Typically, international scammers are notoriously hard to prosecute.
The pair devise a scheme so that the swindlers can be arrested and convicted of their crimes.
[00:00:31] Mike: You know, its, sometimes I think about that, too.
So I think from the perspective of a scammer, its really a risk/reward calculation they have to make.
(MUSIC SEGUE)
[00:00:40] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
This is a two-part story.
If you haven’t listened to last week’s episode yet, you should go do that now.
And Mike is determined and not to let the case drop.
Rarely do internet victims meet their criminals in person, but Alan, Alan has a photograph.
That’s enough to keep Agent Mike on the case.
But he has a problem, a very big problem.
So, he gets to work on a scam of his own.
That’s like the exact opposite of what youve got to do if you’re an online scammer.
Obviously, Eric and Precious and Daniel wasn’t their true names.
After all, they did get on airplanes.
But getting records from foreign agencies is not a fast process.
He wants to make Alan a sort of undercover FBI agent.
She’s not, she’s not a princess.
You know, that kind of stuff.
So, plan C is hatched.
It’s the most ambitious plan yet.
A plan to turn the tables on the criminals, to tell a sob story of their own.
He wants to talk about gold."
[00:05:40] Bob: It strikes me that it’s a good thing you work for the FBI.
Otherwise you’d have another career that might not be as wholesome.
[00:05:46] Mike: Oh, (laugh).
Well, sometimes you’ve got to think like scammers to catch them, so.
One of the most important steps, getting the State Department to issue a visa.
Here’s what, here’s kind of what’s going on.
Basically I said, “I need you to give him a visa.”
[00:06:51] Bob: Meanwhile, Mike is coaching Alan on what to say to Eric and Precious.
They lay it on pretty thick.
Would Eric even show up for his visa appointment?
What if he got cold feet right before boarding the plane?
You’d think Mike might be worried by these things, but he says he wasn’t.
So something would have come eventually.
Like, for example, the UAE would have told us who these people really were.
[00:08:22] Bob: But, to the surprise of many agents involved, the plan works.
Eric gets his visa and gets on a plane headed for Dulles Airport outside Washington DC.
[00:08:33] Bob: So it worked, okay.
Are, are you there at the airport when they arrive?
We actually bought his plane ticket for him.
And so we knew exactly when he was arriving.
We saw him just going through.
He looked very tired, obviously.
We kind of pulled him out of the queue.
[00:09:34] Bob: What was the, the expression on his face when you did that?
[00:09:36] Mike: I think he was very tired.
He was very jetlagged.
He was very like, uh just absolute resignation.
No fight, no denial, just okay, sure.
[00:09:47] Bob: Next, they enlist Eric’s help in nabbing Precious.
[00:09:58] Mike: We arrested Eric; we took him back to our field office in DC.
Part of what we were, you know, asking about was, so who’s Precious?
What’s her real name, that kind of stuff.
[00:10:25] Bob: And did he agree to do that?
[00:10:27] Mike: Uh, he did.
But first, they look through his phone and see just how hard he fell for their story.
Like, all right, you know, “We’ve got a job.
It’s uh, it’s in the States.
Remember that guy who came to meet us in Dubai?
Okay, we’ve got to go there now.
He says, “Oh wow.
This guy is a rich businessman, really is the real deal.
He got me my visa, you know.
I’ll see you there.”
And that kind of stuff, and Precious is like, “Okay, great.
It doesnt seem like Precious is buying it.
I need you to send me money.”
Uh, I think she knew something was up.
I think she knew that something had happened to Eric.
‘Cause it’s kind of hard to hide that, you know.
I don’t…
[00:11:55] Bob: You couldn’t speak in his voice.
Like I think she knew something was up.
I’m broke right now.
I want to go there and meet you, but send me some money.”
[00:12:48] Bob: Um, what did you think when you first saw her?
He gave us the passwords.
You look through these cellphones, and it’s just one after another after another.
I need someone to play the part of this and that."
[00:14:03] Bob: Oh my God.
“Do you recognize this person?”
It was like, “Yep, that’s Eric.”
“Do you recognize that person?”
You know some other name that um, Precious had gone by.
So, it’s a lot of, a lot of other victims, quite a bit of victims.
[00:16:20] Mike: Um, I think Eric was someone who wasn’t just a foot soldier.
He thinks, this is the story that he thinks.
Can you help me out?"
I know a Caucasian girl from the Ukraine.
I have, you know, fake gold bars in my compound.
[00:17:38] Bob: He sounds almost like a Broadway producer.
Or it’s, it’s a business, you know, it’s what organized crime is about.
So different uh, members bring different functions to a criminal enterprise.
[00:18:01] Bob: Sure.
[00:18:16] Bob: Anthony Pratkanis has studied these kinds of crimes for years.
He’s an experimental social psychologist who writes about fraud and the tactics that con artists use.
He’s also a friend of The Perfect Scam.
Anthony says Alan’s story reminds him of a scam that’s at least 100 years old.
Can you help me out?
I’ve got this fortune.
Would you help me out, and we can then share the fortune.
That’s very similar to this sort of scam.
And one element at the, at the core of that scam is a helper relationship.
I need to help this Spanish princess.
I need to help Precious.
And that’s a very important role that we have because we want to help other people.
It’s a very human thing to do.
So it’s always about greed.
That’s not true.
[00:20:52] Anthony Pratkanis: I suspect he felt a range of emotions.
How can I be so stupid?
Can I really believe this?
How could this happen to me?
Oftentimes you see a lot of blaming of the victim.
It’s the criminal that deserves the blame.
[00:21:49] Anthony Pratkanis: Oh absolutely.
[00:22:00] Bob: How do criminals work their victims and persuade them to do such dramatic things?
Anthony says it’s important to understand they start small by getting their foot in the door.
Or, I’ve got a GoFundMe campaign and, you know, my friend lost their daughter.
Could you, you know, go give them $50?
Some little, small request like that.
In the science of social influence, that’s known as a foot in the door effect.
And then that sets me up for the next step.
All of a sudden, the guy’s going to Dubai.
How does that happen?
Uh, he must be crazy.
But what we don’t see is all the little steps along the way.
Little steps of escalating commitment.
They may start to share things with you.
And then after that, there’s oftentimes a dance of intimacy.
It’s just that the con criminal is, has a motive other than friendship to manipulate.
And that gives him an advantage.
But the con criminal doesn’t care.
Whatever you like, whatever you care about, uh that con criminal will care about it too.
[00:25:00] Bob: Next comes the rationalization trap.
[00:25:17] Anthony Pratkanis: Exactly right.
Why did I do that?
Oh they’re a scammer.
No, they can’t possibly be a scammer.
Why would I have sent them money?
That’s the sunk cost.
And the way to convince yourself that it’s legitimate is to send more money.
[00:25:59] Bob: Rationalization trap you call that?
[00:26:01] Anthony Pratkanis: Yeah, it’s an old theory in social psychology.
It’s one of the best, cognitive dissonance theory.
You dont, oh, that’s painful to think of that.
And so you start to rationalize.
Well he’s a good person.
I really care about him.
Uh, he couldn’t possibly be a scammer.
He’s such a nice guy.
Uh, the scammers wouldn’t attack me, he’s so caring.
Or she’s so caring in this case.
[00:26:37] Bob: So how are Alan and his wife today?
And the whole family is still working through all the other issues an incident like this brings up.
[00:27:09] Mike: Um, yeah, they’re good.
I, I was speaking to them a couple weeks ago.
They, they’re healthy.
They, they got over their health issues.
[00:27:47] Bob: I don’t know how you recover emotionally from something like that.
He’s still a bit surprised their plan to scam the scammers actually worked.
And uh, you were just like, oh, there’s no way Eric’s going to come.
And he came?"
So yeah, he’s, you know, he doesn’t uh let me forget that.
[00:28:32] Bob: It was a great lesson for a rookie agent to learn.
(laugh)
[00:28:46] Mike: Yeah.
[00:28:50] Mike: Uh, yeah.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch data pipe Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
