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Speaker 1: I can only see two other possibilities. There's a hidden

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Speaker 1: partner as a hidden partner, there's a hidden partner. There's

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Speaker 1: somebody else involved in this. Potentially is the other person

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Speaker 1: the spider at the central of the web, the center

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Speaker 1: of the web central. So did Alan in fact have

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Speaker 1: a hidden benefactor who effectively was the de facto silent boss.

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Speaker 1: So if that was the case, then you have to

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Speaker 1: assume that he's a co signatory of the bank accounts

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Speaker 1: and he or she have got the money, have got money.

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Speaker 1: So that's the first thing that comes to my mind,

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Speaker 1: is that there's someone else involved behind the scenes who

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Speaker 1: has somehow benefited from this. The only other alternative is

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Speaker 1: that he's not dead, and that he's in fact living

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Speaker 1: off the money, living off the money, living off the money.

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Speaker 2: Forty nine million dollars vanished into the ether, hundreds of

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Speaker 2: There's a world changing algorithm supposedly in a safe in

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Speaker 2: a secret location, and a charismatic fraudster who died suddenly

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Speaker 2: while the heat was on him. It's the stuff of

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Speaker 2: a Hollywood blockbuster. If it were a movie, it might

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Speaker 2: end with the money shot of Alan Metcalf sipping on

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Speaker 2: a cocktail on a remote beach somewhere, alive and well,

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Speaker 2: living off his hidden fortune. A fake death is not

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Speaker 2: just a common movie device. It's also a rumor that

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Speaker 2: has plagued other similar cases.

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Speaker 3: Look at Melissa Kaddick, the.

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Speaker 2: Sydney fraudster who disappeared in November twenty twenty, shortly after

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Speaker 2: she was raided by ACIK and the Australian Federal Police.

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Speaker 3: A few months later.

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Speaker 2: Melissa's decomposing foot washed up on a South Coast beach.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty three. A coroner declared Kadok deceased, but

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Speaker 2: rumors of her faking her own death continued to this day.

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Speaker 3: Alan Metcalf's death has also caused similar whispers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there were that he's not dead, that he's realized

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Speaker 1: he's taking the money and ran.

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Speaker 4: But no, that's that's not right.

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Speaker 5: It can't be right.

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Speaker 6: I heard it somewhere, maybe someone said as a joke,

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Speaker 6: but maybe the roomor got around, but people said, mate,

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Speaker 6: he's probably over there and enjoying his money over some

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Speaker 6: island somewhere.

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Speaker 4: And the investor did right back and said, I hope

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Speaker 4: it's going to be an open casket. And people are like,

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Speaker 4: that's pretty heavy thing. To say, But now looking back

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Speaker 4: at it, he probably had every right to ask because

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Speaker 4: I don't know. No one knows exactly if he's one

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Speaker 4: hundred percent dead. There's no been, no definitif to get

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Speaker 4: proven to any investors, anything like that. And yeah, it's

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Speaker 4: it's all up in the air.

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Speaker 5: No, We're just a couple of people that I got

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Speaker 5: involved in just a are you sure he's dead? Should

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Speaker 5: we go and dig up the coffin?

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Speaker 7: And some people tell me, I wonder if he really died?

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Speaker 3: You think do you think he really died?

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Speaker 7: Or who knows?

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Speaker 3: Because he could be with Melissa.

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Speaker 2: With so much money unaccounted for, the possibility that Alan

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Speaker 2: might have faked his own death, however unlikely, is one

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Speaker 2: that I can't ignore. So I decide to investigate. I'm

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Speaker 2: Alex Turner Cohen, a finance and investigative reporter from News

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Speaker 2: dot com dot Au.

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Speaker 3: And you're listening to the Missing forty nine Million.

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Speaker 2: This is episode seven resurrection.

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Speaker 3: So where do I start.

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Speaker 2: I reach out to a man who knows exactly what

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Speaker 2: to do.

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Speaker 8: I'm Ken Gamble, the executive chairman of IFW Glibel. We're

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Speaker 8: a private intelligence firm that specializes in financial crime, and

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Speaker 8: asset recovery.

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Speaker 2: Ken Gamble has worked for twenty five years tracking money

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Speaker 2: and fraudsters.

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Speaker 3: Around the world.

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Speaker 2: The Queenslander is a hard man to pin down for

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Speaker 2: a chat. I have to wait a month to interview him,

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Speaker 2: as he was in the Philippines helping out with police

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Speaker 2: raids to shut down a group of crypto scammers. It

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Speaker 2: leads to thirty five arrests. We finally meet in my

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Speaker 2: office when he's in Sydney on his way back from

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Speaker 2: the raids in a suit. He's relaxed and confident. I'm

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Speaker 2: definitely not the first journalist he's spoken to.

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Speaker 8: We've taken on this kind of role as a frontline

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Speaker 8: international scam busting company, and a lot of my work

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Speaker 8: in recent years has been around financial fraudsters and con

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Speaker 8: men and those types of people. Probably one of the

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Speaker 8: most highly exposed cases that I've worked on as the

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Speaker 8: Peter Foster case, the notorious con man who I've been

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Speaker 8: responsible for sending him to prison a few times and

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Speaker 8: recovering a lot of money from him. And there's been

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Speaker 8: some very controversial stories about him trying to get me

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Speaker 8: killed and all sorts of things. So I've done a

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Speaker 8: lot of different sorts of work. I've just come back

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Speaker 8: from a raid in the Philippines two weeks ago. Every

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Speaker 8: few months now, we're arresting someone somewhere for some sort

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Speaker 8: of scams.

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Speaker 2: Ken works with the police across several different countries, sharing evidence,

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Speaker 2: but he doesn't actually arrest people himself. And if there's

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Speaker 2: anyone who might be able to help me figure out

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Speaker 2: if Alan is still secretly alive, it's Ken Gamble.

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Speaker 3: I jump right into.

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Speaker 2: The concept of faking your own death. My first question

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Speaker 2: is simple, is it even possible and does it really happen.

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Speaker 8: I've worked on cases where people have disappeared and believed

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Speaker 8: to be deceased. In fact, we have a very large

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Speaker 8: one right now. He's a con man that disappeared in

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Speaker 8: two thousand and seven. A lot of people believe that

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Speaker 8: he's dead, but he's not dead, and we've found him

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Speaker 8: in Vietnam recently. He's just living under a different name.

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Speaker 8: So he's a person who wants the world to believe

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Speaker 8: that he's dead, but he's not. He actually assumed the

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Speaker 8: identity of a dead person. But he's a criminal mastermind,

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Speaker 8: speaks six languages. You know, this guy is real smart,

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Speaker 8: real clever, So I don't think that the average person

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Speaker 8: can do it. You have to be extremely clever and

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Speaker 8: you have to have a lot of discipline to be

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Speaker 8: able to fake your own death, because you know, you've

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Speaker 8: got to cut everything out of your life, even family.

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Speaker 8: You have to start again somewhere under a new assumed identity.

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Speaker 8: And once you do that, there's always a risk that

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Speaker 8: something's going to come undone like that photograph that could

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Speaker 8: be published. For example, if you're going to travel, you

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Speaker 8: have to go through borders. Even airports have facial recognition

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Speaker 8: software now, so we're living in an age now where

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Speaker 8: your digital footprint is absolutely everywhere.

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Speaker 2: As a private investigator, if someone was believed dead, what

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Speaker 2: would make you think that they might not be well?

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Speaker 8: It would depend on the circumstances of their alleged death.

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Speaker 8: So what we would investigate is the alleged death. Where

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Speaker 8: did it happen, How did it happen, who was involved?

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Speaker 8: You know, that's really the point to investigate. And there

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Speaker 8: have been some very famous cases where people have allegedly

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Speaker 8: died in India on a motorbike accident, for example, there's

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Speaker 8: a death certificate, there's all sorts of stuff, and that

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Speaker 8: it turns out to be fraudulent, So we would start

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Speaker 8: by investigating the circumstances surrounding the alleged death to find

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Speaker 8: out whether or not there might be forged documentation. We'd

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Speaker 8: have to check the authenticity of a death certificate, did

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Speaker 8: it really happen, was there any witnesses, you know, that

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Speaker 8: sort of thing, and if it turned out to be

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Speaker 8: fraudulent documents where you're dealing straight away with someone who's

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Speaker 8: faked their death.

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Speaker 2: In Queensland, where Alan died, death certificates are only available

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Speaker 2: to family members, so as a journalist, I can't apply

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Speaker 2: to view it, but I can look at the circumstances

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Speaker 2: of his death. Many people have told me during this

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Speaker 2: investigation that his sudden heart attack wasn't surprising.

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Speaker 5: It didn't particularly shock me.

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Speaker 2: This is Michael Blake, the former footballer and investor that

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Speaker 2: we've heard from many times throughout this series, who invested

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Speaker 2: three hundred thousand and raised another one million dollars for

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Speaker 2: Safe Worlds. If Alan has faked his own death and

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Speaker 2: he's living off the money, then people like Michael of

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Speaker 2: the victims. Michael had got to know Alan pretty well.

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Speaker 5: By the end of his life, he didn't look healthy

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Speaker 5: and I spent a lot of time with him, and

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Speaker 5: he had to wait on him in that right. But

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Speaker 5: it wasn't because he's a big eater or anything like that.

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Speaker 5: But he used to go with out meals and have

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Speaker 5: biscuits and coffee and tea and stuff like that. But

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Speaker 5: it wasn't because he was a big eater. But everything

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Speaker 5: got put on it as body fat. And because say

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Speaker 5: if he was in Australia, he'd be doing a lot

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Speaker 5: of phone calls in America and that'd be up. You know,

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Speaker 5: he probably didn't sleep a lot. He was always working

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Speaker 5: and he skipped meals because he didn't have time because

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Speaker 5: always going to a meeting in that but there's always

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Speaker 5: a biscuit around, so you have a biscuit or whatever,

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Speaker 5: you know, which is an ideal.

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Speaker 2: Michael thinks that hard working lifestyle eventually caught up with Alan.

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Speaker 5: You know, he just wanted to get up and going

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Speaker 5: and that was his dream or his goal or whatever

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Speaker 5: for a long time, and unfortunately it cost him his

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Speaker 5: life too early.

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Speaker 3: So what have I learned so far?

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Speaker 2: Alan was a seventy year old man working long hours,

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Speaker 2: poor fitness, a bad diet, no sleep. None of this

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Speaker 2: raises red flags for me that Alan's hard to take

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Speaker 2: is suspicious.

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Speaker 3: I can suggest what I can do next.

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Speaker 8: From there, you would branch out into family. You'd start

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Speaker 8: looking at their family members because of all people in

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Speaker 8: the world, when you fake your death, you want to

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Speaker 8: stay in touch with someone, your favorite uncle, your mum,

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Speaker 8: and your dad. You normally want to let at least

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Speaker 8: one person in your family know that you're okay. And

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Speaker 8: that also creates a vulnerability for the subject because they

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Speaker 8: may slip up and want to ring mum one day,

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Speaker 8: and you know the phone could be tapped or whatever,

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Speaker 8: depending on the situation. So I think that the family

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Speaker 8: circle would be that the second place we'd start looking.

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Speaker 2: I've contacted Alan's immediate family already. As you know, my

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Speaker 2: attempts with his wife, Mary have been far from successful.

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Speaker 2: She spoke at Alan's funeral and was quite upset. I

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Speaker 2: also got hold of the email address of Alan's only child,

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Speaker 2: Clayton Metcalf, but never heard back throughout my investigation.

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Speaker 8: And also the communications of that person prior to the death,

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Speaker 8: their phone records, their emails. Have a look at the

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Speaker 8: circumstances surrounding the lead up to their alleged death, where

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Speaker 8: they suddenly in extreme financial pressure. Was there something happening

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Speaker 8: in their life where they had to disappear. Was there

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Speaker 8: an insurance policy involved? Were their circumstances that are questionable

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Speaker 8: or suspicious? These are all the things that we look

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Speaker 8: at as an investigator to try to understand whether there

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Speaker 8: were the three main things that are connected to every crime,

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Speaker 8: the means, the motive, and the opportunity for that person

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Speaker 8: to fake their own death.

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Speaker 2: Alarms are going off in my mind because Alan would

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Speaker 2: have certainly had motives.

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Speaker 3: Before he died.

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Speaker 2: Safe Worlds was crumbling, people were chasing the business over debts,

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Speaker 2: and the company he had ceased operating with no staff left,

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Speaker 2: and the website was no longer live. Investors were asking

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Speaker 2: hard questions about where their money had gone, and some

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Speaker 2: were already calling it out as a scam, while others

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Speaker 2: had tipped off authorities. On top of that, Australia's corporate

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Speaker 2: regulator ACIK was closing in. Alan's office and home had

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Speaker 2: been raided by ACIK and the Australian Federal Police twice.

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Speaker 2: The most recent raid happened just a month before his

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Speaker 2: fatal heart attack.

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Speaker 3: There's little doubt.

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Speaker 2: In my mind that Alan would have been feeling the pressure.

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Speaker 2: As for the means, well, there is millions unaccounted for

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Speaker 2: forty nine million dollars worth of people's life savings that

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Speaker 2: had disappeared where into safe worlds, the Cayman Islands, somewhere else.

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Speaker 2: And with that amount of money, Ken says, the possibilities

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Speaker 2: are limitless.

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Speaker 8: Once you have money, you can do anything. That's the

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Speaker 8: bottom line. It's all about money. With money, you can

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Speaker 8: buy fake identities, you can set yourself up somewhere securely,

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Speaker 8: you can hire security, you can do all those things

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Speaker 8: that will keep you occupied and keep you out of

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Speaker 8: the prying eyes of the public. Basically, so you can

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Speaker 8: live on an island somewhere. You can live in Vietnam

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Speaker 8: pretending to be a retired British military figure or something,

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Speaker 8: and everybody just takes it for granted and nobody ever

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Speaker 8: asked questions. So once you have money, you're set for life.

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Speaker 2: What I'm learning here is that it makes more sense

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Speaker 2: to think Alan would have faked his own death only

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Speaker 2: if he stole and kept the forty nine million, rather

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Speaker 2: than faking his own death to avoid the consequences of

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Speaker 2: losing that money by being a bad businessman. Because it

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Speaker 2: would be much harder to hide if he didn't have

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Speaker 2: that money behind him.

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Speaker 8: If you don't have money, on the other hand, and

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Speaker 8: you don't have those resources, you're going to have to

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Speaker 8: rely upon trying to make money. You're going to have

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Speaker 8: to come in contact with a lot more people. You're

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Speaker 8: going to have to try and get work and get

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Speaker 8: jobs or get people to help you, or you have

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Speaker 8: to travel. You're opening up the vulnerabilities a lot more so.

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Speaker 2: Just say I was looking to fake my own death.

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Speaker 2: What level of money are we talking about as a

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Speaker 2: stab in the dark. Are we talking millions or multiple millions?

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Speaker 8: No, I wouldn't say millions. I'd say several hundred thousand

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Speaker 8: at least to start with, to be able to set

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Speaker 8: up a situation where I mean, look at fake passport.

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Speaker 8: You can get that for ten thousand dollars over in Thailand. Drivers' licenses.

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Speaker 8: You can go on the dark web now and you

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Speaker 8: can get your whole new identity. You can get drivers licenses, passports,

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Speaker 8: and the passports look real, they're almost identical, but you

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Speaker 8: can't travel on them because the code on the passport

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Speaker 8: doesn't work. But you know, you could be looking at

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Speaker 8: anything up to ten thousand dollars maybe cheap. A fake

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Speaker 8: driver's license two thousand dollars in Thailand, identical to a

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Speaker 8: new South Wales driver's license. But I would say, you know,

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Speaker 8: a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars or

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Speaker 8: something to be able to get yourself set up somewhere

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Speaker 8: so that you could at least vanish. And then of

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Speaker 8: course you need ongoing income. You need to be able

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Speaker 8: to live and survive. If you want to disappear for

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Speaker 8: another twenty years. Depending on the age of the person,

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Speaker 8: they may have to consider having enough money to keep

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Speaker 8: them going for that long. So that could go in

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Speaker 8: the millions.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so I can't fake my own death anytime soon.

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Speaker 2: I'm just a few hundred thousand dollars short. But what

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Speaker 2: about the actual death part itself in a fake death scenario?

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Speaker 2: Ken has said his investigation would depend on if there

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Speaker 2: were witnesses or not.

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Speaker 3: So do people.

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Speaker 2: Literally orchestrate a scene where it looks like they've died

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Speaker 2: or pay off witnesses to say so, or can they

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Speaker 2: report it somewhere and just get a certificate?

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Speaker 3: I asked Ken about this.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, so in a lot of countries you can easily

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Speaker 8: pay people to provide decertificates, money buys anything in third

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Speaker 8: world countries. So there is a famous case about a

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Speaker 8: guy who was ind than a Cryptoponsi scheme for hundreds

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Speaker 8: of millions of dollars, and he was suspected of faking

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Speaker 8: his own death in India.

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Speaker 2: Ken is referring to Jerry Cotton, the Canadian CEO of

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Speaker 2: a cryptocurrency exchange that turned out to be a massive

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Speaker 2: Ponzi scheme. And if I think that Alan had an

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Speaker 2: incentive to fake his own death, well then this guy

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Speaker 2: certainly did. Jerry Cotton left seventy six thousand people out

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Speaker 2: of a quarter of a billion dollars when he died

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Speaker 2: suddenly in twenty eighteen. He was holidaying in India at

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Speaker 2: the time and was only thirty years old. His death

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Speaker 2: was caused apparently from a freak medical episode involving septic shock.

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Speaker 2: He took the secrets of his crypto kingdom to the

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Speaker 2: grave with him. Cotton's death has prompted a wild slew

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Speaker 2: of conspiracy theories and even a whole podcast looking into him.

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Speaker 2: Ken thinks there's learnings to be made from this case

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Speaker 2: when it comes to Alan Metcalf.

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Speaker 8: The circumstances around his alleged death were suspicious. There's no witnesses.

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Speaker 8: The certificate was issued. It was a genuine death certificate,

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Speaker 8: but someone may have been paid to issue a genuine certificate.

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Speaker 8: So you may not even be dealing with a fraudulent

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Speaker 8: death certificate. You could be dealing with a real one.

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Speaker 8: Countries like the Philippines, you could easily create an accident report,

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Speaker 8: get someone corrupt in the police to attend an accident

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Speaker 8: a motorbike. You could run a motorbike into a tree,

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Speaker 8: and that person could fill that out with the person's name,

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Speaker 8: and they could actually officially declare the person dead. And

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Speaker 8: you could pay off the medical people or the local

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Speaker 8: hospital to say that you were deceased. I mean, money

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Speaker 8: will buy this kind of stuff. People will do it.

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Speaker 8: They'll forge the documents, they'll forge your funeral. It's possible,

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Speaker 8: but the more people you involve, the higher the risk

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Speaker 8: of being compromised. There's an array of places in the

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Speaker 8: world where you can go, countries Africa, Third World countries,

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Speaker 8: in Southeast Asia, even Middle Eastern countries. There's so many

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Speaker 8: places you could go and create a trail of forged

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Speaker 8: documents if necessary. But you'd only do that if you

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Speaker 8: were going to make a claim, you know, if there's

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Speaker 8: going to be an insurance payout or It really depends

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Speaker 8: on the circumstances. But there's a whole array of things

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Speaker 8: that one can do if you've got money.

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Speaker 2: I can't find out anything about Alan and his life insurance.

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Speaker 2: That's all protected information that I can't access. What I

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Speaker 2: can tell you is that Mary is not living like

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Speaker 2: a woman who's inherited a great deal of money. When

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Speaker 2: I visited her at her rental in Queensland, it was

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Speaker 2: a modest home and there aren't any other indicators of

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Speaker 2: having extravagant purchases. And on Ken's other point, if Alan

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Speaker 2: did fake his death, then he took the higher risk

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Speaker 2: option of having a funeral, meaning lots of people were involved,

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Speaker 2: making the risk of getting compromised even higher. If he

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Speaker 2: had done that, it would be likely at least one

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Speaker 2: of those people would have let something slip. I've been

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Speaker 2: looking into this for a year now and I've heard

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Speaker 2: nothing other than rumors.

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Speaker 3: Michael Blaze thought the funeral was legitimate.

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Speaker 2: He even carried the coffin, and he says it wasn't light.

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Speaker 2: How many people had to carry the coffin. Was there

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Speaker 2: like four of you or was there more?

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Speaker 4: No?

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Speaker 5: I think there might have been eight to ten.

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Speaker 2: About that. I've seen the footage of Alan's funeral and

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Speaker 2: it looked real, and I have no actual evidence to

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Speaker 2: believe it's faked. But other things do seem like red flags,

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Speaker 2: like the way Alan's set up offshore companies in notorious

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Speaker 2: tax havens. I tell Ken about Alan's links to the

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Speaker 2: Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands and ask are

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Speaker 2: they a good place to escape to?

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Speaker 8: No, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, those countries are

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Speaker 8: not the place you'd go if you're going to fake

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Speaker 8: your death because they're small. They're too small, and when

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Speaker 8: you're in a very small country, everyone's going to know

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Speaker 8: you very quickly, particularly a new face on the block.

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Speaker 8: It's too dangerous to go to a place like that. Plus,

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Speaker 8: those countries are also regulated. There's a good rule of

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Speaker 8: law there. They're very popular places for people to have

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Speaker 8: offshore bank accounts, but not go there, not physically go there.

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Speaker 8: If someone was going to fake your death, you'd go

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Speaker 8: to somewhere like the Philippines. Philippine islands. For example, Thailand,

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Speaker 8: Thailand and Philippines and Indonesia would be the three most

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Speaker 8: common countries in Southeast Asia where people go that don't

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Speaker 8: want to be found. And we know that because we've

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Speaker 8: found so many fugitives in these countries. Cambodia as well,

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Speaker 8: but Cambodia is not as big, not as much space

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Speaker 8: to move around. Thailand, indonesiaan and Philippines certainly in this

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Speaker 8: region of the world would be the number one places

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Speaker 8: to go.

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Speaker 2: So Southeast Asia is the best place to go. And

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Speaker 2: those countries are just as stones throw away from Australia.

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Speaker 2: Did Alan have any connections there? Not that I can see.

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Speaker 2: And there is another obstacle that comes with attempting to

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Speaker 2: leave the country. Even if you managed to find documents

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Speaker 2: that could get you through customs, there's the risk of

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Speaker 2: facial recognition. It's a technology that can relies on.

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Speaker 8: The big breakthrough is facial recognition technology and biometrics. You know, fingerprinting,

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Speaker 8: and you go to Bangkok, any of these countries, Thailand,

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Speaker 8: You've got to put your fingerprint in. So it is

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Speaker 8: really becoming increasingly more difficult and governments have been more

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Speaker 8: vigilant to this type of crime, of people moving across

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Speaker 8: borders that may have false identity. So I think it's

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Speaker 8: a risky thing to do, and I think it's only

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Speaker 8: going to get better and easier for people like us.

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Speaker 8: We're having this sort of commercially available, you know, search

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Speaker 8: engines and this sort of technology to be able to

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Speaker 8: find these types of people.

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Speaker 2: Ken's private detective business has a subscription to this software

392
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Speaker 2: called Pimies, which allows him to do this kind of

393
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Speaker 2: search by matching the face with any other image of

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Speaker 2: the person posted online. It's much better than reverse image

395
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Speaker 2: search on Google. Once Ken ran a search and got

396
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Speaker 2: a hit on a Russian man present dead who'd actually

397
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Speaker 2: been hiding out in Thailand for years. After our interview,

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Speaker 2: as I walk Can out of the building, I ask

399
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Speaker 2: him if he's willing to run Alan's photograph through this program,

400
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Speaker 2: and he agrees, so I send him through a grainy

401
00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:15,399
Speaker 2: photo of Alan.

402
00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:17,360
Speaker 3: Ken emails me.

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00:21:17,359 --> 00:21:20,800
Speaker 2: Back the results. There's a brief moment of excitement when

404
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:23,280
Speaker 2: I realize he's had a hit and it's for a

405
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:27,240
Speaker 2: photo that's been taken since February twenty seventeen, the date

406
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 2: of Alan's death. But it's a false result. The man

407
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:35,439
Speaker 2: though similar is definitely not Alan. But stranger than that,

408
00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:38,640
Speaker 2: Ken says was the lack of photos of Allan online

409
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Speaker 2: at all. That false positive is the only photo at

410
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Speaker 2: all that the program picked up of the late Alan Metcalf.

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Speaker 3: We jump online to discuss this. I ask him if that's.

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Speaker 8: Unusual, very unusual, absolutely, you know, someone that has been

413
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Speaker 8: spooking a company like this and has been making the

414
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:00,639
Speaker 8: type of claims that he's making. I'm very surprised that

415
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:02,440
Speaker 8: there's not more photos. There should be a bunch of

416
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:06,879
Speaker 8: photos of him online. You know, normally these things end

417
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:10,160
Speaker 8: up in some sort of articles. It's a controversial subject

418
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Speaker 8: that he's talking about. So when someone speaks about something controversial,

419
00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:17,800
Speaker 8: there's always a lot of people that want to post

420
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Speaker 8: about that. So I'm surprised there's not more images of

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00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 8: this guy on the internet. That to me kind of

422
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:24,359
Speaker 8: was a red flag.

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Speaker 2: So what do you think that means when there's just

424
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 2: not many pictures of them on the internet.

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Speaker 8: Well, one thing it means is that someone may have

426
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Speaker 8: changed their identity, their real identity. They could have changed

427
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,679
Speaker 8: their name, they could have had a criminal record, and

428
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Speaker 8: they could have suddenly sprung up under a brand new identity.

429
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Speaker 8: For a person his age to not have any images

430
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Speaker 8: on Google, which has been in operation now for over

431
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 8: thirty years, that's unusual. The other reason why somebody's photos

432
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 8: would have disappeared is that they can hire an internet

433
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,280
Speaker 8: clean up company and they can get their images removed.

434
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Speaker 8: I mean people can do that. It's a red flag,

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00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:06,919
Speaker 8: and I tend to think that there's some reason that

436
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:10,200
Speaker 8: we don't know about why he has either cleaned up

437
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 8: his image on the Internet or why he doesn't have

438
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:15,199
Speaker 8: more published photos. A man of his age and with

439
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:19,760
Speaker 8: his alleged credentials, I'm very surprised that there's nothing more there.

440
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 8: So I think if you dug deeper, I think you

441
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 8: would find that there may be some adverse reason why

442
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 8: he's not there.

443
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:31,159
Speaker 2: But I have dug deeply into Alan's history and I

444
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 2: don't think the situation Ken's describing applies here. I found

445
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 2: information and photos from when Alan was quite young, not

446
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,400
Speaker 2: to mention the numerous YouTube videos he made. The other

447
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:47,679
Speaker 2: option is internet cleanup companies otherwise known as reputation management services.

448
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 2: I do some research and learn they work in a

449
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 2: number of ways. Most of them have a goal of

450
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 2: driving negative search results about their clients off the first

451
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 2: page or two of Google, as very few people will

452
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 2: ever look past that. They do this in a variety

453
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,679
Speaker 2: of ways. Some will create new positive blog posts and

454
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 2: articles about you designed to reach the top of Google

455
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:12,680
Speaker 2: and push the negative results further down. Others issued takedown

456
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 2: notices and copyright claims to have content removed from news articles.

457
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 2: There are a number of these services in Australia, and

458
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 2: precisely zero of them are willing to talk to me.

459
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 2: It's hardly surprising given the nature of their jobs. While

460
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,920
Speaker 2: Alan's use of one of these services is entirely possible,

461
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 2: I can't prove it one way or the other, and

462
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 2: so I find myself at another dead end. To answer

463
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 2: the question that many have whispered about, is Alan dead?

464
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 3: I believe he is.

465
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 2: While there might have been motive and means to disappear,

466
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 2: there are no signs of life, no suspicious trails of money,

467
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,400
Speaker 2: no flags on facial recognition searches. His death was, by

468
00:24:55,480 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 2: all accounts, unsurprising. There's nothing substantial to suggest he managed

469
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:02,919
Speaker 2: to vanish to a level that has been undetectable in

470
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 2: the modern world. This was one of the many rabbit

471
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 2: holes I've gone down in search of the missing millions,

472
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 2: and I'm running out of.

473
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 3: Theories to prove or disprove.

474
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 2: But there's one more possibility and it involves us megachurches

475
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 2: and ex President Donald Trump. Next episode is my final

476
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 2: chance to find the money before it slips through my fingers.

477
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 8: No Mighty better take control of this country.

478
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 2: And if the politicians are not going to do it,

479
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:37,880
Speaker 2: I fear that citizens are in the first beginning.

480
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 6: If America embraces this technology, the American dream of life, liberty,

481
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 6: and the pursuit of personal happiness can be given to

482
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,400
Speaker 6: the world to enshrine the American dream forever.

483
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 7: A lot of the money involved in American politics as

484
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 7: a scam, which is probably a particular to you guys

485
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 7: as well. The very very common thing in American politics

486
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 7: is they find someone who is rather naive. There's a

487
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 7: lot of money, you can believe that if they donate money,

488
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 7: they'll get something, and then the money just gets parketed.

489
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: I just kept thinking of myself, there's money vanishing here

490
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: for sure.

491
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. A new episode is coming out weekly.

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00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 2: Wherever you get your podcasts, make sure you subscribe so

493
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 2: you don't miss an episode. Head to news Dot com

494
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 2: dot Au to read more of my reporting on this story.

495
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 3: Do you know more?

496
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 2: Get in touch through our dedicated tip inbox Missing Millions

497
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 2: at news dot com dot au or contact me directly

498
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 2: on Alex dot Turner, Dash Cohen at news dot com dodau,

499
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 2: or look me up on Twitter to get my details.

500
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:42,439
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen. Nina Young is the

501
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:47,160
Speaker 2: executive producer, sound design and editing by Tiffany Dimack. Our

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00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 2: editorial director is Dan Box. Grant McAvaney is our legal advisor,

503
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:54,640
Speaker 2: and Kerry Warren is the editor of news dot com

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00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 2: Today U