Post by scambaitjournalism on Aug 24, 2021 17:23:08 GMT
Hello fellow Scambaiters! Someone's phone at my office got hacked, resulting in a scammer texting all the office staff. He impersonated the company owner, saying he was making a surprise visit and asking them to purchase gift cards so that he could do a raffle when he arrived. I went after him with a vengeance, and I want you guys to, as well! Let's take this scam off the grid.
-The Haul-
Bitcoin Wallets:
<removed>
<removed>
Money Mule:
<removed>
Verified TextNow number for the scammer: <removed>
-The Story-
So here's the juicy details from my insane text convo with the scammer yesterday. This interaction resulted in the scammer divulging his money mule's name and address, as well as 4 different bitcoin wallet addresses that I reported for fraud in real time (and blamed it on HIM being hacked). One of these wallets has received over 145 bitcoin since its creation in April 2020, a current value of over $7.2 million.
I used 3 different texting apps to troll this guy for an entire day, using Characters 1 and 2 to slowly wear down his guard to the point where he trusted Character 3 almost without question. Let's delve into this game of 3D chess ...
Enter Robert Demurray, aka Character 1. He's an irritable, unrelenting character that progressively annoyed the scammer over a 4 hour period, resulting in him releasing an angry tirade at Robert as I did an odd subcharacter reveal: a clueless scambaiter who begged him to click on a geolocation link, so that they could report him to the authorities. End result: Scammer feels extremely annoyed, his ego is stoked that he beat a scambaiter, and ultimately thinks that he's up against inexperienced scambaiters and lets down his guard.
Now enter Character 2 as Cindi Rawlins, the even-tempered, compassionate office receptionist with a penchant for Starbucks. She stokes the scammer's ego even more, offering to get him Starbucks' brand-new WaffleCafe drink on her way to Walmart to get the gift cards. (I just made that name up, but now I kinda want to try a WaffleCafe from Starbucks...)
Finally, we have Conner Vance. A happy-go-lucky skater dude, he's Character 3, the one who will initiate the Scammer Self-Destruct Sequence.
He uses emojis. He jokes. He makes light hearted banter with the scammer, setting him at ease and setting the stage for what is to come.
Of course, Conner doesn't have $1500 cash on him when the scammer asks him to purchase 3 $500 Apple gift cards. Fortunately, he's good friends with Jenny and Miranda at the office, who have access to the office safe. So Miranda "borrows" some cash to get the gift cards, plus some extra funds just in case. It's the owner of the company telling them to do this, after all. With over $11k in tow, they tell Ron, the office manager, that the three of them are off to visit a client together.
Now comes the confidence building session. I send the scammer a randomly Googled photo of a man's hand holding stacks of cash. And then ask if Jenny and Miranda can have some extra to keep them happy on the trip. The scammer agrees to give them $500 each from the office funds. I send a photo of a random girl in a camo jacket holding up a fan of twenties inside a car. I keep harping on the fact that Miranda's got over $10k in cash with her.
And then the scammer gets greedy.
"Is there's any Nearby BTC centre there? I might send you my wallet address to buy $2000 on it"
Yes. Yes of course we can buy the owner of the company $2000 worth of Bitcoin with office funds "borrowed" from the safe. Makes complete logical sense.
He sends the first address, and I immediately hop on Bitcoinwhoswho .com and report a scam, leaving all the details I have on this guy so far. And then - "Bruh the BTC machine is saying the wallet has been flagged for fraud by some website. The machine won't let us send anything since it's flagged."
He sends a second one. I do the same thing. "Still says it's fraudulent. Says it paid out like $20K this month. You sure your bitcoin wallet didn't get hacked or something?"
"Not at all," he replies. "It's been awhile I've used this."
Cue evil laugh. I quickly text back, "You better check bro, it says that 0.419 something bitcoin got sent out from the wallet less than 2 weeks ago. That's like 20 grand. It says it got flagged for fraud. I don't know bro, that's some serious money, you better check and make sure you're not hacked or something."
.419 bitcoin? How ironic. (The number "419" refers to the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud.)
The scammer scrambles to find another wallet. In the meantime, I keep texting. "I'll check the website for you, I'm worried you might have been hacked or something." I go back to bitcoinwhoswho .com and I screenshot the scam report I just wrote about his wallet. After removing all metadata (VERY important), I send it to him.
"Bruuuuuuh. You've been hacked for sure. Check it out. Be careful bro. Sounds like someone is really upset at you. Read this from the scam report. 'Scammer is targeting real estate agents, claiming to be the owner of the company, asking for bitcoin as an office surprise, along with Apple, Google play, and prepaid visa cards. Phone number is 469-551-3233'. Like they got your phone number and everything bro. What's going on?"
The scammer acts unfazed and directs me to forget the bitcoin machine and just head straight to Walmart for the gift cards.
We arrive at Walmart, and Miranda trips and spills cash all over the parking lot. (A ploy to get the scammer worried about losing his money.) I've got a new idea. Why not deposit some of this cash in the company bank account? We don't want to lose this cash by any means. Wink wink.
The scammer is intrigued, but instructs us to get the gift card first. But wait - there's a security guard at the gift card display! He talks to Mirand and I about why we are buying gift cards, and doesn't believe our story. He won't let us buy gift cards. This elicits a tirade of profanity from the scammer, and he tells us to go into another store - without Miranda and Jenny.
At this point, I decide Mr. Scammer needs more evidence to remind him that he's not being scambaited. I google "police in front of Walgreens" and download two photos from news sites of police responding to a crime at a Walgreens entrance.
I send the first photo. "Dude what the heck is going on? There's cops bro. And we didn't exactly ask Ron if we could 'borrow' all this cash from the safe. Seriously bro, what should I do?"
"Yeah go in"
By a stroke of luck, one of the Walgreens photos showed a cop looking straight into the camera. "They ain't playin' bro. They looking at us all sus now. Dude like this is all company money, can I just like go to the bank and deposit it into the company bank account? These cops be freaking me out."
The scammer pushed me to go inside, but I refused and told him we were leaving to deposit the money in the bank. He seemed to be trying to stall us while he considered the direct deposit option. He asked again how much cash I had, then suggested mailing the cash. My heart stopped. He was going to give me the address for his money mule? Fantastic.
He gave me a name, and an address for an apartment in Chester, VA. I googled the address and sure enough, there was an LLC registered to that apartment, with the same recipient as the governor of the LLC. Details checked out.
But the scammer's situation was about to worsen. Jenny insisted on being the one to mail the money at FedEx, and she ended up getting turned away by an employee. Currency couldn't be sent through FedEx, she was told. But the Post Office might allow it.
Infuriated at this turn of events, the scammer tore into me for letting Jenny mess up the transaction. He then pulled out the big guns, and gave me a fourth and final bitcoin wallet.
I reported this wallet as fraudulent as well, and then something caught my attention. Over $7.2 million worth of bitcoin had been received since the wallet's creation in April 2020. Whoever owned this wallet must be one of the big dogs. Predictably, this wallet was also flagged for fraud, even at a different BTC machine.
I build his trust back up again, saying simply, "I'll get this figured out bro. Trust me."
By now it was late evening, and the stores were closing. I told him I had to take Jenny and Miranda back home, and get this all taken care of in the morning. He complained, but realized there was nothing he could do.
Now Fellow Scambaiters, I need your help. What do you recommend I do at this point to get more info out of him, or to move forward with the info I already have? I've got a few hours before I have to get back to him. Feel free to go after him yourselves... Do what you do best!
NB: I have removed the details in red, above. Please, read this: scambaitingforum.com/thread/239/posting-bank-accounts-mule-information
Mr P :-)
-The Haul-
Bitcoin Wallets:
<removed>
<removed>
Money Mule:
<removed>
Verified TextNow number for the scammer: <removed>
-The Story-
So here's the juicy details from my insane text convo with the scammer yesterday. This interaction resulted in the scammer divulging his money mule's name and address, as well as 4 different bitcoin wallet addresses that I reported for fraud in real time (and blamed it on HIM being hacked). One of these wallets has received over 145 bitcoin since its creation in April 2020, a current value of over $7.2 million.
I used 3 different texting apps to troll this guy for an entire day, using Characters 1 and 2 to slowly wear down his guard to the point where he trusted Character 3 almost without question. Let's delve into this game of 3D chess ...
Enter Robert Demurray, aka Character 1. He's an irritable, unrelenting character that progressively annoyed the scammer over a 4 hour period, resulting in him releasing an angry tirade at Robert as I did an odd subcharacter reveal: a clueless scambaiter who begged him to click on a geolocation link, so that they could report him to the authorities. End result: Scammer feels extremely annoyed, his ego is stoked that he beat a scambaiter, and ultimately thinks that he's up against inexperienced scambaiters and lets down his guard.
Now enter Character 2 as Cindi Rawlins, the even-tempered, compassionate office receptionist with a penchant for Starbucks. She stokes the scammer's ego even more, offering to get him Starbucks' brand-new WaffleCafe drink on her way to Walmart to get the gift cards. (I just made that name up, but now I kinda want to try a WaffleCafe from Starbucks...)
Finally, we have Conner Vance. A happy-go-lucky skater dude, he's Character 3, the one who will initiate the Scammer Self-Destruct Sequence.
He uses emojis. He jokes. He makes light hearted banter with the scammer, setting him at ease and setting the stage for what is to come.
Of course, Conner doesn't have $1500 cash on him when the scammer asks him to purchase 3 $500 Apple gift cards. Fortunately, he's good friends with Jenny and Miranda at the office, who have access to the office safe. So Miranda "borrows" some cash to get the gift cards, plus some extra funds just in case. It's the owner of the company telling them to do this, after all. With over $11k in tow, they tell Ron, the office manager, that the three of them are off to visit a client together.
Now comes the confidence building session. I send the scammer a randomly Googled photo of a man's hand holding stacks of cash. And then ask if Jenny and Miranda can have some extra to keep them happy on the trip. The scammer agrees to give them $500 each from the office funds. I send a photo of a random girl in a camo jacket holding up a fan of twenties inside a car. I keep harping on the fact that Miranda's got over $10k in cash with her.
And then the scammer gets greedy.
"Is there's any Nearby BTC centre there? I might send you my wallet address to buy $2000 on it"
Yes. Yes of course we can buy the owner of the company $2000 worth of Bitcoin with office funds "borrowed" from the safe. Makes complete logical sense.
He sends the first address, and I immediately hop on Bitcoinwhoswho .com and report a scam, leaving all the details I have on this guy so far. And then - "Bruh the BTC machine is saying the wallet has been flagged for fraud by some website. The machine won't let us send anything since it's flagged."
He sends a second one. I do the same thing. "Still says it's fraudulent. Says it paid out like $20K this month. You sure your bitcoin wallet didn't get hacked or something?"
"Not at all," he replies. "It's been awhile I've used this."
Cue evil laugh. I quickly text back, "You better check bro, it says that 0.419 something bitcoin got sent out from the wallet less than 2 weeks ago. That's like 20 grand. It says it got flagged for fraud. I don't know bro, that's some serious money, you better check and make sure you're not hacked or something."
.419 bitcoin? How ironic. (The number "419" refers to the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud.)
The scammer scrambles to find another wallet. In the meantime, I keep texting. "I'll check the website for you, I'm worried you might have been hacked or something." I go back to bitcoinwhoswho .com and I screenshot the scam report I just wrote about his wallet. After removing all metadata (VERY important), I send it to him.
"Bruuuuuuh. You've been hacked for sure. Check it out. Be careful bro. Sounds like someone is really upset at you. Read this from the scam report. 'Scammer is targeting real estate agents, claiming to be the owner of the company, asking for bitcoin as an office surprise, along with Apple, Google play, and prepaid visa cards. Phone number is 469-551-3233'. Like they got your phone number and everything bro. What's going on?"
The scammer acts unfazed and directs me to forget the bitcoin machine and just head straight to Walmart for the gift cards.
We arrive at Walmart, and Miranda trips and spills cash all over the parking lot. (A ploy to get the scammer worried about losing his money.) I've got a new idea. Why not deposit some of this cash in the company bank account? We don't want to lose this cash by any means. Wink wink.
The scammer is intrigued, but instructs us to get the gift card first. But wait - there's a security guard at the gift card display! He talks to Mirand and I about why we are buying gift cards, and doesn't believe our story. He won't let us buy gift cards. This elicits a tirade of profanity from the scammer, and he tells us to go into another store - without Miranda and Jenny.
At this point, I decide Mr. Scammer needs more evidence to remind him that he's not being scambaited. I google "police in front of Walgreens" and download two photos from news sites of police responding to a crime at a Walgreens entrance.
I send the first photo. "Dude what the heck is going on? There's cops bro. And we didn't exactly ask Ron if we could 'borrow' all this cash from the safe. Seriously bro, what should I do?"
"Yeah go in"
By a stroke of luck, one of the Walgreens photos showed a cop looking straight into the camera. "They ain't playin' bro. They looking at us all sus now. Dude like this is all company money, can I just like go to the bank and deposit it into the company bank account? These cops be freaking me out."
The scammer pushed me to go inside, but I refused and told him we were leaving to deposit the money in the bank. He seemed to be trying to stall us while he considered the direct deposit option. He asked again how much cash I had, then suggested mailing the cash. My heart stopped. He was going to give me the address for his money mule? Fantastic.
He gave me a name, and an address for an apartment in Chester, VA. I googled the address and sure enough, there was an LLC registered to that apartment, with the same recipient as the governor of the LLC. Details checked out.
But the scammer's situation was about to worsen. Jenny insisted on being the one to mail the money at FedEx, and she ended up getting turned away by an employee. Currency couldn't be sent through FedEx, she was told. But the Post Office might allow it.
Infuriated at this turn of events, the scammer tore into me for letting Jenny mess up the transaction. He then pulled out the big guns, and gave me a fourth and final bitcoin wallet.
I reported this wallet as fraudulent as well, and then something caught my attention. Over $7.2 million worth of bitcoin had been received since the wallet's creation in April 2020. Whoever owned this wallet must be one of the big dogs. Predictably, this wallet was also flagged for fraud, even at a different BTC machine.
I build his trust back up again, saying simply, "I'll get this figured out bro. Trust me."
By now it was late evening, and the stores were closing. I told him I had to take Jenny and Miranda back home, and get this all taken care of in the morning. He complained, but realized there was nothing he could do.
Now Fellow Scambaiters, I need your help. What do you recommend I do at this point to get more info out of him, or to move forward with the info I already have? I've got a few hours before I have to get back to him. Feel free to go after him yourselves... Do what you do best!
NB: I have removed the details in red, above. Please, read this: scambaitingforum.com/thread/239/posting-bank-accounts-mule-information
Mr P :-)
x 4 (Lagos to Abuja, Nigeria to Ghana, Nigeria to Benin, Ghana to Benin)