All Episodes

March 5, 2025 68 mins
In this episode of the Smarticle Podcast we delve into the alarming 'Pig Butchering' scam, a sophisticated fraud scheme originating in China and spreading across Southeast Asia. Brandon discusses previous incidents, including a significant case involving Shan Hanes, the CEO of a small Kansas bank who was implicated in this scam and embezzled $47 million. The episode features interviews with two victims of the scam, Troy Gauchenour and PJ Jenkins. Troy shares his journey of being deceived through a crypto mining scheme, while PJ, a retired law enforcement officer from New Jersey, details how he got entangled in a similar scam through a dating website. Both victims emphasize the psychological and financial toll of the scam and underline the necessity for public awareness and stronger regulation. Throughout, the episode highlights the intricacy of these scams, the global network behind them, and the urgent need for greater accountability and preventative measures.   00:00 Introduction to Common Scams   01:05 The Pig Butchering Scam Explained   01:15 The Case of Shane Haines   02:43 Impact on Victims and Society   04:05 Real Stories from Victims   04:38 Troy Gau's Experience   05:47 How the Scam Unfolded   14:56 The Role of Cryptocurrency   18:14 Falling for the Scam   23:30 Aftermath and Seeking Help   30:16 Joining the Fight Against Scams   33:04 Understanding Black Yu and White Yu   33:19 The Role of Social Media in Scam Awareness   33:54 Personal Encounters with Scammers   34:40 Law Enforcement and Scam Prevention   35:07 The Reality of Modern Scams   35:50 Misconceptions About Scam Victims   36:12 Targeting the Elderly   36:54 Interview with PJ Jenkins: Law Enforcement Insights   37:54 PJ's Personal Scam Experience   38:57 The Mechanics of the Scam   53:32 The Aftermath and Psychological Impact   57:46 The Need for Awareness and Regulation   01:04:57 Final Thoughts and Call to Action   smarticlepodcast@gmail.com   Pig Butchering Scams Go Hi Tech   An ex-cop fell for Alice. Then he fell for her $66 million crypto scam.   @Smarticleshow  @BDDoble @larryolson threads.net/@smarticleshow @brand.dobes The Smarticle Podcast 

https://www.smarticlepodcast.com/

#troygochenour #pjjenkins #operationshamrock #cryptocurrency #pigbutcheringscam #pigbutchering #romancescams #scams #onlinescams #smarticlescams #coinbase #smarticlepodcast 

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:56):
Welcome back to the Smarticle Podcast and the series Smarticle ScamsThat we are doing.
Trying to uncover or point out or make youaware of common scams that are out there.
Last week we talked with Aaron West,who is the head of Operation Shamrock,
and Aaron explained to us this new scam,new-ish scam called Pig butchering.
Now, you may have never heard of Pigbutchering, but if you were paying

(01:17):
attention to the news a coupleweeks ago, you may have seen how
a CEO of a small Kansas bank in asmall Kansas town called Elkhart, a
2000 people Ag town, was sentencedto 24 and a half years in prison.
Shane Haines, spelled SHAN, ShaneHaines is the CEO of this small

(01:38):
Kansas bank, and he embezzled $47million from this bank and effectively
closed the bank, shuttered it.
He embezzled money from achurch, he embezzled money from
his daughter's college account.
And it's easy to look at ShaneHams to say, man, this guy is
just a dirty, no good criminal.
But I know people from.

(02:00):
And I have a feeling that Shane Haynesprobably wasn't that bad of a guy.
But what happened to Shane Haynes is hewas caught up into a pig butchering scam.
I'm in no way.
I am in no way excusingMr. Haynes of a crime.
It's costing the American taxpayer$47 million to fix this, right?
The FDIC took over HeartlandTri-State and had to pay back all the

(02:22):
depositors the money that was lost.
So that means that you and I,Haines is not innocent by any means.
In fact, he was given a stiffer crimethan the prosecutor even asked for.
But I find it very curious that when youread all the news articles about it, it
refers to pig butchering in there, butit basically does it in an offhand way.
Oh, it's a scam that happened.

(02:43):
Pig butchering is a big deal, and it ishappening to people that are very smart.
I don't think that most people that getscammed by pig butchering scams are dumb.
They're taken advantage ofby a very sophisticated scam
that originates in China.
That is now set up shop inCambodia and Myanmar, and no one's

(03:04):
talking about that part of it.
No one's saying that.
Wait a second.
Where are the, when you read thearticles about this crime that Mr.
Haynes committed, all of them saythey don't know where the money went.
They don't know who the criminals were.
Guess what?
They can trace the money.
They do know someoneknows who took this money.
I was having a conversation lastweek with a very close friend.

(03:27):
He had listened to the Aaron Westepisode and he's like, I really liked
it, but I didn't send it on to anyfriends because I felt like there's
no way they would get scammed bythis, that it's just not gonna happen.
It's happening.
It's happening to the tuneof billions of dollars.
Please let your friends know about this.
This is, I think thatthere's a part of this.
The reason why we're not talkingabout it is it falls right into the

(03:49):
wheelhouse of American exceptionalism.
We think we're great.
We think that we're smart.
We think we're smarterthan everybody else.
We think that if somebody gets caught,it's their fault they should go to jail.
Fair enough?
But the problem is that it's havinga massive impact on everyday people.
In today's episode, we're gonna hear fromtwo of the people that were pig butchered.

(04:10):
Two men that fell for these romanticscams and lost lots of money.
They lost lots of money to whatwould be an average American and the
tens of thousands of dollars thatthey're probably never gonna get back.
It's easy for us to sit back andsay, oh, that wouldn't happen to me.
But it is happening to you.
It's happening to people all around you.
And at the very least, we as taxpayers arenow paying for this pig butchering scam.

(04:33):
We have to wake up to this folks.
It is there.
It is in front of us everywhere.
Today we're gonna be talking toTroy Gau and PJ Jenkins, two men who
fell for this pig butchering scam.
Now, no matter what you thinkabout them, I assure you neither
one of these guys is dumb.
You might say, wow, thatwould never happen to me.
But again, I want you to listen to howthe scam worked, because what happened

(04:58):
to these guys was exactly identicalto what happened to Shane Haynes.
If you read the news articles aboutShane Haynes, the exact same methods were
used on Shane Haynes, the CEO of a bank.
Arguably a very educated man to scam himout of millions and millions of dollars.
It's based on romance and greed.

(05:19):
So I hope that today when you listen tothis, at the end you say, you know what?
I am gonna pass this on to otherpeople because people do need to know.
We do need to have accountabilityfor these crimes, for these crimes.
If people embezzle from abank, they should go to prison.
But we also need to be holding thesecriminals in Asia accountable for
these schemes 'cause they are badand they're coming for all of us.

(05:43):
That said, we'll now hear from Troy au.
So with me today is Troy au who, whoI discovered, as I've mentioned on the
show, as I do these, this series ofshows, I discovered Troy through a Los
Angeles Times article that was written,I think last year, and it was about pig
butchering, which I'd never heard of.

(06:05):
I didn't know anything about this.
I read it and I was completely fascinated.
So I tracked, I stalked Troy, I stalkedhim on the internet and found him.
And he has graciously agreed to come onand talk about his experience with this.
We've talked a little bit already onthe show about pig butchering, and
Aaron West has given us some backgroundinformation, but I wanted to talk with

(06:25):
Troy about his ex personal experiencewith this, because it's fascinating.
I will link the article, so ifpeople wanna read it as well.
But before we get into it, Troy, dome a favor, just introduce yourself,
tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sure.
Um, first off, Brandon,thanks for having me on.
I, yeah, my story can be embarrassing.
I get it if your listeners thinkthat I shouldn't have fallen for it.

(06:46):
I get all that, but it happened,and so I just wanna tell people what
happened so that maybe somebody outthere won't fall for the same thing.
I live in Ohio, but before then I wasliving in New York City at the time.
I wanted to be in showbiz.
In 2020, of course, everything shut downand so I moved back to my home state

(07:07):
of Ohio where I'm, where I now live.
Okay.
Now living 13 years in New York andthen going back to Ohio, basically
starting my life over, I was lookingto, I guess looking for love, and I
hate doing online dating, but I said,I'll just sign up for Facebook dating.
It's free.

(07:27):
What could possibly go wrong?
So I'm to find a job here.
I did find a job and at one point backin the late summer, early fall of 2021, I
get contacted on Facebook dating by thiswoman that's looks like an attractive
Asian woman based on the picture.

(07:47):
Mm-hmm.
And supposedly they were livingin Seattle according to their
Facebook page, but they messaged me.
Now, I thought it was odd that mypage being in Ohio would show up
for some to somebody in Seattle.
And in fact, when they messaged me mm-hmm.
They actually asked me ifSeattle was far from Ohio.
Hmm.
Now wait, before you go on to thatpoint, because I could just hear the

(08:08):
audience saying, red flag, red flag.
At that point, why wouldn'tyou pull the eject button?
Well, because number one pigbutchering had not been heard of yet.
This scam was totally new to the westin about 2021, about the time I was
scam, it started in Southeast Asia.
They went after mainlyChinese, but you know.

(08:29):
Mm-hmm.
It is branched out since then.
But in 2021, the Westhad never heard of it.
So that includes the media.
Okay.
That includes law enforcement.
Nobody had ever heard of this scam yet,
so I had no reason to, I had noreal, to no reason, real reason
to think that this was a scam.
Mm-hmm.
We start a conversation.

(08:50):
Simple enough.
This person was not asking me for money.
They weren't trying to tell me that theywere stuck in, they were having surgery
in a hospital and they needed me to payfor surgery or that they were away in
the military and needed a ride home.
It was nothing like that.
It was a simple conversation,something that you would have with
the, with a friend or with anybody new.

(09:11):
They'd ask How old Iwas I married or single?
Was I living at home?
What kind of job do I have?
Those types of things.
And that's very much how thescam approaches everybody.
At this point, I'm just chatting withthis supposed attractive Asian female.
Mm-hmm.
Um, of course they have picture.

(09:33):
I send them one.
Oh, they think I'm cute.
They send a picture.
They're cute.
So I had no reason in the beginningto think that this was a scam.
Two weeks.
It was really just a constanttexting back and forth.
They would say, good morning, theywould ask me, have I eaten breakfast?

(09:55):
Have I eaten lunch as my, as I gothrough my day, how's my day going?
They would show me pictures abouttheir supposed day and pictures
of the meal that they ate.
They would talk about meetingsand this woman was supposedly
successful, owned several clothingstores back in, uh, Ukraine.
I think she is what she told me.
And, and so for two, three weeksit was just a general chat about

(10:18):
what's going on in the world.
Right.
So they seemed knowledgeableabout current events.
There's a reason why that is andif I get a chance, I'll explain it.
Why don't you explain it right now?
I'm curious, what does thathave to do with the hook?
'cause they study their target.
Oh, okay.
I follow these people on Telegram.
I've got countless numbersof their documents.

(10:40):
I know where their documents are.
I know I, I have chatted with people whoare trapped in scam compounds, so I know
what they're, I know what they're doing.
I know what they're up to.
They, this particular person thatI'm, that I've been chatting with
is a Chinese national trapped in apark in Myanmar, and he told me that

(11:00):
they have to take tests on America.
His target is California.
They have to take tests on America.
So they learned, he told me he learnedabout Columbus discovering the New World,
the War of 1812, the Revolutionary Warstuff that probably a lot of Americans
could not know, would not know about,and they're taking tests on it.
Wow.
Okay, so this is really Sophist case.

(11:22):
So you're in this conversation withthis, presumably this attractive
woman, and it's just normallike getting to know you stuff.
Then what happens?
So about two to three weeks in, shestarted telling me that she owned the
clothing stores, like I mentioned, butshe wasn't really running those anymore.
She was doing something called liquiditymining, and she was mining Ethereum

(11:44):
by using with the USDT in her cryptowallet, in her Coinbase wallet.
She tried to tie this to Coinbase.
Now, at the time, I didn't knowreally anything about crypto at all.
I had heard a Bitcoin, but the rest ofit, yeah, I didn't know anything about
and I had no desire to get into it.
Nobody knew at that time in2021, crypto is pretty new.

(12:06):
Yes.
When she first mentioned it, Ithought, oh, that's interesting.
That's great.
I have no interest init, but that's great.
I'm glad it's working for you.
And so she left it, but thenshe would come back to it.
And then she would start to tell me howit was so easy to make so much money.
She was making $200 a day.
What she was is what she was supposedlymaking and that I could do the same thing.

(12:30):
And because Coinbase was so safe and sosecure and an American company, there was
no way that my funds were gonna get taken.
They were gonna be safein my crypto wallet.
After a while, I had no reasonto doubt this woman at this
point seemed legitimate.
Oh, I do wanna back up just a second.
So of course I asked if we coulddo a video call and Oh, okay.

(12:54):
They said, she said she couldn't becauseshe was doing a video chat with a friend
of hers one day and the friend was drivinga car and got into an accident and died.
And because of that, shewas scared of cameras.
Now I know that is ridiculous and I haveactually found that in their documents,
they're trained to say this stuff.

(13:15):
Yes.
Really.
Now they have models whomake video calls with guys.
I have that information as well, soshe can't make a video call with me
because of that, which I do think isodd, but I keep chatting with her.
But now getting back to Coinbase,Coinbase wallet is very safe.
It's very secure.
As long as I don't turnover my seed phrase.

(13:36):
Now your seed phrase isa series of random words.
It could be 12, it could be 24.
That is like your passcode to your wallet.
That's what protects it.
Mm-hmm.
If, if folks have access toyour seed phrase, then they
have access to your wallet.
But if they don't have access to your seedphrase, they can't get into your wallet.

(13:56):
Okay.
Until this scam, eventually, I'll justget to the point where I was eventually,
I was convinced we're having thisgreat, this kind of romantic online
relationship, and I'm believing now thatCoinbase is safe and she has told me
all about it and has shown me pictures.
Did you do any research on Coinbaseoutside of these conversations at all?

(14:17):
I did not because I knew Coinbasewas a, was a public American company.
Okay.
But you knew about what Coinbase was.
It's a legitimate company.
Yes.
So she showed me how to download Coinbase,how to download a Coinbase wallet, and
then how to set this whole thing up.
Now the way this worked, it's a little bitdifferent than some other pig butchering
scams, but it's the same people.

(14:39):
The way this worked, I had toconnect my wallet to their website.
Okay.
And I had to download, Ihad to buy USDT Tether one.
It's a stable coin.
One tether equals one US dollar.
Okay.
So just a brief interruptionon what Troy was talking about.

(15:00):
He referred to USDT.
It doesn't go into detail on it,and I didn't catch it at the time,
but I wanted to give you guys abrief introduction to what that is.
We're gonna do a whole showon blockchain and encrypt.
And why people use it.
But basically Tether or U-S-D-T-U-S-D-T isjust a symbol for tether, a cryptocurrency
that is pegged to the US dollar.

(15:22):
That means it's connectedto the US dollar.
So it fluctuates with the dollar.
When the dollar goes up, it goes up.
When the dollar goes down, it goes down.
That's all he means by USDT.
So I wanted to make sureyou were aware of that.
As we talked about crypto, it gets alittle bit complicated and as I said,
we'll do a whole show on that, buthopefully that sort of clears it up a
little bit and you'll have a better senseof what it is that he's talking about.

(15:45):
I had to buy that from Coinbase.
I could have bought it from anywhere,but I bought it from Coinbase 'cause
that's who they were supposedly.
And then I transferredthat tether into my wallet.
Okay.
Now on the website to start the, themining, you're supposedly mining Ethereum.
To start the mining you have to getwhat's called a voucher on the website.

(16:07):
And to do that, that cost Ethereum.
Ethereum is another cryptocurrency.
So it cost a littlebit of Ethereum, right?
My scammer sent it to me again,I don't know it's a scam yet,
but they actually sent me money.
Okay?
I have money that's safe in mywallet supposedly, and they are
going to send me money, and they did.
So they send me a little bit of Ethereum,they transferred it to my wallet

(16:29):
and I used that to get the voucher.
Where now I'm supposedly mining Ethereum.
Now the way it works is that everysix hours you could go to the
website and you'll see your account.
Your account go up a little bit.
There's supposedly a littlebit of Ethereum there.
You could then click a button,swap it for USDT, and then transfer

(16:50):
that money into your wallet.
Now what I found out later on isthat those numbers are all fake,
but I didn't know it at the time.
So lemme stop you real quick 'cause I've,I'm trying to follow the train of thought.
So you think you're at Coinbase,but you're not actually in Coinbase.
Exactly.
They sent you the link to Coinbase,but you could have gone outside
and found Coinbase somewhere else.

(17:10):
Right?
Actually, they sent me a linkto a wa uh, a different website.
Totally.
No, correct.
Correct.
But you thought they were sending you, butwhat I'm saying is if somebody's listening
to this, they're saying, why didn't youjust sign up for Coinbase on your own?
Outside of who the,whoever this person was.
Like, why didn't you go get your ownCoinbase and then work with them?
'cause they were not dealing in Coinbase.

(17:31):
The website that they sent me to do miningwas absolutely was not Coinbase at all.
It didn't look like Coinbase.
It was their own website.
In fact, I have it onthe way back machine.
It was in no way connectedwith Coinbase other than there
was a little chat feature.
You could chat with customerservice, and they had the little
Coinbase emblem there on the corner.

(17:52):
Okay.
But you'd never seenCoinbase at this point.
So you didn't know any different,you thought you were talking
to Coinbase, but you weren't.
You were talking to the skin.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
What I'm asking is, did you eventhink to yourself at any point.
Hey, I should go look and seeif this is actually Coinbase,
or were you just, it's so new.
I'm in, I'm just doing what I'm doing.
You just assumed thatit was Coinbase by then.

(18:14):
I was suckered into itvia the romance thing.
Okay, got it.
Have there been romantictalk at this point?
Oh yes, absolutely.
'cause we've had, by now we have beentalking about three weeks every day.
Okay.
And so this is the, and it'sa long con nowadays it's not,
nowadays they're moving to the scamwithin 2, 3, 4 days, five post.

(18:37):
Really, back then they didn't, so Istarted this, I started the scam, which I
didn't think, didn't know was a scam yet.
Right.
And for the first three or fourdays, my account was growing.
So here we are again.
I have no idea that this is a scam,but I wake up one morning every six
hours I could check my account andsure enough, there's more money in it.

(18:57):
Uhhuh look, one morning aboutthree or four days later.
I realized that my account is zero.
And there's some words in front,like I'm, what are these words here?
What?
What is this?
It is supposedly a contractthat says that my money has

(19:20):
been secured in the mining pool.
But let me back up.
I, by this time, I had put$5,000 in, just look, $5,000.
Okay.
But I needed to have $10,000 in there.
And so I needed to put$5,000 in my account.
I didn't know what this was.
So I messaged two people.
One was the customer service, 'causethere was a customer service chat.
And they said, oh, yep,you need $5,000 more.

(19:42):
Okay?
And I also messaged my scammer andthey said, oh, how lucky I was that
I am gonna make all this money back.
I'm gonna get all my money back andI'm gonna get all kinds of bonuses.
It's gonna be a lot of money there.
You're so lucky.
I got that too.
It's rare.
Doesn't happen veryoften according to them.
So I said, okay, I don'thave additional $5,000.

(20:03):
Like really, I just brokeactors starting his life over.
So I went and got a loan for$5,000 and I put that in.
I bought USDT, put that in the wallet.
That money was taken out, andthen I was told that no, I
actually needed another 5,000.
I didn't need a total of 10,000.
I need $10,000 more.

(20:23):
So I need another 5,000 aftermessaging customer service again.
Yeah, we don't want your money.
You just gotta fulfill this contractand you need to do it by whatever
the date was, a couple of days, andor you're gonna lose all your money.
So you put in 5,000, then you putit in another five, and now they're
saying you gotta put in 5,000 more.
No, after I put in a second 5,000,they took that out and now they told

(20:47):
me the contract has been fulfilled, butCoinbase says I need to have $10,000 in
my wallet to get all this money back.
At this point, you mustbe scratching your head.
I was getting upset.
But I mean, I guess you could use anynumber of reasons why I put that money in.
I have no idea, but I didn'trealize yet that this is a scam.

(21:08):
You think you're just gonna make a bunchof money out of this and that somebody
you trusted is sending you and you'relike, it's like any get rich quick scheme.
They prey on the fact that you'rethinking you're gonna make a lot of money.
Yes, that is exactly right.
So I took out another loan.
I had 2000, I put that in.
I took out another loan for$8,000, so now I'm $18,000 in debt.
And I put that money into the account.

(21:29):
I messaged customer service or intomy, I bought, sorry, bought Tether
and put that money into my wallet.
I messaged customer service.
I said, Hey, the $10,000 is in there.
And they said, wait, just one moment.
And then after that, thatmoney was taken out, my wallet
was zero again, now I'm mad.
And I started messagingasking, Hey, where's my money?
What happened to it?

(21:50):
What did you do?
The money is safe in your account.
It's safe in the mining pool.
Then they come back with a message.
You are supposed to get 200,000USDT, but to do that you need to
pay the taxes on it of $35,000.
It was at that point thatI realized I was scammed.
I did not pay the tax.
Of course, but they wanted you to.

(22:11):
That was the hope was thatyou were gonna keep going.
Absolutely.
Right.
That's how this scam works.
Okay.
Where's the romantic interest?
No.
They were always telling, that personwas always telling me that my money
was safe in the mining pool andthat we're gonna make lots of money.
That it's okay, I just needed to paythe tax and maybe she could help me.
She could even maybe gimme $5,000to help me out and we could do that.

(22:32):
We can make all this moneyand we could be together.
Oh, okay.
So it played on my heartstrings,being a single guy and lonely.
It played on my desire for more money.
Isn't that what we all want?
What else do they need tobe played on at that point?
Isn't that what we all want?
We want love and we want more money.
So they, and they know what they're doing.

(22:52):
So you realize you're getting scammed.
At what point do you realize that theParamore, that the romantic interest
is not actually who they say they are?
At that moment, I was sitting on mycouch in the living room, and when
they told, when I got this messagethat I had to put this money in,
and I just went, I was just scammed.

(23:14):
I was dumbfounded.
I was angry.
I just could not, I was like, anybody whosays, you're an idiot for falling for it.
Yes I am.
I am an idiot for falling for it.
I know.
And so I went through all those feelings.
I went through the feelingsof wanting to kill myself.
I'm starting my life over, oh mygosh, now I'm $18,000 in debt,
and I just fell for a scam.

(23:35):
What a moral, right?
Yeah.
That's SI mean, as bad as it isfor me, it's worse for many others.
But I understand.
I didn't know where to turn for help.
I called my local police department.
Of course they were.
Clueless on any of it, right?
Cryptocurrencies ingeneral, let alone the scam.

(23:56):
Right?
I started messaging people, Istarted messaging Coinbase and got
back a message from them that myseed phrase, we'll talk about, that
seed phrase had been compromised.
That's not how the scam works.
What happened was when I got thatvoucher that I told you about earlier,
that was actually a token approval.

(24:17):
Ethereum can work on a smart contract andwhat a smart contract is, in this case,
it's like a subscription to a magazine.
So if you have a subscription tosomething, a streaming service, you
authorize them to take a certain amountof money out of your account every month.
That's how that works, right?
How this works is a smart contractallows them to take money out of

(24:38):
your wallet every time they want to.
In this case, who's the they?
So I'm a little bit confused onthe how they got the seed frame.
Okay.
They didn't.
It was never compromised.
Okay.
Oh, it was a I, when I got thevoucher, it attached what's called
a spender wallet to my wallet.
And what that did, it took the money outof my wallet and gave it to the scammers.

(25:03):
Good.
How much The smart, the tokenapproval said an unlimited amount.
They had access to my wallet andcould take an unlimited amount out
of it and give it to the scammer.
And that's how they were taking themoney out of your account at the time?
Exactly.
Okay.
So you were actuallysigned up with Coinbase.
It was actually legitimately Coinbase.
That's, it's not connectedto Coinbase whatsoever.

(25:27):
Okay.
So this is where I'ma little bit confused.
This voucher they gave you.
What was that connected to?
What were they trying to take money outta?
Okay, so the voucher isnot a voucher at all.
That's what they called it.
It's we're talk, this is alldone on a computer, obviously.
Got it.
Yeah.
And so the voucher, it was justa, it's what is actually a token
approval, meaning they are approved totake all the money out of my wallet.

(25:53):
Right.
But that is where I'm lost Because yousaid this, the wallet was fake, wasn't it?
Or was it a real Wallet?
Wallet.
Wallet was real.
It's Coinbase wallet.
Okay.
So it was legitimately a Coinbasewallet that, that you signed up for.
And so they were taking the money.
Oh, so the scam is even, Ithought they had created a fake
Coinbase account, but they didn't.
They were actually using Coinbase andthen shifting the money over on you.

(26:16):
That's all part of the scam.
That is absolutely correct.
Now, they use trust wallet quite a bit,but they can scam out of any of them.
It doesn't matter to them.
So, uh, who do you call when no oneknows what the heck you're talking about?
And I, I started, I, I went online.
I looked at liquidity miningand I found a Reddit group.

(26:38):
And this Reddit groupwas liquidity mining.
There were other people thatwere falling for this thing.
And so I met, sent a message to themand somebody messaged me back and they,
and they said, Hey, can we call you?
So they called me andthey were victims as well.
And they said, well, hey, we'regetting a Facebook group together.
Do you want to join us?
I said, yes, absolutely.

(26:59):
And so we have a Facebook group nowof victims of the mostly mining scam,
but also the investment side as well.
And there's almost 300of us in that group.
The losses of that I think aresomewhere around $30 million.
$30 million.
It's crazy.
So at this point you're stilltrying to figure out how to get

(27:19):
your money back, I'm assuming.
Yes.
So I'm calling everybody that I can call.
I called the fbi.
They said, you gotta fillout the ic3@icthree.gov.
And that's a form where you, I likeanything else, I'm thinking, oh,
I'm just gonna fill that form outand it's just going to get lost.
Like nothing's gonna happen.
Yeah.
When I filled that out, Iwas actually contacted by two

(27:40):
investigators with Homeland Security.
I did a video chat with them.
They looked, they, I told them my story.
Same story I'm telling you now.
They said, yeah, there'snothing we can do.
I had to figure out really quicklywhat cryptocurrencies were and what
my wallet actually is and how thingswere moving in the blockchain.

(28:02):
I'm not an expert, but I knowa little bit now at least.
I started to reach out on X or Twitter,whatever, and I found, I started
looking at tech news or whatever, andI started reaching out to some, to some
journalists, because I wanted to getthe word I, one of the things I thought,
one of the many thoughts I had was thatthis is a problem and this is huge.

(28:25):
Yeah.
I, how do I tell people?
How do I tell people this is going on?
So I started trying toreach out to journalists.
One from the Washington Postresponded and wrote about my
story and another guy as well.
'cause victims now werepopping up everywhere.
I started reaching out to journalistsand this particular one responded.

(28:47):
When I joined the Facebook group, therewas another guy in there who was part of
the global antis scam organization, andthis was the first time that I started
finding out how widespread this scam is.
I started hearing about hearing aboutinvestment scams and Forex scams, like
four X trading scams, and that peoplewere losing not 28,000, 2.8 million,

(29:09):
half a million over there, a millionover here, and they were getting
contacted on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.
He brought me on to the GlobalAntis scam organization in 2022.
So I could explain this mining scam,how that worked, and they could explain
to me how the investment scam workedand the investment scam is what most

(29:31):
people are hearing about right now.
My case was eventually investigatedby a secret service agent here in Ohio
in 2022, almost a year after the scam.
And of course the money was gone.
Fortunately for me.
However, back in June of 2024, the SecretService in San Francisco seized an account
and backtraced it somehow found out thatmy funds went through that account and

(29:55):
now I could potentially get a hundredpercent recovery, but I'm still waiting.
It sounds like one of thosethings that could be a lot.
I'm finding that out
like everyone else.
I didn't know any of this stuffexisted, and it's fascinating.
And by the way, that'sonly four years ago.
It's not like this was 25 years ago.
This is like a minuteand this is going on.

(30:16):
Real briefly, talk a little bitabout your work with the Global Antis
Scam organization and what that is.
I'm seeing the stop the scam.
What are those?
Are they legit organizations stopthe scam in these different, I know
Shamrock is, but there's a lot of Stopthe Scam organizations out there now.
Are they just peoplelike you that are fed up?
I believe that is the case, yes.

(30:37):
Okay.
These scammers have evolved.
They are doing lots of other scams.
There is a job scam.
A task scam out there right now.
Folks may be getting a randommessage about, Hey, would
you like to work remotely?
If so, contact this personon WhatsApp or click here.
That's task scams.
Yeah.
Coming from the same people.
When Brian brought me on the GlobalAntis Scam organization, they started

(30:58):
in Southeast Asia, that we are mostlyvictims, not all, but mostly victims.
And so it was started by a woman whowas victimized and she got together
with other victims and they juststarted doing stuff and as the scam
spread across the globe, so did Gasso.
It was then that I understood aboutthe scam compounds throughout Southeast
Asia and where I also understood thatpeople were being abducted or tricked

(31:22):
or lured into these scam compounds andforced to work these scams or else they
get beaten or killed sometimes, right?
Yes.
And that is still happening.
Although because the word is out now, somepeople are willingly going there to work.
What Gasso does, we have an, we havea human trafficking team, so they try
to go in and negotiate either with theembassies or whoever, whatever contacts

(31:44):
they have to try to, to free folkswho want out these scam compounds.
But the stories arenot always cut and dry.
My job now with them is if presswants to speak to us and they
email press@globalantisscam.org,I'm the one that responds to it.
Mm-hmm.
Back in 2023, the US Institutefor Peace, uh, U US organization.

(32:08):
Obviously they wanted us tohelp them with a project.
And my job on that project was going tobe to follow the scammers on Telegram.
The project fell through, but theygave me a couple of telegram pages to
start with and I just started clickingand I found all kinds of stuff.
I found scripts.
I found chat groups.

(32:28):
I found groups where they talk abouthow they're manipulating the technology,
the various social media pages tohow they can contact a lot of people.
I have just a mountain of stuffabout how they try to make
themselves look legitimate.
I've got stuff on money laundering.
I've got stuff on what they call blackyou or stolen you and how they can try.

(32:50):
Somebody can change their black you forwhite you, which is stolen you to you.
That's not stolen.
Another brief side note.
Yu is short for un the currency of China.
When he is referring to Black Yu, he'sreferring to stolen Chinese currency.
When he is referring toWhite Yu, he's referring to

(33:10):
currency that's been laundered.
So just wanted to clear that up incase anybody was confused by what
White Yu and Black Yu actually was.
So that is what I do today.
I follow 'em on Telegram and I postit to my LinkedIn page so that all the
folks that I follow and that followme, law enforcement, IT professionals,
anybody other victims that theycan see what's going on out there.

(33:33):
Oh my gosh, Troy, this is amazing.
I had no idea how prolific this was.
And if you look around, it'snot like there's tons of
information out there about it.
There is a lot of information,but it's not like we all
heard about identity theft.
I started off like, I'm justgonna interview different scans,
but I'm beginning to realizethat they're so connected.

(33:54):
You talked about, and maybe this ispart of the GSO thing, you talked
about, you actually met your.
The person who did the scamthrough Gap, I didn't meet the
person who did not meet them.
But you talked to somebodyin the M already said Yes.
So we get emailed by press allthe time, and on occasion we do
get emails from folks who aretrapped in one of these compounds.

(34:16):
Last year, last summer, we got an emailfrom somebody that in a compound in,
in, in a compound in Myanmar, that theywere trapped and that their compound
was using a various, uh, differentcommunication technology and they
wanted to know if we could shut it down.
Don't think we had any luckin shutting it down, but yes.

(34:36):
So sometimes we get to, I get tohave interesting conversations
with people like that.
I know you're not a law enforcementperson, but can we shut this down or
is it just about knowledge That hasbeen the million dollar question.
I know there are.
When I was scammed in2021, there was no law.
Mm-hmm.
And they have today, there's been a hugefederal response, particularly federal, in

(34:59):
some cases, state as well, state and localin various parts in the United States.
That's been really fantastic.
But there needs to be a lot morebecause the scammers are vigilant
and they're not stopping, and asI said before, they're evolving.
So I would like to see more of that.
There has also been an outcryamongst some of the law enforcement

(35:22):
community and some of the IT communityfor Congress to get involved.
But I think because we have so manyfolks out there who just think that
somebody is dumb for falling for ascam, that I'm not sure if that's
on Congress's radar right now.
Yeah.
I'm hoping that maybe in somesmall part smart article can help

(35:45):
with that, because I don't thinkthis has anything to do with.
Just being gullible.
I talked to somebody at the BetterBusiness Bureau and she was saying that
the majority of scam people that arescammed now are actually younger, are
in their thirties and twenties, and notin their, A lot of people think, oh,
they're just old people that get scammed.
No, and it's not dumbpeople that get scammed.
It's, it's so prolific.

(36:07):
They are so good at what they do.
So I wanna thank you for takingthe time to talk about it.
I can actually tell you that thispi, these pig butchering scammers
are looking for folks who are older.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sure they are.
Well, because they have a life savings.
I have this in their documents.
Oh yeah, I know that.
And I've talked to thesepeople, so I know this.
They are looking for folks who 50, 60,70 years old here in the United States

(36:28):
because they know about the life savings.
They know about that 401kand they're going after it.
Oh, good Lord.
All right.
You've depressed me, but I amgrateful, Troy, that you've
taken the time to talk with us.
Hopefully we'll do our own small part.
Keep doing what you're doing.
I really appreciate.
It's awesome.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me on.
And hey, I appreciate the time.

(36:54):
I'd like to welcome PJJenkins to the show.
PJ was a law enforcement officer inthe state of New Jersey for over 25
years, retiring a couple of years ago.
PJ has an extensive resume in the lawenforcement field, everything from
being a state trooper all the wayup to running security for a casino.
So he speaks with expertise when itcomes to law enforcement, and that's

(37:17):
one of the reasons why I was soexcited to get a chance to talk to pj.
So pj, welcome to theSmart Article podcast.
I appreciate you taking time to comewith us on this series about scams.
So before we even get started, before PJgives us his intro, I have to say that
when I reached out to PJ, he was like, ah,I can't believe this is still going on.

(37:39):
But I will tell you from the bottom of myheart, and for a lot of people, if we can
save one person for going through whatyou went through, we win all that to say.
Pj, thanks for coming on.
Can you tell us a little bitabout yourself and then we'll
get into what happened to you?
Yes.
Thank you for having me, Brandon.
Sure.
Again, when you reached out, I haveshelved all this because a part of
the, the scam, the afterwards, it's,some people get depressed and part

(38:04):
of this scam, two people actuallycommitted suicide, which was horrific.
And then trying to get the message outto, like you said, if you can save one
person, it makes it all worthwhile.
With my background, uh, law enforcement, Istarted off as a local police officer for
two years, and then I transferred over tothe New Jersey State Police for 26 years.

(38:24):
Everything from station detectiveto that administrator governor's
unit, I have a three pageresume, street gangs, everything.
So considered myself.
Professional.
I've been director of securityat Resource World Casino in New
York, 8 million people a year.
To me, being scammed was one of my biggestblack marks, I would say in my life,

(38:48):
because I'm the person who preaches andteaches other people not to get scammed.
Yeah.
So when I got scammed, it was a shocker.
How it started was basically just goingon a social website, talking to an
attractive woman who slow played me.
Now, before you go on to that, can I,because this is one of the things that
I've found out through this is like a lotof people, it's just done through tech.

(39:11):
You actually went on a dating website,met somebody, like millions of people do.
Thought they were attractiveand nice and whatever.
Did you actually, did they havea picture of themselves up?
Oh, they had a picture of themselves up.
Of course, when you're meetinganyone, you start, after a while you
start sharing pictures and startedsharing things about each other.

(39:33):
And she knew us from the Hamilton,New Jersey area, which is the
blueberry capital of the world.
So her cute name for me was Mr. Blueberry.
Oh.
It became very personal.
And then one of the first things that wedid was because she was Asian, she invited
me over to WhatsApp because she said ittranslated, made translation easier, made

(39:56):
connections easier, and it was reasonable.
That was part of me joiningher over on that platform.
And by the way, that is avery common scammers app for
people that are out there.
When someone asks you to go on WhatsApp.
Be very, not that you can't use webWhatsApp, it's not that it's not a
legitimate thing, but the reason theyuse it is because it allows them to take

(40:18):
you off of one platform onto another.
So just be aware that if thatcomes up, maybe a little bit
of skepticism regardless.
You went on there.
WhatsApp is encrypted.
This is part of why the scammers use it.
It's a legit platform and it's gotmillions and millions of users.
But it is mainly on theAsian side of things.
But I've had legitimate interviewsaround the world on WhatsApp, but there

(40:41):
is WhatsApp job offer scams there.
There, there's, like you said, youhave to be very careful when someone's
asking you to go on WhatsApp.
Telegram, there's, there'snumerous different ones, but those
are the two of the major ones.
So you go onto WhatsApp with her, you'recommunicating back and forth via WhatsApp
and, and what's the timeline of this?
It's just like.

(41:01):
A couple days.
Oh no, this is, this is why I say it's,it was very intriguing because it was
well played, because it was slow played.
It was no hurry, nothing was mentionedfor at least a month before she started,
Hey, what do you do for a living now?
What are you doing?
And blah, blah, blah.
And I had just recently retiredand she was like, oh, I have this

(41:25):
wonderful platform that I'm on,Coinbase, it's in your wallet.
You have total control of it.
And that's what part of the upsettingpart was that once I was scammed and I
reached out to Coinbase and I tried tomake them alert to what was going on, they
did absolutely nothing to shut it down.
They have since changedtheir user agreement.

(41:46):
And, but yeah, it's tried to strikethe gr the drum hard and loud.
To warn other people.
But before you go into the Coinbasething, I've interviewed five different
people that have gone through this, what,what's known as a pig butchering scam.
And every one of 'em werescammed through Coinbase.
Yeah.
Now, it's not that Coinbase is not alegitimate company, they're not the
scammers, it's just the fact that it'san easy system to use to run the scam.

(42:11):
Is that correct?
Yes.
The way it's set up, when you thinkCoinbase and you think of the company,
you think that it's a legitimate company.
Millions and billions ofdollars are being generated.
So you feel like the way that they alsoadvertise is that what, the encryption
that Coinbase has, you can't, nobodycan hack you, but that's just not true.

(42:31):
So that, that was the other part of thearticle that I did that I wanted them
to go after and have hold Coinbase moreaccountable than they actually were.
The article, at least ingeneral, got the, the scam out.
So after a month of talking to this woman.
On WhatsApp or whatever you she now offer.

(42:55):
Explain that because that's the key.
I've heard this in alot of different scams.
This is where the, this iswhere the hook hits in the con.
So what happens after a couple of months?
Again, slow played exchange numbers.
We are talking not only just texting,we're also talking to each other.
And then mm-hmm.
She texts me.
How does that happen?
She, you're actually on, uh, whatare you talking through WhatsApp?

(43:18):
Yes.
Are you talking through signal?
Talking through WhatsApp?
Yes.
So you're talking to this woman?
Yes.
And you're, it's, is this romanticat this point or getting there?
Right now, after a couple of months we'retalking, now we're setting up, meeting
where we're gonna meet, blah, blah, blah.
Then she know, sheintroduced it as a project.
Let's do a project together and let's,I'm making money on in Coinbase.

(43:41):
I would love for you tobe a part of it and help.
Secure your greater financial stabilitybeing retired and so on and so forth.
She sent me screenshots of what she wasdoing and actually walked me through it.
Then she introduced, it's calledDelphi Liquidity Mining, and I
was like, how does that work?

(44:02):
She's like, mining is not buying andselling like a mine in the mountains.
It's full of, they call it ETH.
We mine that throughtransferring that into U-S-D-D-T.
I don't know if you're familiar withthe terminology of crypto trading or, we
actually have one whole episode dedicatedto understanding crypto and blockchain.

(44:25):
Okay.
If we don't understand itnow, we'll understand it.
Okay, good.
This was basically what it was.
It's not mining per se, it's, it's acertificate of a mining node that you're
obtained from within your Coinbase wallet.
That actually goes out every day andsupposed to mine 0.0045% of what you do.

(44:51):
And it's, explain this, this is anactivity in Coinbase wallet to attract
new registered users and storage.
The USDT does not need to beprofessionally transferred or to
any platform or personal accountsthat will remain in your Coinbase
wallet and it will let you withdrawor trade currencies at any time.
And this line of the conversationwas the hook in my mouth when mm-hmm.

(45:17):
I thought it was safe in my walletand I was, nobody else could get it.
I could take it out ortrade it at any time.
And I did.
I did it four times.
I did the trades transferred, tookit all out, put it all back in to
make sure to myself that it was safe.
And that's where I got Do you thinkthey knew that this is a possibility?

(45:39):
Do you think they do this so thatthey like create trust in you?
We're gonna allow him to take thismoney out that you put in because
Coinbase is a legitimate thing and youare taking money out American Dollar.
It's not just some crazy thing.
It's like a bank.
You take it out and you put it back in.
So you're doing this and allthe while is your hammer.
Do they, are they awarethis is going on with you?

(46:01):
Oh yeah.
They're co they're physicallyscreenshotting how to, if you have
any questions or any, they hand walkyou through every step of the way.
Like they're actually trying tohelp you make money, but they're
just getting deeper into your money.
Because I was cautious,I started off mm-hmm.
With $500.
I took it out, put it backin, increased it to $1,500.

(46:25):
Meanwhile, in Coinbase and inthis node that they send you for
your Coinbase wallet, you see andyour Coinbase, you see it growing.
You see that zero, zero 4%based on if it's $1,500, you
see that daily accumulating.
So it's not a lot of money.
It's like two or three, two or $3 a day.

(46:47):
But then as you create,that's how they get you.
The more money you put into thisCoinbase wallet and the more money
that they have in your USDT that ismined, you see it steadily growing.
So you're encouraged, butthat's not real, right?
That's fake growth.
Your money's real, but the actualright, the, the actual mining.
But you see the screen, you seeit growing daily, so they've

(47:10):
taken you to a fake website.
You're in there, itlooks just like Coinbase.
Yeah.
It's, yeah, it, it's withinCoinbase that you see this.
It's not taking you to some.
Other site that you can't see it,you'd see it all with the Coinbase.
That's why you think it's legit.
That's why you think it's real.
That's why you think, oh, I can.
So how do they fake thenumbers in Coinbase?

(47:30):
How do they actually do that?
They send you this link within Coinbase.
Mm-hmm.
And once you clink on that link that joinsthat, you know that mining group, you just
give them the keys to the kingdom, right?
There's like some crazy code.
Now they own your Coinbasewallet and you don't know that.
You still think thatyou have control of it.

(47:50):
You still think that you're,nobody's got your past phrase.
Nobody can get in there because ifyou've ever set up a Coinbase wallet,
there's 26 different encryptionphrases to be able to lock your wallet.
You're thinking no waythat nobody can get this.
But once you click that certificatelink that they send you, within
Coinbase, you've just given them ahundred percent access to your wallet.

(48:16):
After you do that, then they slowlykeep trying to get you to increase
the money that you're putting.
And unbeknownst to me, I think it's legit.
So I start word of mouth, look, I'vebeen in this thing for three months.
I've taken the money out,took putting it back in.
It's not a lot of money that I'mmaking, but at the end of the month,

(48:37):
it's a couple extra hundred dollars.
My goal was just to putenough money in there to have
additional $500 a month come in.
Yeah, nice little side hustle, right?
So just a little side gig, a littlebit extra to what you'll call it.
Obviously she's showing me she's got acouple hundred thousand in there on her
screenshots and that she's making twoor 3000 a month, whereas I'm like, all

(49:00):
right, I don't want to put that much.
But thank God they pulled the rug before.
Before I actually was thinkingabout taking my home equity.
And cashing out and puttingsignificant amount of money.
Why do you think they pulled out?
I think it was, it was near the holidays.

(49:21):
It was, I, if I, I remember it was likeDecember 1st and I think that maybe
the wind started blowing against them.
Literally, I was on Coinbase.
My nephew called me because Iactually, I got him to thinking
that I'm helping my nephews.
Mm-hmm.
Hey, take five or $6,000 and put thisin there and you have a couple extra

(49:42):
hundred dollars at the end of the month.
My nephew called and said, Ican't get into my Coinbase.
My other nephew called me andsaid, my Coinbase is wiped.
I can't see anything into it.
So I'm like, hold on, let me log on.
Actually, I logged on and I saw 20 grandin front of my eyes just disappear.
Oh, wow.
So there was nothing Icould, once it's gone.

(50:03):
That's the other thing.
Once it's gone, you start chasing it.
It's interesting because I spokewith Erin West, who's an expert
in these big butchering scam.
She works for an organizationcalled shamrock.org.
Their entire reason for beingis to help people deal with
scams and be aware of them.
She's an ex prosecutor andshe said, and I found this to
be true, you're really lucky.
'cause most people that get involvedin these big butchering scams, they

(50:26):
take the, their entire job is totake every single thing you have.
So when you said you were going into yourh your home equity, they want everything.
They want to take everysingle penny you have.
So the fact that youdidn't pretty amazing.
That started giving me a red flagat that point, uh, because she
started getting pushy about it.
How come you're not, you're makingthis money and, and you're already,
you're already up a couple thousanddollars or blah, blah, blah.

(50:49):
You're not really seriousabout making money.
And she started saying, whenare you gonna go to the bank?
And when I start sending you to thebank, uh, that's another red flag.
Yeah.
And they will send you to the bankto make sure that you're taking your
money outta your banking account andwire transferring it into Coinbase or
whatever app that you're using for that.

(51:10):
So it, it all seems legit.
It all makes sense until the, likeI said, until the rug is pulled.
And that's what they usually do.
They wait until they have enoughpeople in it and then they
pull the rug all of a sudden.
And at, for my particular scam, atthe time that Washington posted the
story, they had uncovered it withthat $66 million and continuing and

(51:34):
was not stopped in any way even afterthe article was written by Coinbase.
By the way, that article came out in 2022.
And this is still prevalent.
This is not, well, that was somescam that happened a while ago
and it doesn't happen anymore.
It's actually increased since then.
So even though.
We have more knowledge of it, it's stillhappening and it's actually increasing.

(51:56):
So I just want people to be aware of that.
It's not like PJ got his moneyand then, oh, well, sucks you
pj, but now we're moving on.
Right.
It's not moving on.
That's why I said the rug pool,just in my instance of just the
group that I was in was 66 million.
That's not the total amount of it.
You know what I mean?
Right.
And that was from let's, I had startedthat talking to her in September,

(52:19):
and by, like I said, December1st, the money was pulled, so my
total family losses were $86,000.
Oh.
Like I said, I had a friend withinthat coin, Coinbase Facebook
group that I joined afterwards.
That had started talking to mebecause I was the one that was in
law enforcement within that group.

(52:40):
So everyone started reaching out to meis what is law enforcement gonna do and
what does it's unregulated business.
This is why I don't believe inno longer believe in crypto.
It's unregulated.
There's no gatekeepers,there's no law enforcement.
After my article of, of course, afterit happened to me, I wrote lengthy,
well-prepared statements to Coinbaseto make them fully aware of what was

(53:03):
going on with their platform, and Ijust felt like they didn't care because
they get a piece of the transactionsevery day that happened on Coinbase.
Mm-hmm.
I felt that they didn't wannastop anything from happening
'cause they're still making money.
Regardless of you're getting, if thescammer's making money or you're losing
money, they're still making moneybecause they're just charging you for

(53:23):
the transactions that occur on there.
I wanted to go after them.
That whole group, we tried to pullmoney together to get a lawyer, a
New York lawyer to, to go after them.
It was really a rabbit hole tocontinue to go to, and for my
peace of mind and for my sanity.
A year later, I finallyclosed it all down.
And like I said, you're the firstperson in a long time, but I did have

(53:45):
people on Facebook that contacted me,people through email that contacted me.
And I, like I said, if I can saveone person from committing suicide
or to losing everything that theyhave, because I was still, even
though I was going through it, Iwas still, I didn't go all, all in.
And I just had a friendrecently, within weeks.

(54:05):
That went all in and just lost everything.
And I tried to warn him with two weeks ofbefore he got his rug pulled, and that's
what we call it, when they finally mm-hmm.
Exposed a scam and stopped trying tomake you believe they'll just take
everything and then you're done.
Did they just ghost you at that point?
Oh no.
She had the, to actuallytaunted me because I was like,

(54:26):
how could you do this to me?
Like, I was like, still in shock.
I was like, I believed you.
You know what I mean?
And I, that's what my, as the lawenforcement, seeing hundreds of
victims and thousands of victimsduring my career, sometimes they're
very obvious when somebody's scammed.
Somebody's from like a third world,Ghana is saying, wire me money to Ghana.
It's a red flag.
Right?

(54:47):
There's some obvious red flags andthere's some that are not so obvious.
And this was, this one was well played.
That's why it's making.
Billions of dollars becauseit's still going on.
So wait, they taunt.
She taunted you?
What did she say?
Oh, yes, she, because I was like, ah.
I said, you not only gotme, you got family members.
She goes, I didn't tellyou to tell anybody.
She threw right in my face.

(55:07):
And I was like, true.
Sure you not.
Why do you think she even answeredyou after they'd taken the money?
Do you think she was hopingto get more outta you?
Yes.
So this is the part, the, this isthe part, like it's a rabbit hole.
So in order, what she kept saying was,okay, in order to buy out your, you signed
a contract when you signed that link.
So in order for us to reimburse you,you've gotta fulfill your contract

(55:31):
with, which is like $250,000.
So we will be, if you give us minus the$86,000, there's a hundred and whatever
adds up to 250, you send us that balanceand then we will refund you everything.
So it's still, so if you're desperateand you're chasing your money.
You're gonna try to, because they'replaying it off like they're legit.

(55:53):
They're playing it off just stilllike, like, Hey, this is not our fault.
This is your fault.
You know what I mean?
This is something thatyou signed a contract.
I'm like, I've never signed a contract.
And they're like, once you agreeto that link, this is the contract.
Oh my goodness.
And so they're playing against yourfear of a law and all these things.
And then you're at that.
When you're in that state of mind, you'recha, it's like going to the casino.

(56:18):
Yeah.
And going and getting a marker.
When you know you're alreadydown, you should walk away.
Yeah.
But you still go get a marker.
That's how they play it.
And that's the mindset.
Look, we've taken your moneyand if you want a shot at
getting it back, give us more.
Oh my gosh.
And then the other scam thatcomes in even later is that the
people who come at you and say.

(56:39):
We're professionals.
We can track your money.
We can get it all back.
Now, who are these people?
Because you mentioned that in theemail to me and I'm like, wait, what?
Are they connected to this or not?
No, they're separate scammers.
They just see, they just troll theFacebook, so the LinkedIns or whatever,
and they see that you're talking,you're in a group about crypto loss,
and so they go in and they start.

(56:59):
Texting you, oh, we canget your money back.
We're professionals.
We know this like the back of our hand.
We know exactly And youcould track your own.
You can track it.
I track my own money to, to where it was.
It's third world country,you're not going to get it back.
In some instances, even some ofthese people are held hostage.
They think they're goingfor legitimate jobs.
There are multiple language users.

(57:21):
They get a job email for like$50,000 in a different country,
which is a lot of money to them.
And they go and then they'reheld hostage until they produce.
Yeah.
Enough money to be let go.
So it's, yeah, this is bad people, right?
Running these scams.
Right.
It's not like it's mom and pop shopthat's like, okay, we're just gonna
take money and that's the end of it.
No, that it's global and that's the scarypart, that it's global and nothing's

(57:43):
being done about it and it's unregulated.
So let's talk, I havebasically three last questions.
The first question is.
Why isn't anything being done?
If I've said this a bunch of times, ifyou, if banks were being robbed all over
the United States, or people were beingstrong, armed, robbed at their houses, we
would have law enforcement all over this.
Why do you think, as a formerlaw enforcement person, why

(58:05):
isn't anything being done?
It's billions of dollars beinglost because it's unregulated.
There's no, it's the wild west.
That's why crypto is, a lotof people don't understand it.
And even when I thought I understoodit, I didn't understand it.
Right.
I understood the terminology,understood how to set everything up.
It's one thing to buy Bitcoin and justsit on a Bitcoin, but these are all within

(58:30):
the Coinbase crypto community of how tomake extra money by these transactions.
So again, that's why I say it's notstopped by the company Coinbase, because
they're making money regardless ofwhether you're sending it to somebody
legit or sending it to somebody.
Illegit, there's still a littlepart of that transaction.
They get paid regardless.

(58:50):
So I don't believe that they wanna stopthat because that's their losing revenue.
And they would say that they aredoing things and they have statements.
They, again, I could send you the emailthat I scathingly route and made them
well aware that they, I felt that they hadliability because they were doing nothing
After they, when I encouraged everybodyin my group to file police reports stuff,

(59:14):
when I went out to the police department,it spent me two hours to try to explain
what was going on and, yeah, the cryptand the crypto terminology, and then she
was looking at me like I was from an ele.
That's what Aaron West basicallysaid is that most people that go
into law enforcement, they wantto go out and catch criminals.
They want to get on the streetand catch people, right?
This is something that's done allonline, so you almost gotta hire

(59:37):
19-year-old hackers to deal with thisas opposed to law enforcement people.
Right.
It took the Washington Post tohire legitimate people to ver you
know, verify my story and othersand to start adding up the losses.
And that's why I said that was Janu.
My, my article came out Aprilof 2022, so this is a year and

(01:00:00):
four months later at 66 million.
And it was still going on.
But after the article was written,Homeland Security did contact me.
Okay.
Because I was one of my complainants.
I filed FBI report.
I didn't hear back from anybody.
I filed a police report, Ididn't hear back from anybody.
My CPA was like, you can deduct$3,000 for three years of your losses.

(01:00:22):
And that's the only recourse.
I used to be a actor.
I'd still do some projects here and there.
So I got onto the, thatplatform and I was.
I had a lady in New York that had apopular television show and I tried
to do a Netflix special from, like yousaid, you're interviewing everybody.
I contacted the top 20 people whohad the most losses and I tried to

(01:00:45):
get her to do a Netflix and thenultimately it, it got turned down it.
Then nobody wanted to take a flyer on it.
Good Morning, America calledwithin a day of me scheduling a
interview for Good Morning America.
After my article came out.
They called back and canceled me whyI think the powers a b don't, didn't

(01:01:05):
want to touch Coinbase and that entity.
Same thing with the Washington Post,although they did a great article.
They were very, I don't know,hands friendly with Coinbase
and their responsibilities.
So nobody wants their finger pointingto go on at what's going on and to stop
it and it's unregulated so they can say,oh, you're not breaking any laws, even

(01:01:25):
though you're stay ripping people off.
Well, I think that's one of theproblems too, is that you've got a moral
issue and you've got a legal issue.
Right.
The legal issue.
Yeah.
They probably aren't breakingany laws and they're covered.
Right.
And they're not gonna get, youcan't get sued and they're not.
But there's also a moralcomponent to this, which is
that PGH family lost $80,000.
Now let's talk aboutthe psychology of this.

(01:01:49):
You lose this money.
What's it like for youin the aftermath of this?
What's it been like for you?
Oh, guilt.
Like I said, in my whole life, I've beenthe, I have eight brothers, three sisters.
I'm the law enforcement one.
I'm the one everybody alwayscame to with their problems.
I'm the problem solver in the family.
I was the one that reached out to myne nephew's brother and another nephew

(01:02:13):
to think I'm gonna helping them in lifeby bringing a couple hundred hundred
dollars into their life at the end ofthe, it's not big money, but I thought
it would be enough to help them.
Yeah.
So guilt for the people thatlistened to me and trusted me.
My nephew was the one that kept saying,look, you didn't do it maliciously.
You thought you were helping us.
We don't hold you accountable.
But I held myself accountable.

(01:02:34):
That's why I tried to go on the largeplatforms and to make a voice, and I
really, it was a, when the Washington Postreached out to me, it was like bearing
my soul because this is the biggestblack mark that happened in my life.
Like I said, I got a three page resumeand nothing like this has ever happened
because I felt that with my backgroundand I investigated hundreds of scams.

(01:02:57):
Mm-hmm.
Click this link and McAfee subscriptionand all the other scams, or the way
I got a job for you on LinkedIn here,click this link, go to WhatsApp.
Those are all ob, like I feel theold, those are obvious red flags.
This in no way or shape hada red flag until she started
asking me to significantly.

(01:03:18):
Get the money outta my home equity.
'cause like you said, they wantevery single dollar that you own
or possibly can get ahold of.
They don't just want the 10 20grand, they want deep, they want
to take you for everything andthey leave you with nothing.
And that's why like a friend, amillion dollars, he lost and committed
suicide and oh man, another policeofficer in London committed suicide.

(01:03:42):
And these were people that I was talkingto and yeah, but they, once they realized
the money has gone and it takes a while.
Like the joint, the group Troythat you mentioned, I know Troy
was very aggressive on, I am notresting until I get my money back.
But me and law enforcement knowingonce it's gone, it's not coming back,
making other people aware of it.

(01:04:03):
It was the only thing that I feltthat I could do to help people.
So that, like I said, thishas been buried for me.
'cause once I had the mentality of,okay, I'm done with it, I'm done with
crypto, and actually I'm retired now,so I became a little bit of re recluse.
Because of this, I shut off social media.
I don't participate in a lot of thingsthat I used to because it's, I felt

(01:04:25):
that I made no difference once evenI tried to make a difference and
nobody was really paying attention.
Like the Homeland Security wasonly because I brought it to
light that they actually called.
And then when I even asked them fora follow-up report, no response.
The law enforcement piece of thisis tricky for sure, because I've

(01:04:45):
gone so far down this rabbit hole.
It's easy to want to point fingers and Ilook at this and I could say, man, there
are a lot of people to blame for this.
There's criminals in Asia, there's, andwe should be working towards a solution.
But the bottom line, thewhole purpose of this show.
And I really, truly appreciate youcoming on and taking some time,
is to save Uncle Lou in Iowa.

(01:05:06):
If we could just save one person fromgoing down this, then we don't even
have to worry about law enforcementor Coinbase or anybody else.
Whomever is responsible isto stop it before it starts.
Pj, I appreciate you ripping the scaboff again and taking some time to talk
with us, because I do think that if wecan just get the word out, we're just one

(01:05:26):
podcast, one little company that's justtrying to, I'm sitting there thinking
to myself, I really hope Coinbasedoesn't sue us, but hey, you know what?
If I report the truth andwe just interview people,
then that's all we can do.
I see articles like in The New YorkTimes, I've emailed the writer of that
saying, look, this is still going on.
It's still prevalent.
Nobody cares.
Yeah.
Like I said, good MorningAmerica and shows like that.

(01:05:49):
I. Need to have people really address it.
They want a solution too.
And there's no solution tothis at this point, and it's
a very complicated solution.
I agree with you.
There was an article in The Economist,but who's reading The Economist?
Mm-hmm.
This needs to be in local newspapersaround the country so that people, the
average American who's not spendingall their time reading the Washington

(01:06:10):
Post or the New York Times can geta sense of, hey, this is out there.
When you click on yourcomputer, you are in danger.
It's that simple.
Right?
And people don't get that.
And when you're on an app ofany kind, you are in danger.
If you've said to somebody, you've beenin law enforcement for a long time, New
York City in the early eighties, lateseventies was a pretty rough place.

(01:06:31):
And if you said to somebody, Hey,do not walk down this street after
eight o'clock at night, peoplewould be like, oh, I get that.
I'm not gonna walk down the street.
In a sense, your computer's walkingdown that dangerous street right now.
So we're just trying to get the word out.
Yeah.
Every time anybody asks you to go tothe bank, start doing withdrawals,
start sending large amounts of moneyanywhere, you know that those are Yeah.

(01:06:51):
Definitely red flags that needto, people need to be aware of.
And even if it's small amounts, onceyou, once they have your ear, they, these
people look good and they will convinceyou that you're gonna make money and they,
and on the apps you can, everything's ai.
It's a little bit, uh, easier toexplain to people now because they,
like my friend recently got scammedand I said, look, I can go on, AI

(01:07:15):
can create a website in 20 minutesthat looks legit, but it's not legit.
Mm-hmm.
You know what I mean?
It shows you a fake bank accountnumber with these numbers.
The thing that got me was thatI saw it all within the Coinbase
wallet and the Coinbase app.
Mm-hmm.
Which made me believe that it was real.
It wasn't a third party appor wasn't anything else.

(01:07:36):
Thank you, PJ, for taking the time.
I really appreciate it.
I hope that this.
Maybe draws the last chapterof a long story for you.
I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you so much for taking the time.
We'll do the best we can.
Yeah, that's all we can do, andthank you for bringing light to this.
I think that there was a lot morepeople like you, like yourself that
actually brought this to attention.

(01:07:56):
Then you know, it would, like yousaid, it wouldn't be as prevalent.
All right, pj, have a great day.
Thanks again for everything.
Thanks for having me.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.