WEBVTT - Resurrection | 7 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.360 I can only see two other possibilities. There's a hidden 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:08.840 partner as a hidden partner, there's a hidden partner. There's 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:13.040 somebody else involved in this. Potentially is the other person 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:14.920 the spider at the central of the web, the center 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.840 of the web central. So did Alan in fact have 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:24.280 a hidden benefactor who effectively was the de facto silent boss. 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.840 So if that was the case, then you have to 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:33.960 assume that he's a co signatory of the bank accounts 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.680 and he or she have got the money, have got money. 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.000 So that's the first thing that comes to my mind, 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:45.280 is that there's someone else involved behind the scenes who 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.559 has somehow benefited from this. The only other alternative is 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.840 that he's not dead, and that he's in fact living 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.080 off the money, living off the money, living off the money. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.680 Forty nine million dollars vanished into the ether, hundreds of 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.920 There's a world changing algorithm supposedly in a safe in 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.280 a secret location, and a charismatic fraudster who died suddenly 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.120 while the heat was on him. It's the stuff of 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.200 a Hollywood blockbuster. If it were a movie, it might 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.480 end with the money shot of Alan Metcalf sipping on 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:22.319 a cocktail on a remote beach somewhere, alive and well, 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:29.720 living off his hidden fortune. A fake death is not 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.920 just a common movie device. It's also a rumor that 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:34.920 has plagued other similar cases. 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.080 Look at Melissa Kaddick, the. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:41.160 Sydney fraudster who disappeared in November twenty twenty, shortly after 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.920 she was raided by ACIK and the Australian Federal Police. 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:46.240 A few months later. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.440 Melissa's decomposing foot washed up on a South Coast beach. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.920 In twenty twenty three. A coroner declared Kadok deceased, but 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.080 rumors of her faking her own death continued to this day. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.680 Alan Metcalf's death has also caused similar whispers. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.920 Yeah, there were that he's not dead, that he's realized 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:08.679 he's taking the money and ran. 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.640 But no, that's that's not right. 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:12.839 It can't be right. 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.000 I heard it somewhere, maybe someone said as a joke, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.079 but maybe the roomor got around, but people said, mate, 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.400 he's probably over there and enjoying his money over some 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:22.359 island somewhere. 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.560 And the investor did right back and said, I hope 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.480 it's going to be an open casket. And people are like, 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.720 that's pretty heavy thing. To say, But now looking back 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.400 at it, he probably had every right to ask because 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.200 I don't know. No one knows exactly if he's one 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.120 hundred percent dead. There's no been, no definitif to get 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:46.240 proven to any investors, anything like that. And yeah, it's 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:47.160 it's all up in the air. 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.399 No, We're just a couple of people that I got 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.360 involved in just a are you sure he's dead? Should 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.160 we go and dig up the coffin? 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:59.560 And some people tell me, I wonder if he really died? 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:01.760 You think do you think he really died? 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:03.640 Or who knows? 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:08.280 Because he could be with Melissa. 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:12.520 With so much money unaccounted for, the possibility that Alan 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.079 might have faked his own death, however unlikely, is one 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.959 that I can't ignore. So I decide to investigate. I'm 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.480 Alex Turner Cohen, a finance and investigative reporter from News 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:24.520 dot com dot Au. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.120 And you're listening to the Missing forty nine Million. 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:39.400 This is episode seven resurrection. 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:43.280 So where do I start. 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.040 I reach out to a man who knows exactly what 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:46.520 to do. 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:51.320 I'm Ken Gamble, the executive chairman of IFW Glibel. We're 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.120 a private intelligence firm that specializes in financial crime, and 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:56.000 asset recovery. 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.400 Ken Gamble has worked for twenty five years tracking money 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:01.840 and fraudsters. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:02.080 Around the world. 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.160 The Queenslander is a hard man to pin down for 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.119 a chat. I have to wait a month to interview him, 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.560 as he was in the Philippines helping out with police 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.160 raids to shut down a group of crypto scammers. It 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.760 leads to thirty five arrests. We finally meet in my 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.080 office when he's in Sydney on his way back from 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.160 the raids in a suit. He's relaxed and confident. I'm 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.400 definitely not the first journalist he's spoken to. 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.160 We've taken on this kind of role as a frontline 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.599 international scam busting company, and a lot of my work 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.559 in recent years has been around financial fraudsters and con 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.320 men and those types of people. Probably one of the 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.359 most highly exposed cases that I've worked on as the 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.440 Peter Foster case, the notorious con man who I've been 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.440 responsible for sending him to prison a few times and 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:53.680 recovering a lot of money from him. And there's been 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.240 some very controversial stories about him trying to get me 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.600 killed and all sorts of things. So I've done a 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.880 lot of different sorts of work. I've just come back 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.000 from a raid in the Philippines two weeks ago. Every 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.520 few months now, we're arresting someone somewhere for some sort 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:10.120 of scams. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.640 Ken works with the police across several different countries, sharing evidence, 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.920 but he doesn't actually arrest people himself. And if there's 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.000 anyone who might be able to help me figure out 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:23.480 if Alan is still secretly alive, it's Ken Gamble. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:25.440 I jump right into. 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.400 The concept of faking your own death. My first question 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.320 is simple, is it even possible and does it really happen. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.200 I've worked on cases where people have disappeared and believed 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.279 to be deceased. In fact, we have a very large 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.200 one right now. He's a con man that disappeared in 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.880 two thousand and seven. A lot of people believe that 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:45.800 he's dead, but he's not dead, and we've found him 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.680 in Vietnam recently. He's just living under a different name. 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.480 So he's a person who wants the world to believe 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.960 that he's dead, but he's not. He actually assumed the 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.360 identity of a dead person. But he's a criminal mastermind, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.840 speaks six languages. You know, this guy is real smart, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.520 real clever, So I don't think that the average person 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.200 can do it. You have to be extremely clever and 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.960 you have to have a lot of discipline to be 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.640 able to fake your own death, because you know, you've 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.000 got to cut everything out of your life, even family. 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:22.240 You have to start again somewhere under a new assumed identity. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.880 And once you do that, there's always a risk that 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.280 something's going to come undone like that photograph that could 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.640 be published. For example, if you're going to travel, you 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.000 have to go through borders. Even airports have facial recognition 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.960 software now, so we're living in an age now where 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.479 your digital footprint is absolutely everywhere. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.440 As a private investigator, if someone was believed dead, what 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.880 would make you think that they might not be well? 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.799 It would depend on the circumstances of their alleged death. 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.479 So what we would investigate is the alleged death. Where 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.800 did it happen, How did it happen, who was involved? 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.240 You know, that's really the point to investigate. And there 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:05.120 have been some very famous cases where people have allegedly 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.600 died in India on a motorbike accident, for example, there's 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.240 a death certificate, there's all sorts of stuff, and that 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.880 it turns out to be fraudulent, So we would start 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:16.600 by investigating the circumstances surrounding the alleged death to find 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.280 out whether or not there might be forged documentation. We'd 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.400 have to check the authenticity of a death certificate, did 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:24.520 it really happen, was there any witnesses, you know, that 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.400 sort of thing, and if it turned out to be 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.520 fraudulent documents where you're dealing straight away with someone who's 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:31.200 faked their death. 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:36.520 In Queensland, where Alan died, death certificates are only available 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.600 to family members, so as a journalist, I can't apply 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.960 to view it, but I can look at the circumstances 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.760 of his death. Many people have told me during this 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.120 investigation that his sudden heart attack wasn't surprising. 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:50.840 It didn't particularly shock me. 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.640 This is Michael Blake, the former footballer and investor that 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.040 we've heard from many times throughout this series, who invested 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.120 three hundred thousand and raised another one million dollars for 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.520 Safe Worlds. If Alan has faked his own death and 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.320 he's living off the money, then people like Michael of 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.880 the victims. Michael had got to know Alan pretty well. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.840 By the end of his life, he didn't look healthy 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.080 and I spent a lot of time with him, and 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:17.560 he had to wait on him in that right. But 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.960 it wasn't because he's a big eater or anything like that. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.480 But he used to go with out meals and have 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.880 biscuits and coffee and tea and stuff like that. But 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:27.880 it wasn't because he was a big eater. But everything 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.640 got put on it as body fat. And because say 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:32.200 if he was in Australia, he'd be doing a lot 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.640 of phone calls in America and that'd be up. You know, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.880 he probably didn't sleep a lot. He was always working 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.000 and he skipped meals because he didn't have time because 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:40.840 always going to a meeting in that but there's always 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:42.800 a biscuit around, so you have a biscuit or whatever, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:44.280 you know, which is an ideal. 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.120 Michael thinks that hard working lifestyle eventually caught up with Alan. 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:50.960 You know, he just wanted to get up and going 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.240 and that was his dream or his goal or whatever 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.680 for a long time, and unfortunately it cost him his 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:57.560 life too early. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:00.560 So what have I learned so far? 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.320 Alan was a seventy year old man working long hours, 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.400 poor fitness, a bad diet, no sleep. None of this 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.880 raises red flags for me that Alan's hard to take 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:11.920 is suspicious. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:14.199 I can suggest what I can do next. 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.680 From there, you would branch out into family. You'd start 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.360 looking at their family members because of all people in 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:23.800 the world, when you fake your death, you want to 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.040 stay in touch with someone, your favorite uncle, your mum, 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.080 and your dad. You normally want to let at least 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.559 one person in your family know that you're okay. And 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:37.920 that also creates a vulnerability for the subject because they 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.480 may slip up and want to ring mum one day, 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:42.959 and you know the phone could be tapped or whatever, 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.840 depending on the situation. So I think that the family 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.280 circle would be that the second place we'd start looking. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.840 I've contacted Alan's immediate family already. As you know, my 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.760 attempts with his wife, Mary have been far from successful. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.720 She spoke at Alan's funeral and was quite upset. I 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.760 also got hold of the email address of Alan's only child, 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.440 Clayton Metcalf, but never heard back throughout my investigation. 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.320 And also the communications of that person prior to the death, 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.640 their phone records, their emails. Have a look at the 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.120 circumstances surrounding the lead up to their alleged death, where 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.880 they suddenly in extreme financial pressure. Was there something happening 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.400 in their life where they had to disappear. Was there 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:31.040 an insurance policy involved? Were their circumstances that are questionable 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.800 or suspicious? These are all the things that we look 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:38.440 at as an investigator to try to understand whether there 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.120 were the three main things that are connected to every crime, 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.720 the means, the motive, and the opportunity for that person 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:47.480 to fake their own death. 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.720 Alarms are going off in my mind because Alan would 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:53.679 have certainly had motives. 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:54.640 Before he died. 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:59.080 Safe Worlds was crumbling, people were chasing the business over debts, 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.640 and the company he had ceased operating with no staff left, 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.520 and the website was no longer live. Investors were asking 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.560 hard questions about where their money had gone, and some 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.439 were already calling it out as a scam, while others 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.800 had tipped off authorities. On top of that, Australia's corporate 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:21.160 regulator ACIK was closing in. Alan's office and home had 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.280 been raided by ACIK and the Australian Federal Police twice. 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.560 The most recent raid happened just a month before his 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:29.600 fatal heart attack. 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:31.640 There's little doubt. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:33.880 In my mind that Alan would have been feeling the pressure. 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.880 As for the means, well, there is millions unaccounted for 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.200 forty nine million dollars worth of people's life savings that 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:46.920 had disappeared where into safe worlds, the Cayman Islands, somewhere else. 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.439 And with that amount of money, Ken says, the possibilities 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:52.280 are limitless. 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.679 Once you have money, you can do anything. That's the 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.640 bottom line. It's all about money. With money, you can 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.280 buy fake identities, you can set yourself up somewhere securely, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.240 you can hire security, you can do all those things 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:10.079 that will keep you occupied and keep you out of 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.520 the prying eyes of the public. Basically, so you can 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.479 live on an island somewhere. You can live in Vietnam 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.520 pretending to be a retired British military figure or something, 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.800 and everybody just takes it for granted and nobody ever 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.600 asked questions. So once you have money, you're set for life. 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.199 What I'm learning here is that it makes more sense 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.079 to think Alan would have faked his own death only 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.400 if he stole and kept the forty nine million, rather 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.160 than faking his own death to avoid the consequences of 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.640 losing that money by being a bad businessman. Because it 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.120 would be much harder to hide if he didn't have 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:49.240 that money behind him. 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.440 If you don't have money, on the other hand, and 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.240 you don't have those resources, you're going to have to 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.240 rely upon trying to make money. You're going to have 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.640 to come in contact with a lot more people. You're 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.240 going to have to try and get work and get 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.920 jobs or get people to help you, or you have 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.720 to travel. You're opening up the vulnerabilities a lot more so. 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.400 Just say I was looking to fake my own death. 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.320 What level of money are we talking about as a 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.120 stab in the dark. Are we talking millions or multiple millions? 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.280 No, I wouldn't say millions. I'd say several hundred thousand 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.439 at least to start with, to be able to set 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:28.080 up a situation where I mean, look at fake passport. 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:33.319 You can get that for ten thousand dollars over in Thailand. Drivers' licenses. 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.480 You can go on the dark web now and you 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.400 can get your whole new identity. You can get drivers licenses, passports, 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.000 and the passports look real, they're almost identical, but you 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.920 can't travel on them because the code on the passport 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.560 doesn't work. But you know, you could be looking at 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.520 anything up to ten thousand dollars maybe cheap. A fake 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.720 driver's license two thousand dollars in Thailand, identical to a 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.400 new South Wales driver's license. But I would say, you know, 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.559 a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars or 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.280 something to be able to get yourself set up somewhere 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.760 so that you could at least vanish. And then of 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.079 course you need ongoing income. You need to be able 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.920 to live and survive. If you want to disappear for 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.400 another twenty years. Depending on the age of the person, 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.559 they may have to consider having enough money to keep 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.920 them going for that long. So that could go in 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:21.560 the millions. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.040 Okay, so I can't fake my own death anytime soon. 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.840 I'm just a few hundred thousand dollars short. But what 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.240 about the actual death part itself in a fake death scenario? 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.200 Ken has said his investigation would depend on if there 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:37.240 were witnesses or not. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:38.920 So do people. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.680 Literally orchestrate a scene where it looks like they've died 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.160 or pay off witnesses to say so, or can they 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.200 report it somewhere and just get a certificate? 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:48.720 I asked Ken about this. 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.360 Yeah, so in a lot of countries you can easily 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.520 pay people to provide decertificates, money buys anything in third 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.480 world countries. So there is a famous case about a 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.840 guy who was ind than a Cryptoponsi scheme for hundreds 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.680 of millions of dollars, and he was suspected of faking 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:06.800 his own death in India. 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.280 Ken is referring to Jerry Cotton, the Canadian CEO of 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.160 a cryptocurrency exchange that turned out to be a massive 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.560 Ponzi scheme. And if I think that Alan had an 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.840 incentive to fake his own death, well then this guy 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:25.960 certainly did. Jerry Cotton left seventy six thousand people out 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.280 of a quarter of a billion dollars when he died 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.360 suddenly in twenty eighteen. He was holidaying in India at 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.600 the time and was only thirty years old. His death 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.920 was caused apparently from a freak medical episode involving septic shock. 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.200 He took the secrets of his crypto kingdom to the 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.880 grave with him. Cotton's death has prompted a wild slew 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.280 of conspiracy theories and even a whole podcast looking into him. 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.440 Ken thinks there's learnings to be made from this case 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.440 when it comes to Alan Metcalf. 0:15:55.960 --> 0:16:00.960 The circumstances around his alleged death were suspicious. There's no witnesses. 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.400 The certificate was issued. It was a genuine death certificate, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.920 but someone may have been paid to issue a genuine certificate. 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.160 So you may not even be dealing with a fraudulent 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.280 death certificate. You could be dealing with a real one. 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:17.480 Countries like the Philippines, you could easily create an accident report, 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.680 get someone corrupt in the police to attend an accident 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.320 a motorbike. You could run a motorbike into a tree, 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.560 and that person could fill that out with the person's name, 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.120 and they could actually officially declare the person dead. And 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.720 you could pay off the medical people or the local 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.880 hospital to say that you were deceased. I mean, money 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.040 will buy this kind of stuff. People will do it. 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:44.440 They'll forge the documents, they'll forge your funeral. It's possible, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.680 but the more people you involve, the higher the risk 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.920 of being compromised. There's an array of places in the 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.800 world where you can go, countries Africa, Third World countries, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.280 in Southeast Asia, even Middle Eastern countries. There's so many 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.480 places you could go and create a trail of forged 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.080 documents if necessary. But you'd only do that if you 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.280 were going to make a claim, you know, if there's 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.119 going to be an insurance payout or It really depends 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.120 on the circumstances. But there's a whole array of things 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.240 that one can do if you've got money. 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:19.400 I can't find out anything about Alan and his life insurance. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.960 That's all protected information that I can't access. What I 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.000 can tell you is that Mary is not living like 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.840 a woman who's inherited a great deal of money. When 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.280 I visited her at her rental in Queensland, it was 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.480 a modest home and there aren't any other indicators of 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:38.320 having extravagant purchases. And on Ken's other point, if Alan 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.520 did fake his death, then he took the higher risk 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.560 option of having a funeral, meaning lots of people were involved, 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.480 making the risk of getting compromised even higher. If he 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.240 had done that, it would be likely at least one 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.560 of those people would have let something slip. I've been 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.800 looking into this for a year now and I've heard 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:58.440 nothing other than rumors. 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:01.800 Michael Blaze thought the funeral was legitimate. 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.240 He even carried the coffin, and he says it wasn't light. 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.280 How many people had to carry the coffin. Was there 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.600 like four of you or was there more? 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:11.879 No? 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:13.920 I think there might have been eight to ten. 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:19.000 About that. I've seen the footage of Alan's funeral and 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.040 it looked real, and I have no actual evidence to 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:26.080 believe it's faked. But other things do seem like red flags, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.399 like the way Alan's set up offshore companies in notorious 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.159 tax havens. I tell Ken about Alan's links to the 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.719 Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands and ask are 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:38.119 they a good place to escape to? 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.399 No, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, those countries are 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.400 not the place you'd go if you're going to fake 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:48.680 your death because they're small. They're too small, and when 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.919 you're in a very small country, everyone's going to know 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.000 you very quickly, particularly a new face on the block. 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.760 It's too dangerous to go to a place like that. Plus, 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:02.240 those countries are also regulated. There's a good rule of 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.560 law there. They're very popular places for people to have 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.960 offshore bank accounts, but not go there, not physically go there. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:10.720 If someone was going to fake your death, you'd go 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.399 to somewhere like the Philippines. Philippine islands. For example, Thailand, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.160 Thailand and Philippines and Indonesia would be the three most 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.680 common countries in Southeast Asia where people go that don't 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:24.440 want to be found. And we know that because we've 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:28.040 found so many fugitives in these countries. Cambodia as well, 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.439 but Cambodia is not as big, not as much space 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.639 to move around. Thailand, indonesiaan and Philippines certainly in this 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:37.919 region of the world would be the number one places 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:38.159 to go. 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.800 So Southeast Asia is the best place to go. And 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.719 those countries are just as stones throw away from Australia. 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.360 Did Alan have any connections there? Not that I can see. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.560 And there is another obstacle that comes with attempting to 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.840 leave the country. Even if you managed to find documents 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.520 that could get you through customs, there's the risk of 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.159 facial recognition. It's a technology that can relies on. 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:07.280 The big breakthrough is facial recognition technology and biometrics. You know, fingerprinting, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.600 and you go to Bangkok, any of these countries, Thailand, 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.399 You've got to put your fingerprint in. So it is 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.400 really becoming increasingly more difficult and governments have been more 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.400 vigilant to this type of crime, of people moving across 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.520 borders that may have false identity. So I think it's 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.520 a risky thing to do, and I think it's only 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.560 going to get better and easier for people like us. 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.960 We're having this sort of commercially available, you know, search 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.560 engines and this sort of technology to be able to 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:40.760 find these types of people. 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:46.119 Ken's private detective business has a subscription to this software 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.240 called Pimies, which allows him to do this kind of 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.720 search by matching the face with any other image of 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.000 the person posted online. It's much better than reverse image 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.520 search on Google. Once Ken ran a search and got 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.600 a hit on a Russian man present dead who'd actually 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.720 been hiding out in Thailand for years. After our interview, 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:08.240 as I walk Can out of the building, I ask 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.480 him if he's willing to run Alan's photograph through this program, 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.600 and he agrees, so I send him through a grainy 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:15.399