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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mea podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on.

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Speaker 2: Hey, I'm Taylor Strano. This is Mumma Mer's twice daily

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Speaker 2: news podcast, The Quickie. A frenchwoman has lost more than

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Speaker 2: a million dollars to a fake Brad Pitt, while an

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Speaker 2: Argentine woman was scammed out of thousands by an AI

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Speaker 2: George Clooney. So why do we keep falling? Four celebrity

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Speaker 2: romance scams? Plus Six months after two Melbourne teenagers died

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Speaker 2: from methanol poisoning in Lao, their families are still fighting

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Speaker 2: for justice before we get there. He's Clare Murphy with

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Speaker 2: the latest from The Quickie news room for Tuesday May

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Speaker 2: twenty Thanks Taylor.

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Speaker 1: Singer Dawn Richard has given evidence at Sean Diddy Combs's trial,

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Speaker 1: saying she feared for her life after witnessing Comb's allegedly

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Speaker 1: beating his ex girlfriend, Cassie Ventura. Richard, a former member

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Speaker 1: of the pop group Dannity Kane, says she was at

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Speaker 1: Combs's home when she allegedly witness him throw a pan

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Speaker 1: of ex Adventurer and then hit her after becoming angry

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Speaker 1: that she was taking too long to prepare his food.

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Speaker 1: Richard said it was one of several attacks she witnessed.

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Speaker 1: Combs then allegedly asked her and her bandmates to meet

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Speaker 1: at a studio, where he gave them flowers and then

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Speaker 1: threatened their careers if they ever said anything about what

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Speaker 1: they'd seen. Richard claims Combs also told her that he

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Speaker 1: comes from a place where people go missing. Richard was

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Speaker 1: cross examined the defense, pointing out several inconsistencies with her

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Speaker 1: accounts of what happened. Richard admitting to giving different versions

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Speaker 1: of events and not mentioning certain details during interviews with prosecutors,

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Speaker 1: saying as time has progressed, she gets better at knowing

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Speaker 1: what went on, pointing out that all this happened quite

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Speaker 1: a long time ago. Venturer's best friend, model Kerry Morgan,

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Speaker 1: also testified, saying she also witnessed Comb's hit Venturer, pull

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Speaker 1: her hair, kick her, and push her. Morgan said during

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Speaker 1: one occasion, she called to a security guard to do something,

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Speaker 1: but he refused. Morgan said she and Venturer then ran

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Speaker 1: to a neighbor's home, where they hid. She also described

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Speaker 1: an incident in twenty eighteen, where Combs allegedly turned up

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Speaker 1: unexpectedly a Venturer's apartment while Morgan was there. Morgan claims

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Speaker 1: while Venturer was in the bathroom, he came up behind

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Speaker 1: her and choked her before boomeranging a coat hanger around

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Speaker 1: her head. Morgan says he was asking her to admit

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Speaker 1: who Venturer was cheating on him with, to which Morgan

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Speaker 1: replied she didn't know. Later, Morgan says she was forced

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Speaker 1: to sign a non disclosure agreement to never speak of

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Speaker 1: the incident in exchange for a thirty thousand dollar payment.

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Speaker 1: She never spoke to Comb's or her friend Venturer again

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Speaker 1: after that night. Combs has pleaded not guilty to five

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Speaker 1: felony counts of racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to

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Speaker 1: engage in prostitution. If convicted, he's facing fifteen years to

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Speaker 1: life behind bars. A digital forensic expert has testified that

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Speaker 1: alleged mushroom killer Aaron Patterson's mobile phone pinked towers near

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Speaker 1: known death cap mushroom sites. Pattison is accused of deliberately

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Speaker 1: serving her in laws, Don and Gale Patterson, and Gail's

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Speaker 1: sister and brother in law Heather and Ian Wilkinson at

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Speaker 1: beef Wellington laced with the deadly mushrooms on July twenty nine,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Ian is the only survivor. Analysis of

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Speaker 1: Patterson's phone records shows she was in the vicinity of

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Speaker 1: the Gippsland towns of Outram and Locke on May twenty two,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. The jury also hearing how posts on

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Speaker 1: a science website on May twenty one revealed that death

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Speaker 1: cap mushrooms had been seen growing in both areas. The

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Speaker 1: person who posted said she'd removed the mushrooms as she

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Speaker 1: was worried about the public safety, but admits there may

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Speaker 1: have been more she didn't locate at the time. The

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Speaker 1: trial continues today despite increasing international pressure that saw Israel

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Speaker 1: lift a blockade to allow a small amount of aid

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Speaker 1: supplies into Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya, who says they

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Speaker 1: will control the whole of the enclave while also seeing

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Speaker 1: the release of hostages and the end of hermas. In

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Speaker 1: a video message, Netna, who explained that there was huge

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Speaker 1: fighting going on, saying they're going to control all parts

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Speaker 1: of Gaza, but that they had to do it in

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Speaker 1: a way. They won't be stopped. He said, Israel to

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Speaker 1: achieve complete victory with both the release of the remaining

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Speaker 1: fifty eight hostages still held by Hamas and the destruction

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Speaker 1: of the Palestinian militant group. With the threat of a

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Speaker 1: looming famine, Israel was forced to allow a limited amount

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Speaker 1: of aid into the Gaza strip. Netanyahu's saying US senators

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Speaker 1: he'd known for years as supporters of Israel his best

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Speaker 1: friends in the world, were telling him the scenes of

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Speaker 1: hunger were draining vital support and bringing Israel closer to

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Speaker 1: a red line, a point where they might lose control. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: areas of Gaza have been told to evacuate as the

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Speaker 1: fighting continues, Palestinian health officials saying more than five hundred

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Speaker 1: people have been killed in the past eight days as

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Speaker 1: Israel steps up its military campaign. Tiger King Joe Exotic

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Speaker 1: is calling on US President Donald Trump to help him

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Speaker 1: bring his husband back from Mexico, where he was deported

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Speaker 1: just hours after being released from prison. Exotic, whose real

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Speaker 1: name is Joseph Maldonado Passage, married Jorge Marquez Flors while

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Speaker 1: behind bars, announcing the nuptials back in April, his sixth

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Speaker 1: husband after five marriages, one of which he married two

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Speaker 1: men at the same time. Flores was taken to an

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Speaker 1: ICED detention center after his release from prison in Texas,

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Speaker 1: where he was supposed to be awaiting a hearing to

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Speaker 1: determine whether he could remain in the US, but he

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Speaker 1: was instead deported to Mexico. Just a few hours later.

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Speaker 1: Maldonado Passage wrote on Instagram that it had been a

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Speaker 1: rough day and that he didn't understand why he got

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Speaker 1: sent back so fast. He tagged Donald Trump in the post,

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Speaker 1: saying just let him go to Mexico and you can

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Speaker 1: keep Carol Baskin, saying he's exhausted trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: why Trump won't listen to the evidence. Maldonado Passage is

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Speaker 1: in jail after plotting to hire a hitman to kill Baskin.

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Speaker 1: One of the men he tried to hire was an

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Speaker 1: undercover FBI agent.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Claire. Next, Inside the world of celebrity romance scams.

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Speaker 2: Imagine receiving a direct message from Brad Pitt telling you

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Speaker 2: he's in love with you.

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Speaker 3: I wanted to say I love you.

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Speaker 1: I really do, especially if you listen to Mamma MIA's podcast,

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Speaker 1: The Quickie.

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Speaker 2: Sounds too good to be true, right, Well, for one frenchwoman,

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Speaker 2: the fantasy became a million dollar nightmare. The fifty three

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Speaker 2: year old interior designer known only as Anne lost her

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Speaker 2: life savings around one point four million US dollars to

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Speaker 2: scammers using AI generated images of Pitt, including photos of

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Speaker 2: him in a hospital bed where he claimed he needed

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Speaker 2: money for cancer treatment. She's not alone though. Just last week,

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Speaker 2: an Argentine woman lost thirteen thousand dollars to scammers posing

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Speaker 2: as George Clooney, who claimed he needed money to divorce

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Speaker 2: his wife.

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Speaker 3: I've fallen on hard times and I need your help.

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Speaker 2: The scams are becoming more sophisticated, using deep fake technology

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Speaker 2: to create convincing videos and voice recordings of celebrities speaking

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Speaker 2: directly to their victims. The Real Bride Pit has since

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Speaker 2: warned fans to be vigilant, reminding people he has no

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Speaker 2: social media presence at all. But experts say these victims

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Speaker 2: aren't simply naive. Research actually shows many of them are

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Speaker 2: highly educated, and the scams exploit complex psychological factors that

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Speaker 2: make anyone potentially vulnerable. Carlie Dober is a psychologist and

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Speaker 2: policy coordinator at the Australian Association of Psychologists KRLI. Why

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Speaker 2: are these scams so effective?

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Speaker 3: Look, they're so effective because the scammers they invest a

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Speaker 3: lot of time, energy, and resources into their product or

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Speaker 3: their grift, and also the actual scam itself. It picks

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Speaker 3: on psychological and behavioral traits that make a lot of

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Speaker 3: us quite vulnerable. To believe in this.

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Speaker 2: Is there a typical type of person that falls victim

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Speaker 2: to these scams, because in a lot of people's mind

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Speaker 2: it's maybe somebody who's not really good with technology or

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Speaker 2: is elderly, But from the cases we've seen recently, specifically

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Speaker 2: in these celebrity cases, that's not necessarily the case.

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Speaker 3: No, what's actually shocking is that well educated, older women

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Speaker 3: in about their forties or fifties are the key demographic

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Speaker 3: that are most likely targeted and full victim to this

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Speaker 3: kind of scam. So again, I think that a lot

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Speaker 3: of us are vulnerable, but that is the largest demographic.

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Speaker 2: The idea of a romance scam is not new, that's

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Speaker 2: been around basically as long as the Internet's been around,

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Speaker 2: if not even longer. But AI does complicate it right

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Speaker 2: because the injection of the celebrity element. What is it

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Speaker 2: about that that people are so drawn to I.

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Speaker 3: Think celebrity and that lifestyle offers us a bit of escapism, right,

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Speaker 3: We've grown up a lot of the time with these

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Speaker 3: public facing individuals. They offer a sense of distance from

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Speaker 3: our lives, excitement, and the fact that we could be

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Speaker 3: chosen is so seductive, like the fact that we could

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Speaker 3: be special enough to catch the eye of someone like

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Speaker 3: Brad Pitt or Tom Hardy. That's that's amazing. And so

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Speaker 3: then again if you have a Tom Hardy, for example,

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Speaker 3: because I just find him so attractive, deep fake who's

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Speaker 3: saying your name getting to know you? And again to

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Speaker 3: the untrained diet, these things are very convincing. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I can unfortunately only see these getting more and more

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Speaker 3: prolific as time goes by, which is quite scary.

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Speaker 2: So I've had a very minor occurrence of this, and

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of people have probably had this

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Speaker 2: example as well. When you're trawling through Facebook marketplace and

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Speaker 2: you're either trying to sell something or you're trying to

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Speaker 2: buy something, and the conversation goes with who assumes to

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Speaker 2: be I don't know, almost like a neighbor on the

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Speaker 2: other end, and then they start dropping weird things like

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Speaker 2: give me your pay ID or I need your bank details,

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Speaker 2: and that sends a red flag off right away. Why

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Speaker 2: doesn't that necessarily happen to these people who end up

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Speaker 2: in these situations.

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Speaker 3: So for a lot of people who are vulnerable to

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Speaker 3: falling for these romance scams, they have a romanticized idea

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Speaker 3: of love or relaytionships, so they believe in true love.

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Speaker 3: They believe in fairy tales more than the average person,

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Speaker 3: so they're quite susceptible to thinking, oh my gosh, this

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Speaker 3: is my happy ending, this is my Cinderella story. They

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Speaker 3: also might have more of an addictive personality type or

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Speaker 3: disposition than the average person, which means that they're chasing

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Speaker 3: that kind of high, that dopamine fixed excitement. They also

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Speaker 3: have higher levels of emotional instability at times, plus an

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Speaker 3: unhoned skill of critical analysis. Can all be a perfect storm?

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Speaker 2: Is there an element of loneliness involved as well?

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Speaker 3: I definitely think so. I mean, I think, you know,

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Speaker 3: for people who might be divorced, might be lonely, their

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Speaker 3: friendships might change, their children might have grown up, they've

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Speaker 3: got law free time, and again they're thinking of the

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Speaker 3: last twenty thirty forty years of their life. There are

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Speaker 3: certain emotional states that can lead any of us vulnerable

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Speaker 3: to believing the lies or you know, being hoodwinked, which

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Speaker 3: is also quite scary as well. So again, if we're

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Speaker 3: thinking of, you know, how people might avoid falling victim

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Speaker 3: to this stuff. You know, again, be discerning when you

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Speaker 3: go online, how are you feeling before you go on?

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Speaker 3: What's your emotional state when you're talking to a random person?

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Speaker 2: Cally, a lot of people will be listening to this

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Speaker 2: and thinking, how could you possibly have fallen for this?

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Speaker 2: How could you possibly think that George Clooney needed you know,

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Speaker 2: twenty grand from you to divorce his wife and run

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Speaker 2: off into the sunset with you? And then the other

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Speaker 2: question is why can't these people just find somebody in

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Speaker 2: their own circle? Is it a matter of that? Is

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Speaker 2: it just like why didn't you put critical thought on this?

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Speaker 2: And why didn't you find somebody closer to home? Well?

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Speaker 3: I think it can be a combination of things. Right,

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Speaker 3: Maybe they've had like a spade of really bad luck,

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Speaker 3: really poor relationships, so they're just feeling again a bit

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Speaker 3: more maybe desperate or hopeful right that this could be

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Speaker 3: something positive for them. And I totally understand people being like,

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Speaker 3: how can you fall for that? Are you serious? But again,

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Speaker 3: try not to think give yourself because maybe you're a

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Speaker 3: bit more street smart. Maybe you've had experiences, you know,

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Speaker 3: on Facebook marketplace where you're like, nah, I don't believe

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Speaker 3: that anymore, which is fantastic, and not everyone has had

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Speaker 3: the same experiences that you or I have had, and

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Speaker 3: so I think, you know, leaning with compassion. A lot

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Speaker 3: of scam victims actually don't come forward because they are

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Speaker 3: so humiliated and so ashamed. So the ones that do

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Speaker 3: come forward, I hope we can provide a bit of

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Speaker 3: compassion because this is a really vulnerable spot for them

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Speaker 3: to be in.

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Speaker 2: Well, you've kind of touched on them. My final question

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Speaker 2: for you, Krli is, once it's revealed this is a scam,

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Speaker 2: there's the obvious financial implication of things, But what other

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Speaker 2: lasting impacts do these scams have on people?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so even the financial element can be disastrous for people,

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Speaker 3: right because these scam is they can butter up this

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Speaker 3: person sometimes for years and develop a real relationship. Just

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Speaker 3: the identity or the person is not who the victim

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Speaker 3: thought it was, and so thousands and thousands of dollars

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Speaker 3: sometimes sometimes they're super sometimes a mortgage on their house.

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Speaker 3: The financial drawback from that can be horrific. You know,

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Speaker 3: their family or friends might shun or shame them. Their

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Speaker 3: children might not wish to talk to them anymore. They

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Speaker 3: might feel incredibly stressed about their retirement plans and so

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Speaker 3: that can lead to a whole host of physical and

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Speaker 3: mental health complications. Then there's the shame and embarrassment, which

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Speaker 3: can again lead them to self isolate, potentially to self

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Speaker 3: com medicate with different substances. There can be depression, anxiety,

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Speaker 3: and sometimes betrayal. TRAUAMA can lead to things like perst

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Speaker 3: traumatic stress disorder where they just their personality might change fundamentally.

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Speaker 3: They don't believe anything that people might say to them.

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Speaker 3: So it's really difficult to understate how disastrous and how

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Speaker 3: harmful these scams are, but the toll is mense.

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Speaker 2: Six months after two Melbourne teenagers died from methanol poisoning

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Speaker 2: in Loo, their families say they're still searching for answers

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Speaker 2: and justice. Holly Bowls and Bianka Jones, both nineteen, were

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Speaker 2: backpacking through Southeast Asia on their gap year when they

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Speaker 2: shared free shots at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in Vyong Yang.

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Speaker 2: They were among six tourists who died in the mass poisoning,

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Speaker 2: including two Danish women, an American man, and a British lawyer.

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Speaker 2: Sixty Minutes has reported, while up to thirteen people linked

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Speaker 2: to the poisoning deaths may face charges, Holly and Bianka's

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Speaker 2: mothers say it's not good enough. Australia's Department of Foreign

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Speaker 2: Affairs and Trade have told Holly and Bianker's parents that

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Speaker 2: local authorities have recommended proposed charges, including elimination of evidence

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Speaker 2: and violation of food security, but no murder or manslaughter

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Speaker 2: charges have been put forward. Michelle Jones and Sam Bowles

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Speaker 2: say they've written to Laos Prime Minister a million times

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Speaker 2: but have been ignored. They worried those responsible we'll just

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Speaker 2: get off with a fine.

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Speaker 3: And I care, they don't care, they don't.

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Speaker 1: Life is nothing, absolutely, it's clearly translated and what we've

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Speaker 1: seen and how we've been treated.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, I mean you know, lives were taken away.

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Speaker 2: In a touching tribute to their daughters, the mothers have

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Speaker 2: gotten tattoos containing Holly and Bianca's ashes, a permanent reminder

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Speaker 2: that the girls are always with them. Thanks for taking

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Speaker 2: some time to feed your mind with us today. The

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Speaker 2: quickie is produced by me Taylor Strano, and Claire Murphy,

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Speaker 2: with audio production by Tom Lin.