Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to Georgia Focus. I'm John Clark on the Georgia
and Use Network. The Noble is an alliance of financial
service professionals, law enforcement, regulators, and nngo's joining forces to
lead and innovate more effective ways to fight human crime. Today,
we're going to be joined by Ian Mitchell, founder of
The Noble, and Dave Worland, executive Director. How did you
get into volve with this?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I love the question because it cuts deeply into the
fabric of who I am, I think now, and who
I've become. I'm a twenty five year fraud fighter. I've
managed fraud teams around about fifteen countries around the world.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I've been the head of fraud and a.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Lot of times financial crime, finding financial crime at banks
all over the US and, like I said, all over
the world. I retired early, not because I could afford to,
but just because I was done with the corporate America
world and I moved out here to focus on music.
I've been writing a recording music for about thirty years,
and so I wanted to focus on the music side
of my life. And so my plan was I was
in and out of Nashville every week, and my plan
was to get a little white van and get back
on the road and get out of banking. And then
(00:59):
I met somebody who had been fighting human trafficking for
three decades, and after one conversation, my heart just completely changed,
and I realized I had missed something in my career, and.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's the people behind the transaction. It's the human beings.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's not just numbers, not just dollars, but people are
being bought and sold and exploited. And just everything changed
for me. And so I went on this journey to
figure out how to incorporate that back.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Into my life. After hearing one trafficking story, one trafficking story,
it was a faith journey for me.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I felt like God, we had just opened the door
for me to understand that I had missed something. And again,
I'd been trained for twenty years at that time for
a reason and a purpose, and so and I've been
surrounded by wonderful financial crime and fraud fighters, and I
realized that they had enough tools, they had the best data,
the best technology, and if we got them involved, because
a lot of these crimes are financially motivated, we could
absolutely disrupt and prevent these activities and that wasn't being done,
(01:44):
and so the banks are in such a unique position
to get involved.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Dave had you get involved.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
In nonprofit work most of my career, and for a
season a time I was working in Nashville doing some
work for the governor and one of the efforts that
we were involved in was looking at bringing together all
the folks around the state that were involved in human
trafficking to ask what we could do together that maybe
individually people couldn't do. And what we learned in that
(02:10):
process is that most people had never met each other.
So they're doing they're in the same fight, doing the
same work, they just never had a chance to meet
each other, and so it was a really fun time
to get people involved. We had an opportunity to have
in the United States. We had an ambassador, a US
ambassador that fights human crime, and a former ambassador was
(02:30):
still involved in the fight, still doing a lot of work,
and he was available and he came in and spoke.
We had the first Lady of the State come in.
We had a lot of people that were there, and
it was a really exciting time to begin to see
the energy of people that were really willing to work
together to fight against human crime, particularly against human trafficking
in our state.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
But it was there that I met he.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I had a mutual friend that said, hey, you guys
need to meet, and I didn't know anything about him.
He showed up at the meeting and we shook hands.
Let's get together sometime afterwards, and we did, and when
I finished that work with the governor, he and I
talked about it'd be interesting to get involved with this,
and so it was really through Ian's introduction to this
fight and the detail of what they're doing from the
(03:10):
financial sector. I was really drawn to what they were
doing because they weren't just figuring out what could be
done afterwards to try to help people try to recover
from this, which is this horrific crime and tremendous trauma
that people go through, but they were actually trying to
stop it earlier. They were how can we cut off
the money? How can we track the money trail that's involved,
and so that really attracted me. So when we were
(03:33):
when I was making this transition, reached out and Ian
and I talked and we said, let's let's try to
work together on this.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So here I am how do you get either one
that can answer this. How do you get all those
I know what you mean to by the people don't
know each other? How do you get them all together
so they know each other and then they can move.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Forward from there?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The people at the banks, yeah, a lot of times.
I mean I spent I spend most of my time
traveling around the country with my guitar, and so the
way to intersect this, you know, very important mission of
fighting human crime, but just be a part of this
awakening event with payments and banking.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Professionals on the country.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And I tend to incorporate two or three songs and
every time I speak, and so part of it is
is just an events like that.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Dave has done an amazing job with the team.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Holding these very meaningful roundtables and such to try to
attract people. And we just call it the awakening part
of our process to become aware that there's a problem,
and that resonates with a significant amount of bankers and
payment professionals that are honestly looking for purpose in their
life and don't realize that it's right there for them
every single day, and if they just open their aperture
a little bit, there's powerful purpose in it. And so
that's what Dave's done, and that's what we've done, is
created that mechanism that can bring people in and now
(04:30):
it's the part of equipping them and mobilizing them.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
To create work and action.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And so that's the part of what Dave leads in
the organization is really stewarding the folks that do come
in and teaching them about these human crimes and how
can they apply that to their day job.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You know, I can see the coming in as a
former banker, you singing songs and things like that, and
wait a minute, this guy did what I did. Is
that happen a lot of times day?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeh, definitely question when he's at these events and you
can watch it as the crowd, they're listening to him
and he's interesting and he's he's very charismatic when he speaks,
and people like it and he's got they love his story.
But then he says, I'm going to play a song,
and it just opens it up because this is a
real person. Yeah, and that is such an image that
(05:09):
we're trying to help them to capture that behind every
one of these transactions are in there's a real person
under there that's behind there that's doing something that's gotten
pulled in as a victim to this, whatever the crime is.
And so when they see that, they just respond and
it's a really different way, and I do think it's
a little bit different message. It is that piece that
we're not just trying to catch a transaction for the
benefit of the bank. That helps, but what we're really
(05:31):
trying to do is to help these victims that are
caught in this space. And so the guitar is just
such a magical thing, and these are original songs that
he's written. So he's talking about the journey he's been on,
the road he's been on, and they're all going, I'm there.
I get worn out these days. I don't want to
be here, but you're telling me this. And I will
tell you that we had recently. We had last week
(05:51):
our director, Amanda, our director of membership, was saying she
had somebody that was just at that spot of is
what I'm doing any value?
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Is this really helping anyway?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
One of the things she found was there was a
person that was caught in trafficking and she was able
to actually report it and get something done. He said,
it was just this huge thing opened up in her
like I am doing something important. I'm not just coming
into the office and looking at the screen and tapping
away on keys and talking to people. What I'm doing
is changing people's lives. I think that's what Ian found. Yeah,
and the process has been to try to get how
(06:21):
do we get more people to do that?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
How bad is the trafficking in this area in Tennessee
and in Georgia one?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
How bad you see it? What do you see in
there now? Trafficking?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
There's all kinds of public reporting that's available to look
at where these hubs of trafficking are. Anytime there's an
intersection of commerce, we see trafficking. The way you know,
we do projects around the Super Bowl. We just did
our fourth Super Bowl projects detect human trafficking, sex trafficking
around the Super Bowl. And the way I describe it
is is and there's nothing innate about Atlanta, but where
you have people, where you have people either partying or
there's people intersecting, you have an opportunity for somebody to
(06:53):
sell something. In this case, it's a human being. And
I think that's where you look at these hubs of cities.
They tend to be hotspots. And then you get commerce
like Chattanooga where there's a lot of trendsit going on
in hotels.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
It creates this mechanism.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
This opportunity for people to sell each other in this
case for very horrible reasons.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The same for scams.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
This proliferation of scams that's happened worldwide is because there's
all been a lot of free money running around and
flying around over the last several years around different COVID responses,
and so where you have an opportunity for people to
get enriched financially, you have people trying to take advantage
of other people. And so that's what we're seeing in
all the human crime types is just we are in
an increase.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
These criminals they've found a way to scale this.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
For example, of the scammers, they've created these scam centers
around the world that are actually using enslaved people forcing
them to commit scams. These scam centers are in the Philippines,
in Southeast Asia, they're in Mexico, and they actually created
a business model around these scam centers, and we're seeing
them use technologies. And that's the same thing racing in
all the human crimes is these these criminals are found
a way to scale to target to profile. To use
(07:53):
these technologies that should be used for good, they're using
them for evil. And so that's created a situation where
even in these cities that we spent a lot of
time in, they've created a mechanism where they can target
a lot of us and seek to exploit people.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Did you start with law enforcement with them first and
then go from there or how do you start with
somebody like human trafficking? Where do you start? Where do
you start finding out.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Law enforcement is involved?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
But what our goal is is they give it as
a funnel the law enforcement is going to actually go
and take down and rescue and actually.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Impact for us.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We're a little forward on that, and so we're trying
to create more cases for law enforcement to work because
what's happening is is we can go after one person
that's trafficking a human being or one person that's scamming
an individual. What we're looking to do is look at
the financial transactions that aggregate where there's a criminal organized
ring behind it. That's what we're seeing is this diversified
business model behind this. And so for us, as we
interact primarily with the payment providers, the bankers, the people
(08:44):
at branches, the people that are in the fraud and
financial crime shops, the operations teams. We're working with the
financialstitutions themselves to put in controls to detect these this
money movement around people that are.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Looking to exploit children.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
You can actually see these financial patterns, and by doing
that we then a report called a suspicious Activity report
that then goes to law enforcement, and it's helping them
uncover patterns that they didn't know before. Before they were
having to spot things by you know, community watch. You
know what do they get their eyes on. Now we're saying, hey,
we're coming in with these really complex financial data, saying hey, there's,
in its mature model, here's this intersection where there's an
(09:18):
organized ring happening around the country and it's all connected.
And so that's where we're working really well with federal
law enforcement and helping them advance their processes and helping
the bankers get them better information. I think that's the
side of the equation we're on. In its maturity, this
is powerful because again, financially motivated crimes. This isn't being
hidden in cryptocurrencies. We're seeing all types of from credit
(09:39):
card payments to give cards, to wires and ehs in
its maturity atm cash, which rolls all of this.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Is being used.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
They're going in branches, they're using digital channels. In its
maturity of what we're talking about building here. This has
the complete opportunity to disrupt the complete organized crime rings
that are operating around our country and around the world.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
When we get all the.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Financial stitutions involved in putting in the right program.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And you use that for your elder abuse and your
child's exportation, everything, everything you've got rolls into one. I
guess these all these agencies have law enforcement people. These
not the agencies, but the banks have their own law
enforcement people to look at this.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
The best scarre is absolutely that's what I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, they're primarily looking for, Hey, where's the bank taking
the loss? Where's customers, you know, losing for fraud. But
these crimes of exploitation are falling through the cracks because
they're hard to measure. They're actually operating a lot of
times you think that this is a good customer of yours,
but you actually find out that they are exploiting people
behind the scenes. But all their banks are in their
accounts are in good status, and so this is where
these criminals are operating in our banking system.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
And I think that's the key for us.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Is how do we uncover these what looks like a
good customer but they're actually doing something very in nefarious.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
How many people you've gotten so far?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Long? How long you've been around? Five years? We just
hit fives?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Oh wow, five mile okay, And so I think the
best way for us to measure is we have you know,
this last year, I think we had we have about
eighteen hundred active members going on, two thousand people that
are taking training at almost six hundred banks worldwide, seven
thousand people involved in various forms. But our active volunteers
were I mean fifteen hundred of people actively volunteering for
different and helping.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
I mean that's powerful.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
By my estimate, there are six hundred and eighty thousand
people worldwide at banks that wake up every day to
fight fraud and fight financial crime. And if we could
get them involved in protecting people, yeah, that's quite an
army of people doing good.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That's quite an army.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's a huge army. That's a huge army. Yeah. And
so you go out to places with your music and
you use that that that's music is so powerful. That's
a way to get those people. I've written songs. I've
joined TikTok's project.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
A couple of years ago around cyber awareness, I wrote
a song called too Good to Be True to help
their cybers be Safe cyber Smart campaign. I'm going to
speak to somebody in the federal government a small closed
door of one of the federal government agencies down in
Atlanta actually in a couple weeks and I was going
to go down and speak for an hour. And this
is again very high level people. They said, Ian, can
you bring your guitar? Oh is the part that surprises me.
I'm always like, you know, I've spoken to federal law
(11:44):
enforcement and FBI and when they're sitting there, you know,
law enforced people not expecting that the guitar residates And
somehow these songs just break down barriers, like like David
was talking.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So that's a blessing for me too. We should have
had you bring it in today. Do you have any car, Dave?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
How do you work with this?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
How do you work with these what he's doing?
Speaker 5 (12:01):
Well, we are, I mean the organization itself.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
I head up the Nobles is a nonprofit that's managing
that within the staff that we've got. Our efforts are
within the organization to support the members that can you
talk about all the members that we have, try to
provide meaningful initiatives. The initiatives are not in and of
themselves the outcome that we're trying to do. We're using
those as tools to be able to teach them how
to do, how to look for and then what to
(12:25):
look what to report if they do find this within
the banking system. It's really a hard thing because most
people believe when they think about trafficking or going after trafficking,
they really think of busting down the doors from going
and caps perpetrators ourselves and rescue the women out. And
there are times and that occurs, and there's a lot
of that that occurs, and there's organizations that do that.
Ours are really focused on how do we equip the
(12:46):
financial institution professionals to do this again and again and again.
So when you ask the medical about how do you
know how many of you got, we don't really measure.
We didn't have a way to measure how many people
have we helped. In terms of the victims of the
crimes that are out there, They're incredibly important. That's what
motivates us to do what we're doing. But our measurement
of success is really how many people are we equipping
(13:06):
to come into the fight to continue to look in
the financial transactions to do that work. And then one
of the things that Ian discovered a while back in
talking with some federal law enforcement folks is the way
these things are all connected. So you can be in
a small bank in a small community, and it may
even be a state chartered bank, and you think, well,
we're not. We don't have any risk of that. Nobody's
(13:26):
using us that way. And once they start putting these
controls in place, when they start monitoring transactions, looking for
certain flags that pop up, they may find out that
they do have it. And when they do, what we
know is that they will transfer money from this small
bank to a regional bank, to a national bank, to
an international bank, and it'll end up in Thailand or something,
and they saying, you know, the cartel is using it
(13:48):
to pay for guns and terrorism and trafficking in another country,
And you think, how in the world can we know?
But you can track the money that's these crimes have
a money trail, and the people that we have tracking
that money trail, the more success we're going to have
in closure.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
In these things now.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And if I can to singing Dave's praises for a second.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So Dave's our second executive director at the Noble, and
our first executive director did an amazing job and really
built a lot, so much foundation.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But Dave coming in leaving.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, after he left Governor Lee's office, the level
of experience he has, He's created a mechanism there that
our members now are more engaged than they ever have.
And the training that we're building that's so meaningful. You know,
I just love to describe we have a Lamborghini in
the garage that people are just that they're just it's
just what we've been able to create as our members
come in. The resources that they have now is better
than ever. And so we're really trying to take this
(14:36):
concept of we're calling it a human Crime Specialist. We're
building a program that basically trains bankers all sizes, all
community credit unions, largest banks, to equip them to look
and understand what it means to have to build a
program that protects people and how do I fit that
into my banking charter? And that's what Dave and the
team are doing, and the team he's created, and I mean,
it's it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
He's so overqualified for this.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
But I look at the mission behind this, the fact
that we are truly protecting and saving lives and saving
generational wealth, generational wealth wealth. It's leading our country by
the hundreds of billions of dollars. That why wouldn't we
have somebody of Dave's develover and the team he's built
to build this and equip all the banks around our country,
around the world to protect people. It's the program that's
been built here is unbelievable, and we're just now tapping
(15:18):
into truly the impact that it can have.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
You know, I was thinking about he mentioned the bank sizes.
I was thinking about my own hometown. That bank could
be used. A little bank like that could be used
them to start in and then they go bigger.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I thought, I thought about that. I never thought about
that's a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Of the small banks don't believe that somebody's going to
target them, And that's exactly the reasonct why the guys
are targeting them because it's easy to do. It's a
big deposit. They've got a lot of money flowing in
and out. The banks know how to take that and
use it and leverage it to be able to create
great wealth. And I'm all for that, right keep doing
the great job, and for the people that are doing
it legally, we need to do it more. But some
of the small state chartered banks are ones that are
(15:54):
being targeted. And that's why this idea of a human
crime specialty or specialist is somebody, regardless of the size
of the bank, somebody in the bank ought to be
waking up every day and at least part of their
job would be okay, is somebody using the banking system,
the money system to accomplish something evil And if so,
I don't want it happening in our system.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
We can stop it.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
And knowing that they can stop it, not just on
bank it, but stop it is a really important issue.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
What are some of the things they should look for
at a bank? Just anybody, any size bank says you
look for this doesn't look right this, or just doesn't
look wise or something like that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
All these big amount of the size are required to
have anti money laundering and fraud protection programs in place,
so they're monitoring transactions that.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Are suspicious or h high risk.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
What we've done is we've given them scenarios, and we
have cinerarios where we can detect, for example, just a
really simple example, an even dollar transaction in the middle
of the night at a nail salon or a massage parlor.
If somebody a bank sees a transaction like that coming in,
it's a flat dollar and it's overnight, why is somebody
getting their nails done at one o'clock in the morning.
Simple things like that, And that's very simplified by What
we've done is we've created with our membership and some
(16:56):
of the biggest banks and the most advanced human crime
programs in the country have helped us develop sinner lists
of high risk websites. We have processes where we looking
at sex offender lists, we actually can look for child abuse.
We've created processes that help train them to use the
systems they already have in place today.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And I think that's the key.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
It's teaching them how to use what already is mandated
federally to be a bank. How do we now use
this to protect? And then how do you if you
think you suspect something, what do you do? I think
that's the biggest answer question is like, Okay, I may
have something I'm scared about, Like there may be somebody
here it's high risk.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
What do I do?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
And that's part of the network that Dave and the
team of built is like they can connect with federal
LA enforcement, they can connect with state LA enforcements. Here's
the processes of how you investigate a case. Those are
all assets that Dave and the team of built investigative guidance,
if you will. So that's what we've done is created
that end to end resource.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And the difficulty with it is that it's not an
easy thing. Some things look nefarious, but once you get
underneath them, you find it's really just something odd but
it's not nefarious. And then I know when Ian was
involved early he would say that that even dollar transaction,
and then they also on he thought it was just fraud,
so they could go after from a fraud perspective. Well
then he found out later, wait a minute, that's not that,
(18:03):
that's human trafficking. There's things going on there that we
want to stop. So instead of just unbanking them or
going after them or turning in a report, it's actually
getting law enforcement called in in order.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
To try to stop the trafficking that takes place. That's
part of it.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
We've talked some We also are involved in online commercial
child sexual interportation, fighting it, anticipating it. But in that process,
those type of transactions are often very small dollar transactions,
and the way the banks are structured with any money
laundering and the larger things, they don't it's way too
small for them to hit their radar at that level.
But if they know to look for these type of transactions,
(18:38):
if the software system that they employee would begin to
surface those where they can see that this might be
something more than we think it is, then they can
start tying those pieces together. I mean, there is a
process of external information that they can gather. What's going
on in the news, what's happening in the area. Police
departments may come and contact the banks to say, hey,
(18:58):
we know that trafficking is going on in this area,
can you help us find it.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
That's how when the Super Bowl, when.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
We get there out we're with law enforcement and we're
watching transactions and you can see it with drivers assist
programs and airbnbs and hotels and activity, and they go,
wait a minute, this is what's happening here, and the
law enforcement knows to go in and then they take
their action on it. So all these pieces are important
when we understand how the financial transactions manifest themselves, and
(19:27):
they all manifest themselves differently, whether it's a child exploitation.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
We've been doing a lot of work lately.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
We've had a whole team of people that have been
focusing on this concept of sex stortion, which is targeting
thirteen to sixteen year old boys. But they're convincing them
that they are a girl. They're probably somebody in one
of these centers that Ian was talking about that is
just trained to send them videos or maybe even AI
generated pictures of something supposedly themselves, a girl that they've
(19:55):
met at school or something. Kids have so much on
social media, they can re that troll that feedback things to.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Them, Hey were you at the ballgame? I saw you there?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
The kid thinks for sure he's talking to some girl
in his class and he's not, and can ultimately convince
them to put up a picture themselves that any clothes on.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Now.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Then their next statement is, well, now here's who I
really am, and you need to pay me or I'm
going to release these pictures and you've got kids, and
in the last I think it's eighteen months.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
I don't think I'm off of my timing.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
But there have been like forty two teenagers who have
committed suicide because they have gotten trapped into this. They
don't know where to go, they can't don't feel like
they can talk to their parents, they don't want these
pictures put out, and then they end up committing suicide.
And some of these happened very quickly, and it's just
a you've got those activities that are going on, the
small dollar transactions. If you have some banker that's suddenly
(20:43):
starting to see things happen, that's an anomaly.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
It's a point to investigate it.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
External information, internal information that's captured, internal investigation, not just information,
but investigation, and then getting law enforcement involved.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I never thought about that, you know, And this is
a different way of looking at it. You can't prosecute
them how when you catch them, but you can prosecute
them like this through money, through money.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And we just think it was just cryptocurrency back where
we said it's all types of money movement, pain and transactions.
And so I do think that the banks and the
financial titutions play a very important role in stopping this.
But I also want to say that I do think
us as a community. My neighbor was caught up in
what's called a pig butchering scam where she was a widower.
She had been her husband passed away several decades ago, loneliness.
(21:24):
This criminal preyed on her and got her to send money,
and she believed she was in a relationship. These crimes
are targeting all of us. It's targeting elders, it's targeting youth,
Like David said, it's targeting executives at financialstitutions, so that
the actual bankers that we interact with, it's happening in
their homes too. Scams and sextortion and all these we're
seeing this. It's hitting all of us, and so we,
(21:45):
you know, yes, need to encourage our banks to get
involved in the fight, because that's the way to, for
lack of a better analogy, cut the head off the snake.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
It's financial motivated. But as a community, we.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Need to start having these very hard conversations with each other,
with at our churches, our community groups, and our families.
I have very awkward conversations with my children. I have
three children, they are aware of this. I'm always reminding
them to be safe online and their social media because
if we're not having these conversations, it's the criminals and
we're all getting these text messages now they're.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Blasting all of us.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And so we need not only as a country, to
start getting the word out as a community. And this
is one of my big things, is pushing a national
awareness campaign around these crimes of exportation. Dave and the
team are working with them of the largest financial institutions
on catchphrase and social media company how do we get
the word out through those?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And then I've got a project where I'm hoping we're
going to.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Start a series, a really you know, a media type
movie with episode series around this. We've got to start
having these conversations because if we're not, it's only the
criminals that are speaking and soliciting all of us.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
So this is a real problem. But as a nation,
we are so equipped to fight back. We just have
to be intentional about it.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Where can you go to fight back and where can
you go to get help? And find out where do
they need to go.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Picularly if they're in a financial Services arena. Their membership
to the Noble is free, so they can go to
the Noble dot com and that's p h knob l E.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
There is.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
The federal government actually has I think it's Home Land
Security has the Blue campaign that they run which has
a lot of consumer education efforts that are out there.
Most better business bureaus have got great information on scams
that they can get involved with or use to do
that used to get involved. We have a number of
people that contact us and they've got, you know, a
father in law or a father or someone that's being
(23:20):
pulled into these senior romance type scams and they're trying
to figure out how they can help them get out
of there. It's a tough problem because people are lonely
and looking for somebody and they get drawn into it.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So and tell us, how do you get you to
come speak? And seeing just ask.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I have a hard times saying no, especially for Bowed
to bring their guitars question. I mean, I think the
biggest thing with these crimes is there's shame and tied
to this and so we all, no matter where a
position is, when we fall victim, when we lose a
thousand dollars to a scam or I think these criminals
pray on that shame. So the most important thing is
to make a phone call. If it's a financial situation,
called your bank, they'll figure out to help.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
They've got to be aware of it. GBI, same thing.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So the main thing is is they want to pray
on isolation, and we have to for those that think
they may get caught up in any type of scam
or extortion or anything like that, just have the courage
to speak out to family members. These kids that have
been rescued from suicide actually had the courage to talk
to their parents even though they're shame associated, and that's
what they're praying on. So that's the biggest thing that
(24:21):
we can combat is pick up the phone. Google, there's
a lot of great organizations.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Make a phone call.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But again, those investigations, especially at a state level, they're
fantastic and they've done a lot to get the words.
A lot of the hotlines and such. Just don't be
in isolation. That's what they're cats what these criminals are
counting on.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Ah, there are good people.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
A metcal.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Jaron Thori sa, it's hot standing up the living lives.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Here. You're living live.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I know you'll live in.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Standing up and you'll live in That's Ian Mitchell, founder
of The Noble, and Dave Worland, executive director. You can
find out more about them at the Noble dot com.
If you have questions or comments about today's show, you
(25:29):
can email me, John Clark at Georgianewsnetwork dot com. Thanks
for listening. I'll talk to you next week right here
on your local radio station, Georgia Focus
Welcome to Georgia Focus. I'm John Clark on the Georgia
and Use Network. The Noble is an alliance of financial
service professionals, law enforcement, regulators, and nngo's joining forces to
lead and innovate more effective ways to fight human crime. Today,
we're going to be joined by Ian Mitchell, founder of
The Noble, and Dave Worland, executive Director. How did you
get into volve with this?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I love the question because it cuts deeply into the
fabric of who I am, I think now, and who
I've become. I'm a twenty five year fraud fighter. I've
managed fraud teams around about fifteen countries around the world.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I've been the head of fraud and a.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Lot of times financial crime, finding financial crime at banks
all over the US and, like I said, all over
the world. I retired early, not because I could afford to,
but just because I was done with the corporate America
world and I moved out here to focus on music.
I've been writing a recording music for about thirty years,
and so I wanted to focus on the music side
of my life. And so my plan was I was
in and out of Nashville every week, and my plan
was to get a little white van and get back
on the road and get out of banking. And then
(00:59):
I met somebody who had been fighting human trafficking for
three decades, and after one conversation, my heart just completely changed,
and I realized I had missed something in my career, and.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's the people behind the transaction. It's the human beings.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's not just numbers, not just dollars, but people are
being bought and sold and exploited. And just everything changed
for me. And so I went on this journey to
figure out how to incorporate that back.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Into my life. After hearing one trafficking story, one trafficking story,
it was a faith journey for me.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I felt like God, we had just opened the door
for me to understand that I had missed something. And again,
I'd been trained for twenty years at that time for
a reason and a purpose, and so and I've been
surrounded by wonderful financial crime and fraud fighters, and I
realized that they had enough tools, they had the best data,
the best technology, and if we got them involved, because
a lot of these crimes are financially motivated, we could
absolutely disrupt and prevent these activities and that wasn't being done,
(01:44):
and so the banks are in such a unique position
to get involved.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Dave had you get involved.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
In nonprofit work most of my career, and for a
season a time I was working in Nashville doing some
work for the governor and one of the efforts that
we were involved in was looking at bringing together all
the folks around the state that were involved in human
trafficking to ask what we could do together that maybe
individually people couldn't do. And what we learned in that
(02:10):
process is that most people had never met each other.
So they're doing they're in the same fight, doing the
same work, they just never had a chance to meet
each other, and so it was a really fun time
to get people involved. We had an opportunity to have
in the United States. We had an ambassador, a US
ambassador that fights human crime, and a former ambassador was
(02:30):
still involved in the fight, still doing a lot of work,
and he was available and he came in and spoke.
We had the first Lady of the State come in.
We had a lot of people that were there, and
it was a really exciting time to begin to see
the energy of people that were really willing to work
together to fight against human crime, particularly against human trafficking
in our state.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
But it was there that I met he.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I had a mutual friend that said, hey, you guys
need to meet, and I didn't know anything about him.
He showed up at the meeting and we shook hands.
Let's get together sometime afterwards, and we did, and when
I finished that work with the governor, he and I
talked about it'd be interesting to get involved with this,
and so it was really through Ian's introduction to this
fight and the detail of what they're doing from the
(03:10):
financial sector. I was really drawn to what they were
doing because they weren't just figuring out what could be
done afterwards to try to help people try to recover
from this, which is this horrific crime and tremendous trauma
that people go through, but they were actually trying to
stop it earlier. They were how can we cut off
the money? How can we track the money trail that's involved,
and so that really attracted me. So when we were
(03:33):
when I was making this transition, reached out and Ian
and I talked and we said, let's let's try to
work together on this.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So here I am how do you get either one
that can answer this. How do you get all those
I know what you mean to by the people don't
know each other? How do you get them all together
so they know each other and then they can move.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Forward from there?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The people at the banks, yeah, a lot of times.
I mean I spent I spend most of my time
traveling around the country with my guitar, and so the
way to intersect this, you know, very important mission of
fighting human crime, but just be a part of this
awakening event with payments and banking.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Professionals on the country.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And I tend to incorporate two or three songs and
every time I speak, and so part of it is
is just an events like that.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Dave has done an amazing job with the team.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Holding these very meaningful roundtables and such to try to
attract people. And we just call it the awakening part
of our process to become aware that there's a problem,
and that resonates with a significant amount of bankers and
payment professionals that are honestly looking for purpose in their
life and don't realize that it's right there for them
every single day, and if they just open their aperture
a little bit, there's powerful purpose in it. And so
that's what Dave's done, and that's what we've done, is
created that mechanism that can bring people in and now
(04:30):
it's the part of equipping them and mobilizing them.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
To create work and action.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And so that's the part of what Dave leads in
the organization is really stewarding the folks that do come
in and teaching them about these human crimes and how
can they apply that to their day job.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You know, I can see the coming in as a
former banker, you singing songs and things like that, and
wait a minute, this guy did what I did. Is
that happen a lot of times day?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeh, definitely question when he's at these events and you
can watch it as the crowd, they're listening to him
and he's interesting and he's he's very charismatic when he speaks,
and people like it and he's got they love his story.
But then he says, I'm going to play a song,
and it just opens it up because this is a
real person. Yeah, and that is such an image that
(05:09):
we're trying to help them to capture that behind every
one of these transactions are in there's a real person
under there that's behind there that's doing something that's gotten
pulled in as a victim to this, whatever the crime is.
And so when they see that, they just respond and
it's a really different way, and I do think it's
a little bit different message. It is that piece that
we're not just trying to catch a transaction for the
benefit of the bank. That helps, but what we're really
(05:31):
trying to do is to help these victims that are
caught in this space. And so the guitar is just
such a magical thing, and these are original songs that
he's written. So he's talking about the journey he's been on,
the road he's been on, and they're all going, I'm there.
I get worn out these days. I don't want to
be here, but you're telling me this. And I will
tell you that we had recently. We had last week
(05:51):
our director, Amanda, our director of membership, was saying she
had somebody that was just at that spot of is
what I'm doing any value?
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Is this really helping anyway?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
One of the things she found was there was a
person that was caught in trafficking and she was able
to actually report it and get something done. He said,
it was just this huge thing opened up in her
like I am doing something important. I'm not just coming
into the office and looking at the screen and tapping
away on keys and talking to people. What I'm doing
is changing people's lives. I think that's what Ian found. Yeah,
and the process has been to try to get how
(06:21):
do we get more people to do that?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
How bad is the trafficking in this area in Tennessee
and in Georgia one?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
How bad you see it? What do you see in
there now? Trafficking?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
There's all kinds of public reporting that's available to look
at where these hubs of trafficking are. Anytime there's an
intersection of commerce, we see trafficking. The way you know,
we do projects around the Super Bowl. We just did
our fourth Super Bowl projects detect human trafficking, sex trafficking
around the Super Bowl. And the way I describe it
is is and there's nothing innate about Atlanta, but where
you have people, where you have people either partying or
there's people intersecting, you have an opportunity for somebody to
(06:53):
sell something. In this case, it's a human being. And
I think that's where you look at these hubs of cities.
They tend to be hotspots. And then you get commerce
like Chattanooga where there's a lot of trendsit going on
in hotels.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
It creates this mechanism.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
This opportunity for people to sell each other in this
case for very horrible reasons.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The same for scams.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
This proliferation of scams that's happened worldwide is because there's
all been a lot of free money running around and
flying around over the last several years around different COVID responses,
and so where you have an opportunity for people to
get enriched financially, you have people trying to take advantage
of other people. And so that's what we're seeing in
all the human crime types is just we are in
an increase.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
These criminals they've found a way to scale this.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
For example, of the scammers, they've created these scam centers
around the world that are actually using enslaved people forcing
them to commit scams. These scam centers are in the Philippines,
in Southeast Asia, they're in Mexico, and they actually created
a business model around these scam centers, and we're seeing
them use technologies. And that's the same thing racing in
all the human crimes is these these criminals are found
a way to scale to target to profile. To use
(07:53):
these technologies that should be used for good, they're using
them for evil. And so that's created a situation where
even in these cities that we spent a lot of
time in, they've created a mechanism where they can target
a lot of us and seek to exploit people.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Did you start with law enforcement with them first and
then go from there or how do you start with
somebody like human trafficking? Where do you start? Where do
you start finding out.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Law enforcement is involved?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
But what our goal is is they give it as
a funnel the law enforcement is going to actually go
and take down and rescue and actually.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Impact for us.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We're a little forward on that, and so we're trying
to create more cases for law enforcement to work because
what's happening is is we can go after one person
that's trafficking a human being or one person that's scamming
an individual. What we're looking to do is look at
the financial transactions that aggregate where there's a criminal organized
ring behind it. That's what we're seeing is this diversified
business model behind this. And so for us, as we
interact primarily with the payment providers, the bankers, the people
(08:44):
at branches, the people that are in the fraud and
financial crime shops, the operations teams. We're working with the
financialstitutions themselves to put in controls to detect these this
money movement around people that are.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Looking to exploit children.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
You can actually see these financial patterns, and by doing
that we then a report called a suspicious Activity report
that then goes to law enforcement, and it's helping them
uncover patterns that they didn't know before. Before they were
having to spot things by you know, community watch. You
know what do they get their eyes on. Now we're saying, hey,
we're coming in with these really complex financial data, saying hey, there's,
in its mature model, here's this intersection where there's an
(09:18):
organized ring happening around the country and it's all connected.
And so that's where we're working really well with federal
law enforcement and helping them advance their processes and helping
the bankers get them better information. I think that's the
side of the equation we're on. In its maturity, this
is powerful because again, financially motivated crimes. This isn't being
hidden in cryptocurrencies. We're seeing all types of from credit
(09:39):
card payments to give cards, to wires and ehs in
its maturity atm cash, which rolls all of this.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Is being used.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
They're going in branches, they're using digital channels. In its
maturity of what we're talking about building here. This has
the complete opportunity to disrupt the complete organized crime rings
that are operating around our country and around the world.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
When we get all the.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Financial stitutions involved in putting in the right program.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And you use that for your elder abuse and your
child's exportation, everything, everything you've got rolls into one. I
guess these all these agencies have law enforcement people. These
not the agencies, but the banks have their own law
enforcement people to look at this.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
The best scarre is absolutely that's what I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, they're primarily looking for, Hey, where's the bank taking
the loss? Where's customers, you know, losing for fraud. But
these crimes of exploitation are falling through the cracks because
they're hard to measure. They're actually operating a lot of
times you think that this is a good customer of yours,
but you actually find out that they are exploiting people
behind the scenes. But all their banks are in their
accounts are in good status, and so this is where
these criminals are operating in our banking system.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
And I think that's the key for us.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Is how do we uncover these what looks like a
good customer but they're actually doing something very in nefarious.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
How many people you've gotten so far?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Long? How long you've been around? Five years? We just
hit fives?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Oh wow, five mile okay, And so I think the
best way for us to measure is we have you know,
this last year, I think we had we have about
eighteen hundred active members going on, two thousand people that
are taking training at almost six hundred banks worldwide, seven
thousand people involved in various forms. But our active volunteers
were I mean fifteen hundred of people actively volunteering for
different and helping.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
I mean that's powerful.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
By my estimate, there are six hundred and eighty thousand
people worldwide at banks that wake up every day to
fight fraud and fight financial crime. And if we could
get them involved in protecting people, yeah, that's quite an
army of people doing good.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That's quite an army.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's a huge army. That's a huge army. Yeah. And
so you go out to places with your music and
you use that that that's music is so powerful. That's
a way to get those people. I've written songs. I've
joined TikTok's project.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
A couple of years ago around cyber awareness, I wrote
a song called too Good to Be True to help
their cybers be Safe cyber Smart campaign. I'm going to
speak to somebody in the federal government a small closed
door of one of the federal government agencies down in
Atlanta actually in a couple weeks and I was going
to go down and speak for an hour. And this
is again very high level people. They said, Ian, can
you bring your guitar? Oh is the part that surprises me.
I'm always like, you know, I've spoken to federal law
(11:44):
enforcement and FBI and when they're sitting there, you know,
law enforced people not expecting that the guitar residates And
somehow these songs just break down barriers, like like David
was talking.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So that's a blessing for me too. We should have
had you bring it in today. Do you have any car, Dave?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
How do you work with this?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
How do you work with these what he's doing?
Speaker 5 (12:01):
Well, we are, I mean the organization itself.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
I head up the Nobles is a nonprofit that's managing
that within the staff that we've got. Our efforts are
within the organization to support the members that can you
talk about all the members that we have, try to
provide meaningful initiatives. The initiatives are not in and of
themselves the outcome that we're trying to do. We're using
those as tools to be able to teach them how
to do, how to look for and then what to
(12:25):
look what to report if they do find this within
the banking system. It's really a hard thing because most
people believe when they think about trafficking or going after trafficking,
they really think of busting down the doors from going
and caps perpetrators ourselves and rescue the women out. And
there are times and that occurs, and there's a lot
of that that occurs, and there's organizations that do that.
Ours are really focused on how do we equip the
(12:46):
financial institution professionals to do this again and again and again.
So when you ask the medical about how do you
know how many of you got, we don't really measure.
We didn't have a way to measure how many people
have we helped. In terms of the victims of the
crimes that are out there, They're incredibly important. That's what
motivates us to do what we're doing. But our measurement
of success is really how many people are we equipping
(13:06):
to come into the fight to continue to look in
the financial transactions to do that work. And then one
of the things that Ian discovered a while back in
talking with some federal law enforcement folks is the way
these things are all connected. So you can be in
a small bank in a small community, and it may
even be a state chartered bank, and you think, well,
we're not. We don't have any risk of that. Nobody's
(13:26):
using us that way. And once they start putting these
controls in place, when they start monitoring transactions, looking for
certain flags that pop up, they may find out that
they do have it. And when they do, what we
know is that they will transfer money from this small
bank to a regional bank, to a national bank, to
an international bank, and it'll end up in Thailand or something,
and they saying, you know, the cartel is using it
(13:48):
to pay for guns and terrorism and trafficking in another country,
And you think, how in the world can we know?
But you can track the money that's these crimes have
a money trail, and the people that we have tracking
that money trail, the more success we're going to have
in closure.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
In these things now.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And if I can to singing Dave's praises for a second.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So Dave's our second executive director at the Noble, and
our first executive director did an amazing job and really
built a lot, so much foundation.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But Dave coming in leaving.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, after he left Governor Lee's office, the level
of experience he has, He's created a mechanism there that
our members now are more engaged than they ever have.
And the training that we're building that's so meaningful. You know,
I just love to describe we have a Lamborghini in
the garage that people are just that they're just it's
just what we've been able to create as our members
come in. The resources that they have now is better
than ever. And so we're really trying to take this
(14:36):
concept of we're calling it a human Crime Specialist. We're
building a program that basically trains bankers all sizes, all
community credit unions, largest banks, to equip them to look
and understand what it means to have to build a
program that protects people and how do I fit that
into my banking charter? And that's what Dave and the
team are doing, and the team he's created, and I mean,
it's it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
He's so overqualified for this.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
But I look at the mission behind this, the fact
that we are truly protecting and saving lives and saving
generational wealth, generational wealth wealth. It's leading our country by
the hundreds of billions of dollars. That why wouldn't we
have somebody of Dave's develover and the team he's built
to build this and equip all the banks around our country,
around the world to protect people. It's the program that's
been built here is unbelievable, and we're just now tapping
(15:18):
into truly the impact that it can have.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
You know, I was thinking about he mentioned the bank sizes.
I was thinking about my own hometown. That bank could
be used. A little bank like that could be used
them to start in and then they go bigger.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I thought, I thought about that. I never thought about
that's a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Of the small banks don't believe that somebody's going to
target them, And that's exactly the reasonct why the guys
are targeting them because it's easy to do. It's a
big deposit. They've got a lot of money flowing in
and out. The banks know how to take that and
use it and leverage it to be able to create
great wealth. And I'm all for that, right keep doing
the great job, and for the people that are doing
it legally, we need to do it more. But some
of the small state chartered banks are ones that are
(15:54):
being targeted. And that's why this idea of a human
crime specialty or specialist is somebody, regardless of the size
of the bank, somebody in the bank ought to be
waking up every day and at least part of their
job would be okay, is somebody using the banking system,
the money system to accomplish something evil And if so,
I don't want it happening in our system.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
We can stop it.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
And knowing that they can stop it, not just on
bank it, but stop it is a really important issue.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
What are some of the things they should look for
at a bank? Just anybody, any size bank says you
look for this doesn't look right this, or just doesn't
look wise or something like that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
All these big amount of the size are required to
have anti money laundering and fraud protection programs in place,
so they're monitoring transactions that.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Are suspicious or h high risk.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
What we've done is we've given them scenarios, and we
have cinerarios where we can detect, for example, just a
really simple example, an even dollar transaction in the middle
of the night at a nail salon or a massage parlor.
If somebody a bank sees a transaction like that coming in,
it's a flat dollar and it's overnight, why is somebody
getting their nails done at one o'clock in the morning.
Simple things like that, And that's very simplified by What
we've done is we've created with our membership and some
(16:56):
of the biggest banks and the most advanced human crime
programs in the country have helped us develop sinner lists
of high risk websites. We have processes where we looking
at sex offender lists, we actually can look for child abuse.
We've created processes that help train them to use the
systems they already have in place today.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And I think that's the key.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
It's teaching them how to use what already is mandated
federally to be a bank. How do we now use
this to protect? And then how do you if you
think you suspect something, what do you do? I think
that's the biggest answer question is like, Okay, I may
have something I'm scared about, Like there may be somebody
here it's high risk.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
What do I do?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
And that's part of the network that Dave and the
team of built is like they can connect with federal
LA enforcement, they can connect with state LA enforcements. Here's
the processes of how you investigate a case. Those are
all assets that Dave and the team of built investigative guidance,
if you will. So that's what we've done is created
that end to end resource.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And the difficulty with it is that it's not an
easy thing. Some things look nefarious, but once you get
underneath them, you find it's really just something odd but
it's not nefarious. And then I know when Ian was
involved early he would say that that even dollar transaction,
and then they also on he thought it was just fraud,
so they could go after from a fraud perspective. Well
then he found out later, wait a minute, that's not that,
(18:03):
that's human trafficking. There's things going on there that we
want to stop. So instead of just unbanking them or
going after them or turning in a report, it's actually
getting law enforcement called in in order.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
To try to stop the trafficking that takes place. That's
part of it.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
We've talked some We also are involved in online commercial
child sexual interportation, fighting it, anticipating it. But in that process,
those type of transactions are often very small dollar transactions,
and the way the banks are structured with any money
laundering and the larger things, they don't it's way too
small for them to hit their radar at that level.
But if they know to look for these type of transactions,
(18:38):
if the software system that they employee would begin to
surface those where they can see that this might be
something more than we think it is, then they can
start tying those pieces together. I mean, there is a
process of external information that they can gather. What's going
on in the news, what's happening in the area. Police
departments may come and contact the banks to say, hey,
(18:58):
we know that trafficking is going on in this area,
can you help us find it.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
That's how when the Super Bowl, when.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
We get there out we're with law enforcement and we're
watching transactions and you can see it with drivers assist
programs and airbnbs and hotels and activity, and they go,
wait a minute, this is what's happening here, and the
law enforcement knows to go in and then they take
their action on it. So all these pieces are important
when we understand how the financial transactions manifest themselves, and
(19:27):
they all manifest themselves differently, whether it's a child exploitation.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
We've been doing a lot of work lately.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
We've had a whole team of people that have been
focusing on this concept of sex stortion, which is targeting
thirteen to sixteen year old boys. But they're convincing them
that they are a girl. They're probably somebody in one
of these centers that Ian was talking about that is
just trained to send them videos or maybe even AI
generated pictures of something supposedly themselves, a girl that they've
(19:55):
met at school or something. Kids have so much on
social media, they can re that troll that feedback things to.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Them, Hey were you at the ballgame? I saw you there?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
The kid thinks for sure he's talking to some girl
in his class and he's not, and can ultimately convince
them to put up a picture themselves that any clothes on.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Now.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Then their next statement is, well, now here's who I
really am, and you need to pay me or I'm
going to release these pictures and you've got kids, and
in the last I think it's eighteen months.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
I don't think I'm off of my timing.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
But there have been like forty two teenagers who have
committed suicide because they have gotten trapped into this. They
don't know where to go, they can't don't feel like
they can talk to their parents, they don't want these
pictures put out, and then they end up committing suicide.
And some of these happened very quickly, and it's just
a you've got those activities that are going on, the
small dollar transactions. If you have some banker that's suddenly
(20:43):
starting to see things happen, that's an anomaly.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
It's a point to investigate it.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
External information, internal information that's captured, internal investigation, not just information,
but investigation, and then getting law enforcement involved.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I never thought about that, you know, And this is
a different way of looking at it. You can't prosecute
them how when you catch them, but you can prosecute
them like this through money, through money.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And we just think it was just cryptocurrency back where
we said it's all types of money movement, pain and transactions.
And so I do think that the banks and the
financial titutions play a very important role in stopping this.
But I also want to say that I do think
us as a community. My neighbor was caught up in
what's called a pig butchering scam where she was a widower.
She had been her husband passed away several decades ago, loneliness.
(21:24):
This criminal preyed on her and got her to send money,
and she believed she was in a relationship. These crimes
are targeting all of us. It's targeting elders, it's targeting youth,
Like David said, it's targeting executives at financialstitutions, so that
the actual bankers that we interact with, it's happening in
their homes too. Scams and sextortion and all these we're
seeing this. It's hitting all of us, and so we,
(21:45):
you know, yes, need to encourage our banks to get
involved in the fight, because that's the way to, for
lack of a better analogy, cut the head off the snake.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
It's financial motivated. But as a community, we.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Need to start having these very hard conversations with each other,
with at our churches, our community groups, and our families.
I have very awkward conversations with my children. I have
three children, they are aware of this. I'm always reminding
them to be safe online and their social media because
if we're not having these conversations, it's the criminals and
we're all getting these text messages now they're.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Blasting all of us.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And so we need not only as a country, to
start getting the word out as a community. And this
is one of my big things, is pushing a national
awareness campaign around these crimes of exportation. Dave and the
team are working with them of the largest financial institutions
on catchphrase and social media company how do we get
the word out through those?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And then I've got a project where I'm hoping we're
going to.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Start a series, a really you know, a media type
movie with episode series around this. We've got to start
having these conversations because if we're not, it's only the
criminals that are speaking and soliciting all of us.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
So this is a real problem. But as a nation,
we are so equipped to fight back. We just have
to be intentional about it.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Where can you go to fight back and where can
you go to get help? And find out where do
they need to go.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Picularly if they're in a financial Services arena. Their membership
to the Noble is free, so they can go to
the Noble dot com and that's p h knob l E.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
There is.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
The federal government actually has I think it's Home Land
Security has the Blue campaign that they run which has
a lot of consumer education efforts that are out there.
Most better business bureaus have got great information on scams
that they can get involved with or use to do
that used to get involved. We have a number of
people that contact us and they've got, you know, a
father in law or a father or someone that's being
(23:20):
pulled into these senior romance type scams and they're trying
to figure out how they can help them get out
of there. It's a tough problem because people are lonely
and looking for somebody and they get drawn into it.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So and tell us, how do you get you to
come speak? And seeing just ask.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I have a hard times saying no, especially for Bowed
to bring their guitars question. I mean, I think the
biggest thing with these crimes is there's shame and tied
to this and so we all, no matter where a
position is, when we fall victim, when we lose a
thousand dollars to a scam or I think these criminals
pray on that shame. So the most important thing is
to make a phone call. If it's a financial situation,
called your bank, they'll figure out to help.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
They've got to be aware of it. GBI, same thing.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So the main thing is is they want to pray
on isolation, and we have to for those that think
they may get caught up in any type of scam
or extortion or anything like that, just have the courage
to speak out to family members. These kids that have
been rescued from suicide actually had the courage to talk
to their parents even though they're shame associated, and that's
what they're praying on. So that's the biggest thing that
(24:21):
we can combat is pick up the phone. Google, there's
a lot of great organizations.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Make a phone call.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But again, those investigations, especially at a state level, they're
fantastic and they've done a lot to get the words.
A lot of the hotlines and such. Just don't be
in isolation. That's what they're cats what these criminals are
counting on.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Ah, there are good people.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
A metcal.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Jaron Thori sa, it's hot standing up the living lives.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Here. You're living live.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I know you'll live in.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Standing up and you'll live in That's Ian Mitchell, founder
of The Noble, and Dave Worland, executive director. You can
find out more about them at the Noble dot com.
If you have questions or comments about today's show, you
(25:29):
can email me, John Clark at Georgianewsnetwork dot com. Thanks
for listening. I'll talk to you next week right here
on your local radio station, Georgia Focus
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