Inside a Gold Coin Scam Sting

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[00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

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[00:00:04] I do like to go fishing, and this kind of felt like a, you know, like a really good catch. It's...

[00:00:09] Bob: Yeah, you had to have the right kind of bait, obviously.

[00:00:11] $200,000 in gold, I think that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good bait right there.

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[00:00:19] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

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[00:00:24] Bob: We talk all the time on The Perfect Scam about how important it is to go to authorities the moment you think you might be the victim of a crime. I have to confess, sometimes filling out a police report can feel hollow, at least at first. But today, we have a great story which shows why it's so important to go to the cops without delay when something is wrong. You just might catch a thief or even help authorities crack open a big crime ring. Meet Brian Oliver, who now lives on land, but...

[00:00:58] Bob: How long were you basically living on the water?

[00:01:01] Brian Oliver: Most of 20 years. Most of it was in West Palm--, West Palm Beach.

[00:01:06] Bob: Wow. What is that...

[00:01:08] Brian Oliver: Where I spent most of life in West Palm Beach. And, yeah, that was where I primarily went. I bought the boat down in Puerto Rico in a little town called Fajardo and sailed it back to West Palm Beach oh back in the '90s, early '90s, or late '80s, something like that. And it was a beautiful life.

[00:01:33] Bob: How old were you when you started, you know, being on a boat full-time?

[00:01:36] Brian Oliver: Let's see. My late 40s.

[00:01:39] Bob: Wow. So that must have been a big decision for you, no?

[00:01:43] Brian Oliver: It had been a dream of mine since I was a kid really. I grew up in Detroit and learned how to sail when I was oh 10, 12, something like that. And we were members of the Detroit Yacht Club, and I got what was called then a skipper's card, and they had a fleet of 12 vessels that I could go out in any time I wanted. So I would spend lots of time on the water and in the Detroit River and Lake St. Claire, and I, so I grew up around sailboats.

[00:02:20] Bob: And this was always a dream of yours to just give up the land life and live on a boat.

[00:02:23] Brian Oliver: Yeah, I always wanted to have a 40-, at least a 40-foot vessel and ended up with a 42-footer, and not necessarily live aboard was a dream, but at least to own a 40-foot vess--, sailing vessel. Then when I did acquire the vessel I thought, why not live aboard? So I moved aboard, like I say, in the late '80s, early '90s.

[00:02:47] Bob: Brian is retired from boating now and lives in Florida, and that's where our story really begins when he hears from someone who says they're a representative of PayPal, and he says the payment company owes Brian money.

[00:03:01] Brian Oliver: Yeah, it started with an email that said, "Call this number, we have a refund for you." So I called the number and they said they had about a $500 refund coming to me. And I had a, a problem with PayPal several years before that. I thought, maybe they found some of my money.

[00:03:22] Bob: So Brian follows the instructions he's given by a man who says his name is Andrew Johnson. Brian lands on a web page that looks like it'll help him get his refund, and he's told to type in the number 100 in a box on the page. He does so, but immediately, Andrew freaks out.

[00:03:40] Brian Oliver: And the fellow I was speaking with said, "Oh no, you typed in 10,000." And I denied it, but he said, "There's $10,000 in your bank account right now." And he said, "Pull up your website for your Bank of America," and sure enough, there was $10,000 in my account.

[00:04:03] Bob: Whatever he typed, the website says Brian now has $10,000 he's not supposed to have in his bank account. And Andrew begs Brian to send the money back.

[00:04:14] Bob: He says he's going to get fired, his boss is going to kill him, all that stuff, right?

[00:04:17] Brian Oliver: Yeah.

[00:04:19] Bob: How did that feel when he talked to you that way? You want to help the guy out, right?

[00:04:23] Brian Oliver: Yeah.

[00:04:25] Bob: So Brian agrees to follow their procedures.

[00:04:28] Brian Oliver: He said, "You're going to have to call Bank of America and find out how to get that back to PayPal." And I said, "Well just reverse it." And he said, "Oh, I can't do that." So he had me scroll down to the bottom of the Bank of America website. He said, "Click on contact us and there'll be a phone number there."

[00:04:52] Bob: So Brian calls and he's told, well, the problem is a little more thorny than he realized.

[00:04:58] Bob: You called this number on your screen and when a person answers they say, "Bank of America, how can I help you?" Is that right?

[00:05:02] Brian Oliver: Exactly. Yeah. And I told him I had to refund the $10,000 to PayPal, and he said if we were just to send it back to them, I would be subject to taxes on the income, on the $10,000 income.

[00:05:23] Bob: Ooh.

[00:05:25] Bob: Taxes! Oh gosh, it all feels like such a big hassle, and well, sending the money back to avoid those taxes requires quite a bit of legwork and cryptocurrency. They tell him he'll have to send the cash back via Bitcoin.

[00:05:42] Bob: I'm guessing you didn't have $10,000 in cash at home, so you had to go to the bank and go get that cash somehow?

[00:05:47] Brian Oliver: Exactly. I wrote a check to cash and the bank gave me $10,000.

[00:05:50] Bob: And then what was it like going to a Bitcoin machine?

[00:05:53] Brian Oliver: Oh, that was miserable. I, the fellow from, reportedly from PayPal gave me an address of a convenience store to go to that had a crypto ATM machine, and it was in a sketchy part of town and I'm walking around with $10,000 cash which made me nervous. But I went in the Bitcoin, or into the convenience store and I had to feed in by $100 bills, $10,000 into this machine. And sometimes it spit the $100 back and said it wouldn't be accepted. I kept feeding them in and feeding them in. I had to kneel down because the slot that I had to feed the money into was low close to the floor. And I'm, I'll be 85 next month; it wasn't easy kneeling on this cement floor.

[00:06:53] Bob: Oh God, that's such a terrible image too, you're kneeling in front of this machine feeding money into it and it's spitting it back like a vending machine that doesn't like your dollar bills, right?

[00:07:02] Brian Oliver: Exactly.

[00:07:04] Bob: Ugh.

[00:07:05] Brian Oliver: Finally it took all 10,000 and I got a receipt. Uh, the machine spit out a receipt and I got back in the car and had to take a picture of that and send it to the fellow from PayPal, supposedly from PayPal. And he was happy with that. But then he said, "Okay, now we'll take care of your refund."

[00:07:38] Bob: Now we'll take care of your refund. Phew!

[00:07:41] Brian Oliver: I'm back at my house or my condo at this point and he says, "Now type in the number 200." And I type in 200 and he says, "Oh no, it's 200,000." And I said, again said, "Reverse it -- the thing." And he said, "Oh no, we can't do that."

[00:08:02] Bob: The same thing has happened except this time Brian has moved $200,000 into his account Andrew says.

[00:08:11] Brian Oliver: He went on for 5 minutes how his boss was going to kill him and how upset he was and 200,000 got to my, my checking account again. And of course, I pulled up the website and there was $200,000 in my checking account.

[00:08:31] Bob: And this time, because the amount is so large, well, reversing the transaction is a lot more challenging.

[00:08:40] Brian Oliver: This time he said, "You had to buy, or my banker said you had to buy $200,000 worth of gold."

[00:08:48] Bob: Oh my God. $200,000 worth of gold?

[00:08:50] Brian Oliver: Yeah.

[00:08:53] Bob: Brian is told he has to send all that money back ASAP and the only way to do it is by buying $200,000 worth of gold.

[00:09:03] Bob: Did you even know how to do that?

[00:09:04] Brian Oliver: No, I'd never done it before. But the PayPal guy steered me to a shop that sold gold coin, and I bought $198,560 worth of gold coin, because the spot price was 1900 and some odd dollars, and couldn't round up to exactly $200,000. And brought that back to my condo and they wanted pictures of the gold. I sent that to him.

[00:09:43] Bob: And next, he'll have to hand over that gold to a stranger.

[00:09:48] Brian Oliver: And put it in a box, seal it up, and there'll be a courier to pick it up. And sure enough, there was a courier came by and picked it up and drove off.

[00:10:01] Bob: Brian is still scratching his head about all this and still waiting for that $500 refund when another call from PayPal comes.

[00:10:10] Brian Oliver: I was driving in my car and I got a call from this guy, Andrew, from PayPal, said, "Call me back when you get home; it's urgent." And I called him back and he said, "There's something called a reckoning deposit that occurs and you now have another $200,000 in your account. And we're going to have to go through the same process of gold coins and shipping them back to us."

[00:10:40] Bob: But this time something odd strikes Brian about the call.

[00:10:45] Brian Oliver: Well, I guess I realized that this cannot be the way business is done, and also the phone number for the bank changed. And I thought, you know what, if this is a Bank of America, they're not going to change their phone number.

[00:11:02] Bob: Suddenly, Brian starts questioning other elements of their interaction.

[00:11:07] Brian Oliver: I guess that's when I came out from under the ether and said, "This cannot be right." And I independently pulled up my bank account, I think on my iPad, and saw that there was no phone number when you click on Contact Us, and there was no $200,000 in my account.

[00:11:32] Bob: There was no $200,000 in his account. Andrew is a liar. Brian's money has been stolen. Brian's crushed. Now many stories like this end right here but Brian's story, well, it's just beginning.

[00:11:51] Brian Oliver: Yeah. When I realized that this was a scam, my first and over-refitting impulse was to call him back and cuss him out, both him and the banker.

[00:12:02] Bob: I'm sure.

[00:12:03] Brian Oliver: But then I thought, let's see if we can't catch somebody and at least slow this process down for somebody else.

[00:12:11] Bob: Brian doesn't call PayPal and curse them out. Instead he hatches an idea.

[00:12:19] Brian Oliver: And that's when I called the Gainesville Police Department and set up a sting to catch the courier.

[00:12:26] Bob: As far as Andrew knows, Brian is ready to go buy another $200,000 in gold, so Andrew is ready to send another courier to go pick it up. So Brian thinks maybe if he calls the police together they can catch a thief.

[00:12:42] Bob: Weren't you worried they were going to say, ah, we're too busy, we can't do that.

[00:12:46] Brian Oliver: Oh yeah, it was sometime between the patrolman and the time the detective got in touch with me and I was worried that we couldn't get it done.

[00:12:58] Bob: Fortunately, Detective Justin Torres understands the idea right away.

[00:13:04] Det. Justin Torres: Yeah, the first time I heard Brian Oliver's name is when a report was sent directly to me from the front desk reporting sergeant. He contacted me, he's a longtime friend of mine, but he knows exactly what I do in investigations, and he said, "Hey, this is a pretty active thing. This gentleman is out $200,000 in gold, and the bad guys, the scammers, are trying to get more from him." And he said that Mr. Oliver was very intrigued on trying to you know apprehend them. So with that kind of opportunity, we don't get them very often because most victims, they only contact law enforcement after everything's all said and done and the bad guys have cut all ties with them. But these guys were still trying to get more out of Mr. Oliver.

[00:13:46] Bob: But well how did it feel when they called back and they said, okay, we're going to do it, we're going to set up a sting. How did that feel?

[00:13:52] Brian Oliver: I was happy we would get somebody. I knew the courier wasn't, was a low rung on the ladder, but at least it gets somebody to justice anyway.

[00:14:04] Bob: Brian's brain is spinning. He's already thinking like a detective. They have to act fast. But fortunately, he knows he can buy a little time.

[00:14:14] Brian Oliver: With the first $200,000, of course I had to sell off stocks to raise the money and get it deposited into my checking account and then go to this store to buy the gold coin. And this was a process that took several days. And I could tell PayPal, I'll have to sell stock again and uh, the check has to clear at the gold coin shop. This gave me time to get with the detective and set up the sting, which was very fortunate because if it had to have happened instantly, I couldn't, it couldn't have been done.

[00:14:55] Bob: Now it isn't everyday that police departments are quite so ready to set up a sting with a victim.

[00:15:02] Bob: How did you even manage to get the time and the resources to do this within just a couple of days?

[00:15:07] Det. Justin Torres: Luckily, we're very fortunate here at the, in investigations here at the Gainesville Police Department. We have a subunit that's a part of us called the Gun Violence Initiative. And they're additional officers that primarily investigate gun-related crimes, however, they're also a very quick response tactical team to assist an ongoing investigation. Luckily, I know all those guys as well, and I told them what we were, we had going on and what our target was as a person who's supposed to be coming to pick up what they believe to be gold from our victim, and because of the ongoing scheme, we're going to detain that person immediately. We're going to do a takedown, and then we're going to investigate as things unfold. And they were all onboard.

[00:15:46] Bob: So Detective Torres and Brian meet and come up with a plan.

[00:15:53] Det. Justin Torres: He starts telling me what the process is on how he had to get gold and had, what the pictures he had to take to send to the scammers and the things he had to wait for, everything he had to communicate to them, and we had to recreate that perfectly. But he explained that he needed to show these scammers the receipt for the gold that he purchased, and he needed to show a picture of the gold like flat out on a table; all the coins there. I believe it was 68 coins. He needed to show a picture of all the coins in a box, and then a picture of that box wrapped up and ready to go.

[00:16:29] Bob: And so you had to figure out how to get a picture of 68 gold coins.

[00:16:32] Det. Justin Torres: So luckily, that actually was pretty easy. I went to the same gold store that he went to here in Gainesville. I explained to the manager what was happening, and they were very obliged to, to assist in the investigation. They brought out 60, or they brought, I think it was 67, 'cause gold had, had rised at that point, so it was still $200,000 worth of gold that they had put out on a table in front of me, which I had taken a picture of and then we had put it in a box and then take a picture of that.

[00:16:58] Bob: So Brian sends this new picture to Andrew and...

[00:17:03] Brian Oliver: He said, "Okay, the courier will be there in a little while."

[00:17:06] Bob: So very quickly, Brian goes from victim to, well, to undercover cop kind of. That may sound exciting, but also...

[00:17:17] Bob: Well when you decided to do this, were you nervous at all because again, these criminals now they know where you live.

[00:17:23] Brian Oliver: That thought crossed my mind, yeah. I, I thought perhaps they'd try some retribution.

[00:17:29] Bob: Certainly in the case it was all the more important they do arrest this person, right?

[00:17:33] Brian Oliver: Oh yeah. But of course, the, his controllers, what I call a cabal of conspiracists, they had my address of course. And that's what I worried about was them directing something against me.

[00:17:46] Bob: Yeah, sure. But you were brave and did it anyway.

[00:17:50] Brian Oliver: Oh, yeah, yeah, I figured, what the hell. I've had a good life.

(laughter)

[00:17:56] Bob: Having, you're having a good life.

[00:17:59] Brian Oliver: Oh, okay.

[00:18:01] Bob: Now there is no time to spare. Detective Torres and his team have to be set up well before the courier arrives. A lot goes into that. Detective Torres describes the setup.

[00:18:13] Det. Justin Torres: The way that his parking lot was set up is that there is a main road in front of where his kind of like cul de sac is, it's not really a cul de sac. It's a strip of, of apartments, or condos. And you have different driveways that are in front of each one. And then the entrance, it's hidden a little bit from the main roadway, so we had officers that were actually around the corner in plain cars, but we also had a couple march units that were even further away looking out for the vehicle the subject said was going to pull up in front of Mr. Oliver's residence. I mean for the most part, yeah, we had plainclothes officers there just in case, but I also was with Mr. Oliver the entire time looking outside to see who was coming up in case anything unsuspected happens, Ol--, Mr. Oliver was going to have an officer for some kind of protection or another barrier.

[00:18:59] Bob: Yeah, sure. And there's always a concern that whoever it is might try to run away, drive away, figure out what's happening, and you've got to be ready for that.

[00:19:08] Bob: When Brian gets word that a courier is on the way, they hit the jackpot. He's told to look for a black Mustang, the same car which had picked up the first batch of gold. It seems likely they will catch the criminal who took Brian's money the first time. But after they get that notice, well the waiting game begins. While they wait, Brian is told to keep talking with the criminals.

[00:19:32] Bob: So you're on the phone with the guy from PayPal while the detective is sitting next to you.

[00:19:37] Brian Oliver: Part of the time, yes.

[00:19:38] Bob: So you have to pretend, obviously, there's not a detective. How did it feel to be an undercover cop that way?

[00:19:43] Brian Oliver: Very strange. Something of course I'd never experienced. All along I thought, oh my God, this thing is going to blow up and it's not going to happen, and ...

[00:19:53] Det. Justin Torres: I'm also still listening to the conversation that Mr. Oliver's having with the scammer on the phone, and they're stalling a little bit. They wanted to make sure that the driver was safe, and that the driver wasn't going to get pulled over by law enforcement.

[00:20:06] Bob: The waiting is excruciating. What if the driver gets spooked? What if the criminal on the phone gets spooked?

[00:20:14] Bob: Can you describe his demeanor while you guys were waiting?

[00:20:17] Det. Justin Torres: Everybody was anxious. Everybody was trying to be patient, but everyone was excited at the same time, and yeah, I was with Mr. Oliver that whole time, and absolutely, and we're trying to keep the situation as calm as possible because even though we were waiting for the driver, yeah, the bad guys would call Mr. Oliver pretty frequently, so I would still have to be there and be as silent as possible and listen to the conversation. But even during that time, there was a lot of dead noise on the phone, 'cause the subject wanted to be on the phone as well, and as long as he could with Mr. Oliver to make sure that everything was going right on their side as well. So it was a very stressful ordeal uh during that the bad guys are listening in the whole time as we are listening to them.

[00:21:00] Bob: Forgive me if this is an exaggeration, but I'm picturing myself as you sitting there. I wouldn't want to exhale so, because I would be afraid that they'd hear me, right?

[00:21:08] Det. Justin Torres: Yes, I was definitely, ugh.

[00:21:11] Bob: 'Cause if he said is there someone else in the room with you, the whole gig is up, right?

[00:21:14] Det. Justin Torres: Oh, absolutely, yeah.

[00:21:15] Bob: Okay, so you have to hold your breath for an hour, that's amazing you can do that.

[00:21:20] Det. Justin Torres: Yeah, it was, it was definitely fun, so while they were talking and going back and forth, 'cause I also have my police radio on.

[00:21:25] Bob: Oh God! Oh God!

[00:21:27] Det. Justin Torres: And that had to be turned very low.

[00:21:28] Bob: (laughs)

[00:21:29] Det. Justin Torres: So there's a whole 'nother level of stress having to wor--, that I had to worry about.

[00:21:34] Bob: Yeah, of course. Somebody calls in, there's a lost cat in a tree or something, and that could ruin everything.

[00:21:39] Det. Justin Torres: Yeah. Luckily, we had our own channel to us, so there wasn't too much talking going on, but...

[00:21:44] Det. Justin Torres: You thought of all these things, I'm sure.

[00:21:46] Brian Oliver: Yes. 100%

[00:21:48] Bob: But Brian never flinches during the call, holds firm, never does anything to raise suspicion among the criminals.

[00:21:57] Bob: He had to pull off an Emmy Award-winning acting job and not let on either, and that's no small thing for someone who's never done that, right?

[00:22:03] Det. Justin Torres: No, you're absolutely right. And he did fantastic. He was compliant, but he still gave them a little bit of frustration. Also had to reinforce, yeah, I guess their, their script of what they would normally say to victims like this to keep them on the hook. I do like to go fishing, and this kind of felt like a, you know, like a really good catch, because Mr. Oliver had to give them a little pull, give them a little tug and show them some frustration, and then these bad guys, they had to do the same thing in order to feel like they kept Mr. Oliver on the hook.

[00:22:33] Bob: I hadn't even thought about this until you suggested it; if he even I mean ob--, obviously these criminals are used to having people very agitated and upset when they're alm--, and if he exhibited calmness because he knew what was going on, they might sense a change in his demeanor and get cold feet.

[00:22:50] Det. Justin Torres: It's possible. But we've done a few of these so far, and we've been very fortunate that every other operation we've done, we've been successful and even though some of these people will get upset with the victim, especially when they're trying to convince the victim to drive to a whole 'nother location, and we're coaching the victims to express that they can't drive. It's the wrong time of day or they've just taken some medication, so they're unable to get a ride to a, a public location that the bad guys want them to go to. It's, it's a balancing act, it truly is, and it's amazing that these victims are able to, to still to do that, even, even by our word.

[00:23:28] Bob: I really think so, because it's not a natural thing to be able to act like this, and so I give a lot of credit for any civilian who's willing to go through with this kind of thing.

[00:23:37] Bob: The first time, the driver appeared almost immediately. But this time, 15 minutes go by, 30 minutes, 45 minutes.

[00:23:47] Bob: Oh, that must have felt like forever.

[00:23:49] Brian Oliver: Oh, it did. I kept talking to this Andrew and saying where the hell is he? And you know, let's get this thing done.

[00:23:58] Bob: Finally, the black Mustang pulls up.

[00:24:03] Bob: They didn't want you looking out the window, right?

[00:24:05] Brian Oliver: He, once the courier was there, he had me look out the window to identify the car...

[00:24:12] Det. Justin Torres: And then that's when I gave the order to the officers in their marked patrol cars to block off the escape route for the black Mustang. And from there, that's exactly what they did. Two vehicles came up and they parked in a V-shape in front of the black Mustang, and then did a traffic stop.

[00:24:28] Bob: And that's what I see on TV, right, all the sudden they screech in front and behind the car so the car can't go anywhere and then get out and I'm assuming that the criminal at this point has a very surprised look on his face, right?

[00:24:40] Det. Justin Torres: Yes, he did.

[00:24:42] Bob: So do you then go out of the house and arrest him? How do they actually get him out of the car?

[00:24:46] Det. Justin Torres: So he complied and stepped out of the vehicle when the officers, you know, gave him a lawful command to. And after uh they gave him a command to walk over to the front of a patrol car, and they detain him in handcuffs.

[00:24:58] Bob: Well were you watching when he was arrested?

[00:25:01] Brian Oliver: The detective told me to stay in the condo, and I did for a couple of minutes, but I said to hell with it. I went outside and watched them put the guy in the patrol car and leave.

[00:25:10] Bob: When you got out there, were they asking him questions when you walked out or what did you see?

[00:25:16] Brian Oliver: All I saw was him handcuffed with his hands behind his back and...

[00:25:21] Bob: Did he look like the first courier?

[00:25:23] Brian Oliver: Not until he turned around. I, I first saw his back and he turned slightly, and then I recognized him. But when I saw his back, it didn't look right. The first time I saw him he was just seated in his, in the car, and he looked short to me. When I saw him being arrested, he looked very tall.

[00:25:43] Bob: But you were, at least for a moment you were worried maybe this is a different person?

[00:25:46] Brian Oliver: Yeah, at first it seemed that way.

[00:25:50] Bob: But it wasn't. Both times the same man came to pick up the gold from Brian ... Atharva Sathawane. Sathawane tries to play down his role in the crime during his first interview claiming he thought he was simply a courier, that he didn't even know what he was transporting.

[00:26:08] Det. Justin Torres: He said he did it less than 10 times, and he only made a couple thousand dollars from it, and the people that he was talking to, he said, one, he believed to be in Chicago and the other one to be in India, which that was possibly true, which was mostly likely true. However, he downplayed it as many times as he did it. He downplayed how long he, he was active in being a courier.

[00:26:28] Bob: But when investigators get inside Sathawane's phone, well it tells a very different story. Sathawane is a critical part in what his crime gang had taken to calling gold rushes.

[00:26:41] Det. Justin Torres: So the phone, we end up going through about 2 to 3 weeks after his initial arrest and my initial interview with him, which once we go through the phone, we realize that he was lying through his teeth. This was not his first rodeo. It wasn't even under his 10th rodeo, which was what he said to me, and he tried to express that, oh, he thought this was just some kind of regular job, and he was just picking up and dropping off, and he hadn't done it too much. He was a little shady of it; he thought it may have been about tax evasion or something, but you know he didn't realize that's what was happening. But going through the phone and realizing how much he's been doing it and how much he was talking about it with his friends, and he even recruited one of his friends to do drives with him, or gold rushes, as him and his buddies referred to it, we realized that he was actually quite the key player courier scheme. He was definitely a mid-level driver. He was very trusted by these scammers and his handlers, and he had more responsibilities than your average courier. So we were very fortunate with his apprehension.

[00:27:44] Bob: Now I picked up in the police report, code name for his contact or handler. Can you tell me what that was?

[00:27:50] Det. Justin Torres: Yes, so his code, so his main handler, he had several of them, but his main one either went back and forth between 007 or Bond or Spector Bond. It's very interesting that a legitimate boss quote-unquote, would use a James Bond or 007 references when especially in a scheme like this, that was something that stood out.

[00:28:12] Bob: Sounds legit.

[00:28:13] Det. Justin Torres: Oh yeah, absolutely, 100%. Who wouldn't want to work for someone named 007?

[00:28:18] Bob: And he worked for 007 for four months.

[00:28:23] Bob: And how many times do you think he was, acted as a courier?

[00:28:27] Det. Justin Torres: so we are able to pinpoint down to the 33 to 34 pickups that he had done.

[00:28:32] Bob: And how much was he paid for these pickups?

[00:28:35] Det. Justin Torres: So it depends on the trip. If he was driving for an hour, he was paid $800. If he was driving for two hours, it would be $1000. If it was for three hours or more, I believe it was $1200.

[00:28:47] Bob: He even got on an airplane twice for gold rushes. Once to New Jersey, once to Washington DC. In the end, he moved millions of dollars.

[00:28:58] Det. Justin Torres: So from all the funds that he had gathered, between gold and cash, depending on when you're looking at gold in the market, it was estimated to be just over $7 million that he picked up in those four months. And his pay for all that was a little over 33,000.

[00:29:16] Bob: Reading his texts about the job, he had few regrets about the harm he caused to people like Brian.

[00:29:24] Det. Justin Torres: They're specifically targeting elderly folks who may get confused or is unaware of technology and it's not just their life savings; this is their means of continued living. When you take that away, to some people, and especially, and even in Mr. Sathawane, because there was a specific text message in one of his communications from him to his buddy, and his buddy was telling him that yeah, you're basically a mule for doing this kind of job. And Mr. Sathawane's response was, it's just white people money. It's just white people money. No, where he had no consideration for where the money was coming from, where it was going, or who it was affecting.

[00:30:02] Bob: You have to convince yourself that whoever you're stealing from or cheating is a monster, so it's okay.

[00:30:06] Det. Justin Torres: I suppose--, if, I don't know if that got him to sleep at night or what.

[00:30:10] Bob: Sathawane took his case to trial last fall. Brian was one of several victims who testified. Listening to their stories was both painful and infuriating.

[00:30:22] Brian Oliver: I was the first witness to testify and I told my story. And I decided to hang around for the rest of the victims to testify. The detective had done a tremendous amount of work and there were 10 other, or 9 other victims that testified. Each with a different set of circumstances and the more I heard it, the angrier I got.

[00:30:55] Bob: Do you remember a story or two from the trial of other victims? Some people had even more stolen from them, right?

[00:31:01] Brian Oliver: Yeah, the biggest one was a woman from the Northeast, I don't want to identify where she's from, but she lost $4.9 million to this guy.

[00:31:12] Bob: Oh my God. Oh, that's horrible.

[00:31:15] Brian Oliver: Yeah. And another woman whose husband had dementia, she lost $1.8 million, and I understood from the prosecutor that he had to go to a nursing home and now she couldn't pay for it.

[00:31:35] Det. Justin Torres: I was able to sit in on the entire trial and listen to what everybody had to say, and just seeing the devastation on them having to relive everything was just as emotional for myself as it was for the rest of the prosecution team and all we can hope is that this gives them a little bit of resolve. They, we'll obviously never be able to get their $7 million back, but knowing that law enforcement is out there trying to find some kind of justice for them and to prevent other elderly folks, or as many elderly folks from being victims like this, I hope it helps.

[00:32:06] Bob: And some of the most painful cases, well the victims didn't want to testify.

[00:32:12] Det. Justin Torres: This other lady, she was living with her family, I believe in Alabama or something like that, but she was originally living in somewhere in mid-Florida. She wasn't able to come to testify because she had lost all of her money and her husband, during this time, is in hospice care here in Florida. So she's been going to visit him whenever she can save up enough after, but she had to sell her condo. She had to move out of Florida and move to Alabama with her family, and her husband is here, unfortunately, in hospice care by himself because they went through all the funds. It's...

[00:32:46] Bob: Oh my God.

[00:32:47] Det. Justin Torres: ...absolutely devastating.

[00:32:48] Bob: That's just awful. God.

[00:32:50] Det. Justin Torres: Yeah.

[00:32:53] Bob: Sathawane was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering in November, and this January was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

[00:33:02] Bob: How, how do you feel about it?

[00:33:03] Brian Oliver: I can't celebrate it. He was 21 at the time, 22 at the time of sentencing. To me, retribution is an empty vessel. It doesn't give me any pleasure. But at least we got one person involved in that scam.

[00:33:23] Bob: And he had hurt a lot of people, that one person.

[00:33:25] Brian Oliver: He did.

[00:33:27] Bob: So Mr. Sathawane, an Indian national who had come to the US on a student visa but overstayed, is off the streets. But the crimes continue and so does the investigation.

[00:33:39] Bob: Do you have any idea where the money ended up?

[00:33:41] Det. Justin Torres: It's somewhere overseas. Unfortunately, after it goes off to the next person in the chain, it's lost, and that's why he was, that's why Mr. Sathawane was also convicted of money laundering.

[00:33:51] Bob: One of the things that Brian expressed to me, while of course it's great that someone's arrested and someone's been prosecuted and is paying their debt to society, but he's easily replaced by another courier, right? What is the strategy, or will we ever be able to pull the thread and start getting at the, where the kingpins who run these kind of operations do you think?

[00:34:10] Det. Justin Torres: Fortunately, with the information that we have received through his phone, we've, we have created a couple other links in Mr. Sathawane's chain, and those are being pursued by the federal government at this time. And what's even better is we now have acc--, or I specifically have access to a, to a cryptocurrency tracing program. So Mr. Oliver, he'd also given up $10,000 through a Bitcoin ATM, which are also horrible machines to, to have in a community. But following that, that hashtag or that Bitcoin wallet that Mr. Oliver had given 10 grand to, I'm actually able to follow that and see where that money's been going, and that's leading us to other investigative links. So it's...

[00:34:49] Bob: That's great. So you feel like you're getting somewhere.

[00:34:51] Det. Justin Torres: Yes.

[00:34:52] Bob: And in fact, Detective Torres was able to use the template from Brian's case to run another sting not long after the arrest of Sathawane.

[00:35:01] Det. Justin Torres: We had an officer that had taken a police report from an elderly victim who had lost, I believe it was $20,000 at the time, and that officer actually emailed me that night and so the next day as I'm coming in the office, I see the report and I contact that victim and that victim is still talking with the bad guys. So we go through the same process. I work with a few other officers. We set them up in different undercover checkpoints, and we basically lure these, these gentlemen back, 'cause they're still trying to convince the victim that they, she needs to give them more money for, I forgot exactly the specifics of their, that specific fraud, but they told her that she needed to give them more money, so we indulged them, and they fell for it, and we made another arrest on that gentleman.

[00:35:47] Bob: And about when was that?

[00:35:48] Det. Justin Torres: This was actually maybe three weeks right after Mr. Sathawane's arrest in February.

[00:35:55] Bob: Oh, so now you are a fine, a fine-tuned machine doing these kinds of things.

[00:35:59] Det. Justin Torres: When the hammer's hot, you have to strike, so we, we figured, let's... we figured let's try and get as many of them off the street.

[00:36:07] Bob: But at the same time according to Brian at least, these kinds of scams are, just seem to be rampant in Florida. Is that true? Are these things that, that common now in Florida?

[00:36:16] Det. Justin Torres: Yes, just when you look at the number of victims that we were able to find here in Florida it's, it's just a fraction of what's actually happening. The US Attorney here in Gainesville for the Northern District of Florida, they're adamant on pursuing all these, and luckily, with other law enforcement partners here in Florida, we've made connections to other victims and other couriers that have, have done pickups here, and we're currently working on three more trial cases for, for couriers that have done pickups here to three more victims in Gainesville alone.

[00:36:47] Bob: To think about all those victims, each with a story as painful as Brian's, it's just hard to swallow because the criminals always steal much more than money.

[00:36:58] Brian Oliver: Once I realized that I'd been scammed, the, the physical, my stomach was upset, my mind was going a thousand miles an hour thinking how could I be so stupid? You know, I'm supposedly an intelligent individual and I didn't recognize what was going on. There were so many things now looking back on it that was a tell that I should have seen what was happening before I gave up all this money. And I still have the same ugly feeling in my stomach when I get into it.

[00:37:38] Bob: Yeah, and I apologize for dragging you through it all. I'm sure that it's not helping, but I, it's going to help someone else, so I...

[00:37:44] Brian Oliver: I hope so. The results of these things are catastrophic. And it's been catastrophic for me. I was in the hospital for 16 days with a drain tube hanging out of my right lung.

[00:37:55] Bob: Oh my God. What happened to you?

[00:37:57] Brian Oliver: The stress and the strain of giving away half of the money that I had for retirement caused blood clots to form in my leg and they traveled up to my heart and fortunately, it went to my lung instead of my brain. If it'd gone to the brain, it would have been a whole different story.

[00:38:16] Bob: Yeah.

[00:38:17] Brian Oliver: But as it was, the drain tube was out of my right lung, and of course every time I moved it was painful for 16 days.

[00:38:27] Bob: And that sounds absolutely miserable.

[00:38:29] Brian Oliver: Well, then of course it took several months of rehab to get my mobility back and all of my muscles had atrophied.

[00:38:40] Bob: So the consequences are much more than money, right?

[00:38:43] Brian Oliver: Absolutely. Knowing that I was going to talk with you today, it was like a closed loop movie going through my head of the events of this whole scam and that happens to me several times a week.

[00:38:57] Bob: You just can't stop thinking about it.

[00:38:58] Brian Oliver: No.

[00:38:59] Bob: Yeah, of course.

[00:39:00] Brian Oliver: It just goes on.

[00:39:02] Bob: Are, are you better from the health scare?

[00:39:04] Brian Oliver: Pretty much. I still get out of breath easily, and I subsequently had a pacemaker put in. I am not sure that's related, but...

[00:39:14] Bob: Yeah, it's hard to say what's related.

[00:39:16] Brian Oliver: Sure.

[00:39:20] Bob: And while this story does have a happier than most ending, at least there was an arrest. There is no sugar coating the financial impact of what happened to Brian.

[00:39:30] Brian Oliver: It's pretty much devastating because before I could, when I needed funds, I could draw on the yield of the money. Now I'm drawing on the principal, and we both know that can't go on forever. I've taken a job. I'm delivering cars for local dealerships in Gainesville. What they call dealer trades where I deliver a car to another dealership, and I bring another car back.

[00:40:00] Bob: So you're 84, and you've had these serious health issues, but now you had to go take a job because of all this, right?

[00:40:07] Brian Oliver: Yeah, I'm trying to not draw as much as I can from, from my remaining funds.

[00:40:14] Bob: Brian has agreed to speak out because well he knows better than most that these criminals are out there and the occasional arrest won't stop them. He's seen it up close.

[00:40:27] Brian Oliver: Not a couple weeks ago and a, an acquaintance of mine was sitting on his porch with $10,000 cash waiting for a courier to pick up.

[00:40:38] Bob: Oh my God.

[00:40:39] Brian Oliver: Yeah.

[00:40:40] Bob: How did you find out?

[00:40:41] Brian Oliver: He was convinced that the Department of Homeland Security was watching him to make sure that he did what he was told. And his ex-wife happened to come by and she called the police and broke it up.

[00:40:55] Bob: Wow.

[00:40:56] Brian Oliver: Yeah.

[00:40:57] Bob: It would make my head explode knowing I had been through that and then somebody nearby was right in the middle of it. My God. I can't imagine what that felt like.

[00:41:04] Brian Oliver: Oh, I couldn't, he had to know my situation. How he could get wound up in it is amazing to me. That's why I say, if we can get some of these red flags out into the public so they know and can recognize that they're being scammed, maybe we can put some hurt on, on these people. We'll never stop them, but maybe we can slow their process down some and get this cabal to go away, or at least not make as much money as they are, because it really is an epidemic here in Florida.

[00:41:43] Bob: I know reliving it is painful, but these criminals are so good at what they do, so this isn't your fault, it's their fault.

[00:41:50] Brian Oliver: Yeah. Well I've been told that before, but it doesn't seem to help.

[00:41:54] Bob: It doesn't make you feel any better. I'm sorry. I hope it sinks in there just a little bit and over time you can feel how to forgive yourself. If a friend went through something like this, you would forgive them, so you can forgive yourself for it.

[00:42:05] Brian Oliver: Thanks, Bob.

[00:42:07] Bob: He does wish other crime victims would be more willing to talk publicly about what's happened to them.

[00:42:12] Brian Oliver: Because the more that come out and I know their feeling, because I struggled with coming out and being, going public with my own tale because it's embarrassing and everything else, but I, I know these other people are just embarrassed to beat hell to come out in--, into public. But I wish they would.

[00:42:36] Bob: So do I, and I certainly would not tell anyone that they have to.

[00:42:39] Brian Oliver: No.

[00:42:39] Bob: You know, however you go through this, grief is a terrible thing, but what we know for sure, the silence is a tool that the criminals use and the more we talk about it, the better it is and the less power the criminals have. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for being willing to take the brave step and talk to us.

[00:42:54] Brian Oliver: Thanks.

[00:42:56] Bob: Brian is a hero. He really did step forward at great personal risk and help take a serial criminal off the streets. If you or someone you love is ever part of a crime, it's absolutely critical that you go to the police. You really might help put someone behind bars.

[00:43:12] Bob: It requires a lot of cooperation, right? You had to obviously cooperation of this victim, you had cooperation in this case from the gold dealer, so make your pitch to anyone who's listening who might be in a situation where they have a chance to really help out law enforcement. Why should they do it?

[00:43:26] Det. Justin Torres: There's a lot of different reasons why, and for one, it helps them. As on the road to recovery, you don't feel as, as much of a victim. You feel, you get a little bit of that empowerment back. You made a difference. You're not only, you're putting a stop to this specific person, this specific courier from continuing the fraud, you're preventing it from happening to other people, and as our investigative skills and knowledge of these kind of organizations grow, it leads to more links in the chain. So the more arrests that we have, besides just trying to make the victim some, somewhat whole, give them some kind of justice or resolution, it is allowing us to dig deeper into these organizations.

[00:44:09] Bob: And I also think one of the, this is such a rare situation because you often have either people who hang up right away or you have people who realize it weeks, months later, and the criminal's long gone. In this case, as we mentioned, Brian discovered this in process and was willing to go to police right away and that's why we caught the bad guy. So I just want to have you make your pitch for somebody who's in the middle of one of these things, even if it feels terrible, it's okay to go to law enforcement and try to make it, try to make it better, right?

[00:44:40] Det. Justin Torres: Absolutely. If you discover that you're still in the middle of it, and they're still trying to defraud you, do not panic, 'cause wherever you are in this, there, there's going to be either officers or investigators that want to arrest these people. No one wants to see elderly victims in our community become defrauded like this and lose their entire life savings, and feel embarrassment and shame like this. We want you guys to be empowered and to talk with us so we can get involved as early as possible.

[00:45:10] Bob: And you care, right? You do care.

[00:45:11] Det. Justin Torres: Oh, absolutely, 100%.

[00:45:13] Bob: Some people might think, oh, if we call there's, nobody's going to do anything, no one's going to listen to me. Certainly, he's not going to jump to action and have a sting, but it turns out, you do care.

[00:45:21] Det. Justin Torres: Yeah, absolutely, especially when we can act on it as quickly as we were able to, 'cause that's what we want to do. We want to catch bad guys. That's what being an officer is. And we can actually intervene in something as intricate and complex and as heinous as this. You know there, there's no officer that's not going to want to jump at the bit to be a part of it.

[00:45:41] Bob: Naturally we want you to know those red flags and avoid contact with any of these kinds of criminals in the first place. Detective Torres has some simple rules of thumb that can help.

[00:45:51] Det. Justin Torres: If any transaction is involving gold, don't do it. If any transaction is involving Bitcoin, don't do it. If any transaction is involving you sending money or putting money in a box, do not do it, period. And whenever someone on the phone is telling you to not talk to anybody else about it, not talk to family, not talk to friends, hang up. There, there's no reason to keep talking to that person because they're trying to isolate you.

[00:46:19] Bob: If someone tells you not to tell anyone else what's going on, that's a sure sign you're talking to a criminal. Just. Hang. Up. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:46:39] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you're not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. 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.

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