Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
State auditor Keith Faber in studio with us talking about cybercrime,
which is just out of control. I mean every facet
of our lives. Now you got people are coming at
you from every angle trying to steal, steal, still reach
into your pockets.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
True or false. If you are.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Over the age of thirty, your information is already out
there on the dark web.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Almost certainly true, Almost certainly true. And the reason for
that simple. All of the databases that your information is in,
whether it's your health records or whether your credit card companies,
almost all when they archived that information, they didn't have
the level of security that they have in the cloud today,
and so all of those old archival methods had been
(00:43):
hacked and all that information was downloaded to the dark web.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
What did you think when you saw everything going on?
For instance, and I think it's maybe been around a
year ago, might be a little bit in Las Vegas,
like MGM, and you know, you had like Bellaggio and
you had Caesar's Palace.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
These they were.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
You had the cyber criminals who and that's when you
see something like that, you're like, well, that's a grand scale.
I mean, you got this enormous team or do you
have an enormous team of people. It could be a
couple of people, or it could be one person, right.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
It depends.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Often again, some of these are international criminals, and it's
some of them are just organized criminal syndicates in the
United States, and some of them are just kids in
their basement.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
The level of sophistication to do some of these crimes
is very, very high, but a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Of it is just people who have a mischievous I
call it somebody who has larceny in their heart, because
some of them are schemes. If they applied their skills
and their techniques the lawful enterprises, they would be the
next generation of people that Microsoft and other people are
trying to pay millions of dollars due to come to
AI engineering. But you know, they find it easier to
(01:52):
steal and look. As auditor, one of the things I
get to do is catch people lying, stealing, and cheating
with government money. We've now convicted over one hundred and
forty individuals. The problem is is the cyber stuff is
stuff that's very difficult for us to catch. It's very
difficult for us to grab people who have done this.
There are some examples where we've caught some people, but
it's more likely than not we're not going to catch
(02:15):
them because they're shielded behind multiple layers or they're out
of the country.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Do you find the hardest people like Granville, for instance,
when you're talking about what did you say seven hundred, seven.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Hundred thousand, I think was the great yes?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Or Mansfield or Mansfield seven hundred and fifty thousand? Do
you port authority down in southern Ohio eighty six thousand dollars?
These are just ones that are coming to my head.
Literally every week we get another one that's usually five
figures in some six and seven figure losses.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Do you find those when they get to that amount,
because clearly that is an enormous amount of money. Do
you find that those are the harder like the more
sophisticated ones because it's for obvious reasons? Or is it
harder Sometimes you go, gosh, and I don't know, like
fIF teen hundred dollars or twenty five hundred. You got
a lot of the but those don't blip as much
(03:04):
on a rate because of the amount.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Correct, And part of it is is because of the
way they're doing this, it gets more difficult to catch
and track the people, and so the state auditor's office
or even the Attorney General's office or your local prosecutor,
local sheriff don't have the resources to go after them
and attract them. You almost have to catch them in
a steam and frankly, we need to do more of
those kind of stings. Dave jos In the Attorney General's
(03:28):
Office has done some of that with regard to elder
abuse and some of the people who were spoofing and
getting on your phones. But the federal government's the one
who really ought to be taking a more serious effort here,
and they have some resources to go after that. But
for example, what we saw during COVID, the US Attorney's
Office was telling people, telling the Secret Service and the
other people who were investigating the largely cyber fraud that
(03:51):
occurred during the unemployment the pandemic unemployment system that we
found more than six billion dollars lost.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
You would have thought that the federal go would be
all over that.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I jokingly say that I think put the funded part
of the Ukraine War with American unemployment dollars. But the
fact of the matter is is that the federal government
wouldn't prosecute, wouldn't even go after people. And they were
telling the US attorneys were telling that the investigators don't
bring us a case less than two million dollars, And frankly,
I told them.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I'll prosecute. I've got prosecutors.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Heck, I just tried a case three weeks ago and
Alan County myself against the lady who ran the Regional
Transit Authority, maybe the first auditor in history that actually
tried a case against a thief. We convicted her seven felonies.
I'll go after somebody for two bucks if they're stealing
government money. But ultimately they wouldn't take those cases. So
there were a lot of those cases that just never
(04:43):
had anything act on them, and that's not the right message.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Before you get out of here, a couple of things
I want to ask you out. First of all, the
unclaim funds, the dispute over using those for the stadium
and all that crap overseeing government money. It's technically not
government money, but it's in government controlled. The Auditor's office
have any say in that procedure or what happened.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
We do not. We do not.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
That's a legislative issue. And the unclaimed funds are run
by the Department of Commerce.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I bet you got inundated with questions.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, just what, Chuck. The first thing I tell all
your listeners to go to the website.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You'll see if you've got a claim, and if you've
got a claim, get your money back.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
It's your money, right.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Fortunately, I was cleaning my garage last weekend. I found
the paperwork to show the house I lived in in
nineteen ninety five, so I'll be able to get my
money that I found on there.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Make sure.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, some of the requirements I had one that I
spent almost a year and a half to get my
money back. And I'm an elected official. They needed me
to prove who I was. I thought that wasn't interesting.
It isn't easy to get your money back, but go
get your money back. Look, personally, I didn't think that
that was a great idea to its cheat money. I mean,
it's your money. After ten years, are going to take
(05:49):
your money. They didn't need to do that to do
what they were talking about. Whether that's the right way
to fund the Brown Stadium or not is a different question.
The government has taken money out of the unclaimed funds.
It's a loan from the unclaimed funds. If they're truly
going to have the Brown Stadium paid for by tax
receipts generated by the Brown Stadium in that area, it
(06:09):
would be okay to lend the money from the unclaimed
funds and pay it back. You don't need to make
the money go away after ten years. I don't know
why they did that, but again I'm not gonch words.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
If you loan that money, then the people with unclaimed
funds should be entitled to interest. If you're going to
loan and make interest on that money and they are,
that's that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Will you set your unclaim funds back? By the way,
you do get a true up with interest.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
You've got a big day coming up tomorrow. You've got
a big government dollars. Isn't that supposed to be tomorrow
where you're announcing kind of a transparency list? Is that
coming up tomorrow for you?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Not for us tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
I could have sworn I read that sometime this week
where you were gonna like say, okay, here's kind of
the state of Ohio where the money's flowing and that
kind of stuff. Just as a.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Really and I'm looking at my comms guy and he's
not shaking his head.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yes either, I don't think we have I bought popcorn.
Well we'll happen. I can tell us and you can
make it available.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
No, I'm just always because everybody's complaining about money from
school districts on up. I love it when people actually
lay it out in front of us and say, here's
where your dollars are. So everybody who's telling you otherwise
is lying.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Well, let me let me tell you a good source
to go to. Go to Ohio auditor dot gov. On
our website. We've got a bunch of draw down boxes.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
You can go look at a review we did of
how school districts spend their money. You can see how
every school district in the state of Ohio spends their money.
You can see a performance audit that we did on
school district's use of college credit, plus a great program
that has saved Ohio families billions.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Of dollars, and all of that is on there.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
If you want to look at the financial records of
any government, we audit, and there's six thousand of them.
If you're a government Ohio, we audit you. Those records
and those audit reports are on there.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That is a tight ship that is being run by
auditor favor in his crew.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Let me tell you so, uh, and is.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
This something we can I know what you guys are
kind of like off mic do it? But is this
something that can be like brought on the air or it's.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Just showing his communications guy what I was looking at
just in case I was nuts?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, and so what what is he?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
This is? Uh, every Tuesday and Thursday? Yeah, the audit, right?
Is that what? Okay? So that's what you're talking about
now I can explain it. Okay.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So that's just a normal thing I did every every
Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
We released this week's audits, and so that's what Chuck
was talking.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
We run Yeah, and so you had me scare them gone.
I don't think we have anything extra coming out.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
That's a substantial story for something that you do on
such a regular basis.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I'm proud of these people for writing this. That's a
very good story.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Look, we do audits, and usually audits I always tell
people they're usually six months to a year in arrears,
so it's it's not live. But for example, the city
of Columbus, they're the quickest one in the state, actually
the quickest in the Columbus in the country. We do
their audit ninety days after their financial books closed, and
we release their audits. We get all that done in
ninety days. It's something that's really good.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And so when those.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Audits come out, when they get done and our people
certify them and they go through all the checks and
all to make sure they mean what they say and
say what they mean, we release those generally on Tuesdays
and Thursdays every week, gotcha, And so that's the release
that you're getting chucked.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So once again, so let's say somebody is in the
middle of or they suspect that, oh no, the wheels
are in.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Motion for something.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Cyber crime is happening to me, identity, they what website
or what can they do?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Is there something that you can.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
If you're direct, if you're two areas to go first,
the first thing you're doing. If you're a governmententity, they're
required now by law to contact the Auditor's office as
soon as practical and contact the Department of Public Safety immediately.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
That is in the new law. But that's government. That's
that's all.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
If you're an individual and you think you've been scammed.
Don't sit on your hands, don't put your your head
in the sand. Keep get out there. Contact your local
law enforcement, contact your police department, your sheriff department, or
the Attorney General's office. Davostaff As would handle that. And
if it's something more significant, certainly you can contact the
FBI or other entities.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Okay, very good, State Auditor Keith Faber in studio today. Uh, Man,
it's a whole hour's gone by just like that. I mean,
it's good to see you, and it's fascinating all the
information that you guys have and what you do and
so on and so forth.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Man, if somebody sees something going on in government they
don't think should be call us one eat sixty six
frauto H one eight sixty six frauta H or go
to Ohio Auditor dot gov, Ohio Auditor Direct.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Very good, Keith, good to see you. Thank you for
coming in. Uh, don't be such a stranger. You're welcome anytime.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Man, Thank you, appreciate your pleasure. All right,