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

  1. “Like Elon Musk. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's it's not like you're an I'm an exceptional human. I'm an exceptional human being at a horrific thing at committing 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

  2. “I mean, it was done out of desperation initially, and then it just turned into pure narcissistic arrogance. Look at me, look at how I can do things that nobody else can do, look how smart I am. I just walked into Bank of America, handed them seven documents that were all fraudulent, and they cut me a check for $250,000. Like, wow, I'm amazing, you know. And guess what? They're never going to get their check. And they won't know even know where to start to try and find the person because they're looking for a phantom. And you feel great. I felt great. I used to James Bond. I felt like 007. It was amazing. And, you know, and it did it. It feeded my need to feel important. Even if that was a lie, because all that success was just a lie.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I think initially it was I needed the money. Like that's the first thing. You say, oh, okay, well, and if you ask most guys, oh, well, man, I need the money. You need the money And I definitely needed the money. Then you get $50,000 in your bank, and then you get $100, and then it's $200, and then it's half a million, and then it's a million. And what the hell are you still committing fraud for? You've got half a million or a million dollars in the bank or worth of real estate, or you're making $5,000, $10,000 a month just in rental income. Why are you still committing fraud? So I think it morphs into... The creativity in part for me. And two, it was a chance for me to prove to everybody how smart I was.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “You're not a moral, ethical person, but you want everybody else to hold up to some ethical code. While you're robbing grandma, that's not right. So, you know, I get the whole Omarta code. And there was a time when I was delusional enough to believe that. After you go, after going through it, no. And after going through it multiple times, 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

  5. “That may be, but these aren't people with integrity. These are criminals. If these were decent human beings, and all of them will tell you, well, why'd you do that whole? You know, I was a drug addict or I needed the money. Well, if you were a decent human being, you would have gotten off the drugs. You would have gone and gotten three jobs. You can work 80 hours a week. I've done it. You can work 84, 85, 80. You can work 90 hours a week. You can do that. Oh, I did it for my kids. No, you're lazy. You could have worked three jobs for your kids. Instead, you decided to sell methamphetamine. Well, I was addicted. You could have gotten off met. It wasn't important. It was the easy way out. You're not someone with integrity. So for you to sit there and say, hey, I'm going to act like a scumbag. But now I got caught or you got caught and I don't want you to tell on me. Well, you're a guy that robs banks. You stick guns in people's faces. You kidnap people. You torture people. You sell drugs. You're not.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “It does, but... But I have such a low opinion of people. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't expect, it's not that I don't like people, it's that I just don't expect anything of them. I don't expect you to look out for me. You know, there was a time when I did. I thought I look out for you. You should look out for me, but I just don't expect that anymore.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I mean, what is it? I remember I talked to one of the COs at the prison one time and he said, He said I said, shit, I said, 50% of the guys here snitched. He was more than that. He said, but listen, he was 100% of them are lying about it. Said, so there's nobody here that's going to tell you they snitched. Nobody. So there's guys, tons of them that cooperate. If 80, 90% of defendants cooperate, you start doing the math. If you ask 10 guys in prison, all of them say, I didn't cooperate, I didn't cooperate, I didn't cooperate. Like, okay, you ask 100. I didn't cooperate. Nobody's going to say I cooperated.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And the best thing this guy's got it going for him is that he can walk around and say, well, he's a stand up guy. That guy's going to the same halfway house as me. He's going to do 30 years where I'm going to do 10.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Abide by some kind of a street code and not roll over on you. And it does happen, but it's like it's in the 90%ile of people that cooperate. 90-something percent. And people cooperate when they're not even looking at any real time. So, if you're looking at 30 years, and especially after going to prison, you go to prison and it's like, this guy's a stand-up guy over here. He got 30 years. He could have cooperated against all of his co-defendants, but he didn't. Nobody comes to see him. His wife divorced him. His kids ended up in foster care. His friends are cleaning out his house. Nobody puts money on his books. Nobody comes to see him. Nobody answers his phone. Nothing. He took 30 years. Most of those guys turned around. They end up getting indicted for other things years later. They cooperate.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “You know, the problem is Eventually, I cooperate The time I didn't want to cooperate. I didn't believe in cooperation. But after seeing how many people cooperate and the way the system is set up, I think that my understanding of loyalty. Vastly more realistic now. And I think that if you're committing crime, if you're absolutely like the things I did, I did a bunch of scumbag things. I mean, I'm not killing people, but I'm doing scumbag things. I'm lying, cheating, stealing. I'm a thief. You know, you boil down to it. That's what I am. So you can't go around behaving like a scumbag, dealing with scumbags, and then expect those same scumbags to suddenly...”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “That I only had one person that did not talk to the FBI. I had one person that every time the FBI or the Secret Service went to that person's door, she said, don't come to my house again. I don't have anything to say about Matt. I have nothing to do with any of this. Talk to my lawyer. This happened over and over again. And that's my ex-wife. She's a gangster.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Looking back, if I could go back in time, I would have gone into our weekly meeting with a dolly and I would have walked in front of everybody and scooped up two or three of the file cabinets and put them in the back of a truck and said, listen, you guys are going to be talking to the FBI soon. I suggest you get attorneys. And I would have driven off. But I didn't. I thought, no, be loyal. Know, don't do that And what happened was. When the other thing falls apart, right? When the next scam falls apart. Every one of these people go to the FBI. Like, they're not even coming to them. These guys are going to the FBI with lawyers. I want to cooperate. I want to tell you what Cox did. I want to help. I want to, and I'm thinking, like, I never had to get indicted to begin with.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Where we go in, and what we'll do is you go, you work, you go in, talk to the FBI, you go grab a bunch of your mortgage brokers' most egregious files. Grab them, bring those files to the FBI, go work with the FBI, they will indict them, and you will not be indicted. And I said, Which I kick myself to this day, I said, absolutely not. I'm not going to snitch on them. I'm not going to cooperate. I'm not going to, you know, I'd seen the godfather. You're not supposed to cooperate. You're supposed to be loyal. I'm not going to do any of that. And so I say all of this.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I spoke with the FBI. I spoke with the U.S. attorney. They believe, and they've been told. And he said, Look, they didn't tell him exactly what they have, but they said what the evidence that they have on you based on two confidential informants. That you cannot go to trial. And I was like, right, of course I knew that. And I was like, okay, he said. He said, You haven't been indicted yet. And they are fairly certain that you're running a mill, right? A fraud mill over there. And you guys are churning out fraudulent loans. Now they can't come and they can't come and raid your office and do anything about it yet because so far they only have you. But here's what I'm saying is that he said, I can keep you from being indicted. It's called Pre trial is a pre trial intervention.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “My ex wife borrowed like 180. So there's plenty of equity. If the whole thing had gone into foreclosure, they still would have got their money back. And to be honest, by the time all this happened, there was only like three of the three properties. It was like five, but we'd already sold a few. And at this point, we'd just sold another two. There's like one or two properties left. So we're selling at that moment we were selling them. So I was like, no, I kind of argue with them, but then he wanted 75 grand. I gave him 75 grand. And then he comes back and he says, good news. There was no potential fraud. So I can get you three years. Now here's the thing. Here's what I always kind of look back at. When I first got, went into his office, he said. Said, listen, you haven't been indicted yet.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “But the more I thought about it and read, he gave me the guidelines that. That supposedly, the fraud that I had committed and the guidelines that oversaw that. And I read it and I was like, I'm not really in trouble here because I'm looking at a felony, but I'm not going to go to jail because there was no potential for the bank to lend to lose money. Because I bought the house with like a hard money loan. And then I renovated it with my own cash. And when I sold it, it appraised at $250,000.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “On the phone. He asked me if I'll come down. I said, Yeah, absolutely. Let's schedule it for next Tuesday. I put it off four or five days. I go to my brother-in-law immediately who's a lawyer. And he says, oh, yeah, yeah. I don't really tell him exactly what's going on. But I tell him, this is what's happening kind of, and I may be in trouble. I need a federal defense attorney. I don't even know what a federal defense. I don't even know the difference. But he said you need a federal defense attorney. It's the FBI. So we go on a couple. We meet a couple lawyers. I end up getting a lawyer. I give him like 75 grand. And he started to have me convinced initially he had me convinced I was probably going to go to jail for a few years. But really that's what they kind of do to justify you giving them $75,000.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “No, I'll tell you why Go back to my office. I remember I told her, I said, tell the FBI agent to call me on the phone, do not come in my office. So I go back. I'm still trying to figure out how to weather this, right? I go back, I sit down. Phone rings. My secretary comes in and says, hey, Agent, I'll never forget the guy's name, Agent Scott Gale with the FBI. And I was like, okay, is on the phone. And she's standing there. I was like, close the door, get out and close it. She's like.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Jumps up. Her husband stands up and he says, We've never lied to the FBI. We may not have told him everything, but we've never lied. And I thought Who are you talking to? Like, I know that's not true. So you're not saying that for my benefit. So I was just, I kind of look at them and I'm like, what? And I remember looking down, and this may mean nothing, but both of their cell phones were right next to me, right? And I remember they were probably just wearing wires, but I just remember thinking those cell phones are microphones. They probably weren't. But I remember thinking, oh, I just looked at her and I went, I said, well, I hope you're going to get something for this. She immediately starts crying, and she says, Madam, I'm sorry. I have a kid. I can't go to jail.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Was like, okay, I was like, I kind of caught myself and I went, okay, wait, wait, wait a minute. Look, okay, here's what you're going to tell them. You're going to tell them you never met her. She called on the phone. Like I start trying to devise a plan that will answer their questions without getting my wife in trouble or them in trouble. And if nobody cooperates, the whole thing should shut down. It doesn't go anywhere. There's no way there's nowhere for them to go. If everybody's just kind of stonewalls them. So, as I'm saying all this, Gretchen says, Matt, we can't lie to the FBI. And I go, What are you talking about? You're already lying to the FBI. I mean, you've been lying to the FBI. I mean, I just refinanced your house. And before I can really say anything.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “My wife was not working, and I provided W2s and pay stubs. So when she says all this, she says, yeah, they're looking at the loans you gave me at your wife's loans. And I went. O my God, I said, Well, you didn't tell him that the W two's were fake, did you? You didn't tell him the pace thubs were fake, did you? You didn't tell him that the down payments were, you didn't tell them that we were married, did you? I mean, just absolutely buried myself. And as I'm telling her this,”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “At the time, we were buying rental properties. My wife didn't have a job. So it's all fraud. But I couldn't close those loans at my mortgage company because I own the property. So I'm selling those properties. I bought properties, renovated them, and sold them to my wife to get around something called seasoning. Seasoning says you have to wait six months to a year to refinance at the market value. Otherwise, if you want to refinance, that's fine, but you have to refinance at the price you purchased the property at. But I bought these properties for $80,000 or $100,000, renovated them, sold them for two, three hundred thousand to my wife who got a very, didn't even get a big mortgage. We were just trying to kind of get around. A guideline.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So she calls me one day and says, Listen, I got to talk to you. The FBI is asking questions about you. And I go, what? And she goes, yeah. And I was like, meet me at a pizza place down the street. So don't come in my office because everybody knows she's been indicted. Like everybody in her office quit when the FBI. The FBI shows up and gives you a business card and announces they're the FBI. Everybody quits. So I said, do not have, do not come here because they already know they're already concerned. So I go and I meet her and Pete and we sit down at the restaurant, you know, a little pizzeria and I sit down and she starts telling me that the FBI is asking questions about me. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, what are they asking? And she goes, look, they came in. They took all our files. And like I was like, I don't know any of this. I'm like, when did this happen? She's like, yeah, they have a couple weeks ago. And they, and they have some of your files because I had closed several loans for my 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

  24. “He just got you $75,000. You know, I don't know how you got $75,000. The attorney knows something's wrong because the attorney's like they just your whole mortgage company was just shut down. There's no way you could borrow $75,000. So he's like, this guy's doing fraudulent stuff. And she says, yes, of course he is. And he says, you need to work with the FBI, wear a wire against 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

  25. “Want to talk to, they're like, look, we want to talk to you, and you're going to be indicted. Okay. So she comes to me. Well, actually, Pete came to me and said, look, man, can you refinance our house and get a $75,000 out to pay our attorney? I said, no problem. Gretchen gives me W2's pay subs, the whole thing's fake. I get her, I refinance, I get a second mortgage on our house, $75,000 they pay their attorney. Their attorney immediately says, you need to wear a wire on 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

  26. “And it's a straw man's game, right? It's a cashback straw man's game. So this is a real person that's buying the house. He's got perfect credit, but he's willing to let to ruin his credit to get a couple hundred thousand in his pocket. So he never has any intentions. So it's not a synthetic identity. It's not a stolen identity. It's a straw man. He's a fake, kind of a fake person, but he's just a straw man. He's a stand-in. So he stands in, he signs a paperwork. He buys the house. They end up getting two, $300,000. Well, this guy buys like five houses. So it's $2, $3 million. They've lost five, six hundred, six, seven hundred thousand dollars. And these guys never even make the first payment. They just let them go into foreclosure. So the bank immediately investigates and realizes this is fraud. So the FBI comes in. They grab Pete and Gretchen. She has to hire an attorney, of course. And she doesn't get thrown in jail or anything. They just come to their office and they tell them they're investigating them. They know what's going on.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “On a house that's worth $300,000. So they're getting the house for whatever, $600,000. It's really only worth $300,000, $350. She happened to be in an area where she could get it the appraisal jacked up. So they buy the house, they get two $300,000 back.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So she's doing very well. And we became very close, by the way. We go on vacation, went to Puerto Rico together. I got married at the time. I was married. Our kids play together. We babysit. We go to each other's parties. We're close. We're good friends. And she's got her own mortgage company. She calls me up periodically and asks me, hey, can you make a W-2? Or hey, can you make me a pay stub? Sure, no problem. We're friends. That's fraudulent friends do. You know, if I needed somebody to verify or verify somebody's rental history or employment, she had cell phones she would answer, that sort of thing for me. Well, what ends up happening is... She gets in trouble. She starts doing fraudulent loans for some guys, you know. And these guys are doing what's called a cashback scam. So they're getting like a half a million dollar loan.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “We'd have the owner of the house bring the down payment for them. And then we would have a check cut out of the closing statement to a construction company. That I owned, and we get our money back. So they get into the house for 100% financing or 110%. Some of them turned into 130. We want to pay off their car, give them an incentive to sign. They still don't have the money to buy it. So we're doing all kinds of insane things. Well, at some point, Remember Gretchen Zeus, my old manager. She came and worked for me for a short period of time. And then she and her husband went and opened their own mortgage company, which you should have known it was going to be. CFM, creative finance, no, creative. Yeah, creative was in the name”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “In its infancy, still, right? So we figure out, I remember GoDaddy, I think, had just come up with a site where you could build your own website. Like, how cool is that? So I go online with a buddy of mine and we create something called the Bank of Ebor. You know, we cut and pasted things that we like from other banks and we got a 1-800 number you could call or a 186 number, whatever it was. And you could call it and it would go to a voicemail. And so we set up this bank. And then I ended up making bank statements, which by this point I already had been making bank statements to prove someone has their down payment. Because a lot of times people, they have good enough credit to borrow 95% or 90%, but they don't have their down payment. So we raise the purchase price high enough to cover their five or 10% down payment. And we would bring their down payment for 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

  31. “I started getting just more and more creative. Like I said, every time I would get away with something, you become emboldened by it. It's like nice. You know, like, hey, the underwriter's looking for this and looking for this. And you sit there and go, man, so that she's, you know, that's, what am I going to do? You know what we could do? We could create our own bank. What? Yeah. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to go on like how do they know if this bank exists? These people are in California. They're in New York. They don't know. So what we're going to do is. We're going to go online. Keep in mind, this is 2000, you know, this is 2000. Like this is the internet's.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “I mentioned that I own the mortgage company. So I had started a mortgage company. I had maybe a dozen guys working for me. And there was fraud. It wasn't all fraud, but whatever. 60, 70% of it was fraud that was going in there. From the outside of that business, it looked very legitimate. We were an FHA approved lender, we were a VA approved lender, we did conventional, probably signed up with 40 or 50 subprime lenders. But there was a considerable amount of fraud. And it kept getting. It became a game, right? You know, it,”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “That the Ibor City zip code was one of the top 20 fastest growing appraising areas in the country. And, you know, everybody was like, oh, that's Matt because this place is a dump. Like, this is a horrible place. Like, this is, and I remember one time I had talked to a guy years later and he was like, oh, all the comparable sales have dried up. Like when you left, there was just nothing even close to 200,000.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “They put it back on the MLS. They put it back on the MLS for $200,000, it wouldn't sell. Then they drop it to $150, wouldn't sell. Then they drop it to $125, $130, wouldn't sell. They drop it to 90. And somebody buy it for like $90. It wasn't worth $90. But by that point, that whole area had, we'd done so many houses at that point. The whole area shot up. The FBI said we did 109 houses. I don't think that's true. When I end up leaving Tampa after that scam falls apart and the FBI shows up, Forbes came out with an article, whatever, six months later, and they said.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I mean, you know, I had guys that was bouncing. Ideas off of. There were other guys that were involved in the scam. Everybody, I think that scam ended up making like, I think the FBI said it was like 11.5 million or something. But there were so many other people that were involved in that scam that were, you know, this guy's getting 50, this guy's getting 20, you know, 17,000, 20,000, 25,000. And, you know, we're just doing it constantly. And so the bank would foreclose on that property. They'd take it back”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Exactly Exactly. I get all of exactly how that. What sparked that as much as there were so many other avenues that I could have gone that I was, I just didn't 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

  37. “Or do I claim bankruptcy? And I've done that. I've gone and got the bankruptcy forms. You can go to the bankruptcy court and they'll give you forms to mail to all of your creditors and you mail them. They stop contacting you. They wait to be located by the bankruptcy court. But my fear there is, you know, nobody's ever going to notify them. Like I'm not going through bankruptcy for one of these guys. So it was like, this is a better bet than just writing a letter saying I'm going through a divorce. My wife's keeping those houses. That's her problem. There's lots of things you could do. But to me, this was. Not going to try it down without him dying? How do you shut that down? This is how you shut it down. He's in a coma. He'll never work again.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “So at first, I thought about making like a fake death certificate. He died. But I thought, I don't know, like, what if... Know like some of these places had primary mortgage insurance. Like, what if the primary mortgage insurance? Like, what if they try and claim because he was dead? Or like, I don't know, I don't know that side. So I'm like, I don't want to do that. I want to do something that's semi-verifiable and third parties, like a third party telling you this is what happened. I thought, well, like the newspaper, 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

  39. “Even if they ordered another appraisal, by this point, it's not for comparable sales or three or four comparable sales by this point. It's like 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 because I kept making more and more of these guys.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Into Brandon Green, they can't figure out if he's a real person or not. Because he's got a social security number. And everything went bad at the same time. He's got multiple. People get divorced, they lose their job, they get in accident. It's reasonable.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “And I would just insert my borrower's name into the article saying that Brandon Green was life flighted to Tampa General Hospitals, currently in critical condition. I would then print that article out on newsprint. I didn't make a copy of the, cut it up, make a copy of the newsprint, highlight his name, and I would write a letter from Brandon Green's fictional sister to the collection companies saying several months ago, my brother was in a horrible car accident. He is currently, they've got the article, they have the highlighted name. He clearly was in this accident. He is currently in a coma, and the doctors say even if he wakes up from the coma, he will never work again. So you might as well just foreclose, stop writing us letters and take the houses back. And that's all they're looking for is a reason. At this point, even if they look in.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Personal loans from several banks. I get credit cards. I run up all of his credit cards. By this point, I've got 10,000, $20,000 worth of credit cards in the guy's name. So the guys are all worth like a million, million in change. Well, once I stop paying, you start getting letters from the collection companies, right? From the banks, you know, and then they sell them off. So after about three months, you're getting tons of letters. What I would do is... I would take my borrower's name. I would go online and I would find, or I'd go in the newspaper and I would find Would find an article about let's say like a 12 car pile up. So there's a huge accident on I4. It's very dangerous. So there's a 12 car pile up and someone in the accident was life flighted to Tampa General Hospital. Cut and paste that article.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Yeah, yeah. Keep in mind that even when I give you an example One of And this happened with almost all of them, he would buy five houses. So, the guy bought what happens the basic design was. I buy the houses. Record the values higher. This person buys all five houses, refinances them, he ends up borrowing a little bit over a million dollars in his name. Then, of course, then I go and I get”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Matter of fact, almost every one of them had the same birth date, who knows. Yeah, it wasn't difficult. And keep in mind a lot of the brokers barely ever meet the bar. They call in on the phone, but it didn't matter anyway because I'm walking and saying, I got a slam dunk deal for you. And they're like, oh, wow, Matt, you got the W2s, the pay stubs. You've got all their rental history. You have everything done. It's perfect. Thank you so much. They're happy to do it. print up the docs and I'll have them go sign it. Great. Wow. Thank you. Assuming they didn't already know about it, and almost everybody involved in this by the time I was done was involved. There's probably 15 or 20 people that all knew what was going on.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “They all had different jobs. They all had, all the jobs were basically, they were all on the job for five years. They were all, it was a lot of it was.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Keep in mind the appraiser almost never meets the borrower. Never, not even almost like 99.99% of the time they never meet him.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “It's pretty easy for me to keep them. Everything in the correct category. Does that make sense? Like it's, it's, Not great at a lot of things, but this I was very good at”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “The problem was by the time I got to this point, I knew so many people in the industry. Nobody had to really, at that point, show up, although I've had people show up for the synthetic identities and sign for them. Almost all the closings nobody ever showed up. Just showed up and said to the title agency and said, hey, my borrower, he's at work right now. He can't make it. Can I just take the file and I'll have him sign all the documents at his work and I'll bring them back. He's like an hour and a half away from here. I'll be back in two or three hours. And they're like, oh, wow, Matt, thank you so much. And they would give it to me, and I'd go sit in the parking lot and I'd sign all the documents. I'd wait an hour or two and I'd come back in and say, here you go.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Course, it is in bad shape, and he says it's in bad shape, but I go ahead and I correct all that. So I correct it. So now if you review the appraisal and you're in California, or even if you drive your car down, the appraiser comes to the house and looks at it from the street, it looks fine. But the truth is, I've got $60,000 into this property and you're appraising it for $200,000. So the banks rated, they're not going to lend $200, but they'll lend $190. So the bank is ready to lend This synthetic borrower $190,000 on a house that I have $60,000 in. So I schedule a closing. And we close on the house and I walk away with $60,000. And the thing is like,”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “So it ends up being $1,400, but the sale shows up at $200,000 on a house that's a crack house I bought for $50,000. Now I go, I trim the trees, we mow the yard, we clean up the porch, we put the porch rail on maybe, we paint it real nice, we black out all the windows. You can't see inside. But from the curb, it looks great. And I get an appraisal. So I do that with that house. I do that with another house all within a mile. So I buy four houses knowing I could use a subject and three comparables for all of them. So the first thing I did was I bought four houses for $50,000, $60,000, $40,000. And I recorded the values at, you know, $210, $200, $190. So I get an appraiser to come out there. He appraises it. Of course, he says it's horrible, but there's comparables here.”

    2024-01-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source