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[audio logo] [tense music] ♪ ♪ Julia: I am
the victim of a scam, though I didn't think of myself
as a victim in the beginning.
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If I'm online, I play, like,
Scrabble or Words with Friends. Some guy texted me.
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He looked too good to be true. Doug Fodeman: The Words with
Friends scam really boils
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down to being a romance scam. Julia: He had this
beautiful speaking voice that just kind of lured me in.
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Bret Curtis: There had to have
been more than 100 victims. Julia: This was over
a long period of time,
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almost eight years. Bret Curtis: They
start off as victims, and then they run out of money.
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Doug Fodeman: Suddenly,
you can go from $1,000, $2,000 scam to suddenly
jumping to tens
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of thousands of dollars. Bret Curtis: They'll
say, to help me, I need you to open up
a business account.
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So the victims
are now laundering money for the scammers. [theme music] ♪ ♪ [ominous music]
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♪ ♪ Julia: I waited for a long
time for somebody who would say, "Good morning.
Good night.
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How are you?" We might think we've healed. We might think that we are
no longer hurt by the loss
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that we had in life, by the
rejection that we had in life. It's still there. Those emotions that
we feel can be played.
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Doug Fodeman: Imagine after
you've made that connection, you've started
this relationship,
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you think that someone
is so interested in you and really wants to develop
an incredible personal
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relationship with you. This is human nature. Human beings want
to be in relationships.
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Hardly anyone wants
to be a loner. We live our lives
in relationships. And especially
if that scammer can
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find the most vulnerable
people who are really lonely, someone perhaps
has lost a spouse,
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you know, a death,
perhaps divorce a couple of years earlier,
someone who is more isolated,
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someone who is
older and feeling that life has passed them by. Patrick Altiere: Romance
scams, elder fraud scams,
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it's the perfect storm, right? It's the convergence of the
fact that the internet is new,
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especially to them,
and not something that they had to use
during their working life for the most part.
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Our older, retiring
population has money. They've worked
their entire lives, and they have
money in the bank.
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And so it's only
natural that people coming from places who have
not been that fortunate
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look at it as an opportunity
to victimize them. [phone buzzing] Every spam phone call,
every spam email,
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everything that these
people get in their inboxes, in their text messages, is
likely that initial reach
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of a scammer trying to see
if they can get them to bite, right? It's like fishing.
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Doug Fodeman: The best scammers
are unbelievably empathetic. They know what to say.
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They know how to say it. I mean, anyone who's in a
strong, positive relationship
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knows how that feels--
to be loved, to be valued, to be heard. And believe it
or not, a good romance
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scammer is going to do that-- to manipulate you. Julia: He looked
too good to be true.
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It looked like
professional photos. He was tall. He was handsome. All twisted steel and sex
appeal kind of thing.
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And I remember saying,
oh, no, this guy is not interested in me. You know, I'm a hobbit.
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He's not interested in me. [laughs] And they got mad at me. And so I responded,
and he talked to me.
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And in the course
of our conversations, I went, I don't think you're
the person in the picture.
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And he got a little
upset that I said that. Well, why wouldn't
you think so? I said, well, unless
you're walking
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around with a professional
photographer all the time, I don't think you're
the person in the picture.
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And there was something
about his voice. He had this beautiful
speaking voice that just kind of lured me in.
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And he was very
intelligent, very well read. So that also lured me in. So we talked, and he finally
admitted, no, that's not me.
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He hadn't asked me for money. He hadn't asked me for,
like, a card to send them.
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He hadn't asked
for anything like that. So he sent me this
other picture. He said, this is
who I really am.
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I said, well, then why
are you the other guy? You know? And I don't remember what
the story was that he gave me.
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But we wound up talking
for a year, year and a half. [ominous music] Doug Fodeman: Once
you trust somebody,
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then suddenly that someone
has some pain or challenges in their life that you
can help them with,
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you're more inclined
to want to do so. And I can tell you that
there is a pattern.
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And the pattern is that a
romance scammer will typically spend a good four to six
weeks building a relationship,
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at least, and then
there'll be a small ask. Something happens,
some issue generally.
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And by the way, with men
and women, it can be different. So, for instance, men, the
problems or issues that a male
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romance scammer comes up
with are often work-related or travel-to-work-related. And, oh, you know, I got
mugged, and I lost my wallet,
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and I need to pay
for my flight here. Is there any way
you can help me out? But with a woman,
it's different.
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It's often related to family
or hospital and health. So building sympathy,
including, by the way,
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I've fallen in love with you,
and I want to come see you. But I need $300 to pay for a
visa to come from my country
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in Kazakhstan to be with you. But the bottom line is,
you start with small asks.
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And once you have the victim
willing to pay a small ask, then they can grow. Julia: He started
to ask me to send money.
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And I said, well, what
am I sending money for? He said, well, it's just
for a friend of mine.
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It was once, twice, and then
it got to be a whole bunch. And I said, whoa,
wait a second.
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Hold up. Slow your horses. What's going on here? I don't think I'm
comfortable with this.
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And he got upset. And I said, I don't want to
have an association with you. And I blocked him.
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Doug Fodeman: The Words with
Friends scam really boils down to being a romance scam.
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So Words with Friends,
like so many other methods, is just one way that a romance
scammer can make contact
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with a potential victim. Words with Friends,
Word Bingo, it is a competitive
game in which you
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can play with strangers online,
which is actually kind of fun if you think about it.
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I mean, games, it's a great way
to, you know, play with others, and whether you're friends
or whether strangers.
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But it's also a way that
you can meet people online. There are lots
of ways to do it.
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I had a romance scammer use
the word "bingo," for instance, not that long ago. And that's just the tool
to reach to a victim.
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Patrick Altiere: Any
online game, if it's social and you can chat anywhere that
these people can get in there
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and not face to face,
right, they're not meeting this person, is
a danger for being scammed.
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That doesn't mean
don't do those things. That doesn't mean, oh,
you can't go in the woods
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because there's bears. It means when you go
into the woods, be careful. And the internet is the woods.
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Doug Fodeman: So there's
a chat window. And you can chat with
someone else and, you know,
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begin to build a relationship,
a friendship that starts, and then perhaps turn it
into something a little deeper.
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Imagine starting
a chat with someone and engaging them and doing
something especially fun,
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so playing a game with them. And so that leads
to additional conversation. And the romance
scammers, the best ones
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come off as incredibly
empathetic and caring. Some of the professional
romance scammers
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are unbelievably good at that. So imagine if you are
at the other end of this, and you're chatting
with a fellow or a woman
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you've just met. And they come off as caring
and asking about you and about your life, I mean,
it can be really nice to have
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that kind of interest. And now the job
of the romance scammer is to build that friendship,
turn it into trust,
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and hopefully grow it
into a relationship. And by the way, not just
via text or chat or DMs,
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but it can also be over phone. I've talked to victims
who have literally been on the phone for two
hours with their new boyfriend.
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[gentle music] ♪ ♪ [phone buzzing] ♪ ♪ Julia: He video
called me as himself. And it was, this is who I am,
this is where I actually live,
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and I wanted you
to be in my life. And he said, you
have to make up your mind right now whether you
want to be in my life or not.
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And I was like, yes. [tense music] ♪ ♪ Bret Curtis: There had to have
been more than 100 victims.
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This case started off with
a victim in her late 70s in Arizona, who had
met someone online
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playing Words with Friends. And that person had told her
that he was working on an oil
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rig and that he no longer
had access to his money and asked her
to send some money.
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The DEA was monitoring
cash payments that were being
sent from Arizona, mainly looking for drug nexus.
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But then they saw
some large cash payments that were being mailed
by our victim in Arizona.
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Her story is super sad,
because when it all started, she had moved to Arizona. Her husband and she were
going to start a life
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here, their retirement
life, and they move into a retirement community. And then a year or two
pass, and he gets dementia.
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Eventually, she has
to put him into a home, and she's just alone
and depressed and lonely.
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And the only people they
can find to talk to them are the scammers. I find out that there's victims
all over the country that
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are sending money
to these, what we call, money mules, people
that will receive the money,
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and then they'll
push the money off to Nigeria
or to accounts in China or to cryptocurrency accounts.
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And so once I start to identify
who those people are, I'll go and interview
the victims
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from all over the country. And then I try to build
a case against those people that are collecting the money.
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♪ ♪ Some of these money
mules are victims. They'll meet someone
online, they fall in love,
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and then they run out of money. They mortgage their house. They send everything they have.
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They don't have
anything else to send. And so instead of just ditching
the victims and saying, OK,
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we're done with you because you
don't have any money, they'll say, to help
me, I need you
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to open up a business account. And so these victims are
now opening accounts. And then the bad
guys are saying, hey,
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I'm going to send you money. These are investors that
are sending you money. And I want you to deposit
the money into your account,
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and then I want you to go
buy cryptocurrency with it, or I want you to go and wire
it to this account in China
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or this account in Nigeria. So the victims are
now laundering money, believing that they're
helping the person
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that they've met
online, the person they're now in love with. [gentle music] ♪ ♪
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- We developed
a friendship where there was nothing
but conversations, video calls, text messages.
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We would talk about everything. He'd showed me all
the books he was reading. He was finishing up his degree.
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♪ ♪ Six months later, he said,
let's open a business. I said, hold up. If we're going
to open a business,
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it has to be
a legitimate business. And tell me what it is, tell
me how it's going to work,
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and tell me why
I want to do it. So he said, you'll
be a conduit. I'm going to be
a seller on Alibaba.
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And you're going
to be the conduit and be the American
connection to send the money from the person
who's purchasing to me
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or to wherever it
was going to go. And I would say, did
the person get their order?
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I didn't talk to any
of these people. I never talked to anybody. I only talked to him,
because by now, there
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was trust in the relationship. Then we started
planning a trip. [jet engine humming]
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When I went to Dubai,
he was kind. He was respectful. He was very protective. We actually had a really
nice time together.
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We actually enjoyed
each other's company because we had this established
relationship where we laughed
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together, we talked
to each other, we were each
other's confidence. When we left out
of the airport-- well,
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my flight got canceled. So we had to buy
another plane ticket. He bought the plane ticket for
me, but I had to pay him back.
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He cried at the airport
when I left. I don't know if that
was real or not real. You know, I thought it
was real at the moment.
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[engine whining] ♪ ♪ So there was
a conversation about this $50,000 with a person.
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I don't know who was
on the other end of the phone. And he was explaining
to them that I
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wouldn't have kept the money. It's not my money. It's not for me to touch. I made no money from this.
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It was just me being a conduit,
doing the paperwork for him. And I remember saying,
I thought that she
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received her merchandise? I remember that. And he said, well, I'm working
on finding out what's going on.
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I remember saying
to him when I got home, I don't want to do this. I'm not comfortable with
this because something
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is not right here. It's too big amount of money. It's too much being moved. I'm not comfortable with this.
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And I think I had sent it, and
the wire hadn't gone through. But whatever happened is she
did not get her merchandise and
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did not get her $50,000 back. And that's what the FBI
came here about. [ominous music]
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♪ ♪ Bret Curtis: I know
that with Julia, she had moved at least
half a million dollars through her account.
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So when we talked
to her, we wanted to know why she was moving the money. We thought she was a bad guy.
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And we thought that she
was a target, someone that we should go after. Julia: When the FBI came to my
house, it was almost surreal.
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It was very, very, very scary. They came, and there
were four of them here. And I think probably
the hardest thing
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was when they told me
that I was being groomed, and I didn't even know
what that word was.
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They said, you
were being groomed. And I was in denial
about it, of course. I said, no, he loves me.
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And they're like, no,
you've been groomed. It took me a lot-- it took a
lot for me to meet them there.
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Doug Fodeman: She was
in denial, and she's not alone. Sometimes when people
are so invested
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emotionally in a relationship,
it's hard for them to accept. And they go through
stages of complete denial.
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No, no, it's not right. No, what you're saying,
no, that's not correct. Bret Curtis: They
believe what the bad guys
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are telling them is real. They have these relationships. They're emotionally
involved with the bad guys.
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And they do not want
to believe that they've been the victim of fraud. What also makes
it complicated is
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even after they find out it's
fraud, they're embarrassed. A lot of these victims,
they would rather
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lose their life savings
than to let their kids know that they fell for a scam. A lot of times when we
come to their door, that's
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the worst thing that could
happen to them because we're telling them that this
person that they've fallen
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in love with is not real. And number two, we're telling
them that all this money
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that they've sent is gone. And that's just
humiliating to them. ♪ ♪ The story with
Julia is interesting
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because he initially
started talking to her under
the name of Williams, and he used a photograph
of a Caucasian male.
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And then they started
a relationship, and he convinced her
to open up a business
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called William TT Enterprises. And he convinced Julia
to collect money from people
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that he said were investors. She confronted Ittai and said,
hey, I know you're a scammer.
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And she cut off
the relationship. And then Ittai reached
out to her as himself, sent a photograph
of himself-- he's in his 20s--
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and said, hey, I
know I scammed you, but I fell in love with you. And then as time
goes on, he tells
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her about these great
business ideas that he has. And she's already opened
up this business account
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under William TT Enterprises. And he starts having
people send money again. Of course, it's victims.
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One of the victims is
our victim from Arizona that-- that sends money over there.
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So the victims are
now laundering money, believing that they're
helping the person
00:19:19
that they've met
online, the person they're now in love with. [suspenseful music]
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♪ ♪ Julia: It was only up
for about three months before the FBI came. I was seeing large amounts, and
I was questioning it because I
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said, this doesn't make sense. Why does somebody
need to order from you for this amount of money?
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This doesn't make sense, OK? Because it was
an internet business. They didn't treat
me like a criminal.
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They treated me
like I was a victim. And I didn't think
of myself as a victim. And I felt like I
should have known more.
00:20:00
I should have figured out more. I should have not trusted him. I should have not
followed my heart
00:20:07
and thought I was innocent, OK? And I didn't think any of those
things about myself at all.
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I was angry. I felt like I had
no common sense. But then once I started talking
to them, I said, this is huge.
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I think this is huge. They said, well, is there
money in the bank now? I said, yes.
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They said, would you be
willing to, you know, give us the money? I said, well, yeah.
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I said, it's not mine. Yeah, I'll give you whatever--
whatever you want, you have it.
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And we went to the bank. The FBI agent came in,
talked to the bank manager. And I looked at her,
and I wanted to cry.
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And I said, I am so sorry. I did not know. That made me angry,
that I did not know
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and that I didn't question it. So they closed the account. He took the money. It was a lot of money.
00:21:03
And gave them a whole bunch
of other things, pictures, anything I had. Gave them my phone,
gave them my laptop.
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Whatever they wanted, they had. [solemn music] ♪ ♪ Bret Curtis: As we go
and chase the money all over,
00:21:20
we find out that there's a lot
of different scams involved. It's not just one scam.
00:21:25
It's an organization
of scammers who are using these
accounts to collect money from all
their different scams.
00:21:34
And so as we start
looking at all the different scams
that are involved, the numbers get giant.
00:21:40
And so, yeah, there's
hundreds of victims and-- and dozens of money mules
that are collecting the money.
00:21:48
Julia had received a check
for $47,000, and she turned that over to the FBI. We talked to the person
who sent Julia
00:21:59
the $47,000 in Pennsylvania. I leave a message. Before she returns my call,
Julia gets a call from Ittai,
00:22:12
from the scammer,
and says, hey, the FBI has talked to Pennsylvania. And Ittai, during
these recorded calls,
00:22:20
was saying, hey,
this is all legit. All this money is good. And we find out that her
scammer has told her something
00:22:30
happened with the $47,000. You're going to get
the money back. But I need you to send $22,000
to a person in California.
00:22:41
We intercept that,
and we go talk to the person in California. [phone buzzing] The person in California
is a victim.
00:22:50
She's lost about half
a million dollars to the scam. She's also been turned
into a money mule.
00:22:55
So she's been collecting
money from other people. As she's talking
to her scammer,
00:23:01
we tell her to say, yeah,
I'll send the money to you, which we're not going to. The scammer says,
hey, I need you
00:23:07
to send the money
to an account that belongs to this bogus company,
which belongs to a guy named
00:23:13
Onovughe in the Atlanta area. So we knew that Ittai
was working hand in hand with Onovughe.
00:23:23
I did some research
into Onovughe and found out that he
came to the United States
00:23:29
recently from Nigeria. And the way he was able
to do that is through a visa he obtained by marrying
a US citizen.
00:23:36
I interviewed that
person that he married, who was in her 70s-- Onovughe is in his 40s--
00:23:44
and found out that
she had met him online and that they arranged
to meet together in Nigeria.
00:23:53
He said, hey,
let's get married. And then all
of a sudden, they had their whole wedding
ceremony, and
00:23:59
she went home a married woman. Then he continued
to communicate with her, and he ended up opening with
her all these bank accounts,
00:24:07
all these businesses. And she, during the next
couple of years, as she's helping him get
a visa to the United States,
00:24:15
laundered over $3 million
through all of these business accounts for him. Her story is a sad story.
00:24:23
After he gets
to the United States, he lives with her for a week or
so, and then moves to Atlanta.
00:24:30
Ditches her, finds
a woman his own age, and starts living
with her, but still continues to tell
this person he
00:24:37
married that they're in love. Gets her to mortgage
her house and give him all
the proceeds from that
00:24:43
so that he can buy
bitcoin and invest in properties in Nigeria. And just an awful person.
00:24:49
[ominous music] ♪ ♪ So this criminal organization
is a lot more complicated than just Onovughe.
00:24:58
The Black Axe is a large
criminal organization based out of Nigeria
that is involved
00:25:04
in these type of frauds. They're responsible
for over a billion dollars' worth of fraud.
00:25:09
And Onovughe and all of these
other co-conspirators are just a small part of this.
00:25:17
[unsettling music] ♪ ♪ Through my investigations,
I've learned that this criminal organization
has a lot of different layers
00:25:26
to it. We were able to do a search
warrant on Onovughe's phone. And when we did a search
warrant on his phone,
00:25:34
we saw there were conversations
with people in Nigeria. And during these
conversations, they
00:25:39
admitted to their membership
in a criminal organization called the Black Axe. One of the lowest
layers are the guys
00:25:47
that are actually doing
the scamming, the guys that are on the phones. A lot of times, those
are just street criminals
00:25:52
who are just hustling. Those street-level people will
go to the higher level members
00:25:58
of the criminal organization. Those higher level members
of the criminal organization
00:26:03
have, a lot of times,
earned their credibility by doing the street-level
stuff, by making calls.
00:26:09
But then they have made
contacts in the United States. And those contacts
are so valuable to
00:26:15
the criminal organization,
people like Onovughe Because you can
take all the money
00:26:20
in the world from everybody
in the United States, but if you can't
get it to Nigeria,
00:26:24
then it doesn't do
the scammers any good. And so these people
at this next level
00:26:30
have all those
contacts that allow them to collect the money
in the United States
00:26:34
and then move it to Nigeria. Now, there's also people
who have been working this
00:26:39
a long time, who have made
contacts with other people who can create fake documents.
00:26:45
And so a lot of these
scams, there's investment-- fake
investments that they're trying to convince the victims
that they're involved in.
00:26:53
So they'll create
certificates or they'll create documents
showing that taxes are owed,
00:26:58
or they'll even have lawyers
who are willing to do video chats with people. The cases are hard because
the bad guys are pretending
00:27:08
to be people who they are not. And so when they are
having money sent to them, they're having the money
sent to, a lot of times,
00:27:16
to these money
mules, or they are having the money sent
to people like Onovughe who are involved
with the crime.
00:27:24
But he wasn't the one
who made the call. And so he doesn't know
the specific information
00:27:29
about the specific fraud. All he knows is that
he's collecting money, and he's being
paid a commission
00:27:34
to move the money on. So our job is to prove
that those people that are receiving the money
knew that it's fraud proceeds.
00:27:42
And if we can't do that
beyond a reasonable doubt, if a money mule says, I had
no idea where this money came
00:27:49
from, even though common
sense says, come on, you're receiving
millions of dollars,
00:27:54
there's no legitimate
purpose to this, we're not able to prosecute
them unless we can build
00:27:59
that type of a solid case. We've already got Onovughe
We've seen all these bank accounts belonging to him.
00:28:10
And now we have a current
victim is being told, hey, send some more
money over to him again.
00:28:16
So at this point, we
know he's still active, and he's still involved. He's still doing it.
00:28:21
He's got some bogus company. It wasn't even registered. It wasn't even a real company.
00:28:28
So we flew out there
and interviewed him. [engine whining] Onovughe is
an interesting person.
00:28:38
He had in his garage-- the best
thing I can describe it as is a Hollywood
set, what he imagined
00:28:45
a business would look like,
and he set it up in his garage. And so he had shelves
of three-ring binders,
00:28:54
and each of them had labeled
his different companies. So there's PTL Solutions. There's all those
other fake businesses.
00:29:03
But as I go to interview
him, I say, oh, well, yeah, these are all your companies.
00:29:08
And can I look at your books? And he's, oh, yeah,
sure, look at my books. I open up his
books-- and there's
00:29:13
a whole library, whole
shelves of books labeled his different companies. And I opened them
up, and they're just
00:29:23
spreadsheets that
are blank that has the name of his
company and nothing else. It's all a facade.
00:29:29
It's all fake. And I don't know what he
was thinking by letting me look at that stuff.
00:29:37
Maybe he thought that I'd be
fooled just to see the set. During that time, I felt like
I was one of the old ladies
00:29:46
he was talking to. He was trying to scam me. He was trying to convince
me this is all legit.
00:29:52
At one point, I got frustrated
with him, and I said, we got to talk about the truth.
00:29:56
[tense music] I reminded him that it's
a felony to lie to the FBI and to disrupt
our investigations.
00:30:06
There was a turning
point at that time, and he started to explain
how the scam worked.
00:30:10
And he told me about
the criminal organization, not just in Nigeria, but also
the criminal organization
00:30:18
in the Atlanta area. He talked about going
to houses in the Atlanta area where there are five or six
different people just sitting
00:30:28
on computers, creating
fake Facebook profiles, fake dating site profiles. He explained how they created
them, by going online and
00:30:38
just finding what he called
attractive white people, where he would take
their pictures,
00:30:43
he'd start following
them, and then he'd create his own website,
his own Facebook site
00:30:49
using the photos from
these-- these random people he found online. And he'd keep
on following them so he
00:30:55
could update his own
website using his fake name. He talked about
a whole group of people
00:31:02
who would buy fake
Social Security cards or fake passports so that
they could create
00:31:08
fake businesses using
these fake names to make it so it was difficult for the
law enforcement to follow them.
00:31:15
♪ ♪ He received hundreds
of thousands of dollars. He'd keep his 10%
commission, and
00:31:21
then he would hand that
money off to other people within his criminal
organization,
00:31:25
who would then take that cash. They'd buy cars and ship
those cars to Nigeria. They would buy property
in the Atlanta area.
00:31:35
They would take the cash
and then buy bitcoin, or they would go
and send it accounts--
00:31:41
directly into accounts
in Nigeria or China. ♪ ♪ He decided
to represent himself.
00:31:49
And the opening day of the
case, he was in a jumpsuit. And the judge said,
hey, you really
00:31:56
shouldn't wear a jumpsuit if
you're representing yourself. But he said, I'm a prince,
and I can't wear anybody's
00:32:04
clothes that are borrowed. So unless I have
my own clothes, I'm going to wear the jumpsuit.
00:32:10
And so that was just kind
of how they set the stage for the rest of the trial. We brought in four
or five victims
00:32:18
from all over the country. Our victim
in Arizona was there. I know there was
a victim from Florida
00:32:24
and another one from
New York that was there, and a couple of other
victims that came in.
00:32:29
And then I was able
to testify about what Onovughe told me about the scam
and about his participation.
00:32:35
He admitted he was paid. He also identified the name
of the caller, the person who
00:32:41
had actually talked
to our victim in Arizona, and had identified
the way that he
00:32:47
had been directed to collect
money for our victim in Arizona and for these other victims.
00:32:53
I don't know why he
went to trial on this because his interview
was recorded, and he admitted to everything.
00:33:04
Onovughe goes to jail. He's forgotten. They just move
on to their other guys. They've got a million of them.
00:33:10
It's the cost
of doing business. I look at it kind
of like drug cartels. You take out one drug dealer,
and there's several more
00:33:19
that will take their place. That being said, it's
a fight worth fighting. It's worth going
after these guys.
00:33:25
And the more we do,
the more people we arrest. It makes it more
difficult for them.
00:33:30
Shows like yours,
letting people know that, hey, don't fall
for these scams. And everything we can do
to stop it is worth it.
00:33:39
[somber music] ♪ ♪ Julia: I did finally meet Bret. And while I was there,
my phone kept going off.
00:33:50
And it was Ittai. Well, where are you? And I had to, like,
lie about where I was.
00:33:55
Well, where are you? Well, what are you doing? Like, every-- it was,
like, every 20 minutes.
00:33:59
And Bret looked down
on my phone, and he goes, does he track you like
that all the time?
00:34:03
I said, yeah, he does. So maybe he was,
like, suspecting something at that point.
00:34:10
[ominous music] ♪ ♪ Bret Curtis: Julia
identified for us a person by the name of Ittai,
who is in Nigeria.
00:34:20
Even though he's involved in
this scam all over the place, and even though he's been
successful in bringing,
00:34:26
to my best estimate, well
over a million dollars from different
victims, he's still
00:34:31
a lower level guy because he's
just a guy calling. And he has to go over
to people like Onovughe, who
00:34:37
have those contacts,
to collect the money in the US and get it back to Nigeria. [somber music]
00:34:43
♪ ♪ Julia: I don't
know where he is. I don't know what's
going on with him. I don't want to know.
00:34:49
It took me a long
time to heal from it, to realize that what
he was involved in,
00:34:55
to realize that I
was a part of it, to realize that I
had been played, to realize that
I wasn't worthy,
00:35:04
that I wasn't really
worthy of real love, but I was worthy to be played. Like, that's all I am.
00:35:12
Doug Fodeman: There are lots of
different phases of a romance scam because romance
scams are complex,
00:35:19
which is also one
of the reasons why they are so brutally
harmful to the victims,
00:35:26
where victims have
committed suicide, victims have been
deeply angered and emotionally distraught
by what's happened to them.
00:35:35
There are a lot
of reasons that people are desperate for a
relationship, understandably.
00:35:41
That's who we are. Julia: The FBI
actually saved my life. I think figuratively
and literally,
00:35:49
they saved my life
because I was going to make a bad decision. There was a time there where I
wanted to actually kill myself.
00:35:58
And because of them, I
did not go down that road. Doug Fodeman: One
thing I have to say,
00:36:07
sadly, about
scammers is that they are remarkably opportunists. They are clever.
00:36:16
Some of them are
incredibly smart. They can turn
on a dime and take advantage of circumstances.
00:36:23
But that means that
everybody is targeted and everyone can be a victim. Honestly, there isn't
anyone who couldn't
00:36:32
possibly be victimized. I've met lots of smart
people in this journey. Lawyers, doctors,
professors, psychologists
00:36:42
have been victimized. It is human nature
not just to want to connect to another
human being,
00:36:50
but it's human nature
to trust and believe. I mean, think about the whole
ideas and roots of tribalism,
00:36:56
where, you know, humans were--
you know, came up in evolution and were with tribes
and groups where
00:37:01
we had to fight
for our very survival with other tribes and groups. And you trusted
your tribe with your life.
00:37:07
And I know that
seems a little corny. But in many ways, that's
still part of human nature.
00:37:13
It literally means that
anyone can be victimized. Because if you can
connect to somebody,
00:37:19
if you can believe
in somebody or believe in something
or desire something so much,
00:37:25
the right fraud can do you in. [quirky music] ♪ ♪ - Not even a year
ago, probably--
00:37:33
I don't remember
the exact time frame-- I received a phone
call from my bank. And they told me that my
account had been compromised,
00:37:40
and they needed this
piece of information and that piece of information,
until a light went
00:37:45
off in the back of my head. Now, a year ago
when this happened, I essentially have the same
knowledge that I do
00:37:51
today sitting in front of you. And I still almost got
sucked into this thing. I was about to give
them everything.
00:37:58
What finally clicked
was the lady said, now, we're going to log in, and
it's going to send you a code.
00:38:04
We need you to read
us that code. And I was like, wait a minute. No, you don't. But I'd already given them
my bank account username
00:38:11
and my password, right? That's me. It can absolutely
happen to anyone. I'm sitting here
telling you how much I
00:38:18
know about this stuff,
and I just about got my bank account drained. Because if there's one
person in this location
00:38:24
where we are right now who
should not get scammed, it is me. [dramatic music] ♪ ♪
00:38:31
If you think you've been
scammed in the past, if you have the capacity
to or the strength
00:38:36
to report it, please do. Because even though if it was
a year ago or six months ago,
00:38:40
it doesn't matter. We can still feed that
up through the system. It's never too late.
00:38:45
My advice to someone who
is currently being scammed would just be stop. If they think they're
being scammed, they are.
00:38:52
Stop cold turkey, right? Just quit, quit
giving them money. Ignore the threats. Ignore the followups.
00:38:58
Ignore the emails.
Block everything. They're not coming
to your house. One thing I've never seen in 20
years of being a police officer
00:39:04
is a scammer who's threatened
to show up at someone's house, show up at someone's house.
00:39:08
I wish they would. That makes it easy for me. [laughs] Then they can just
call 911, and we can--
00:39:13
we can have a chat. ♪ ♪ Bret Curtis: Local
law enforcement will a lot of times receive
calls from these victims,
00:39:20
and they'll be frustrated
because they're not able to chase
down cases that are going all over the country.
00:39:26
And so they'll
refer them to IC3. IC3 is a database
that the FBI keeps. And we refer people to make
their complaints to IC3
00:39:36
because there's quite
specific questions that are asked in IC3 that will
allow us to classify a case
00:39:44
or classify a complaint
and join it up with other similar complaints. And then through IC3, I
can go in as an agent,
00:39:53
I can search IC3, I can find
out what some of the complaints are in my area, and then I can
clump those complaints together
00:40:02
that are similar because I'll
be able to figure out how they're connected. And then I can start
building a case.
00:40:10
Patrick Altiere: What motivates
me is actually interacting with and seeing the victims,
and sometimes being the first
00:40:16
person on the ground to do it,
to walk into the living room of an old man who has just
given away $400,000 because he
00:40:25
thought he was buying gold
coins or because he thought he was buying crypto,
only to find out that
00:40:30
he wasn't doing any of that. He was just giving
money to somebody. And to see how that is going
to affect his quality of life
00:40:39
for however long he has
left, I want to stop that. I know I never will. I know I won't stop it.
00:40:45
I'm not crazy. But I want to-- if I can keep even one other
person from falling for it,
00:40:51
I feel like I've
done a good job. [grim music] ♪ ♪ Julia: It took me a year
to work through the fact
00:41:00
that I can't love
someone like that. It doesn't matter what they
did, you know, what they said,
00:41:04
what they did. If anybody takes
anything away from this, is that people should
understand the heart is a liar.
00:41:13
It is a deceptive liar. Those emotions that
we feel can be played. These guys are insidious.
00:41:21
♪ ♪ Bret Curtis: I
will tell everybody that I meet with that has
been the victim of a scam,
00:41:28
that the chances are they're
going to be victimized again because what happens
is once someone
00:41:34
is identified as a good mark,
they sell your information. And they'll sell their
information to other scammers.
00:41:42
And the sad thing is
they fall for it again. So I will tell the victims,
if you've met someone online
00:41:47
and they're asking
for money, it's a scam. Just make it that simple. If you're on a dating site
and you're looking for someone,
00:41:56
and they say they can't
meet with you, drop them. Just look for people
that are going
00:42:02
to meet with you for real. And even when you meet
in real, it might be a scam. But if you're trying to build
a relationship online
00:42:09
and they're asking for money,
my advice is run away. ♪ ♪ [theme music] ♪ ♪