glasses because that is what I named my LLC.
It's purple glasses.
Do you remember what I was talking about when, or do you remember what, once you got pastthe purple glasses, what drew you in?
(09:10):
Pig butchering.
I'd never heard that term before.
And of course, like anyone who hasn't heard it, I thought about
literally, and brought me back to a time I actually watched a pig being slaughtered byaccident once.
It was many years ago and it was the most horrifying thing I'd seen.
I still remember it.
When you started to describe what was actually going on and how this whole crime is, howit's being committed, and it's the deception, the absolute deception and manipulation.
(09:45):
of a person and gaining their trust and just decimating them financially and emotionally.
Yeah.
So you hear about this and how interesting that you've actually seen a pig being butcheredand you know how really graphic and traumatic something like that might be to see.
(10:07):
You go from being someone who is intrigued by someone on LinkedIn talking about pigbutchering
to actually learning how to trace cryptocurrency.
Tell me how that went down.
Well, as part of joining Operation Shamrock, I'm very interested in cryptocurrency and howthe whole blockchain works.
So I decided to take a course that was offered by Stephen Sargent on LinkedIn in notconjunction, in a, I can't find the word, with chain analysis.
(10:36):
And it's basically the,
chain analysis reactor certification.
It's a weekend course.
It's very, very intense, but well worth it.
So it gave me a much broader understanding and a much more specific understanding as wellas how blockchain investigations work.
So you also mentioned that you have a CAMS certification.
(10:56):
What does that mean?
Certified Anti-Money laundering Specialist.
I had thought perhaps I would go into banking, like in their fraud department.
But I don't have any banking experience.
So the law enforcement response team experience is what segues into me going to work at anatural police department, which honestly I think is a much better fit.
(11:20):
And so what is still interesting to me is you don't have this financial fraud background,but you get yourself certified as an anti-money, lendering specialist.
And then you decide you're going to take on how to
investigate the blockchain, how to use the blockchain as an investigative tool.
That's a jump that a lot of people are scared to make.
(11:40):
Tell me how you, how you navigated that.
I just jumped in.
Maybe it was a bit naive on my part.
I realize every day that I know next to nothing, but I know a little bit.
So I surround myself with people that do know a whole lot and I listen and listen and
Sometimes I get guidance, everyone's very, very kind and when they have a moment, they'llwalk me through a few things and I listen and take lots and lots of notes.
(12:09):
I feel the same way.
I am in a text group with two other prosecutors and two investigators and we talk all thetime and the only way to get better at learning this business is to surround yourself with
people that are smarter than you are.
and to learn from them all day, every day.
So I appreciate what you are saying about that.
(12:29):
But the point that is super interesting is that with little to no experience in financialcrime investigation, you were able to learn how to trace cryptocurrency.
Yes.
And it basically the way the course was presented, but there's also very powerful toolsout there.
Chainalysis, Hypes Lab, TRM Labs.
(12:53):
Merkle Science as well.
But the really interesting thing, and I've been told this numerous times by differentinvestigators, even though you've got that type of software to use, always go directly to
the open sources like Ethereum, I.O., those type of things, depending what type ofcryptocurrency you're investigating.
(13:14):
And it's all right there.
If you know what you're looking for.
you can find it.
And that's the beauty of the blockchain is the fact that it is a transparent ledger.
Yeah, 100%.
I love that you've proven the point that anybody who applies themselves to do this workcan learn how to trace cryptocurrency because I know that it's intimidating.
(13:37):
And I think that that's one of the problems we face nationally is that most lawenforcement agencies are happy to say, we don't do crypto.
We just don't do crypto.
don't know how to do it.
And you're a shining example of it can be done because crypto is how bad guys move money.
Two things can be true at the same time.
(13:58):
Crypto can be how bad guys move money, but it also can be used for good.
But the fact is that bad guys have embraced this tech and so we've got to embrace it tokeep up with him.
Time now for a quick break to thank our sponsors.
this important podcast.
So thank you so much TRM.
I'm grateful.
(14:18):
So Michelle, you learned to do something that is a challenge for many law enforcementagencies in the United States.
Yes, that is true.
I think a lot of it is just intimidation for something that is new.
That was the interesting part for me.
I've always enjoyed puzzles and things like that.
But I think the most important thing is to take basically like a thousand foot view ofthis because a lot of jargon is thrown around which people feel alienated by.
(14:46):
So when we're talking about cryptocurrency, it's just, it's a digital currency.
It's like an electronic stock market type of thing.
digital currency, I mean, if we think back when people used to pay each other in gold, andthen they inserted paper notes to replace the gold, if you will.
(15:07):
And cryptocurrency is a form of that, but it's done electronically.
So if you go and check the stock market and you look at, I don't know, Tesla's stock isgoing to say it's worth X amount.
If you look at Bitcoin, it's going to say it's worth X amount.
It's the same type of thing.
And as far as the electronic ledger, I just think of the old ledger books in banks withall of the entries of all the different transactions.
(15:34):
The main, main difference with the blockchain, which is that's what
The blockchain is an electronic ledger.
It's called the blockchain because the transactions are basically lined up on each otherto build a block, if you will.
But you can never go in and erase it.
So if you're looking at an old fashioned ledger in a leather bound book and you open it upin the pages and you've got the writings in there, a page can be torn out and those
(16:05):
transactions will disappear where
in the blockchain because it is electronically done and the way that it's structured, notransaction can be removed.
So if you've got a bad actor that is moving money through different wallets and walletsare like a bank account basically, and they move their funds into one wallet or bank
(16:30):
account, they move it to another one and another one and another one, all thosetransactions are recorded.
So the scammer cannot hide where the money is gone.
Yeah, I love that piece of it.
think that scammers benefit from us being scared about what this is.
And when I think about it, I think about it as my, my Southwest miles.
(16:53):
And I can take, there's, can see the digital balance of my Southwest miles and I canexchange those Southwest miles for Southwest trips that it's just essentially a digital
way
of moving something of value.
But it's even better because of this ledger that cannot be changed and cannot be erased.
(17:13):
And everybody agrees that that ledger is accurate.
That's the nature of the blockchain.
We all agree that it's accurate.
It's an amazing opportunity for us to be able to follow money in a way that it can be alot more difficult to
send a search warrant to a bank and ask them where the money went.
Just like you're saying, all of this is available even without a tool.
(17:36):
It's available on the open source and you can figure out where money went.
Absolutely.
I want to talk to you about something that you and I are both very intimately involvedwith in Operation Shamrock and that is Survivor Stories.
Honestly, that is one of the pieces of work that I'm most proud of in my career.
(17:56):
Why don't you go ahead and explain what Survivor Stories is about?
Well, Survivor Stories, we meet, we being the small team that is part of the SurvivorStories interviews that we do on Friday mornings.
And we invite a different victim on, a victim slash survivor of a pig butchering scam.
(18:18):
And they tell us their story.
I started
survivor stories because I wanted to be able to hear in real time from victims who hadexperienced this catastrophic failure and be able to parse it apart a little bit and
figure out where the gaps were in social media, in law enforcement, in banking, wheremaybe if something had been done a different way, the result could have been different.
(18:48):
And so to do that, I brought together a really interesting interdisciplinary team.
There is a banker on the call.
There's you, Michelle, who has some social media experience.
There's me, law enforcement.
And there is Andy, who is a talented writer.
And we listened to these victims for an hour and we asked them some follow-up questions totry and understand where things have gone wrong.
(19:15):
So tell me a little bit about how that experience has been for you.
It has been very eye-opening for me.
It is emotional for me.
I feel that it's very important for people to have victims of these crimes to have a placeto come and talk about their experience without any judgment.
I had a history teacher that said to me once, we've got the worst from the Greeks and theRomans, shame and guilt.
(19:40):
And that is piled on with having been a victim of this crime.
One of the things that I'm doing in my presentations, I want to get that phrase, fell forit out of there and use the word deceive.
Deception is a strong word because it's a strong, it's a very strong action.
(20:01):
Saying something like, I can't believe you fell for that.
it out there that the person did something wrong, maybe they're ignorant or fill in theblank.
And it puts a distance between the victim and the person that said it.
Where, as we well know, Erin, with all the people that we've talked to, anyone can bedeceived because the people that do this are very good.
(20:28):
It is what they do.
And that is what I tell people over and over and over again.
I said their goal
is to strip the generational wealth in this country.
They don't care about you and something personal, something personal, but they don't careabout you.
They don't care about your family.
They don't care about your home.
They don't care about your pets.
They don't care about your politics.
They don't care about anything.
(20:49):
They want your money, period.
And they will do anything and everything they can to get it.
By allowing a person who has become a victim of this crime to come in and talk with peoplethat, first of all,
understand, like you said, the banking and or social media and because unfortunately, alot of these scams start on social media with someone getting approached on could be X, it
(21:16):
could be Facebook, you know, fill in the social media platform dating apps.
But the big thing is that they move them then to the encrypted apps, which is WhatsApp,Telegram.
And what that means by encryption is the messages are end to end encrypted.
So if law enforcement, then subpoenas or gets a search warrant to get the contents ofthose messages, the messages aren't there because they're end to end encrypted.
(21:42):
So that's a really, really big thing.
And a lot of people don't really quite understand what is WhatsApp.
They're like, that's something that people use internationally to call each other, whichis true.
But it's the end end encryption part that they don't understand.
So anyhow, I got a little bit of on a tangent there, but.
I think you make a good point with WhatsApp is that two things can be true at the sametime.
(22:05):
Yes, WhatsApp is used for a lot of good purposes, but it is also used almost all the time,almost in every case that we hear the conversation move to WhatsApp.
And if not WhatsApp, a different end-to-end encrypted service to conceal the content ofthat conversation from anybody who might be able to figure out that someone is being
(22:27):
scammed.
One of the things that you talked about was that language matters, that language mattersin how we talk to victims.
Tell me more about why that is important to you that we use the correct language when wetalk to victims.
First and foremost is to remove the guilt that they're already feeling, the shame, thedevastation, because there's so many emotions that go into this.
(22:52):
If they were part of a romantic scheme, there's that part of it.
They've lost someone they thought they were close to.
There's a humiliation factor.
There is the sadness.
There's the anger.
So many different emotions.
And in order to recover from something, you have to be able to grab onto something.
(23:14):
We've all have had devastating events happen in our life.
What was it that pulled us out of it?
Who held the hand down, pull you back up on your feet?
And I feel that that's what we, what we give because it's again, a very professionalatmosphere, but also very empathetic.
really is an empathetic group.
(23:35):
quite honestly, I didn't realize that I would see the effects on, on these survivors asquickly as I did.
I, we have talked to people who are literally feeling really without much hope and
I think that giving them a window into the idea of, come be part of the solution with usis giving hope.
(24:00):
And I'm a big proponent of, we don't have to fix the whole problem today.
We just need to keep moving one step closer every day.
And I really believe that giving people who have suffered this extraordinary violation
an opportunity to be heard makes a big difference.
(24:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
Another thing that I'm interested about when we talk about language and why languagematters is that it's interesting in these survivor stories, I feel like in every call we
hear a lot of common threads and in every call there is something very different thanwe've heard before, which is surprising because we've heard from a lot of people.
(24:44):
But one of the common things that we do hear
And let me preface this before I go there.
I think it's important to know that the point of survivor stories is not to call outspecific companies or banks or law enforcement agencies and say, you're not doing this
good enough.
I think it is the idea that we can provide helpful feedback in a forum that might beheard.
(25:12):
And so one of the things that Haley Windham does in our group, Haley is our bankingexpert, is she has the banking and financial institutions forum where she on a monthly
basis will anonymize this information and provide it back to the group that comes to thatmeeting and then have a roundtable discussion on pieces of this that matter.
(25:33):
Like at what point do we debank someone?
At what point do we say, we know you're engaging in fraud.
We can't have you bank here anymore.
It's opportunities like that to, in a positive way, try to effect change.
Time now for a quick break to thank our sponsors.
Hey friends, I just want to thank TRM Labs, our first ever sponsor of the podcast.
(25:57):
I love their message.
They're building a safer financial system for billions of people.
And that's exactly what we are trying to do as well.
Create a safer situation for people who are going about their daily lives and engagingwith digital media.
So, taking you back to that conversation about language, I feel like on a relativelyfrequent basis, we're hearing from victims who tell us, I went into a police station and I
(26:30):
was told, how could you be so stupid?
How do we help law enforcement do better?
You work in law enforcement.
I worked in law enforcement for 26 years.
How do we help them do better?
I think a lot of it is lack of education.
on the part of law enforcement.
let me be specific what I mean by that.
I mean, lack of education as far as cryptocurrency.
(26:54):
A lot of law enforcement officers have the public's knowledge of it, which isn't much atthis point because it is still new and it is a bit intimidating and can be a bit
confusing.
Because again, like we mentioned earlier, there's a lot of jargon that's thrown aroundwith it.
So it's opening up the conversation with law enforcement to understand the magnitude ofthis.
(27:21):
And I've had a lot of luck with it because, well, first of all, I have a chief that againis very, very open and just lets me sort of run with this.
But also the latest annual report that was released by the FBI, the IC3.gov, that givesbroken down by states and age groups and the crime specifically, unbelievable, just
(27:46):
colossal loss of money to these scams.
And that's starting to bring the attention forward.
And when I say to lack of education, I think there's also a little bit of fear mixed inthere, like
Dear God, we don't know what to do with this.
I was talking with them and actually a DEA agent and he said, he told me that when thefirst crypto case they got in front of them, they all stood around in a circle and looked
(28:10):
at it, looked at each other.
Like what in the world are we supposed to do with this?
Because gone are the days of drug dealers with bags of money.
Now it's all in cryptocurrency and they're moving it through.
these different wallets, which again are like bank accounts, and moving it, just moving itright along.
(28:32):
There's no traces of it anymore.
I mean, there are traces, but they're not the physical traces.
So it's now requiring law enforcement to adjust and adapt to that.
I think that's exactly right.
And shameless plug for the crypto coalition, which is our Operation Shamrock lawenforcement piece, where we recognize that
(28:52):
You didn't sign on for this when you became a police officer.
You thought you were going to be out making arrests of people who stole cars, interviewingwitnesses.
Nobody told you that you were going to have to become an expert in a whole new technology.
And so to help get through learning this pretty big learning curve, we built thiscoalition of 2300 officers now where maybe you live in Wichita and
(29:22):
You are the only person doing this kind of work for miles around.
You benefit from having a community that is interested in helping you get over thatlearning curve.
And so our crypto coalition is a listserv where on the daily we are talking about, Hey,I've got this cryptocurrency address.
Can you help me trace it?
(29:42):
Or someone just came into my department and they told me that they had money stolen fromthem and they were instructed to put it into a crypto ATM.
What do I do about this?
So there is a community that is designed to help officers get there.
And so if you are law enforcement, you need to go to OperationShamrock.org and join thatcrypto coalition.
(30:05):
But I think you hit the nail on the head where it's they're well-meaning people.
People join the police because they want to be helpers.
They just didn't know they could help.
And so you're an example of, yeah, actually you can help.
And this is how I met Haley Windham, actually, as I was saying on LinkedIn, if you aretelling people that the money goes into crypto and then you can't get it back, that is not
(30:29):
true.
Let us teach you how to trace cryptocurrency so that you can do that.
But you didn't just learn how to trace cryptocurrency.
You also recognize a gap in your community where it's more than just, don't knowcryptocurrency.
It's that people don't realize
how many scams are out there and what they should do about it.
(30:49):
So tell me about what drove you to start teaching in your own community.
Well, like I said, Norwich is the wealthiest town in the state of Vermont.
It's a very picturesque little New England town.
There's children riding bicycles to school.
just, I had to think like, why didn't I grow up here kind of thing.
It's very ideal in its way.
(31:12):
We have a saying,
police department, we say there are real world problems and then there are Norwichproblems.
And we so prefer the Norwich problems.
They're just nice little problems to have, if you will.
Having said that, town sits just right off a major interstate and the people are living ina bit of a bubble and there's nothing wrong with living in a bubble unless that makes you
(31:38):
vulnerable to people that want to do you harm.
So again, a lot of the population is retired.
These are very intelligent people.
A lot of them are retired professors from Dartmouth College and from New York, financials,all kinds of different things.
But as we know, technology has moved so quickly.
So it's a few things.
(31:59):
I tell them, you know, you're walking around with this little device in your hand, okay,little in size, know, ginormous in power.
And it is your window to the world, but understand that it is also the world's window inon you.
We've all seen the text messages that come through, whether it is some type of easy pass.
(32:21):
That seems to be one of the big ones going around right now.
You owe money for this poll.
This is Amazon.
An order has been placed PayPal.
There's a charge on your account, these types of things.
And so what I've done is.
I've taken the slides provided by Operation Shamrock and kind of adjusted them a bit toreflect a police department's view.
(32:45):
And I've gotten so many of these scams that have come through.
And so in New Hampshire, there was a big one going, and it was very urgent and verythreatening.
So we looked at it during one of my, actually all my presentations and we broke it down.
And I said, let's talk about this.
And we examined.
First of all, who it was coming from.
(33:06):
was some Gmail account.
said, the government doesn't have a Gmail account.
And then it was pay it here at New Hampshire, easy pass, blah, blah, blah, something.com.
said, now government agencies, said, my email ends in.gov.
Why isn't this a.gov?
And he could see the lights starting to turn on.
(33:29):
They're all like, And I said, really?
They're going to go now and garnish your wages.
How much is it all after all?
Dollar, $2.
Really?
That's what the government's going to do.
And funny enough, one of the ladies sitting in the presentation, as we were looking atthis one particular scam, got it on her phone at that moment.
And she's like, Oh my gosh, I just bought it.
(33:51):
I said, well, let's, let's look at it again.
And what I've had now, which is really wonderful, because I said, listen, if you thinkthat something's going on,
Talk to the people around you, show it to people.
If you have a younger person in your life, my goodness, bring them in because they are theones that are very savvy as far as technology and all these types of things.
(34:15):
And last but not least, you can always come in and talk to me.
I am never too busy to talk to you about a scam ever, short of an emergency going on.
And I've had them come in and say, we think this is a scam.
What do you think?
And I said, let's break it down.
what makes you think it's a scam.
And so they're starting to look at it more like a kind of a knot and they're pulling thestrings out of it and unraveling it.
(34:38):
And it's just, it's wonderful to see.
I love it.
And you've almost gamified it for them that you're like, okay, well let's, let's break itdown.
Let's figure this out and figure out why you think it's a scam.
And then by doing that, you are teaching them the things to look for to determine whetheror not something's a scam.
That's amazing.
Absolutely.
One of the things in regard to train the trainer,
(35:00):
I'm in a unique position because I work at the police department, but it's not limitedjust to someone in my position.
I'm giving the, actually the next training that I'm giving is not as a representative ofthe police department.
It was someone who came to the training and asked me to come to their local church.
And that is going to be next Sunday, May 18th in Fairleigh, Vermont at the communitychurch there.
(35:24):
you're in the area, please do come.
It starts at noon.
The deck is built out in a way that it's self explanatory and what you're doing is sharingit.
And what I say to my people when I talk to them, said, sharing is caring and knowledge ispower.
Let's get this out and talk about it.
Let's talk about it.
(35:45):
Talk about it because for all you know, there may be someone in your community that youthat you know that is currently being scammed and doesn't know how to get out of it.
They're afraid.
These people can be very threatening and you know, bad things thrive in secrecy and thrivein the dark.
And when she shine a bright light on it, it just can't survive anymore.
(36:07):
The other thing too is if anyone is listening and they want to be a part of train thetrainer, we have a wonderful gal that's in charge of it that will do the training, train a
person on this.
But also you have lots and lots of support.
with those of us that are doing it.
If you feel a little bit nervous or are unsure about something or not really sure whatyou're talking about, you reach out to us and we'll help you through that.
(36:36):
the group, the first group I did, there were six people there.
It's more like sitting down and having coffee with people.
You could even do it like that too.
So it doesn't mean you're on a stage with a microphone and that type of thing.
You're just getting the word out and sharing with your community.
And the person that you're talking about that is running the Train the Trainer, her name'sAlex Ring, the two of you have sort of split up how you're going to educate New England.
(37:02):
Tell me about that.
We have.
We have.
Well, I live in the upper valley.
which is a section of New Hampshire that encompasses Vermont as well.
And Alex lives down on the coast.
And so these, our states aren't that big.
So we can kind of, we were joking.
She's like, okay, I'm going to take the Southern end and you take the upper valley.
(37:23):
And then we're hoping we'll get somebody, you know, in in the Southwest corner and then upin the Northeast corner.
Cause that's, that's like moving up towards Canada.
And
We've just collaborated a lot on that.
And I met Alex through LinkedIn and Operation Shamrock.
And she is a colleague and a friend, and she's absolutely wonderful.
(37:43):
And it's such a good example of what if we could.
I was on a call this morning with a victim who is from the state of Washington.
it's been about a year since this happened to her, and she's ready to.
start contributing to a solution and she wants to be part of something and Train theTrainer is a perfect avenue for her to just start getting out there and talking about it.
(38:06):
And that's how we're going to make change here.
Time now for a quick break to thank our sponsors.
Thank you so much to our sponsor TRM.
If you don't know what they do, TRM and its blockchain analytics capability is what makesit possible.
for law enforcement to be able to trace these funds back to the bad actors and recoverthem.
(38:28):
We couldn't do the work we do for victims without TRM Labs.
So I'm so grateful that they decided to sponsor our podcast.
So as we close it out, you've listened and been on calls for a number of victims.
Is there anything that stands out to you as, wow, this is something that we could do thatmight make things a little safer out there for people?
(38:54):
I think the thing that stands out the most to me is just the emotional tactics that areused.
We don't talk about it a lot, but 2020 changed a lot of things.
People went remote.
people, or people's jobs went remote and people didn't see the people that they normallydid, coworkers, friends, even family.
(39:17):
And a lot of loneliness came out of that time.
And I believe still exists.
So a lot of people went online for, you know, relationships, if you will.
And that one of the things that we have seen is just people reaching out.
over social media apps, again, like we had talked about earlier, dating apps even, andpresenting themselves to be someone that they're not.
(39:40):
There are red flags, which a lot of the victims have said, gosh, you know what, I thoughtabout this, but their mind sort of overrode, which is a human reaction to things.
If something is good or we think it is, we want it to be that way.
The emotional part is huge.
and for people to understand like what would it take for you to be deceived?
(40:03):
What life circumstance would you have that this person could hook into to make you feelcloser to them?
One thing I wanted to mention what I do as part of my presentations when I very firststart out I have everyone have a piece of paper and a pen and I ask them a personal
question such as tell me when how old you were when you got your driver's license and whatwas the first
(40:27):
year make or what was a year make and model of your first car.
And they write that down, we fold it in half and they pass it forward.
And then I looked at them and I said, why in the world would you give me this information?
And they all sit there with their mouths sort of hanging open and they laugh a little bitand they're like, well you work at the police department.
said, yes, I do.
But does that still give me the right to ask you for this information?
(40:48):
Why did you give it to me?
And more importantly,
Why would you give someone you've never even met information about yourself?
Which again leads into this emotional part of it, the emotional manipulation, because ifyou feel that you are getting close to someone, that this person is very interested in
(41:09):
you, these are all very human reactions.
And that's how these transnational crime groups get their hooks in people and
It's really something to dislodge it.
Yeah.
The enemy is adept.
The enemy is skilled.
The enemy has been doing this for years, has had PhDs helping them figure out how to dothis.
(41:32):
And as we end this conversation, it reminds me of something that happened to me on theplane last night.
I was coming back from Connecticut and we can text on planes now and
Or maybe we have for a long time anyway, we can text on planes.
And so I had three separate people from my far back history, reach out and say, my dad isbeing scammed.
(41:56):
My uncle is being scammed.
I don't know what to do about this.
I don't know how to get him out of this.
I wish that I had a solution to what's becoming a very common problem.
But Michelle, I think it's a lot about what you say.
When we think of these people in particular.
The friends that I was texting would say things like, well, when we talk to him about it,he shuts down, he gets angry.
(42:21):
And I think that's because these are people who have had a very successful life wherethey've been respected in their career and they're smart and they've done things right.
And now they have their children confronting them about in their mind, making a mistake ordoing something wrong.
And I think that that's not how we're going to get.
(42:42):
through to our loved ones when they find, if they find themselves in a situation likethis.
We've really got to lead with empathy and we've really got to stress the pervasive natureand industrial quality and quantity of this particular targeted offensive toward the
(43:04):
United States and other countries.
And I think that we need to show them
the number of texts we're getting on a daily basis of people trying to get our money fromus on the daily.
And so I think the only way that we end up getting through to certain people that aredifficult to break that barrier is with kindness and with empathy and with explaining that
(43:25):
there are a lot of people just like them that have had their money stolen and there isnothing about them that fell for something or
something was done to them, they had their money stolen or just like you say, Michelle,they were deceived.
So thank you so much for being on the call today, Michelle.
I'm wearing some sponsor swag on the call today.
(43:48):
I have my new TRM jacket that I got from Kyle Armstrong in Connecticut.
And so what I will say, sponsors, potential sponsors is a priority will be given to thoseof you with great swag.
And I'll point out unit 21 gave me a great looking.
Nike sweatshirt last time I saw them and now they have even a new one with a clever phraseon the front.
(44:08):
So thank you to TRM and thank you, Michelle, so much for being here and sitting in yourcar with rain falling on it to talk to us about what you know about how people are having
their lives, their money and their hearts stolen.
It's been such a pleasure, And again, it's an absolute honor in my opinion.
(44:30):
And I just want to say again for the people listening, please reach out if you'reinterested in doing this, or if you have any questions, if you know someone who's being
scammed, if you are afraid that you are, and know that you're coming into a place that isnot going to judge you in any way, we're trying to end this.
(44:51):
And the most important thing is we're trying to educate people so that they do not becomevictims to this.
awful, awful crime.
Outstanding.
Well, I'm glad to have empathetic people like you by my side.
So thanks again, Michelle.
Hello and thank you for joining me on Stolen, a podcast.
This podcast is going to be a little different than some podcasts that you may havelistened to before.
What I want to do on this podcast is I want to dive deep into a major issue that ishappening in our nation and internationally, and that is transnational organized crime and
(01:23):
how these scams are crushing and stealing our money and our soul.
And so throughout this podcast, you're going to hear from me talking to people from alldifferent parts of industry that have been touched by this.
And I'm excited for you to meet my guest today, Michelle IIlich-Daubas.
(01:45):
She's going to say it better than I did.
I gave it a shot.
I practiced with her yesterday.
But before we even get into the discussion with Michelle, which I know you're going toenjoy, I want to talk to you a little bit about what's gone on this week.
I had the pleasure of being invited by my good colleague, Detective Matt Hogan ofConnecticut State Police to speak at a conference by IAFCI.
(02:09):
That's the International Association of Financial Crime Investigators.
And there's a lot of takeaways from that event that I was at in Connecticut.
And the first is the benefit of teamwork and collaboration.
And what IAFCI is,
is one of the first organizations that brought together banking and law enforcement in thesame room to share information, share ideas, share typologies for the benefit of victims.
(02:37):
How we can help victims by bringing together the different parts of the industries thatare being affected when financial crime occurs.
So they do an incredible job at that.
And in particular, their Connecticut group is amazing.
There were over 300 people in the room that I got to present at.
(02:57):
And I have to tell you a funny story.
When I stepped out onto the stage to talk about pig butchering and transnational organizedcrime, I noticed that there was signatures all over the walls at this theater, some going
back as far as 2004.
And apparently there was a big stint where the Chippendales presented at this stage.
So I don't think my...
(03:17):
conversation was anywhere near as well, I don't know.
mean, definitely it's jaw dropping, but in a much different way.
But this conference was exceptional in that it brought the opportunity for me to presentto 350 people, many of whom I've never spoken to before, and tell them how big this
problem was.
And a lot of them didn't know what pig butchering was before I showed up there that day.
(03:41):
And on day two, I got to have a fireside chat.
with a victim who was able to explain in a way that people can understand and empathizewhat happened to her and how a million dollars was stolen from her.
And I think that's how we make the difference is we tell these stories and we inviteguests and we bring in people who are seeing this on the front lines to talk about what
(04:08):
they know and how they've been affected by this and what their
doing about it, because Operation Shamrock is nothing if not an organization of action.
We don't just talk about things, we do things.
And that's why I am dying for you to meet Michelle.
I can say her name easily, but Michelle came to see me when I was in Connecticut.
(04:29):
She drove hours to come see me.
She brought her adorable husband, Laurent, and we had lunch and it was a fabulous time totalk more about what she's doing in Shamrock.
so.
I'm delighted that she could join me today.
so Michelle, welcome from your car somewhere in New England.
Erin.
It's nice to be here.
Thank you.
One of the amazing things that has happened to me since I began this experiment of postingon LinkedIn a few years ago is that I have managed to meet people who share my passion and
(05:00):
my interest in fighting crime and stopping fraud and
really helping victims.
So Michelle, tell me a little bit about yourself and where you work today.
I am currently working at a very small police department in Norwich, Vermont.
I'm the administrative assistant to the chief of police.
And that's pretty much it as far as my day job, if you will.
(05:24):
And you've also become very involved in Operation Shamrock.
Yes, I have.
It is a pleasure and an honor as far as I'm concerned.
What I have been doing is
giving presentations to the community.
Norwich, Vermont is the wealthiest town in the entire state, which means it is a primetarget for the type of scammers that we're running across in regard to pig butchering
(05:48):
scams.
So I've given now a series of three presentations to the community to educate them onthis, to not only understand what types of scams are out there, but more importantly, the
tactics that are used and
the emotional tactics that are used, the emotional manipulation.
We talk a lot about that.
(06:09):
One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today is something I live by is a what if wecould model and that I see the gaps out there and I think, well, what if we could fix
them?
And I'm always looking for people who are leaders in that way too and who think aboutthings that way.
And so tell me how it is that you came from being
(06:29):
somebody working in the police station to someone who is now out in your communityteaching how to avoid these scams.
Well, a bit of my history, I'll go a few years back.
I was a senior legal analyst on the law enforcement response team at Facebook for sixyears.
And while during my time there, I worked closely with law enforcement in regard to legalprocesses.
(06:52):
We produced all the electronic records in response to subpoenas, search warrants.
and different types of perspective requests as well.
That work that I did there got me interested in fraud.
And I had started then to cross over, but as we all know, there were some big layoffs thathappened in fact, and my position was affected by that.
(07:15):
So I took that opportunity then to get the proper certifications or what I thought wouldbe the proper certifications to move forward.
So I did a study and passed my
certified anti-money laundering specialist certification, my CAMP certification.
And while I was doing that, I went on LinkedIn as I was rewriting my resume and justupdating everything on there.
(07:39):
I ran across this very vibrant woman with purple glasses and she caught my attentionimmediately.
And I thought those glasses are something else.
And that thought went in my mind and this
left just as fast because I started to listen, what she was talking about.
And this vibrant woman turns out to be Erin West, head of operations, Shamrock.
(08:02):
And I just started following and listening to you, Erin.
And I was just, I don't know how to quite say it, moved, but just completely sucked in bywhat was going on moving forward then and getting this position with the police
department.
I have a wonderful, wonderful chief of police that I work with.
He's very supportive.
(08:23):
He knows that this stuff is coming, but he doesn't understand or, or at least he says thatmuch about it, but he knows that I do.
So he gives me free rein to do this.
And it's just become a major part of my life.
I don't really know why, but it is a passion.
So I'm just so pleased to be part of Operation Shamrock.
(08:46):
be able to do what I'm doing in the community.
said so many interesting things.
I need to pick it all apart because I was really, so it's so funny that you mentioned thepurple glasses because that is what I named my LLC.
It's purple glasses.
Do you remember what I was talking about when, or do you remember what, once you got pastthe purple glasses, what drew you in?
(09:10):
Pig butchering.
I'd never heard that term before.
And of course, like anyone who hasn't heard it, I thought about
literally, and brought me back to a time I actually watched a pig being slaughtered byaccident once.
It was many years ago and it was the most horrifying thing I'd seen.
I still remember it.
When you started to describe what was actually going on and how this whole crime is, howit's being committed, and it's the deception, the absolute deception and manipulation.
(09:45):
of a person and gaining their trust and just decimating them financially and emotionally.
Yeah.
So you hear about this and how interesting that you've actually seen a pig being butcheredand you know how really graphic and traumatic something like that might be to see.
(10:07):
You go from being someone who is intrigued by someone on LinkedIn talking about pigbutchering
to actually learning how to trace cryptocurrency.
Tell me how that went down.
Well, as part of joining Operation Shamrock, I'm very interested in cryptocurrency and howthe whole blockchain works.
So I decided to take a course that was offered by Stephen Sargent on LinkedIn in notconjunction, in a, I can't find the word, with chain analysis.
(10:36):
And it's basically the,
chain analysis reactor certification.
It's a weekend course.
It's very, very intense, but well worth it.
So it gave me a much broader understanding and a much more specific understanding as wellas how blockchain investigations work.
So you also mentioned that you have a CAMS certification.
(10:56):
What does that mean?
Certified Anti-Money laundering Specialist.
I had thought perhaps I would go into banking, like in their fraud department.
But I don't have any banking experience.
So the law enforcement response team experience is what segues into me going to work at anatural police department, which honestly I think is a much better fit.
(11:20):
And so what is still interesting to me is you don't have this financial fraud background,but you get yourself certified as an anti-money, lendering specialist.
And then you decide you're going to take on how to
investigate the blockchain, how to use the blockchain as an investigative tool.
That's a jump that a lot of people are scared to make.
(11:40):
Tell me how you, how you navigated that.
I just jumped in.
Maybe it was a bit naive on my part.
I realize every day that I know next to nothing, but I know a little bit.
So I surround myself with people that do know a whole lot and I listen and listen and
Sometimes I get guidance, everyone's very, very kind and when they have a moment, they'llwalk me through a few things and I listen and take lots and lots of notes.
(12:09):
I feel the same way.
I am in a text group with two other prosecutors and two investigators and we talk all thetime and the only way to get better at learning this business is to surround yourself with
people that are smarter than you are.
and to learn from them all day, every day.
So I appreciate what you are saying about that.
(12:29):
But the point that is super interesting is that with little to no experience in financialcrime investigation, you were able to learn how to trace cryptocurrency.
Yes.
And it basically the way the course was presented, but there's also very powerful toolsout there.
Chainalysis, Hypes Lab, TRM Labs.
(12:53):
Merkle Science as well.
But the really interesting thing, and I've been told this numerous times by differentinvestigators, even though you've got that type of software to use, always go directly to
the open sources like Ethereum, I.O., those type of things, depending what type ofcryptocurrency you're investigating.
(13:14):
And it's all right there.
If you know what you're looking for.
you can find it.
And that's the beauty of the blockchain is the fact that it is a transparent ledger.
Yeah, 100%.
I love that you've proven the point that anybody who applies themselves to do this workcan learn how to trace cryptocurrency because I know that it's intimidating.
(13:37):
And I think that that's one of the problems we face nationally is that most lawenforcement agencies are happy to say, we don't do crypto.
We just don't do crypto.
don't know how to do it.
And you're a shining example of it can be done because crypto is how bad guys move money.
Two things can be true at the same time.
(13:58):
Crypto can be how bad guys move money, but it also can be used for good.
But the fact is that bad guys have embraced this tech and so we've got to embrace it tokeep up with him.
Time now for a quick break to thank our sponsors.
this important podcast.
So thank you so much TRM.
I'm grateful.
(14:18):
So Michelle, you learned to do something that is a challenge for many law enforcementagencies in the United States.
Yes, that is true.
I think a lot of it is just intimidation for something that is new.
That was the interesting part for me.
I've always enjoyed puzzles and things like that.
But I think the most important thing is to take basically like a thousand foot view ofthis because a lot of jargon is thrown around which people feel alienated by.
(14:46):
So when we're talking about cryptocurrency, it's just, it's a digital currency.
It's like an electronic stock market type of thing.
digital currency, I mean, if we think back when people used to pay each other in gold, andthen they inserted paper notes to replace the gold, if you will.
(15:07):
And cryptocurrency is a form of that, but it's done electronically.
So if you go and check the stock market and you look at, I don't know, Tesla's stock isgoing to say it's worth X amount.
If you look at Bitcoin, it's going to say it's worth X amount.
It's the same type of thing.
And as far as the electronic ledger, I just think of the old ledger books in banks withall of the entries of all the different transactions.
(15:34):
The main, main difference with the blockchain, which is that's what
The blockchain is an electronic ledger.
It's called the blockchain because the transactions are basically lined up on each otherto build a block, if you will.
But you can never go in and erase it.
So if you're looking at an old fashioned ledger in a leather bound book and you open it upin the pages and you've got the writings in there, a page can be torn out and those
(16:05):
transactions will disappear where
in the blockchain because it is electronically done and the way that it's structured, notransaction can be removed.
So if you've got a bad actor that is moving money through different wallets and walletsare like a bank account basically, and they move their funds into one wallet or bank
(16:30):
account, they move it to another one and another one and another one, all thosetransactions are recorded.
So the scammer cannot hide where the money is gone.
Yeah, I love that piece of it.
think that scammers benefit from us being scared about what this is.
And when I think about it, I think about it as my, my Southwest miles.
(16:53):
And I can take, there's, can see the digital balance of my Southwest miles and I canexchange those Southwest miles for Southwest trips that it's just essentially a digital
way
of moving something of value.
But it's even better because of this ledger that cannot be changed and cannot be erased.
(17:13):
And everybody agrees that that ledger is accurate.
That's the nature of the blockchain.
We all agree that it's accurate.
It's an amazing opportunity for us to be able to follow money in a way that it can be alot more difficult to
send a search warrant to a bank and ask them where the money went.
Just like you're saying, all of this is available even without a tool.
(17:36):
It's available on the open source and you can figure out where money went.
Absolutely.
I want to talk to you about something that you and I are both very intimately involvedwith in Operation Shamrock and that is Survivor Stories.
Honestly, that is one of the pieces of work that I'm most proud of in my career.
(17:56):
Why don't you go ahead and explain what Survivor Stories is about?
Well, Survivor Stories, we meet, we being the small team that is part of the SurvivorStories interviews that we do on Friday mornings.
And we invite a different victim on, a victim slash survivor of a pig butchering scam.
(18:18):
And they tell us their story.
I started
survivor stories because I wanted to be able to hear in real time from victims who hadexperienced this catastrophic failure and be able to parse it apart a little bit and
figure out where the gaps were in social media, in law enforcement, in banking, wheremaybe if something had been done a different way, the result could have been different.
(18:48):
And so to do that, I brought together a really interesting interdisciplinary team.
There is a banker on the call.
There's you, Michelle, who has some social media experience.
There's me, law enforcement.
And there is Andy, who is a talented writer.
And we listened to these victims for an hour and we asked them some follow-up questions totry and understand where things have gone wrong.
(19:15):
So tell me a little bit about how that experience has been for you.
It has been very eye-opening for me.
It is emotional for me.
I feel that it's very important for people to have victims of these crimes to have a placeto come and talk about their experience without any judgment.
I had a history teacher that said to me once, we've got the worst from the Greeks and theRomans, shame and guilt.
(19:40):
And that is piled on with having been a victim of this crime.
One of the things that I'm doing in my presentations, I want to get that phrase, fell forit out of there and use the word deceive.
Deception is a strong word because it's a strong, it's a very strong action.
(20:01):
Saying something like, I can't believe you fell for that.
it out there that the person did something wrong, maybe they're ignorant or fill in theblank.
And it puts a distance between the victim and the person that said it.
Where, as we well know, Erin, with all the people that we've talked to, anyone can bedeceived because the people that do this are very good.
(20:28):
It is what they do.
And that is what I tell people over and over and over again.
I said their goal
is to strip the generational wealth in this country.
They don't care about you and something personal, something personal, but they don't careabout you.
They don't care about your family.
They don't care about your home.
They don't care about your pets.
They don't care about your politics.
They don't care about anything.
(20:49):
They want your money, period.
And they will do anything and everything they can to get it.
By allowing a person who has become a victim of this crime to come in and talk with peoplethat, first of all,
understand, like you said, the banking and or social media and because unfortunately, alot of these scams start on social media with someone getting approached on could be X, it
(21:16):
could be Facebook, you know, fill in the social media platform dating apps.
But the big thing is that they move them then to the encrypted apps, which is WhatsApp,Telegram.
And what that means by encryption is the messages are end to end encrypted.
So if law enforcement, then subpoenas or gets a search warrant to get the contents ofthose messages, the messages aren't there because they're end to end encrypted.
(21:42):
So that's a really, really big thing.
And a lot of people don't really quite understand what is WhatsApp.
They're like, that's something that people use internationally to call each other, whichis true.
But it's the end end encryption part that they don't understand.
So anyhow, I got a little bit of on a tangent there, but.
I think you make a good point with WhatsApp is that two things can be true at the sametime.
(22:05):
Yes, WhatsApp is used for a lot of good purposes, but it is also used almost all the time,almost in every case that we hear the conversation move to WhatsApp.
And if not WhatsApp, a different end-to-end encrypted service to conceal the content ofthat conversation from anybody who might be able to figure out that someone is being
(22:27):
scammed.
One of the things that you talked about was that language matters, that language mattersin how we talk to victims.
Tell me more about why that is important to you that we use the correct language when wetalk to victims.
First and foremost is to remove the guilt that they're already feeling, the shame, thedevastation, because there's so many emotions that go into this.
(22:52):
If they were part of a romantic scheme, there's that part of it.
They've lost someone they thought they were close to.
There's a humiliation factor.
There is the sadness.
There's the anger.
So many different emotions.
And in order to recover from something, you have to be able to grab onto something.
(23:14):
We've all have had devastating events happen in our life.
What was it that pulled us out of it?
Who held the hand down, pull you back up on your feet?
And I feel that that's what we, what we give because it's again, a very professionalatmosphere, but also very empathetic.
really is an empathetic group.
(23:35):
quite honestly, I didn't realize that I would see the effects on, on these survivors asquickly as I did.
I, we have talked to people who are literally feeling really without much hope and
I think that giving them a window into the idea of, come be part of the solution with usis giving hope.
(24:00):
And I'm a big proponent of, we don't have to fix the whole problem today.
We just need to keep moving one step closer every day.
And I really believe that giving people who have suffered this extraordinary violation
an opportunity to be heard makes a big difference.
(24:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
Another thing that I'm interested about when we talk about language and why languagematters is that it's interesting in these survivor stories, I feel like in every call we
hear a lot of common threads and in every call there is something very different thanwe've heard before, which is surprising because we've heard from a lot of people.
(24:44):
But one of the common things that we do hear
And let me preface this before I go there.
I think it's important to know that the point of survivor stories is not to call outspecific companies or banks or law enforcement agencies and say, you're not doing this
good enough.
I think it is the idea that we can provide helpful feedback in a forum that might beheard.
(25:12):
And so one of the things that Haley Windham does in our group, Haley is our bankingexpert, is she has the banking and financial institutions forum where she on a monthly
basis will anonymize this information and provide it back to the group that comes to thatmeeting and then have a roundtable discussion on pieces of this that matter.
(25:33):
Like at what point do we debank someone?
At what point do we say, we know you're engaging in fraud.
We can't have you bank here anymore.
It's opportunities like that to, in a positive way, try to effect change.
Time now for a quick break to thank our sponsors.
Hey friends, I just want to thank TRM Labs, our first ever sponsor of the podcast.
(25:57):
I love their message.
They're building a safer financial system for billions of people.
And that's exactly what we are trying to do as well.
Create a safer situation for people who are going about their daily lives and engagingwith digital media.
So, taking you back to that conversation about language, I feel like on a relativelyfrequent basis, we're hearing from victims who tell us, I went into a police station and I
(26:30):
was told, how could you be so stupid?
How do we help law enforcement do better?
You work in law enforcement.
I worked in law enforcement for 26 years.
How do we help them do better?
I think a lot of it is lack of education.
on the part of law enforcement.
let me be specific what I mean by that.
I mean, lack of education as far as cryptocurrency.
(26:54):
A lot of law enforcement officers have the public's knowledge of it, which isn't much atthis point because it is still new and it is a bit intimidating and can be a bit
confusing.
Because again, like we mentioned earlier, there's a lot of jargon that's thrown aroundwith it.
So it's opening up the conversation with law enforcement to understand the magnitude ofthis.
(27:21):
And I've had a lot of luck with it because, well, first of all, I have a chief that againis very, very open and just lets me sort of run with this.
But also the latest annual report that was released by the FBI, the IC3.gov, that givesbroken down by states and age groups and the crime specifically, unbelievable, just
(27:46):
colossal loss of money to these scams.
And that's starting to bring the attention forward.
And when I say to lack of education, I think there's also a little bit of fear mixed inthere, like
Dear God, we don't know what to do with this.
I was talking with them and actually a DEA agent and he said, he told me that when thefirst crypto case they got in front of them, they all stood around in a circle and looked
(28:10):
at it, looked at each other.
Like what in the world are we supposed to do with this?
Because gone are the days of drug dealers with bags of money.
Now it's all in cryptocurrency and they're moving it through.
these different wallets, which again are like bank accounts, and moving it, just moving itright along.
(28:32):
There's no traces of it anymore.
I mean, there are traces, but they're not the physical traces.
So it's now requiring law enforcement to adjust and adapt to that.
I think that's exactly right.
And shameless plug for the crypto coalition, which is our Operation Shamrock lawenforcement piece, where we recognize that
(28:52):
You didn't sign on for this when you became a police officer.
You thought you were going to be out making arrests of people who stole cars, interviewingwitnesses.
Nobody told you that you were going to have to become an expert in a whole new technology.
And so to help get through learning this pretty big learning curve, we built thiscoalition of 2300 officers now where maybe you live in Wichita and
(29:22):
You are the only person doing this kind of work for miles around.
You benefit from having a community that is interested in helping you get over thatlearning curve.
And so our crypto coalition is a listserv where on the daily we are talking about, Hey,I've got this cryptocurrency address.
Can you help me trace it?
(29:42):
Or someone just came into my department and they told me that they had money stolen fromthem and they were instructed to put it into a crypto ATM.
What do I do about this?
So there is a community that is designed to help officers get there.
And so if you are law enforcement, you need to go to OperationShamrock.org and join thatcrypto coalition.
(30:05):
But I think you hit the nail on the head where it's they're well-meaning people.
People join the police because they want to be helpers.
They just didn't know they could help.
And so you're an example of, yeah, actually you can help.
And this is how I met Haley Windham, actually, as I was saying on LinkedIn, if you aretelling people that the money goes into crypto and then you can't get it back, that is not
(30:29):
true.
Let us teach you how to trace cryptocurrency so that you can do that.
But you didn't just learn how to trace cryptocurrency.
You also recognize a gap in your community where it's more than just, don't knowcryptocurrency.
It's that people don't realize
how many scams are out there and what they should do about it.
(30:49):
So tell me about what drove you to start teaching in your own community.
Well, like I said, Norwich is the wealthiest town in the state of Vermont.
It's a very picturesque little New England town.
There's children riding bicycles to school.
just, I had to think like, why didn't I grow up here kind of thing.
It's very ideal in its way.
(31:12):
We have a saying,
police department, we say there are real world problems and then there are Norwichproblems.
And we so prefer the Norwich problems.
They're just nice little problems to have, if you will.
Having said that, town sits just right off a major interstate and the people are living ina bit of a bubble and there's nothing wrong with living in a bubble unless that makes you
(31:38):
vulnerable to people that want to do you harm.
So again, a lot of the population is retired.
These are very intelligent people.
A lot of them are retired professors from Dartmouth College and from New York, financials,all kinds of different things.
But as we know, technology has moved so quickly.
So it's a few things.
(31:59):
I tell them, you know, you're walking around with this little device in your hand, okay,little in size, know, ginormous in power.
And it is your window to the world, but understand that it is also the world's window inon you.
We've all seen the text messages that come through, whether it is some type of easy pass.
(32:21):
That seems to be one of the big ones going around right now.
You owe money for this poll.
This is Amazon.
An order has been placed PayPal.
There's a charge on your account, these types of things.
And so what I've done is.
I've taken the slides provided by Operation Shamrock and kind of adjusted them a bit toreflect a police department's view.
(32:45):
And I've gotten so many of these scams that have come through.
And so in New Hampshire, there was a big one going, and it was very urgent and verythreatening.
So we looked at it during one of my, actually all my presentations and we broke it down.
And I said, let's talk about this.
And we examined.
First of all, who it was coming from.
(33:06):
was some Gmail account.
said, the government doesn't have a Gmail account.
And then it was pay it here at New Hampshire, easy pass, blah, blah, blah, something.com.
said, now government agencies, said, my email ends in.gov.
Why isn't this a.gov?
And he could see the lights starting to turn on.
(33:29):
They're all like, And I said, really?
They're going to go now and garnish your wages.
How much is it all after all?
Dollar, $2.
Really?
That's what the government's going to do.
And funny enough, one of the ladies sitting in the presentation, as we were looking atthis one particular scam, got it on her phone at that moment.
And she's like, Oh my gosh, I just bought it.
(33:51):
I said, well, let's, let's look at it again.
And what I've had now, which is really wonderful, because I said, listen, if you thinkthat something's going on,
Talk to the people around you, show it to people.
If you have a younger person in your life, my goodness, bring them in because they are theones that are very savvy as far as technology and all these types of things.
(34:15):
And last but not least, you can always come in and talk to me.
I am never too busy to talk to you about a scam ever, short of an emergency going on.
And I've had them come in and say, we think this is a scam.
What do you think?
And I said, let's break it down.
what makes you think it's a scam.
And so they're starting to look at it more like a kind of a knot and they're pulling thestrings out of it and unraveling it.
(34:38):
And it's just, it's wonderful to see.
I love it.
And you've almost gamified it for them that you're like, okay, well let's, let's break itdown.
Let's figure this out and figure out why you think it's a scam.
And then by doing that, you are teaching them the things to look for to determine whetheror not something's a scam.
That's amazing.
Absolutely.
One of the things in regard to train the trainer,
(35:00):
I'm in a unique position because I work at the police department, but it's not limitedjust to someone in my position.
I'm giving the, actually the next training that I'm giving is not as a representative ofthe police department.
It was someone who came to the training and asked me to come to their local church.
And that is going to be next Sunday, May 18th in Fairleigh, Vermont at the communitychurch there.
(35:24):
you're in the area, please do come.
It starts at noon.
The deck is built out in a way that it's self explanatory and what you're doing is sharingit.
And what I say to my people when I talk to them, said, sharing is caring and knowledge ispower.
Let's get this out and talk about it.
Let's talk about it.
(35:45):
Talk about it because for all you know, there may be someone in your community that youthat you know that is currently being scammed and doesn't know how to get out of it.
They're afraid.
These people can be very threatening and you know, bad things thrive in secrecy and thrivein the dark.
And when she shine a bright light on it, it just can't survive anymore.
(36:07):
The other thing too is if anyone is listening and they want to be a part of train thetrainer, we have a wonderful gal that's in charge of it that will do the training, train a
person on this.
But also you have lots and lots of support.
with those of us that are doing it.
If you feel a little bit nervous or are unsure about something or not really sure whatyou're talking about, you reach out to us and we'll help you through that.
(36:36):
the group, the first group I did, there were six people there.
It's more like sitting down and having coffee with people.
You could even do it like that too.
So it doesn't mean you're on a stage with a microphone and that type of thing.
You're just getting the word out and sharing with your community.
And the person that you're talking about that is running the Train the Trainer, her name'sAlex Ring, the two of you have sort of split up how you're going to educate New England.
(37:02):
Tell me about that.
We have.
We have.
Well, I live in the upper valley.
which is a section of New Hampshire that encompasses Vermont as well.
And Alex lives down on the coast.
And so these, our states aren't that big.
So we can kind of, we were joking.
She's like, okay, I'm going to take the Southern end and you take the upper valley.
(37:23):
And then we're hoping we'll get somebody, you know, in in the Southwest corner and then upin the Northeast corner.
Cause that's, that's like moving up towards Canada.
And
We've just collaborated a lot on that.
And I met Alex through LinkedIn and Operation Shamrock.
And she is a colleague and a friend, and she's absolutely wonderful.
(37:43):
And it's such a good example of what if we could.
I was on a call this morning with a victim who is from the state of Washington.
it's been about a year since this happened to her, and she's ready to.
start contributing to a solution and she wants to be part of something and Train theTrainer is a perfect avenue for her to just start getting out there and talking about it.
(38:06):
And that's how we're going to make change here.
Time now for a quick break to thank our sponsors.
Thank you so much to our sponsor TRM.
If you don't know what they do, TRM and its blockchain analytics capability is what makesit possible.
for law enforcement to be able to trace these funds back to the bad actors and recoverthem.
(38:28):
We couldn't do the work we do for victims without TRM Labs.
So I'm so grateful that they decided to sponsor our podcast.
So as we close it out, you've listened and been on calls for a number of victims.
Is there anything that stands out to you as, wow, this is something that we could do thatmight make things a little safer out there for people?
(38:54):
I think the thing that stands out the most to me is just the emotional tactics that areused.
We don't talk about it a lot, but 2020 changed a lot of things.
People went remote.
people, or people's jobs went remote and people didn't see the people that they normallydid, coworkers, friends, even family.
(39:17):
And a lot of loneliness came out of that time.
And I believe still exists.
So a lot of people went online for, you know, relationships, if you will.
And that one of the things that we have seen is just people reaching out.
over social media apps, again, like we had talked about earlier, dating apps even, andpresenting themselves to be someone that they're not.
(39:40):
There are red flags, which a lot of the victims have said, gosh, you know what, I thoughtabout this, but their mind sort of overrode, which is a human reaction to things.
If something is good or we think it is, we want it to be that way.
The emotional part is huge.
and for people to understand like what would it take for you to be deceived?
(40:03):
What life circumstance would you have that this person could hook into to make you feelcloser to them?
One thing I wanted to mention what I do as part of my presentations when I very firststart out I have everyone have a piece of paper and a pen and I ask them a personal
question such as tell me when how old you were when you got your driver's license and whatwas the first
(40:27):
year make or what was a year make and model of your first car.
And they write that down, we fold it in half and they pass it forward.
And then I looked at them and I said, why in the world would you give me this information?
And they all sit there with their mouths sort of hanging open and they laugh a little bitand they're like, well you work at the police department.
said, yes, I do.
But does that still give me the right to ask you for this information?
(40:48):
Why did you give it to me?
And more importantly,
Why would you give someone you've never even met information about yourself?
Which again leads into this emotional part of it, the emotional manipulation, because ifyou feel that you are getting close to someone, that this person is very interested in
(41:09):
you, these are all very human reactions.
And that's how these transnational crime groups get their hooks in people and
It's really something to dislodge it.
Yeah.
The enemy is adept.
The enemy is skilled.
The enemy has been doing this for years, has had PhDs helping them figure out how to dothis.
(41:32):
And as we end this conversation, it reminds me of something that happened to me on theplane last night.
I was coming back from Connecticut and we can text on planes now and
Or maybe we have for a long time anyway, we can text on planes.
And so I had three separate people from my far back history, reach out and say, my dad isbeing scammed.
(41:56):
My uncle is being scammed.
I don't know what to do about this.
I don't know how to get him out of this.
I wish that I had a solution to what's becoming a very common problem.
But Michelle, I think it's a lot about what you say.
When we think of these people in particular.
The friends that I was texting would say things like, well, when we talk to him about it,he shuts down, he gets angry.
(42:21):
And I think that's because these are people who have had a very successful life wherethey've been respected in their career and they're smart and they've done things right.
And now they have their children confronting them about in their mind, making a mistake ordoing something wrong.
And I think that that's not how we're going to get.
(42:42):
through to our loved ones when they find, if they find themselves in a situation likethis.
We've really got to lead with empathy and we've really got to stress the pervasive natureand industrial quality and quantity of this particular targeted offensive toward the
(43:04):
United States and other countries.
And I think that we need to show them
the number of texts we're getting on a daily basis of people trying to get our money fromus on the daily.
And so I think the only way that we end up getting through to certain people that aredifficult to break that barrier is with kindness and with empathy and with explaining that
(43:25):
there are a lot of people just like them that have had their money stolen and there isnothing about them that fell for something or
something was done to them, they had their money stolen or just like you say, Michelle,they were deceived.
So thank you so much for being on the call today, Michelle.
I'm wearing some sponsor swag on the call today.
(43:48):
I have my new TRM jacket that I got from Kyle Armstrong in Connecticut.
And so what I will say, sponsors, potential sponsors is a priority will be given to thoseof you with great swag.
And I'll point out unit 21 gave me a great looking.
Nike sweatshirt last time I saw them and now they have even a new one with a clever phraseon the front.
(44:08):
So thank you to TRM and thank you, Michelle, so much for being here and sitting in yourcar with rain falling on it to talk to us about what you know about how people are having
their lives, their money and their hearts stolen.
It's been such a pleasure, And again, it's an absolute honor in my opinion.
(44:30):
And I just want to say again for the people listening, please reach out if you'reinterested in doing this, or if you have any questions, if you know someone who's being
scammed, if you are afraid that you are, and know that you're coming into a place that isnot going to judge you in any way, we're trying to end this.
(44:51):
And the most important thing is we're trying to educate people so that they do not becomevictims to this.
awful, awful crime.
Outstanding.
Well, I'm glad to have empathetic people like you by my side.
So thanks again, Michelle.
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