Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life the average persons never exposed her.
Speaker 1: I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty
Speaker 1: five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. The
Speaker 1: bad guys always target vulnerable people, and no one is
Speaker 1: more vulnerable than someone looking for love. When former detective
Speaker 1: Kylie Dennis found out her mum was a victim of
Speaker 1: a romance scam, she decided to use her skills as
Speaker 1: a detective to expose a scammer. Today, I speak with
Speaker 1: Kylie about her police career and the world of romance scammers.
Speaker 1: Working now as a private investigator, Kylie has made it
Speaker 1: her life ambition to expose the low lives behind those
Speaker 1: scams and stop them from taking advantage of vulnerable people.
Speaker 1: Have a listened to what she has to say. It
Speaker 1: will shock you and educate you about this growing despicable crime.
Speaker 1: Kylie Dennis, welcome to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad I like what we gets say they're
Speaker 1: excited to. It would be terrible if oh yeah, anyway, now,
Speaker 1: former detective, if you left the police you bought a pub, yes,
Speaker 1: and then became a private investigator and your main focus
Speaker 1: is romance scammers. Yes, absolutely, romance scams. Just give us
Speaker 1: a sense of what we're talking about. If someone says
Speaker 1: a romance scam, well.
Speaker 2: I sort of deal with that digital romance scam, the
Speaker 2: one that you go online dating profile, fake profile, You
Speaker 2: engage with that profile, believing it is who they represent
Speaker 2: themselves to be on a dating app, and then they
Speaker 2: take you off the dating app and take you into
Speaker 2: this dark world of conversations, and then you start engaging
Speaker 2: with them and then send money and your world is
Speaker 2: just destroyed in a very very basic way.
Speaker 1: The magnitude of it, I get the sense that a
Speaker 1: lot of times the romance scams, people don't want to
Speaker 1: put their hand up about it. You feel like an
Speaker 1: idiot if someone's someone scammed you, especially when you're vulnerable,
Speaker 1: you're looking for love or looking for a companionship. But
Speaker 1: what sort of scale are we talking about?
Speaker 2: Look for us now it's number three in Australia, so
Speaker 2: we've got the investments and then you've got business, email,
Speaker 2: compromise and then romance. So worldwide we're still talking in
Speaker 2: that top five scams worldwide, So we're talking billions of
Speaker 2: dollars long lost. But that's that's only what's recorded because
Speaker 2: I talk to a lot of victims, but they don't
Speaker 2: report it, so realistically, we don't actually know the financial
Speaker 2: extent and also the emotional extent, but the financial extent
Speaker 2: as to what's going on. So we know that it's
Speaker 2: you know, transnational organized crime. We know that the money
Speaker 2: is being utilized towards the drug trade, you know, weapons, whatever,
Speaker 2: but we don't actually know the actual extent of money
Speaker 2: being lost, and certainly in Australia, we don't know.
Speaker 1: And saying that you're not sure how much has been reported,
Speaker 1: I would imagine if I naively went online dating and
Speaker 1: was scammed. It's not the type of thing that you
Speaker 1: put your hand up.
Speaker 2: That's the hard part is that if you do get
Speaker 2: scammed very much, you're upset, you're embarrassed, and it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter whether it's And we spoke about shopping. I love
Speaker 2: online shopping. So I've been scammed with that, and I
Speaker 2: tell everybody about that, but I haven't reported that, so
Speaker 2: you know, and I wasn't embarrassed because that was my
Speaker 2: own silly fault with a glass of wine.
Speaker 1: But some of the best bargains are done when you've
Speaker 1: got a glass of wine and ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, yes, I've got to stop doing that.
Speaker 2: But that's a whole different podcast. So I didn't report
Speaker 2: that because I didn't need to report that, But I
Speaker 2: understand was someone who's lost one hundred thousand dollars, you know,
Speaker 2: that sense of shame because then they then talk about
Speaker 2: how stupid they are internally, not externally what we say
Speaker 2: as a community. So that's why they don't go and
Speaker 2: report because it's hard to sort of then relive it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you've got to go through the tick the boxes.
Speaker 1: Well we're not just talking financial loss here it's emotional.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's worse than the financial. So any victim
Speaker 2: will talk about the emotional loss, the loss of what
Speaker 2: they thought was somebody of importance in their life has
Speaker 2: now on. So for them it's yes, I have lost
Speaker 2: forty thousand, and that's devastating within the financial aspect, but
Speaker 2: I've also now lost who I am as a person.
Speaker 2: You know, what did I do wrong? So there's there
Speaker 2: becomes that self blame of I'm stupid, I'm dumb, you know,
Speaker 2: and we all do silly things in our life. But
Speaker 2: we can move on from that scam. Victims take a
Speaker 2: long time to actually accept that.
Speaker 1: Well, to be a victim, there's a vulnerability to start with,
Speaker 1: isn't it? And that and I'm talking in a general
Speaker 1: sense here, but if it's loneliness and someone's looking for companionship,
Speaker 1: they're not in a good starting point. And then to
Speaker 1: find that you have been manipulated, I can imagine that
Speaker 1: it would take a long time to reset your life
Speaker 1: after something like that.
Speaker 2: I would actually say, some of them, don't you know
Speaker 2: it is a real challenge because there's no there's no
Speaker 2: direct processes for them to go to, Like I you know,
Speaker 2: I will say to them, look, you know you need
Speaker 2: to go and seek help. Three your GP, go and
Speaker 2: find a counselor who is understanding of that trauma. You know,
Speaker 2: we've sent victims of crime to counselors when they've been
Speaker 2: severely assaulted, etc. And I think counselors can understand that.
Speaker 2: But this is like a this is a digital crime,
Speaker 2: so this is another another whole different world. So you
Speaker 2: try to get them down that path, but then they've
Speaker 2: sort of got to accept that they have been a
Speaker 2: victim of a crime to start off with. To then
Speaker 2: go and get help. You know, it's a real challenge
Speaker 2: to sort of get them out of that dark.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we fully appreciate it because quite
Speaker 1: often the times that you're exposed, unless it's someone that
Speaker 1: you know, to a romance scam, it's a segment on
Speaker 1: the Current Affair or a show like that. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure like all of us, and this is something that
Speaker 1: hopefully we dispel today when we discuss how cunning those
Speaker 1: scammers are, but we all sit there and think, how
Speaker 1: could that person be so stupid? Absolutely, yeah, it is
Speaker 1: it just women or men as.
Speaker 2: Well, both both, and I think it's equal within you know,
Speaker 2: we're not I might be talking fifty one forty nine
Speaker 2: that type of but it is an equal, an equal
Speaker 2: sort of playing field for both sides. And they still
Speaker 2: they equally don't report. And I think the statistics women
Speaker 2: lose more, men report more so. And I think it's
Speaker 2: our DNA as women that we you know, we become
Speaker 2: that sense of shame or women not not saying that
Speaker 2: you guys don't carry shame.
Speaker 1: I don't want to a lot of things. I'll argue
Speaker 1: that point. I just don't want to talk about shame.
Speaker 2: That's right either, do I. But okay, again that's another podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's interesting and I don't know why. I don't know
Speaker 2: whether is it is it internally with a female that
Speaker 2: they don't report as much as what a man. I'm
Speaker 2: not too sure why that is all my female victims
Speaker 2: have not report. And that is that deep sense of family,
Speaker 2: you know, the internal fight within within themselves. The men
Speaker 2: sort of go oh, after they've accepted, they go, okay, well,
Speaker 2: I think I have to, you.
Speaker 1: Know, And it's interesting. I don't know I'm surmising here,
Speaker 1: but I think you see a man, elderly man and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a young attractive woman's fallen madly
Speaker 1: in love with him online, and it's almost like the
Speaker 1: men culture can almost laugh at each other about it. Oh,
Speaker 1: I got taken for a ride there. Yes, probably it's
Speaker 1: more deep when women have genuinely looking for the love
Speaker 1: of the companionship, and that might be why they sit
Speaker 1: on it more so than the men.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Look, I talked the other day
Speaker 2: about that that you know, the Halo buyers, you know,
Speaker 2: we all have that within ourselves, you know, and within
Speaker 2: that romance world. Well that exacerbates a bit more because
Speaker 2: there's someone that's come online and usually they look you know, trustworthy,
Speaker 2: so you know, and as a female you sort of
Speaker 2: look at that and go, well, if you're here's this photo,
Speaker 2: you look trustworthy, or you might be a doctor, whatever,
Speaker 2: so then we'll engage with that. Where if it was
Speaker 2: at a bar, at a pub, there is a high
Speaker 2: likelihood that not being disrespectful. But a seventy eight year
Speaker 2: old woman is not going to go up to somebody
Speaker 2: who is, you know, in their mid thirties.
Speaker 1: That's whereas our spokesly us possibly have a stupid enough
Speaker 1: to think, yeah, I'll have it go okay, all right,
Speaker 1: well this is about romance. I want an attack on
Speaker 1: how stupid some minutes, some not all, some only some.
Speaker 1: Before we go further down the rabbit hole of romance scheme,
Speaker 1: let's talk about you for a bit. And because you're
Speaker 1: a police officer for what fourteen early fourteen, when did
Speaker 1: you join and why so?
Speaker 2: I joined in nineteen eighty nine, and I joined because
Speaker 2: I was raised as a copper's kid. So when I
Speaker 2: was about eleven twelve, an incident happened at our house
Speaker 2: where our neighbor was shot on our doorsteps and she's
Speaker 2: fived and I watched. I went out there and I
Speaker 2: placed a towel over the wound of the victim, and
Speaker 2: then I watched. The cops were in a very small
Speaker 2: country town, and how they worked was just brilliant. You know,
Speaker 2: we didn't have mobile phones back then, so when the
Speaker 2: shooting had happened, Dad gone outside, retrieved the firearm, bought
Speaker 2: it inside and had to go to the phone that
Speaker 2: was on the wall. Everybody turned up in the you know,
Speaker 2: all the cops turned up because of detective sergeants shooting,
Speaker 2: and it was an interesting process watching how they all worked.
Speaker 2: You know, there was no way I was doing anything
Speaker 2: with medical because that was just too hard. But it
Speaker 2: was just it was a well oiled machine.
Speaker 1: Seeing how the police is.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's great. They really came together. It was structure
Speaker 2: only twelve, but I just really went this is pretty good.
Speaker 2: This is cool.
Speaker 1: If you suppose that's a lot of criticism of police
Speaker 1: by the public and different places, but when the ship
Speaker 1: goes down, the police are the ones that have got
Speaker 1: to respond. And saw that. Where was that? Can you say?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so that was at Wentworth, so very small
Speaker 2: country town on the border of Victoria and South Australia,
Speaker 2: Tiny little country town. It was just the best life.
Speaker 2: Back again, we're talking back in the olden days where
Speaker 2: we got to climb trees and everything. But it was
Speaker 2: a great lifestyle. And being raised as a copper's kid
Speaker 2: in the country town. You know, your friends were the
Speaker 2: coppers kids.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We I spend many time sitting in the cells, you know,
Speaker 2: the old police for paying the old police blankets. They
Speaker 2: all have a smell. I can still to this day
Speaker 2: remember that that smell. It was just a good life
Speaker 2: and we all got on. They all got on, well,
Speaker 2: I mean the kids got on well, but the husband
Speaker 2: wives got on well. It was just you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to dismiss about it was a hard life
Speaker 2: back then too, because of course Dad was the only one.
Speaker 2: Dad was the detective sergeant, so of course he was
Speaker 2: always off doing something. And I just looked at that
Speaker 2: and went, yeah.
Speaker 1: I want that, Okay, I really want that. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So when you joined the police in eighty nine, the
Speaker 1: academy down at Golbin, how do you enjoy you loved it?
Speaker 2: I would say that that. I was talking to an
Speaker 2: ex cop the other day. We talked about that. You know,
Speaker 2: back then we were on the ladder of where we stood.
Speaker 2: You know, students were below police dogs. But they trained
Speaker 2: us hard, and that was for a purpose because once
Speaker 2: you left, you're not going out there for fairy tales,
Speaker 2: you know, and lollipops and everything. You're going out into
Speaker 2: a very hard world. And I love that. I love
Speaker 2: that style of training. I like that and want to
Speaker 2: call it military style of training. Ever, you don't want
Speaker 2: to use the word bastonization.
Speaker 3: But it had a purpose, but there was there was
Speaker 3: a degree that it needed to be because I liken
Speaker 3: it too, and I'm not sure how it plays out now,
Speaker 3: but break you down, which they did and then rebuild you.
Speaker 1: And yeah, A taught resilience.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think I don't know how training is,
Speaker 2: so I don't want to criticize it now, but I
Speaker 2: think that if you've changed the training and make it
Speaker 2: all fairy dust and perfect, you're doing the wrong thing
Speaker 2: to the student because you have to be taken to
Speaker 2: your core. And then, like you said, rebuilt. It was
Speaker 2: hard and there was nothing. I loved it. There is
Speaker 2: nothing negative I can talk about six months training down there.
Speaker 2: I loved every bit of it and we were pushed
Speaker 2: to it and I wasn't physically fit, but I wasn't in
Speaker 2: the F Troop. The boys in the F Troop, my god,
Speaker 2: I cannot blame We had that. Remember you have T
Speaker 2: shirts made up. Oh my god, they were the great
Speaker 2: thing F Troop And you know when I was running,
Speaker 2: they would be behind me and they would say the
Speaker 2: most awful things to get my lazy ass over because
Speaker 2: we had to do it in a time. But it
Speaker 2: was great. We worked together as a team and I
Speaker 2: love those blokes for it. I love that. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was only three women in our in our F
Speaker 2: Troope but we work together perfectly, and that's and that's
Speaker 2: what team works on.
Speaker 1: You need to work as a team when you're out
Speaker 1: on the out on the streets. Absolutely, so okay, your
Speaker 1: fresh face, you got your shiny new uniform on, and.
Speaker 2: Spit polish boots, get the spit.
Speaker 1: How much of a pain was that you weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to do it in your room? If you did?
Speaker 2: And then with the cigarette lighter, oh my goodness, the things.
Speaker 2: And I don't know where they do that now too,
Speaker 2: but I had We had a lot of pride with that.
Speaker 1: Well I can't imagine, but you would stand the attension
Speaker 1: they're coming in and inspecting how you made your bed.
Speaker 2: Absolutely like I don't know whether they do that, No,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I laugh about it now.
Speaker 1: But it was fun. It was because we're all winging
Speaker 1: about whether your bed's being made properly or your boots
Speaker 1: have been paid.
Speaker 2: You stood out front of your room and you made
Speaker 2: sure they came through. It was Christine, and your uniform
Speaker 2: was ironed perfectly. Everything was. But that's that's what it
Speaker 2: was meant to be. They were, you know, sinning.
Speaker 1: Well, I would have felt cheated if it wasn't that way,
Speaker 1: I thought, you're going to the academy, that that's what
Speaker 1: you expected delivered. How was your your experiences out on
Speaker 1: the street when you started.
Speaker 2: Look, I went to marrackvill and that was that was
Speaker 2: a really hard patrol. Again, we're in a patrol which
Speaker 2: there are only five women, and I think we may
Speaker 2: have been under the students on the on the ladder
Speaker 2: of where we where we fit within the organization. Which
Speaker 2: was fine because I went in there with that belief. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, you needed to work hard to prove that
Speaker 2: you were, you know, a member of this team. Basically
Speaker 2: a couple of things that sort of weren't to Marrafa
Speaker 2: wasn't the greatest. Oh no, it was good, but it
Speaker 2: had a few sprinkles of not good.
Speaker 1: And well, it was a different world. It was a
Speaker 1: different policing. Policing was different, but society was also different.
Speaker 1: What went down at the police stations back in those
Speaker 1: days wouldn't stand up to any scrutiny, but in the
Speaker 1: same regards, it was the values of the society at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: But it also certain parts of it. So I did
Speaker 2: a piece the other day about community based policing and
Speaker 2: I remember back then walking the beach. And I know
Speaker 2: we can't do that now because we're understaffed and all that.
Speaker 2: But back then, we went to the pubs, We sat
Speaker 2: down with the licensee who just happened to know everything
Speaker 2: that fell off the back of a truck. We went
Speaker 2: to the local shops and we had coffee, or we'd
Speaker 2: go down the street and meet up with Mary, who's
Speaker 2: there is I need to tell you something? Come inside.
Speaker 2: But we gathered intel, and we gathered in a very
Speaker 2: basic way, but that intel formed amazing jobs that created
Speaker 2: lockups that were brilliant.
Speaker 1: I was always always surprised where a crime had happened,
Speaker 1: and detectives or police that have been in the area
Speaker 1: for a long time would go out or instantaneously say
Speaker 1: this is where we've got to go these people who
Speaker 1: have done it. And that's that type of community policing.
Speaker 2: And I think and that's where we fail a little
Speaker 2: bit more now that we don't want to do. You know,
Speaker 2: sitting in the pub is deemed as you know corruption
Speaker 2: or you know, even going to in Marricko, they'd have
Speaker 2: the closing down of you know KFC, I mean high
Speaker 2: end food quality, you know, like so good, so they'd
Speaker 2: either you know, you're ring the local cops, the local fires,
Speaker 2: or the ambos and they do a rotation. We've got
Speaker 2: leftover buckets of chicken. You like some chicken, like high
Speaker 2: end stuff. But you know, but that's we'd be out
Speaker 2: patrolling and doing stuff. Yeah, sure, why not, let's pick
Speaker 2: that up.
Speaker 1: You had your finger on the pulse on what was
Speaker 1: going on in the community.
Speaker 2: Everything, and we knew where the bad boys were. We
Speaker 2: knew that, well, we'll keep an eye on them tonight.
Speaker 2: We know that they are there. Intel has said that,
Speaker 2: you know they're going to be thinking of doing something,
Speaker 2: we'll just back off here, you know. So it was
Speaker 2: just I think it was a very well oiled machine
Speaker 2: back then. But again, we didn't have phones, social media,
Speaker 2: we didn't have any of that. But policing was policing,
Speaker 2: and it was it was good, it was hard, and
Speaker 2: you still had to run after them.
Speaker 1: And I like the fact that they're sitting down speaking
Speaker 1: to a former cop that enjoyed it, because I still
Speaker 1: think it's one of the world's best jobs policing.
Speaker 2: For me today, it is one of the saddest things
Speaker 2: that I never got to spend more time than what
Speaker 2: I did I still to this day bleed blue no
Speaker 2: matter what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see in the way that you're talking
Speaker 1: about your body language that you enjoyed it. Detectives. How
Speaker 1: did that start? Because you went into a listing, which
Speaker 1: is preparing the pectique.
Speaker 2: So I started. I sort of put my foot in it.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do it in Marritam when I was junior,
Speaker 2: and then that happened when I went into Flemington. I
Speaker 2: sort of put my hand up then and said I'd
Speaker 2: like to sort of do that a list and go
Speaker 2: through the ball ring and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: So that was that slow process there, and I've trained
Speaker 2: at that stage. I did the Special Forces Undercover Commercial
Speaker 2: course for the operation for us to do three months
Speaker 2: in a pawn shop. So I did that, and then
Speaker 2: I went and trained in the negotiators as well, and
Speaker 2: then that sort of all just I don't know, it
Speaker 2: was like my.
Speaker 3: Next you got the taste taste of it.
Speaker 2: The next step was I knew I was always going
Speaker 2: to be detective, and without me knowing, I sort of
Speaker 2: followed my dad's footsteps.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He worked at Newtown, he was at twenty one Division.
Speaker 2: I was at Marrickville. I went to Flemington. Dad was
Speaker 2: at Flemington. Then he went to all and like I
Speaker 2: wasn't sort of realizing that that was the steps that
Speaker 2: I was taking. He went to the crime squad and
Speaker 2: all that. So I knew that that's what I wanted
Speaker 2: to do from the moment I joined the cops. I
Speaker 2: was going to be detective.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the pawn shop. When you're working
Speaker 1: undercover there, I'd like that operation that was And we're
Speaker 1: just clarify when we're talking porn aw PA W undercover
Speaker 1: in porn, it sounds that's a shame. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: listeners would have loved to hear about working undercovering the
Speaker 1: pornorn shop.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I always have to say, hey, people go,
Speaker 2: why are you spelling it out? So think about it.
Speaker 2: I'm not It's not a pawn like O r N.
Speaker 2: I don't know how that would have worked with a
Speaker 2: high crime rate around, you know, in a city Sydney.
Speaker 2: But anyway, Yeah, that was but yeah, that was an
Speaker 2: interesting three months operation.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that because I remember when that was
Speaker 1: going down. I think it was Phil Mehan and Martin
Speaker 1: Slott from the region I was working in, were involved
Speaker 1: in it. There would have been a few others, Yes,
Speaker 1: explain it because it was at the time I thought
Speaker 1: the novel idea and I subsequently had a former law
Speaker 1: enforcement officer from the US and they got great results
Speaker 1: with that type of operation. So tell us about that.
Speaker 2: It was the first of its kind in Australia. So
Speaker 2: we had four shops, so the four regions, three operatives
Speaker 2: in each region, and we just opened up this daggy
Speaker 2: pawn shop on the side street because we had high
Speaker 2: instance of breacan Enna's robbery anything that was within the
Speaker 2: property fences and was out of control. And I do
Speaker 2: believe it may have started in the UK on a
Speaker 2: smaller level. And whoever came up and said, well, here's
Speaker 2: a great initiative. We will open up four pawn shops
Speaker 2: and we will collect everything. And we did. We collected
Speaker 2: everything that was legitimate and also stolen.
Speaker 1: And then you know, so basically I understand pawn shops
Speaker 1: and how they work, but it's where people come in
Speaker 1: with property, yes, that they want to sell the property
Speaker 1: or hock the property there and come back and buy it,
Speaker 1: buy it.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And at the time you're talking about the amount of
Speaker 1: stolen properties, Heroin was still in the streets. Robbery breaking
Speaker 1: in as were a big fige. So someone that breaking
Speaker 1: and steal the VCR and take it to the local
Speaker 1: pawn shop or jewelry. And you guys were in there
Speaker 1: pretending to be just the daggy type people that are
Speaker 1: running a pawn shop and dealing with these people and
Speaker 1: asking where did you get that from?
Speaker 2: And because they would just they would just talk to
Speaker 2: you because you'd be sitting down with them, and they'd
Speaker 2: come in a couple of times, and some were legitimate people.
Speaker 2: You know, you just said, oh, okay, I just want
Speaker 2: to put this for three months. And we ran the
Speaker 2: business like a business, so you still had a ticket everything,
Speaker 2: so people still had to have that if they wanted
Speaker 2: to just get a bit of a loan, and we
Speaker 2: had to do the loan and everything. We had to
Speaker 2: cash everything up, so it was really like a proper business.
Speaker 2: But we also knew when you know, naughty Fred came in,
Speaker 2: we knew, okay, he's done a break an enner. And
Speaker 2: slowly they'd start telling a bit more information. So of
Speaker 2: course then you're creating intel reports, your understanding processes. You
Speaker 2: understand exactly what they're doing, and we just kept all
Speaker 2: the property and everyone got it back, well most people
Speaker 2: got it back. I mean that was another process to
Speaker 2: then give it all back to the owners.
Speaker 1: Well, I remember there was a big resolution day where
Speaker 1: we got called in people not working on the actual operation.
Speaker 1: There's a job. Everyone needs to be in here at
Speaker 1: five am in the morning. We'll tell you what about then,
Speaker 1: And we got handed briefs of evidence. And I still
Speaker 1: remember locking up people and it was I shouldn't say
Speaker 1: fun people, but it was fun because we got fatos
Speaker 1: of the people coming in the store the properly if so,
Speaker 1: knock on the door and yeah, where'd you get this from?
Speaker 1: And so many people got locked up. Ye from it,
Speaker 1: didn't they.
Speaker 2: And they knew they had no way of saying no, no, no,
Speaker 2: because everything was there, everything was digitized, everything was recorded,
Speaker 2: and I don't believe our statements were anything too big.
Speaker 2: I think we were. We just did more more contemporarious
Speaker 2: notes at that time because everything was recorded anyway. So
Speaker 2: it was a great operation. It was a very successful operation,
Speaker 2: my belief was very successful. I know. After that I
Speaker 2: went to another one Northern Beaches. That was a flow
Speaker 2: on effect from that, so and more of more of
Speaker 2: that investigative side, not the undercover side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so you enjoyed doing that covert work?
Speaker 2: No, not really, well, no that was fun. I was
Speaker 2: never and I remember training doing undercover. Look, I was
Speaker 2: never good at drugs, I'd be honestly. That was just no, no, no,
Speaker 2: give me jewelry, give me clothing. I just was never
Speaker 2: going to be a drug operative. And we had a
Speaker 2: couple of had a girl trained with this and she
Speaker 2: was a tiny little thing and i'man tiny and I
Speaker 2: used to say to them, well, I'm too fat to
Speaker 2: be a druggie. I can't be. I do not look
Speaker 2: like a heroin junkie. There was never going to be
Speaker 2: any reason for me to look like a heroin junkie.
Speaker 2: So I was never going to go down that path.
Speaker 2: I played a role with a couple of girls who
Speaker 2: sorry a girl who was doing the heroin side of
Speaker 2: it all and trying to get all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: and I did a couple of jobs in the cross
Speaker 2: with that wasn't my jam. Sort of, We got ourselves
Speaker 2: into a bit of a tight spot with a couple
Speaker 2: of blokes who were very bad people, and I thought
Speaker 2: this is not going to.
Speaker 1: It is a fine fine line. You've got the work,
Speaker 1: especially as a female in that environment undercover operative. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know what the blokes are after, and.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's what they're after. And it was we're
Speaker 2: in a bit of try, We're a bit of strife here. Okay,
Speaker 2: we need to talk ourselves out of this. We need
Speaker 2: to and we did and we got ourselves out and
Speaker 2: we walked down the street and it was sort of like,
Speaker 2: thank god, Okay, that one was a bit that one's
Speaker 2: a bit hairy. But we had to go back the
Speaker 2: next night. So there was a reason. We knew that
Speaker 2: the offender was committing Oh, he had committed a homicide.
Speaker 2: There was something more there, but there was drugs involved,
Speaker 2: and it was just like, okay, this is huge, this
Speaker 2: is this is huge. This one was like and I
Speaker 2: knew that at that stage I was marriage, so I
Speaker 2: couldn't tell my husband. He knew that I was doing
Speaker 2: an undercover job, but I said, I can't tell you anything.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even tell him when I got home went
Speaker 2: oh that was oh, that was that was that was close.
Speaker 1: That was okay, exciting, but maybe.
Speaker 2: Maybe a little bit so that wasn't my jam. I
Speaker 2: sort of just didn't think that that was Yeah, I
Speaker 2: couldn't do that for months on end.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you also had a shot that in negost
Speaker 1: I love that tell us about that.
Speaker 2: They are just most amazing team. You know, there's a
Speaker 2: team of You've got your four with your you know,
Speaker 2: your your bosses and everything, and you know you're on
Speaker 2: call every six weeks. And you know, I used to
Speaker 2: I've been called to go to Bankstown Airport where I
Speaker 2: jump on the plane with the and they were men
Speaker 2: boys in black, then with the police dog and then
Speaker 2: you've got this tiny little plane and you have to
Speaker 2: fly to Orange. I mean, it was just that is
Speaker 2: a magical team. I mean, I'm sure they're still they're
Speaker 2: magical today. They work hard. You know, we're smart, we
Speaker 2: know what we need to achieve. We achieve it together
Speaker 2: as a team. You know, you're still at your prime
Speaker 2: and your secondary, your intel, You've got your doctor, like
Speaker 2: everybody was there and the boss were just the boss
Speaker 2: was always there. So it was one of the saddest
Speaker 2: things that I lost when I left the cops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you're and you're involved in the thig
Speaker 1: of it. I was in the tactical side of it.
Speaker 1: So I was laying out in the bushwai. You guys
Speaker 1: are a talk talking about talking to the crooks. But
Speaker 1: you're getting a first class seat in some of the
Speaker 1: big crimes that are going down and big things, so
Speaker 1: I can imagine the excitement. It is a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure there too.
Speaker 2: But especially there was a job. There was a job
Speaker 2: in Northern Beaches and he had taken hostage his girlfriend
Speaker 2: and he had a knife and he was harming her
Speaker 2: whilest they were talking. And that was a very intense job,
Speaker 2: and it was it was a bedroom, so you know,
Speaker 2: you guys were there, negotiators are still talking at the door.
Speaker 2: That was a very intense job because you guys couldn't
Speaker 2: go in there because he's got the knife. You had
Speaker 2: no means of getting getting into that room. So you know,
Speaker 2: you're right, you're right in the thick of everything. And
Speaker 2: there are a lot of funny times when I did
Speaker 2: a job where one of you guys had had a
Speaker 2: vasectomy and he was in a lot of pain and
Speaker 2: he's trying was funny because we're trying to negotiat he's
Speaker 2: moaning because he's got to have an ice pack. Could hurry? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean they were a good time.
Speaker 1: I must must admit. Sometimes when the siege is out
Speaker 1: in the bush where you didn't have the telephone, communication
Speaker 1: or radio, it's on the loudhailers and laying out there
Speaker 1: if it was cold or hot, I'm laying there. Oh,
Speaker 1: for fox sake, give me the loudhailer. I'll talk about
Speaker 1: because yeah, I know, you've got to just hurry, hurry,
Speaker 1: I'd say, I know, And you've got to laugh at
Speaker 1: the situations because some of the situations are just ridiculous
Speaker 1: that you find yourself in.
Speaker 2: Look. I I remember the blow a bloke sitting on
Speaker 2: the rooftop and we would do two things that we
Speaker 2: would smoke as a negotiator. My girlfriend she would drink
Speaker 2: Coca cola. That was her jam. She just loved coke.
Speaker 2: So when i'd negotiate, well, I would negotiate and I'd
Speaker 2: have a smoke. So they'd want to smoke and come
Speaker 2: down smoke, and so they would come down. You know,
Speaker 2: you guys will help them down. I'd walk over there
Speaker 2: and before you locked him up, made I promised your
Speaker 2: cigarette here, have a smoke done easy? How easy is that? Okay?
Speaker 2: That job's finishing there's my other time. Okay, home now.
Speaker 2: And that's all I had to do was just to
Speaker 2: talk them down, and most of them just wanted to talk,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, there were some sad ones on
Speaker 2: the gap and you know, things like that. But the negotiators,
Speaker 2: they're just a great bunch, that whole that whole team,
Speaker 2: you guys and us. It just worked well.
Speaker 1: Now I can understand why it would have been hard
Speaker 1: leaving that. Why did you leave?
Speaker 2: So? I had my second baby, and we had a
Speaker 2: few issues with child care at that time for my
Speaker 2: second one, and my husband had just bought a pub,
Speaker 2: so he was working long hours, and I didn't have
Speaker 2: any family down there at that stage. So I asked
Speaker 2: the cops for an extension. I wanted either another six
Speaker 2: months leave without pay, or could I just come back
Speaker 2: part time, just for six months, just so we could
Speaker 2: sort of get a few things organized, and they knocked
Speaker 2: me back on both. And I couldn't go back full
Speaker 2: time because at that stage I was on care for
Speaker 2: child protection, so I still had to do that. I
Speaker 2: could have given up the negotiators, but that was sort
Speaker 2: of that was like chopping off my arms, and I
Speaker 2: didn't want to do that, so I resigned and I
Speaker 2: remember driving to Congrad to give my badge over and
Speaker 2: I just cried and cried.
Speaker 1: I think we lose out in There should be more flexibility,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure where it is now, but more
Speaker 1: flexibility in people just having career breaks and yeah, because
Speaker 1: the way the police is set up, you leave the
Speaker 1: police and you're out and you can you can't come
Speaker 1: back in, or you come back in, You've got to
Speaker 1: start at the bottom again.
Speaker 2: And I found that hard because I wanted to come
Speaker 2: back in and I didn't want to give up my
Speaker 2: detective status because I'd worked really hard for that. And
Speaker 2: I still you know, I still have that same mindset
Speaker 2: today and we're talking twenty years ago. I still think
Speaker 2: exactly the way that they trained me in the cops,
Speaker 2: I haven't lost that. Well.
Speaker 1: We're struggling for policing across the country, not just New
Speaker 1: South Wales. I think if we had that flexibility, there's plenty.
Speaker 1: I saw so many police mid career leave the police
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. They hit the wall, they needed a
Speaker 1: break and they're angry at the cops and they left,
Speaker 1: and I reckon I could count on one hand the
Speaker 1: ones that haven't tried to get back in. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: they realized what they miss absolutely, and if we could
Speaker 1: open the doors for people like that, I think it
Speaker 1: makes for a better police officer. You get some life
Speaker 1: experience and come back and recharge. We didn't mention child protection.
Speaker 1: You worked in that for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: A couple of years down the other one.
Speaker 1: I reckon. That's probably one of the hardest areas of
Speaker 1: policing to work in, and it always seems desperately under resource. Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. Tell us about your experiences there.
Speaker 2: I always thought that I had a great time in
Speaker 2: child protection, and I think my husband and might disagree
Speaker 2: with that. Yeah, I think you thought I bought it home,
Speaker 2: which I didn't think I did. But I worked in
Speaker 2: the joint investigative team, so I worked with Department, Community
Speaker 2: Service and US so we would do the initial investigation,
Speaker 2: then hand off. If we couldn't take it, then they
Speaker 2: would then do their parts. Look, I found it rewarding,
Speaker 2: I found it frustrating. I found it sad. You know.
Speaker 2: I can look at some of the jobs we did
Speaker 2: and it was interesting. We did one he was a
Speaker 2: young boy, he was only about eight, and we just
Speaker 2: knew we didn't have enough, but we just knew something
Speaker 2: wasn't right and he wouldn't disclose. And no matter how
Speaker 2: much we sat in the interview room and you know,
Speaker 2: I sat down and talked to him and colored and
Speaker 2: all that, we just we weren't getting anywhere. And that
Speaker 2: you know, they're they're the hard ones. There wasn't enough
Speaker 2: for us to do anything. Docs took you know, did
Speaker 2: their part, but they're the ones that were hard or
Speaker 2: even just going to picking up the babies that you know,
Speaker 2: the cockroach infested nappies, like those type of worlds. We
Speaker 2: just go, oh my lord, I can't believe that this
Speaker 2: is real.
Speaker 1: And because there wasn't under resourcing. Yes, I would imagine
Speaker 1: the pressure. And it's not like, well, I say homicide
Speaker 1: and there's nothing more extreme. But if someone's being killed,
Speaker 1: unless we're tracing the serial killer, yeah, the immediate risk
Speaker 1: is not ongoing.
Speaker 2: Correct. But with children and child protection.
Speaker 1: You make the wrong call or no, I'm too tired,
Speaker 1: I can't be called out out now, or don't pick
Speaker 1: up the phone. Yeah, you know a child could be suffering.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. That was the hardest part about it is that
Speaker 2: you wanted to solve everything. I mean, there was a
Speaker 2: big cult thing happening down in Illawarra at that time,
Speaker 2: bit more down now, and my boss and I we
Speaker 2: were working on it, but we still we still didn't
Speaker 2: have anyone to say that he was doing this. The
Speaker 2: offender was doing this to the children.
Speaker 1: We just knew on the hunch and we would go to.
Speaker 2: And we'd sort of go, okay, well we'll follow them here,
Speaker 2: and we just didn't have enough. And you know, years later, yes,
Speaker 2: he did get arrested, and you know, the child Protection
Speaker 2: did a great job and we're able to know collad
Speaker 2: all that information, but we just at that bigin and
Speaker 2: then we had nothing. So it's that frustrating part that
Speaker 2: you knew that that is happening. I mean, and you
Speaker 2: know this is still happening today, and so today I
Speaker 2: think would be harder as well, because now it's digitized
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, you know, that adds a whole different
Speaker 2: level of just awfulness. But child protection was hard.
Speaker 1: And you thought you were caping really well because I
Speaker 1: mentioned to you that would have been tough. No, I
Speaker 1: thought I was caping really well, but my husband suggested otherwise. Yes,
Speaker 1: So how did it manifest itself what sort of things
Speaker 1: was alluding to.
Speaker 2: I think I was very hard on the girls, like
Speaker 2: really hard, very structured, and don't do this and not.
Speaker 2: I thought I was cotton wool and fairy tales and
Speaker 2: no no. And I used to say, oh, I know,
Speaker 2: it's like a story book. And I'd read this story
Speaker 2: which was going to work, and then I'd come home
Speaker 2: and the storybook was closed. I don't think I did that.
Speaker 2: I think I withdrew and they're only little, so we're
Speaker 2: still just talking. I was so tough on Bree, so
Speaker 2: she would have only just been three hyper yes, yes,
Speaker 2: don't do this, don't do it. So yeah, so Michael
Speaker 2: said it was I was very I was a different person,
Speaker 2: and I was and look, cops do make you tough,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. And you know, you tend to
Speaker 2: become concrete for blood, as someone once told me that
Speaker 2: I had. But I still wear that with a badge,
Speaker 2: because that's just we saw the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1: And I think with cops that you can make a
Speaker 1: definitive stand on something. You know, a good cop, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and that that's what years and years of policing you'll
Speaker 1: call bullshit out it doesn't always make for an easy life.
Speaker 2: But no, and look, and you know my dad will
Speaker 2: say the same thing. You know, you see the worst
Speaker 2: of people, you know, you see the best of people.
Speaker 2: You know, you come across families that you love, but
Speaker 2: you see what humans can do to humans.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it can be a situation you know, someone's
Speaker 1: introduced your friends group or family and you can see
Speaker 1: right through them and get I've seen this person. This
Speaker 1: person's a piece of shites. We shouldn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, and I mean I still do that today,
Speaker 2: but that I'm still look and at them. Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: you're not my jam.
Speaker 1: This is happening New South Wales. Police lost was the
Speaker 1: hotel industry's game because you went from an extreme so
Speaker 1: you went from police into you guys owning a pub.
Speaker 2: Yes, but my husband was was born Bret, a hotelier.
Speaker 2: So I just came in, as I called it, the
Speaker 2: plus one, the one who used to just do the
Speaker 2: the books. But you know, going from the cops to
Speaker 2: doing bookwork. Stab myself in the eyeball. It was boring.
Speaker 2: It was really boring, and I struggled, and I struggled
Speaker 2: with that for a long time because you think about
Speaker 2: every day is different in the comps, but being back
Speaker 2: of house every day wasn't different.
Speaker 1: I think that is the trouble with the cops. People
Speaker 1: ask me, would you join the cops? And I say yes,
Speaker 1: like I love, loved every day of it. But I said,
Speaker 1: once you've got a taste for it, it's going to
Speaker 1: be very hard to find the job that's as fulfilling.
Speaker 1: It's challenging because you hit the nail on the head
Speaker 1: and that was the beauty of it. No matter what
Speaker 1: was going on, you could turn up to work one
Speaker 1: day and you'd be doing things you had no idea
Speaker 1: you'd be doing. So every day had the potential to
Speaker 1: be something completely different, and you miss miss that. We've
Speaker 1: taken you through your career in polices, you're working in
Speaker 1: the hotel industry, and then something changed dramatically in your life.
Speaker 2: Please tell so I receive a phone call from my mum.
Speaker 2: I'll set the scene typical, great Sunday afternoon, it's hot,
Speaker 2: I've poured myself a glass of Chara. There's a bit
Speaker 2: of a theme here with does come up a lot,
Speaker 2: Just so you know that's that's just in case you've
Speaker 2: want to buy me one, but that's a charney unwadded.
Speaker 2: So and I'm just sitting at the kitchen bench and
Speaker 2: my mum rings to say that she's met somebody. So
Speaker 2: I was quite excited for that. She'd been single for
Speaker 2: twenty years.
Speaker 1: Wow, how old you?
Speaker 2: Mum at that stage was seventy eight, So I went,
Speaker 2: happy days. You know, great, you're going to go on cruisers,
Speaker 2: You're going to live your best life.
Speaker 1: You'd be happy.
Speaker 2: She then says to me, his name's Donald, he's sixty nine,
Speaker 2: he's about to retire. Okay, ten years differently, you know, nothing,
Speaker 2: no red flags. Until she said he was in Turkey
Speaker 2: just finalizing a contract. I sort of did you okay, okay,
Speaker 2: well people, you know, people travel. Then I said to
Speaker 2: her send me some photos because I just wanted to
Speaker 2: be a bit nosy. So as soon as the photos arrived,
Speaker 2: I went, we've got a problem here because he looks
Speaker 2: like he's in his mid fifties and he had just
Speaker 2: finished a half marathon like he was looking looking kind
Speaker 2: of yeah one fight. I went, oh, damn, okay, we've
Speaker 2: got a problem. You know, there is an issue here.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't say anything to mum. Until I sort
Speaker 2: of had a bit more so in the office, I
Speaker 2: go and I start digging. Now I don't know anything
Speaker 2: at this stage about reverse image searches. I know nothing
Speaker 2: about that world at all.
Speaker 1: And she had met him online.
Speaker 2: That's so, she'd met him on a dating app. She
Speaker 2: had spoken to him apparently via phone, very quick messages,
Speaker 2: but a lot of emails, so a lot of WhatsApp, right,
Speaker 2: So I know nothing about red flags whatsoever. So I
Speaker 2: go in and I start searching. In about an hour
Speaker 2: and a half later, I track down this real estate
Speaker 2: agent's Instagram page and I'm just going through and I'm thinking, oh, look,
Speaker 2: I don't know and then all of a sudden, a
Speaker 2: photo of twenty twenty appears, and it's the same photo
Speaker 2: that mum's got, so it's a different name, different person.
Speaker 2: So then I started doing a bit of a deep
Speaker 2: dive onto you know, Joe blogs, and I want to
Speaker 2: know more about him. Find out that he's married, he's
Speaker 2: got this real estate business in California, him and his
Speaker 2: wife have it. He's got a daughter, he's got a grandson.
Speaker 2: He's not in Turkey. This is all from Fata. So
Speaker 2: I had a couple of photos.
Speaker 1: At this point in time, your mom's oblivious to it.
Speaker 2: She is she is happy as pig and mud. She's
Speaker 2: thinking her life is fabulous. So I sort of put
Speaker 2: all this together and realized that she's not speaking to Donald,
Speaker 2: that at this stage, you're a victim of a scam.
Speaker 2: And I sort of did a bit more about what
Speaker 2: does this mean? You know, I'd heard a little bit
Speaker 2: about scamming, so I've sort of did a bit more.
Speaker 2: Then I rang her and she didn't do much, but
Speaker 2: she was devastated.
Speaker 1: How did you approach the conversation with her?
Speaker 2: I just said to her, Look, Mum, I've gone and
Speaker 2: had a bit of a look, you are not talking
Speaker 2: to Donald. He's not in Australian he's not in Turkey. Mum.
Speaker 2: Those photos belonged to Joe Blogs. He's married. Mum, this
Speaker 2: is not Donald. You're a victim of a scam. The
Speaker 2: best part about Mum is that I suppose she knew
Speaker 2: who I am, she knew my background, she knew there'd
Speaker 2: be no reason for me to lie because I really
Speaker 2: wanted for her to meet somebody. So she took all
Speaker 2: that on face value, but was very shocked, and she
Speaker 2: we had that conversation. It may only went for half
Speaker 2: an hour forty five minutes. She left it and then
Speaker 2: she rang me back and she said, how do you know?
Speaker 2: So I went through all the processes I did this, Mum,
Speaker 2: this is this photo. So I said, Mum, all this
Speaker 2: is nothing to do with a contract, and I said,
Speaker 2: this is all stolen. So I broke it down into
Speaker 2: every little fine detail so she could understand. But it
Speaker 2: took her a while. It wasn't something that okay, thank
Speaker 2: you for that.
Speaker 1: That's great when you say a while over a matter
Speaker 1: of days.
Speaker 2: Weeks, No, no, this is this took Mum a couple
Speaker 2: of months to really accept. And then what I did,
Speaker 2: which I don't do to anybody now, I actually showed
Speaker 2: her the real person, who the real person was, who
Speaker 2: the real person's you know, daughter is. I showed her
Speaker 2: where the photos had been stolen from right because I
Speaker 2: said to her, I need you to understand that this
Speaker 2: is real. There's no reason for me to lie to you.
Speaker 2: I want you to make mistake. Here, there's no mistake.
Speaker 2: So I showed her and then she said, well, I'm
Speaker 2: going to contact this person and then we had to
Speaker 2: go through that process. Well, Mum, he's a victim of
Speaker 2: identity theft. You can't do that because you know that's
Speaker 2: and then we had to go down that why you
Speaker 2: can't do that, And it took her a while, but
Speaker 2: she was shattered, she was really shattered. And then when
Speaker 2: she went back online again, she would send me photos
Speaker 2: and say, well, no, that photo is stolen or that
Speaker 2: one doesn't have any digital footprints. So I don't really
Speaker 2: want you to go to anyone who doesn't have a
Speaker 2: digital footprint because I can't identify who they are. So
Speaker 2: she ended up, you know, finding someone real. And that's
Speaker 2: what said. Unless you can touch, feel, taste them, they
Speaker 2: don't exist. That's what you got to do.
Speaker 1: Mom, Well, I want to I want to talk about
Speaker 1: reverse imaging with the photos and all the lines of
Speaker 1: inquiry that you followed up, and we'll explain that. But
Speaker 1: before we do that, one moment in time sort of
Speaker 1: inspired you to get out of the books from the
Speaker 1: hotels and get your private investigator's licenses. What was your
Speaker 1: rationale behind your thinking there?
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't think that there was someone here in
Speaker 2: Australia that was specific. Just in this field. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of pis that do a lot of stuff. I
Speaker 2: wasn't interested in hiding behind a tree and catching the
Speaker 2: cheating wife or husband that wasn't mine. I wanted to
Speaker 2: help people like my mum. So I thought, well, what
Speaker 2: I'll do is that I will get my pay i's license.
Speaker 2: And I reached out and i'd had my pei's license
Speaker 2: after I left the cops when I got that as well.
Speaker 2: But again that was just from that was easy because
Speaker 2: tayfe I just showed exactly what I did prior learning,
Speaker 2: and the same thing. They accepted all my prior learning.
Speaker 2: And I'd also done a business law degree too in
Speaker 2: the last couple of years because I was just a
Speaker 2: bit bored and I needed to do something. So they
Speaker 2: accepted everything that I had done over the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: And I got my license and went and got my
Speaker 2: fingerprints done in the police station and you know, ticked
Speaker 2: the box. You know, they went all this, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: now what I'm going to do with that? And then I,
Speaker 2: you know, then I created two face on that you
Speaker 2: come to two face investigations on that.
Speaker 1: Part is there a player on the play on the
Speaker 1: type of thing that you.
Speaker 2: Two faces there? So I and it was sort of
Speaker 2: like it was either going to be second face or
Speaker 2: two face. I was trying to come up with something
Speaker 2: that idea of you know, the original and the and
Speaker 2: the deceitful one side of it all. So I just
Speaker 2: then sat down and I really thought, boom, this is
Speaker 2: just going to take off and I'm going to be
Speaker 2: inundated with all these people.
Speaker 1: Like on the movie when the Private Investigator, you sit
Speaker 1: in an office of dingy office with your phone just
Speaker 1: waiting for it to ring for your cat.
Speaker 2: Is anyone going to reach out? Can somebody wring my phone?
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I just started that, and I just started.
Speaker 2: I mean, the business has pivoted like it's you know.
Speaker 2: I now I've broken into two parts. Now I have
Speaker 2: scam prevention in Australia, which is more of the proactive
Speaker 2: side that we need to talk more about it. And
Speaker 2: then I've got the reactive side where I really talk
Speaker 2: to people face to face via zoom to basically say listen,
Speaker 2: I don't know you. You need to stop talking to this
Speaker 2: person because of these reasons. And that's a whole nother challenge.
Speaker 1: With your mum's one, you said it took her months
Speaker 1: to get over. What were the type of things that
Speaker 1: were challenging. Your mum was at the embarrassment. And I
Speaker 1: say embarrassment because I think that would come in the play.
Speaker 2: Well, because she was still engaging with the scammer even
Speaker 2: after you, even after she spent a couple more weeks
Speaker 2: talking to them, because that they want to see whether
Speaker 2: they can catch them out. And I kept saying to Mum,
Speaker 2: they're professional of this doesn't matter what you say. You're
Speaker 2: a seventy eight year old woman, yeah, lives in Sydney.
Speaker 2: That they don't. They're not going to saying oh, I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry. My name is Frank and I'm from Nigeria.
Speaker 2: And they're not going to do that. So she just
Speaker 2: I want to catch them out, I said, but for
Speaker 2: what purpose? That's not going to close this chapter by
Speaker 2: you catching them out.
Speaker 1: Just on what you're saying there, it makes me think
Speaker 1: that it's very human nature, isn't it. You think you're
Speaker 1: in a relationship. I just want closure. I just want
Speaker 1: they want to admit it. Yep, because in her mind
Speaker 1: and in that early stages of this might be the
Speaker 1: right person and then it's taken away. They don't even
Speaker 1: get the closure from Look, this relationship is not working out.
Speaker 1: Or I'm leaving you because of this, yes, so that
Speaker 1: they are left in that space of limbo.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and especially when I come in and say, no,
Speaker 2: this is not who you think and you're right a stranger, Well,
Speaker 2: Mum wasn't a stranger, but a mum talks, she says,
Speaker 2: and Mum's been interviewed before, and she said, when Carnie
Speaker 2: told me, I believed her. But I did believe her
Speaker 2: because I knew who she was, and I knew, you know,
Speaker 2: everything that she did, and I knew that she made
Speaker 2: sure that every you know, I was dotted and you know,
Speaker 2: to across and all that. I knew that she was
Speaker 2: telling me. What she was telling me was right, But
Speaker 2: I still had that but in there. And that's an
Speaker 2: interesting thing that she still had that butt. And it
Speaker 2: took her a while to talk about it, like because
Speaker 2: I said to her, I want you to tell your
Speaker 2: friends about it. You know, they all you live in
Speaker 2: a retirement village. They all need to understand. But she
Speaker 2: had that shame, she had that embarrassment that she didn't
Speaker 2: now she'll tell anybody, She'll stand on top of a
Speaker 2: rooftop and talk about it.
Speaker 1: Now, Well, I think victims in any crime, and the
Speaker 1: shame comes in quite often in the variety of crimes.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that there shouldn't be shame here
Speaker 1: a victim, and quite often they're victims because they're good,
Speaker 1: trusting people, and that's why they get targeted.
Speaker 2: And that's why it works so well, because we are.
Speaker 1: I would imagine family members or friends that the attraction
Speaker 1: the love is so strong in their minds, like the victims,
Speaker 1: that they push away friends. They'd be falling out with
Speaker 1: friendships and family when they say, oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is not right?
Speaker 2: Understand And I think the problem we've got there is
Speaker 2: the way family and friends initially speak to the victim
Speaker 2: of this crime. You know, instead of going in there
Speaker 2: with a bit of empathy and understanding and compassion, we
Speaker 2: tend to go in there and say, no, you're an idiot,
Speaker 2: don't you know. So we use negative language, which then
Speaker 2: causes the victim to retreat because the scammers are telling them,
Speaker 2: don't believe what your families say because they're lies.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so you're better off working with them moments
Speaker 1: they're not just hitting them up front you're wrong.
Speaker 2: It's a slow process and it is something that you
Speaker 2: need to be there to support them through through this process.
Speaker 2: Because when we talk about the way a scam and
Speaker 2: anyone who's evil, because scamming is evil. Anyone who's that
Speaker 2: skill set to be able to deceive another human is evil.
Speaker 2: So they have manipulated you and use tactics to be
Speaker 2: able to take you into a different world. So our
Speaker 2: language towards a victim of a crime has to be
Speaker 2: quite specific and understanding, and we've got to use I
Speaker 2: use a little bit of manipulation, you know, in the
Speaker 2: kind way, not the evil way, to try to get
Speaker 2: the victims away from the offender. And that's what it is,
Speaker 2: because they have put you into this whole different world of.
Speaker 1: Well the world, and that's a scary world. And yeah,
Speaker 1: people online dating like that's a world that they didn't
Speaker 1: know twenty years ago. They're vulnerable. Everyone's looking for a companionship,
Speaker 1: love or whatever, and that's what they're praying on. When
Speaker 1: it's your mum, how angry were you were? You pissed
Speaker 1: off big time.
Speaker 2: I was so excited and then I was cranking that
Speaker 2: it wasn't real.
Speaker 1: Because I said, even impacted on you. They were so.
Speaker 2: Excited for it, look't I wasn't cranky. Wasn't cranky at mum.
Speaker 1: Because I'm not suggesting it, Mum, but I was.
Speaker 2: Cranky at them. And the more I looked into it,
Speaker 2: the more it enraged me. And that's why I started,
Speaker 2: because I just went, this is so bad. I don't
Speaker 2: know this, and I thought, you know, I'm pretty out there.
Speaker 2: I pretty much noticed it. No, I didn't know anything
Speaker 2: about this. So that's why I went, well, what can
Speaker 2: I do to try to talk about that more so
Speaker 2: people can talk about it more so people can, like
Speaker 2: my mum can turn around and say, yes, okay, maybe
Speaker 2: I need to question this relationship. I have not met
Speaker 2: them in person. Maybe I need to question it. Maybe
Speaker 2: I need to say to a friend, oh, look, can
Speaker 2: you just do a second set of eyes over this
Speaker 2: for me? Because look, I've been talking to Frank for
Speaker 2: six months but we haven't met and you know, I
Speaker 2: really love him. But so it was that that's I
Speaker 2: got that sort of fire in my belly, going, well,
Speaker 2: how do I now change that language so victims can
Speaker 2: say to somebody, let's have a look at this.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it does become personal obviously when it's
Speaker 1: your mother, but we do look at those scams, and
Speaker 1: I'm guilty of it. As I suggest most people would
Speaker 1: be your sort of art. How could you be so
Speaker 1: stupid lately? But you know, I know my mother and
Speaker 1: it's not romance scams, but has been scammed a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and I can understand fully why she would
Speaker 1: believe what she's been told with the call or I
Speaker 1: need your details your day to birth?
Speaker 2: You my mum also, and this one furiated me, and
Speaker 2: I did get cranky with her. She got done for
Speaker 2: the high mum scam. So she got the text message
Speaker 2: I Mum, I've dropped my phone in the water. She
Speaker 2: did the right thing, and she rang me three times
Speaker 2: as soon as she got the text message. Well, my
Speaker 2: phone was inside and I was outside, so I didn't
Speaker 2: answer it. So then she started to engage with the
Speaker 2: scammer and tried to send them forty seven hundred dollars. Now,
Speaker 2: when I did come back inside and see three miscalls,
Speaker 2: I rang mom and Mum said did your phone dropping
Speaker 2: the water? And I said, oh no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no no, Mom, don't have you. She said, I've
Speaker 2: tried to send the money. I said, okay, okay, breathe
Speaker 2: so I'm breathing, trying to not get cranky with her
Speaker 2: because we'd spoken about that before, but she hadn't taken
Speaker 2: that on board. So where my dad. He got the
Speaker 2: same thing, and he just didn't engage. But he got
Speaker 2: it as a voice call, so he thought it was me.
Speaker 2: But I said, Dad, didn't really sound like me. He
Speaker 2: said no, but it was a female and it had
Speaker 2: funny noises in the background, he said, But I just
Speaker 2: wanted to wait until I spoke to you again. So
Speaker 2: he took a different approach than my mom, So it
Speaker 2: was a real They both went got same, same done,
Speaker 2: but Mom did a different approach where Mom tried really
Speaker 2: hard to send money through her bank to the scammer.
Speaker 2: And I said to Mom, why didn't you just ring
Speaker 2: my husband? Why didn't you ring my kid? Why would
Speaker 2: I want money from you?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Why would I want She said, Oh, now I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: I said, because the urgency was there, so and we
Speaker 2: want to help our kids.
Speaker 1: And that's the sad part because quite often the people
Speaker 1: that do become victims of the good, decent people that
Speaker 1: see good in everyone. But I'm with you, I just
Speaker 1: don't trust. I just know it. I think in this
Speaker 1: day and age, and it's sad. It shouldn't be the way.
Speaker 1: We might have a break now when we come back,
Speaker 1: I want you to break down like the type of
Speaker 1: red flags how they go about it, because talking to
Speaker 1: you the other day, I was shocked by the complexity
Speaker 1: of what goes into these scams. It's not just some
Speaker 1: idiot sitting sitting at home scamming one person. This is
Speaker 1: a big time. This is huge and proactive. What can
Speaker 1: be done to prevent people becoming becoming victims? Just before
Speaker 1: we do, did your mum lose any money to this?
Speaker 2: Mum has said she hasn't, and that's her story. I
Speaker 2: believe she lost a round between ten to twenty and
Speaker 2: thous because at that time, my brother passed away a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, so there was a little bit
Speaker 2: of money, and mum had asked me for money around
Speaker 2: that exactly the same time, and I couldn't understand why
Speaker 2: she needed that type of money, and I sense and
Speaker 2: I've read a couple of the emails, so he was
Speaker 2: sort of feeding I'm here for an eighteen million dollar contract.
Speaker 2: I know now that you know it's twenty million, but
Speaker 2: I've got a few issues with the bank so I
Speaker 2: could see the red flags within the emails. So Mama's
Speaker 2: always said no, and I respect that. I just have
Speaker 2: a gut feeling that she has, and that's that's her
Speaker 2: sense of embarrassment that she did lose that money. So
Speaker 2: it's a bit of a yes no answer. Yeah, yes
Speaker 2: I think she did, but no, she says no, and
Speaker 2: that's okay, and that's okay. Yeah, that's okay. The yeah,
Speaker 2: I will, I will, I will say yes.
Speaker 1: All right, Well we'll have a break back shortly for
Speaker 1: Part two Excellence