EXPOSED-Cyber Crime Behind The Scenes. Brett Johnson Story

This conversation delves into the origins and evolution of cybercrime, focusing on the notorious Shadow Crew and its leader, Brett Johnson. It explores the dynamics of cybercriminal networks, the role of informants like Albert Gonzalez, and the challenges faced by law enforcement in combating cybercrime. The discussion also highlights Johnson's personal journey from a life of crime to redemption, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and support in overcoming past mistakes. 

Have a Guest idea or Story for us to Cover? You can now text our Podcast Studio direct. Text direct (904) 867-446

Get peace of mind. Get Competitive-Get NetGain. Contact NetGain today at 844-777-6278 or reach out online at www.NETGAINIT.com  
 
Imagine setting yourself apart from the competition because your organization is always secure, always available, and always ahead of the curve. That’s NetGain Technologies – your total one source for cybersecurity, IT support, and technology planning.

🎧 Subscribe now http://www.youtube.com/@cybercrimejunkiespodcast and never miss an episode!

Follow Us:
🔗 Website: https://cybercrimejunkies.com
📱 X/Twitter: https://x.com/CybercrimeJunky
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cybercrimejunkies/

Want to help us out? Leave us a 5-Star review on Apple Podcast Reviews.
Listen to Our Podcast:
🎙️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cyber-crime-junkies/id1633932941
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5y4U2v51gztlenr8TJ2LJs?si=537680ec262545b3
🎙️ Google Podcasts: http://www.youtube.com/@cybercrimejunkiespodcast

Join the Conversation: 💬 Leave your comments and questions. TEXT THE LINK ABOVE . We'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for future episodes!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Origins of Cybercrime
• 3:01 Brett Johnson: The Cybercrime Godfather
• 6:07 The Fall of Shadow Crew
• 9:59 Albert Gonzalez and the Secret Service
• 12:54 The Aftermath of the Bust
• 15:45 The Evolution of Cybercrime
• 19:10 The Dark Side of Law Enforcement
• 22:52 Turning Point: Redemption and Change
• 31:29 Childhood Trauma and Its Lasting Effects
• 36:23 The Journey to Healing and Self-Acceptance
• 41:22 The Evolution of Cybercrime and Its Players
• 46:37 Quadriga: A Case Study in Cryptocurrency Scams
• 52:07 Understanding the Risks of Unregulated Crypto Markets
• 58:50 Practical Steps for Cybersecurity Awareness

Transcript

Cyber Crime Behind The Scenes, Brett Johnson Story

Summary This conversation delves into the origins and evolution of cybercrime, focusing on the notorious Shadow Crew and its leader, Brett Johnson. It explores the dynamics of cybercriminal networks, the role of informants like Albert Gonzalez, and the challenges faced by law enforcement in combating cybercrime. The discussion also highlights Johnson's personal journey from a life of crime to redemption, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and support in overcoming past mistakes. In this conversation, Dino Mauro shares his traumatic childhood experiences and how they shaped his adult life, particularly in terms of relationships and self-worth. He discusses the impact of his mother's abusive behavior and the journey towards healing and self-acceptance. The conversation then shifts to the evolution of cybercrime, focusing on the rise of cryptocurrency scams, particularly the Quadriga case. Mauro emphasizes the risks associated with unregulated crypto markets and provides practical cybersecurity tips for individuals to protect themselves from potential threats.

takeaways

• Cybercrime has evolved significantly over the decades.
• Brett Johnson's transformation from criminal to consultant is inspiring.
• The Shadow Crew was a pivotal group in early cybercrime.
• Albert Gonzalez's role as an informant changed the landscape of cybercrime.
• Law enforcement struggles with limited resources in cybercrime investigations.
• Fraud continues to rise, especially post-pandemic.
• International cooperation is crucial in tackling cybercrime.
• The psychological impact of crime on young offenders is profound.
• Redemption is possible with the right support and mentorship.
• Understanding the criminal mind can aid in prevention efforts. Childhood trauma can have profound effects on adult relationships.
• Healing is a journey that requires support and self-acceptance.
• Cybercrime has evolved significantly with the rise of technology.
• Quadriga serves as a cautionary tale for cryptocurrency investors.
• Unregulated markets pose significant risks to investors.
• Practical cybersecurity measures can protect individuals from fraud.
• Understanding the psychology of scammers can help in prevention.
• Awareness of online predators is crucial for personal safety.
• Credit freezes are an essential tool for preventing identity theft.
• Education on cybersecurity is vital for everyone in the digital age.

titles

• The Rise and Fall of Cybercrime
• Brett Johnson: From Criminal to Consultant
• Inside the Shadow Crew
• Albert Gonzalez: The Informant Who Changed Everything
• The Challenges of Law Enforcement in Cybercrime

Sound Bites

• "How cybercrime started decades ago."
• "Brett Johnson is now a friend of our show."
• "I was stealing $160,000 a week."
• "Fraud doesn't take a vacation."
• "My mom was screaming, are you ready to die?"
• "She had this woman tied to a tree."
• "I thought that wasn't a real memory."
• "I was always the kid that was concerned."
• "That has an effect, you know?"
• "There's nothing to indict him on."
• "You're no longer that lowest hanging fruit."

Chapters

• 00:00The Origins of Cybercrime
• 02:55Brett Johnson: The Cybercrime Godfather
• 05:46The Fall of Shadow Crew
• 09:04Albert Gonzalez and the Secret Service
• 12:14The Aftermath of the Bust
• 15:07The Evolution of Cybercrime
• 17:52The Dark Side of Law Enforcement
• 21:06Turning Point: Redemption and Change
• 30:07Childhood Trauma and Its Lasting Effects
• 35:21The Journey to Healing and Self-Acceptance
• 39:59The Evolution of Cybercrime and Its Players
• 45:01Quadriga: A Case Study in Cryptocurrency Scams
• 51:14Understanding the Risks of Unregulated Crypto Markets
• 57:14Practical Steps for Cybersecurity Awareness

Dino Mauro (00:00.13)
Hey everyone, have you ever wondered how cybercrime started? Decades ago, before cryptocurrency and the days of Bitcoin, there was online currency in various formats. The most popular was called eGold and the largest illegal online marketplace was run by a crime gang called ShadowCrew. What's an interesting fun fact is that ShadowCrew had many affiliates and workers who ran scams, fraud and created fake identities. One of those people was

none other than Michael Patrion, the convicted felon also known as Omar Danani. For regular podcast listeners, you will recognize that name since he started Quadriga Fintech Solutions with the one and only Gerald Cotton. The fun fact is this, Jerry Cotton also worked for Shadow Crew. All of this makes it extremely interesting when people debate whether Jerry Cotton actually died that mysterious day or whether he changed his identity.

and did what many believe. An exit scam, disappearing into thin air with hundreds of millions of dollars only he had access to. So we take you behind the curtain of that original cybercrime gang, known as Shadow Crew. 20 years ago, the world was different, and so was cybercrime. Shadow Crew was at the top of the cybercrime food chain, and Brett Johnson was at the helm, steering their ship with meticulous precision and ruthless business acumen.

The world famous Brett Johnson is now a friend of our show and has been since our early days on the air. Brett is not only a great guy, he is an extremely entertaining, colorful and empathetic human. Brett is person who has truly redeemed himself. Brett has served his time and is now an in-demand global speaker. He has also helped law enforcement hundreds of times. He has been secretly involved in helping law enforcement in some of the biggest recent

cybercrime takedowns and arrests. Once called the original Cybercrime Godfather by the US Secret Service, only Brett Johnson knows how the criminal mind works. He knows it like no other. Only Brett has the unique outgoing personality that is uniquely Brett. This is the story of cybercrime behind the scenes. The Brett Johnson story.

Dino Mauro (02:25.966)
So today we are joined by former US most wanted cyber criminal, Turn Good Guy, speaker, consultant, writer, podcaster, great show, Brett Johnson show. If you haven't caught it, please go there. We'll have links in our show notes. He's now protecting us from the types of people that he used to hang around with. And he used to be. With an incredible personality, celebrity status. You could have been an actor, but you wound up here.

a devout following Brett Johnson, welcome to the studio. Yes, it is. It is absolutely my pleasure. cannot thank you guys enough for inviting me on. I truly appreciate it. Well, we're really, really excited to have you. So, I mean, you've got a colored history. We'll get into that. Ultimately, the biggest name in cyber crime in the history of the Internet turned undercover Secret Service guy. Get busted. You get busted.

escapes. Look, repents changes your life dramatically. You're now on the good side. You're doing a lot of good for a lot of individuals, families, organizations, brands. We cannot wait to learn more. appreciate that. You, you humbled me with what you said. My sister about a year ago, she looks at me she's like, you know, you don't do anything small.

No, you're not wired that way, Brett. You're not wired that way. Yeah. I'll tell you, know, the ancient Greeks, right? When somebody would pass away, they used to ask like one question, right? Did they have passion? That was like the question. That's all that mattered in the life. Wasn't how much money did they have? What was their title? What was their job title? was like, how are they passionate? Were they passionate enough? they live life? You're doing it, man. I think I am. I think you're doing it. When you go bad, you go bad.

So walk us through the sting. Walk us through shadow. Because I've read all about it and having you on live, just need to know, like, what was it? I mean, do we we start the discussion with Albert Gonzalez, with Supnaz? No, no, I don't think you do. So I think that you you started initially with how the fall came. OK.

Dino Mauro (04:47.214)
So I think that you have to go back in time a little. So certainly Albert is the guy who got Shadow Crew busted. There's no doubt about that. And let's explain to the listeners, Albert Gonzalez currently serving time in prison, supposed to be out I think in 2025 or something. Actually, he's out before that. He should be out early next year. OK. And he was under a bunch of different acronyms, online names. One of them was Soup Nazi, which people will remember.

from Seinfeld and he was the guy he used to dress in like women's garb, right? Would go to an ATM. I think he first got busted because he was at an ATM dressed as a woman and two off duty cops were just there having like coffee talking. notice this guy lady over at the ATM for like an hour. Just card after card after card taking out cash. And they're like,

Well, that looks weird. 40 minutes, they say that. Go talk to him. There's something up there. so like, it's all in that. I remember he learned to start to go and take those out at midnight because something about what the ATMs and the funding and stuff like that, they'd have most cash or something. And so they get him and he immediately like tells them everything.

Right. they, do they get him to work for the secret service at that time? what, so what happens with Albert is, like you said, broad daylight in New Jersey, he walks up to an ATM. He's got a stack of white plastic, just counterfeit cards, all encoded on the back. And he's feeding one card in after another, pulling $20 bills out, stuffing them in a backpack to give you an idea of how much a backpack will hold stacked properly. A backpack holds $150,000 worth of 20s. That's seven and a half.

at 7.5 keys of cash is one of the statistics that you know that you find. One of those statistics. So that's detail oriented if nothing, right? If nothing else. So he's doing this for 40 minutes. And as you said, just two cops across the way, they just happen to notice the kid 40 minutes into it. One looks at the other. I think I should go and find out what's going on.

Dino Mauro (07:07.438)
He walks up to Albert and as you pointed out Albert liked to dress as a woman as a disguise So Albert's got the wig on all this other shit Cop walks up kid. What are you doing? Albert falls apart? Yeah, right? That's everything out of that point. think in secret service. Yeah secret service comes in and What actually happened and I know this from my work with secret service as well secret service had no idea how to track

online criminals at that point. This was just when this stuff was first starting. Nobody really knew anything. west. The wild west of everything. So they asked Albert, how would you go about catching these guys? And Albert's like, well, you could use a VPN. And literally they're like, what's a VPN? So he had to explain it to them. And they thought that was the best idea ever. by this point in time, I have retired from Shadow Crew. I'm the guy that starts tax return identity theft.

The recent year-old's returns are delayed every single year as this son of a bitch here. yeah. Yeah, and I was stealing $160,000 a week 10 months out of the year doing that so and that's why I said this story actually begins before Albert because We had been seen because of that CVV one breach or hack We had been seen IPs from government agencies from the Pentagon DoD Secret Service FBI all this other stuff

So we knew they were looking at us. It gets worse than that. There was this kid, his screen name was Enhance. Now you guys may remember this, but back in the early 2000s, Paris Hilton had her T-Mobile phone contact list published. That was us. That was Shadow Crew that did it. That was this kid named Enhance. But he also intercepted text messages of the United States Secret Service

investigating shadow crew. Whoa. So we had all that. And so here I am, I'm top of the heap and I'm sitting there going, I got worried about Rico. I'm sitting there going, well, they're going to indict me for everything. I, I announced my retirement right as Albert Gonzalez gets arrested. So that's how I was able to avoid being picked up.

Dino Mauro (09:31.106)
That's what happened. gets arrested. He sets up the VP and he comes back into Shadow Crew. Right as I'm retiring, he comes back into Shadow Crew. I drop off the radar. He's an undercover informant. Right. At this point, he's working for the United States Secret Service. We didn't know that. Nobody had told us that. he left that detail out. It would have been nice to know, but we didn't know that. Right. Right. So what happens is he comes in.

He says, hey, in order to be safe, I'm going to require all transactions to go through this VPN. Now, not everyone agreed with that. Some people gave him a lot of static. So what he did was he banned all of those people. I had put mods in place, admins in place, and he just restructured everything so that the investigation would go through just fine. That investigation lasted.

what six months something like that I think they ended up getting like four million dollars worth of transaction data they got drop addresses everything else one of the things that they noticed is that most shadow crew members got online every Sunday night so October 26 2004 was a Sunday Secret Service had it orchestrated they were going to bust everyone at the same time

So they've got Albert on and Albert's called for a special meeting. We're going to announce some stuff, everything else like that. And so to get everyone online and they start trying to round everyone up, they arrested 33 people, six countries in the space of six hours. I'm the only guy publicly mentioned as getting away. There were a few other people that got away, made it down to South America, things like that. A couple of Ukrainians did that. One of them was Tron. So Tron was a kid.

Yeah, he was a kid that was very good about breaking into Bank of America. Very good about that. Wow. So what happens is... Tron involved in some of the satellite charge? That's right. The cards. That's right. We talked about Tron in our other episode where we talked about the big satellite scam. So do know how he got away? No.

Dino Mauro (11:44.782)
So he was set to be arrested October 26, 2004, secret service in the air flying into the Ukraine. They call the local PD. Hey, we're coming down to arrest this kid. The local PD. yes. Come down and get him. We will make sure he is here. So what happens? They hang up. They get in the car, go down, tell the kid, Hey, they're coming to get you. Yup. Wow. But, so yeah, 33 people.

Six countries, six hours, I was picked up four months later and they ended up giving me a job. Instead of indicting me, I was on state charges at that point. I think I was indicted for like 73 different state felonies. I wasn't indicted federally at that point, but the feds brought me in as a paid informant and kind of a consultant. would bring me, I would talk to ICE, I talked to a Bank of America, a few other places as well while I was working with Secret Service.

Well, they didn't know though. Because you guys knew things that the government just didn't, they weren't, they didn't have the resources at that time. And I gotta be honest with you, they don't have the resources today. And I do a lot of work today with law enforcement, with companies worldwide. What you see today is across the United States, you've got 37,000 FBI field agents spread across 56 field offices. You want to take a guess about how many of those 37,000

thousand agents are actually concentrated on cybercrime? Just a guess. than 10 percent. Less than 200. Wow. Less than 200. of that less than 200, you've got people that are talking about, you know, they're concentrated on nation state attacks, things like that. So because of that, that really, how can less than 200 people combat websites that are sometimes millions of members large? In collaboration.

It's got to be a collaboration with the private sector, with happiness groups, with everything. Right? And that's the issue. mean, and you add in jurisdictional problems, you know, I know that we've got the Ukraine war and things going on right now, but let's be honest, Ukraine is known for a lot of cyber crime, right? Along with Russia. Yeah. yeah. That's the, like, yeah. mean, that's, yeah. Prior to the Ukraine war, when we were all aligned with Ukraine, we were we were reporting on most of the cybercrime from Ukraine. Right. And we've got to get to the point.

Dino Mauro (14:11.788)
where we've got agreements with countries that if one of your citizens has violated the law, you will turn them over. And there just some countries that don't do that, which is unfortunate because in those countries, those criminals are allowed to just continue at will as long as they don't leave the boundaries of those countries. Well, right now it seems, at least from our research, that Russia, like the criminal hackers in Russia right now, so long as they're not attacking Russian entities.

have free reign essentially. do. I'll give you another, I was talking to the head of security of one of the main targets of criminals 10 months out of the year. And he told me that, you know, for this year, fraud and attacks through the roof, you know, it's post pandemic, you've got the recession coming, you've got the Ukraine, Russia war, it's just through the roof with everything.

But what they noticed was, is the one day that Ukraine's internet got shut down, those numbers dropped dramatically. I think there's maybe a correlation there. don't know. That's the thing is, you have to realize that just because you may be involved in some sort of war or political strife or whatever, fraud doesn't take a vacation. It doesn't.

you're still going to be hit. You're still looking at people who are looking at ways to steal money constantly. Yeah. One, you have, and you have nation states like North Korea, which when you isolate a country off the grid, right, then they're, they're one of the only nation states that really are doing it primarily for financial reasons, because that's they get a lot of their money.

I I think it was either the Guardian or the Economist that had the article saying that 25 % of North Korea's nuclear program is funded through crypto theft. That's crazy. Yeah. And that's where we are. So many stories of these exchanges being robbed and it's kind of like Lazarus group times to this group, that group. And it's just, it's just, I mean, it's just so shocking because.

Dino Mauro (16:24.633)
But that's where it's going. So the takedown of Shadow Crew happens. What happens to Albert Gonzalez then? How did he wind up in jail then when he was an informant? So what happens? And Albert and I are both embarrassments to the United States Secret Service. So what happens? I wanted to get to his thing, and then we're going to get to yours, because I know yours.

So Albert, what he does is the Secret Service, they were under the impression that people like us, that they could befriend us because we're very good social engineers. We make it appear that, hey, we're just fine with you guys. No, we're not. All right. So they thought that Albert Gonzalez was a friend to them. he was privy to a lot of the internal memos that were going around about different attacks that were going

What the Secret Service didn't know though, is that while he was getting inside information from that agency, he was off hitting Dave and Buster's and Heartland Pavement Systems. to the tune, he had already hit TJ Maxx, they just hadn't indicted him for that, but he had hit them for the tune of 170 million credit cards. Wow. Yeah. Wow. they find out about that.

And then all that stuff starts to come out. And what causes some of that stuff to come out as they're starting to make these arrests, they arrest this kid in Turkey. His name is Maxim or Maxime. right. Turkish national. He worked on the heartland payment systems breach with Albert was arrested at the airport in Istanbul. Kevin Poulsen writes about this in the book, Kingpin. All right. And the story that he tells in Kingpin is that, well, they got the kid at the airport.

Turkish police look at him and said, you know, Hey, we need the key to that. And he was like, I'm not giving you the key to that. So they threw him in a Turkish jail for 11 days. He promptly gives him the key. They give him 30 years. Kind of a funny heartwarming story always gets a laugh when I tell it in a presentation. The problem was, is that's not really what happened. What really happened is that yes, they did arrest that kid in Istanbul secret service flies in.

Dino Mauro (18:46.796)
They pull the secret service pulls the kid to the side. Hey, we need the password. Kids like I'm not giving you the password. Secret service hands the kid over to the Turkish police. Turkish police beat the kid for 11 days. until he gives them the key. They give him 30 years and the evidence that was on that laptop is used to give Albert Gonzalez and others boatloads of prison time.

Wow. That's what really happened. Wow. And I got to be honest with you guys. I found out about that, I don't know, maybe six weeks ago and it messes with me. This was the news too. Yeah. I mean, this messes with me because the DOJ guy, where that news comes out, he was in a closed door meeting and he makes a joke about it. He says, hey, we had to brute and he does this hand gesture. We had to brute force the password.

out of Maxim. it was only written, and hell, that story came out several years ago, but nobody really picked up on it. And it messes with me because these days I'm like a recovering alcoholic, except mine was crime. And I'm firmly on that side of everyone needs to do the right damn thing. And when I hear that law enforcement has not been doing that, because I've got a profound respect for law enforcement.

It really messes with me. It really does. You don't have to do that. It's credit card numbers. kid, throw him in them Joe for 11 days anyway, he's gonna tell you something. Right, right. Yeah. It's gonna be impactful enough. His technology and his pizza puffs, he'll eventually tell you. Exactly. He's eventually gonna crack. Yeah, we were not the people who were hardcore, you know.

Throw us into jail. We're not going to rat on each other. we're going to tell everything we know on everybody So that was one of the stories one of the other one of Albert's other guys his name was Jonathan James and I don't I don't know if you've watched any of my presentations But I don't really use the word hacker in my presentations, right because we're not we're criminals. Yeah, yeah, you know if we have

Dino Mauro (21:06.296)
Two different things. have these, you know, got 7,500 plus security companies. got mass media that paints any online criminal as an untouchable computer hacker. And that's just not the case. But if there's ever been one, it's Jonathan James. That kid as a minor, he broke into the Pentagon and to the DOD. He broke into NASA, shut their computers down for six weeks. Once he gets out of that trouble, he decides he wants to try credit card theft. So he partners with Albert.

He's arrested with Albert and whether it was true or not. you know, when I first started talking about it, I was like, no, couldn't have been true. But over the years, probably was true. He thought that law enforcement was going to lay the blame of those breaches at his doorstep, that he was the primary guy. So he, yeah, he gets up one day, goes in his dad's bedroom. The Harlan breach, the TJ Maxx breach. All that, all that. So, know, and he, yeah, he would have got 40 years plus as well.

But he gets up one day, walks in his dad's bedroom, gets out at 45, walks in the bathroom, writes a note, steps in the shower, and he blows his brains out. that's what happened. every single presentation that I've ever given, I've talked about that kid. And the reason I do that is I believe if you're an adult and you break the law, prison will do you good. It'll give you time to think. It'll get you off the streets so you can't victimize anybody else.

It's a benefit all the way around. But if you're a minor, if you're a child, I can't help but think what would have happened to Jonathan James had someone just mentored the guy, took him in under the wing, gave him some advice. How old was he when he went? He was early 20s, early 20s at that point. the thing is, this is one of the things that justice across the United States doesn't really address is your brain doesn't fully develop if you're a male until you're like,

23, 24. Personally, I think it's like 43, 44. It may be more accurate. But I mean, it's... So here's something I've always wanted to ask you. And I also want to ask you about Michael Patreon, Omar Denali. But before we get into him, what was the moment that you knew yourself you were done with the criminal angle?

Dino Mauro (23:32.718)
You were done. was the moment? was the what was the like? It could be, I got busted. I felt bad. But a lot of times you're just upset that you got busted. What was the moment you yourself? Changed you that the remorse was too much. You just said, I'm going to still make a living. I'm still going to have a good life. I'm just going to do it within the confines of the rules of society. It was so my turnaround I attribute to three different people.

My sister Denise, she had disowned me for a space of about a year, and then she comes back in my life just to see me for 10 minutes. That's the first turnaround. The second turnaround is when I got out of prison. I couldn't get a job. I couldn't even touch a computer, and I got to where was, my first crime was stealing toilet paper. I didn't have the money to buy toilet paper. I could either feed my cat or buy that, and I fed my cat, and I shoplifted toilet paper and met my wife Michelle now.

And that's really the second turnaround. I ended up recidivating. I got a job pushing a lawnmower. When that ended, I went back into credit card theft. I got caught. And because of that, I'm very lucky that that happened because that really taught me. Michelle didn't need me for what I could give her. My entire history has been showing love through some sort of expensive crap. My love is worth this. You talked about that in other segments.

I don't care if I'm living in a small apartment or whatever. I did this because I wanted to take my girl out for a nice place. wanted to do this. That's what was driving you. Right. That is the motivation. That is. But it was the fact that your wife now just didn't need that. you were like, can actually. Right. So you can. She wanted me just for me, not what I could give her. So that was the biggest turnaround right there.

After I get out of prison from that probation violation, I ended up reaching out to the FBI, an agent by the name of Keith Malarski. He's in the news pretty often as well. And he was involved in lot of the cybercrime arrest of people that I knew. And I sent him a message. I was like, hey, I think you did a great job, no hard feelings. And by the way, I would like to be legal. And this man, within two hours, I sent it to him on LinkedIn.

Dino Mauro (25:51.81)
Within two hours, he responded. took me in under his wing. gave me references. gave me advice. He's retired. He's been retired for two or three years now, actually three years. He continues to do that to this day. And, well, thing is, and what people don't understand is if Malarski had not responded to me, really am convinced that I would be back in prison for 20 years.

He gave that validation. He didn't judge. He didn't do anything else. He just, he was right there. Hey, you can do this. And he believed in me. And that made all the difference in the world. What happens is, is that's the first real positive that I get. The Identity Theft Council, they do the same thing. Carice Hendrick over at C &P, she gives me a moment where I knew that I was never going to break the law again.

I've been working for Microsoft for probably two months and I was the guy that, as most of us criminals are, I was the guy that was always prepping for things. You know, if I fell here, I can run a dark web marketplace or I could do synthetic fraud or what have you. And I was at home in Birmingham, Alabama one night, everyone else was asleep and I was just watching a film and it was literally this aha moment. was, it hit me that, it hit me that I'm through, I'm done.

And I hadn't spoken to Milarzki in several months or anything else like that. And about a week later, I wrote him a note and I was like, hey man, I know I've not contacted you. I didn't want to have to lie to you about the stuff I was going through. But I'm okay. And it's been like that since that point. mean, it's not that I don't have temptation, but it's not, the way I do temptation is I'll do a show about it. I'll do an interview. I'll write a blog. I'll talk about stuff like that.

I did think I was really scared during the pandemic that I was going to go into fraud because I knew that the speaking gigs, the consulting gigs, everything was going to end. And I brought the family in the kitchen. was like, hey, the way this story ends is with me back committing fraud and in prison for 20. And just me voicing that, I not only told my family, I told everybody that would listen.

Dino Mauro (28:07.38)
And everybody kind of came in and they would always check on me and just do everything that they could for me. The FBI, they'd call me about every two weeks, hey, Brett, you doing okay? Let's have lunch. Just to make sure you're doing all right. Yeah, and I made it through it. mean, my credit went through the, I mean, it bottomed out and everything else like that, but didn't break the law. And that's when I found out that I was a hell of a lot stronger than what I thought I was. I mean, it's...

I can't tell you the story though, because to be able to accept a hit on your credit, to be able to voice it as a look, it's still society, right? And it's a man to be able to say to your family, I'm scared I'm going to go back my old ways. Yeah. Walk me through this. Yeah, it was, it was something. was Incredible growth.

How is Denise? You still stay in touch with her, right? Denise is okay. Denise was the kid, you know, we started shoplifting and I'm the kid that just didn't stop. Denise, other than that one criminal act of shoplifting, she doesn't break the law anymore. She goes off to be a teacher. She's a good parent. She's a good citizen. My sister's problem, that type of abuse, my mom.

And I want you guys to understand that I don't blame my childhood for my adult activities as a criminal. right. But I mean, it paved the way. If I chose to go that way, I had the tools I would need. But Denise doesn't do that. Denise, I joke about everything these days. Denise has a lot of anger still these days over her childhood. This is a, she told me at one point that she had, when she was, I guess, know, becoming a teenager.

that she had tried to suicide because of what had happened. Wow. I mean, it's just, and this is a mom.

Dino Mauro (30:07.552)
who always tested every single person to see how far she could go and abuse them and them still love her. You know, my earliest memories, I've got two. The first is that my dad was a helicopter pilot in the Army. We were at Fort Lewis, Washington, driving. My dad was driving. My mom in the passenger seat, me and Denise in the back. My mom screaming at my dad. She lunges across, across the car.

grabs the steering wheel and tries to steer us into oncoming traffic, screaming at him, are you ready to die, you son of a bitch? That's one of the earliest memories I've got. The other one, and I don't know which one came first, my mom had this woman tied to a tree in the front yard and she was beating the hell out of her. And the woman was bleeding and crying and begging for her to stop and to be let go. And there were neighbors on the other porch watching and everything. But this is Kentucky. This is way this stuff happens.

And for years I thought that that wasn't a real memory that I just fabricated that, but a few years ago my mom mentioned it and it really hit me that, this shit's real. And this is just, you know, I tell these stories and the problem is that when I tell these stories, those are just small examples. I mean, this is constant activity that happened. There was a point where mom tells us that she sells her soul to Satan.

And me and Denise, eight and nine years old, have to prove to her that we are worthy of this. And we used to take these, she'd sit us down across from her in a chair and we would keep eye contact with that without blinking. And she would, when you're eight and nine, this stuff's real. She would let Satan come out through her eyes and we were supposed to think happy Jesus thoughts to not be possessed. There was that, she would tell us that she had given up her life for us and that.

She was going to leave and we'd find her dead in a ditch someday. So I was always the kid that was concerned she was never going to come back. I mean, there was an instance where she calls me and Denise in the bedroom. We go over to her side of the bed and she used to smoke these more cigarettes or menthol, these long brown cigarettes. And she told us, she's like, you know, your mother loves you. And I'm like, yes, mom. And she's like, I'm going to show you how much I love you. So she takes the cigarette.

Dino Mauro (32:28.47)
and pretends, doesn't even, not for real, just pretends to burn herself. So the cigarettes like that far away from her arm, she's sitting there screaming and writhing in the bed. My dad, poor man that he is, he keeps saying, Carolyn, please stop, please stop, just stop. She's screaming, acting like it's burning her. Me and Denise can plainly see that she's not burning herself. And you know how that affects you as a child? You sit there and you wonder, what does that mean that mom doesn't actually love you?

because she didn't burn herself. That's how screwed up you get with someone. Wow. Right? But that was common stuff. My sister gets a full ride scholarship at Berea College. My mom finds out that Denise has a boyfriend. My mom goes to Berea, goes in the president's office, and proceeds to tell the president that my sister is not only addicted to drugs, but her boyfriend is her pimp and tries to get Denise thrown out of college. And Denise is almost thrown out because of that.

I had a full scholarship for theater at one point. San Jose State, the theater guy, Edward Emanuel, he comes down, visits my mom, my mom pulls a knife on him, threatens to kill him. This was common stuff throughout. And that has an effect, you know? That's why I ended up as the guy who can't really. It does have effect. It can't not have.

Right? Like, how do you, how do you not do that? But what's good is that at some point you agreed to reach out, you agreed to get help from people and you've kept up with Denise, right? I have. She's, she's, she's great. She has, she has issues, but she is, she's my sister and I love the hell out of her and she does the best that she possibly can. And I don't want it to sound like she's, you know, bad or anything. She's absolutely outstanding. She truly is.

You know, it's just, know, an upbringing like that, it's absolutely going to affect you. There's a reason that I have problems with healthy relationships, even today. Well, sure. You know, there's a reason that Denise has anger issues, even today. know, it's, but, know, Denise is very blessed. She has a family that loves her. I have a family that loves me. I lead a very blessed life that I really don't think I deserve a lot.

Dino Mauro (34:52.984)
But I'm damn right. That's a different thing, right? Right. That's the I don't believe I'm worthy. Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But but you so those moments are where you realize, what was the movie you were watching? You said you were home. You had the aha moment. You were watching a film and you knew you were done. What was the film? I have have did the film have anything to do with it? Yeah, didn't.

The movies that I watch and I have this film. watched John Carpenter's thing. I've seen that thing probably 400 times. I watch a Night of the Hunter. That was the film that night. Robert Mitchum film. And I think Charles Lofton is the director of that. But if no one's ever watched that film, it's an old black and white movie. It is an absolutely amazing movie. please, all your listeners look up Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum. is amazing. There we go.

There's no financial involvement. We're not. We're not financially tied in any way, nor obligated to send them any funds for this endorsement. Exactly. We are neither endorsed nor affiliated with it. So let's let's switch gears real quick. Michael Patrick, Omar, Michael Patrick. What was his role in Shadow Crew? His role in Shadow Crew was a money line.

There are a couple of, cryptocurrency has a couple of precursors and those precursors are eGold and Liberty Reserve. Both of those payment systems are payment systems that are pretty much built for criminal activity. Because as a criminal, you can't really buy credit card data or child pornography or anything else with US dollars. You need some way to pay for this stuff online and that was the advent

of eGold as eGold gets indicted, the owners of that Liberty Reserve pops up. And I believe the Liberty Reserve guy is still on a United States most wanted list someplace. Those were the precursors of today's crypto. The only thing that was missing was the blockchain at that point, but it operated exactly the same.

Dino Mauro (37:07.756)
Michael Patron, or back then Omar Denani, he was a money launderer. He offered prepaid debit cards that were linked to your eGold account. And he offered to set up eGold for you to buy and sell it, things like that. As you see a lot of vendors with crypto do today. So that was his start. Now, the interesting thing about criminal activity back then, and this leads into this entire story. The interesting thing about criminal activity back then is that

If you were a criminal, you really had to know every single aspect of everything that was going on. You had to know what identity was, how to do fake driver's licenses, how to do drop addresses. You knew the dead baby method. You knew how to launder money. You knew everything. You knew the security of systems, everything. That doesn't work like that today. Today, it's plug and play. The sophistication is no longer in the criminal. It's in the platform itself. But back then, the guys back then knew their shit.

They knew what was going on. The reason that's important. Excuse me. Michael Patron gets arrested. serves four years in prison. I'm sorry. Omar Denani gets arrested. He serves four years in prison, gets released, changes his name to Michael Patron. What did he go to prison for, those four For money laundering, access device fraud, a few other charges like that. But because of Shadow Crew, those financial cybercrimes.

So he was one of the guys that went down in that sting of He was one of the associates of that. So he gets four years. He gets out, changes his name to Michael Patron. There was another Shadow Crew operative back then called, his name was Gerald Cotton. Wait a minute. a minute. So Jerry Cotton was a Shadow Crew operative?

Yes, he was. Wow. Well, that just I did. yeah. yeah. So he was also on Shadow Crew. Both these guys spent a lot of time on talk gold, things like that, dealing with the Ego Liberty Reserve, things like that. So he partners with Gerald Cotton. Now, my thought get down, Jerry Cotton didn't go down on the sting. No, he did not. He did not.

Dino Mauro (39:29.966)
All right, but you got to figure there were there were four thousand registered accounts on shadow crew only 33 people get popped there were a few you know after that they got picked up because of Database and people ratting them out things like that, but certainly under 50 60 people total out of 4,000 get arrested. Okay Wow so Michael Patron Omar Danani changes his name to Michael Patron. He partners with Gerald Cotton now This is conjecture on

My thought is, that Quadriga, the cryptocurrency exchange that they started, my thought is, is that started as an Exis scam. really think that would make sense. Knowing that story, that would make sense. Yeah. Yeah. I was just about to get into that. My thought is that. So Omar Danan, he would have knowledge of

how to create a new identity. Absolutely. Absolutely. Is that not connected a whole lot of times? One of the vast services in the portfolio of ShadowCube. We did this thing called, there were a few different ways that we could do identity back then before. this is prior to, because 9-11 things change. Prior to 9-11, the only thing you had to do for a new identity, my name is Brett Johnson.

I would come up with a counterfeit birth certificate in the name of Brett Johnson. Instead of me being born 1970, I would say that I was born in 2022. I would submit that to the Social Security Administration. They would issue a Social Security number for Brett Johnson born 2022. What I would do then is I would use that Social Security number for that baby in my name and I would get a job. That social would then report.

to the Social Security Administration, not as a one-year-old, but as a 52-year-old. Social Security would basically say it must be some sort of error, and they would fix that Baby Social to be a 1970 social at that point. What? That's the way that worked prior to 9-11. After 9-11, that changed.

Dino Mauro (41:47.362)
What also happened though is we had this thing called the dead baby method which still works like a charm even in the United States to a degree. But certainly in India it works like a charm, in Italy, in Mexico and all these other countries it works great. And what happens is, is my name is Brett Johnson. What I'm going to do is I'm going to go to a graveyard or I'm going to get online and find a death index and I'm going to find a child that was born in one state, dies in another, that today would die at a very young age but.

would be approximately the same age as I am. Okay? That's going to be my target identity. What I'm going to do from that point is I'm going to order, and we used to do this with the California death index. You'd find the name of an individual, for example, one of mine was Joshua Kaplan, born in 1976. You can look him up, he's still on there. found him, he was born in Kentucky, died in California.

I would order the death certificate from California. That way I get the mother's maiden name, the father's maiden name, father's name, and the place of birth. From there, you order the birth certificate. The reason you're ordering the birth certificate is to make sure that it's not stamped deceased on it. So that gives you a target right there. While you're doing that, you're going to confirm that while he's been reported as dead in a state,

that he's not been reported as dead on the Social Security Master Death Index. The way it actually works is prior to 1998, in order for the federal government to know that you're dead, the family had to file for a Social Security death benefit. It pays like $218. Prior to 1998, it took the family to do that. After 1998, the hospital or the mortuary could do that.

If the death benefit has not been filed, the federal government doesn't know that you're dead. Exactly. OK. And that means that you can assume that dead baby's identity. Now, where that crime actually was invented was a guy named Frederick Forsyth. He wrote a little book called Day of the Jackal. All right. And that's about an assassin who tries to kill Charles de Gaulle. And in that book, Frederick Forsyth invents

Dino Mauro (44:07.106)
the dead baby identity method, really. And it turns out it works like a charm. mean, it works to this day, it still works. So Omar Denani would have understood the intricacies of identity, of how to come up with identities, come up with passports, fake IDs, everything else. So what we see happen is, is we see that Gerald Cotton, and again, I think that Quadriga starts as,

Exit scam. I think that both Omar Denani and Gerald Cotton They wanted to come up with a currency exchange or a crypto exchange and steal everyone's money. All right But a funny thing happened along the way Quadriga becomes legitimate and it becomes a moneymaker. The problem is is that evidently Gerald Cotton had already stolen some of the funds? Out of some of the accounts. We're outro Shaggy

And that still works in a quintessential Ponzi scheme. That would still work so long as Bitcoin kept going up because you would get more and more people still wanting to buy it. For those few that wanted to get out, you would pay them from the new money that's coming in. Meanwhile, you stole the core of money. Exactly. Exactly. So what happens is, is Gerald Cotton travels to India.

where he mysteriously dies. Now something that's not been reported in the Netflix documentaries or anything else is that when Gerald Cotton went to India, before he gets there, he registers a couple of domains. And they're like domains to a mortuary in India and to the police station in that province in India as well. Why did he do that? So why would he do that? I don't know. I don't know. it might be, I mean, the thought

that I've got is that, you could potentially use that to send back information to stateside saying, hey, this guy actually died. Because evidently he died of pneumonia or some such wall over in India. Crohn's disease. Yeah. Yeah. And what happens when he dies? They notice that $236 million worth of crypto disappears at the same time. Now, we already know that looking back now, we know that some of those funds have already been stolen.

Dino Mauro (46:25.408)
Right. Private keys, Cold wallet that only one person. Right. That is the password to and that person mysteriously dies. Although it was a closed casket and nobody saw the dead person and has a deep understanding of identity theft. A deep, deep understanding. He's already served prison time for identity theft and they're in a town in India as I understand it. That is not for Yes, yes.

That's known for that. And here's the thing, we knew at Shadow Crew that there were areas that were known for that. For example, back when Shadow Crew was operational, you could head your ass down to Key West and buy identities all day long from people down there who were about to die of AIDS. It was a market down there that you could do this kind of stuff with. So we knew these areas at the time. Now the problem is, that Omar Denani, AKA Michael Patron, he doesn't get indicted because evidently he dropped out.

of Quadriga before any of this stuff happens. Now you would think that no one would ever hear of Omar Denani, Michael Patron again after that. know, done. However, that's not true, is it? Because about six, eight months ago, Wonderland Time pops up. Token going off at $10,800 a pop. What happens though? People find out that the chief financial officer is Michael Patron. So walk us through Wonderland Time. What was Wonderland

Wonderland time is one of these DeFi tokens. you've got the problem with crypto. And I think that's why you see people like Gerald Cotton, Michael Patron, all these other individuals that do rug pulls and scams and everything else. It's an unregulated vertical. Exactly. You can get by with a lot of crime and make a lot of money and not have to worry about jail time. And I think that's exactly why Michael Patron and Gerald Cotton.

there because it is an unregulated industry. don't even understand it. People don't even understand. I look at one coin that Rujia Ignatova is on the US most wanted today. left. There's billions missing or hundreds of millions missing. And she just disappeared off the face of the earth. And one coin had hundreds of millions of dollars, actually billions of dollars of people's investment. Right. It wasn't even a cryptocurrency. There was no blockchain behind it. was to it.

Dino Mauro (48:51.532)
Brandology Bucks. Give us your life savings. We're going to give you an account that shows it sounds almost like what Bernie Madoff was doing. We'll give you a piece of paper that shows you're making a lot of money. Keep giving us more money. you just like look on paper, I'm really wealthy. But try and get your money out. Like, that can happen because it's not real. It's brandology box. Think about and again.

Think about that damn beanie baby at the beginning of our show today. With crypto, you've got people, again, who are really wanting something. They've been told you're going to be rich. So all of a sudden, that logic, that reason goes out the window. And they fancy themselves investors. They're not investors. They're gamblers. They're getting their damn investment advice from Reddit, for God's sakes. So these are all issues of people who simply do not think rationally anymore.

Right. And the gamification, the new ways that you can trade now or you can do it from an app on your phone through some of these platforms and no disrespect to those platforms. kids that aren't sophisticated are like, well, I'm going to get some crypto and I'm like, here's a new crypto. And they're all trying to ride that initial Bitcoin rise where it went from a few cents or a few bucks to over $50,000 for one single Bitcoin at one time.

Right? You're right. But the problem is, is you can look it up. So you can, you can do a Google search. can pay some dude $200 and he'll make you an ether token or a BSC token, finance token, $200 from there. You open up a telegram channel, a discord channel, have it populated with bots that constantly talk about how great the token is. You get over ready and start talking about pump the price up. What are you going to do? You're going to do this thing called a rug pool. So you get people who buy into the token.

You're sitting there on your wallet and all of sudden you sell all of your tokens, crash the entire market, and you walk away with a couple hundred thousand dollars. Yep. Pretty good payday for a couple of three, maybe a couple of months. For $300, yeah. Right. Pretty good payday. Michael Patron, I think- It's unregulated and it's so complicated, people don't even understand it. No, they don't. They don't. And that's a lot of the issue Yeah. know, Michael Patron with him, the way I found out about it, I had a guy message me on

Dino Mauro (51:14.222)
And he was like, hey, Michael Patron is back. And I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? And he's like, look at the Wonderland Time subreddit. And it was right as the stuff was going on. Michael Patron had, it came out that he was the chief financial officer of Wonderland Time. The person, the main developer knew it the entire time. Wow. admits it. And the token goes from $10,800 down to $117 in the space of like four days.

You can think about that. You've got retirement funds. You've got everyone's life savings, everything else invested in this token that is now completely bankrupt. And the problem with that, and this is this Reddit echo chamber type thing that goes on. The problem is, is you've got people that have lost everything because you've got a criminal that's associated with this. Yet you've still got victims that come in that are trying to convince themselves that no, it's legitimate.

it's going to work out just fine. So you have these conversations of people saying, I've lost everything. meanwhile, you've got other people saying, keep holding, keep holding. It's going to go right back up. It's going back up. So Patron, his ass ends up over in Thailand. The last I heard, he was in Thailand. His ether wallet, and this is before the latest crash, his ether wallet at one point was $50 million. I know it dropped down to 35 million. I don't know what it's valued at right

Wow. And still not indicted. Why? Because there's no damn regulation yet. Right. There's nothing to indict him on. There's nothing on the books. That's crazy. Unbelievable. I mean, it is. It's absolutely insane when you think that you can steal that kind of money, you can ruin lives, people commit suicide, everything else, and you walk away unscathed. Something's wrong with that. Well, so let's, before we wrap up, let's, let's...

leave

Dino Mauro (53:39.598)
Absolutely depends on who you are and what you do. All right, if you're an individual, food service, I'll attack you different than if you're payroll. I'll do business email compromise or try to get you to send me your W-2s if you're payroll. If you're food service, I'm gonna set up new accounts, bank accounts, crap like that. Understand where you are, how you're going to be attacked, design your security around that. Understand your situational awareness. We're very good. We are very good in the physical world.

of knowing when we're in a bad neighborhood. We understand that immediately. That's a really good analogy. You know when you're in a bad neighborhood, right? And in the digital world, realize when you're in a bad neighborhood. Right. There are predators online. There are people who will look at your Facebook page to find out when you're going on vacation.

They'll take, they'll capture pictures of your children and use those as deep fakes for currencies of pornographic sites, things like that. Understand there are predators there. Design your security around that as well. Increase your situational awareness online. The actual things that you can do immediately, freeze the credit of every single person in the house. Children are the number one victims of identity theft. Credit freezes, stop that.

credit freezes are free. have to contact all three credit bureaus to do that. The problem is, that credit freezes have been free since 2018. Only 12 % of the United States population has one in place right now. So if you don't do anything else today, put a credit freeze on every single person in the house, including- And how do people do that? they contact each credit bureau, right? There's a form- Contact all three credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion.

They're gonna try to get you to pay for some sort of service. No, you want the free one, credit freeze. And that means that no one can request your credit report without your permission. Okay, that's the only thing it means. Stops new account fraud, dead in its tracks. For adults, we have existing accounts. So you have to monitor accounts, place alerts on those existing accounts. For example, on your credit cards, Discover Card has a $0 alert. Meaning if I go on the dark web, buy your card for 12 bucks,

Dino Mauro (55:53.792)
I ping the card to see if it's just alive, you get a text message saying, hey, someone's trying to steal your credit card data and you can have the card locked down. So freeze credit, monitor accounts, place alerts, password manager, because 80 % of the population uses the same or similar logins and passwords across multiple websites. We talk about it all the time. Now we're going to get to that point where we are going to go passwordless.

Somehow, we're going to get there. We're not there yet, so use a password manager and interim. I'm an Android guy. I use the one that's built into Chrome. You don't have to pay anything to do that. There's one for Apple as well. Use a password manager. From there, you can do multi-factor authentication. You can do all these other things. The idea is to understand that you need a toolbox with which

to protect yourself. Criminals have a toolbox that they use to attack you, and they'll, they have got a variety of tools, and they'll pick out whichever tool they need to victimize you or your company. As a defender, you need a toolbox with a variety of tools to protect yourself from those types of attacks. The interesting thing is, is that just those three things I told you about, freezing credit, monitor accounts, place alerts, and then a password manager, if you do all three of those things,

you're no longer that lowest hanging fruit. You're much more protected than 70, 80 % of the population that's out there. So do that, without a doubt, do that. Please God do that. What I hope for every day. Using like one, two, three, four, five or pass or like Green Bay Packers rule, right? And then on social media, they're like at the Green Bay Packers game with like the cheese head on and you're like,

thinking your password might be Green Bay Packers. Might be something like that. Yeah. And it's not just individuals. take Colonial Pipeline, you take SolarWinds, had SolarWinds one, two, three. Yep. I mean, it's not just that. know, honestly, I got to tell you, it would be a good thing if we got to the point where these 7,500 security companies went out of business because they no longer needed them. You know, we were secure as a people. right. I got you. That would be a good thing.

Dino Mauro (58:09.87)
I don't think we're going to get there. don't think that's happening anytime soon. No, no time soon. If you're in cybersecurity, you have job security. You'll be around for a while. Everyone else may be in a recession. Cyber, not so much. Right, right. Hey, Brett, this has been wonderful. This was good stuff, man. I really appreciate you coming on. Absolutely insightful conversation, helpful.

Right. Informative. So this will not be the last time we speak. Absolutely. We will be in touch. I would love to do like a LinkedIn live with you. Sure. And address maybe something happening in the news or something like that and get your perspective on it. think we should talk about cybercrime as a service. That's a big word now. And you know, Krebs on security writes about like the violence that's like violence as a service that's going on right now.

It's getting darker and darker as things get more advanced. It's going bad.

Well that wraps this up. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed our episode. The next one is coming right up. We appreciate you making this an award-winning podcast and downloading on Apple and Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube channel. This is Cybercrime Junkies and we thank you for watching.