Romance Scam Kingpin Brought to Justice, Part 1
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 980 Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Debbie's mother passes away suddenly, she is not prepared for what she finds. While sorting through financial records and paperwork, she discovers correspondence with the US Postal Inspection Service and letters to a victim's advocate. Debbie learns that her mother was hiding the painful secret that she was the victim of a romance scam that had stolen over $400,000 from her. But a US Postal Inspector is putting together the pieces to catch the ringleader of the elaborate, wide-ranging romance scam empire that is stealing millions of dollars from dozens of victims. Will Debbie get justice for her mom?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week on The Perfect Scam. |
| 0:03.0 | You would say, what high school did you go to? |
| 0:05.0 | How many kids went there? |
| 0:06.0 | Who was your best friend there? |
| 0:08.0 | Oh, what was the name of your mascot? |
| 0:10.0 | What sports did you play? |
| 0:12.0 | Those are the questions that you see when you log into Bank of America or whoever you bank with. |
| 0:16.0 | They have a series of challenge questions. |
| 0:19.0 | He would eventually get around to ask her to those questions. |
| 0:21.8 | So I'm my only guess from this investigation that he was trying to engineer his way into her bank accounts through these conversations. |
| 0:35.3 | Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. |
| 0:37.3 | I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. |
| 0:41.1 | Romance scam stories are among the most painful. |
| 0:44.8 | Victims not only deal with financial fallout, they usually end up with a broken heart too. |
| 0:51.1 | Often, the criminals simply vaporize when the crime is finally over, slipping back into |
| 0:56.1 | whatever dark corner of the internet they came from. |
| 0:59.6 | But once in a while, justice hunts them down in that dark place. |
| 1:05.9 | But today's story begins in a different kind of dark place, in an empty home in North Carolina, where Debbie |
| 1:12.1 | Crisp's mom, Donna, has died just a few days earlier. |
| 1:16.6 | Probably a heart attack, Debbie was told. |
| 1:19.1 | It's all still so raw she can't bear to begin the task of picking through mom's affairs. |
| 1:24.9 | So Debbie's daughter, Sarah, steps in. And while sorting through financial |
... |
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