Ep. 763 - SCAMMERS! How to Avoid Being Their Next Victim | Mike LaCorte

In this episode, we’re diving deep into a topic that’s no laughing matter—the sharp increase in investment scams!

Mike LaCorte leads the charge, offering his expert insights into the convoluted realm of financial trickery that’s becoming all too common. From the classic pitfalls of Ponzi schemes to the intricate webs of fraudulent market manipulations, listeners will gain a clear understanding of the warning signs and learn effective strategies for safeguarding their investments. As scams become more sophisticated, this episode stands as an invaluable resource, empowering investors with the knowledge they need to protect their financial well-being.

As we navigate an ever-more scam-ridden financial landscape, the importance of being vigilant and informed cannot be overstated. This special April Fool’s Day episode is designed to do just that—educate and equip listeners to spot potential frauds before they fall victim. Mike LaCorte shares not only the mechanics behind these deceitful practices but also practical advice for fortifying your financial defenses. Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode is an essential guide to ensuring your investments remain secure in a world where scammers are constantly looking for their next mark.

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Thank you for joining us, andwelcome to another edition of Answers Network.
I'm your host Alan Cardoza, andour topic today is fraud, which comes
in various forms and can affect individuals, businesses, and governments worldwide. The
financial cost of fraud to victims canbe substantial, encompassing losses from direct monetary

(00:38):
theft, legal fees, investigation costs, and reputation damage. As many of
you might suspect, the fastest growingis cyber fraud and cybercrime, which encompasses
a wide range of criminal activities conductedonline, such as phishing scams, identity
theft, ransomware attacks, and fraudulentonline purchases. The financial cost of cyber

(01:04):
fraud to victims worldwide is now estimatedto be in the hundreds of billions of
dollars annually. It's just almost unimaginable. Another area is insurance fraud, which
involves individuals and organizations making false orexaggerated claims for financial gain. The annual

(01:26):
cost of insurance loss is globally estimatedat over forty billion dollars, which affects
all of us because we're going toend up paying for it either through increased
premiums or increased cost in some ways. Investment scams are also on the rise,
and it involves deceptive practices in financialmarkets such as Ponzi schemes, which

(01:48):
we've all heard of, but there'salso pump and dump schemes, insider training.
Fraudulent investment offers the financial impact ofinvestment fraud. It veries worldwide depending
on the scale of schemes, butit can result in losses from thousands of
dollars to some people to billions ofdollars for individual investors and institutional investors.

(02:14):
There's health care fraud that a lotof people don't think about, but it
affects all of us in the sensethat we're going to have increased health care
cost and reduced quality of care.Corporate fraud and white collar crime they're also
on the rise. This affects businesses, it affects organizations, and it can

(02:38):
be through accounting fraud, embezzlement,bribery, or corruption. And the financial
impact on this is estimated at alsoin the hundreds of billions of dollars,
and this can affect shareholders, employees, stakeholders, and the fallout from corporate
fraud from co corporate fraud. Itcan also affect your company from the standpoint

(03:02):
of legal penalties, regulatory fines andjust damage to your corporate reputation. Now
I wish I was able to say, right now, April Fools, do
you know what? Unfortunately I can't. Those numbers are true. What I
can and I will do is Iwill bring on our guests to discuss how

(03:24):
we can deal with this. MichaLecourt, who is an industry leader in
the international investigation space with over twentyfive years experience, starting as an investigator
and then co founding Conflict International Investigations. He's a fellow past president of the
World Association of Detectives, which isthe oldest and largest global organization of its

(03:47):
kind, with approximately one thousand membersin approximately eighty countries. Now today April
Fool's Day, in some countries,we'll be discussing how to not get forward
in our ever changing world of technologyAI and an increasing amount of scammers out
there. So, without further Ado, Mike, welcome to Answers Network.

(04:12):
Thank you, Ellen, thank youwell. I appreciate you being here,
and I know that in Europe,or at least in England, you guys
are on holidays so I appreciate youtaking the time. Yeah. Correct,
it's bank holiday today is April folds, but the fall is only before twelve
o'clock. As I'm so. Anyway, before we get to some of our

(04:32):
listener questions, share a little bitabout some of the areas that conflict international
helps companies and individuals around the world. Sure, thank you. So we're
a full service investigation and intelligence agencyHQ'D in London, UK, with other
auxiliary offices throughout the US and Europe, and the team is about twenty five

(04:55):
full time investigators that cover a rangeof investigations from tracing individuals to doing deep
dive due diligence reports, background checks, investigating fraud. I know you mentioned
that those statistics which are pretty staggering, but we have a whole team that
investigate all types of fraud, internalsurveillance teams, risk management teams, and

(05:16):
on a global level through our networksas you mentioned earlier with the World Association
of Detectives, we have strategic partners, let's say, service level agreements,
investigators boots on the ground in thosedifficult jurisdictions around the globe where investigating maybe
not as follows the normal steps thatwe do in the West, So having

(05:39):
those strategic partnerships formed with other professionalsenables us to investigate on a global level.
Well, and one of the Ithink what I'd like to do is
just kind of start with, youknow, some of the key red flags
that indicate a potential fraudster or scammerin international transactions. And one of the

(06:00):
reasons why I'm so happy to haveyou here is I've dealt with some of
these things, and it's usually moreon a California level or a US level.
I think it takes it to anotherlevel when we start talking about international
transactions. Why do you think orwhat are some of the key red flags

(06:24):
for people when they're contacted by somebodythat should make them kind of stand up
and take notice before moving forward.Yeah, and you know, like you
said, fraud has evolved in changenow and I've seen it over the past
twenty five years in terms of capabilitythe way the fraudsters operate now as they

(06:44):
did back then. But you've gotto remember the one main fact in any
fraud transaction is usually unsolicited. Soyou get contacted by a third party,
you're not the one that's reaching out. It's the frauds that's reaching you generally
under some urgency and time pressure aswell. So you need to do this

(07:04):
so that this can happen. We'vegot a short window opportunity for you to
click on this link or make apayment or what have you, because we're
going to lose this high value investmentdeal. There's always some sense of urgency
and the steps in let's call itlayered fraud because it's winning trust over a

(07:25):
period of time. Frauds does areclever and they adapt and they will win
you and phase a fraud over aperiod of time. So whereas before the
old traditional four one nine scams wherethey would send millions of emails and someone
would click on a link and senda payment, now frauds does are targeting.
We're finding more so frauds are doinginvesting in the research and targeting their

(07:49):
victim. So anything that doesn't seemnormal, urgency, unusual payment methods,
send money via Western Union, pointor something that's not right in terms of
your everyday business, especially when you'redealing on a on a global level.
These these deals that are too goodto be true. You know, this

(08:11):
fantastic investment that's going to give youtwenty times your money that you've never heard
of. You know, just ifyou do X or if you pay me
x up front, those two goodto be true deals are usually too good
to be true, so trying toyou know, if something feels so far
that's not normal that those are thered blades you need to look out for.
But generally you're unsolicited at the beginning, so you're targeted. You're approached

(08:35):
first, and you're asked to docertain steps to follow, and that's the
frauds are putting you in this positionof trust. Once they're getting in the
position of trust, it's the layering. And you brought up a point right
in the beginning when you said,when they say, well, just just
click here, talk a little bitabout where the fraud that you that you're

(08:56):
more concerned about. You're looking outfor that one, that person who's going
to ask you to send money,and you're like, no, no,
no, I'm not going to sendmoney. But in essence, what they're
saying is we just want you toclick here. Explain a little bit how
that's sort of a they got youworried about this one, but then when
you click, that's actually how they'retaking your information, So these fishing scams

(09:20):
is what they called their fishing yourinformation. And then it may be a
link. It may be through anSMS message with a link inside that message
pretending to be from DHL for example, or any other of these couriers that
has a package come into your house, click on this and into your personal
details. There could be that itcould be. The cleverer ones are websites

(09:43):
that look like a conventional website,but they're fake. So let's say,
for example, and I'm just usinga bank and as examples, it's a
Bank of America. For the Ais a cyrillic A, so from a
cyrillic alphabet, So when you lookat the URL, it looks like Bank
of America com. You click onit, it looks exactly like Bankofamerica dot

(10:03):
com. However, the A orone of the letters could be a cynic
letter different, and it's a carboncopy of Bank of America's website. You've
clicked on there, and you've typedin your log in details for your bank
account, for example, and thosethat information is captured. A third party
can then access your account so thatyou know what what I'm saying is fraud
has evolved and the criminal networks thatare targeting victims and vulnerable people have invested

(10:33):
heavily in how to trick and howto get past this trust layering with the
victims well, which takes us rightto the question of you know, how
can individuals or companies protect themselves fromthis type of identity theft or impersonation or

(10:54):
things where they're gathering this information throughcommunication, you know, I mean,
how can we protect ourselves because eventually, as you said, be it Bank
of America or Wells Fargo or whatever, we you know, we want to
hear from them if somebody's out theretrying to tap into our account and somebody

(11:16):
contacts us and they're like, we'rethe fraud department of Wells Fargo. Okay,
I'm happy that they're that they're lookingout for me. Let's talk about
how that, I mean, howcan we protect ourselves from that. I've
got some ideas, but now,you know, if you protect or you

(11:37):
assume that I'm a just a clientthat's calling in or somebody out there,
how can they protect themselves from thatsituation where you feel like, if you
don't give them the information, somebody'sout there stealing your money, right now
yeah, there's I mean, andagain, you know, it depends where
this fraud attack attempt is coming from. I would definitely educate yourself with the

(12:01):
types of frauds that are out thereand set up what's called MFA multi factor
authentication. So most people used touse or still use two FA, so
two factor authentication, which means ifsomebody if you're logging into your email or
if you're logging into your bank account, it sends you a text message as
a second layer of protection. Gofor MFA multi factor authentication because it's more

(12:26):
difficult for a fraud st or ahacker to access your account because they're not
going to have all of the verificationtools at hand, not going to have
access to everything that you've got.So definitely skill up on your knowledge and
the types of frauds that are availableout there. Try and protect yourself in
terms of multi factor authentication, soyour passwords and a second means of verification.

(12:50):
For example, the call you saidfrom the bank, well you know,
cut that call and call them back, you know, call them back
from the proper number. So tryand you know, verify the identity of
the individual that you're communicating with.Be skeptical. It is simple, right,
stay informed, stout today, beinquisitive, question, don't take everything

(13:11):
as it is a base value,not that you are going to live your
life scared of being tricked. Itshould be just common practice. You wouldn't
just give someone one hundred pounds orone hundred dollars in the street, you
know, So just think of yourprocesses as it's happening and trying to minimize
that risk. You know, theonus is put on the victim a lot

(13:31):
to try and defend themselves. Butif you skill, have the right skills
and be aware of what's out there, you'll you'll be able to that red
flag and that this doesn't seem quiteright, alarm bell, that's what you're
trying to trigger. And sometimes look, I've seen the scams and I know
that some of them are very good, very creative, and they pass the

(13:54):
trust test and it puts the victimin a position where they've got nowhere else
to turn and it seems genuine.So I know it can be difficult,
but the low hanging fruit ones,keep yourself, stay informed, be skeptical,
and just verify as much as youcan. Yeah, and for everybody
out there, I mean, thefirst thing that Mike said that's very important
is the multi factor authentication. Soif you set that up and this person

(14:20):
calls you, and you can say, well, that's interesting because I didn't
get a text. So the waythat I set up my multi factor authentication,
I didn't get a text. Whyis that? And then let them
stammer a little bit about you know, because they're probably not prepared for that
question, and they'll probably just hangup and try and get somebody else.

(14:43):
So anyway, a great point.One of the things that I'm told on
this show that people love is reallife examples. So Mike, share a
case or two, maybe some ofyour favorites to where you've been contacted and
fortunately contacted in time to where youwere able to either either keep the fraud

(15:09):
from happening, or after it happenedat least able to catch the people that
did it and hopefully be able tomake the client whole. Okay, what
we've seen, especially after the pandemicor during the pandemdemic, is a huge
rise in romance scams. A lotof people are online continuously and there's you

(15:31):
know, when you're online a lot, and I've seen you know, some
very professional people get caught up ina romance scam and one individual or try
and keep it as sterile as possible, but based in Canada, actually sent
quite a substantial amount of money toa team. He thought he was dealing
with a particular individual for the bestpart he was the individual was a front

(15:58):
for the criminal gang and ended upsending you know, a six figure sum.
The money dissipated, It came intoEurope and then headed into the Far
East. However, through some investigationwork, we've got the police involved.
We ended up identifying two of themain frauds as that were behind it,
and we actually went to speak tothem. And when you when you uncover

(16:22):
that the layers of fraud and deceptionand deceit and get down to the raw
detail of exactly what's happened. AndI was one of the investigation team that
actually spoke to the to the frauds, that showed them the evidence that we
had and said, look, thisis getting handed over to authorities if you
don't pay back what you've taken andthe fraud stuff with as much front as

(16:47):
you like. And his wife itwas a team was a couple said well,
your your client was stupid enough tosend the money. So with that,
with that, we went straight tothe authorities of our report today.
They were arrested actually and charged,and the client got back a percentage of
his money because they bought a brandnew car and that was taken back and

(17:08):
they ended up going to prison fora period of time. However, the
client still got pulled through twenty fourmonths of hell. Still was you know,
tricked and went through this emotional rollercoaster journey to try and get to
the end. But if you lookat the fraud in the beginning, it
was very very simple, and theclient was tricked in thinking he was speaking

(17:30):
to someone that he wasn't, andit was all done remotely via video camera
and whatever else. A whole youknow, a whole character was built and
the client was deceived and that wasa personal you know, individual being defrauded
by the fraud start. And whenI say it's the fraudst it's not one
particular frauds. There's a team.It's organized crime. There's an organized criminal

(17:55):
team. You've got the guys whoknow how to do the IT side of
it. You've got the front peoplethat are for the communication. You've got
the back enders that are monitoring andseeing. Let's push this fraud, Let's
keep it going. Let's how dowe put the victim in a position where
their option is to pay? Howdo we keep them in that I need
to pay position? How do wekeep it so it's it's an organized criminal

(18:15):
gain It's not a keyboard warrior.I've got to remember that. And and
they have resources, They will haveknowledge of the banking world, the financial
world, the way things operate.How to get you through these layers of
trickery and keep you in that positionof payment. I'll give you another example,
and if you like, I've gota business example where please do And

(18:38):
this is this is more and morecommon. It's dealing with someone in accounts.
If you know any type of companythat are using, say paying a
lot of invoices, setting up emailaddresses that are very similar to a to
an email address that's continuously sending invoicesto or invoicing the client for, and
then changing the bank details on thatinvoice. So having the letters sent into

(19:00):
the accounts department of a particular companysaying as of April the first, or
as of this particular date, ourbanking details have changed. Please can you
send further remittance to this account?And that's the fraust that's creating pretending to
be a subcontractor for the for thecompany, and then changing those payment details

(19:22):
on future subcontracted invoices so that allpayments don't go to the real subcontractor,
it goes to the fraud, thefraud bank account. And you know that
that happens as well. And inthat it's training, putting provisions in place,
and these frausts that look for lowhanging through. You know, someone
who's sitting in accounts prope, youknow, processing payments all day, may

(19:45):
be vulnerable in making that mistake,you know, in a situation like that,
And I'm trying to visualize it now, Yeah, what what are some
of the things that you can dobecause and I know that your conflict,
there are things that you can putin place for some of these businesses that

(20:11):
make that far less likely to beable to happen. Usually with businesses,
I know it sounds prevention is betterthan the cure. And usually companies come
to us when it's gone wrong.We've been defrauded, we've been scammed.
How can you help? What dowe need to do so we try and
get in ahead of the game.And if we can put awareness and training

(20:36):
out there and the psychology that goesbehind what employees are doing when they're communicating
with third parties, that will mitigatesome of the risk that comes in from
these opportunists type frauds. If you'regoing to be targeted properly, then that
is a different scenario that needs youknow, there's an array of services from

(20:57):
protecting your IT infrastructure right up totraining staff, but usually the companies come
to us when it's gone wrong.One of the and we do this throughout
the year for a variety of clients, is we test the staff team.
So let's say at Christmas party time, we will send we will pretend to
be from the company. Now theboard will have full knowledge of this,

(21:21):
and we will send a invite emailto all of the staff across the whole
company, across the whole of theclient's company saying Hi guys, Christmas party
this year, We're meeting at exWin and bar I would love you to
come. It's going to be fromsixty eight. If you're going to come,
just fill in your name, yourtelephone number, your address on this
email that's sent to all of thestaff your date of birth or whatever else,

(21:45):
and we will try and see howmany people click on the link from
the email. That's number one,right, so your staff have clicked on
a link they shouldn't have. Andsecondly, how much personal data do members
of staff type into the email?They name, the date of birth,
whatever the position at the work,you know, as much information and submit
it. And then at the Christmasparty, one of the investigators will go

(22:06):
with a quick presentation and say,we'll not mentioned any names, but sixty
eight percent of you clicked on thislink that could have been could have been
a fraudulant link. And actually thirtyodd percent of you put your data birth
in your name, your social Securitynumber, your home address. And so
just try and educate and bring theawareness out and it is, it becomes

(22:29):
it becomes a fun way to trainstaff subliminally, because I think everyone needs
to think, you know, butthat's that's I mean, I'm really on
that prevention is better than the cure. However, a lot of companies out
there consider that as an expense andreally come and do something when it's gone
wrong. Yeah, And I thinkthat's such a great point, and I've

(22:51):
also said that for years is youknow you can pay a little bit now
for prevention, or it's gone tohit really hard if you don't. So
we're going to take a break.But for everybody out there, you're listening
to or you're watching, Answers Networkwould be right back. If you know
somebody that can benefit from this,send them out of message right now and

(23:12):
tell them to tune in. We'llbe back in one minute. Conflict International
are experts at uncovering the truth.Our specialist team has decades of experience in
providing a range of bespoke investigation andintelligence services to companies and individuals. Whether
you need professional screening or background checksof employees due diligence of potential clients or

(23:34):
business partners, asset tracing services,or surveillance, Conflict International has a rapid
response team on hand to get youto the heart of the matter. Our
key strength is in our global capabilities. We can tap into an extensive network
of trusted professional investigators based in mostjurisdictions worldwide, enabling us to go almost
anywhere a case takes us. ConflictInternational has decades of experience with a diverse

(23:57):
range of skills. Among our developedfrom backgrounds in military and security intelligence services
as well as practice lawyers. Visitour website today at Conflict International dot com
to find out more about our services. That's Conflict International dot com Global Reach,
Local Knowledge. And we're back.We're speaking with Mike Lecourt and we

(24:19):
are talking about fraud. And unfortunatelythis is not a April Folds joke.
This is something that's really going on. So, Mike, what we were
talking about before we went to break, you mentioned in regards to romance fraud.
I'm going to share just a littlebit of a story in regards to

(24:41):
that, because I want to touchon the fact that, you know,
we can all talk about the financialaspect of this, you know, where
people are sending in money, butthe emotional aspect of this. And I
say that because that on a casethat I worked on, I was hired
by the family because it was theylearned that in this case, their sister

(25:10):
had sent over one hundred and fiftythousand dollars to a man that she had
never met, and so they contactedme. When I did the investigation,
just as you would, we wereable to tie in things like the picture.
The picture came from a guide inI think he was in Pennsylvania and

(25:36):
he was very upset because people weregoing after him. And it was a
picture that was just taken off ofhis Facebook page, so it wasn't him.
But through various algorithms and such whichI know that you're able to do,
we were able to determine that therewere ten other women that had gotten

(25:59):
similar letters. And I think thisis something for people to understand if you
if you're getting this contact from somebody, there are ways that we can figure
out that you're not the only persongetting this. Well, by putting this
together, we were also able totrack the money and the money she could
have sworn that she was sending itto him, and he was in a

(26:22):
particular European country and in reality themoney went through through London to Turkey to
the Ukraine and at that point,you know, so even being able to
try to go back to the bankin London and see if there was something
to do, it was already gone. So they're already planning ahead by you

(26:45):
know, by moving the money asquickly as possible. But the emotional part
for this woman I ended up goingand seeing her. She was she was
in a particular location that I hadto go to see and I had to
get permission to be able to seeher, and and she just she just

(27:06):
broke down crying and she said,you know, emotionally, it was all
just too much for her because oversuch a period of time she was so
looking for love that the fact thatsomebody would do this to her and and
and take advantage of her emotionally likethis was more than she could take.

(27:26):
So again, we you know,we're you know, as investigators, we're
talking about the financial loss. Theemotional loss sometimes is so much worse.
You want to share a little bitabout that as well. Yeah, completely,
And you know you hit that perfectlywith the emotional loss. I've had
cases where we've proved that the situationis fraudulent, but the victim will still

(27:52):
continue to send money, and youknow it for the for the end,
for the let's say, for someonethat's not in that environment doesn't understand that,
but they believe, they want tobelieve this relationship so much they're willing
to keep going and are content withthis world of interaction with this third party

(28:18):
that they have been communicating with fora while, and they want to keep
that relationship going. And that isyou know, as an investigator, we're
here to investigate and fact find,get the truth and you know, bring
some resolve. With romance scams oremotionally connected scams, you've got to be

(28:41):
mindful of the individual involved as well. So there's there's that side that runs
concurrently with the fraud. So yeah, yeah, it's obviously it's one of
the most insidious and saddest things.We have a question that's come in from
a listener, and again a wantto take this time to thank those of
you that take the time. Oftentimesit's people that work in the middle of

(29:04):
the day, so they send themin either the night before, but again
we thank you. This one readsour retired mother invested most of her life
savings with some company that called heron the phone wired at leave thousand euros
from her bank for them. Wenow can't get in touch with the companies

(29:26):
and then in front of the numbersconnected local law enforcement claims there's nothing they
can do. He lives in Italy, We're in the US. Any idea
what we can do? And MisslandraHighland Park going on. Okay, well,
firstly, I'm sorry that your youknow, my mother fell victim to

(29:48):
an international scam like that. Asan investigats, I need to see the
facts and we can work out whichis the what's the best all this and
it was eighty thousand dollars a dadeighty thousand euros euros. So again,

(30:10):
authorities law enforcement for this is abig amount for a lot of people.
But for you know, to mobilizea law enforcement investigation team eighty thousand euros,
you're not going to get a lotof traction without, you know.
With being fair to the public sector, however, we would look at what
information do you have, How arethey contacted? No, you said you

(30:33):
have a phone number, that's great. Where did you send the money to?
What name did you send the moneyto? That may give us some
leads. Is the phone number alandline mobile? Doesn't matter if it's been
disconnected or not. We can stillinterrogate and see what research we can or
information we can find out about it. The name, is it connected to
the numbers? The name connected toany other business entities Italy? Why?

(30:55):
What was the investment about? Somesort some more information about why you sent
the money and was it only byphone they communicated? Do you have any
other documentation, paperwork or anything thatyou've got that, we can assess and
have a look and see what thebest way to tackle this is a lot
of these fraudsters use middle countries,so this the three bank rule really that

(31:18):
if you wire money to one countryor bank and then move it on a
couple of times, it makes jurisdictionalenforcement an issue or difficult, and tracing
down the individuals behind it even moreso. Sometimes these fraudulent groups use money
mules, people that are unaware ofthe fraud that's been committed, but are

(31:41):
just used as a bank account toreceive the money, take a percentage and
then give that money to the criminalkank. So when you do trace down
the individual that right receive them,they're unaware of it's they're unaware, completely
unaware. So you know that again, you know, we can assess something
like that and work out what's theleast path of resistance to try and find

(32:02):
out whether we can identify who's behindit. But then we may be able
to do that. The most importantpart is recovery, Right, you want
your money back? How do wego about doing that? And that's that's
a whole different type of investigation andcase strategy. Really. Yeah, you

(32:22):
know you you mentioned about the moneymule, and I think that's a it's
a great point to bring up.I think most of us, at least,
if you know, in business,we get those emails that say,
hey, we're a big company inChina and we're doing business now in the
United States, but because of thedifficulty to be able to transfer money over

(32:45):
here, we'd like to partner withyou and have these companies pay directly to
you, just like you said,you know, and you know you're going
to get ten percent or whatever you'regoing to take the money in you're going
to then pass it on to us. That look looks great, doesn't it.
I mean it's like, this isgreat. I get to do nothing
and I'm going to make ten percent, and they make it sound like they're

(33:07):
going to be passing, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars through you.
That's you know, in other words, just that sheer fact right there
is understand you're being used, andyou're probably going to be the one caught
in the middle holding the bag becausewhat happens is is then that US company

(33:28):
that now is trying to sue theypaid into you, all of a sudden,
they're going to freeze your accounts,and if you're running it through your
account, guess what, whatever elseyou have in there, it's all frozen
until they figure out what to do. So anyway, again it's be very
careful do the things, do thepreventative things before you do that, because

(33:50):
again, as Mike just said inthe very beginning, if it looks too
good to be true, probably is. So I'm checking the time real quick.
If we're going to talk a littlebit about two businesses, So for
those of you, you know,if you're running a business out there,
Mike, what are some of thebest practices for verifying the authenticity of international

(34:15):
businesses or partners before engaging in financialtransactions? Okay, a big question.
And you know, if you're usedto doing international work, you would have
some sort of d D or KYCprocess in place. If you're not,
and you're looking to venture out internationally, then I would I would suggest that
you take the time to educate yourselfin what's out there, or if you

(34:39):
can't internally do that, then hiresome professionals that can help you. But
number one, k y C.Always know your client. So know your
client, And what I mean bythat is, if you're approached by an
international party to do to buy fromyou, or to trade with you,
or to co invest or whatever thescenario of the deal is. Make sure

(35:02):
you verify who you're dealing with viamore than one mean, via more than
one way, so you know,if you've been unsolicited or solicited sorry by
email or telephone call, that's fine, get the information go online separately.
I know it sounds very simple,but just do some open source stuff.
Just verify what's out there. Puttheir name in and write the word scam.

(35:23):
Put their name in and write theword fraud in Google. Just see
what comes up. I mean,you'd be surprised the amount of cases that
we take on. And you know, people go straight for the deep dark,
crazy investigation path straight away and startwith the low hanging fruit. Start
with the easiest things first. Justsearch it on Google, just you know,

(35:44):
and see what pops up. Makeyourself comfortable that you've verified who you're
dealing with, and then you cantake it a little bit step further.
Depending on the jurisdiction what country itis, there may be corporate records that
you can get the difference between Europeand the US is corporate records, financial
records for companies are very accessible inEurope. So if you're dealing with someone,

(36:07):
if you're a US company and you'redealing with someone in Europe, you
can generally go to most European companieshouse equivalents and grab the directors, the
shareholders, financial information, and it'sopen source. I know it's slightly different
in the US that information is protected, but in Europe financial corporate data is
quite open and available, and alot of people in the US don't know

(36:30):
that. So do that. Dothat. Check pull their last few years
accounts, See if it's a tradingentity. See if the individual that says
he's the CEO, director, shareholderof that company is actually registered in that
company. And then if you've beencommunicating via email with this individual, check
the name and the email they existto the company. See if it's on

(36:52):
the website, google the email.You know, there's a lot of investigation,
let's say basic investigation and tools thatyou can do yourself without hiring the
professionals. I mean, if youhire a professionals are going to go through
it thoroughly, but you can dothese initial checks yourself and see what pops
up. Well, and let's let'stalk about that then, because and I

(37:15):
agree, and I tell people saying, you know, as you called it,
low hanging fruit. You know,you can run those things yourself.
But let's talk about the you know, the kind of the businesses that are
out there that they just want agood, thorough due diligence investigation because they're
doing business in so many different countriesor with so many different other companies that

(37:40):
they just want a good due diligence. Talk a little bit about what that
entails and why it's so valuable.Sure, So there's two types of due
diligence d D type checks that companiescan do. One is consented and the
other is non consent. So ifa company is going to trade and do

(38:01):
business with a third party, thenyou could opt for the consented check.
Now, what I mean by thatis the third party signs an authorization to
say, yes, I want todo business with you, feel free to
check us out. You have youhave my prey, so that you know,
that should take away a lot ofthe red flags if you had red
flags before dealing with this third partyand they've signed an authorization to say,

(38:22):
yeah, check me out, goahead, and we want to do business
with you when we want to tradewith you. I've got no issue with
you checking our company to make surewe're legitimate. Then that that for you
should think this is this is goodnow doesn't mean you still do the checks
right. So that's where we wouldcome in and do the consented checks,

(38:44):
and that would be from criminal tocredit to financials to litigation, court records
referencing. There's a whole list ofchecks that get done and it's a report
with a with a one page execsummary of any red flags and all of
the backing behind it, and thatshould give you enough, let's say information

(39:08):
to make a decision. The nonconsented check is checks without the third party
knowing you're doing them right. Andin that scenario, it could be for
a variety of reasons that you wantto do that. You may look at
buying a company merger and acquisition,or you might want to invest in this

(39:28):
particular company, or there may bea further deal that you're doing that you
don't necessarily want them to know becauseyou're doing it for a different reason rather
than having it out in the open. And those checks can be done too,
and again, access to information indifferent countries around the world there's different
laws, different privacy laws that youknow you need to comply with. But

(39:52):
generally those are the two checks thatare available, and that they're thorough and
that there's a deep dive that canbe done as well. And it's not
also what's available via databases, becausein some jurisdictions the databases is not as
strong as they are in the US. You may need to do some field
inquiries. We may have to deployboots on the ground to do some reputation

(40:15):
checks. Do you know company X, y Z, have they defaulted in
payment? Do we know anyone thatwas working there? There's no longer working
there that we could speak to,So there's a there's some field work that's
potentially available to us. There couldbe third parties that they've done that this
company's done business with that we couldgo and speak to. We could we

(40:36):
could buy from this company as testpurchasing. So go through that particular journey,
you know, as we were you, as we were the client,
and see what service we get.So's there's a whole array of tools available
to us, and we will deploywhat's proportionate and necessary to give you peace
of mind. And you touched onanother point of the different laws in different

(41:00):
jurisdictions, And I think that's reallyimportant in the sense that by being an
international company, you have to beaware of all of those things. And
I know that in for instance,I get questions from other investigators that are
in different states that'll ask about things. But one of the problems that they're

(41:24):
running into is if you don't knowthe law of where you're going to or
where you're getting that, you canget in greater trouble. Over again,
things that we can pull here inthe United States it may be illegal in
a particular European country, but yetthe investigator here thinks, hey, I

(41:45):
can do it legal here, andthey go over and do that, and
now all of a sudden they're gettingsued. You as their client, are
getting sued. You know, everybody'sgetting sued, and you've got a bigger
headache than you ever envisioned in allyou wanted to do was find somebody or
something. So talk a little bitabout that and why it's so important to
know the laws of each jurisdiction sothat you don't dig that hole oh completely.

(42:09):
So you know, it's understanding whatyou can and can't do around the
globe as an investigator, there maybe things you can do from your desk,
so you may be able to searchlocal registries, databases, what have
you. But anything further, Imean, if you think I'll fly to
wherever and do those inquiries is abig deal. I'll do those inquiries myself.

(42:30):
I will you know, speak tothird parties, take some pictures.
There's different data laws, data privacylaws around the globe, and also there's
licensing and regulation right the same asyou know the US, there's lots of
state's a licensed. In Europe thereare countries that are licensed. So and

(42:51):
you know, if you if youcross yourself into that on the line of
what I can and can't do,into what you can't do, and put
yourself in a position, then Alansaid, you're just setting yourself up for
creating a problem that wasn't there initially. So you need to understand what's possible,
what's legally possible, Understand what toolsyou have available to you in different

(43:13):
countries, because you may be ableto do some of it yourself, but
you may need to contract someone who'san expert there. And the other thing
data privacy and law is one thing. The other thing is culture. Culture
and culture differences in countries vary too, and for example, there could be

(43:34):
festivities, religious holidays, and you'rein a country where there's a religious festival
or holiday going on, and you'redoing inquiries that would be deemed to be
inappropriate or unethical or against local culture. You need to educate and understand great
point what you can and can't doduring the year as well. I know
it may sound really but it does, especially when dealing with say the Middle

(43:57):
East or the Far East, wherethere are big cultural differences. What your
small little inquiry you think is okaycould have been really offensive to the company
that you may have a long termbusiness relationship with. So you need to
be aware of that as well.And that's why contacting someone who has a
network and has reliable, trusted bootson the ground, knowledgeable partners around the

(44:22):
globe is especially if your inquiry requiresthat level of investigation, then you need
to have the right team to dothat for you. You know, I
was smiling when you said that becauseit reminded me of a cultural mistake that
I made. I want to sayabout forty years ago, but went into

(44:44):
an Asian country and I went inwith another investigator who was a little more
seasoned than I, and we satdown and we were layersigning with someone else,
and you know, I shook handsand then I immediately started going and

(45:05):
they had said, oh, youknow, we're going to go here and
have lunch, and we're going todo this and that. And I immediately
started in on the case. Well, here's what we need to find out,
and so on and so forth.And the guy with me, he
kicked me under the table, meaningshut the hell up. Yeah, And
and the people we were trying toget information from, they kind of shut

(45:27):
down for a little bit, andhe took over for a while, and
then we went out to eat andwe did everything. And later on and
he said, he said, youdon't understand. He said, they were
not going to deal with us orgive us any information until after we broke
bread together. That is their culture. That is how they were going to
do it, and you're insulting themby not doing that first. Okay,

(45:50):
so you know, again this isforty years ago. I didn't know that.
But again, you when you broughtup culture, that's the first thing
I thought of, was, youknow, the mistakes that we make when
we don't know completely. And youknow Alan is being part of say the
WADA, the World Association detectives allthese cultures around the world, eighty or
different countries. Thousand members go intothose events and networking with other investigators,

(46:15):
breaking bread, like you said,with other investigators from around the globe educates
you as an investigator, as aninternational investigator, in the cultural differences that
we all have, and that isjust as important with doing the investigation.
Absolutely. And I just looked atthe time. We've got about two minutes

(46:36):
and we have another listener question thatcame in and it says, our nineteen
year old daughter is planning to travelthe world this summer with two of her
friends before starting college in September.Her father and I are very concerned as
to her safety. When we discussit with her, she replies, Oh,
don't worry, I'll be fine.What can we do to help her

(46:57):
keep safe without making her feel thatwe don't trust her? And this is
from Margaret in Akron, Ohio.Okay, Hi, Margaret, do my
best to answer in two minutes.There's a lot we can do, but
would I would imagine the most basicthings to do is have some sort of
location device if she would like anapp or something. There's many out there

(47:20):
that you know where her phone is. If she's going to get local simcard
doesn't matter, it will still register. At least you have some idea on
her location. You're not going totrack her because I think a teenager me
or you know, a daughter maybecome a bit it might be intrusive,
let's say, but tracking prepaid preloaded pre paid money cards, credit cards.

(47:42):
It can be used in Europe,so not linked to anything to her
bank account or your bank account forthat matter. So there's a limit that
you will put on a preloaded cardthat will be using that you can top
up as you go if she hassome sort of itinery agreed to have some
check in day some times if shedoesn't want to be trapped. So you
know that she's a particular hotel,airbnb, accommodation from what data, what

(48:07):
days. You've got some idea andhave an agreed a checking time. So
I'm here mom, fine, andthat's that may be enough. Because one
of the scams that goes on withwith travelers is her number may be I'm
not saying it's going to be,but it has happened before where they're intercepted
and a communication comes to you,Mum, I've lost my phone. I

(48:30):
need some money. Can you sendit to me on this particular card,
And it's a third party that's pretendingto be you know, your daughter.
We don't want that to happen,So try and again, MFA. I
said it right at the beginning,multi factor authentication, have an agreed plan.
Try and communicate more than one waywith your with your child. So
at least then if one of thecommunication methods fail, you've got two or

(48:52):
three others that you can try andkeep on comms. If she's with a
group of friends, make sure theyall do it, because if one's out,
just get them to do it asa team. It's a great point.
And I'm glad that you brought upwith that particular scam because that's another
growing scam. And I get peoplethat are calling me saying, hey,
I don't know what to do.I just got a call from you know,

(49:13):
my you know, my brother inlaw, or from from some relative.
I didn't even know they were goingto that country, you know,
and and things like that. Sounfortunately it's happening more and more so,
Mike, I really appreciate you takingthe time. As I said, you
know, I know it's a it'sa holiday out there. We've only scratched

(49:37):
the surface. But for anybody outthere, if you have more questions,
if you go to Conflict International dotcom, uh, there's gonna be a
lot of information that's right there onthe website, or you can get in
contact with somebody at that point whereverit is that that you may be having
a need. If if Conflict canprovide it for you, they're going to

(50:01):
know somebody there that's going to beable to take care of it. Mike,
any closing words or anything, Thankyou, Ellen, thank you for
running an excellent talk show. Andagain, if anyone needs any help,
Alan Ellen's got my details Confidenceinational dotCom. I'm more than happy to look
at any inquiries that you may have, or any questions or if you want

(50:22):
to take discussion further. But yeah, fraud is huge. I'm happy to
provide any input A can all right, And if you're out there, if
you're driving, don't worry that youcan't write down all of these things.
We'll make sure that we have itin the show notes. So again,
Mike, thank you so much,and enjoy the rest of your evening,
being as it's you're a few hoursahead, and we will talk against them.

(50:45):
Thank you. Take kenn now allright, take care, and for
everybody out there, if you enjoyedthis episode, make sure that you click
the like button. Okay, andif you're interested in seeing more content like
this, make sure you subscribe tothe show and check out some of our
other shows on our channel, onour website, which is answers dot network,

(51:06):
or any other major social platform you'llfind us there. Next week,
we're joined by Sidney Williams as shediscusses her new book, Hiking My Feelings
and how a few secrets about naturecan dramatically improve all areas of your health.
So that concludes our episode for today. Thanks for tuning in, and
for everybody out there, be goodhuman beings and be with us again on

(51:29):
Answers Network.