YouSaid · the spoken record

Matthew Cox

lines on the record: 500
first: 2024-01-17
most recent: 2024-01-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We were just discussing you, and I was like, okay, I understand that you guys are, I haven't made my first payment. I said, it actually came back in the mail. I had the wrong address. That was completely my fault. And I apologize. I said, but I can get you a cashier's check today. I will overnight it. No problem. Hope that's going to be okay. SAZ said, way, we're way past that. Way past that. I said, okay. Well, what's the issue? And they were like, I mean, look, to be honest, I don't think I'm talking to Alan Duncan. I don't think there is an Alan Duncan. He's like, I mean, your Social Security number was issued a couple years ago. We called the bank. And this was, we had gone with like Sun Trust Bank, right? So it was a real bank.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You need to go tell him is Alan Duncan's on the phone right now. I'm assure you he wants to talk to me. And she's like, all right, hold on. And I mean, like. 20 seconds later speaker phone. Hey, Mr. Duncan, this is so-and-so. And I'm here with our lawyer and the president of the bank and our head of fraud”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That she didn't tell me that on the phone. She's saying there's something wrong. They're freaking out because the account executive didn't really know. She just got a phone call saying, hey, have you ever met this broker? Did she meet the guy? Who is the guy? He hasn't paid. We're calling the cell. Nobody's answering. And really, most of this was my buddy Rudy's fault. He's just not doing any of this stuff. Any of the things he's supposed to be doing. We go to the office and I call South Star Bank. I get the secretary. And I said, look, I need to talk to whatever the guy the big guy was. One of them was like the president and one was like the somebody else. Anyway, vice president. So I said I need to talk to so-and-so, the vice president. And she says, I'm sorry he's in a business meeting. I said, well, listen.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh my God. And he was actually renting the apartment downstairs for me. So I run downstairs and I open the door and I go, bro. I'm like, did you make Duncan's payment? And he turns around. He's like, is it due? And I was like, oh my God. So I run back. You know, I grab the phone. I'm like, he didn't make it. He didn't make it. She's like, okay, well, here's what's happening. The account executive is calling. They've got the file and it was called South Star Bank. South Star Bank has it. They're reviewed it. They've already been ordering documents. They're saying that this guy's a problem. It's falling apart. Like the whole thing's falling. They know something's wrong.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From Belgium, you apparently have to do that at least once a year. So when I gave him his check, I said, look, Going to make the here's like 20 grand or 15 grand, but you got to make the payments on this thing for the next six months because no problem. I said, okay. She calls me up a month and a half later and says, Hey, Alan Duncan did not make his first payment. And I went”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Duncan never made his first mortgage payment I had a friend of mine, or one of my co-defendants. When we closed. That loan We both got checks for whatever, 40 or 50 grand. Keep in mind, we're also buying some of this money's going into a business account. We're buying property. So it's not like I'm pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars or even $20,000 or $30,000 on every closing. I'm more like I'm getting $25, $10, $20. And this guy's getting $10. This guy's getting 15. And then we're taking 60 and we're putting it into the business account. We're buying a bunch of vacant lots or we're building some new houses. So we're trying to kind of take all this and turn it into a development company. But we still have to pay our bills. So, you know, my buddy's got to go to, he's got to go to Amsterdam at least for two weeks, you know.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm living in Tampa Heights, which is right next to Ybor City in Tampa, right? So this is all these are all like little suburbs of Tampa, and they're all built back in the 1920s, 1890s, 1910s, 1920. So I bought this eight unit building. I renovated it into a triplex. I mean, I'm driving an Audi. I'm dating a woman that I should not have been dating. I don't know what she was thinking. So we're going on vacations. Life's good. But every once in a while, you know, like things happen. You get a phone call. Hey, this is what just happened. And I one time I got a phone call from same broker, Kelly. Kelly called me up and said, listen, we got a problem. This was... I want to say this was Alan Duncan. This was one of the first ones that I had done, right? We used him. And so she calls me up and says, listen, Al”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No comparable sales. So no matter what you sent to the bank, they're going to look at it. Like they're going to have their in-house appraiser is going to do a desktop review. He's going to go online. He's going to check to make sure all the appraisal, all of the comparable sales are sold for what you said they sold for are the same square footage were built, what the pictures look like, how far they are. He's going to double check everything. But he's some guy who's on salary and he does whatever, 40 or 50 of these a day or something. It doesn't take him long. And so it's cheaper that way where we pay for the appraisals, the whole thing.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. It was a real person, but I end up ordering the appraisal software by. Emailing, it was called Alamo. Alamo appraisal software. So I end up emailing them as her. And they go, well, we can't sell you the software unless we need a copy of your license. Boom, here's your license. So I send them the license and then we paid for it with a credit card. You could go get like a green dot card. You go put $500 on it or $1,000. The software was like. $1,500 or something. So you pick them like back then, you know, it was a long time ago. So $1,500, they mail it to us. And now I've got the software. So now I can do the appraisals myself.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is, it's funny, nobody ever questions that you actually have to have a license to get the appraisal software. So I get an appraisers that we're working with. I get her license. And I create an email address as her.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, I think everybody was making money. The appraiser at that time, I had an appraiser. Eventually, I ordered the appraisal software and I just start doing the appraisal myself. Like, why give this guy 500 bucks?”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I gave him $1,000 and he did another one. But by that point, it was like five or six. We'd done five or six with that guy. And after five or six plus the credit cards plus, you know, all the other things, like their credit scores start dropping. If it was $700 now, it's down to like 600. And at 600, you couldn't really borrow enough to make it worth it. So I have other people in the wings waiting. I'd go out and I'd run up the credit cards. and pull all the money out of the banks and close the accounts and then stop paying.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll take care of that. I'll take care of that. So I get all the checks and I leave. We go sit in my Audi and he sits down. He's like, bro, there's a lot of money. A lot of that money goes back in the properties, Eric. And he's like, still, bro. And I said, and I counted out 500 bucks. But listen, a week later, we had another closing. So he comes in. I said, Hey, bro, he's like, hey, what's going on? And I said, I need you to do the James Red thing. He goes, yeah, I've been thinking about that. I did that way too cheap. I said, I get it, man. How much do you want? What do you want? And I'm thinking if it's more than 10 or 15, I'll do it myself. And he sits there and he Want a thousand dollars? I got a thousand dollars”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mary comes walking out. She looks at me and she goes, Mr. Cox, I don't know why you're here. She goes, I told Kelly that was the broker. She goes, I told the broker that I'm not closing alone unless James Red shows up and Eric stands up on Q and he goes, I'm James Red. And she was like, And she goes, Hold on a second. She runs in the back, comes back with a file, opens it up. Looks at the picture and she's like, Oh, I'm so sorry. Give me five minutes. I've got the file. Prints up the docs. He goes in, signs. And when we're there, she's passing out the checks. 5,000 here, 25,000 here, 35,000 here, 7,000 here, 6,000 here. So he sees all these checks. And I'm like, oh, I got that construction coming in. No, no, no.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we'll go and I'll do it myself. And he sat there and he went Want $500. And I went $500. Listen, I almost started laughing. I mean, I was like, I put my hand over my eyes. I was like, $500. It's going to take you 30 minutes. And he's like, he's like, I don't care, bro. I get in a lot of trouble. I was like, Oh, well, yeah, I'm not paying you now. You got a sign first. And he's like, oh, you know, I'll sign. I'll sign. I know you're good for it. For 500 bucks, I made a fake ID for him. He goes in to the place. He signs James Red. Comes out. What was even funnier? What was funny about that was when we walked into the title company, we're sitting in the lobby.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you know, it's like I've weathered that part of the storm. And he sat there and he was right, right. And he goes, well, I'm not doing it for free. I'm not doing it for nothing. I said, no, bro, of course not. I mean, what he's like, you're making a lot of money. I said, well, keep in mind a lot of that money goes back in the property. It's not like we're walking away with, I think I said like tens of thousands, we're really walking away with hundreds of thousands. It's not like we're walking away with a bunch of money or, you know, it's, you know, we got to put it back. We got to buy more properties. We got to keep it going. We got to make the payments. And I know, but still, I could get a lot of trouble. I said, I understand, bro. I go, well, what do you want? And I remember thinking if he asked for more than like 10 or 15,000, like I'll just, I'll do it myself. We'll just change title companies.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I pulled the mugshot offline of you when you arrested a couple years ago. And he jumps up and he goes, Yo, motherfucker. And I go. I said, Eric, I said, wait a minute. I said, hold on, hold on. I said, listen, I said, I only did that because I knew if it came down to this moment, you were the only person that I knew that could pull this off, that'd have the balls to walk in and do it. And he sat there and he went Yeah, you're right. You're right. And I mean, I couldn't believe he fell. Listen, this guy would beat the brakes off me. He was, he's like 5'10, 5'11". He's boxed. He's a big guy.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I need someone to show up as James read. And he goes, wow, he goes, who are you going to get to do that? And I was just thinking, just like, you're not understanding. I'm not confiding in you because I need a friend. And I looked at him. I said, well, I was thinking you might do it. He was like, A big favor. I said it is a big failure. I could be in a lot of trouble. I said, I know. And he goes, Well, wait a minute. He goes, I can't go. He said, You have to give these people a driver's license. You said the driver's licenses, you were using mugshots. You said she's closed a couple of these. She's seen this guy's picture. And I go, she has seen this picture. I said, the thing is for James Redd.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Listen, I said, I'm going to tell you something. I need a favor. He's like, okay, cool. He's like, what is it I said, you know, all these houses we've been having you go and clean up. He's like, yeah, you painted that one house, you did this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Right. So here's what we've been doing. I've been buying these houses for $50,000, recording them for $200. And then I have these fake people buy them. And I explain, I just lay it out for him. And he's like, wow, he's like, that's fucking, bro. That's ingenious, man. That's smart. Like, wow, ooh. I was like, okay, so yeah, I know that's great. So here's the thing. I said. The title company who's been closing some of these loans, and we have a closing in a couple days. She wants this guy James Red to show up”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can tell you exactly what I said because it's burned in my mind. He comes in. So, what Eric was doing at that time, he was actually working for us. He worked for somebody else, but periodically we would buy a house and we'd call him up. We'd say, hey, can you, you and your boss, can you guys come over and trim the trees of this house, trim all the trees, take all the crap in the yard, clean it up? They go, yeah, sure, no problem, because that's what he did. Worked for like a Handyman service. So they would come and they'd clean it up and they'd do that. So I say, can you come over? And he was like, yeah. So he comes to the office, whatever, a few hours later. And he comes in the conference room. I said, hey, Eric, what's going on? And he says, he says, how's it going? I said, yeah. I said, um,”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I remember one of my buddies never going to do this. And I was like, I think he will. I think he will. So that's how, and that's really that kind of like you think, what do you think? Let me try. Let me call him. I don't know, bro. Like, that's the kind of conversations you're having. But really looking back, I would love to hear the.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Named Eric Tomargo, who had been arrested. He had like, I don't know what it was, the DUI or domestic violence. I forget what it was. But there was a picture of him. So I print out the picture. I cut it up. I paste it onto a driver's license. And I make a copy of it for James Redd. That's what I'd been giving the title people when I would close. I'd sign all the documents and I'd leave them that copy so that it looked like they made a copy of it. And then they would notarize all the documents, even though they'd never seen this person. They have a copy of his driver's license. Everything's signed. Cox said he signed it. It's good. Notarized. Here's your check. So what I do is I think, let me see if I can get Eric to do this. I knew he'd been in prison before. So I call up Eric.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have to pick a photo of somebody, right, to put on the driver's license, right? So I'm not making a fake ID for all these guys because I don't need a fake ID for all these guys, not with my picture on it, but I need a copy of an ID, but I need a picture. Where do I get the picture? So I go to Hillsborough Counties arrest website. And I would find people that I knew that had been arrested. And so I found a guy”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In mind at this point, I don't need IDs, I don't need a real ID. I mean, I figured out how to kind of make a real ID, right? Like I could make one. I could take sandpaper and sand off the information on a regular ID, and then I would print the corrected information in reverse on a piece of transparency. And I would glue it over there. And you could still see the holograms and stuff. It actually worked pretty good. I don't, a cop's not going to pass mustard with a cop, but somebody at the bank, like I was able to go in and I would open a bank account with it. So One of the things I had done when I was closing these loans was I would go online and I would.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I went, wow, that's a tough one. And she's like, okay, so what do you want to do? Do you want to go to another title company? Like, we're supposed to close in like three days, two, three days. I said, well, he's going to have to show up then. I said, I'll figure it out. Give me a couple days. Let me figure this out. And she's like, okay, well, I don't know how that's going to happen. He didn't exist.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This guy, James Red, like Cox is doing something shady. James Redd doesn't even exist. She goes and looks at the last couple files and she realizes, of course, obviously, like this guy never showed up. She remembers Cox picked up the files. Like, and he's saying he doesn't exist. So she freaks out. She calls the mortgage broker. Mortgage broker calls me. Mortgage broker calls me up and says, listen, Mary said she's not closing the next loan unless James Redd shows up.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The house is for 50, record them at $200,000, and then have these synthetic identities, buy all the properties, refinance them, pull out the cash, make six months' worth of payments, let them all go into foreclosure. And that really, really started working well. Very well. I had one time where I had a guy, it was James Redd, the synthetic identity was James Redd. And he had bought two or three houses. And there was somebody at the office who was friends of somebody who knew the title company where we were closing the loans. And he called that her. Her name was Mary and said, Mary,”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Looking back, it's like, okay, well, then you got to bite the bullet. It's just what you have to do. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do it, whether it was laziness or, I don't know. You know, I just thought I'm good at this. I'm going to run. I'm just going to start running a scam. I'm going to figure out how to drive the prices up.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just didn't want to disappoint him any more than I already had. So I thought, I'm going to flip houses and then I'll start maybe a development company. So I'll buy some vacant lots and all this and that. The problem is. Houses on mine for $50,000. If I fix them up and sell them, maybe I make $20,000, $25,000. And then you got to find a qualified borrower. It's very hard to find a qualified borrower Wants to live in Ibor City. Back then, I still think it's rough, but those same houses are going for $300 and $400,000. So, you know, I'm buying houses. I got to get qualified borrowers. I have to do all the renovations. It's a nightmare.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Six blocks away from where my sister's married to her lawyer husband. Like, I'm doing pretty good. And then within three months, we bought, you know, my new wife, we buy a quadplex, and then we're buying a triplex and another quadplex and a 10 unit and a duplex and another duplex and a quadplex. And it's like, what the hell's going on? This guy is blowing up. He's going non-vacation here and vacation here. So he, you know, and so when the FBI comes in and they indict me and I take the three years probation, like, I mean, probably the worst thing in the world, you know, other than going to prison would have been just having to just sell everything and go move in and start over and sell used cars. Not that there's anything wrong with selling used cars. But I just felt like, you know,”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“driving i'm driving a new i gotta just pulled in in a new car and i gotta i just bought a house that was you know four or five blocks away from his house from where i grew up from where he lives you know lived at that time you know”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, he, you know, and then I turned around and I tried to go to work for state farm insurance, which is who he worked for. He worked for them for like 40-something years. And I failed the aptitude test. So then I went and worked for another insurance company. And I was an insurance adjuster, but I couldn't keep up with the workload. And then I ended up working construction. I'm still barely paying my bills. You know, that's basically where my dad felt like that's, you know, he was polite to me. You know, we were, you know, cordial. But yeah, I think he felt he deserved a better kid”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it was illegitimate, no, he thinks my son, he's brilliant. He's great. He's wonderful. I had, you know, was certainly not prouder of me prior to that. But, you know, my dad was athletic. He was extremely bright. I mean, brilliant. And I was a kid who had to be put into special schools, who barely graduated high school. who ended up going to college and getting a degree in fine arts because I was never going to be able to get a degree in business. It wasn't going to happen. So when I graduated college, I remember with the degree in fine arts, he said, the best thing you could do with that is maybe you could draw caricatures at Disney World. You know what I'm saying? Which wasn't a compliment. It wasn't like, hey, you could draw.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whatever, three weeks later, four weeks later, you know, boom, I got a check. It's like $9,000 or something. And then, you know, the next month, it's $12, and the next month it's $16. And then they make me a manager. And”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, when I became a mortgage broker, when I became a mortgage broker and I went to work for the company, and we're talking about within a week, I got a client. Three days later, I got a client. A week later, got a client. Two days later, got a client. Like I closed four loans my first month. And my dad was like, well, how much money are you going to make? And I'm like, oh, I'm charging this much this. I got a point on the back. I got this. Boom, I'm thinking I'm going to walk home after taxes, like 10, 11,000. Jesus God Almighty. Are you serious? Well, we'll see. Don't start counting your chickens before that, you know. And then, you know.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, a big part of that, the reason is I did not want to move back in with my parents. And I didn't want my father to see me struggling. And I didn't want him to My success, he had no idea. My success had been the first time he'd ever really been proud of me.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You go in and you say, Hey, I've got I've got this loan. I need to get this loan if this guy's trying to buy this house, and I need a loan that looks like this. Where can we go? And by the way, they cannot order a copy of his tax returns. So you don't want to have to sign what's called a 4506. So they're like, oh, okay, listen, so-and-so's got a program that, you know, and you go back and forth, but you have to have this much in reserves, but you got the bank right, yeah, yeah, I got the bank. I could do that. You know, so you go in and you throw it out there to five or six guys, and you're going to come up with an answer.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The government would definitely say it was organized. I would say it was, you know, you're a bunch of guys, you're joking around with everybody. Helping each other, and it's not like everybody's kicking up to Tommy Know so”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've done different voices, or I just have somebody else do it. Gretchen would have done it, or one of the brokers, Susan, would have done it, one of the brokers that worked for me or, you know, Kelly or Johnny Moon. I had so many guys and, you know, they just get on the phone. They do it because they're all doing something fraud and we're all working together. So, hey, I need you to call this guy. I need you to call this guy.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can call, we'll get on there. I'll do the whole and hold on. Okay, what's that name again? Do you have the count number? Hold on Wait a little bit. You come out. Oh, okay. I got to hear. I can't tell you the exact amount right now, but what was his balance last month in the? Oh, yep, yep, that's it. Exactly. Okay, thank you. Click.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, sometimes you have to have your down payment in the bank, right? So they want three months worth of bank statements to see that, hey, he's got his $50,000 in the bank. And then the more properties you buy, they start to want to see what's called reserves. They want to make sure that you can pay all your mortgage payments. If this guy loses his job, can this guy maintain all these mortgage payments for the next six months and see they do that and they think you're going to go, oh, now he can't do it. They go, well, then we won't lend it. Well, when they do that to me, I go, of course I do. Of course he's got it. Let me send you over the bank statements. Oh, you want to call the bank? Call them.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So stupid. That was just, there's so many things, so many mistakes I made. I mean Within the fraud, there are mistakes I made, but other than just the overall committing fraud, but it was just like, I thought it was so cute. And then, you know, you get in front of the judge and the judge is hearing about the reservoir dogs. And Mr. Green and Mr. Black, Mr. White, Mr. This, Mr. And he's looking at me just like, you jackass. And, you know, what am I saying? I'm like, yeah, I thought that was cute. You know, but nothing's cute. You know, plus I'm making fake banks.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First one was a Joel Cologne. And then I started getting creative because the ones after that I started naming. So I had like Joel Cologne and an Alan Duncan. But then I, do you remember the movie Reservoir Dogs? So I started naming the characters after guys in the Reservoir dog. So I had a James Redding, a Lee Black. William Blue, David Silver, Brandon Green. So then I start developing these guys. Now I thought, oh, forget those normal things. I'm going with the reservoir dogs. And I thought I was so cute too.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Me and this guy, actually Dave, Dave Walker, the guy that bought my business. So we renovate it and it just so happens at the same time I go to pull credit one day and wow 700 plus credit scores. I Don't have to sell this thing at all. Like, we just, I can sell it and put it in this guy's name and let him refinance it. And so that's what we did. We ended up, I ended up selling it to this synthetic identity.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, initially, I thought about doing it legitimately, right? But at the same time, I was also in the middle of figuring out how to make these synthetic identities. So I'm making the payments every month, remember? Two months in, three months, no credit scores, no credit scores, no credit scores. And I'm also saying I'm going to go, I'm going to start buying houses, renovate them, sell them. So the truth is we actually renovated probably one house completely. I remember it was on 26th Street. We renovated the house completely. Outside inside, it's done. It's good.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a chunk of change. So we're talking about a couple thousand dollars a month for child support. She got all of the apartments that we had. We had about a million, million and a half dollars worth of apartments, which isn't a lot now, but that's probably five or six million dollars now. So she got all the apartments. So she got everything. So now I'm sitting here like, I got no, I can't be a mortgage broker. I can get my $9,000, but I have to help this guy run this company, train people, do that sort of thing. So what I decided to do was I was going to start flipping houses.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know what to do, right? I could have like, you know, you look back and it's like, I could have claimed bankruptcy. I could have moved into my parents' spare room, you know, something like that. But, you know, because I had, I lost everything in my divorce. I had huge child support payment. Not that that has anything to do like with my ex-wife. Like I absolutely signed up for that. Like I wanted to pay that.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so I wasn't. I had to, I couldn't own the mortgage company anymore. That was a good question because you would think, you know, wouldn't it be great if I could keep on going? But what they said was, you know, you have to forfeit your brokerage. Your broker's license and your brokerage business license. And what I did was I. I transferred my brokerage business license to a guy that essentially bought my business. They allowed me to work as a consultant in the mortgage industry because they went, they go, my lawyer goes to the judge and says, what else can he do? And so I have a friend, his name's Dave Walker. He was a CPA. He came in and he bought my business and he paid me like $9,000 a month. And that covered my bills. My wife and I got divorced. So she's my ex-wife.”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so they had to go pay a lawyer $10,000. So I absolutely caused that person that I stood to meet you're a victim and I owe you that money. And it was a shitty thing to do because even at the time I was like, oh, they'll make a couple phone calls. It'll be fine. It wasn't fine. And if I had really put any thought into it all, I would have known it's going to really affect these people. And those people had done nothing wrong with the exception of Trusting me. They rented me their house, or they owner finance their house. They made the mistake of bumping into me, and now they owe ten thousand, twenty thousand dollars. And I'm sure a ton of anguish”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Initially, the thing is, initially, nobody got hurt. That's the thing. Nobody ever lost any money directly. Like I didn't go and say, give me $50,000 and I ran off with your money. Like, I wasn't doing that. And that was a great justification. But at some point, and we'll get into that, you know, I take off on the run. And people do lose the money. I didn't take that money directly. And for some reason Thick mind or whatever the case may be, that seems like a distinction to me that makes me feel okay is that I never said give me $10,000 and I ran off with it. But I put people in a position where Damage the title to their house. And they had to go get a lawyer to fix that”
2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source