- 1 day ago
Brett Johnson is a reformed internet fraudster who stole more than $1 million through stolen credit cards, counterfeit documents, and phishing schemes.
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00:00My name is Brett Johnson, former United States Most Wanted Cyber Criminal.
00:03Through fraud, identity theft, and scams, I was able to steal millions of dollars.
00:08And this is how crime works.
00:13I built and ran the first organized cybercrime community. It's called Shadow Crew.
00:18I regret every single instance of that, of the people that I knew that I victimized,
00:24that trusted me, that put faith in me every single day. There's no fixing that.
00:29I looked for that opportunity to profit wherever it may be, and I didn't give a damn about my victims,
00:40and I didn't care about my victims, start to until I started to interact with victims on this side of the fence.
00:47My online criminal history began doing eBay fraud around the year 1997.
00:52And what I mean by eBay fraud is, you know, listing things that I didn't have,
00:56getting the money from people, and scamming these people.
00:58I was selling cameras that didn't exist, autographed baseballs.
01:01You know, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, and they were selling for $60 on eBay.
01:05Go down, buy a case of baseballs, pick up a Sharpie, start autographing them.
01:08And typically when I was doing eBay fraud, I'd profit about $12,000 a month.
01:13That leads into selling pirated software.
01:17So I was doing that, stealing a lot of money.
01:20And I got worried about how much was coming in.
01:23Thought I was going to be looked at for money laundering.
01:25And figured the best thing I could do is get a fake driver's license.
01:29I was going to use the fake ID to open up bank accounts so I could have the stolen money filtered through the bank account, cashed out at the ATM.
01:36And that's how I happened upon Counterfeit Library.
01:39And Counterfeit Library, they only dealt, it was a degree mill.
01:43They dealt in counterfeit degrees and certificates.
01:46It's fake IDs.
01:47It's fake work IDs.
01:49Any type of university degree that you might want.
01:52Send them the $200, send them my picture.
01:54Three, four weeks later, I get this fake driver's license.
01:57So I start using it to open up accounts, drop addresses, cash checks, everything else, and stealing even more money.
02:04A few weeks into that, and I'm becoming friends with the owners of Counterfeit Library because I was also sharing information about how to commit fraud.
02:10Two other individuals come in.
02:17One was called Mr. X was his screen name.
02:20The other one was Beelzebub.
02:22Beelzebub, he made fake IDs.
02:24Mr. X made a very passable Social Security card.
02:27And we became buddies.
02:29So Beelzebub, he came up with this idea.
02:32He's like, Gollum?
02:32My screen name was Gollum Fun.
02:34I'll sell the fake IDs.
02:36Mr. X will sell the Social Security cards.
02:37And we'll build this site, this forum.
02:41And I was like, Sounds like a damn good idea.
02:43Because I was also sharing information about how to commit fraud.
02:46And it become like this criminal field of dreams.
02:49People were welcomed in to share and exchange criminal information.
02:53You can simply come in and you can read all of the threads.
02:56Something that might be sold as a tutorial would be tax return identity theft.
03:01How to file those taxes.
03:03Where to target those victims.
03:05So Counterfeit Library transitioned from a degree mill type of website into a eBay fraud
03:11site, a social engineering site, a cybercrime channel site.
03:14Initially, my position was as a reviewer.
03:17I became basically the gatekeeper of Counterfeit Library.
03:21Every single product and service went through me.
03:24So if someone had a product or service for sale, I would get it in, verify it, talk about
03:29it, and vouch for that seller.
03:31They would send you physically that driver's license or that Social Security card or that
03:37passport or what have you.
03:39You'd get it and you'd give your thoughts on it.
03:44And you would say, this seller is reviewed and verified.
03:47That tag would then be changed to reviewed seller.
03:50The rules that we had, hey, no drugs.
03:53No counterfeit currency.
03:55No child pornography.
03:56Over the space of a year and a half, two years, we were, geez, we were a couple of thousand
04:00members at that point.
04:06We're doing pretty well with Counterfeit Library.
04:08It's fake IDs.
04:10It's eBay fraud.
04:11PayPal fraud.
04:12It's strictly scams is what it is, is we're coming across with that.
04:15One day, this guy comes over and he had the screen name Script.
04:20He was this Ukrainian spammer.
04:23And what he says is, he says, hey, I've got credit card information.
04:27And Script dealt with what we call the COB, the change of billing, just the credit card
04:31details and the ability to update billing information.
04:34So you would be able to log into the credit card account.
04:38You would see the available balance on that card.
04:40These days, they refer to it as account takeover.
04:42We had never seen anything like that.
04:44And the initial response from the community was, this guy has got to be law enforcement.
04:51And I was like, hey, dude, if you're going to sell on Counterfeit Library, you've got
04:55to be reviewed.
04:55So he was like, okay, let's get reviewed.
04:58He's like, well, I need a drop address and a burner phone number.
05:01I give him a drop address.
05:02I give him a phone number.
05:03He gives me the card information, card number, expiration date, three-digit security code.
05:08He's changed that billing information to that drop address and the burner phone number from
05:15the actual cardholder information.
05:17I place an order with Thompson's Computer Warehouse for $4,000.
05:21The same card, I also place an order with Dell's Outlet for $5,000.
05:27Goes through, $9,000 worth of product.
05:29Goes through, get the products shipped to me, they arrive.
05:33And the way that works is you have to receive the merchandise.
05:35And then what would you do?
05:36You'd resell it on eBay.
05:38I get back online with Script.
05:40I post the review on Counterfeit Library.
05:44And within the space of two to three days, Counterfeit Library transitions from that fake
05:50ID and eBay fraud to basically a credit card theft site.
05:55Once Script comes in and starts offering credit card details, at that point in time, Counterfeit
06:02Library simply explodes.
06:03Turns out that Script had a lot of buddies.
06:07They were stealing all these credit cards.
06:09Within, you know, 30 to 60 days, we had hundreds of posts per day of people that were looking
06:15for this information, of different sellers that were coming out selling credit card details
06:20or physical credit cards.
06:21We had more traffic than we know what to do with.
06:23There's a few different ways you can steal credit card details.
06:25You can get it through phishing schemes.
06:27You know, you'd get through names, social, date of birth, card numbers, pins, all that
06:32stuff.
06:32And a phishing attack was spray and pray.
06:36So you'd send out two million emails.
06:38If you got 20,000 back, that's a good day.
06:40You've got 20,000 card numbers all of a sudden.
06:42You can do it physically.
06:44All right.
06:44And that involves a skimmer.
06:46Maybe you install one at a bank, at a gas pump, and you insert the card or you give
06:51someone the card and they've got this little device in their hand and they swipe the card
06:54through and that captures the credit card details.
06:57So there are several different ways to get credit card details and information.
07:01Most of the data was coming out of America.
07:04You know, you can't order a lot of computers to a Ukrainian address.
07:07You need to order it to an American address and then have them shipped out or cashed out
07:12from there.
07:13So Scripps is the first guy, the first Ukrainian, that comes into English-speaking environments.
07:20All right.
07:20For cybercrime or scams or fraud to succeed online, three things have to take place.
07:27You have to gather data.
07:29Gather the tools.
07:30You then commit the crime.
07:32And then finally, you have to be able to cash that crime out.
07:35Well, they had the tools.
07:36They knew how to commit the crime.
07:37What they could not do was cash it out.
07:45If you were good, you would profit $30,000 to $40,000 a month.
07:50COBs, that change of billing, typically sold for 8% to 10% of whatever the available balance
07:57was of that card.
07:59So if you're buying just stolen credit card details, just the cardholder's name, number,
08:03address, things like that, that's going to run, you know, $7 up to maybe $30.
08:07You know, where do you put that money?
08:10Well, I had a house in Charleston, South Carolina, spare bedroom, cast a lot of it in there.
08:14I also had bank accounts in several different countries.
08:18When I was a criminal, I lived very, very quietly.
08:21I had a house on the water.
08:23It was not an expensive house.
08:25I would typically eat at home.
08:26If I ate at a restaurant, it would be someplace like Applebee's, something like that.
08:30So I was able to save some money.
08:32But you have to understand that when I was committing crime, money got to the point where you didn't
08:40understand the value of it.
08:41The way Shadow Crew pops up, this distance learning guy was a big advocate for distance learning.
08:53And he found out about Counterfeit Library.
08:55Not that we were committing fraud or credit theft.
08:57He didn't give a damn about that.
08:58He gave a damn about the degrees, the fake degrees they were selling.
09:01So his members from his forum, a couple of thousand, they come over and start bombarding the forums there.
09:07So we can't conduct any business all of a sudden.
09:10One of the ID guys, his name was Seth Sanders.
09:13He goes off and he builds shadowcrew.com.
09:16He had maybe 60 members at that point in time.
09:18Not much traffic.
09:19But the site looks damn good and it operates really well.
09:23He comes back over and he's like, you know, Gollum, why don't you come over to Shadow Crew?
09:27And I was like, man, I was like, we can do that.
09:30Make me super admin.
09:31Let me make whatever sub forums I want.
09:33Put the number of people that I want in charge of those forums.
09:35He's like, absolutely.
09:36So we shut down basically the forums that counterfeit, transitioned over to Shadow Crew.
09:42It was an explosion of users all of a sudden.
09:45So Shadow Crew was really the precursor of today's dark web, dark web markets, and financial cybercrime as we know it.
09:52It was the first real structured forum and communication channel for online criminal activity.
09:58You knew by looking at someone's screen name what the skill level was, what the history of that individual was.
10:03We had escrow systems.
10:05So if someone didn't trust another, they could go through me initially and I would hold the money until they got their item.
10:11Then I would pay the seller.
10:13Now, before these criminal communities, the only avenue you had to network with other criminals was IRC, Internet Relay Chat.
10:21It was a rolling chat board.
10:22You had no idea who you were talking to, if you could trust them, if they had a product or service, if it worked, if they had it, or if they were just going to rip you off because everyone there was a crook.
10:32So Shadow Crew, at its height, was 4,000 members strong.
10:36So out of 4,000 members, you may have had 60 to 80 different sellers.
10:43Most of it's credit-based.
10:44Most of the credit-based is online details.
10:47We had passport guys.
10:49We had fake ID guys, stuff like that as well.
10:52We were naive criminals.
10:58Many of us were.
11:00We were simply these, we thought we were computer guys, you know, and stealing information and profiting from that.
11:06But what we didn't appreciate is, if you're living a criminal lifestyle, how are you going to make sure that no one rips you off?
11:20And at the end of the day, it relies on violence.
11:24All right, that's really what you have to resort to.
11:27We had never seen any violence at all on Shadow Crew, any of those platforms.
11:33One day, a user comes in, and he starts posting these pictures of a guy who had ripped him off.
11:39And he had had the guy kidnapped and beaten.
11:44And it comes with a message, never steal from me.
11:48And that's the first instance of violence that we saw on that platform.
11:54Who's involved in cybercrime these days?
11:55Every criminal group that is imaginable as taking part in cybercrime.
12:01Because they view it as more safe.
12:05It's certainly more profitable.
12:07You absolutely see the Italian mob.
12:09You see the Mexican cartels coming in.
12:11You've got these scam farms that are out there.
12:14These buildings.
12:15These organized elements coming together are different than it was when I was a criminal.
12:22You've got an actual compound or community of people that are working together, running different basic departments in order to make sure that that fraud, that crime, is successful.
12:34They're really running it more businesslike than we did when we were committing crime.
12:41We had tens of thousands of hits that were coming in per day.
12:50But you have to remember that you could access ShadowCrew without being registered.
12:55Now, we were able to see the IP addresses that were coming in.
12:58It was evident that law enforcement was, they had several identities on ShadowCrew.
13:02You know, back then, how do you avoid detection?
13:05What's your operational security?
13:06You would try to have the server located in a country where it was difficult for law enforcement to subpoena anything from it.
13:14I moved a lot from Kentucky to Tennessee to South Carolina.
13:18I would try to find hot spots that I could use that weren't in my home.
13:23You did not have access to these proxy addresses where you could hide your IP address.
13:30It wasn't until later that those things came online.
13:35Rightfully or not, I was scared to death that RICO was going to come down on my head and I was going to get the brunt of everything.
13:40So I retire.
13:42I step out of ShadowCrew.
13:43About the same time I stepped out, our forum techie, he went by the screen name of Scarface and Cumbajani.
13:51His name was Albert Gonzalez, and he was making money or stealing money doing the CVV1 hack.
13:57So one day, he's standing at an ATM in broad daylight, and he's putting one white counterfeit card in after another, pulling $20 bills out.
14:07Just so happens, across the street, two cops are sitting there, and they start to notice this kid walks up on Albert.
14:15Albert, Albert's wearing a disguise, a wig.
14:18Albert falls apart and flips.
14:21So Albert flips.
14:22He goes to work for the Secret Service.
14:25Albert comes back into ShadowCrew, and he takes over.
14:28And he tells the community, hey, in order to remain safe, we need to make sure we're using this VPN.
14:36That way everything's, you know, safe and secure.
14:39It turns out the VPN's owned by the United States Secret Service, and that's where, if you read the indictments, that's where the $4 million comes from.
14:46That was the amount of stolen information that went through the VPN during those months of investigation.
14:53The Secret Service was able to get addresses, names.
14:56The reason the Secret Service was created was to protect the nation's monetary supply.
15:01So, of course, cybercrime, everything's transitioning over to online payments and everything else.
15:06Of course, they are going to take a role in that.
15:09October 26, 2004 was when ShadowCrew was shut down.
15:12Cumbajani and Albert Gonzalez had called for everyone to be online at about the same time.
15:18And the idea was they would swoop in and get everyone.
15:23They arrested 26 people across six countries in six hours.
15:27I avoided the arrest because I simply left ShadowCrew before the implementation of VPN.
15:35I was online, and I ended up on ShadowCrew, and the site had been changed.
15:42All of a sudden, you didn't go to the ShadowCrew forums.
15:45There was this page of this guy behind bars.
15:50And it was this message of, you are no longer safe in the shadows.
15:55You know, we advise you to report to your nearest United States Secret Service field office and turn yourself in.
16:02Well, I'm not about to do that.
16:04So, there was all this going on.
16:06I was living under an assumed identity in Charleston, South Carolina.
16:10I was very hard to locate.
16:11I ended up getting access to the California State Death Index.
16:17I was like, well, I wonder if you can file tax returns on dead people.
16:23And it turns out you can.
16:26Tax return identity theft is what they called it.
16:28I would file tax returns from Sunday through Wednesday.
16:34Thursday, I'd plot a map of ATMs.
16:37Friday and Saturday, I'd cash out.
16:39I'd have the returns deposited on prepaid debit cards.
16:42Typically cash out in the range of, you know, $160,000, $180,000 a week.
16:47And I'd stole a lot of money.
16:48And that's when you learn how to launder money.
16:50I was married for nine years and lied to my wife.
17:00I lied to her every day.
17:02Every day.
17:03Took her three years to find out I was a crook.
17:05Next six years were me saying, you know, I've stopped, will stop, I'm going to stop.
17:09And she leaves me after nine years.
17:11I get depressed.
17:12You know, that fear of being abandoned becomes real.
17:14I caused it.
17:15Yeah, I caused it.
17:16But it was still real, walking around the house all day, just crying, depressed.
17:22From there, it leads into shadow crew.
17:24And what happens was I was always this clean-cut crimp.
17:27I didn't start drinking until I was 34 for my life.
17:31I'd never drank before that.
17:32I'm the guy.
17:33I'm literally that guy that walks into a strip club and falls in love with the first stripper that he sees.
17:38Her name was Elizabeth.
17:40Elizabeth didn't know what I did for a living.
17:42I had lied to her, too.
17:44But I ended up getting engaged to her.
17:50And I retired.
17:51I stepped out of shadow crew April 14th of 2004.
17:54Stateside, I had probably 200, 250 grand in cash and went through in the space of just a few months.
18:02I went through all of that.
18:06So October rolls around.
18:09Shadow crew gets busted.
18:11I don't have any cash.
18:13And I wanted to keep up that facade.
18:17So the only thing, because of shadow crew being busted, you didn't know who to trust anymore.
18:22The only thing I could rely on, criminal-wise, was running counterfeit cashier's checks, which I had religiously for years screamed at people not to do that.
18:36February 8th, 2005, I was supposed to pick up a couple of Tiffany diamond rings.
18:41Totaled like $19,000.
18:43I was in Charleston, South Carolina.
18:45I had waited for the UPS driver to drive up.
18:48I met him at the drop address, got out of my vehicle, told the driver, you've got a package for me.
18:54In this case, the driver said, yes, I do.
18:56Can I see your driver's license?
18:57And I pulled out a driver's license.
18:59It was my driver's license because I didn't have the ability to get a fake one.
19:02He handed me the package.
19:03I handed him a counterfeit cashier's check.
19:06I turn around and take three steps.
19:08There's the FBI.
19:09Guns drawn.
19:11In walked these two Secret Service agents.
19:13They sit down.
19:14They look at me and said, we'd like to talk to you about some stolen credit cards.
19:19And they took over the investigation.
19:26So they asked me about some credit cards.
19:29I really don't tell them anything.
19:31One agent looks at me.
19:33He's like, well, we got your laptop.
19:34I was like, yep.
19:35And then he looks at me and he's like, well, is there anything you could do for us?
19:39I think the state had me under like 30 different indictments.
19:43I think the total was like $327,000 was the bond they wanted.
19:48Somebody up in Washington called whoever they needed to call and got the bond reduced to $1,000.
19:55I walk out.
19:57It's like midnight.
19:59First call I make is to Elizabeth.
20:02I'm out.
20:03And she says, I'll be there.
20:05She pulls up in a limousine.
20:08Gets out.
20:09Pops the trunk.
20:11Gets these two plastic storage containers out full of my clothes.
20:14Drops on the pavement.
20:15Comes over.
20:16Hugs me.
20:17Call me later.
20:19Gets in the car.
20:19Leaves.
20:20I'm standing next to a Secret Service agent.
20:23And this guy looks at me.
20:24He's like, is that your fiance?
20:27I'm like, yeah.
20:29He's like, man, I am so sorry.
20:30And, of course, that relationship fell apart.
20:33The Secret Service field office is out of Columbia, South Carolina.
20:36They put me up in a, you know, suite.
20:39Not suite, but, you know, pay-per-week hotel.
20:41And I start to work for them.
20:43So working for the Secret Service, it was typically four to six hours a day.
20:47I was paid $350 a week, plus they took care of rent and stuff like that.
20:53They had me hooked up to a laptop.
20:56The laptop was hooked up to a 50-inch plasma monitor mounted on the wall.
21:00Two agents in the room at the same time, they were at a desktop computer next to mine.
21:05And the job was for me to educate them on cybercrime and also for me to help out with investigations.
21:12So target people, surf the forums, basically be Gollum again, target people for investigations.
21:18And that's what I did.
21:19Ultimately, Operation Anglerfish, it arrests John Giannone.
21:25It arrests a few other decently sized people.
21:28You know, eventually, the Secret Service agents, they were monitoring me.
21:31They got bored because a lot of it's just monotonous.
21:34You know, I'm bullshitting around with other criminals, developing relationships with those guys.
21:39On my laptop, they had Camtasia and Spectre Pro, so it recorded all keystrokes.
21:44And it also took snapshots of the screen every, I think, 15 or 30 seconds.
21:49All of that data, everything they were capturing, went on a DVD, on a spindle.
21:53It's what happened, all right?
21:54At the same time, I'm, you know, I'm the guy that I've got an ego.
22:00I realized that, okay, all that data, no one's going to go through those DVDs.
22:07No one's really cataloging any of that bullshitting.
22:10I can pretty much do what I want.
22:13So I start committing crime.
22:15So I was committing tax return, identity theft, credit theft, and various other crimes.
22:20For 10 months, I around, rip them off, screw them over.
22:26So Operation Rolling Stone comes around.
22:28That's that operation where they were supposed to arrest some of the people that I had been targeting.
22:32One of the guys that they were arresting, I had taught that kid how to do tax return fraud.
22:37Turns out that the night before, he had loaded up a U-Haul full of stuff.
22:43And that stuff was evidently a lot of the evidence they would need to charge the guy.
22:48So they come back to me.
22:49Did you talk to anybody?
22:52And I'm like, nope.
22:54Well, we're going to make you take a polygraph.
22:56And as soon as they said that, I'm like, I'm not taking a polygraph.
22:59Call my lawyer.
23:01So my lawyer gets on the phone, and I'm on the phone with him.
23:04He's like, Brent, did you do anything?
23:07I was like, yeah.
23:09He was like, well, you don't have to take the polygraph.
23:12And I was like, well, that's a good thing.
23:14And he's like, but if you don't, they're going to throw you back in jail.
23:17So I take the polygraph, fell it miserably, miserably.
23:22A subsequent search of the apartment unveils a lot of stuff.
23:27And I had in the apartment.
23:29Had money, had cards, had stolen identities, all that stuff.
23:33And I didn't want them to find that.
23:36They revoked my bond that night.
23:38So they revoked bond, threw me back in the county jail.
23:47Week after that, the state judge reinstates my bond.
23:53No one calls the Secret Service to tell them that.
23:56I walk out.
23:58I met with my mom.
23:59My mom's outside waiting on me.
24:01And I looked at her, I was like, I can't stay.
24:04She was like, what?
24:05So I take off on a cross-country run.
24:08I had a truck.
24:10Get in the truck, head west on I-20.
24:13No idea where the hell I'm going to go.
24:15I get to Dallas.
24:17Rented a room for two weeks.
24:20Started doing tax fraud out of the local Kinkos.
24:22The night everything funded, 67 cards funded.
24:26I ended up with, I think, like $130,000 is what I ended up with in cash.
24:31I drove down Route 66, visited Roswell, New Mexico.
24:35Ended up in Las Vegas.
24:38Stole another $160,000, $170,000 out of ATMs through tax fraud there.
24:43Went out to L.A.
24:45Stole another $160,000.
24:48Come back to the hotel.
24:50Sign on to cartersmarket.com that morning.
24:53And I'm United States Most Wanted.
24:55Secret Service Most Wanted.
24:57And I sat there looking at it.
24:59And that's the first time my name had been mentioned on a criminal forum.
25:02My picture had been posted.
25:04Everything else.
25:04I sat there just stunned looking at it.
25:07And finally, I sat out loud.
25:09I was like, well, Brett, you've made the United States Most Wanted list.
25:12What are you going to do now?
25:14And I sat out loud.
25:16I'm going to Disney World.
25:18So that's what I did.
25:19I checked out of the hotel there in Vegas.
25:22Drove to Disney World.
25:24Got my year pass at Disney and Universal.
25:27And I was like, you know, I can lay low.
25:29I can enjoy the parks.
25:30There's a lot of tourists in the area.
25:32I can hide there.
25:33I rented a timeshare with cash.
25:35Bought electronics, everything else.
25:36And the idea was, well, I'll just hold up here for a year.
25:40Then I'll bug out to Florianopolis, Brazil.
25:43And set up shop again and do it all again.
25:45It was September 16, 2006.
25:49And I heard this knock at the door.
25:52Got my ass out of bed.
25:53Looked through the peephole.
25:54Another Secret Service agent.
25:56And an Orange County Sheriff.
25:57Would you guys like to come in?
25:59And he's like, well, we need to put you in cuffs first.
26:02I was like, yeah, I figured.
26:04My understanding is they used a trigger fish.
26:07Back then it was called trigger fish.
26:08Today it's called stingray to locate me.
26:11That is a box that simulates a cell phone tower.
26:16Back then, I don't know what it is now, what the tech is now.
26:18But back then it could locate you within a seven foot radius.
26:21I'm arrested.
26:27I'm thrown in the Orange County Jail.
26:29Ultimately, the state charges were dropped in favor of the federal charges.
26:34Conspiracy, forgery, aggravated identity theft, and multiple counts of all of those.
26:40And it was like 75 months.
26:42When I got to Big Spring, Texas, at that point you understand exactly what prison is.
26:46The inmates run the prison, not the guards.
26:49When you get to prison, you're met by your race.
26:54I'm met at the door by the treasurer of the Aryan Brotherhood.
26:58He looks at me, he's like, how many more white guys come in?
27:01I'm like, I don't know, three or four.
27:03Next question is, what are you in here for?
27:06My answer is, computer crime.
27:08And I smile.
27:08Now, no, you don't say computer crime in prison.
27:12That doesn't mean hacking, credit card theft, all this bullsh**t.
27:14When you say computer crime, that means child predator.
27:18So he's looking at me.
27:20He calls his big buddies.
27:23They circle around.
27:24What did you say you're in here for?
27:26So I tell them, you know, I'm in here for this.
27:27And they're like, okay, sounds good.
27:30You still said computer crime.
27:31Now, the way it works, they will not, they will not attack you until they know you are that predator.
27:39At that point, that's your ass.
27:40Or it takes the guards telling them that you're that guy.
27:45Well, none of the guards told them anything.
27:46Spent two years at Big Spring, and at Big Spring is where I realized that the only person that put me in prison was me.
27:55I ended up serving about seven, seven and a half years total.
28:01Anyone that commits cybercrime or computer-related crimes, usually you're under three years or five years supervised release.
28:13And during that time, you're not allowed to touch a computer, or there are certain guidelines that you have to have.
28:17I was released from prison.
28:19I went to the halfway house.
28:20Didn't have a job.
28:21I had job offers.
28:23Deloitte, no before.
28:24Couldn't take them.
28:25I asked about fast food.
28:27No, that's a computer.
28:27Can't touch a computer.
28:28So I couldn't get a job.
28:30I was going broke.
28:32My probation officer had given me permission to get a cell phone, and I had signed on to plentyoffish.com.
28:39About the same time, my wife, now Michelle, first date we had, first real date, she asked me 10 minutes into it.
28:45She's like, what's the worst thing you've ever done?
28:48I was like, I just got out of federal prison.
28:51She's like, no, seriously.
28:52And I told her, and I told her all about me.
28:54She decides to keep dating me.
28:57Finally, I get a job.
28:58The only job I could get was pushing a lawnmower.
29:00Bust my ass, 10 hours a day, $400 a week.
29:03Job ends because it gets cold, grass stops growing, and I get it in my head.
29:07I was like, I've got to do something to show her I'm worth it.
29:10Get on the dark web.
29:12Get some stolen credit cards.
29:14Start ordering food.
29:15So I get caught doing that.
29:17Go back to prison.
29:18The lesson I learned was Michelle didn't need me from me.
29:23She just wanted me from me.
29:25Got out of prison.
29:28Got married to her shortly after that.
29:31I ended up reaching out to this guy, FBI agent.
29:35And I sent him a message.
29:37I was like, hey, man, he had arrested a lot of people that I knew.
29:39I said, I think you did an outstanding job.
29:41You got nothing but my respect.
29:43And at the end of it, I was like, by the way, I'd like to be legal.
29:53That man responded within two hours.
29:56Within two hours, he gave me references.
29:58He gave me advice.
29:59That led to Carice Hendrick being the first person that hired me to speak for the Card Not Present Group.
30:06AARP has me as an ambassador for them.
30:10I work hard every single day.
30:12I wake up every morning to protect people from that person that I used to be.
30:18Today, I lead a very blessed life that I don't deserve.
30:25But I'm grateful for it.
30:28Every single day, I regret who I have been.
30:33I regret every single instance of that.
30:36Of the people that I knew that I victimized.
30:39Of the people that I didn't know that I victimized.
30:41Of the people that loved me, that trusted me, that put faith in me every single day.
30:49And the only thing I can do, you can't fix that, man.
30:53There's no fixing that.
30:54Cybercrime is the third largest economy on the planet.
31:03You've got China, you've got the United States, you've got cybercrime to the tune of $10 trillion a year.
31:10It's a booming industry.
31:11When I was a criminal, you had to understand every single dynamic or aspect of the crime you were committing.
31:17Your own security, the company's security, how to make fake IDs, run drop addresses, launder money, everything else.
31:23That's changed.
31:24Now you have fraud as a service.
31:27Every single product and service is off the shelf.
31:30A criminal now doesn't have to understand any aspect of the crime.
31:34They can immediately buy tutorials, take live instruction classes, buy anything that they need online and immediately start being successful and profitable at crime.
31:43Because of that, because of the ease of access of Telegram, things like that, you see crime continue to explode.
31:50It absolutely has to do with the pandemic as well.
31:54During the pandemic, we saw a lot of criminals committing unemployment fraud, PPP fraud, stuff like that.
32:01What advice do you have for the general public on how to best protect social cybercrime?
32:05Okay, let's talk about that threat landscape.
32:07We've got mass media out there.
32:09They paint computer criminals or attackers as hackers, computer geniuses.
32:13No, it's not computer geniuses.
32:15It's the stuff we know about, we're not doing anything about, that creates that opportunity for attack.
32:21All right?
32:2190% plus of every single attack uses a known exploit.
32:27It's something you know about.
32:29It's something you've been told about that you're not doing anything about that opens that door.
32:3456% of companies experience a breach because of third-party access.
32:39Your network's only as strong as the weakest device which accesses it.
32:44Over 41% of every single router on the planet has a default password.
32:49Oh, s***.
32:50And that's not even the big one.
32:51The big one, 80% of every breach begins with a phishing attack.
32:56What makes phishing so important?
32:58Why is it so widely used?
33:00A phishing attack is a social engineering attack.
33:03It boils down to how good of a social engineer am I, a liar, am I in convincing you to do that thing?
33:09They know what it takes to manipulate you into giving up information, access, data, or cash.
33:13Why would I try to brute force past a firewall if I can send an email to someone sitting behind that?
33:19That creates that threat landscape.
33:21For individuals, it's not that difficult.
33:24It begins with freezing your credit.
33:27Credit freezes became free September 2018.
33:30Today, the population, 12%.
33:3312%.
33:34The other 88% are victims waiting to happen.
33:37All right?
33:38So, freeze the credit.
33:39Of every single person in the house, including children, children are the number one victims of identity theft.
33:45One in four.
33:4625%.
33:46All right?
33:47So, freeze the credit.
33:48That's free.
33:49You have to contact all three credit bureaus.
33:50Do you use the same password and, you know, log in across multiple websites?
33:56Chances are you do.
33:5780% of the population does.
33:59So, good password security.
34:01What does that look like?
34:03That's up to you.
34:05You know, you can use a password manager.
34:06You can use pass keys.
34:08I'm not against a password notebook as long as it's not at your desk at work.
34:14So, these things are important.
34:16From there, you can look at multi-factor authentication, things like that.
34:19But it begins with freezing credit, monitor accounts, place alerts, good password security.
34:25And then you go from there.
34:26If you've got just a modicum of security in place, chances are I'm going to find an easier target.
34:31All right?
34:32You've still got the investment schemes.
34:33You've got the romance schemes that are out there.
34:35What's interesting is over time, credit card theft is still huge.
34:42Make no mistake about that.
34:43But there's almost a shift in the mindset of online criminals where they're going more toward the scam environment.
34:52They're more relying on manipulating through that liar social engineer.
34:56They're more relying on tricking that victim into sending cash out instead of doing account takeovers and things like that.
35:02Trust is usually established through technology, tools.
35:06They'll use spoofed phone calls.
35:08You won't see the phone number they're calling from.
35:10You'll see your bank, the FBI, Sheriff's Department, Social Security Administration, something like that.
35:15The idea is to try to get that victim to do a knee-jerk reaction.
35:21Oh, s***.
35:21And click.
35:24Well, you're done at that point.
35:25This morning, I got an email as I was walking here from Coinbase.
35:31Someone logged into your account.
35:33I'm like, oh, s***.
35:34Now, you open up the email.
35:37Someone has accessed your account.
35:40They've logged in.
35:41Then it's got the link.
35:43Do you click on the link?
35:44No, by God, you do not.
35:46You close out that email.
35:48You go to your browser.
35:49You type in coinbase.com.
35:51I logged in.
35:53No one had accessed my account, but I did change my password.
35:57So that's something you've got to understand.
35:59Whatever you do, report those crimes to law enforcement.
36:03If you don't report these crimes, people like me, we get away with it, and we keep going.
36:14I grew up knowing how to do insurance fraud, faking stolen cars, charity fraud.
36:20So that's the life I grew up in.
36:21When I became an adult, I had the opportunity to choose that different path, and I didn't.
36:28I found eBay, and liked eBay a lot.
36:33I was like, there has to be some way to make money on this.
36:35Didn't know how.
36:36Began doing eBay fraud around the year 1997.
36:39I used to watch Bill O'Reilly on Inside Edition a lot.
36:41And he had a show that night, and they were profiling Beanie Babies.
36:45The one they were profiling was Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant, selling for $1,500.
36:49So I skipped class the next day, go around to all these little Hallmark short stores looking
36:53for peanut, but they had these gray ones.
36:57The exact same elephant, just a different color.
37:00Had these gray ones for $8.
37:02Found a picture of a real one online.
37:04I posted it.
37:05I used a picture of a real peanut Beanie Baby.
37:10So this woman wins the bid.
37:13I don't want to be on the defense of the conversation.
37:15I want her on the defense of that.
37:17So I send her a message.
37:17Hey, you win.
37:19Congratulations.
37:20By the way, we've never done any business before.
37:24I don't even know if I can trust you.
37:27What I need you to do, go down to the U.S. Postal Service, pick up a couple of money orders.
37:33They're issued by the United States government.
37:36That protects you.
37:37More importantly, that protects me.
37:39You send me those, I'll send you your animal with the U.S. Postal money orders.
37:43The reason I chose that is you could actually cash those money orders out at the post office.
37:49And because that victim wanted that Beanie Baby so bad,
37:53they believe that.
37:55That allows me to establish that trust and defraud them.
37:58She believed that.
37:59Sends me the money orders.
38:00I cash them out.
38:02Send her the creature in the mail.
38:04I did that crime under my own name, dumbass that I am.
38:08Immediately get this phone call.
38:09This is not what I ordered.
38:11And that's the first online crime that I committed.
38:15I ended up defrauding a woman of $1,500.
38:19A lot of them, they get so exasperated, they throw their hands in the air, they walk away.
38:24You don't hear from them again.
38:25So that's the first online crime I committed and got away with it.
38:29And it emboldened me.
38:31Keep going.
38:32I was a piece of shit.
38:33And if you understand that, not just about me, but about these guys that are online doing this sh**,
38:41you can probably protect yourself better.
38:43Hi, I'm a producer on how crime works.
38:55If you enjoyed this video, then please subscribe and comment below with more ideas of topics you'd like us to cover in this series.
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