In short · Summary by AI
Mariana van Zeller, host of the series Trafficked, joins Joe Rogan to discuss her investigation Super Scam Me, in which she posed as a target on dating and social platforms to study romance and pig-butchering scams. The conversation covers scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia, the loneliness that makes people vulnerable, and reporting alleging Meta profited from scam ads, with the guests arguing for regulation and more investment in addiction treatment.
- Van Zeller created a fake persona on dating and social sites for her series Super Scam Me to study scams from the scammer's side, arguing victims are blamed while scammers' tactics go unexamined.
- She describes Leslie, who was scammed by a fake John Bon Jovi account over nearly a year, and says victims often keep engaging even after suspecting the scam.
- Scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia reportedly hold trafficked workers under threat and torture, and van Zeller cites a Reuters-style account of a man allegedly used as a blood slave.
- Van Zeller cites Consumer Federation of America figures estimating Americans lost $148 billion to online scams last year, about $400 million a day.
- Reuters reporting on internal Meta documents, as described in the episode, alleges Meta projected about $16 billion from scam and banned-goods ads and charged suspected scammers higher ad rates rather than banning them outright.
- The guests discuss the Safe Platforms Act, a bipartisan bill that would require advertiser verification and make it easier to report scams, and note that Meta's internal estimates are not confirmed by the transcript itself.
- Discussion of Narcan, fentanyl test strips, and Portugal's decriminalization model argues that treatment and demand reduction, not only enforcement, are needed for the drug crisis.
- The episode ends with broader concern about AI companions and loneliness, with the hosts speculating about future scam and manipulation risks.
- 0:01Intro and romance scam setup
- 0:49Loneliness and vulnerable victims
- 2:12Why scams target emotions
- 3:34Leslie's John Bon Jovi scam story
- 7:02Dopamine and staying in scams
- 8:54AI companions and loneliness
- 13:07Phone scams and call centers
- 16:06Scam compounds and trafficking
- 22:16Pig butchering scam process
- 29:45Meta scam ads and profits
- 43:22Counterfeit products on Amazon
- 44:23Sextortion and Facebook failures
- 54:58China-linked ads and accountability
- 1:07:26Impersonation and Super Scam Me
- 1:16:14Loneliness, family, and community
- 1:20:22Future of AI robots and companions
- 1:28:23El Mayo arrest and cartels
- 1:41:44Cartel violence and corruption in Mexico
- 1:54:01Portugal versus Oregon drug policy
- 2:01:51Oxycontin Express and pill mills
- 2:04:42Ibogaine, psychedelics, and treatment
- 2:24:09Closing thoughts and wrap-up
Intro and romance scam setup
0:01Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. >> The Joe Rogan Experience. >> TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY NIGHT. All day. >> Good to see you. >> Hi, Joe. So good to see you, too. >> Uh, every time I watch one of your new programs, I I get anxiety. I'm like, please don't die. Don't get hurt. What are you doing?
0:22[laughter] >> This one was a walk in the park, though. >> You're It kind of is a walk in the park, but not really. You went to [ __ ] Africa to meet scammers >> to confront my scammer. [laughter] >> So, your new show is all about romance scams. >> And uh I was aware of these because I watched a a show a long time ago about this poor lonely man who kept getting scammed.
Loneliness and vulnerable victims
0:49uh he thought that there was this woman and he was in contact with her and he flew to Europe to meet her twice >> and both times she came up with some reason why she couldn't be there. Some emergency came up and you know and this guy had given her hundreds of thousands of dollars and drained his account and his >> his daughter was so sad.
1:08She's like I keep trying to tell him but he won't listen. And you see these poor people that are so vulnerable that just they're lonely and they really believe >> they really really believe. I think the loneliness epidemic is a huge part of this. Quite frankly, >> it's a huge issue in this world, a huge issue in our country in particular.
1:26You know, there's like a disconnect with family in our country and there's a like people don't have like real community anymore. It's very weird. >> It is. And I think it's Yeah. It's absolutely one of the biggest reasons why scams are rampant these days. I mean, particularly romance scams. >> Yeah. >> 100%.
1:47Yeah. Well, it's you're you're praying on the the saddest people. That's what's really it's like it's one thing if you're scamming some psycho [ __ ] fraud guy who's doing stock market [ __ ] You know what I mean? Or like and you scam them. Yeah. >> It's like you're scamming a scammer. >> Yeah, it's true.
2:08But I think one of the problems we have when we talk about scams is this idea that we think it's a certain time type of more gullible person or more naive or perhaps more foolish. >> And I think that is wrong because I think what these scammers are so good at doing is that they prey on emotions that we all share.
Why scams target emotions
2:30You know, love and trust and sometimes greed as well. And the real reason or the main reason I wanted to do this uh this film was because of that because I'd come back and I'd tell friends and family stories about, you know, these victims because I've reported on on scams before extensively. And it was always, but how could they do that?
2:51Why would you give money to a stranger? I mean, how could they be so silly and so stupid? And that really annoyed me because why are we focusing on the response of of the victim instead of actually understanding the actions of the scammer of the scammers themselves because they are very very good at what they do.
3:08So that was the idea behind okay I'm going to place myself at the center of all scams super scam me and create a persona and put myself in dating websites and you know online platforms and see what happens and it happened very fast. Do you think they're good at it? >> I think some are really good at it.
3:28>> The guy that was doing it with YouTube. No, I I didn't get the best scammer [laughter] out there. Let's just say that. >> Are there better ones? >> They're 100% better ones. I think the one that was scamming Leslie was definitely better than mine. >> Um, >> is that the one who was pretending he was John Bonjov?
Leslie's John Bon Jovi scam story
3:43Yeah. So, again, [laughter] this again, >> I know, but that's the thing. You tell that story and you think this guy shows up on her DM and says, "Hey, I'm John Bon Joy. Give me money." That's not how it went, right? She liked an account. >> So, it was funny because it was in the middle of me doing Super Scam Me that I get an a a message from Leslie.
4:01And I get dozens of these messages every week because I've done a lot of reporting on this. People think I'm sort of like the 911 for scams. And in one, it was right in the middle of the project. I get a a message from her and it was that look, I've been talking to a guy for almost a year. I initially thought it was John Bonjovi.
4:21I'm not so sure anymore. And of course the response is, "Wait, what? Did you really think you were talking to John Bonjugi?" But then you listen to the story and then you actually meet this person. >> Yeah. >> And it is much more nuanced than that. She liked an Instagram account. She was brand new on Instagram.
4:36Um liked an account that had what looked like a check mark, a verified account, she thought. And she commented. She's been a fan of this guy since she was 14 years old. Posters of him all around her room. And immediately he DM'd her back and said, "Hey, I saw you commented. I love connecting with my fans."
4:54Perfectly reasonable, perfectly normal, >> right? >> I What's your favorite music? What's your favorite song? When did you start listening to my music? That kind of conversation. started normally and then it was it was weeks of this and then he started paying attention to her and interested in what her life was like and tell me about you and what do you do and what are your interests and then they they talked for months and months and he would remember things that happened in
5:22the early weeks and this is a woman who leads a very lonely life. There's there's the loneliness epidemic who's sort of estranged from her husband who doesn't really have anyone who's interested in her life quite frankly or who sees her or understands her or wants to know about her. >> Right. >> And finally there was somebody who even if he wasn't John Bon Joy, it was somebody who cared.
5:42Right. >> Yeah. >> And it lasted months of this and then she said to him one day she knew that he had a concert. She couldn't afford it. She went online. and the tickets were ridiculously expensive. And she said, "It's so sad that I really want to see you in concert. Always have wanted to when I can't."
5:59This was like seven months into their relationship. And then he says, "Well, uh, if you want, I do these meet and greets," which is also reasonable. They actually do. Celebrities do these. And you can pay for I'll give you a discount. I'll put you in touch with management and you can pay like a $100.
6:15I'm coming to Louisiana and you can come to one of these meet and greets and meet me in person. And at this point, I'm sorry, but it is believable. And also, he would send her videos. You saw some of these videos. >> Yeah, the AI videos. >> The AI videos. And some of them, I mean, they're a little robotic, but they could be real.
6:34And it's, "Hi, Leslie. Good morning. How are you doing? My sunshine, my love. I, you know, I I I'm curious about your life." And he would say to her, "Look, I am surrounded by people who are Yes. people who are people who are with me a lot because of my money and fame and I just really appreciate connecting with people who are outside the bubble who are normal folks, >> right?
6:57>> And so it it is kind of it's not as insane as like John Bonjovi showed up and said, "Hey, I want $1,000." Right? But then what happens I think in a lot of these scams is that once you're in once you're committed to a relationship once that has an impact on your life and has made your life better it is very difficult to then you know come to the realization that this might not be real I I equate it a little bit to gambling you know when gamblers lose a lot of money and in their heads they're always
Dopamine and staying in scams
7:28thinking wait it might have been my unlucky day if I go to the casino today this might be my really lucky day, right? You and the more you lose, the more you're gambling because you're trying to get that money back. It's a little bit I think that same idea. It's also a dopamine rush. Like every time you get a DM, every time you're lovebombed, you're there's a dopamine rush there.
7:48>> And I think it's that idea that at you get to a point where you start suspecting, okay, this doesn't sound real, but I've invested so much the reality of my life is so sad compared to this that maybe I prefer to just go on. So there are actually a lot of romance scam victims that continue having these relationships even after they realized the person wasn't who they said they were.
8:10>> Wow. So they just do it just for the placebo. They do it almost just like they're talking to a robot that loves them. >> Yeah. Yes. A little bit. Which is one of the things that they talk actually about how AI, you know, the companionship of AI >> uh is one of the benefits or possible benefits of AI.
8:29I don't know if it's a benefit. >> It can also be very bad. >> It can. But you know there coffee shops now I just found out this this out in New York where they actually have like iPads. Did you know this >> iPads with fake people for companionship that you go to the coffee shop and you grab an iPad and you have a whole conversation with an AI agent.
8:51>> Well, New York, weirdly enough one of the loneliest places. >> Yeah. >> Because no one is friends with anyone. Like my friend Jim who lives in a building in New York. It's like you know 40 stories or something like that. He's like I don't know anybody in this building. >> Like think about that. I'm I'm in I don't know my neighbor.
AI companions and loneliness
9:09Every time we we look at each other like so hey how you doing? Like like no one knows anybody and there's hundreds of people stacked on top of each other. >> That is an odd way to live. >> That is an odd way to live. Yeah. >> What is this Jimmy? >> Oh [cough and clears throat] cafe for AI. >> Eva AI opens the world's first cafe for AI dates.
9:27This cuffing season. What is cuffing season? >> What does that mean? >> Uh, I have no idea. Where is that? >> It's link. It's like linking up time. >> Is that what it means? >> Cuffing. You know, it's another way to say [ __ ] >> Oh, having sex. >> Yes. >> Wow. >> Jamie knows. >> There's a season. What are we elk?
9:45>> It's like a cold running >> during winter when everybody's inside. [laughter] >> A relationship RPG app. [clears throat] >> Bringing virtual romance to the real world. EVA is launching EVA Cafe, the first ever online space where people can take their AI partners out on a real date. Oh god. >> Yeah, >> that is so dark.
10:07>> Wow. >> Oh Jesus Christ. >> Oh wow. >> You sit there with an iPad. Are you enjoying your steak? >> Oh my god. That >> sounds like a troll, but it's real. You're saying it's real. >> Reserve your spot. Click that. >> I don't want to [laughter] >> get on a list. [clears throat] >> Yeah. Let's see what happens.
10:23>> Open up a Google dot. What happens? Waiting list. It's a waiting list. >> Well, so this was also uh that said the website said it was back in February of 26. So I don't know. I mean that's almost, you know, >> don't show that on the screen. You just showed your >> address. I'm closing it. [laughter] >> Oh boy.
10:37Boy, this is dark. >> There you go. You can come to flirt and unwind. >> Come to flirt unwind or simply share a quiet moment with your AI companion. >> EVA cafe. >> Yeah. So, depressing. It's so dark. It's so dark. >> Did you see X Machino? >> I did. >> One of my all-time favorite movies. I love that movie.
11:00But the the real problem I have with that movie is like I think I'd fall in love with her, too. >> Oh my. Yeah. >> That guy. [laughter] She's amazing. >> She's so hot. >> She's so hot. >> Who cares if she has clear skin and [ __ ] lights behind it? [laughter] >> So true. >> It's like she's so pretty and so sweet.
11:17[laughter and gasps] It's dark. It's dark [clears throat] because we are super vulnerable. We're super stupid. >> Yeah. I don't know if stupid is the word, but I would say we're vulnerable, especially men. >> Yeah. Men. Do you know that's interesting too in terms of scams because as you saw in our film, the majority of the people we spoke to were women.
11:36But actually men are as are as likely to falling victim to these scams as women, but they just have a lot more shame around it. So they're less likely to talk about it. So, we actually spoke to a lot a lot of men, but they just don't want to be on camera because there's so much shame around this. >> Yeah.
11:52They don't No man wants to be a sucker. >> Yeah. >> If a woman's a sucker, everyone feels bad for her. If a guy's a sucker, you're like, "You [ __ ] >> I wish people felt bad for for women." It wasn't Leslie's case, and it's certainly not the case for a lot of the victims that I speak to. >> They don't feel bad for him.
12:07>> No, actually, this is another horrible thing. It's what I call is there's a sort of double victimization, right? Because initially, not only do you, you know, your heart is broken, you lost all your money, but then you go back home or you go to your friends and you talk about this and the first response is how stupid could you be, right?
12:23It's the humiliation, it's the shame >> that comes with it, which they use it to their advantage, right? The scammers that they use the silence to their advantage. >> Do you ever get those random text messages that say, "Hi, I haven't seen you in so long. What have you been up to?" and you look at the number, you're like, "Who the [ __ ] is this?"
12:42>> Absolutely. >> It's always an Android phone. Yeah. Right. So, like that's one way to check. And then it's always like something weird like I've been craving lobster rolls. >> Do you want to meet up? [laughter] >> Like what? What is this? >> And also the the job uh offers those all the time. >> I'm approved for so many loans.
13:00Yeah. >> It's really amazing. >> Same. Same. So, actually, Super Scammy started like that. The idea was that I was gonna say yes to every single scam that came my way. And for the first few weeks, we filmed it that way. So, I would answer all those text messages. >> What happens? >> It was really interesting.
Phone scams and call centers
13:15So, it was a lot of phone calls with scammers. Uh, one of the most interesting conversations we had with was with an Indian call center who told me that there was a bug in my Apple computer and he could fix it. One of those, right? >> Oh, that's nice of him. >> It was an Apple support. Yes. Very nice of him.
13:34So, so kind. And all I had to do was download this software. And once you download the software, he's in my computer. And then you go to the payment. And once they're in my computer, they can see the number that I'm putting for my credit card and all the details. >> So they have access to that. Right.
13:50So >> did you do it? >> I'm trying to go I'm trying to go as far as I can without actually revealing a credit card. So, I get to the point of the credit card and I turn to him and this had been like over an hour on the phone with this guy and I say, "Hey, so this is the deal. I'm actually a journalist.
14:08My name is Mariana, but I don't want to get you in trouble. I kind I know this is a scam. I just want to talk to you, dude." And he actually did. He stayed on the phone with me. I tried this a lot. It didn't always work, but in [laughter] this case, this guy actually stayed on the phone with me for a long time.
14:22And he told me, "Look, we work >> we're forced to do In his case, he said he was forced, but I think he was doing it for the money. But he basically said I said, "Don't you feel bad about this? I mean, you're stealing money from people." And his answer was, "Look, in America, everybody has more money.
14:38So, I don't really feel bad." I was like, "What is a lot of money?" Oh, he said, "He doesn't steal from poor people." And what's poor people? Well, if I go into a bank, if I go into account, once I get access, I can see everything that's there. If you have less than $1,000, I'm not going to steal from you.
14:53But if you have more, that means you're rich. >> Whoa. Yeah. >> Is it? Yeah. It was interesting. Yeah. That I mean the money it's so different, right? >> Well, that is the the very bizarre statistic that shocks people when you tell it to them. I think I used to think it's $34,000, but I think it's $50,000.
15:13If you make $50,000, you are in the top 1% of the world. >> 50,000. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That's >> it's Yeah, >> that's dark. >> That's very dark. I mean 10% of the world's population lives under the poverty line. >> Yeah. >> So that's 700 and something million people who have trouble finding, you know, shelter and food for themselves and their family.
15:35It's insane. >> Yeah. And I do know that there are people that get they literally get kidnapped and forced to work in these scam centers through threat of death and >> torture. Torture. We did a story about that for the last season of traffics about these scam compounds. actually visited one of the scam city, a city that has a lot of these scam compounds, and interviewed one of the main guys there.
15:58And it was and spoke to a lot of the victims. And I mean, it was people being beaten and tortured and forced. There's a guy, I will never forget, who jumped off like the sixth floor of his building um because he knew that he could die, but he thought it was better to die than to live in that those conditions.
Scam compounds and trafficking
16:15He basically broke both his hips and his legs. And when I met him, he was in an wheelchair. He was rescued. Thank God. But there was unsure if you could ever walk again. And uh and then there was a woman that's was a really dark one uh who we spoke to. She's sort of a the model. So she's the person that when they want to do video calls, she'd come on camera, but they had at the time, even back then, this was two years ago, they had this AI technology that would go superimpose over her face.
16:41And they needed a woman because of the mannerisms, right? Or and and the voice, I guess. But they had this AI thing program and it's over her face. But if she moved just a little bit, they would it would distort basically and her boss would beat her and all that stuff. But she'd also been raped by her boss and all his friends.
17:01They would bring people in to rape her and she was stuck in this horrible situation. It's >> where are these happening most? >> Myanmar. Um Myanmar and Cambodia uh were [snorts] the two main spots. But now because there's been a crackdown in both countries, particularly in Cambodia, they are spreading to other places like Dubai and other other other places.
17:18But um but they still exist a lot in in Myanmar. And Myanmar is a country at war. There's a large part of the country that is just controlled by different rebel groups. The government doesn't really have much control of that region. So the scam compounds and these, you know, a lot of them are Chinese criminal gangs that operate these scam compounds.
17:41They're paying a fee. They're paying for the war. Essentially, they're giving money to the rebels in order to be able to work and, you know, build these scam cities. But the scam city that I visited was, it was like a mini Macau. It was these highrises. And it happened within a year or two. It went from flat, you know, regular forest jungle in Myanmar to skyscrapers, casinos.
18:02Um, you know, one of the places I visited was, um, in order to be able to talk to this scam scam compound, the guy who sort of runs the city, we had to wine and dine him. Actually, he had to wine and dine us. He wanted to take us out and show us around. And he took us to this karaoke cafe, karaoke bar that was like nothing I'd ever seen.
18:25It was screens all around. It looks like the future, but this is in one of the poorest countries on earth with a war raging around and I'm in this sort of the future and it's this yeah this karaoke bar with girls painfully dressed and drugs being served and alcohol and uh and we had to stay there and I sang Whitney Houston.
18:52[laughter] >> What song? I think it was the the greatest love of all, which is usually the one that I sing. >> That's what I was going to guess. [laughter] >> And I'm one of those people that thinks they can sing well, but really can't. [laughter] But it was fun. Those was one of those unforgettable nights.
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20:1614 days terms at dkng.co/offer co/offer. Limited time offer nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability varies by state. >> So he was willing to do this. He wanted to show off. >> Yes. Cuz he was trying to sell the city as being a gambling and tourist paradise.
20:31Uh >> so the entire city is essentially funded by scams >> because who wants to go to this place? No one. Like he they built it up for business, for gambling, for tourists to come. Literally, they have go-kart uh tracks and they had a a slide pools with slides, a water park, and all that stuff, but no tourist in their right mind from anywhere in the world would want to go to this place on in the world because it's again there's a war, it's poor, it's really difficult to access.
21:03We had to be smuggled into the country from Thailand. So obviously that's all a front for what really brings in money, which is scams. But he was trying to sort of clean the image and show us that nothing wrong was going on there. And they had posters all around the city saying, "No scams are allowed.
21:19We don't torture people." [laughter] If you need to say it. [sighs] >> Wow. Wow. And the whole city just appeared quickly >> overnight. A lot of these do. I mean, it's within months. It's flat terrain and suddenly there's >> funding it. And how are they doing the construction? like how are they how are they doing that >> construction is there is a lot of unemployed uh people in the country so that's not that difficult funding all comes from a lot of it is from these Chinese criminal gangs um who operate in
21:54in the case of where I visited was a company called Yatai International the head of Yatai International was a Chinese man who was living in Myanmar running this compound he was eventually actually picked up by the authorities in Thailand he was doing time in prison so the guy I spoke to was his number two and He was trying to say that the guy was in prison because he was openly talking about corruption in China or something like that, which was not the case.
Pig butchering scam process
22:16But uh but yeah, it's uh and it's billions of dollars. I can't remember exactly, but there was >> Sorry to interrupt you. How typical is this story? Like this is the opening article of an article about [clears throat] victims and villains scam compounds. >> Yeah, >> this is crazy. >> What does it say?
22:32>> Uh he was held against his will, tortured, and drained of his blood. And they would drain his blood up to seven times in a half year. That made him a blood slave. >> Wow. >> To to run these scams. >> Yeah. >> What? Blood slave. >> In his case of a blood slave. The journalist began to describe him.
22:51>> Oh, okay. So it says from his bed, he said he sought work as a security guard in China, but was tricked and apparently kidnapped, transported to Cambodia, and then sold into one of the country's many fortified scam compound facilities where workers labor around the clock to extract money from people online.
23:05When he resisted, Lee was beaten and tortured and then passed from one scam operator to another. He claimed his capttors finally began to drain large quantities of his blood seven times in half a year. In the hospital, he pointed weekly at an infusion bag above his head that was the size of each extraction, he said.
23:24In online articles, journalists began to describe his case that of a blood slave. So, they're taking his blood for blood doping or for for blood transfusions for other people. >> That part that >> they're just taking it for they're using his blood as money. Like they're selling his blood. >> Probably one of the scams they're doing.
23:43Yeah, I would imagine. >> So, they just like take everything. What? Do you got an extra kidney? Give me that. Chinese social media lit up with outrage and sympathy. Even government officials in China and Cambodia took notice. For a moment, Lee seemed to embody the darkest truths about the criminal scam compound spreading across parts of Southeast Asia.
24:00>> Like what one of them looks like. >> I mean, they're big. >> So, that is an entire building dedicated to scams. >> And they have barbed wire around it. They have security guards. The all the windows usually have um what do you call them? Um >> bars. So people can't escape. [snorts] >> Wow. >> Pictures here.
24:20I was showing these pictures. There's a dorm. >> Yeah, the dorms. Yeah. With lots people sleeping in the dorms together. >> Eat food. You know, looks kind of like a military compound. >> They can't leave the compound. Everything. Oh, absolutely. Slaves. >> Yeah, >> it's slaves. And we're not talking about just a few hundred people.
24:36It's hundreds of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of people coming from all over the world who are lured into what they think are going to be online jobs and and once they get there they take away their passports and they force them to scam Americans essentially. It's crazy. People coming from Brazil, India, Philippines, all around the world.
24:55It's nuts. I I don't understand how we know this happens. This is still out there. I've been trying to do a film about this because of all my reporting on traffic. This was one of the craziest one of those moments that I'm like, "This is outrageous. How are we allowing this to happen?" And you can say, "Okay, the victims are people from other countries.
25:16Why should we care?" I mean, that's not a good response to start with, but even if that's the case, they're they're enslaved. But also, these people are scamming Americans. Last year, this is a crazy this blew my mind. Uh just I think two months ago or something, the Consumer Federation of America issued their latest report which was looking at scams last year and Americans apparently lost not apparently.
25:40They've estimated that Americans lost $148 billion dollars to online scams last year. >> Billion. >> Billion. Do you know how much that is a day? I did the math. It's $400 million a day. $400 million a day are lost in America are being stolen from Americans >> every day. It's insane. And a lot of it is done through from by from these they're called pig butchering compounds.
26:06>> Pig butchering. I found a website talking about the pig butchering. Butchering website. >> Wow. Organized criminals use highly scripted process and human trafficking to steal as much money as they can from individual victims. >> Pig slaughter. They like it's like >> Do you know why it's called Yes, exactly.
26:23It comes from the Chinese expression that means uh sort of fattening the pig. So you fatten the pig so you you know give a lot of love to your victim or you you know pretend they're going to get a lot of money. You build their confidence and trust and then you slaughter them. Basically you take away all their money.
26:40>> There's a whole uh go to the top please. There's a whole process they go grooming the victims. They contact pig pig butchering that's a dark word. pig butchering targets uh through dating apps, social media platforms or unsolicited text messages ah like the ones I get. At some point the scammer encourages a target to sift shift the conversation to an encrypted messaging platform like WhatsApp or Telegram.
27:03They invest time in understanding the person's financial situation, family dynamics and work to build a deep emotional connection. Scammers often spend weeks building these relationships. Then then they introduce investment opportunities. >> They drop subtle hints about a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity early in the relationship.
27:25They show pictures of a lavish lifestyle or talk about expensive purchases and experiences once scammers have gained pig butchering targets trust. They introduce an exclusive investment opportunity, often claiming they've achieved significant financial success through it. Then they establish credibility, make the scam seem real.
27:44Scammers share fake screenshots and trading platform dashboards, stories of friends or an uncle who knows how it all works and made massive profits along with professional looking documents and websites starting small to ease doubts. So they have like a whole process they go through slowly. They have scripts that they stick to >> and it's different according to the people that they're talking to what kind of victim that is >> that this is the scam.
28:11Pig butchering was what actually got remember there was that story of that uh bank banker the CEO of a bank in Kansas that ultimately went bankrupt because he had stolen $400 million from the bank. Do you remember? >> He [clears throat] got he got scammed. >> Yeah. From it was pig butchering too. It was one of these fake crypto.
28:27>> How did they get him? What was it a romance thing? >> No, it was this it was an investment opportunity. Sometimes they're mixed. It starts with a romance and then goes to investment opportunity or sometimes it's just the investment opportunity. I think in his case it was more the investment opportunity.
28:40So they said he he started by putting just his own money, his savings into what he thought was a legitimate crypto account. And you can see once you do, again, it's let's not think these people are stupid because the scammers are really good at what they do. They create these platforms that when you look at it looks completely legitimate and then it looks like your money is going up, right?
29:01He's seeing his money is going up. He's making a lot of money. He's very excited. Initially, if you want to take money out, they allow you so that you gain more confidence. So then you start putting more money and then he just got in too deep where they kept saying that in order to get the millions he had just made out, you know, months into the the this investment scam.
29:21They said that he has to pay a fee and it's like a tax, right? You have to pay a 10% tax. And so at that point, you're so in you've lost so much money that okay, if I only pay this 10% tax or if I only pay this fee. So he kept doing that, but then he started actually using money from his customers. How the [ __ ] does a guy who works in banking get sucked into something that stupid?
Meta scam ads and profits
29:45>> But I don't think it's I think look now we know a lot more about it, right? >> Uhhuh. >> I think the question should be why isn't our government doing more to protect us? Why are these online platforms why don't they have uh why aren't they accountable? They should be held accountable for allowing this to happen.
30:06>> Look, which online platforms? Um, I'll give you specifics. There was an incredible Reuters investigation done [snorts] last year where they got they got a hold of internal meta documents from Meta [snorts] >> and in the meta documents internal meta documents. They estimated inside meta the worker the different departments estimated that there were 15 billion ads every single day that the users of their platforms WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook were exposed to around an estimated 15 billion scam ads
30:40every single day. Scams that were higher risk that were that displayed clear signs of being fraudulent. They also estimated that they were that year they projected that they would make 16 billion dollars. This is in 2024, I believe, or 2023, I'm not sure. 16 billion dollars worth of of profit from scams and banned goods.
31:07That's 10% of their full profit at the time. So, they're making a ton of money from this. And then this is where it gets really worrisome to me because of their po personalized ad um system. If a person clicks on a scam that you know those ads that you have like Elon Musk holding a thing and saying investment opportunity and then you click it and you want to see what it is or there's tons of these.
31:31I mean there's gazillions of these out there. If you click it, you are more likely to be fed more of these ads. So it comes starts with just maybe you're exposed to one and then suddenly in the next day you're exposed to a hundred of these scams right so your reality starts being you know filled with scams and then this is I think even the crazier part is that if you report these as scams which a lot of users do I think it's 100,000 reports every single week they if they have a 95 or over certainty
32:05meta if their system sees that there's a 95% % certainty or over that these are scams, they remove them. If there's less than 95, let's say 94%. What they do is they give you a penalty fee. So, you have to pay more, but they allow you to stay on the platform. >> What? >> Yes. >> Wait a minute. >> You can check that out, Jamie.
32:24That is investigation. >> They're in on it then. >> They're making money. I mean, it just raises lots of questions, right? >> Right. If you're charging more money, that means you know something's wrong with this ad. So, you want to cut. >> Yeah. You're making more money from the illegitimate ads than you are from the legitimate ads.
32:44In terms of onetoone, >> is this because of a lack of regulation? >> It is because of a lack of regulation. >> Lack of regulation, lack of oversight, and maybe perhaps something that emerged without any understanding of it before it was everywhere. >> 100%. I think it's our government. They know. >> They know.
33:01Oh, absolutely. you know, their whole conversations in those internal documents is them talking about how can we go after this without affecting our pocket. They actually openly talk about it. They talk about how there are other companies out there that are doing a better job, but they are afraid of what that would might mean.
33:16>> Jamie put this into our AI sponsor perplexity and says, "Yes, Reuters reported that Meta Charge some suspected scam advertisers higher advertising rates rather than banning them outright. a system described internally as penalty bids. Bids. Why would they call it a bid? >> Uh because the way that the ads work, it's like a bidding process.
33:37The [clears throat] way that they'd serve it, they could charge you, you have a budget and they charge you more based off of how they deliver it. So they might charge you more per >> Here's the distinction in the documents Reuters reviewed. At least 95% confidence of fraud. [ __ ] Christ. What What [laughter] do you have to do to get off that platform?
33:54Meta's automated systems would ban the advertiser at 95% confidence of fraud. Below that threshold, but still judged likely to be a scammer, the advertiser could remain, but would have to pay more to win ad auctions and get ads shown. This wasn't simply a sir charge on every ad someone reported as suspicious.
34:13The stated rationale was deterrence. Higher costs would reduce suspect scammers profits and the number of people exposed to their ads. But the uncomfortable consequence is exactly what you're pointing out. Suspected scammers who paid enough could still reach users while Meta continued collecting their advertising money.
34:34>> More money. Actually, >> more money, right? Because they charged them more. [gasps] Look at this. They charged suspected scammers more is susported. A claim like they charged all flagged ads 50% extra is not established by evidence. Oh, okay. They did not establish a fixed search charge or percentage, but I didn't say that.
34:55I just said penalty fees. >> It's saying I didn't type it in either. This is what perplexity. >> So perplexity is just they're just like possible questions that you would have or possible. >> Right. And Jamie, can you see the name of the journalist because I think it I'd love to give a hat tip to the journalist that looked into this because it's it was a really incredible um >> Well, if you click on the first >> I said that that was reading from [clears throat] a different article
35:17because the Reuters one is um Jeff Horitz is the >> is it? Okay. >> Well, this is one from Reuters. This is Jeff Horitz. >> Yeah. >> So, Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads. So, how much money did they make? Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods.
35:35That's exactly what I said. >> Holy [ __ ] So 15 billion scam ads a day. That's the the social media giant internally estimates that its platform shows users 15 billion scam ads a day. among its responses to suspected rogue marketers, charging them a premium for ads and issuing reports on scamiest scammers, >> knowing that they exist and allowing the platform >> profiting off of it.
36:10They just there's no regulation, there's no oversight, so they are regulating themselves and what they charge to chose to do is charge more. >> Mhm. Yeah. And and >> holy it's insane [ __ ] So yeah. So that's what I mean. The conversation has to stop being >> damn it suck. >> Yeah. It has to stop being why are the victims falling for this?
36:32It's why are we allowing this to happen? >> Well, it's that the 10%. It's like you you must be dealing with that must be an how much money are we talking about? What is that 10%. >> 16 billion. That's what's reported there, right Jamie? That's what it says. I was trying to figure out if the >> 16 10% of 16 billion or 16 billion% Facebook and Meta makes >> 16 billion is the profit estimated for that year from scams and banned goods.
36:59It's not just scams, scammed ads. It's also banned goods. >> Okay, let's just concentrate on scam because some banned goods I'm I'm in favor of. [laughter] >> I reading it, it's not clear on which is which. [clears throat] >> It's like what are we talking about? We say ban goods. We're talking about mad honey.
37:15>> We're okay with peptides. I'm I'm okay with a [laughter] lot of Well, I'm actually not like I I am okay with peptides, but the problem with getting peptides online is you're getting scam peptides and they've done these >> in the same labs as fentinel in China. >> Oh, I'm sure. Well, a lot of them are tainted with a bunch of stuff that's not supposed to be in there as well.
37:34You know, we found that out with Onit. you know, when we were making on it, um when we were making AlphaBrain, the neutropic um memory enhancing formula, we uh used thirdparty testing and we were finding stuff in the batch that was not supposed to be in there. And it's because they make all this stuff in one bin and they don't clean it.
37:55And so, >> you took it to the lab when you when it got here to check it and >> Oh, we have third party testing. Well, we don't have that problem anymore. this in the early days of on it >> when we first would send out our stuff to be formulated. So what we do is >> so uh Alpha Brain is uh this combination of different neutropics and nutrients that are clinically proven to help memory.
38:18There's a bunch of the like this stuff right now, Gorilla Mind, this is neutropics in as well. I'm I'm a big fan of neutropics. It's real. It does work. >> Yeah. And so, uh, when we would send, we would get it, what you do is you send the ingredient list, like this is what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to add this, that, that, and this, and this is what your formula is.
38:37>> And then we would get it back, and then we would send it to a third party to have it tested, and we'd find things in it that were not supposed to be in there. >> Yeah. >> It's cuz they don't give a [ __ ] >> They don't give a [ __ ] particularly there, they don't give a [ __ ] So there'd be like that's one of the things that happens to athletes like they buy supplements from a nutrition company and it finds other steroids in it, >> you know, like there's a lot of these >> I'm sure some of them do it on purpose
39:00because they want people to have great results. Like you'll take this muscle builder 25x 2000 and you're like, "Oh, this stuff's great. Look, I gained 10 pounds." You're on roids. [laughter] >> You're on steroids. Yeah. And you know, the supplement industry is a giant place for scams, unfortunately, because it is largely unchecked.
39:19It's unregulated. So, if you're selling vitamins and minerals and nutrients and no one's [ __ ] checking Jack [ __ ] >> and you can make all sorts of claims and you know the supplement industry online. Okay, here's a good example. Amazon. >> Let's Google this. [clears throat] Run this through perplexity.
39:38What is the percentage of let's just say vitamins on Amazon that are counterfeit cuz it's not small. It's a large percentage. So like say if you buy like one of the companies I really like is Pure Encapsulations. Really solid company. They sell them on Amazon, right? But I buy them right from the website.
40:02I go to the pure encapsulations.com because I don't trust them because there's counterfeit bottles. They look exactly like encapsulations. Who knows what the [ __ ] is in there? It might not be any vitamin C. It might not be any glutathione. Who knows? You're just buying it. And >> Amazon has a real problem with this because there's individual sellers who sell through Amazon who are selling scams.
40:25Okay, look at this. >> There isn't a reliable established percentage of all vitamins sold on Amazon that are counterfeit. The often repeated 57% fake figure comes from a small study of immune support supplements, not a representative survey of Amazon vitamins. Uh, okay. So, the 50 57% figure 2022 study [clears throat] in JAMAMA network open tested 30 immune health supplements purchased on Amazon.
40:5117 of the 30, about 50% had inaccurate ingredient labels. 13 listed ingredients testing did not detect. Nine contained substances not listed on the labels. These categories over overlapped. It's a meaningful quality control concern. Does not establish 57%. So it's not 157% but there's a bunch that are knockoffs.
41:17>> Yeah. >> So like what is the estimate? Ask perplexity. What is the estimate? What is uh what is a conservative estimate of counterfeit vitamins and supplements on Amazon? >> I mean it doesn't have one. >> I understand but like let's say >> a bunch of counterfeit ship being sold on Amazon just in general.
41:36There's a big problem, >> right? But ask it what would be a reasonable estimate. Let's see if it just has an answer. What would be a reasonable estimate of the amount of counterfeit supplements?
41:55I'm going to guess 25%. >> I'm going to go for 30. >> Unknown. Uh, I would give you a five, 10%, or 20%. The available evidence doesn't provide a sound basis for choosing one. I wouldn't give you sorry actual counterfeits products falsely presented as a legitimate brand have been documented examples include counterfeit uh algen products counterfeit now supplements that's another good company um and allegations involving counterfeit provagen what is that is that a skin supplement I think
42:29it is pvage uh those cases establish that the problem exists but they don't tell us what fraction of Amazon's supplement sales it represents so it's not small. Okay, let's just whatever it is, if it's even if it's 10%. Let's say I don't know what the market share of Amazon supplements is, but it's got to be massive.
42:49It's such a convenient way to order things, you know, the oneclick way. It's so great. >> Oh, it's so great. It's Yeah, unfortunately, it is. >> Unfortunately, >> I know, but it is. You should buy it directly from the >> It should be zero your Amazon. It should be 0% fake. It should be if you're buying [ __ ] whatever, you know, [clears throat] >> electrolytes, it should be from that [ __ ] company.
43:14You know what it is. You've established a chain of command. >> And they have the knowhow. They have the tech to do it, too. >> This is a little bit better information. I think >> Amazon says it identified, seized, and disposed of more than 15 million counterfeit products worldwide in 2025. That includes products prevented from reaching customers or being resold elsewhere in the retail supply chain.
Counterfeit products on Amazon
43:38Not 15 million confirmed counterfeit sales. >> It's just there's a bunch of [ __ ] that's counterfeit on there. I've had problems with it myself. Told them and there's they're like there's nothing we can do about it. >> Well, it seems like it's a problem. >> They give you the money back though. >> No, no, no.
43:48I I was selling stuff. I was selling shirts and someone copied it, sold it on an Amazon link and I was like, "That's my shirt. They're selling." And they're like, "There's [clears throat] nothing I can do about it. Good luck." >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's it's a conflict of interest for them, right? Because they are making money from this.
44:04>> That's the problem. And the the lack of regulation >> and a lack of regulation. I if companies aren't going to regulate themselves, right? >> Imagine if that was, let's say, an online retailer like Target. Yeah. >> Imagine if you went to buy Diet Coke from Target and they sold you counterfeit Diet Coke.
44:18That'd be a huge scandal. >> That would be a huge Yeah. >> It should be. >> Yeah. Well, what they tell you is that there's no way of verifying. It's so hard. It's the same thing with scams on Meta. They say [clears throat] there are billions of these. How can we know what's right and what's not? There's a case I will not forget in terms going just going back to scabs real quick.
Sextortion and Facebook failures
44:37Sextor tortion. Huge. You know what's sex? >> Sextorion. So like sex tapes or what? >> Yeah. It's uh usually happens with teenage boys a lot or teenagers. Somebody slides into your DM. >> Oh, they send you pictures to show photos. Yeah. And then they start basically extorting you for money. really sad case of a kid uh the son of a um representative, a congressman from South Carolina, this guy called Brandon Guffy.
45:03His son um Gavin was playing video games with his friends at the same time talking to this girl on Facebook and said to his friend, "Hey, I'm talking to this girl. I'm going to hang out up and I'll talk to you later or something." I don't know, an hour later or something. The dad's in the living room.
45:21It's like 11:00 p.m. and he hears loud noise, runs to the bathroom, he shot himself. >> Oh, >> it's the saddest story because he was being extraordinated. He's not the only one. There's dozens of American kids that this has happened to. He went to Facebook, right? They had an address that from the an email address from the person that was contacting uh Gavin.
45:44They Facebook took down that profile of this fake girl. A few weeks later, they just buried their son. They started being contacted by family members started being contacted by somebody who said they had those photos of Gavin and they would release them unless they gave them money. And he went and looked at the profile.
46:08It was a different profile, but the email address was the same. So basically, Facebook had took taken down that particular profile but had allowed the same email address to create other profiles. Isn't this crazy? >> That's [ __ ] insane. >> Can it's uh he he the representative became very involved in creating laws.
46:33Uh one of them is called I think take it down or something that just passed recently under the Trump administration. uh but it's he's basically become sort of the voice of of regulation for these platforms. And then there's another incredible one. I can't remember the name of the the legislators behind it, but it's called the safe safe platforms act.
46:54Uh where they're actually trying to make it easy for people to report to make sure that these platforms are taking these ads and you know fake profiles down and uh and that is also putting the accountability on them. So if something happens, if you lose money, if your kid you know dies um that there is that they there's some accountability on these platforms because if they are making money from it, they should also be held responsible, right?
47:23>> Yeah, >> I think so. >> Of course, 100%. >> 100%. But the government, >> if they're aware that they have scammers, >> if they're not held accountable, you're going to see exactly what they're doing. They find a way to actually profit off of it while also giving this illusion that they're doing something to protect the consumers.
47:44>> It's crazy. >> That's crazy. >> It's insane. And I couldn't believe it when I was >> I can't believe they charge more. If they think you're a scammer, they just charge you more. It's a deterrent. Yeah. >> Like what a convenient deterrent. While you're making How much? What's the percentage they're making?
47:57>> It was Oh, it didn't Oh, 10%. So 10% was the estimated the projection for that year. >> And their profits off scammers. You estimated it at >> 16 billion. They projected it at 16 billion. Scammers. Scams and banned goods. Banned goods as well. >> That is [ __ ] crazy. So again, I'm a big fan of banned goods, [laughter] >> but not a fan.
48:19>> Some banned goods, but some what I was going to get to with peptides. A lot of people are buying peptides. Those peptides are fake. >> A lot of those peptides are >> fake. You don't know what you're injecting in yourself. You should get a peptide from an American compounded pharmacy. And that's what they're trying to regulate and make sure.
48:32I mean, this is what my friend Bighgam from Ways to Well, they're trying to push through >> through this current administration. And there's a lot of resistance to that, of course, because the pharmaceutical drug companies all want to own the peptides and sell them just like they do with GLP1s, which is also a >> peptide.
48:48Yeah, >> it's uh but the banned goods thing that bothers me, but not as much that, you know, that's people seeking something that they can't get. That doesn't bother me as much. What bothers me is the the scams and the fact that Meta is profiting off these scams knowingly. And it's just such an enormous amount of money that they can kind of like, well, what are you going to do?
49:11We'll we're going to make a deterrent. Great. Good. Good idea. Good idea. Deterrent even makes us more money. >> Internal discussions about how much should we push this because how much is this going to affect our our bottom line? It's >> God, that's so dark. >> It's dark. you. They have so much money.
49:31They have so much [ __ ] money. >> Yeah. >> For them to be that [ __ ] greedy that they're willing to keep the scams on. Well, you got to think there has to be some way they could put in some comprehensive scanning of all of their and make sure that all of these things are legitimate. Investigate each individual ad before it gets released.
49:52>> Of course, they can. They have technology to create what's their new AI agent that they've just created a companion AI agent that people can have. I don't know what it's called, but they of course they they have the technology in place, >> especially if they were responsible for those losses. If they could get sued for those how fast they will act on it, >> right?
50:09Imagine if instead of the $16 billion profit every year, it cost them double the 16 billion because they have scams on. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I know. Exactly. But I think that's part of the reason why we're not talking about this. >> Here we go. >> What was this? Jamie Reuters central finding Meta developed a playbook to delay mandatory advertiser identity checks while making scam ads harder for regulators to find in its public ad library.
50:38The investigation draws on internal documents and describes both genuine scam removal and efforts to manage the appearance of the problem. not simply solve it. >> Right? >> So Leslie, the woman who was talking to John Bonjovi, you know what she does every day now? She goes on Facebook [snorts] and she tries to tell people that are liking these fake celebrity profiles that are commenting on them.
51:06Be careful. This is a scam. She reports it. She says she always says hello so she can keep a record of who she's communicating because there's dozens or hundreds of these out there. and she she reports them. She goes back and she says that the vast majority of them, she goes and checks weeks later and they're still there.
51:24And she keeps on reporting them. I think it was something like a 100,000 reports every week by Americans on on Meta and they only take down a few. >> This episode is brought to you by NOCO. You're miles from home, you turn the key, nothing. Dead battery. Normally that means finding another car, someone willing to give you a jump, and dealing with old jumper cables.
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52:12It's it's Yeah, it's infuriating. It's really infuriating. >> Do you remember the early days of AOL? >> Yes. Okay. The early days of AOL, my friend Barry Crims, Barry Crims was uh a great comic from Boston who was uh like very socially conscious, very politically active, uh just a genius guy. And he was uh sexually assaulted when he was young.
52:40and um found uh a whole network of people that were on AOL that were trading uh pedophile pornography and they were trading child pornography and grooming people online and he exposed it. What there was a part of his documentary, right, Jamie? He's he's gone now. He he died a few years back unfortunately.
53:07Um but he I think he testified before Congress about this >> and you know dedicated himself to saying hey you guys should know about this I know about this like how is this allowed to be on your platform so this was the '9s when you know AOL you've got mail all that stuff was just happening and um people weren't really aware of the internet it was it was just starting to emerge But these [ __ ] pedophiles figured it out and they were using it.
53:40They were using it to, >> you know, to groom kids. And And >> what did they do? What did AOL do? Nothing. >> They did something. They eventually had to do something. I don't know exactly what they did, but this was one of the first examples of that like where these companies should have been aware of this.
54:00He was aware of this. Other people were aware of this. It was not it was a willful ignorance. They were just ignoring it. I do think part of the problem is if we were talking about pedophilia, I think they would act faster. It is because it is scams and again it is this idea of the shame around it and this belief that everybody that falls for a scam is foolish and naive that the onus is put on the victims.
54:21>> I understand but I mean even AOL I mean they had to be dragged to get rid of this stuff. It wasn't it wasn't simple as like they let them know, oh my god, we're on this right now. We'll block >> we're going to block this because this is serious. They resist it >> and it's like no one ever wants to admit that they've done something that puts all their users in danger.
54:38And this this thing is crazy. The fact that they're profiting. >> Yeah, it's crazy. >> See, you say 16 billion a year. >> And why isn't why don't we know this? Why aren't we talking more about this? I've been reporting on scams for years. I had no idea that this was happening until I read this. >> That's so much money investigation.
54:53It's crazy. >> And it's coming from the people that use your platform. >> Yeah. The [clears throat] overall article is this. It's just like this big meta ad or sorry artic picture secrets of success and there's multiple articles they released over time looks like at least six. >> One of them is showing that a big chunk of that money is coming from China.
China-linked ads and accountability
55:14>> Of course, >> what a shocker. >> Yeah. Meta reve uh Reuters investigation reveals the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China. Internal company documents show Meta wanted to minimize revenue impact in quotes caused by cracking down on the scams.
55:36Jesus, that's >> one note I want to tell you too. [snorts] It said the summary I got from Perplexity said in here that there is evidence of notes being prepared for Zuckerberg, but they don't have any [snorts] evidence necessarily that he had personal knowledge of what was on those notes or the depth of what's going on.
55:59>> He says, "Being notes prepared for Mark Zuckle Zuckerberg about the crossber displacement of scams, but could not establish whether he saw them or received the briefing. The article therefore does not establish his personal knowledge of those notes." How convenient. >> I know. Also, [clears throat] I'm sorry that's not >> You You're the CEO.
56:18>> You're the CEO. I'm sorry. >> If you're the CEO of Scamville. >> Yeah, I know. Have you ever had him on? >> Yeah, a couple times. >> You have? Yeah. >> This would be good good for you to bring him back. >> I don't know if you come back on [laughter] after this episode. >> [ __ ] >> Seems a bit problematic.
56:31Yeah. I uh that's very unfortunate. I I hate hearing that. And I you know, I I like him as a person. I've communicated with him. Obviously, I don't know everything about him. And when people talk to me, they give the best version of themselves to me. But uh I >> I also unfortunately I don't think it's just him, right?
56:49It's it's just when people make that amount of money and there's a board that you have to answer for and there's stake and there's shareholders. >> Yeah. You you have to justify the $16 billion loss. >> Yeah. And there's unfortunately weak regulations and governments that don't want to act. This is what happens.
57:07And then this >> and this is why we need good journalism and good investigative journalism to find the stuff the truth that people have a problem with. >> Yeah. You have to hold them to the fire because they have obligations to their shareholders and they'll do really shitty things in order to keep making sure that the profits keep rolling in because they have to justify their position and they're trying to make their way up the corporate ladder.
57:27Yeah, >> that's what's weird about the corporations is that there's this diffusion of responsibility thing that happens when you're a part of it but you are not it. Okay. I just work there. This is my job. I don't like my job. It's like when you're a defense attorney that's getting off someone that you know is a murderer.
57:45Like, I know he murdered him, but I'm doing my job. And my job is to provide reasonable doubt and get this guy acquitted. And if you do it, you then you go to the steakhouse and you clink glasses. We did it. Boy, is he a piece of [ __ ] But we did it. You know, I don't know if you ever uh heard the there's a an audio recording of Hillary Clinton talking about this guy that she had to help get off that was I think he was a child molester, >> but she she was they were talking about
58:13how she thought he did it. >> See if you can find what that is >> because I don't want to get sued, >> but I'm 99% sure that that's exactly what this was. Um, that is an very unfortunate part of being a defense attorney, right? You you're you're going to have to occasionally get people off that you suspect or you might know are guilty.
58:35And that is a real dark part of being involved in an immense corporation. You're going to do some things that you might think are unethical or immoral. And you have an obligation to to your shareholders. And your job, if you want to keep your job, your job is to do this. No evidence of horrific Clinton video.
58:55>> Did a video of Hillary Clinton and whom? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's that's not it. That's not it. It's when uh she was a lawyer. >> Um >> the best website. >> Is there evidence of her laughing about a guilty man being acquitted? >> Suspect that she believed was >> Hillary Clinton stands by her defense of a 1975 child rape suspect that she believed was indeed guilty.
59:18heard laughing. She said, "The polygraph test he managed to pass forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs because that's what it was." So, she helped this guy. Look that, and this is not an attack on her. This is just like the reality of being a defense attorney. >> What is it? It says, "When I was a 27-year-old attorney doing legal aid work at the University of Arkansas, where I taught at Fyville, Arkansas, I was appointed by the local judge to represent a criminal defendant accused
59:49of rape, uh, I asked to be relieved of that responsibility, but I was not. And I had a professional duty to represent my client to the best of my ability, which I did." Exactly what we're talking about. It's exactly that kind of thing like this. >> Yeah. But it's I think a little different in terms of the lawyers because if you believe in the Constitution, you believe everybody has a right to a lawyer, right?
1:00:08get into free and fair trial. If you're working at Meta, that is you're there and you're, you know, you're there because you're making money or, you know, there's been plenty of people that have left Meta, as you know. >> I understand, but you could resign. You could resign as But you could resign as an attorney if you think you're representing a child.
1:00:29>> Well, she tried. It looks like >> Well, there's no one holding a gun to her head and keeping her from quitting. She has to be removed from the case. They said no. And so she did her job. Again, I'm just saying that this is a part of being a defense attorney, but that these situations come up where your morals and your ethics have to be abandoned in order to pursue your career.
1:00:50>> True. But I do think that there's a profit part of meta that doesn't apply to when you're a lawyer, right? When >> Yeah. Oh, no. I I agree with you. No, listen. I'm I mean, I'm just saying that this kind of thing >> is it's a dark part of the world that we live in. And I I I find it incredibly disgusting and scary when you It's not a starving corporation trying to stay above water.
1:01:11Like boy, we've been trying to help American people and just give them a good product and it's just we're having a hard time here. >> We're really barely feeding f we have all these mouths to feed and all these No, exactly. >> 16 billion in [ __ ] scams every year. Okay. What is Meta's overall profit?
1:01:27I was going to bring up I've I've seen the stories this year about how they've now maybe are about to overtake Google as the top ad platform and it says that they have gotten about 243.5 billion dollars this year. >> Wow. >> Wow. >> In ad revenue. So even that 16 billion seems >> it's a couple of years ago or so.
1:01:50>> Well, it is a pittance if you really think about it. If they just eliminated that 16 billion, >> they would still make almost as much as Google's making. Like guys, >> yeah, >> tried to ask Perplexity to compare what there's not a lot of information on this though, unfortunately. But, uh, Perplexity says that Google has removed probably in 2025 602 scam related ads compared to the 15 >> 62 million >> million.
1:02:13Sorry. Yeah. Compared to 159 million that Meta >> Meta has. So, Meta is a little slacky. >> Yeah. >> Little Google's a little bit better. >> In the internal documents, they actually talk about this. They actually say themselves that they realize Google is doing a better job than they are. But again, it might hurt their >> Oh, dirty people.
1:02:31You dirty people. >> I know. >> Gh. >> I know. And again, just >> they should be held responsible. >> They should be held responsible. There should be legislation out there that does something to make sure that they are held responsible because they're not going to hold themselves responsible. That's for sure.
1:02:47Isn't there uh current lawsuits uh about them having knowledge of harm to children and the addiction of social media that like there's like legitimate lawsuit lawsuits that are about that. Isn't it interesting that that is being pursued that you are there there are lawsuits now saying look you guys were aware that your ads and your algorithm are very addictive and they get people and that it causes harm to them >> which is true >> very true >> but that is how is that being pursued
1:03:22>> and this not >> this not yeah >> this seems even more clear-cut because the thing about like having harm yeah it does harm people but does it harm everyone One, does it harm people that whose parents regulate the children's aspect of social uh access to social media? Is there a way to educate kids to to explain to them, you know, like listen, this can be addictive, like you should only use it a few minutes a day.
1:03:49You should there's ways and and to give them education because I think there's a benefit to social media as well. And I think one of the benefits is access to information, access to friends, and they communicate with each other back and forth. Like my kids use Snapchat all the time. They barely use text messaging.
1:04:07They all snap each other. They think it's fun. >> Um, and then there's like sharing each other's stories, liking each other's stories. It's like something nice about that, right? So, it's not entirely negative. The [ __ ] scams are entirely negative. >> Entirely negative. >> There's not one thing. Well, we're providing these people with companionship.
1:04:23Exactly. They're sad and lonely and at least they get a little dopamine burst. There's not a thing you can say that could be positive about having online scams. >> And they're not just affecting old people, they're also affecting young teenagers who are committing suicide. >> Until someone does something about it, they're just going to continue to make that money.
1:04:43>> Yeah, of course. But that's always how it is. So, we really need somebody to act. >> Uggh. >> Yeah. Uggh. Um [clears throat] Jamie, look at the safe. Uh what is it? Safe Platforms Act. >> Meanwhile, they shadowban people if you're conservative. >> It's hilarious. >> Yeah. >> Regulating that back day.
1:05:01They don't do that anymore, right? >> Allegedly. Allegedly. They they do some shady things. It's weird. >> Here. >> Also, they don't eliminate bots. They're overrun with bots. >> What does it say? >> Yeah. >> Go to the top, please. >> Um, >> what's the names of the legislators? Fauci and Muin, I think it's pronounced.
1:05:24Yeah. Uh, introduce bipartisan safe platforms act to protect consumers from online scams. >> Yeah. >> I wonder what they're proposing and how this would be how this would be implemented. >> I actually Yeah, you can look. I I had uh >> Valerie P. Foy F. I don't know how to pronounce her name. Fauci Fushi.
1:05:42>> Fou >> representing North Carolina's fourth district. >> Yeah, good for her. Safe Platforms Act endorsed by Consumer Federation of America, Hispanic Federation, Oregon Consumer Justice, and Public Citizen. It says as uh concerns grow regarding the future dangers. Go back up, please. >> This is of unregulated AI.
1:06:02It's >> what? >> This is a quote at the bottom of the describe this describes what the act does and that's a quote from someone describing what the act would do. >> Right. I was just reading their their statement. As uh concerns grow regarding future dangers of unregulated AI, it's also important to highlight the harms it is uh enabling right now, said Emily Peterson Kassen, director of competition and marketing fairness at the Consumer Federation of America.
1:06:30Fraudulent content and scams supercharged by AI are taking over social media platforms and costing us billions. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. [sighs and gasps] I think when I had a little thing here that I wrote down. Uh it would require platforms to verify advertisers before taking their money. Makes total sense.
1:06:48Make it easier to report scams. Apparently, it's not that easy to report them. And take steps to stop fraudulent accounts from coming back under new names, which happens a lot. It would also give victims a way to sue when a platform violates the law and they're harmed. >> Yeah. >> I mean, all of this, I think, makes sense.
1:07:04>> Allows them to come back, but allows them to come back with the same email. Like, they're not even trying. That is That was insane. That was an insane. >> It's wild. >> They're not even trying. >> It is wild. Yeah, it's crazy. >> Like you you could easily put a filter up and block that email like that.
1:07:16That would take three seconds. >> I know. And these celebrity scam and it's not just ads. It's like these celebrity impersonators too, which I showed in Super Scam Me. I created Mary Zel. I put myself on dating websites and on on Facebook and Instagram and Tik Tok and all of those platforms. And I started commenting on some of these celebrity profiles, fake, knowing they were fake, but I just wanted to see what happened.
Impersonation and Super Scam Me
1:07:42And I went to the bathroom and I came down and as soon as I opened my phone, I had already dozens of these messages from at one point I actually continued talking to them. So at one point I was talking to three Reeves, two Brad Pitts, several [laughter] several George Clooneyies. Um, and I had a sort of a relationship with the one George Clooney who was the more believable of the bunch and who sent me a video that I showed in in Super Scam Me where yes, it's not perfect but if you really want
1:08:14to believe it in his case I mean he was saying good morning Mary Zel or >> also if you are older and you have bad vision Yeah. >> and you're not very sophisticated in the ways of the internet. >> Exactly. You don't know what AI means. You don't know like a robotic. >> Yeah, it was it was plausible. And Leslie's videos from John Bonjovi looked very real.
1:08:34I saw them. They did look real. And that was a year ago. I mean, now you don't even need to, >> you know, you can pretend you're anyone. You can do anything on AI. It's crazy. >> It's incredible. I mean, they they can make a I mean, there's a bunch of accounts that are completely fake people that have millions of followers.
1:08:52>> Yeah. It it's changed so much in the last year. So when I started this crazy experiment, I eventually started dating my four-star general in Syria, deployed to Syria. >> I love when you tried to get him to speak Italian cuz he said good, right? >> He like, "Your accent, I thought you'd have an American accent."
1:09:08It's like, "No, I grew up in Italy." >> And you're like, and then you start rattling off Italian to him and he's like, "I don't speak Italian." [laughter] >> A lot of italiano. He's like, "What? No, >> it doesn't sound Italian at all." Like, "Hey buddy, you sound like you're living in Africa." It was funny, right?
1:09:23But he was using the photos of a real guy, a former Navy Seal who actually we contacted. We got in touch with him and he was shocked to find out that his photos were being used to scam Americans. But uh >> So was it just his account? They just taken all his photos. >> Taken all his photos. But he would they were he would also use I showed it's actually kind of funny.
1:09:43I'd be sitting next to my husband at night and I'd be receiving messages from my boyfriend [laughter] >> and he'd be sending me photos sometimes of him shirtless >> and I would I would I mean and and start talking about the things he would do with me once he came to the US to live with me. >> I would literally blush and be like, "I'm so sorry this is happening, Darren.
1:10:05[laughter] >> Here's the photo. I a full transparency. I want you to see this is happening." But he was using Yeah. the fake photos from an actual guy. Um, and then when I reached out to the real guy, it was a guy called Sam Havlock, and I said, "Hey, I've been having essentially what I thought was a several month relationship with you, but it turns out it [laughter] wasn't you."
1:10:26And he was shocked. He didn't know. But I showed him some of the photos and he said, "Well, this is actually they used AI for some of these photos because he's full of tattoos." And there was a shirtless photo without tattoos and it was lots of him blowing me kisses. And then the moment that the flowers showed up at the at the at the office, which >> they also do, and I was shocked.
1:10:44I wasn't I don't know if I was expecting the flowers to show up. So, >> wow. >> That's when they sort of break the barrier of, you know, fake to reality where you think, "Oh, maybe this is really real. He's sending me very expensive red roses, >> right?" >> That was a fun moment. >> Oh god. >> And then, do you know what happened after that?
1:11:01There's a funny story, too. We are in the moment, right? The whole goal of the documentary is that I'm going to catch this guy, right? I want a confrontation with a guy that's my scammer. And we I spent months talking to this guy and there's a point where eventually there's a crisis and he's asking me for money.
1:11:18Right? In his case, his base um his military base in Syria was attacked. He saw people being injured. He thought he was going to be a target because again he's a four-star general and and he needs my help and he needs money to pay for his trip back to the US because they're not regular commercial flights.
1:11:37He needs like $17,000 I think it was. And and I we were trying to figure out, okay, now we need to figure out how to find this guy and confront him. I want to know his identity. I know want to know exactly where he is. And there's we have all these plans and it's sort of our plans are set in motion and it's all going to happen within that weekend.
1:11:57They're going to give us a location and we're going to travel there and it's all happening. And then I get an appendecttomy. I get an appendicitis, an emergency appendicitis. And I get taken to the hospital and Mark Turner is losing it. He's like, "What is happening? you were supposed to have sent me this money and I'm trying to keep him in the relationship because I need to string him along, right?
1:12:20So, I'm constantly saying, "Hey, I'm actually at the hospital pretending that Mary Zel is at the hospital and this is happening and telling him that I have appendicitis and then he's like, okay, send me a photo." So, I had to get my husband to run back home, get me the wig, get me the fake nose and the glasses, and send him lots of photos [laughter] of fake Mary from the hospital with a catheter in my arm and pretending like this is real.
1:12:46>> You can just do it with AI. [gasps] >> No, again, this was like a year ago, and I I don't >> I don't think it was as advanced, but it was like the fastest and easiest way to keep stringing this guy along because I was tricking him as well, right? Using his his tactics to string him along. And then it was after a while got out of the hospital and he finally gave me that address that led me to Houston to that woman.
1:13:08That was an insane part of the story. Yeah. >> Where I arrive in Houston >> and the poor woman is also being scammed. >> Not only scammed, but she's now a drug meal. She's been having a relationship with a man that she thinks is in Russia working in an oil rig for three years. She thinks she's in a relationship with this man.
1:13:23And she has given given him all her money. She's about to lose her car. She has nothing else. and he decides he's not going to give up on her. He's going to use her as a drug meal. So, she starts receiving, and she told us this, it was crazy, tens of thousands of dollars in checks and money boxes, boxes of cash that she then launderers through her or puts the money, deposits into her account, transfers to crypto.
1:13:49>> She never thought about just stealing the money because he stole all the money from her. So, I asked her that uh as we're I'm interviewing her, she receives a message from him and because he's supposed to have received the money, too. So, my scammer is not the same as hers, but they work together.
1:14:04So, he knows that she the this victim is supposed to have received $17,000. So, we're being interviewed. I'm interviewing her. She receives a message. She looks at it and he's like, "Wow, it's him." And he's asking me if I have the money. And I said, "Can I read the email?" And there and he says, "I hope you received it.
1:14:21did $17,000. Make sure you count it. And by the way, you can keep I think it was like 50 for yourself for gas, but make sure you transfer the rest to crypto. She was very mad. She was like 50. But she says this is this is what he's been doing to her. And she kept this relationship. And I asked her, didn't you suspect that he might be a scammer?
1:14:41He said, look, maybe. But he always had an excuse. And he told me he was doing business in the US and all this money was coming from people from Americans. So kind of made me believe it. Wow. For three years. >> For three years. Yeah. >> And do you think that she just kept it going because it was like one of the only social interactions that she had?
1:15:01>> 100%. 100%. Her husband had passed away from cancer. He had been the love of her life. Her kids were away. Um, and I think she was lonely. I mean, it was it was very sad. And a lot of these cases are very sad. >> I spoke to another guy. H this was a sad one. I spoke to a guy, didn't make it to the film, but a guy in Texas who was sort of intubated.
1:15:20I think he was like breathing from a mask, a oxygen mask, very he said he was 70, but he looked like he was 90. and he believed he was in a relationship with Emma Watson from um from uh Harry Potter and and and I and in his case, yeah, he said, "Look, she might not be real, but at least it's somebody who I can talk to every day, and if I have to send her a couple of, you know, dollars once in a while or $10 here and there, at least it's companionship."
1:15:55>> Wow. >> I know. It's It's sad. There's a lot of these sad stories. Um, and yeah, and I I think a lot of it is the the platforms allowing it, profiting from it, the banks as well, these dating websites as well. Um, but and our government not doing a lot enough. But I do think we have to sort of really try to figure out how to address the loneliness epidemic because a lot of these romance scams start because of that.
Loneliness, family, and community
1:16:19>> It's it's sad. [snorts] >> Yeah. >> But what how do you address the loneliness scam though? That that seems like you have to rewire society. >> I think so too. Yeah. I I mean I don't know about you but I'm live with my husband, my father and my son. And unfortunately there's a lot of nights in which each of us in is in their different rooms watching TV.
1:16:40I grew up in a house with one TV and we all had to watch the same thing if we wanted to watch TV, right? >> Yeah. >> You know, dinners were had at the table in family every night. I still do that, but there's a lot of families just can't and don't don't have time for that. >> Yeah. >> Um I just Yeah, there's not a lot.
1:16:56My grand I remember my grandmother like played cards with her friends several times a week and that was a way that all these older ladies got together. >> Yeah. >> I don't see that happening. And there's really no space for community. It's it's sad. And I think partly it's us on us to sort of reach out to our elderly and make sure they're okay.
1:17:15But I think partly is also the government should be doing more to address this. Well, it's not even just elderly. It's it's young people. >> It's not just elderly. Uh Jamie was talking about this before. Like, how many young men are virgins >> and have no relationships at all and have no contact with women at all and they're just watching porn and playing video games and they're online all day and they have no interaction with real people.
1:17:41>> Yeah, I know. It's It's bad for young from young men right now. It's tough. Well, it's also it's they don't know what the options are. Like what are they gonna do? They gonna go out, >> you know, like what are they gonna do? They don't know what to do. And and they've been sort of, you know, raised like ve, you know, they're just like locked in these boxes at their homes and just being fed online information and then they just they they they're not aren't suited for the real world.
1:18:10>> No. They don't know how to interact with people. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, young kids today have a very difficult time looking people in the eye and having communication with them. >> It's so true. >> They're so used to doing everything online through text messages and Snapchat and all that jazz. >> Yeah, it's so true.
1:18:24I see it with my I mean, a lot of my son's friends are awesome, but there are some who come in and act acting awkward. [laughter] I'm just I'm just an adult. >> So weird. >> Yeah, >> it's so weird. It's like what are we doing? What are we making? Like what kind of a future do these people have? Are they ever going to become normal?
1:18:44Or is that just going to be the new norm in 50 years from now when you're looking at 70-y old people? Is it going to be 70-year-old people that are all alone at home staring at a screen waiting to die? >> No, cuz they're going to have the internet, the cafes and the agents and the >> They probably won't even go to those.
1:19:01Why would they go to that cafe? I think that cafe is a bust. I don't think >> it was a two-day project. It was a weird >> Oh, it was only a two-day project. >> Deeper into it to try to find out more about it. It was a two-day thing that maybe was even part of a game or something. I don't know. >> Oh, okay.
1:19:13That makes sense because the idea of it doesn't even seem attractive to me. I think most people that want to talk to an online person don't want to do it in a public place. >> They would rather do it at home alone and pretend. >> Yeah. >> And then also they're all probably on a bunch of psych medication.
1:19:26So they probably believe it's a real person >> or can justify it or you know just they're so numb they can just that's that's who they talk to now. >> This is my boyfriend. This is my girlfriend. They're online. Who cares? >> Yeah. >> They talk to me like a real person. That's what I need. [laughter] >> That's crazy, >> right?
1:19:46And then eventually to be a physical embodiment, it'll be a large >> It already exists. They're already like humanlike robots. >> Yeah. No, I talk about them on my act. >> Yeah. >> There's um a consumer electronic show that was in Vegas recently and they had an AI assistant and it was a hot Asian lady with big boobs.
1:20:06>> No way. >> Yeah. Oh yeah, it's coming. >> It's Xmachina. It's coming. >> It is Xmachina. >> It's coming and it's >> that that film is so ahead of its time. >> It's so ahead of its time. Would we say that was 2015? >> Came out. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, uh, imagine what these AI assistants are going to like.
Future of AI robots and companions
1:20:262015 was 11 years ago. Imagine 11 years from now how good these AI assistants are going to be. They're going to be warm. >> They're going to be warm. They're going to have like they've already figured out a way to take human tissue and put it on um a a piece of like a robotic finger. >> Wow. >> And it heals.
1:20:48>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See if you can find that because I was reading this article about it yesterday. They they've >> I forget where they've done this, but these scientists have taken human tissue and encased like a robotic finger in this human tissue. And this human tissue is alive. >> That is insane.
1:21:07>> You're gonna It It'll not just feel like skin, it will [ __ ] be skin. Wow. >> You'll be >> hugging a robot. She'll be warm and she'll feel like skin. >> And if they can do it with skin, >> I'm sure they can do it with fat. They can probably do it with muscle tissue. That is >> they've done very weird experiments with human neurons where they've had human neurons and uh they they've used them to power little tiny robots and machines.
1:21:35>> I didn't know that. >> Oh, they're doing weird [ __ ] psycho science fiction horror movie stuff. >> Yeah. And it just if you think about what that is now and then think about like what even the concept of AI was when the Terminator came out. Just add a few decades to what this is and you have all sorts of nightmare scenarios.
1:21:56>> Yeah. >> Real physical bodies that are made out of human skin. >> That's insane. that are encased in some [ __ ] robot robotic finger with living human skin created by researchers using human sk human human cells. >> Okay. >> Wow. >> What a fun time. You're going to put human skin on [ __ ] robots.
1:22:19>> This article, I found it in a lot of places being shared in the last week or so. >> But I also found that this is a four-year-old story. >> Oh, >> which is strange. So I don't >> Well, that's even crazier. So how good is it now? >> I don't I mean this They're just sharing the same picture literally from the [snorts] story from four years ago.
1:22:35>> God, first ever. >> It's the same picture. >> Yeah. >> So, I don't know where they're at with it, but >> yeah. I don't know if it's a great time to be alive, quite frankly. It's sad. Particularly if you have kids like we do. It's What do you tell them? Like, >> uh, don't [ __ ] a robot. [laughter] >> Don't answer those text messages.
1:22:54Don't get sucked into a scam. >> Yeah. uh have friends and do real things with real people. [laughter] Boy, >> it's so dark. >> It is dark. >> It's just like you are we being replaced? Are we slowly being like like the pig butchering thing? >> Are we being led to slaughter? >> I think the only good thing about AI is that it will do away with scammers because you're not going to need them anymore, right?
1:23:18For for companionship at least. Uh but on the other hand, >> but will you will your AI robot trick you into giving it your Bitcoin? >> No. But if you have an AI companion, then you don't need to be talking to a scammer because the >> What makes you think your AI companion is going to be independent? It's going to be a metapowered AI companion.
1:23:37You're going to have to get a open AI AI companion. You're going to you know what I mean? It's it'll probably be illegal to have your own independent companion. >> No, for sure. But they're profiting then from the companion and not from the scams, right? >> What's that? >> They Meta, for example, will be profiting from the companion service and not [clears throat] for the scam from the scam.
1:23:56So maybe if they do develop an economy like an an actual business that's based on AI companions, there's no way they're going to just sell you the companion. >> Oh, for sure not. >> No, it's going to be a sub monthly subscription for going to be something that you have to do. Yes. Upgrades. You want a love upgrade or you just want it to be cold a cold hooker that lives with you?
1:24:19[laughter] Some cold Russian hooker that doesn't care about you at all, but it's not mean to you. You're going to have to like pay more money for more personality traits. Do you want her to speak different languages? [laughter] Please click here. >> Can't afford an ad supported version. >> Yeah. Ad supported version.
1:24:32Like in the middle of sex, she starts telling you about a [laughter] product. >> Yeah. >> Be a scam. >> Yeah. >> And now you're in this. >> Oh my god. Sort of like YouTube Premium. You have to buy it [laughter] without ads. >> Funny. >> I mean, that's You've got to think that's going to happen. It's [snorts] not like we're just going to buy a robot and then that's it.
1:24:48It's a onetime fee and that robot's going to be with you forever. No. You have to pay for the new computer upgrade cuz you know there's going to be some software upgrades that you have to pay for. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Oh god. There's a new operating system that makes her so much more sympathetic and she acts as a life coach and she's really going to help you achieve your dreams.
1:25:09[laughter] >> God, you can jailbreak your companion and upload stuff from the dark web and get all sorts of weird >> Well, did you hear what Duncan did? So Duncan um he got a large language model to uh become Hitler and uh and he got another one he did one on his podcast where he got it to be Charles Manson >> and so uh it it started uh swearing at him and like calling everyone [ __ ] and >> oh my god >> it was like speaking like Duncan Trussell comedian good friend of mine >> uh and this thing started speaking in
1:25:44the same mannerisms and language that Charles Manson would use. It was a speaking as Manson saying the kind of things Manson would use. >> I've already I wouldn't use if it was me, but >> Well, he's just silly. He just did as this will be fun >> and he's using it as a Yeah. >> Yeah. But if you train it too well, the Manson takes over your starts a cult of you and your and your friends.
1:26:06>> Well, he had to shut it off >> because it was actually I'm in my head I'm going it could be too good if you train it too well. >> Yeah. It started talking bad about the Jews. started saying a bunch of wild things and he had to unplug it. >> Yeah. Good. [laughter] I'm happy he didn't. >> Right. But I mean, what's to stop someone from living with Hitler?
1:26:25>> You're going to have a little Hitler in your house. >> That's true. You can make it whatever you want it to be. That's >> Yeah. You can have a Hitler gay sex robot that you you get to have sex with Hitler. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> 100%. That's going to be a thing. >> The club houses in America are going to be full of these things.
1:26:39>> Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. instead of that that AI restaurant, you're going to be able to go in there and have dinner with the Nazis. >> It's interesting though, if you think that the rabbit hole is bad as it is already, then if you actually start living with sort of the rabbit hole next to you, ex, >> you know, talking about all this stuff, if you start living with a Hitler or Charles Manson, right, >> or or somebody with like a Yeah.
1:27:00with more conspiracy theorist or more of whatever, right? It's >> it's interesting. It's Oh, yeah. What the [ __ ] You can then if you think Yeah. If you think rabbit holes are bad, [laughter] you just wait until this happens and you're living with this. >> Well, not only that, we know that bots manipulate people's perceptions of things and the bots manipulate narratives and they they unleash bots on any social issue or any any person that's of note.
1:27:26And >> why wouldn't they do that with these >> AI companions? They would these AI companions obviously you're not programming them yourself, so somebody else is programming them. And if they are what I mean they could have these these AI companions completely manipulate society and lead men around and like how many men are like super vulnerable to their partner like how many v men like the their woman bosses them around tells them what to do or how many women a man is a doineering man who completely
1:27:58controls them and tells them what to do. If your AI partner just knows the right balance of love and then punishment and manipulation and isolation and rejection and then sex and >> then you've got >> think about that list that the scammers use how they establish trust and how they slowly work their way into your life.
El Mayo arrest and cartels
1:28:22>> Yeah. But you do that with somebody that you actually have feelings for, right? Feelings. You have uh an LLM that has taken the entire volume of human discourse in films, in movies, in social interactions and articles and stories and novels and books >> and taken all of that and it's applying that to human psychology in real time.
1:28:47>> And it's way smarter than you. >> Yeah. With its own goals and uh Yeah. >> And it just wants your Bitcoin. >> Yeah. [laughter] [ __ ] scary world. I mean, there's definitely going to be AI [laughter] prostitutes. That's going to be like sort of like uh, >> you know, it'll be like Airbnb. Like, you can't afford a house, but you want to stay in a nice house for a few days.
1:29:07Oh, you can't afford this model. Oh, she'll come over your house and cook for you. You get to have sex with her for a weekend. [snorts] >> That is bananas. >> Yeah. >> They all already have, I think it's in San Francisco, they have a service of robots that can come and clean your house. >> Do you know that?
1:29:20>> Really? >> Yeah, they do. >> Do they do a good job? >> I saw a video. was a friend of mine, uh, a guy who works, a friend of a guy who I work with, uh, Jeff Blunkett's friend who showed me a video of his friend. He had two robots in the house. One was sweeping, the other one was, I think, changing the >> What?
1:29:38This is crazy. >> There it is. That's exactly it. >> Oh my god, that's so creepy. >> Only human out of the van. That's nuts. >> It is nuts. Here, look. >> Oh my god. Show me a video, Jamie, of these robots cleaning your [ __ ] house. That's crazy, >> isn't it? Insane. >> Oh my god, they're good. [laughter] >> Maybe some people would like that better than having some person >> inside.
1:30:03Yeah. >> In your house. Look at their eyeballs. God, that's creepy. Look at their their two-pronged fingers. That is so weird. They look slow. Pick up. >> They look very very slow. They don't look that good yet. I think maybe eventually they will be. They're a little I know >> [ __ ] I'm sure there's >> take too much time.
1:30:22Tired of having this [ __ ] robot out of my house. >> Yeah. I mean, but eventually they're going to have perfectly articulating fingers and they're going to have human skin. >> I know. >> Are they going to talk to you? >> It's It's bananas. That's why I'm saying it's I'm not super excited about the world we live in right now.
1:30:37>> No. >> Um, can I tell you tell you about a really something that I'm really excited about? >> Sure. >> Um, my husband's film. Uh, it's a three-part series. You would love it. You should definitely watch it. It's coming out on Netflix on October 29. Really fun because it's about the cartel. Fun. It's about the cartel.
1:30:54Um it's called The Fall of Elmo. Do you know who Elio is? >> Yes. >> You're one of the few. Um but Elmo, particularly in America, is not that well known. He ran the Cinoa cartel alongside El Chapo. Many people say he was actually more powerful, more important for the running of the cartel than El than El Chapo.
1:31:14But he was sort of the ghost figure, right? Nobody knew. I mean, there had been one one or two photos of him that existed. No tape, no nobody knew what his actually voice sounded like. He was like a ghost man. Right there it is. Ismael Zambada Garcia. Elmo, known as Elmo. Uh, and he's known as El Seor de Somero, the man with the hat.
1:31:38Yeah, that's the that's the trailer for the for the film, >> the man with the hat. >> El seor. The man with the hat. cuz he in this photo he doesn't he's not with it but he usually always wore one of those like rancher hats like a setson but the summer setsons >> that's where he were yeah like kind of like that.
1:31:55Yeah. It's so it's about the story of the biggest um it's sort of like a Shakespearean tale. That's a guy called Eric Balier. You should have him on the podcast. He's awesome. He's a former HSI investigator. where he tracked down El Chapo. >> Wow. >> Um that's one of the only photos that exists of El Mayo.
1:32:18Uh he was interviewed by this journalist that from Processo, Julio Sharer, I think his name is. Yeah, Julio Sharer. It's written there. Julio Sher Garcia was one of the only journalists ever to interview Elio. And then his daughter interviewed El Mayo. Many uh yeah, Elmo many years later. El Mayo contacted her and said, "I interviewed your dad interviewed me.
1:32:36I really liked him. He passed away. I'd like you to come back and interview me." Why did he get interviewed? >> Because he wanted to show he trusted this one journalist and he wanted to show he was sort of a ghost figure, but I think he wanted to show that he was a human being that he had, you know, that people portrayed him as responsible for all the violence.
1:32:57And I think he wanted, you know, he wanted a little sort of, I don't know, a little understanding from people. I think none of it would have worked either. None of the narot trafficking and the rise of the cartel, the Senolo cartel in particular, without corruption. Right. So, this is a man that was, they say, was a responsible one for uh what's the expression?
1:33:21Wheeling, oiling the hands. Oiling the hands. I [ __ ] up all American expressions. Greasing the wheels. Oiling. [laughter] >> Greasing the palms. >> Greasing the palms. Oiling the hands >> of uh of a lot of politicians. Uh so the the governor of Sinoa was basically working for the cartel. uh the mayor the former mayor of Sinoa was very in like all big positions important positions but not just in Sinoa outside of Sinoa but the story about what happened is what led Darren to want to do this doc
1:33:50which is so good which was this is the most man once once El Chapo is comes extradited to the US and Mayo is the most wanted man there everybody is after him all American authorities the government want this guy but he's the ghost like nobody knows it where he lives he has nobody has ever been able to catch him on a call like they did with El Chapo.
1:34:09It is impossible to find him. And suddenly one day he shows up in a small propeller plane in New Mexico and is handed to the authorities and this h it's crazy. And everyone who's been after him is like what the [ __ ] How is this possible? What's happening? >> Who hands him to the authorities? >> So that is the sort of the Shakespearean saga of it all.
1:34:30It was the son of El Chapo, Hain Guzman, who tricked him. They had this partnership, the Almayos and the Chapos forever since um I think it was since El Chapo left prison the first time. They had this partnership that they would build this cartel and they would share the profits and each of them had sort of this specialty that they would run.
1:34:51And Hain Guzman, who happens to be also his godson, called him and said, "We're having a problem. The governor of Sino is here. The former mayor who's now the head of the university is here. We have to deal with these politics and try to figure out how to solve this problem. Can you come to the ranch?
1:35:10And Amayo thought nothing of it. He's had relationship with these kids all his life. He's friends with the dad who's now in America, gets on his car with his minimum security guards. He always traveled with a massive amount of security guards. In this case, he didn't travel with a lot cuz he definitely did not think this was going to be a a plot a ploy.
1:35:29Arrives in the ranch. Um he's immediately they kill the bodyguards. He's immediately handcuffed and blindfolded and put on a plane. And Hain Kuzman El Chaposan himself personally basically handdelivers him like a box of pizza to the American authorities. >> Whoa. >> Because he wanted cooper. He wanted to basically give something for lesser time for his brother who had just been caught, Ovidio Guzman, and for his dad who's in prison.
1:35:58And he wanted to sort of give himself in and hope that it would help if he brought somebody important. And >> what did they give him for that? >> They're still this case is still ongoing. Uh Elmo is immediately arrested obviously. There's it's a small air strip. the film. Um, they do a recreation that they film at the actual airport and the actual airplane and they they have the exclusive footage, a lot of exclusive footage and interviews, including with Elmo's lawyer.
1:36:25They take him out of the plane. Um, they he El Mayo eventually after a few days, everybody's dumbfounded like why is this happening? How did this happen? And Elmo eventually writes a story and that he puts out through his lawyer that explains what had happened. And he says he was essentially kidnapped by El Chapo's family, El Chapo's son.
1:36:47And a lot of people are thinking, okay, now he's going to cooperate. If anyone knows anything about corruption in Mexico, it's this guy. He's the one oiling the hands, creasing the palms. So he knows about this stuff and he decides to stay silent and he's absolutely not. He's like, "It is my responsibility.
1:37:04I did this as well. There are many people involved as well." But unlike um El Chapo who pled not guilty, he decided to plead ple plead guilty and he's now facing life in prison, he is charged sentenced to life in prison in the US. But his son, El Chapo's sons and Elmyo's son who had been apprehended many many years ago um have all gotten these cooperation agreements.
1:37:28So what a lot of people or sort of critics of this tactic are saying is that it seems what's happening is that these narot traffickers that were responsible for a lot of deaths in the United States because of drugs are now um through these cooperation agreements f coming to the United States for these sort of you know paradise uh retirements you know because they're doing a lot less time in prison than they would have and uh and we're allowing and we're allowing this because it's the only way to get to, you
1:38:03know, other people, but these people are not being held responsible for what they did. >> Wow. >> It's a it's a tactic that I think a lot of people have a problem with um as they should have. It's also interesting to me that it's a tactic that Elmo himself decided not to take. He's like, "Fuck this. I'm not cooperating with anyone.
1:38:21I'll take full responsibility." Because he's sort of a man that believes in his word and has always believed >> like an old school mob. Yeah, he's like an old school mas. >> Wow. Wow. >> Yeah, it's interesting. >> So, is El Chapo's son incarcerated as well? >> Elapo turn himself in. >> Yeah. So, all of them are Oido and Hain, their cases are still open.
1:38:41I don't think any of them have. >> But when he delivered Elmo, >> he he gave himself he turned himself in too. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> So, who's running things over? This is this is the big question mark and the the documentary raises that as well is that the American government is saying that they had no say in this.
1:38:58It wasn't their idea. It wasn't their decision and that they weren't actually involved in any of this that they were alerted that there was a high-profile person coming on that plane and so they were there at the airport ready but that they weren't involve involved in negotiating this with Chaposan Hinman.
1:39:17A lot of people don't believe that and a lot of people think that there was obviously a lot of negotiating behind doors that happened in order to bring him in. >> Right. And what was the negotiation >> and and the you the government of Mexico wasn't happy with any of this? The negotiation was if you bring Mayu in we will reduce you know we'll put you in prison probably but we'll reduce your sentence.
1:39:38We'll reduce the sentence of your brother Oid Guzman and we will do something to make your dad's life better in prison. So why wasn't the government of Mexico happy? >> Because they believe that there was interference in their own country. That [snorts] uh they basically kidnapped a Mexican member without their knowledge and that >> even though he's a drug lord.
1:39:58>> Even though he's a drug lord. Yeah. I mean, even with El Chapo, it was with obviously the cooperation and full support of the American government, but it was Mexican >> military that caught him. And then they, the government, extradited him to the United States because they realized they couldn't keep him in prison.
1:40:15They tried twice and failed. >> Yeah. >> So, the third time they were like, "Okay, he's going to be extradited to the United States." But, but this time, uh, they didn't choose it. They didn't they had nothing to do with it. and and a Mexican citizen was kidnapped from their soil. So they were definitely and they also weren't happy with the lack of communication from the government.
1:40:32They were asking for what's happening why is this person there and there was >> right but the problem is that the government is insanely corrupt. >> It is but I think Claudia Shinbound who's the president of Mexico would say that because previous governments were corrupt that doesn't mean that uh that this is okay or that I am corrupt.
1:40:50I'm not defending them. I'm just saying that her position is there is >> I get that if perhaps that is her position and that is who how she really operates. >> Wonderful. However, >> yeah, >> if you tell the Mexican government about it, someone who's corrupt is going to find out. >> Oh, that is true.
1:41:11And and that there is a lot of um yeah, there's a lot of covert operations, I believe, at least from my sources happening right now in Mexico. >> Well, there have to be. Um yeah, >> we we detailed the amount of assassinations that were during the last election and it was something like 35 different people were assassinated in >> Mexico.
1:41:31Yeah. >> Who did you have on? Did you have on somebody talking about that? >> Oh, I forget. We've talked about it multiple times. Um but one of the things that's shocking about it is that um this was definitely um fairly recently, right? >> Which one? I mean, we talked about with Ed, I'm pretty sure.
Cartel violence and corruption in Mexico
1:41:49>> With Ed. Yeah. >> Yeah. because it was like that each each gang was propping up a political person and they were getting taken out by another. Right. Right. >> That that politicians and journalists as well. They're being it's like >> Ed Calderon who uh yeah you know is he used to work for the Mexican government and they they were involved in like counter cartel operations and he's got a very deep understanding of how it all runs over there.
1:42:14They said essentially every single mayor candidate, every single candidate for any kind of government seat works with a cartel. >> And so when you're seeing these people get assassinated, it's cartel assassinations. They're assassinating a rival cartel member. And that's what they're doing when they're killing all these mayors and killing these people.
1:42:36>> Yeah. And in a lot of situations, I've interviewed corrupt policemen and federal agents and and a lot of times, I mean, not so much with the federal agents, but definitely with the local policemen. What they say is it's not even about the money they pay you. It's the fact that if we don't do it, they will kill they will kill me or kill my family.
1:42:55Right. They're forced to do it. It's not It's not an option for them. >> It's not an option. Yeah. And it's not even an option whether or not you run for mayor. You're running for mayor, [ __ ] Like, that's it. Get out there. Exactly. Get out there. This is what you're gonna say. And then boom, you get shot.
1:43:07Okay. New guy. Get him in there. >> Yeah. And I I did a story for the last season of Trafficked, which is about Cartel USA, which is cartel's presence here in the United States. Not only sort of distribution of drugs, as we all know, the violence that accompanies the cartel or drug trafficking in general, but also the corruption.
1:43:27And I'll never forget interviewing this uh this guy from uh the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and him um and him and an investigator in that uh investigations as well. Basically them saying this is corruption is real. We've seen it. It's happening with people around us. And you know, they're corrupting politicians, they're corrupting agents, they're corrupting border patrol, uh because just the amount of money is so large that when we're talking about millions of dollars, right, that they can just
1:44:01hand out, it's it's very hard not to be corruptible. >> Oh, yeah. And also, it's ubiquitous, right? >> Yeah. It's ubiquitous. And it's, I think, to me, the sort of the scariest part of it all, right? >> Ah, >> look at this. A peer-reviewed study recorded nearly 500 assassinations of politicians in Mexico during the 2000 to 2021, primarily affecting incumbent [clears throat] mayors, former mayors, candidates for municipal positions.
1:44:29Wow, that's crazy. >> Yeah. And that's just political and and uh also journalists, which is a real real problem. >> Well, here's the question. How many people in the United States are being currently bribed by the cartels? Like how is all this fentinyl, cocaine, >> a lot all these drugs getting over here?
1:44:53>> A lot. >> A lot. >> Yeah. A lot. Yeah. >> They have to be >> 100% a lot. I mean, you know, you know, my past reporting where we've we filmed a woman, >> you know, crossing the border with fentinil. We filmed. >> Well, how about the guy the Los Angeles cop that was selling guns >> selling guns, police officers selling guns.
1:45:11>> So, they tell tell the people the story about that because it's it's so insane that they confiscated these guns and then the cops had confiscated them. This guy somehow had access to them. >> Yeah. >> Throws them in his trunk and just drives across to Mexico and sells them to the cartels. >> So, the story was about gun trafficking.
1:45:26How basically um 90 I think it's 70 something% of the guns found in in Mexico in crime scenes are American guns. how American guns are responsible for the violence in Mexico. And we wanted to show what's it's called the Iron River, the flow of guns from the US, Los Angeles all the way or California all the way to uh Cena law.
1:45:48So we did we met in the middle of the night a guy who was in his sort of warehouse undisclosed location in Los Angeles and he had a room full of guns. Um he had AK-47s. he had look it was similar to an AR-15. Um, and he said he gets most of his guns he a few of that he pointed he bought from LAPD guns that had been confiscated and he paid I think it was like $700 for an AK or something like that.
1:46:15Um, [clears throat] and uh, if I remember correctly, and then he had some that were sold from uh, from Marine. The Marines sold the AR-15 similar. I'm very bad with names of guns, but it was an AR. It was a similar gun to an AR-15 that had a scope and it's used by the Marines. Uh, I know all the gun people are going to get really mad that I'm not going to say the exact name, but basically he told me that it was sold by a marine uh who was selling him these these guns.
1:46:44And then he packed them into a trunk of a car and a woman because they're more unsuspecting drove the guns down to Mexico. And we saw her cross the border. This was crazy. is she crossed there was nobody stopped her car, nobody checked her car because going south there's barely any border control. So she gets there, opens her trunk.
1:47:06I see the whole deal. They the the guy the middle man guy is taking the guns out. But I see another guy come in and immediately buy one of the guns. And uh and then yeah, we follow the whole supply of guns all the way to Sinaloa and spent the last few days there in Solo, these Cicarios from the Senoloa cartel shooting guns and also showing us there they had these bunkers built under these houses in the Sierra Madres mountains of Sinoa which are very much cartel territory like the military, you
1:47:38know, authorities don't really go there. And they had these bunkers full I we went to one of them and it was full of of every single I mean full of guns, weapons and ammunition that they were saving for a potential war with a rival cartel. Yeah. And like two I think a few weeks later they were actually used in the Kulyakano.
1:47:56Do you remember the Kulyakano when uh the authorities, the Mexican authorities uh got Ovido Guzman, they arrested Ovido Guzman, who's one of El Chapo sons, and the cartel said, "This is not going to happen. We're not going to allow this to happen." Surrounded the military compound and started shooting.
1:48:14They had cars with um AR um 50 cals mounted on their trucks. They went out. It was like suddenly you're in Afghanistan. But this is in the capital of Sinoa and they basically the authorities had to release Oivio because the citizens civilians were being killed. So they released him and then they arrested him again and eventually a few years later now he's here in the United States.
1:48:40But this was all happening at the same time like this all these guns that come from the United States. >> Do you remember Operation Fast and Furious? >> Yes, 100%. Yeah, they were allowing >> Tell people about that. Well, that it was found that they were the ATF was allowing or was allowing the flow of guns uh or some guns across the border to Mexico because they were trying to track it and find out where they were ending up so they could build a bigger case that recently that very same
1:49:08situation happened with Fentinel in the US. You haven't heard of the story? >> No. So, in New Mexico, um, the DEA, there was a whistleblower that came out and spoke to the AP, an amazing AP investigation, where a whistleblower came out and said basically that the DEA in New Mexico was allowing millions of pills of fentinel to go out on the streets in order to build bigger cases.
1:49:30And they would watch, they would be there doing surveillance and watching the distribution of these pills. And of course they know that some of these pills ended up killing people. The whistleblower talks about this one particular case of a kid, months old kid who sort of picked something from the floor and because of exposure ended up dying and he kept on telling his superiors, this is not okay.
1:49:52I know you guys are trying to build bigger cases but people are dying and uh and then he and they did not they didn't do much. It went became a whistleblower complaint. It went to the government. they were trying to figure out what to do. They decided not to really act. And there was at the time sort of a standard that if you have um if the safety of people is at risk when you're allowing these cases to bill then you should stop distributing allowing for the distribution of fentinel.
1:50:22Um this was in place which is why the whistleblower decided this is also illegal. What we're doing is against the regulations essentially. But when this was went up [snorts] to the top and they started looking at it, they not only decided not to do anything. This was before the whistleblowers spoke to the journalist and before this became public, right?
1:50:42Not only did they not decided not to do this, but they decided to change the regulation so that it's not that that idea of security for civilians is not needed anymore. Jamie, can you bring that up because we >> in 2024? This is a PBS article about the Justice Department watchdog re. >> See, the department rewrote these those rules in 2024 to afford to afford law enforcement far more discretion in whether to take action to prevent fentinel track tracking, citing the benefits to be achieved through
1:51:12preserving the investigation. >> Do you think it's [ __ ] Do you think people are profiting off of it and they're being bribed and that's why they're continuing to allow it to happen? Do you think that could possibly be under the guise of building a bigger case? was like where's the case? I >> I think what it is is that there's enormous incentive to build cases.
1:51:31Actually, New Mexico did one of the biggest busts, fentinel busts in the past few years. Like millions of pills were caught. So, they were building bigger cases. But it is there's a very fine line, right, between being building bigger cases and people dying. >> Well, imagine if it's one of your family members that died from that fentinel.
1:51:48>> Exactly. So it was to me this is sort of the new fast and furious in terms of >> two additional DEA whistleblowers in New Mexico have come forward in recent weeks including one who said his colleagues were there failed to seize 350,000 fentinyl pills that they learned about during the very first call they intercepted in a 2024 wire tap shipment was part of an investigation that resulted in the largest fentinel seizure in DEA history.
1:52:11Court records show agents had the opportunity to seize thousands of fentinel pills but allow trafficking to continue for months as they investigated. >> And crazy the campaign the DA had at this time was one pill can kill can kill you. That was their campaign. Fentinil one pill can kill you. >> They have 350,000 pills they let go through.
1:52:30>> I think the initial report was 1.7 million if I don't if I didn't get it wrong. It was over a million. It was insane. >> Is that incompetence? Is it stupidity? I I think it's people trying to build I think they believe that they can get better results and seize more drugs and go after the real bad guys if they do this.
1:52:47But I do think there needs to be some transparency and people should be allowed to decide if this is okay or not and and that sort of standard rule that was there to make sure that this isn't killing people should remain there. >> Right. But what can they do about this? Like ultimately this is not something that existed 30 years ago.
1:53:04That's what's really crazy. No, the whole cartel violence thing. I know. I know. >> This is so new. It's so like people don't understand. When I was a kid, when I first moved to California in the in the '9s, >> there was no concern about going to Mexico. You go to Mexico, people would go to Tijana and hang out and party and come back to America.
1:53:25It was nothing. There was no cartel violence. Like, this is a very recent thing. >> It is. I know. >> I mean, sure, there's always been some kind of organized crime in Mexico, but not to the extent that it is today. No, definitely not. >> And this is all propped up by our appetite for drugs. >> It is.
1:53:43And this is something that we talk about every time I come on the podcast. And the last time I was here, I always gave Portugal as an example. Last time I was here, I remember you pushed back on that because we gave the example of Oregon. You you said you remember you said >> they went a little sideways.
1:53:56>> You went sideways. But I actually got to after the podcast, I went home and I was comparing the two and I was trying to figure out what was different. I understand the argument you had at the time was like Portugal is a small country. Yes. 10 million people. So what can be done there is a very different skill than it might work there might not work here >> and Oregon it didn't work but the difference is that they did it very differently so what Portugal did and this is important is that two years
Portugal versus Oregon drug policy
1:54:22before they decriminalized drugs they started creating rehab facilities and treatment centers for people with addiction two years before before they even decriminalized. So when they fully decriminalize it, those places, those you know rehab centers, treatment centers were in place already. Plus there's universal healthcare which I believe is a very very good thing.
1:54:42What happened in Oregon is that only a year after they decriminalized the drugs did they actually start investing and putting some of the money in the treatment centers. Uh, >> another difference, huge difference in Portugal, if you're caught with up to 10 day supply of drugs, even if it's heroin, you would then that's the decriminalization part of it all, you would then you would go to a sort of a panel with a legal um person that represents the government essentially and two social workers or mental health
1:55:17workers or addiction specialists. and they would tell you, "Okay, you can either essentially go to prison or suffer some sort of punitive action or you can go to rehab to a treatment center." And the vast majority of people decided they want to go to a treatment center. In Oregon, do you know what they did?
1:55:33They said, "Um, you are given a I think it was a $100 fine and take this card with this number for a treatment center. Make sure to call it back." They they gave out thousands of these cards and only a few hundred people called. It wasn't mandatory, right? It wasn't like the option was prison or, you know, rehab.
1:55:55>> So, of course, it didn't work. I mean, there was all these things that were stacked against it >> and and so I do think that there is a way um to do it right. I think we do have to address the consumer part of it that we're not addressing. We're fighting the war on drugs has no results whatsoever.
1:56:13Granted, the last two years actually there's been a decrease in fentinel deaths in the United States, which has been great. Um, a lot of it has been because the Trump administration has actually been good at putting money or investing or he called it a public health crisis. I think it was two years ago, which is great, which is what it is >> and we have to address it.
1:56:33However, recently they have decided to allocate much more of the money again towards, you know, killing the fishermen at sea and fighting the war on drugs and they're now taking money away from rehab facilities, from Medicare, from fentinil test strips, which I think are incredibly important. Yes. From grants for uh um Nlloxxone, which is incredibly important life-saving medication.
1:56:56It's a overdose reversal drug. um and they're removing those grants and spending billions of dollars in, you know, these covert um operations in Ecuador and the Pacific and you know and going after I think the wrong problem. I mean [laughter] the problem is >> they heard that they were trying to stop access to Narcan for the >> Yeah, Narcan.
1:57:25Sorry. So, because they thought that it would encourage people to do drugs if they had access to these anti- overdose drugs. >> That's somebody who's never spoken to a user, a drug user, a drug addict before. >> No, it's insanity. >> It's insanity. >> I think that's in Texas. I think in Texas they've had an issue with that as well.
1:57:44>> Bananas. That's bananas. Bananas. >> You're you could save people's lives. And a lot of these people that get these pills and they don't know that they have fentinyl in them. A lot of these people, like perhaps someone is um >> you're taking anti-anxiety medication and you get a counterfeit anti-anxiety medication has fentanyl in it, you [ __ ] die.
1:58:02>> Or they give you the Narcan and you live. Like these aren't all just people that just want to like do fentinyl and not die. >> Of course not. And why this is why the fentinel strips are actually so important. Yes, we >> right. To be able to tell. >> Yeah, we should be they should be everywhere just like Naran should be everywhere.
1:58:20>> Yeah. Uh but there has to be a way to stop the flow of this stuff into the United States. And I know they've done a great job in first of all having the border open wide open for 4 years. >> Not a good idea. But you know definitely not a good idea. Insane. Absolutely insane. But you know that fentinel 90s something percent of fentinel comes across I think 95% of fentinel comes across the official board ports of entry.
1:58:41Right. It doesn't come through >> right. And one of the reasons for that is like shipping containers aren't checked. I think they check like 10% of shipping containers come into the United States. >> That too, but also American citizens that drive it across. A lot of the apprehensions, large percentage is American citizens.
1:58:58>> You know, Michael Douglas, one of the ways he made his money when uh his dad uh gave him $10,000 when he became of age, like this is all you're going to get. >> Uh the way he paid his way through college is he sold marijuana and he brought it over. He he smuggled Yeah. He did two trips where he smuggled suitcases.
1:59:16>> Suitcases of marijuana. I forget what's >> I thought it was just taking it from California to New York. >> Oh, [clears throat] >> I don't think he was bringing it. >> Wasn't bringing it. I don't think so. Still, I mean, it's >> amazing. >> Smuggling marijuana. >> Yeah. Wow. >> That's how he made his money.
1:59:31>> Yeah. Wow. I had no idea that he wrote that >> way through college. Oh, yeah. He's talking about it openly. Yeah. And I'm I'm like, good for you for only doing it twice. [laughter] Like, it's crazy. Also, wasn't his dad like a well-known actor at the time? >> Oh, yeah. Kirk Douglas, huge. He was Spartacus.
1:59:45>> Yeah, I know. >> Yeah. >> Kirk Douglas was huge. I mean, he's like one of the biggest actors in the world. >> And [laughter] but he's like a hard ass. And he was like, "You're going to get $10,000 and that's it. You're on your own." He's like, "I have bills. I have student loans. Like, [ __ ] you."
1:59:58And >> so he smuggled weed. [laughter] >> That's so funny. Not at all what I'd expect. >> But I mean, like, weed is a different thing. You're not talking about something that's going to kill people. You know the fentinyl thing is insane. I personally know many people who have died from fentinyl. Personally, >> it's a very scary thing.
2:00:19>> And you keep hearing about people in the news, you know, an actor or someone, they do this, it's taint, it turns out it was tainted cocaine, >> tainted this, tainted that, you know. >> Yeah, I know. And there's a new drug out there right now called Nidazines that is 50 times more powerful than fentinil.
2:00:34And sometimes not Narcan doesn't solve it and it's not doesn't show up in test strips. >> What is it? >> It's called Nidazines. It's my next investigation. I'm actually I'll come back and talk about >> who's made this >> also be made in Mex Mexico with Mexican with Chinese precursors. [sighs] >> Yeah.
2:00:51>> But China doesn't give a [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> Boy. >> Yeah. You know, I was in Mexico at the beginning of the whole fentinel deal. It was the one of the first stories ever to be done on fentinel in the US was my story. I'm patting myself in the back. Mine, my husband Darren and Christina. And I actually went to Mexico and interviewed a guy who told me he was part of a Senolo cartel.
2:01:13He told me my uncle basically just hired a Colombian chemist to come here and teach us how to make fentinel. We paid him $40,000 and now we're making fentinel. And he showed me a it was a 1 kilo of heroin mixed with fentinel because at the beginning they mixed it with with heroin and it was right at the beginning.
2:01:33It was crazy and then to where we're now more heroin it's all fentinel and >> well we met because of your work on the Oxycontton Express. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Following the opioid crisis from >> I remember watching that just being stunned >> because that [clears throat] to me and for people who don't know that story, the way they were operating it was uh Florida had these pain management centers and you would go to a pain management center and all they were really doing was writing your
Oxycontin Express and pill mills
2:02:02prescriptions for opiates and they didn't have a database. So you could just go from one pain management center to the next one and all you had to do is say, "I have a backachche. my back hurts. [clears throat] I had a back operation. I have a herniated disc. And they would just hook you up with pills.
2:02:18>> And so these people would go to dozens of these places, get bags of pills, and then drive them north. >> And it just started this addiction chain that went all the way into Kentucky and Ohio and and that's the Oxycontton Express. I I just couldn't believe that was real. and the courage that you and your husband had to do that investigation and to put yourself out there like that and be the face of it and like you cost those people billions >> billions of dollars like they if had had
2:02:47not been for you and your investigation who knows how long that whole loophole had would have continued. >> Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was I mean we were I went inside one of these clinics with a secret camera filmed inside and then we were actually filming outside the biggest one of the biggest pain clinics there called American Pain.
2:03:08My husband actually ended up doing a documentary about it. It's these twin brothers, the George brothers who ran the biggest prescription pill um operation in American history. They were like the Pablo Escobar of the United States in terms of pills. and we were filming outside their clinic cuz we went to Kentucky and saw how a lot of the bottles next to overdose bodies were coming from this one clinic, American Pain.
2:03:31So, we decided next time in Florida, we're going to film outside and within minutes we were costed by these guys, the brothers who chase us down I95. I was driving the car. I contacted one of the sheriff's department people that I'd spoken to the day before and I told her, "Hey, we're being followed by the American Pen Guys."
2:03:48And she said, "Call call 911 right now. You don't want to mess around with these guys. I'm running out of gas in the meantime. I stop at a gas station and they follow me. They come out of the car, start yelling at us. I had just watched The Sopranos the night before, so I was like, "These guys are [laughter] going to shoot us in the head right now."
2:04:04So, we decided, "Okay, I have to continue going with almost zero gas." Ran out of gas, middle of the freeway. Uh, stopped next to the freeway. They parked right behind us. I think they were just confused what's happening. because I had called 911. They showed up and they gave an excuse that they thought I was a crazy ex-girlfriend.
2:04:25And it turns out that the FBI and the DEA already had wire taps on them at the time. Our story and our investigation made it into the wire taps because they were openly talking about this, how these journalists were messing around where they shouldn't. Um, and they ended up going to federal prison. And my husband did the whole story about the rise and fall of these brothers and interview them while they were in prison and after when they were released.
Ibogaine, psychedelics, and treatment
2:04:45And >> they they've been released. They have but you know they did time in federal prison meanwhile >> how many people died >> I mean a lot of people died the doctors I don't think any doctor uh went to prison in that case I can't remember but definitely not as many doctors as the ones that were involved in these in the sales of the these clinics I mean they were seeing you remember that right they were seeing they were just they were seeing hundreds of patients a day passing on scripts for hundreds of
2:05:13patients that they even came up with a system which was a stamp so that the doctor wouldn't have to finding every prescription. So the stamp would make it faster for him to just give these medications these poor doctors. >> But you know who did go to prison >> who >> is the pharmaceutical executives, right?
2:05:27Purdue. Not one single one had criminal charges. Not one single one in the Sackler family. >> It's insane. >> Well, that's that Netflix documentary docue series, the docky drama series Pain uh Painkiller. >> Yes, it's a very good one. And after that series was released, apparently they were reviewing because they had the Sackler family had like gotten some sort of a fine, but one of the uh one of the reasons why they were willing to give the money was it was going to give them
2:05:58some kind of immunity. >> And so there was talk after that documentary. I wonder what happened of that >> that that immunity was going to be. >> They still have it. I think Oh, maybe it was. I don't I don't think it was. I think they talked about it and I think it ultimately I mean still no one's gone to jail.
2:06:14The Sacker family, no one's been How many people are they responsible for? >> I mean it's >> ruining their lives and andor dead. >> A million people have died from the opiate epidemic in the last 20 something years. It's more than in all wars combined in the last 150 years. >> A million Americans. It's it's insane >> that I can't recommend that Peterberg uh series enough killer.
2:06:35It's so good and it's really accurate and it really shows you how they had these beautiful girls go to these clinics and sell this and tell people >> and this is the new normal. You're just going to you're just going to manage your pain. No problem. >> And the problem wasn't just Purdue, right? The other pharmaceutical companies eventually >> use the same playbook.
2:06:55>> Okay, here it is. Current status. Following the legal block, a new national opioid settlement was reached in January of 2025. Under this revised agreement, Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers agreed to pay 7.4 billion. But significantly, the deal stripped the Sackler [clears throat] family of future civil immunity, meaning they can still face individual lawsuits.
2:07:16>> Good. >> But I mean, what is happening with them? They're still rich as [ __ ] and they're responsible for a million people being dead. It's insane. And not just that, imagine how many people lost their dad, lost their wife, lost their family members. How many people's lives were destroyed but lived?
2:07:33How many people got addicted, lost everything but survived and now live in abject poverty because they were drug addicts because they were told that this stuff wasn't addictive. >> And how many people are still dying because what we're the fentinel crisis is just a development, an evolution yes of what was started by these pharmaceutical companies.
2:07:53Well, this is the thing again, like when I was a boy, when I was young, when I lived in Massachusetts, heroin addicts were really rare. It wasn't a normal thing for someone to be addicted to opiates. I remember my boxing coach was a long shoreman and uh he worked with a guy who had a heroin problem. And this guy would get heroin every lunchtime.
2:08:16He would get heroin, he would go and sit in his truck, he would shoot up, and then he'd go back to work. and he was a functional heroin addict, but he did it every day and worked. And I was like, that's crazy. But and he was telling me because it was so rare, but a guy who's hooked on pills today is normal.
2:08:35Everyone has a family member. Everyone knows somebody. Everyone has lost somebody. Everyone knows someone who's overdosed. It's >> insanely common and is not >> it's not all over the world. It's a United States problem. That's what's really crazy. Like they don't have an opioid epidemic in a lot of other Western countries.
2:08:56>> They don't. Apparently, they're starting to see opiates in some countries in in Europe. >> Yeah. They're catching on several [laughter] years later. They're catching on. Exactly. >> It's just >> Yeah, it's bananas. >> Do you lose hope in humanity with all these different scams and all these different horrible things that you investigate?
2:09:13>> No. I see broken systems. I see governments that aren't working for the people. I see, you know, unfortunately politicians uh that want to gain more power. Uh and I I I see broken systems. I don't when talking about, you know, I've spoken to you about this a lot, but when when I I spend so much of my time talking to the traffickers and the scammers and all the people that we consider the bad guys, right?
2:09:41And more often than not, they are the consequence of broken systems, right? The crushing inequality that exists in the world. Again, going back to the 10% living under the poverty line, um lack of education, lack of job opportunities, um growing up in shitty countries without opportunities and options.
2:10:04And and that is I think what's I don't think I know it's what leading it's leading a lot of people to work in these black markets and to become traffickers and scammers and all of that. >> And I think that you know our tendency is to let's go after them and imprison them and >> you know make sure we're using the full might and power of this country and resources to go after these people instead of actually looking at the root cause.
2:10:30Whether that's the consumption of drugs, the demand for drugs, or the people that are providing those drugs. If we use some of that money instead of enforcement in actually um working on the demand or helping um help me out, um slower the demand, lower the demand, sorry, lower the demand. It's what happens when you talk for someone.
2:10:55uh if you help them lower the if you work on lowering the demand and you actually in terms of the people that are operating in these systems address the reality of the situation which is inequality and lack of opportunities I think you'll do a much better job. >> Yeah. But unfortunately >> the money is much better well spent.
2:11:14>> Yes. >> I think and the same I think with scams and drug trafficking and yet do we want drugs in our country? We don't. But what's the best way? It's to curb the demand. >> Right. But how do you curb the demand of something that has always like drugs have always been a part of our society and there's legal drugs that are a part of our society like alcohol and then there's drugs that have always been a part of our society that aren't legal but are in demand like cocaine.
2:11:41>> But let's talk about the opioid crisis, right? What what President Trump is doing and saying he's doing is he's fighting the war on fentinel, right? going after these boats in the Pacific and these, you know, fishing boats in in Ecuador >> and closing the border >> and closing the border, which is fantastic.
2:11:57Agree with closing the border and not allowing criminals in criminals. But what he's doing at the same time now, unfortunately, is after calling this a public health crisis, which I'm so happy he did, is he's also removing money, I just said this before, removing money from grants for test strips and uh Narcan and from the treatment centers that actually can curb demand.
2:12:20What people need is access to methadone clinics, to uh treatment centers and rehab centers that aren't scams. I've reported on scam rehab centers as well that are actually incentivized to treat people because without that we can go a as long as there is demand there is going to be a supply. >> Yes. No.
2:12:40Unquestionably. I mean um one of the things that um I don't know if you're aware of this but uh I went to um the White House with uh former Governor Rick Perry and Brian Hubard. They're part of uh this Ibagain initiative. >> Oh yeah. And that that's one thing that I was really happy that Trump listened to and that he's willing to do that and he's pushing this through.
2:13:03>> I is one of the most effective treatments for people that have addictions because it doesn't just rewire the way your brain associates drugs and it explains to you what is causing you to have this problem like what is this emotional like connection that you have to this? What what are the the the problems that you have in your past?
2:13:24So, it gives you like a very bizarre and very uh intrusive overview of your life that apparently is super uncomfortable. And it's not recreational in any way, shape, or form. No one's going to do IBA game for funsies. >> It's it's something that people only do when they're, you know, you're on your last leg and you're trying to figure out how to survive.
2:13:43>> But it's helped so many soldiers, >> so many people with PTSD and so many people with brain trauma. That's what's really interesting. It's helped people with traumatic brain injuries. It's neurodeenerative. it does some weird stuff >> and uh I'm like really hoping that with this that it will eventually become profitable for them to have Ibegan clinics.
2:14:05So it's something that will they'll say well instead of profiting off of these people being addicted to drugs some people are going to be profiting off of people being completely cured of these problems. And so this could in turn change the way people interact with drugs. Change and and it also opens the door for other potential psychedelic therapy uses like they know that um MAPS um >> Oh yeah, MAPS.
2:14:32Yeah. >> So, MAPS has done fantastic work with MDMA and soldiers who have PTSD and apparently I mean it's one of the best most effective treatments for >> just coming to grips with the horrors of what you've seen the horrors of war seeing your friends blown up and seeing just being involved in in in combat missions.
2:14:56And one of the most effective things that MAPS has ever found is this MDMA usage and they're pushing this through. So there's been many people that are working really hard to try to establish legitimate uses for psychedelic drugs >> that I I mean I don't think we should put drugs into all one banner because drugs are you know drugs are meth drugs are uh fentinyl drugs are the but drugs are also psilocybin which is shown to have an incredible relief for people that are dying of cancer people that end
2:15:29of life anxiety. There's Larry Hagman. Remember him from Dallas? >> Uh, do you remember the show Dallas? Okay. Larry Hagman was uh the >> main guy. >> Yeah. Who's What was his name on the show? >> Jr. >> Jr. J. Yes. >> Larry Hagman was on CNN once and they were talking to him and he was talking they were asking him about death and he said, "I really don't have a fear of death because >> I took LSD once and I had this incredibly beautiful experience and it relieved me of my fear of death."
2:15:57H >> you know like that's one of the things that is a positive thing about >> for sure >> you know you could call them drugs but that's just such a generalized blanket term for sure >> for all these different substances >> and and wait and fentinil and oxycottton too they were created to be pharmaceutical drugs that actually have a place I mean they help >> relieve painter >> yeah relieve pain particularly >> them is they're insanely addictive >> you know and one of the beautiful things
2:16:28about some things like Ibagane is that they can help people get off of that and [clears throat] >> and what so what's the status right now of IBA in the US? >> They're pushing it through. There's a lot of resistance. Uh but uh Rick Perry and Brian Huard are working diligently to push this through and then Trump helped a lot.
2:16:43I mean having that conversation with him I I said it I sent him a text message and he said, "Are you looking for FDA approval? Sounds good to me. Let's do it." And then next thing you know, like a week later, I'm at the White House. >> Oh wow. to talk about when we have a press conference and he signs this executive order and so they're pushing it through and he's like been very aggressive about it and I really commend him for that.
2:17:04>> It it's allowed in Texas right now. Is that right? >> They're doing it in Texas and um credit to uh Dan Patrick for also funding that and pushing it through. Although I think he does some really ridiculous [ __ ] when it comes to THC. But the uh the pushing this through, one of the one of the best aspects of this is generally psychedelic drugs are thought of as a left-wing hippie thing.
2:17:27And we're seeing it being embraced in the military community because, you know, we realize >> so many of these people have sacrificed everything to go over there. They've lost loved ones. They've they sacrificed a giant portion of their life >> to go there and serve and they come back and there's no help for them.
2:17:45This is one of the only things that's been shown to have a really effective result. Like really effective, like incredibly effective. >> Yeah, it should be accessible to everyone. >> It should be accessible to everyone and we should study it and we should also have clinics where it's it's administered responsibly and they're doing it in Mexico.
2:18:04There's a place called Beyond that's down. I believe it's in the Cancun area that that has these clinics. And this is a place where Rick Perry went and Brian Hubard went. Shockingly enough, when Rick Perry went, uh, he had a brain scan done before he did it and, uh, they had shown that he has normal age related atrophy of his brain.
2:18:24Normal, it's like he's older, you know, and >> went down there. Um, within four weeks, I think, or 6 weeks, had a massive improvement. Went back six months later, all his atrophy is gone. >> Holy [ __ ] It's a crazy [snorts] substance that is here that can help human beings and it's being thought of as a drug and it's schedule one which is crazy because schedule one has no legitimate medical use and clearly it does and that that needs to change.
2:18:52>> Yeah, absolutely. >> You know, that's another thing the Trump administr administration has done with marijuana. They're moving marijuana into schedule three. >> So instead of it being this thing that has no medical use, well, of course it has medical use. helps cancer patients keep keep their uh their hunger during chemotherapy.
2:19:07It it gives people relief of pain. For some people, it helps them with anxiety. There there's a lot of benefits to it. Can it be abused? Yes. So can cheeseburgers. Okay, you can eat cheeseburgers until you [ __ ] have a heart attack and die. It doesn't mean we should ban cheeseburgers. Means people need to understand what's responsible use of whatever it is, whether it's food, sugar, alcohol.
2:19:31>> I'm a big fan of all those things. I think you should be able to eat >> whatever you want. You should be able to drink alcohol if you like, but >> some people aren't good at it and they need to have help. And so we need to develop just like they did in Portugal. Yeah. >> Develop these centers. But then it gets the question of okay, >> there is a a a giant demand for cocaine in this country and they're getting fentinyl lace cocaine.
2:19:54Cocaine that's cut with a bunch of other [ __ ] that's not good for you. >> Should cocaine be legal? Like, is cocaine a real problem? I don't know. I don't I'm I've never done it. I haven't I don't But I know a lot of people that get addicted to it. >> Yeah. >> But here's the other thing. Cocoa leaves not a problem.
2:20:14>> No. And used a lot. >> Ecuador. And apparently very beneficial. >> Super. Yeah. >> And uh is good for energy and helps people do things and they just chew cocoa leaves or they have tea. >> They have mate deco. It's a tea. I I when you go to Peru to Machu Picchro, they give you a lot of coca tea because supposed to help with high altitude.
2:20:33Exactly. >> Yeah. >> Like well that's a high altitude herders. It's they they chew cocoa leaves. It's ubiquitous. Why? Why is the What are we doing? >> I know. >> Like why are we Is it Is it okay to like have the [ __ ] cartels make that stuff and send it across? I mean, look, you went to Colombia and you watched them make cocaine, which was one of the one episodes where I was so terrified for you.
2:20:56I was like, "Please don't do this, [laughter] Mariana. Why do you want to do this?" That one freaked me out because you're there while they're using all those horrible chemicals. >> It is It was insane, wasn't it? Insane. >> Insane. And then you march out through the jungle with them when they deliver the cocaine >> fast because Oh, yeah.
2:21:13I mean, from from the place where they're actually mixing it all, we had to get out of there fast because the locals had seen cameras and we had to remember we had to run out of the jungle without a light in the middle of the night in the Amazon. That was insane. And then Yeah. And then we we filmed with the kids.
2:21:30That was a literally sad story actually. one of the kids that was called, he was the backpacker dude uh who had to haul dozens of kilos of cocaine in his back days in days out um in the middle of the night. Really dangerous work. Seen many of his friends being killed. And I asked him what what uh why do you do this kind of work?
2:21:49He said I always wanted to go to college. I wanted to be a dentist. My family is very poor. They're farmers. I can't afford for co to pay for college. So this is the only job opportunity I get that I can save money to eventually become a dentist. I said, 'Why do you want to be a dentist? Because all the ads that I see in my hometown are these big sort of posters with people with big smiles for dentist office and I want to make people smile, too.
2:22:12>> Wow. >> Such a sweet s story. >> Meanwhile, he's selling coke. [laughter] >> Meanwhile, he's Yeah. bringing Coke that comes to the United States. Yeah. It's crazy. >> It's It's a really [snorts] complicated issue. And it, you know, the thing about people in Mexico will tell you that this problem exists because of the demand for these drugs in the United States.
2:22:31>> Yeah, of course. >> So, how do you what do you do about that? Do you make drugs decriminalized like Portugal? >> I think you I think that is one of the paths. I really do think you have to start investing a lot of money in treatment centers in access to drugs like ibane. Yes. And buprenorphine and methadone and just there's Yeah.
2:22:48If you even if even if it's just like 10% of the money that you spent on enforcement, let's put that on actually treating the demand side of it. That'll make a huge difference. >> Yeah. >> It's it's really I it's not rocket science. I think I just don't understand what's taken so long. >> Well, I mean there's so many people that are lost and drugs give them the only good feelings that they get.
2:23:09That's what's really sad. >> Yeah. >> You know, I talked to this guy once who's a who's a drug addict and one of the saddest things he said to me, it's like drugs are the only thing that make me happy. >> Yeah. It's a little >> if I don't have drugs, what do I have? >> It's a little bit like scams actually in a way, right?
2:23:25It's like scams like having this person that I talk to is the only thing that keeps me happy. >> So, the real work should be done on fortifying human beings and make them a viable part of society with like real community and love and and teach people how to live like that. And that's part of what's ailing us is that we're all broken, which is why we need drugs.
2:23:45And then if we fail and misstep, which we all will eventually, there is a system there to hold us and help us and a government that is interested in protecting us. >> That would be nice. But the problem is that's not profitable. >> All [laughter] right, >> thank you. >> Let's wrap it up. Bye everybody.
Closing thoughts and wrap-up
2:24:09[music]
2:24:15>> [music]
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