On today's episode of the Fresh Fit Podcast, we have a special guest in the house, Matt Cox. Matt is a legend in the real estate industry. He was on the FBI's Most Wanted list, and served 13 years in prison for bank fraud and a slew of other charges related to bank fraud. In this episode, Matt talks about his life growing up in the projects, how he got into real estate, and what it was like being on the run from the FBI for 13 years. He also talks about how he ended up in prison, and how he was able to get out. Matt also shares his story of how he became one of the most successful real estate agents in the country, and why he chose to go to prison instead of getting a college degree. He also gives us a little bit of background on his childhood, and the challenges he had growing up as a dyslexic, and gives us some insight into how he dealt with growing up with dyslexia and a severe learning disability. Enjoy the episode, and don't miss out on our upcoming yacht party on August 10th! Don't miss it! We'll see you there on the 10th, August 10, 9pm-1am. We're going to be in the Bahamas on a yacht party with a bunch of influencers and celebrities! We can't wait to have a good time there! . Subscribe to the podcast! Subscribe, Like, Share and Retweet the podcast on your favorite podcast, and spread the word to your friends about what you're listening to this episode! Have a great Monday! or share it on your friends and family about it on social media! Love ya'll! Timestamps: 0:00 - 5:30 - 6:00 | 6:30 | 7:00 7:30 8:00 / 7:15 9:20 11:30 / 8:15 / 9:15 | 12:30/13:00/16:00 // 15:00 & 16:00 + 17:30 // 17:15 // 18: 17:10 18:10 / 16:30 +17:20 / 18:30 & 17:00? 19:15 & 21:30 ? 21:15 ? 22:15 +23:00 ? 26:00 @ 27:30 @ 26
00:14:59.000We were chopping it up a little bit before the show.
00:15:01.000Come from different backgrounds, which is interesting because like adversarial almost, but it's great to be able to be on a podcast and have a discussion about it.
00:15:31.000I was number one on the Secret Service's most wanted list.
00:15:33.000I was on the run for three years and I did 13 years in federal prison for bank fraud and a slew of other charges related to bank fraud.
00:15:44.000So, can you kind of take us through, before we get into the criminal investigation and everything else that went into that, can you kind of take us through your background, where you're from, what it was like growing up?
00:15:53.000Yeah, so I grew up, actually grew up upper middle class.
00:15:58.000Like, you know, other people have a good reason why.
00:16:02.000You grew up in the projects and you end up selling drugs.
00:16:04.000It's like, okay, well, you were surrounded by it, you know what I'm saying?
00:16:07.000So, I can kind of see how it's tough to escape that.
00:16:10.000But I was raised upper middle class, I had a severe learning disability.
00:16:15.000Went to school for kids with learning disabilities.
00:18:19.000So I realized right away by accounting two, which was the only C I ever got in college, I was like, oh, I'm not going to be able to do this.
00:18:27.000I'll never get through micro and macroeconomics.
00:22:27.000And she pulled out a whiteout thing and went, and she goes, if I was you, I'd white it out, make a copy, stick it in the file, send it to underwriting, it'll be fine.
00:24:40.000And, of course, I have to collect all the documents.
00:24:43.000make sure that your package is correct, right?
00:24:44.000Like you have to have verification of your rent for residency or mortgage, verification of your employment, and you have to make enough money to qualify for the loan, right?
00:24:54.000So you have to have a percentage of your income has to be allocated to cover that mortgage payment.
00:25:00.000Then also you have to have, of course, the appraisal.
00:25:03.000The property has to be worth it, right?
00:25:05.000You can't buy a property for $400,000 if the appraisal comes in and says it's only worth $300,000.
00:25:11.000And then, of course, the title has to be clean, but that basically is the property.
00:25:18.000And then the other thing is you have to have a down payment.
00:26:36.000Well, what that does is every, let's say, and this is An exaggeration is typically like 25 or 30, but for the sake of this, every 50 or half a point, I get a point back on the loan.
00:26:48.000So if you borrow $200,000 and I just jacked up your rate by one and a half, which is multiple, 350% basis points, That's three points back.
00:27:44.000Why would they question the documents?
00:27:46.000You know, and I think it's really important because we've done episodes on real estate here, and it's fantastic to kind of get it from your perspective of, like, you know, what a mortgage broker is.
00:27:53.000And, like, you know, for the chat out there, guys, like, you want to buy a house or whatever and your credit isn't that good, you go to a mortgage broker and what he'll do is he'll shop your package around to other places to help you get a loan because not everyone has good credit, etc.
00:28:03.000Or let's say you maxed out your ability to get certain, you know, Fannie Mae loans or whatever, then they'll be able to help you out.
00:28:10.000I guess, good position where you could get the person to loan, and these are people that don't necessarily have the best credit or the best financial background, and you're able to kind of increase interest rates, make them say that they make more money than they really do, etc.
00:28:24.000Yeah, they're not going anywhere else.
00:28:25.000Yeah, and also, that applies to cars too as well.
00:29:39.000But when I went and I started my own company, because keep in mind, you might get one point from them and they are getting two because they're the lender.
00:29:47.000And can you explain to the audience real quick what points are?
00:29:49.000Yeah, points are like if it's 1% of the loan amount.
00:30:43.000So the, I want to say, is it the Dodd-Frank Act was passed, and they've limited the amount of points you can get back and how much the rates are.
00:30:56.000They've changed a lot of little, they've tweaked a lot of little things, so you don't have quite as much of an incentive.
00:31:03.000And they also track anybody who originates alone.
00:31:06.000Where I'm originating a loan and everything's closing in the lender's name, like they don't even know who I am.
00:31:11.000But now you have your numbers attached.
00:31:13.000So if they say, hey, this guy's done 100 loans this year and 40 of them went under, like it's fraud and he's all over, like they'd immediately jump on you and investigate you.
00:31:23.000But back then they have no idea who's closing these loans.
00:31:25.000I think it's important for the audience to know this is before 2008, guys.
00:33:08.000I'm going to make their W2. At this point, it's graduated from, I'm going to change a 7, or I'm going to do this, and I'm going to be scared the whole time, to just, I don't give a fuck.
00:35:45.000And there used to be something called the business directory, right?
00:35:49.000I could add the phone numbers to the business directory.
00:35:52.000Like, it doesn't matter if I spend $500 or $1,000 or $1,500 on this fake corporation for you because I'm going to use it for you and him and Jimmy and Todd.
00:36:04.000If I have five of them, and it was the same thing with banks, I got to a point where it's like a lot of times the lenders would say, look, this person doesn't have a great credit.
00:36:13.000So they've been on their job, but they don't have great credit.
00:36:17.000And the issue with them is that we're afraid they're not going to be able to make the payment if something goes wrong.
00:36:22.000They barely have enough money to pay the down payment.
00:36:26.000And they would say, we really want them to have reserves, like six months worth of reserves, which means if they lost their job, they could still make all the payments.
00:36:33.000And then they're like, so I'm sorry, we're going to turn it down.
00:36:36.000They would say, we're sorry, I'm going to turn it down.
00:36:37.000I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
00:37:34.000And that was a real bank that had closed.
00:37:35.000So I did Southern Exchange Bank of Clarksville.com because I couldn't get the website because it had actually been bought out by like SunTrust or somebody anyway.
00:39:07.000But if it was someone who was reasonably having some issues and we thought they'll probably be okay, which is, by the way, not the underwriting standard, but for us it's like, Yeah, they'll probably make a few payments.
00:39:47.000If you have somebody in a lower income area back then, they didn't pay and they start the legal process and these people aren't capable of fighting a foreclosure.
00:39:58.000So they just lose the house in 90 days, 120 days.
00:40:00.000So Matt, who taught you all these tips and tricks?
00:40:02.000Because I feel like to know this stuff, you've got to know the weeds of the whole industry.
00:40:06.000Well, I mean, you keep getting caught.
00:40:29.000And then you say, well, how did you catch this?
00:40:34.000Well, one of our ways are the ways that we, you know, catch, you know, or we look into whatever it is, you know, bank statements or this or that, and then they tell you and you're like...
00:41:13.000This is funny because I got family from Nigeria, so seeing these scams is hilarious.
00:41:17.000Yeah, so this is interesting because it's like, you know, obviously, you know, there's this old saying, you know, you can't lie once, right?
00:41:24.000So like, you would, you know, obviously get them the loan, but then you find out, okay, you don't qualify for this or no, I got to get this now.
00:41:30.000So like, you pretty much had it where you had bank statements, you had jobs, you were verifying their employment, you were doing all this stuff.
00:41:36.000So you do this for the, how many years did you do this for before you got caught the first time?
00:41:46.000Yeah, probably a couple years, and then what happened was, the way I got caught was, so I usually don't even mention this part, just because it's irrelevant, but remember the chick that had me white out the thing?
00:43:51.000So, if you own a property management company, I remember it's called Utopian Properties.
00:43:56.000So, if I need to verify your rent, they rent from her, and they could call a- Oh, so people that would borrow from you, you'd have them basically be one of your tenants.
00:44:27.000They end up running what's called the straw man scam.
00:44:31.000So they had a couple of Italian guys that came in and bought a bunch of million-dollar properties that were probably selling for $500,000 or $600,000, but they could get them appraised for a million.
00:44:41.000So they get a loan for a million, pull out $300,000, $400,000 on like four or five properties, and take the money and run.
00:44:50.000They never make one payment, which is just completely stupid.
00:44:53.000Like, if you'd made four or five payments, you'd have been fine.
00:44:55.000But instead, these are first payment defaults.
00:44:57.000So immediately, the bank says, You're a good risk.
00:45:16.000I mean, I always thought so, you know.
00:45:18.000So they basically, okay, so they went ahead, got a bunch of houses appraised, way over appraised, do cash out refinances, pull the money out, and they just never paid the loan back.
00:45:26.000Or maybe even, I think some of them were even just direct purchases.
00:45:29.000So the owner is in on it, possibly, right?
00:45:33.000So you only want 700,000, I buy it for a million, you cut me a check back for 300,000.
00:47:43.000So when the feds come in and grab her files or whatever they do, first of all, she comes to me immediately and says, can you get me $75,000 to pay an attorney?
00:48:10.000You know, these guys, they came in and yeah, I knew the loans were fraudulent, but I was making like, she made like, she was making like 20 and $30,000 broker fees on these things.
00:48:38.000So she just gave a bunch of loans out to these potentially mob guys that were just buying these houses, overinflated, taking out cash out refinances, running, not making any payments.
00:48:46.000Obviously, yeah, that's going to get on the Fed's radar immediately.
00:50:44.000So she works with the FBI. So one day I get a phone call from her and she says, hey, can you meet me for lunch?
00:50:50.000And I was like, yeah, meet me at the pizza place.
00:50:52.000Because I said, I didn't want her coming in my office because at this point, everybody in the office, she would call and somebody would pick it up and be like, hey, Gretchen's on line three.
00:51:00.000And then they would all go, whoop, whoop.
00:51:01.000They start making noises and I'd be like, cut the shit.
00:51:54.000And it may have meant nothing, but I remember immediately looking down at the cell phones thinking, ah, shit.
00:51:59.000Because as I'm starting to talk, well, as I was starting to talk, I said, you know, you didn't tell them this, you didn't tell them this, you didn't tell them this.
00:52:06.000And then I said, okay, listen, here's what you do.
00:52:08.000Tell them that you never met her in person.
00:52:11.000Like, I start trying to come up with a way to explain it away so they can't be held liable.
00:52:25.000And as I'm telling her that, she says, Matt, we can't lie to the FBI. I'm like, what are you talking about?
00:52:31.000You've been lying to the FBI. I started to go into the refi, and Pete stands up and he goes, we've never lied to the FBI. We might not have told them everything, but we've never lied.
00:55:02.000You're on surveillance like that, because what probably ended up happening is they're cooperating defendants, so they had them wired up, and then you have an agent in there as well.
00:55:09.000What's funny is, there was a guy, when I'm talking to Pete, there was a guy behind him who had a slice of pizza, and you know how they put the napkin underneath the pizza, and they fold it?
00:55:19.000He was eating the pizza, and he was eating the napkin!
00:55:41.000And then I remember Pete and Gretchen, they start laughing too, and they're like, because, you know, like, oh my god, this motherfucker just is yelling at the FBI agent, and, you know, you know what I'm saying?
00:55:52.000They're like, but they were so nervous, and I was like, okay, so what are we doing?
00:55:56.000Like, and then they start telling me the whole thing about the FBI. But I realized later, that had to be him.
00:56:00.000Their reaction, the whole thing, like, that had to be the guy.
00:56:10.000You need an extraction team just for the audience so they understand what the hell.
00:56:12.000Whenever you have like a cooperative defendant or an informant or even an undercover agent and they're doing an operation like that, you need something called an extraction team.
00:57:15.000First of all, when he first comes in, he said, my attorney's like, look, they said there's half a million dollars in a loss on all these properties.
00:57:22.000And keep in mind, They only know about, they only have two or three of the properties.
00:57:38.000So they got the price point of the home before you rehabbed it, which is less.
00:57:44.000Yeah, they think that we jacked up the appraisals, but really we bought it for $80,000, put $100,000 in it, got it appraised at $250,000, and sold it, and refinanced it at $250,000.
00:57:56.000But they're thinking you got a $200,000 loan on a house that's worth $80,000.
00:58:16.000Because Gretchen's loans before is what she did.
00:58:17.000And Gretchen doesn't really know what I'm doing.
00:58:19.000So anyway, the point is that my attorney goes back to them, and he explains it, and they come back and they say, you're right, there's no loss, and there's no potential loss.
00:58:30.000And in fact, I had already sold like two of the properties.
00:58:31.000There's only like one or two left to be sold, and we had contracts because these are flips, some of these.
00:58:37.000Now, the other ones I had closed at other places like credit unions and things with better interest rates, and so I don't have to go to Gretchen.
00:58:44.000So the point is that… As we're talking, my attorney comes to me and he says, listen, there's no dollar loss, and you haven't been indicted yet.
00:58:55.000And he goes, I can keep you from being indicted.
00:58:58.000He said, we can do a pretrial intervention.
00:59:17.000And if you go in there, grab 10 files of your most egregious frauds for your mortgage brokers and bring them in and work with the FBI, then I can keep you from being indicted.
01:00:04.000So I could have, you know, I look back, if I look back, and I really almost never look back, by the way, if I ever look back at anything, there's only one or two events, and that was one of them, because my lawyer really He really tried to convince me.
01:00:16.000And I was just like, you know, I looked, I was just like disgusted that he would even suggest it.
01:00:20.000If that same thing had happened now, I would have shown up there with a dolly.
01:00:26.000And I would have scooped up the file cabinets in front of everybody in the morning meeting.
01:00:31.000And I would have said, you fuckers better go get some fucking attorneys.
01:00:35.000You're going to have some shit about to go down.
01:00:37.000And I would have walked right out in front of all of them because it wasn't worth it.
01:01:33.000I think they're probably going to indict him, yeah.
01:01:35.000Yeah, and then he's going to fight it and probably go to prison.
01:01:37.000Yeah, I think what he's going to do, he's going to get indicted and then he's going to fight for not to be released and not to be on bond because he's like telling his...
01:01:44.000Right now, his lawyers are telling HSI everything that he's doing because I think he knows he's going to get indicted.
01:01:49.000They've been convening the grand jury for him.
01:01:51.000So the mantra of, if you have money, you can do whatever you want, isn't really all the way true, right?
01:05:18.000They can't come up with their down payments.
01:05:20.000You know, so I'm going to have to come up with people's down payments.
01:05:22.000You start thinking about it, it's like, God, this is going to be a real hassle.
01:05:24.000So then I go, okay, you know what I'm going to do is...
01:05:28.000You know what I'll do is I'll buy those houses, and you don't make any money.
01:05:33.000To deal with that, you don't make any money.
01:05:34.000So I was like, how can I get these houses to appraise higher than the $100,000 they're worth?
01:05:40.000And so I happened to be dating a chick from a title company, and I go and I explain my situation to her, and I say, I want these things to appraise at like $200,000.
01:05:47.000And she goes, well, if you pay the extra doc stamps on the deed, then the sale will show up higher.
01:05:54.000And I went, okay, so for instance, right now if you buy a house for $100,000, you pay $700 in doc stamps.
01:06:00.000Now, if you buy for $100,000, you go to record the sale in public records, what if you give them $1,400?
01:06:07.000It automatically shows up as a $200,000 sale.
01:06:11.000So I'm buying these properties for $50,000, let's say.
01:06:15.000So a $50,000 property, I'm spending $350 in Dox Amps, right?
01:06:18.000So if you just go ahead and give them an extra $1,050, Now the sale's going to show up at $200,000.
01:06:33.000If I do enough of these, the whole area will come up.
01:06:35.000If I stay within a mile and buy them right away, then the whole area will come up.
01:06:40.000Because for the audience, real quick, guys, in residential real estate, comparables is how the properties are evaluated.
01:06:47.000So if you have a house here that's $100,000, then another one here, $100,000, then another one here, the fourth house is going to be $100,000 because that's how they evaluate.
01:06:53.000So if you buy a bunch in an area, You're bringing up the value of all the homes in the area because of the comparables.
01:06:59.000Or if you buy a house for $100,000 and all the houses around it are going for $200,000 and you go to sell your house or refinance, you'll get an appraisal that says your house is worth $200,000.
01:07:08.000Even though you just bought it for $100,000.
01:09:44.000You have to order like a couple thousand, right?
01:09:46.000So I ordered that and then I, I make a template and I end up coming up with a birth certificate and then I get a shot record and go on Hillsborough County's, you know, vital statistics, whatever you get that printed out, you fill it out.
01:09:57.000And so I go down there and I give it to the woman and she checks the computer and she goes, Oh wow.
01:10:05.000What's really scary is, and I'm telling this a little out of sequence, but she actually calls somebody from the back to come, and I'm like, shit, and bricks.
01:11:57.000So I sand off the information on, like, a driver's license, the information, and then I print this new information in reverse, and then I seal it in between a piece of transparency and glue, and then I trim off the side piece, and then I sand it all down.
01:12:09.000You can still see the hologram, bits and pieces of the hologram, just like it's a five-year-old beat-up.
01:12:15.000And just so you guys know, 20 years ago, driver's licenses were way easier to do this with than they are now.
01:12:21.000These were still the plastic ones, but you're right.
01:12:32.000So, I suppose that Bounster, you spoke about, for example, fake IDs, where girls used to do it back in the day, and you're right, it was so easy to just copy them and make a copy.
01:12:39.000It was way easier back then, this is 20 years ago now, but yeah, that's why all these IDs now have all this shit on them, is because of this, but sorry, continue on.
01:12:44.000And look, I would go in and open bank accounts with this ID. Damn!
01:12:48.000I mean, sometimes they would grab them, they'd like look at the ID, and you're like, oh my god, Oh my god!
01:14:13.000I thought that was cute, but when you get caught and you're talking to the prosecutors and everything, I'm like, eh, you know, and they got no sense of humor, bro.
01:14:22.000The judge is looking at me when I got sentenced.
01:14:35.000At some point, I was satisfying loans, right?
01:14:37.000So I'd borrow a mortgage, and then I'd prepare a satisfaction of mortgage from, like, Bank of America, and I'd satisfy the loan in public records.
01:14:45.000And I would sign it, like, C. Montgomery Burns, which is the aging tycoon from The Simpsons.
01:20:24.000Yeah, and then so the banks would come and foreclose the homes after you had gotten them all to 200K or whatever, and then you'd run it up on each person and then you'd send them a letter, hey, the person got sick or he's in a coma now, et cetera, and then the banks would be like, oh, okay, that makes sense, and they'd take property to the home and they'd try to sell them.
01:20:40.000They put them back on the market, and then every three months, they just keep reducing the sales price by like 20 or 30%.
01:20:46.000Yeah, because they couldn't understand why the hell they can't sell.
01:20:48.000They don't understand it, but it doesn't matter.
01:20:49.000Like, they basically, they lent too much, it went bad, that happens, and then they'd eventually sell it for 70, 80,000, because investors- Close to what you bought it for.
01:20:58.000But more because I raised up the area because other investors are coming in and they're buying up everything because they're like, I'm buying this house, it's going for $70,000.
01:21:33.000In 2003, Forbes magazine came out with an article, and they said that the zip code in Ybor City was one of the top 20 fastest-growing zip codes in the nation.
01:21:42.000Oh, and that was because of Ybor City?
01:22:00.000Keep in mind, when I first got in trouble...
01:22:02.000Well, when the FBI came in and they grabbed my mortgage company, they ended up saying that the mortgage company, just from all the W-2s, pay stubs, they said that was about $40 million.
01:22:12.000So they tried to hit me for that when I got caught.
01:22:16.000What ended up happening was, and keep in mind, we got caught periodically.
01:22:20.000We'd get caught, some company would find out, this guy doesn't even exist.
01:22:24.000I had a buddy named Rudy, who we pulled out, I forget, $80,000, I don't know what it was, but it's like, hey, I'm going to take this much, we're going to put this much in the company, because he was part of the development company, and Rudy, here's 20 grand, make sure you make the payments, here's the coupon that they gave us at closing, make sure you make payments for the next three payments, okay, no problem.
01:22:45.000And then like a month and a half later, I get a phone call from an account executive with the mortgage company saying, hey man, they're investigating this mortgage.
01:23:02.000Like, now they're already investigating, so I would end up, I ended up, in that instance, I actually ended up calling the bank as the person, right?
01:23:11.000And that wasn't, that guy's name wasn't even, like, a color name.
01:23:14.000It was, I think it was Alan, I want to say, like, Alan Duncan or Joel, I forget.
01:25:45.000First of all, nobody wants to call the FBI. They don't want the FBI coming in, looking at their files, looking at like, you don't know how far this goes.
01:29:29.000Well, in this case, it was a guy named Eric Tamargo.
01:29:33.000And I'm going to say Eric Tamargo because I talked to Eric, and Eric's a great guy, and he's heard me say this story, and he admits it's fucked up.
01:30:58.000And he'd already done like three years in prison.
01:31:00.000So he jumps up and I'm like, whoa, wait a minute, Eric.
01:31:03.000I said, listen, the only reason I used your name was because I knew if it came to this, you were the only person or only reason I used your photo was I knew if it came to this, you were the only person that I knew that had the balls, would have the balls to pull this off.
01:36:57.000Yeah, it was like a little tiny one, like you hit the button and it pulls the roof back.
01:37:00.000It was only a two-seater, but I mean, I buy this for a fucking underwriter because he's working for this company that is just, he can get him to go.
01:37:07.000First of all, he would come to us first and review our files.
01:37:11.000And he'd be like, you got to change this, change this.
01:37:27.000And just so the audience knows, guys, whenever you close a deal, a bunch of people get paid out.
01:37:31.000When the deal's closed, a bunch of people make a bunch of money, which is why they were incentivized to do this.
01:37:35.000Because you guys are probably wondering, well, why are they doing all this fraud and stuff like that?
01:37:37.000It's because when the loan closes and the money goes out and disbursed, it goes to all the different people that were involved in the deal.
01:37:44.000Yeah, I'm not walking away with like, you know, like they're saying, you know, oh, you made, you know, 11 and a half million in this one little scam, right?
01:37:50.000Like, I didn't get 11 and a half million.
01:37:52.000There's a chunk of that that went to pay for the properties.
01:37:54.000There's a chunk that went to, we were building brand new houses.
01:39:52.000Like, I've got a well-oiled machine at this point.
01:39:56.000Like, I got Rudy's finding properties, we got title companies, we've got appraisers, we've got, like, I got all the, I'm making these people myself.
01:40:04.000You literally have from step A all the way to step Z to get this entire, to get these deals closed.
01:40:10.000So, I said, you know, only thing we could do is, I said, I've been thinking about this.
01:40:14.000I said, like, I could get you a fake ID. You could go, like, rent a property.
01:40:20.000And we could satisfy the loan on the property, transfer the title into your name, and then refinance that property three or four times right away.
01:40:29.000So we could borrow maybe a million dollars on it.
01:40:32.000Then we'll make the payments on it for a few months and we'll continue to pull out the money and then we'll just leave.
01:40:37.000Like, well, once we get all the money out of the banks, we'll take off.
01:42:19.000She gets her hair done black and curly.
01:42:23.000And gets the photo for the ID, and I make the ID. But before she goes to the first closing, she actually changes her hair back, brown, you know, whatever.
01:45:10.000He was pretending to be Michael White in Orlando.
01:45:18.000So he had bought a property under the name Michael White, a couple properties, and he'd already refinanced those for like half a million dollars.
01:50:44.000One day, a buddy of mine who's a sheriff's deputy who I'd done a million, two million dollars worth of bad loans for, he and his wife, he comes to me, and he was divorced by this point, but he comes to me and he says...
01:55:16.000So, I... So I end up, I get this money, I take, and I'm packing my bags, and the chick that I was dating comes over to my house, because I hadn't returned her calls all day.
01:55:29.000And we were supposed to go out that night, and she's just like, what's going on?
01:55:45.000She's like, what are you going to do for money?
01:55:46.000I said, I'm just going to run a couple scams, get a few million dollars, buy some rental properties, and let the whole thing blow over and just acclimate back into society.
02:00:06.000One of the refinances, we had a check for $29,000.
02:00:09.000And keep in mind, we also, I always forget this, we also went to Tallahassee and did one in the name of Teresa Knight, where Becky goes in and signs.
02:00:19.000So we got more, we got some money, right?
02:00:21.000Not too much, but whatever, half a million.
02:09:08.000So what's funny about that is she's the one who was like, listen, boy, that bank manager did everything to try and figure out what was happening.
02:09:47.000LexisNexis, just for the audience, because they might not know, that's a database, guys, where you can basically pull people's information from utility records, et cetera, because he probably was questioning if you're the real guy.
02:09:57.000So he was like, yeah, that's probably why.
02:10:00.000And listen, I've had multiple things happen.
02:10:03.000So one of the things I did when we were on the run, because at this point, I don't know if I mentioned this, at this point, There's articles.
02:11:30.000Yeah, she wanted half a million dollars.
02:11:32.000Like, you know, but that's what she thinks she was going to get.
02:11:34.000But, you know, I... So this guy, so Secret Service shows up at, so FBI showed up there, where you used to be, and then you said Secret Service ends up showing up at the place where you cash this check for $29,000.
02:12:59.000Well, I know they showed up because we were on the local news, like the news that they had John Doe posters of us, because it takes them a while to figure out who we are.
02:13:06.000But keep in mind, I'm not trying to cover my tracks at this point.
02:13:09.000I'm putting my fingerprint on the fucking, like if I cash a check, boom, no problem.
02:17:12.000I then, with that information, you know, I have their mother's maiden name, where they went to high school, if they were ever in the military, the whole thing, right?
02:17:19.000Are they ever on social security disability?
02:19:03.000I was thinking in my head like that's got to be a violation of the loan terms.
02:19:05.000Well, it is, but they never – it's the acceleration clause is supposed to be triggered, but they never do it because all the bank really cares about is they're like, look – Just pay us.
02:20:26.000Yeah, it's not really paid off, but satisfaction is basically the house is paid off.
02:20:30.000Right, so if you borrow $200,000 from Bank of America, and let's say you pay off Bank of America, they mail a satisfaction of mortgage into public records, and it gets recorded.
02:20:43.000So now it looks like in public records, you don't owe Bank of America any money because, of course, you don't.
02:20:48.000But what I do is I just go in and file that document.
02:22:08.000And then again, this is before 2008, right?
02:22:10.000So it's like you were able to go to all these different banks, get a refinance, and then they would all give you the same loan on the same house.
02:22:41.000Listen, the only thing that's really changed is that now they order a lot more 4506s.
02:22:47.000So they check your income documents a lot more now than they ever did before.
02:22:53.000With the government, with the IRS. They actually file a 4506 and they get a copy of your stuff from the 4506.
02:22:59.000So you can't walk in and say, hey, my W-2 last year was $95,000 because they'll file a 4506 and they'll come back and they'll be like, you didn't even have a job last year.
02:23:07.000So what if someone stole your identity and did this to you?
02:23:10.000How would you stop or, I guess, prevent it from happening or you can't?
02:23:14.000Let's say you were the person that was taken advantage of.
02:25:53.000And he said, and it appears that you borrowed multiple loans.
02:25:57.000And I'm wondering, I'm hoping you have an explanation for this before we file something with the authorities.
02:26:01.000And I go, okay, I said, listen, Brad, And I don't know that his name is Brad, but I go, listen, Brad, I said, listen, I said, have you contacted anybody yet?
02:26:14.000I said, okay, listen, I'm going to go to my lawyers right now, and I'm going to have my lawyer call you, and I assure you we're going to figure out something.
02:26:45.000And I said, Washington Mutual just found out that they're not in first position.
02:26:49.000I borrowed like four or five mortgages, and they're all supposed to be first mortgages.
02:26:53.000And Chad, the reason why that's a problem for them is that when it's time to get the money back, they're not going to be the first ones to get the money back.
02:27:25.000Okay, so this is a creative financing issue, right?
02:27:29.000And I went, you know, of course I'm thinking, well, pretty sure the FBI and Secret Service aren't chasing me for creative financing, but that's fine.
02:32:05.000Listen, I've said this many times, and there's just no other way to explain this.
02:32:11.000You can't even describe the feeling you get walking into a bank, giving them a fake ID, fake W-2s, pay stubs, fake documents, and then they cut you a check for $250,000, and they thank you for ripping them off.
02:32:25.000And you walk out and you feel like 007.
02:34:39.000Okay, so I go into Wachovia to pull money out, and I get out, whatever, $6,000, and I'm waiting for the woman to, she has to call in, because it's a new account, so if you ask for more than $3,000, they have to check.
02:35:21.000Yeah, well, I was pulling money out in the fake account, and he has my ID. He took my ID. Well, that's a good thing they didn't know who you were yet.
02:36:05.000So I'm waiting for FBI to show up, and this guy walks in.
02:36:08.000He's probably in his late 20s, early 30s, and he walks in, and he says, hey, listen, Mr.
02:36:13.000Sullivan, he said I'm agent whatever his name was from the Richland County Sheriff's Department, and he says, or police department, I forget.
02:36:21.000He's like, we got, and he's in a suit and tie.
02:36:26.000He could have been an FBI agent, but he wasn't.
02:36:28.000But he said, we're investigating a complaint from Wachovia.
02:36:36.000And he said, apparently you have three mortgages on your house.
02:37:00.000Over the next five minutes, I explained to him, and I'm going to, because it was a lot of back and forth, like he's throwing out things and I'm answering, I'm like this.
02:37:09.000Okay, so literally, so they got you there detained, two sheriff's deputies are there, the detective, and he has this fraud investigator from the bank talking.
02:41:15.000A guy that works for a labor company just convinced three national banks, I said, to lend him half a million dollars, I said, or a couple of loan, I said, a few loan officers got together to make a, I said, to make a big loan broker fee.
02:41:27.000I said, bro, I wouldn't know how to do this, I said, if I tried.
02:41:30.000And he looked at me and he goes, listen, I don't think this guy would know how to do this if he tried.
02:41:44.000He goes, look at his ID. It starts with 000.
02:41:47.000It's a fake ID. And the detective says, listen, he said, he goes, it's a real, keep in mind, he's got, it's not on a speakerphone, it's like this.
02:41:58.000So I can't, I kind of hear, but I can't hear.
02:44:38.000Wait, so he was selling his booty cheeks?
02:44:40.000Yeah, when I showed up, when I showed up to survey these guys, look, you're driving through Vegas, there's two white guys, there's not a ton of white guys in my age group that are homeless, right?
02:44:53.000So I see these two white guys sitting on a bench, and I'm like, boom, stop the car, I jump out, let me survey them, walk up, survey them, and during the course of surveying that guy, he says, I said, one of the questions, has he ever been arrested?
02:45:03.000He goes, yeah, he said, for prostitution.
02:45:04.000I remember I went, Do you mean solicitation?
02:45:28.000You have to get guys in your age group so it would match up because you were using your real pictures and everything, getting social security numbers.
02:47:45.000He comes back and he says, yeah, he's got a, he has a Nevada driver's license.
02:47:50.000And what's so funny is at some point when I say, yeah, I'm from Nevada, they all looked at each other and kind of like, So I had a feeling like all these fuckers thought I was a homeless prostitute.
02:50:23.000So I have Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and it ends up being Tennessee, because what happens is I go in there, I wait in the hallway, he comes to me, and he says, listen, he says...
02:51:09.000Listen, one time, the Secret Service, when I got caught, they told me that I had gone to a closing one time.
02:51:14.000And I remember the closing because I remember the lawyer had come out Opened up the file and said, okay, I'm going to go ahead and he starts disclosing to me and he slides the document in front of me.
02:51:26.000He looks at me and he goes, hold on one second.
02:52:07.000And so he sees it and he looks at it and he told the Secret Service later, he said, I recognize them, but when I got back here and I looked at it, this guy was wanted out of Georgia.
02:52:19.000And this guy, he said, I looked at the mortgage application.
02:53:29.000She's like, get on the interstate, get on the interstate.
02:53:30.000I'm like, I'm not getting on the interstate.
02:53:32.000And what's funny is every time I would go into a bank, she would be like, what if you get arrested?
02:53:36.000I'd say, if I get arrested, you go get me a lawyer.
02:53:39.000I said, because I'm going to be arrested with a real identity, a real ID. And I said, they're not going to run – they'll take my prints, but they're not going to run them through APHIS because they used to charge – 20 years ago, they used to charge – Automated fingerprint identification system.
02:59:06.000We unload the U-Haul van, including all of the alternate identities that I have, because we figure we're just going to lay low for another couple months before we try and do some kind of a scam, whatever.
02:59:16.000Let's just put everything in the storage unit.
02:59:20.000We go on our way back to the apartment that she's rented.
02:59:24.000In the middle of downtown Houston, some big high-rise.
03:00:44.000She makes the argument, which you're going to say I'm stupid and crazy and everything else, and I get it, that she should just keep the money.
03:00:52.000She's like, because you can go off and do this again.
03:01:54.000So I call to see my mom, to talk to my mom, to talk to my couple of people that I knew, you know, what's happening with this investigation.
03:02:05.000And, you know, they're telling me what's going on, and this one chick, Susan, says, look, you know, we've all talked to the FBI. Like, you need to talk to the FBI. Try and turn yourself in.
03:02:14.000She's like, Matt, I mean, maybe you'll go to prison, like, a camp or something for a couple years.
03:07:15.000At some point, I get in my truck, my U-Haul truck, so I'm bouncing around in an empty U-Haul truck driving down the interstate, and I call her back, and we're talking, and she tells me, she told me, I think she told me seven years.
03:14:57.000What had happened was we had a corporate attorney who had opened a couple corporations for us, and she had called me one day and said, hey, Carter, I need this.
03:15:05.000So I called Amanda, said, Amanda, go on my computer, print this off, send it to her.
03:15:10.000She goes on my computer, and she's on Word, and she happens to be scrolling through the documents and sees a document that says, letter to mom and dad.
03:18:39.000So I've got a few, we've got a bunch of money, and we start pulling money cash out, and we start asking people to, hey, can you cash these three checks?
03:18:48.000You know, we've got time, so we're stockpiling some cash.
03:21:13.000No, when the Secret Service shows up, they grab everything.
03:21:18.000Yeah, no, I mean, that makes sense because obviously you have to get the money out nice and slow so that you don't trigger as many things and obviously using different identities.
03:21:25.000Yeah, it's going to take months to get all that money out.
03:21:28.000But I'm just curious, as a former HSI agent, how is he able to run for so long and not get caught?
03:21:34.000I mean, this is a different time, bro.
03:22:24.000Shit, my new name is George Washington.
03:22:26.000So the issue I was having was my fear was like if I reestablish myself as this person and what if this person dies someday?
03:22:35.000So my whole thing was like to get enough money and then transfer everything into a corporation or trust and then try and alter that identity enough so that it never really connects.
03:22:52.000Like get a new social security number issued for that name, change the guy's name.
03:29:17.000His courtroom was still in the process of being done, so he was using the—she called it, like, the show courtroom, like, the fancy courtroom.
03:32:32.000Really just, you know, everybody says their prosecutor hates them, so I hate to say that, but she hated me.
03:32:37.000Anyway, so yeah, I, you know, of course, my lawyer, when I talked to my lawyer, she's like, listen, I'm like, well, what, what, what's like, do I have a defense?
03:32:47.000She's like, she's like, I don't know if you realize this, Matt, she said, but they're indicting you now as we speak in Tampa and in, in, in Tennessee and She goes, everybody's cooperated against you.
03:32:59.000And several people in Tennessee who were in on, I think, maybe four or five, they've all cooperated already.
03:33:04.000She goes, the people in Tampa, she's like, some of these people have gone to jail and gotten out or are getting out.
03:35:33.000Like, one of the things they wanted to know, there was actually a guy named- Was your Secret Service agent there when you were cooperating?
03:37:31.000But there's really almost nobody to even talk about.
03:37:35.000I started doing almost everything myself.
03:37:37.000So we talked for maybe two or three days.
03:37:39.000Because their purview is financial crimes.
03:37:41.000And one of the things, they were concerned about tracking down money.
03:37:46.000And if you watch Dateline or American Greed or any of these shows that they've done shows on me, they always talk about there's a missing $5 million or $3 million.
03:41:50.000That was the big thing with them, by the way.
03:41:52.000They were like, you were running a guy named Michael Kevin White, borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then the money from that scam came out, and I actually gave some of that money.
03:42:22.000When the FBI comes later to talk to me again, I'm in prison, they talk to me about him again, and they're trying to tell me, listen to how that conversation goes.
03:44:14.000They run it, and a few weeks before I'm sentenced, I go to sentencing, and my lawyer calls the U.S. Attorney the day before sentencing.
03:44:23.000And so, by the way, my PSI, my pre-sentence report says, well, it says 32 years to life, but we argue because it was like all these enhancements, and I argue the enhancements, and I get it down to 26 years.
03:44:35.000And then my lawyer is telling me- He probably got you for head of organizational, so the bullshit.
03:44:39.000Oh, head of organizational, changing jurisdictions, you know, everything on the run.
03:44:47.000My lawyer is saying you have to plead guilty, but don't worry.
03:44:49.000I'm going to argue these enhancements.
03:44:51.000They don't apply to you, and I'm going to win them in front of the judge, and you're going to end up with 12 years, and then you'll get- Maybe 12, 14 years, and then you're going to get, you know, they're going to give you something for the, you know, for Dateline.
03:46:16.000So what happens is I get 26 years and then they move me to Coleman, Florida, and I go to the medium security prison, which if you've been to a medium security prison, I should not have been in a medium security prison.
03:47:53.000You just try not to get shrapnel, and you just deal with it.
03:47:55.000And so I went to—I taught GED. Did you align your—because we brought 1090 Jake on, and he spent a lot of time in the state prisons of Florida.
03:51:31.000You're running a scam that's bringing in $100,000 a month.
03:51:34.000You mentioned you hung out with some guys, or you knew some guys that were in John Gotti's crew, and then also some guys that got taken down by Donnie Brasco?
03:51:40.000Yeah, there were some guys from like the, in the Donnie Brasco, you know, when he busted, he busted like 40, 50 people, like a ton of people.
03:52:20.000No, these guys, those guys, Adi Basco, those guys were in the medium.
03:52:23.000But when I went to the low, I started, I like, then you're around these guys.
03:52:26.000But they're old, like they're part of Gotti's crew.
03:52:30.000Supposedly, you know, when Castellano got murdered, you know the guys with the hat, like supposedly two of the guys that actually killed him were there.
03:52:40.000Now, they don't say that, but everybody else would be like, you know, so-and-so, Castellano got shot, right?
03:52:45.000They're like, you know, so-and-so and so-and-so are two of the guys.
03:52:48.000There's like five guys that ran up and shot him.
03:52:50.000And just so the audience knows, Castellano was the boss of the Gambino crime family.
03:53:49.000So when I went to the low, there were a bunch of other guys that were all like, they were like the, what was it, Lucchese, Crime Family, whatever.
03:54:01.000There was guys from all the Crime Families, and they would all hook up and hang out together.
03:57:26.000So I write your story, and then maybe I start sending it out to true crime writers, and they're just like, there's a guy in prison writing true crime.
03:59:06.000Keep in mind the Dodd-Frank Act has just passed.
03:59:09.000So now all loan officers and mortgage brokers have to take eight or nine hours of continuing education.
03:59:17.000So I get contacted by a school that teaches these courses, and they said, we want to write a course based on your experience for ethics and fraud.
03:59:26.000And I go, okay, so that guy goes to the U.S. attorney with my lawyer.
03:59:45.000Like people are calling my ex-wife going, I just got my – I just did my continuing education course, and half the course is on your husband.
04:00:27.000Frank is, like I said, he's got features of schizophrenia, so he believes that God is telling him he is preordained to be emperor of the world.
04:00:55.000But after I get to a point where I've done all this stuff, I've been pimped out, I finally have a buddy of mine who says, bro, go talk to Frank.
04:01:03.000And I wouldn't have given a shit, like I would have never even tried, because Frank was, I just considered him insane.
04:01:14.000But literally when you're hearing guys' names being called to R&D, receiving a departure, and you see, you know, T-Dog walking down the strip towards R&D with his bags over his shoulder.
04:01:30.000And you're like, what the fuck's going on?
04:03:41.000So we start going back and forth, back and forth over the course of six months, and eventually – the short version is eventually the court issues me an attorney and says, we're going to reduce your sentence.
04:03:54.000And they say they want one level off, which is only like – 30 months or something like that.
04:09:29.000And I say this because that's just what happened.
04:09:36.000But had Ron Wilson been a 22-year-old kid...
04:09:42.000Nothing would have changed from what I'm about to tell you.
04:09:45.000So I'm walking around the compound with Ron Wilson, and we're walking and talking, and he's saying to me, well, he's talking about his case, whatever, and he says, yeah, He said, ah, the fucking FBI, or the Secret Service, like, they're never going to reduce my sentence, even if they arrest all these people.
04:12:46.000I'm already in a—they're already trying to send me to a fucking camp because now I have less than seven years—I have seven or eight years to go.
04:12:59.000It's like a month and a half, maybe a month.
04:13:02.000And I have to call my lawyer because I had written my memoir, but I hadn't had it published, and I wanted to get some of the transcripts, right, from my sentencing because the FBI said cool things.
04:15:13.000So anyway, he ends up sending me something like two, three weeks later, and then they start asking me questions, and I answer the questions.
04:15:21.000And they're asking me questions, by the way, about all kinds of shit.
04:18:35.000That's how he knew who snitched on him is because when he got all of the reports back from Secret Service, everything they did in their case shows everybody that cooperated against them.
04:18:42.000And the fact is that if you cooperate against somebody, there's lots of people that want to cooperate and they don't want to be called a snitch.
04:18:48.000Okay, well, you know, you have to balance that.
04:18:50.000You have to balance, like, do I earn the respect of my fellow criminals?
04:18:56.000Or do I get fucking a chunk of time off my sentence?
04:18:59.000You gotta take it off and go home, sir.
04:19:01.000Hey, Chad, just so you guys know, we're gonna do FNF News shortly here.
04:20:55.000Yeah, I was going to say, I go on Concrete, I get like 2 million views, I go on Patrick Bet David, I get another 2 million views, I go on, you know, I start getting all these, and then I start my own true crime podcast.
04:21:05.000Yeah, and I just started that like four years ago.