Transcript
Speaker: The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker: This is True Crime
Speaker: ah One of the interesting things that happens in the course of researching missing persons cases, particularly, is you can end up online down these rabbit holes.
Speaker: And we live in a time where there's a lot of true crime content that's, I don't want to say it's irresponsible, but some of it's just not what people think it is.
Speaker: And One of the things you and I have done from the very beginning is we draw a pretty hard line in the sand when some big missing persons case turns out not to be so missing. And I say big, I just mean like web sleuths and Reddit and Facebook are all running with where is such and such.
Speaker: And... I cannot tell you now. like It used to be a number that I, like it was pretty small. it was like 30 some people of like people I suspected had been involved in foul play or like it was speculated they had been involved in foul play. And then when I really got to digging at it,
Speaker: I found out that was not the case. And it there were a couple dozen people that were alive, like and they were like very alive, did not want anything to do with their old life. And you started saying this one phrase that sticks out to me, and that phrase was... They're only missing to the person who reported them missing. Right.
Speaker: Thank you. they've They've walked away from their life. and Yeah. And so one of the questions I get or challenges I get is this thing where people will say to me, show me one instance of a missing person who walked away from their life. Right. And like I don't engage in that because primarily the people that we find have a very good reason not to...
Speaker: want to be found by whoever has reported them missing. Sometimes it's like an entire family they don't want to go back to. Well, sure, but that's it's a big pile.
Speaker: Right. and we're sitting 2026. It's February. it's february You and I have this opportunity to talk about this. There are WebSleuth page, tons of Reddit posts.
Speaker: There are ah individual internet pages, and there are Facebook pages dedicated to this one effort. and even There's an email address that was findthisperson at gmail.com with a phone number. and The intro on all of them Very clearly it's coming from a family member. It says, Michelle left her home on December 9, 2001 at 8.30 p.m. to go Christmas shopping in Martinsville, Virginia.
Speaker: She's never been seen or heard from since. Her green 1995 Pontiac transport van has never been located. There are flyers everywhere.
Speaker: Her photo is all over the internet. She has a Charlie Project listing. She has a NamUs listing. You and I are finally in a position where I feel like we can talk about one of those cases, at least briefly, ah because on February 20th, 2026, the Rockingham County, North Carolina Sheriff's Office put out a Sort of a press release, sort of just a social media share that Michelle Hunley-Smith, Michelle in this instance, had been found.
Speaker: According to WXII12.com, they say a Rockingham County woman who'd been missing for more than 24 years has been found alive. and They talk about the Facebook post. They say the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office said that Michelle Hunley-Smith was located on Friday, alive and well, in North Carolina after having been reported missing in 2001, and one On December 31st, 2001, deputies received a missing persons report saying that Michelle Hundley-Smith of Eden, North Carolina, had been missing since December 9th.
Speaker: Her husband told investigators she left home to travel to a Kmart in Virginia for Christmas shopping, and she never returned. She was 38 years old. So this is not a teenage runaway. It says that there was an extensive investigation that was launched with assistance over the years from multiple agencies, including the FBI, and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the DEA.
Speaker: Despite all these efforts and several leads, Michelle Smith's whereabouts remained unknown for more than two decades. ah NBC News carried an article in 2020 from her daughter, Amanda Smith, and she spoke about her father's theory on her ah mother's disappearance.
Speaker: According to her statements, she said he believes she just took off and left him and us that night. And I guess that's possible. It's hard to rule out that she just left all of us and started a new life. But there's something that nags at me that something happened to her on her way back home.
Speaker: The sheriff's office said its criminal investigations division received new information related to the case on Thursday. so that's in February, 2026 detectives followed up on Friday, Sergeant Disher and detective Worley who were working this case made contact with Michelle Smith at an undisclosed location in North Carolina, adding she was alive and not in danger at her request.
Speaker: The sheriff's office is not releasing her current whereabouts, but her family has been notified. What do you think of that? So she had small children and i think an older child ah when she disappeared.
Speaker: And the idea was that nobody thought she would leave her kids, which is something I share. i mean, I shared the sentiment. However, since we started this show, my perspective has changed a little bit. I think that Somebody could leave their kids, possibly.
Speaker: i don't think it would be a lot, and I'm not going to pass judgment on somebody that does it. And I also don't know the circumstances of the situation. But she she left everybody, right? Yeah. and it's really sad. um When i looked it up, I know I've seen this the case before, but, you know, her children grew up.
Speaker: And her children, just like in the article, like her children are encouraging ah people to help find her mother, Right. right And it's very sad. And I wonder,
Speaker: i don't know how to say this without sounding like... Callous. Or condescending or whatever, but like, is it really that hard to she just...
Speaker: tell people you're going to leave? i you know, I don't know what the scenario is here is because they haven't released any other information, but you know, it's not, this is a hard thing to get people to do, but it's not anybody's fault.
Speaker: It's not like the family's fault. It's not the children's fault. Even if the husband was doing something, she made a choice and she left. And it's also not her fault. Yeah.
Speaker: She did what she thought she needed to do for her. Whether it's a good decision or a bad decision rests solely with like her. like Her choices and consequences are her choices and consequences. They do affect the kids in this case. She didn't want whatever whatever she felt like was going to happen if she told them. She didn't want to face it.
Speaker: Right. And so you said it's not her fault, which I guess it's not, but it would have been better off in the long run for her children to just know she didn't want to be there anymore.
Speaker: i I mean, but think about like just saying that. I know. I realize that. It's horrible. Like just trying to so like us trying to talk about it is like, it's kind of. well I'm just saying that her like looking them straight in the face and saying, I'm leaving. Cause I don't want to be here with you. She wouldn't be able to do it. Right. Right.
Speaker: Because ah it couldn't be a hundred percent true. It's just, she, you know, the grass is greener or whatever her prerogative was. she could been She could have been escaping some type of abuse that didn't expand to the children. well I was going to say it was it would be unlikely she would have left her children behind in that case, but I guess it's possible.
Speaker: um I don't know why she left. It doesn't really matter because if she had just told them that I'm leaving and divorced her husband or whatever, we're not in this situation. And so in this type of case, now she didn't report herself missing, right?
Speaker: Right. Okay. But you can see over the past 25 years, well, not quite, but in December of 26, it would have been 25 years. But she's been alive and well that whole time. And she's one of the missing persons cases that looms out there.
Speaker: She is. And so... Okay, I don't think leaving the children completely in the dark is the best way to do it. I don't know if she was running from something or to something. I do respect her decision to do it, but the one place that... like I don't get emotional about these things.
Speaker: I get practical. And i think it's wrong to leave that kind of thing open and looming and not...
Speaker: tell the authorities, at least from the perspective, that they're not spending the resources. Well, and I think that her daughter's push to have the case, like, I don't know, reopened or investigated to begin with or whatever was actually happening, I think that's probably how she ended up being found, right? Right.
Speaker: Now, I'm just... I just want to put this out there. I, I don't know from personal experience. I think it would be very difficult to find out your missing mother is alive and she does not want anything to do with you.
Speaker: i understand what you're saying. Yes. And so because of that, it's, you know, it's, it's a, cut you know, that this shows why sometimes police don't launch huge investigations, right?
Speaker: Right. Because people walk away from their lives. and i real And I understand people don't get my math on the statistics of missing people, and that's fine. There's a lot of different categories of missing people.
Speaker: Some are more alarming than others. this Because her her vehicle wasn't found, I would have assumed she had had an accident and she was probably in water. Right.
Speaker: Because, but because there was no investigation, there would be no way to know if an investigation had happened. Like the van probably would have showed up.
Speaker: They looked for her. Not finding someone, particularly someone who doesn't want to be found, doesn't mean that no one's investigating. It just means that what they're investigating doesn't lead to criminal charges.
Speaker: Well, I was just going off of just a little bit of information I've seen, i believe, an adult daughter put out. that's Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Dateline's covered this. The adult daughter's put out a lot of information about this. But I will say that, like, with the Vanished podcast, several other podcasts, Adventures with Purpose, they all covered this case.
Speaker: And the Sheriff's Department... And the relevant officials participated in those like broadcasts and those creation of content to raise awareness about Michelle Hundley-Smith being missing.
Speaker: I... do agree with you on one thing. The car was something they should have dug into more because I was able to find the car very quickly.
Speaker: And the last time that it was registered was long after she was missing. Right. Which would have suggested something, right? Yeah. I was able to find like on one of the flyers, it had her car and like the license plate. And if they had followed up on that, I personally believe that they would have...
Speaker: close this case a lot sooner. That might've been what they did anyway, eventually, because there's still connections, right? There would have been an address for the last place. Right. ah what Whatever. Right. that That may eventually be that you're right. Yes.
Speaker: I do want to say one of the things that stood out to me here is she went missing from Stoneville, North Carolina, and I pulled up their current population and it is 1300 people.
Speaker: Well, right, but she was going to Martinsville, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But my my point is, the missing persons report is going to be filed in Stoneville. They may reach out to Martinsville. But like even though that's you know a county is around Stoneville, Stoneville only having 1,000 people does not merit tons of resources for things like this.
Speaker: And I think that might that might mean that even what I'm picturing as an investigation is limited because of you know that particular population number.
Speaker: I think like with the family looking for her, there might be some responsibility to at least reach out to the local authorities and be like, I'm safe, but i'm not coming home. it's ah It's a tough line to chew because...
Speaker: are you going eat For one thing, I stand by the fact that the missing person doesn't report themselves missing. And so to the extent they can ever be held responsible for something, I doubt it.
Speaker: Okay, like as far as expended resources. Now, would that encourage people who leave their lives to come clean to somebody in authority to so somebody in authority could say, look, I have spoken to this person and verified their i idea ID and they're not a missing person.
Speaker: right Okay. They closed the case, right? All the posts and stuff, everything you can see from this particular case, it's heart-wrenching to know she's alive and well and she has been the whole time. Yeah.
Speaker: To see the pain that this family went through. And i I don't know. I think that might be harder than her being found not alive.
Speaker: I think it is. I think i think ultimately it is. i just that you know when i When I dig through it and i I look at her case and I go, okay, did they investigate? Did they not investigate? Nothing is glaring about it, but the amount of coverage she's gotten over the years, is it's a little more than the average missing person's case.
Speaker: I think it's, for me, I think it's the personal outreach much later that is really... You think that's what does it? For me, it does. Okay. And it I don't know how many – she apparently has an older daughter, and then she had two small children when she left.
Speaker: um And so one of them – try not to be like – I don't blame them for what they're doing, trying to figure out what happened to their mother. i But I also don't want to, like, drag anything they they did into the spotlight because it's not their fault.
Speaker: But at the same time, she must have never Googled herself – I mean, like, so this woman has um an NCIC entry. She has a NamUs entry. She's on the Charlie Project.
Speaker: There are TikTok psychics talking about her, divers who volunteer their time to look for missing persons who, as you so aptly put it, if they go missing with their cars, there's a very strong possibility they're in water.
Speaker: um You know, lots of people have speculated on this case. And, like, Dateline has covered it. ah the The case itself is is pretty narrow in like what gets out there.
Speaker: I don't know if that's because they were just keeping the investigation close to the vest or if they just didn't um have the resources to investigate as much.
Speaker: I never would blame the family of this because they didn't cause it They were just people standing there. is terrible to say, but they're just waiting for mom to come home.
Speaker: Well, i know. And the fact that they're genuinely concerned that something happened to her is where i don't see... I feel like most people would have to somehow let them know they were okay.
Speaker: I don't know what the circumstances of the situation were. It just seems... Just very heart wrenching that this is the outcome. And I, it's funny how many people, i don't know, they were just on different wavelengths as far as like this, hat this happens way more than people think.
Speaker: It's not broadcast a lot. In fact, it almost always has to have had some missing coverage to get any post-missing coverage, right? Right. Especially when somebody is found alive and well.
Speaker: And it kind of, it can be sort of startling. You know, law enforcement has absolutely no obligation to provide you with, in fact, I don't think they can give you the information if the person says not to.
Speaker: I don't think. It depends on where you're at. Jurisdictionally, there are penalties for falsely identifying yourself or refusing to cooperate. Well, right, but she didn't do that. She just didn't want law enforcement to give it to her family. Right, and when she's ultimately questioned about it, that's what she says. Whether or not that happened before and somebody already came across her and didn't know what to do we don't know the answer to that.
Speaker: I think if somebody had come across her earlier, looking yeah they would have closed the case. Because that's actually, that's law enforcement's job. yeah When they find somebody who's...
Speaker: reported missing And now we have centralized missing person databases, right? That wasn't always the case, but now we have it. And so any law enforcement officer that comes across somebody in NamUs who's alive and well, they should report that to the reporting, the whoever has the missing person's case. yeah And it should be closed as unfounded.
Speaker: right I agree. And they should let whoever filed it know. Right. That it's closed is unfounded. Yeah. and That's the extent of it. There's a lot of sad things about this case for me because she did not feel like she could return to her life.
Speaker: Her children grew without her and they're going to always wonder if it was their fault. And it's not. It's not their fault at all. It's choice she made. um It's not even it's not even her fault. There's got to be some series of circumstances that are beyond our understanding publicly that led to this and whether they're good or bad is really none of our business.
Speaker: Well, right, and that's a hard thing, right? Because yeah everybody wants to be all up on it, and if she was found dead, that's a whole different situation. But honestly, that's such a such an interesting line in the sand, isn't it?
Speaker: It is, and i will I will say this about it. Probably, for me personally, the saddest thing about this was the daughter pleading to find her mom, and now the clothes are being so weird that But the second saddest thing about this was me looking at this in 2026 and them saying she's been missing for more than two decades and me realizing she only went missing in 2001. Well, that's what, yeah, that's why I was like, it's not that long ago. I was like, I was like, it you know, it sounded like so many years. And then I saw that 2001 date and I was like,
Speaker: I've gotten so old so quickly. i know. 25 years have gone by. And I'm sure her kids have felt that. And it's a crazy situation. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah I don't know did these that This type of case is what would make me despise looking into any case. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it it would frustrate me as well. um even like i I do quite a bit of skip tracing with my day job, which is when you find someone who has some kind of obligation that...
Speaker: They haven't met that obligation for whatever reason, and you need them to explain it. And that could be witnesses. It could be people that have been subpoenaed to court. It could be people that have a criminal charge. In some instances, it can be people who are getting an order for arrest for failure to appear for something that's a criminal or civil matter. There's a lot of different reasons to go looking for people. And I can say it is a very time-consuming task to go looking for someone who does not want to be found.
Speaker: And I have to think with all the coverage that has popped up over the years, unless I'm missing something completely, she had to kind of be aware of the fact that like there were people looking for her.
Speaker: um And that's interesting because I wonder what that's like to be sitting in this new life and seeing that the old life is calling you. I don't see how she could have even entertained it, but there's a point in time where it's okay to realize she doesn't want to be in my life.
Speaker: And because of that, I wouldn't want her here anyway. Right. Yeah. ah Her kids aren't kids anymore, which is one of the bat most baffling parts of this particular case. Yeah. Cause if no matter what the issues were with the husband Or whatever. i when they start turning 18, you've got to figure out. oh And that's just my opinion. Right, but she didn't do that. And so because of that, it makes me go, what the heck? But I i have said previously, i did a lot of times i I didn't believe mothers would leave their children. I don't know how small they were.
Speaker: it doesn't really say. It's not really any of our business. I mean, some of the pictures they have that were, like, recent of her in 2001 that they were putting on the internet, like, those kids are little. They're, like, under – I'd say under seven years old. Right. And then how old the daughter? like i think she's probably 10 or 11 when mom goes missing.
Speaker: She's 30-something now. Yeah, exactly. And so we don't know – what the circumstances were, but it's not, that whole situation sucks. But honestly, at the end of the day, so this is actually, but I think I may have said this. This is actually a very good example of why law enforcement,
Speaker: is very careful about taking missing persons reports, deeming people missing, right? There was nothing that would indicate foul play. There was no blood found. the Well, there was no vehicle found. ah There was nothing suspicious except that she didn't come home, right? Right.
Speaker: And so it can kind of demonstrate the difference between
Speaker: And I'm not, because if she had, you know, if she had been carjacked and murdered, it would be the same difference, right? Potentially, yeah. Okay. And so that's why it's always sort of a toss-up in this type of situation. and i I don't know. I feel like it would be better just to go ahead. I'm a very direct person.
Speaker: And I don't know that it served me well. Yeah. However, I feel like when I, like if I couldn't tell my child I didn't want to be in his life anymore, maybe I shouldn't do it.
Speaker: Right. Well, so do you have much more on this? I don't have anything else. i was Does this qualify as a scam? Because it's that time of year. It's Scamantine's Day month of, you know, we talk about things that are scammy.
Speaker: i don't know if, like, leaving your old life qualifies as a scam or not. I don't know. she it doesn't I haven't seen anything where she would have been initiating it. so Right. I have to go with probably not. But yeah I could see situations similar that might Well, I didn't come up with anything similar, but you and I have been talking about a couple of things. And February this year, we spent a lot of time watching the trials this January and February of 2026. That is all I've done all year. Yeah, so i um you had sent me something that I wanted to bring up in True Crime News, and then I had sent you something that sort of serves as the main story today. um This is a DOJ article.
Speaker: ah It's from February 20th, 2026. I don't know if I sent this to you or you sent it to me, but we started talking about it. And it's it's like one of those press releases that is from the Office of Public Affairs where they're talking about something that just happened in court.
Speaker: And sometimes the numbers on things just make my head spin a little bit. Yeah. This one starts with, as a headline, former NFL player and laboratory owner convicted in $328 million dollars genetic testing fraud scheme.
Speaker: And I had seen a reel this week on like Facebook or Instagram where was this guy who had contacted 23andMe and sent in his...
Speaker: like dog's DNA and it like gave him a lizard. Thank you. yeah It's the lizard. Um, and they gave him but a profile on it. And I just, I was like, is it something like that?
Speaker: But it's $328 million. dollars How do we get there? Here's what it says. It says a federal jury in Dallas convicted a Texas laboratory owner and former NFL player yesterday for his role in a $328 million dollars cardiovascular genetic testing fraud scheme.
Speaker: According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Keith J. Gray, 39, of McKinney, Texas, orchestrated a scheme to bill Medicare for medically unnecessary genetic tests designed to evaluate the risk for various cardiovascular diseases or conditions.
Speaker: Gray, the owner and operator of two clinical laboratories, Access Professional Labs LLC and Kingdom Health Laboratory LLC, offered and paid kickbacks to marketers in exchange for their referral,
Speaker: of Medicare beneficiaries' DNA samples, personally identifiable information, including their Medicare numbers, and signed test orders from medical providers authorizing the medically unnecessary genetic test.
Speaker: As part of the scheme, the marketers engaged other companies to solicit Medicare beneficiaries through telemarketing and to engage in a quote-unquote doctor chase.
Speaker: For example, to obtain the identity of the beneficiary's primary care physicians, pressure them into approving genetic testing for patients who purportedly had already been qualified for the testing during telephone calls conducted by non-medical personnel at one of the companies retained by the marketers, not by their physicians.
Speaker: In an effort to conceal the kickback payments, Gray used sham contracts and invoices that purported the charge for marketing hours, but that in reality were reverse engineered to match the amounts agreed to under the illegal per-sample kickback arrangement.
Speaker: Gray also sought to conceal the scheme by, among other things, referring to the payments as being for software and loans that never existed. Evidence at trial included text messages between Gray and his co-conspirator becoming giddy over the amount of money they were making for Medicare. For example, Gray's co-conspirator stated,
Speaker: Cent, but with a dollar sign? You should have it any minute if you don't already get it. Gray responded, sorry, I was filling my bathtub with ones. Yes, laugh out loud.
Speaker: So Access and Kingdom billed Medicare approximately $328 million for false fraudulent and kickback-tainted genetic testing claims, of which Medicare paid approximately $54 million. $54 million.
Speaker: Gray laundered some of the proceeds by purchasing expensive luxury vehicles, including a Dodge Ram truck worth more than $142,000 Mercedes-Benz worth more than $145,000. And got to say, Dodge Ram truck being $142,000 might be the real crime here. It's insane.
Speaker: and i got to say the dodgeroom truck being one hundred and forty two thousand dollars might be the real prime here insane The jury convicted Gray of conspiracy to defraud the United States to pay and receive health care kickbacks, five counts of violating the anti-kickback statute, three counts of money laundering.
Speaker: He is scheduled to be sentenced at a later date. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors, and I'm sure they will work in a trial tax." ah Then it names a bunch of people who came together to do this. And all I got to say is to fraudulently bill $330 million dollars worth of genetic testing, it sounds like it would take a very long time.
Speaker: But to then make $54 million dollars off of it for two of your companies, that is a wild return, is it not? i would say that that was the motivation for doing it.
Speaker: So this is why people complain about the healthcare care system. This thing right here, like this, like you imagine this is done 10 times a year and it's called three. Like that is a lot. That is $50 million. dollars There is no part of that. That sounds like small potatoes.
Speaker: What's interesting is they actually did the test now. Yeah, but they were unnecessary. Well, it we don't know that they were unnecessary. They just hadn't been actually ordered by a doctor.
Speaker: Oh, I see what you're saying. they Well, okay, they were not evaluated to the point that they could be deemed medically necessary or not. Except their doctor signed off. Right.
Speaker: Because they were bullied. Bullied or bribed, yeah. Depending on the... Oh, yeah, I guess. But so there are laws in place against kickbacks. I'm going to go with to avoid this entire situation.
Speaker: However, taking the kickbacks out of the equation, it's kind of like they're just doing business. I mean, I guess.
Speaker: Well, I mean, that's how i cause The more stuff that comes out, ah I'm sure it's always been happening. We just have more information about it now.
Speaker: ah The more I realize there's such a fine line between... Because I think the illegal thing here, if they actually did the test on the people, okay...
Speaker: So they're not saying they're going to do it and then not doing it. The lab's actually running the test. Yeah. Okay. So the only thing that's the illegal, well, is the kickbacks, right? Did I understand that correctly? No, there was money laundering. there was violations of the Anti-Kickback Act. And there was another set of charges that were...
Speaker: ah ah Fraud. So conspiracy for fraud, paying and receiving health care kickbacks, five counts of violating the anti-kickback statute, three counts of money laundering.
Speaker: Okay. He's going to do 10 years on this. There's a trial tax involved here. like Well, I mean, as he probably should. ah So, you know, what's right is right. What's wrong is wrong. ah The reason that they have to push the situation, which would be to...
Speaker: get information, they're calling people and randomly doing surveys, then finding the primary health care provider, and then bullying them or paying them to sign off on the genetic testing that the lab wants to do to get the money, right? Yeah.
Speaker: So the reason that they're doing that is because they don't naturally have that many... ah orders for that to happen. Okay. Right.
Speaker: It doesn't happen in the natural course of a doctor patient situation. And that is the very first thing that's going to set off a red flag. Yeah.
Speaker: When you have all these people having this genetic test done, that isn't normal to be done. And so it's a catch-22 because i don't see how they didn't realize that was the situation.
Speaker: if they could legitimately do it, I think it would have actually taken less work to legitimately offer maybe not that particular genetic test, but like something their lab could perform, right?
Speaker: yeah That they could bill for. I'm just saying there's a lot of ways this could have been completely legit, right? And it's weird that they chose a very obvious route to being caught.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I don't know what they were thinking here. Like, you they they probably could have still made a pretty big chunk of money out of all of this. Like, legitimately. Right. Right.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know. ah so there's just they put these weird facts on like the back end of these um ah press releases. This one says that, you know, it talks about the trial attorneys. In this case, it was Ethan Womble and Adam Tisdale. They're from the criminal division's fraud section.
Speaker: So that's where they fit into all of this. This was investigated by the FBI, the HHS OIG, so that's the Health and Human Services Office of the is Inspector General, and then the Veterans Administration Office of Inspector General.
Speaker: um it And then they have their, obviously, because it's Medicare, the Medicare Fraud Unit would be involved. But it says the fraud section leads the criminal division's efforts to combat health care fraud through the health care fraud strike force program.
Speaker: Since March 2007, this program currently comprised of eight strike forces operating in federal districts across the country has charged more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion. dollars In addition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes.
Speaker: Of all the things to do fraudulently, I just don't know that health care is the thing. That's where the money is, though. I know that's where the money is. I get that part.
Speaker: Because they get like there's a huge guarantee on not just the Medicare and Medicaid, but also private insurance companies. Right. And so...
Speaker: it but So here's the other thing, though. Being in the position that he was in I doubt this you know former NFL player is a lab tech, lab supervisor. i mean pet like a Like an MD or PhD in some kind of science? Like put money into it, right?
Speaker: That's my guess. I think he's i think he probably serves some kind of CEO in this capacity. Okay. And, well, I guess that would garner responsibility.
Speaker: i don't know if he tried to put it off. We don't know whose idea this was, right? Right. Essentially, you know what it sounds like to me, honestly, if I were to give just a off-the-cuff assessment? I think that they looked at the most expensive tests that the lab could be reimbursed for.
Speaker: Right. And went from there. Because if they had, ah because they had to have this whole strategy happening. Because this is a lot of work. Right. ah This isn't just like, now, granted, i think they probably were like, well, we're doing the test so it's not fraudulent, right?
Speaker: I mean, they're not wrong, wrong, but they're also not right. But if they had mixed it up,
Speaker: They very well could have gotten away with it. And anybody that's in this type of business, if you have a guaranteed payee, which eventually, ah with Medicare and Medicaid and private insurance, I guess, if you have a contract with them, you will be paid, right? Right. Right.
Speaker: the The issue is, do you want to work for the amount of money that they're going to pay you? And so in this particular situation, ah they billed for $328 million. dollars Correct. And they were paid $54 million. dollars Less than a quarter, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like a sixth of it. And so... They, somebody, some strategist said, hey, well, you know, and and this is, you're right. This is like what's wrong with our healthcare system.
Speaker: But, you know, when Medicare or Medicaid is going to pay one sixth of the cost, that's when it becomes six times more.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. And so in this situation, i i would say, i bet i bet this genetic test was very rare.
Speaker: and that's why it was expensive. It was probably the biggest thing that they could get back. Yeah. Like somebody set this up and we don't know. i mean, we just know what he's been accused of here and what he's been convicted of. I was going to say he's been convicted, right yeah right? Yeah. So in terms of like federal court, one of the interesting things is we can't play you audio or video. You have to read it all. Once the transcripts come out, you can definitely read it. You can read all the motions. You could, if you have a Pacer account and you want to blow a hundred bucks or so you can like dig through this case ah using Keith Gray's name and you can definitely read the roller coaster.
Speaker: Right. And it looks like he's being held responsible. I, I could think of like a lot of defenses here. I'm not huge on financial crimes. I, it, when more tax dollars are spent to, to,
Speaker: get very little back. I don't like it. In this case, it seems like a lot, but they... and Did they even talk about restitution? I mean, they would see No, i know he hasn't been sentenced yet. That'd be part of his sentencing. So he's been convicted. He's currently in what's known as the PSI phase, which is your pre-sentencing investigation.
Speaker: And they will determine what his punishment is going to be and what the restitution may be. And what they're going to seize. I wonder how many people...
Speaker: will also go down. Like, do they go after the doctors that allowed themselves to be bullied? You know, do they, like, who else gets it here? Because just because they orchestrated it doesn't mean everybody else is in the clear. Well, this, so I get like up in my hackles on this kind of fraud only from the perspective that a lot of it takes away resources that should be being used, even though they're really not, for people that for people that genuinely have like a medical issue.
Speaker: And it's unfortunate that like that happens and in a case like this. But again... oh that's interesting. You're talking about the Medicare resources. Yeah, because this money is coming from Medicare.
Speaker: Right, but it's that's the government. Right, but it's earmarked under the budget. Okay, but hold on. I thought you were saying the FBI is using resources to bring this. So you see what I'm saying? Yeah, no, I'm talking about the health care part. I gotcha. Okay. Like, that's the only thing that bothers me is that all the time...
Speaker: And billing and investigating that went into this is money that's pulled away from resources clearly marked out for the Department of Health and Human Services. So they're having, and I'm not limiting it to this fraud we're talking about, they're having to spend tons of time to prosecute these 6,200 people since 2007 that they put on here.
Speaker: And like a lot of those resources in general, like, like they're using resources to investigate resources that have been stolen from the American public.
Speaker: And like, I can't help but think of people that really need that. Like. It's very annoying. Yeah. I, in fact, there's no question, uh,
Speaker: Every single business dealing where the United States government is paying for it, including Medicare and Medicaid, it's all more expensive.
Speaker: And it's robbing the people blind. Yep, it is. I didn't know, like, I knew how you felt about financial crimes, but I wanted to see, because, like, we're kind of talking Scam and Times Day, that time of year.
Speaker: i wanted to see how you felt about this crazy Fortune article I found um from the perspective of, like, the fraud. Because, one, i don't totally understand what I just read. And any time that happens, um...
Speaker: That's very confusing to me. This is literally from Valentine's Day. it popped up in Fortune Magazine, their online edition. it was under cybersecurity and fraud. That's the section one you can find it in. The person who wrote this and put all this together is Amanda Garrett.
Speaker: She's the news editor for the West Coast. Do you have anything else on the healthcare fraud before I jump into Amanda's article? Yeah, go for it um it. says, romance scam from the front lines of a $16 billion dollars fraud crisis, six dead dogs, a missing $39,000, and a wronged widow.
Speaker: I pick these type things because I have questions, but also because I don't know that they get the attention that they should. And I think that people should, like... know things like this happen.
Speaker: um The article literally starts off saying, it started after a teenage girl sent a panicked email about getting her period while at school.
Speaker: That desperate SOS is one that every woman knows well. It went from England to Pennsylvania, where Kate Kleinert, a widow who lived alone outside Philadelphia with her six hospice dogs, read it.
Speaker: Kleinert's heart went out to the girl, who referred to her as Mom, and was the daughter of a single dad friend named Tony, who Kleinert had been chatting with.
Speaker: Kleinert ran out and picked up a gift card and text images of the front and back. She sent $100 so the girl could pick up whatever she needed from the school store. That single gesture kicked off a series of events in which Kleinert was built out of the nest egg she had saved from her career and her husband's life insurance after she took time off to care for him in the years before he died.
Speaker: She eventually lost her home in an electrical fire after she was unable to scrape together the money to get a handyman to fix her air conditioner. Kleinert then, in her late 60s,
Speaker: tried to extinguish the flames, but she eventually had to flee the house in fear for her life. Her home burned to the ground, and none of her dogs made it out in time.
Speaker: Okay. That is a ah hell of an opening paragraph. It was a little confusing, honestly. well when I read it that way, does that make more sense?
Speaker: oh my God. I had figured it out finally, but I was like, what? But essentially, it's it's the idea of ah cultivating kinship, right? Right.
Speaker: Right. um So she follows this up with, in Michigan, the man who exploited Beth Hyland never even asked her for money. Richard, and Tony and Richard are in quotes, by the way, like, are they them or are they not? is That's how they're presented as the avatar.
Speaker: Richard... Sought Beth Hyland's help logging into his bank account while he was abroad. He and Hyland had bonded over their separate emotional journeys and had planned to meet her on the holidays where Hyland lived over in Michigan.
Speaker: In a bind, Richard, who claimed to be a French national working as a kind construction contractor in in Qatar, shared the username and password to his bank login.
Speaker: And when Hyland pulled up his information on her laptop, his balance showed he had about $700,000 in cash parked in the account. He walked her through transferring his funds so he could pay a lawyer and a translator while he was finalizing a $10 million dollars payment for a massive job overseas.
Speaker: The next day, they were both locked out of the account, but Richard needed another $20,000 to finalize that transaction before flying to spend the holidays with Beth Highland in Michigan.
Speaker: She wanted to help. So Hyland took out a $15,000 loan from the bank and she got a $5,000 cash advance. She sent that plus $1,000 she had on hand through a Bitcoin ATM with Richard's constant support via text and a video explaining how to move the funds.
Speaker: He stole every cent. Jackie Crenshaw got a check for $100,000 in the mail from another avatar named Brandon, a man she first met on a dating app called BLK that is marketed to African Americans.
Speaker: Brandon had sent her little trinkets in the past, like a pillow with their photos, coffee mugs emblazoned with their names, pizza to her condo when she was working late, and then chicken dishes when she discovered that...
Speaker: Jackie Crenshaw didn't particularly care for Domino's. Concerned, Crenshaw brought the check to the police, who waved her away, and told her to enjoy it by a Mercedes.
Speaker: She also called the bank that issued the check, and they assured her that it was legitimate. So she deposited the money, and soon after, Brandon began planning a big 60th birthday bash on a yacht for her and her friends.
Speaker: after Crenshaw passed the crucial age threshold of 59.5 when she would no longer incur a 10% penalty for withdrawing money from her 403B retirement fund.
Speaker: Jackie Crenshaw was conned out of about a million dollars in total, and her condo, which she had purchased in 1992 and finished paying off after 26 years of mortgage payments, has been in foreclosure for the past year.
Speaker: So... These are scams where i assume they never meet these people, right? Is that how you're picturing them? Yeah. I mean, I don't see how they could have met them. And, like, I don't think there was a real girl that got her period.
Speaker: Right. So they've met these people, and I assume this is through the internet, either social media or as described by Jackie Crenshaw, through the dating app, Black. And they're talking to people online. They're getting close to them, and they're planning a future for the day after they meet, maybe.
Speaker: But somehow finances get involved ahead of time. So the author here goes and talks to Michael Rod. He is a FBI supervisory senior agent in California.
Speaker: He is leading an elder justice task force. oh I'll take a little offense at that because it's one woman, clearly only 60. It's focused on fraud. He said his team has encountered lawyers, doctors, judges, and pilots who have been like who have lifetimes of professional experience.
Speaker: like the people that are described ah above, um but they've been victimized anderial in similar schemes. He says, these scammers do this for a living, all day, every day, and anyone who devotes that much time to it is going to be good at their tradecraft.
Speaker: It's really quite simple. They prey on both the trust and the loneliness of the victim. And that is the key to it all. In 2024, the FBI logged billion dollars in total fraud losses. That is jump from fraud alone accounted for billion, dollars which is a twoth thirdds or sixty six percent increase adults over eighty lose more than any other age group
Speaker: Romance scams, which fall into this big bucket of frauds, including long-term fraud schemes that rely on building trust with building with building trust with victims, and include what experts are now calling bromance scams. Have you heard of this?
Speaker: Yes. So this is when friends who claim to be helping their professional circle invest, they have this has become like a really big flourishing vector of fraud. And they've also been looking at broader crypto and investment schemes.
Speaker: So some of these are like Ponzi-like schemes. Some of the crypto fraud stuff is, I think, the way that you always put it when you start talking about crypto is like, you're like, it's all imaginary to begin with. It's all fiction. It's fictitious, yes.
Speaker: And then they also talk about money muleing. So money muleing is when a victim accepts funds that have been coerced and pulled from other victims and assists by shuttling them into other accounts. Essentially, you're laundering the money.
Speaker: And that is part of a crime ring that's part of a bigger crime ring. According to this FBI agent, he says they're typically located in West Africa and Southeast Asia, but the frauds can start anywhere around the globe.
Speaker: So the way this all works is these targets are often closely researched and tracked ahead of time, and the schemes themselves have been honed to an incredibly successful point.
Speaker: senior data A senior data researcher at the Federal Trade Commission, Emma Fletcher, she chimes in with a quote, She says, people really need to know that so many of these scams now involved the supposed romantic interest directing you to invest they don't think they're sending money to a scammer at all they just think they're taking advice from someone that they trust The fraudsters often push heavily for romance and emotional connections, piling on the compliments and open affection.
Speaker: Crenshaw's case, she had 20,000 text messages from Brandon who asked her to pray together every day. Kleiner hardly even considered dating and she never accepted connection requests from people she didn't know. high Highland scammer constantly told her that he loved her and called her my queen and my love.
Speaker: She now believes he did that so he wouldn't get confused and call her the wrong name since it was likely that he was grooming dozens of victims at the same time. There's a book sold on Amazon for $6.99 in paperback and $1.99 Kindle.
Speaker: and it is titled, How to Make a White Woman Fall in Love with You from Online Chat. It is literally a how-to this type of crime. It advises would-be criminals to target women who are single over 40, to carefully research them to find out their work history, hobbies, pets, and to commit those details to their memory. It directs the fraudsters to ask the women questions about themselves and to note the answers so you can bring them up later in conversation.
Speaker: advises It advises not to use AI too much so that the connection will feel more authentic to victims, but to run messages through Grammarly for proofreading so they can appear polished and professional. It also tells criminals to listen more than they talk to push victims to keep their guards down.
Speaker: Plenty of people have told her she is beautiful, but there is a way that you can tell her she's totally different, and that will make her love you, according to the author of this book. He also includes lists of questions and key phrases to use, such as, I can't believe I found someone like you. I love making you laugh. You're my best friend.
Speaker: I'll always have your back. So the cocktail of emotion, affection, and love bombing can be intoxicating, the author says. She says Kleinert thinks there must be some sort of Stockholm Syndrome at play that deserves to be researched, and Hyland described it as feeling hypnotized.
Speaker: It was like being overdosed on your own brain chemicals. It all made sense at the time, but looking back now, none of it makes sense. The experience for the victims can be brutal. It leaves them open to judgment, condescension, and blame. Despite the well-established success of similar fraud schemes, even on the largest of Fortune 500 businesses, meanwhile, the impact is both financial and emotional for individuals.
Speaker: Victims have been driven to suicide and suicidal ideation from the deep trauma. Kleinert said when she discovered that Tony, who made her fall in love with him and believed they were getting married, wasn't real, it was, quote,
Speaker: Soul crushing, end quote. She says, you almost have an out-ofbody experience and you go how the heck could you have fallen in love with somebody you haven't even met do you understand how dumb that sounds the vetting this guy did the grooming he did he knew what to say and when to say it and he said beautiful things to me all the time and yes i fell in love with him and i was happy and it felt wonderful i would go to sleep at night dreaming about him and it's all fake Experts say it's very difficult for victims to get justice to see their money, which has been stolen under false presences, to be called back.
Speaker: The stigma surrounding these types of scams and the shame among victims has led to significant underreporting, even as the scourge of AI-enabled identity theft, deep-faked audio and financial fraud preying on these individuals that preys on executives and companies alike via iterations of the same scheme.
Speaker: Last month, a 45-year-old Chinese national was sentenced to four years in prison for laundering $37 million dollars in a sprawling scheme that drew in 174 American victims who were targeted through social media and online dating sites.
Speaker: A 42-year-old man in Los Angeles, Darren Lee, He was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in a case that stole $73.6 million dollars from victims groomed after being contacted on dating and professional websites.
Speaker: Darren Lee allegedly cut off his ankle monitor and remains a fugitive at large. A single victim in Boston who matched with a man who called himself Nino on Tinder was scammed out of half a million dollars through a fraudulent trading platform link.
Speaker: Victims over 60 years old are the most impacted demographic, according to the FBI. 7,600 reported cases account for nearly $400 million dollars in losses. The next highest age group, 50 to 59, had 2,300 victims and $82 million dollars in losses.
Speaker: While the scale is staggering, official reports dramatically undercount the problem, according to authorities. Fletcher... from the FTC, said that their research found that fewer than 5% of the victims report the scams to the government or the Better Business Bureau.
Speaker: ah The quote from her says, they may even be more true of romance scams. Sometimes people who are experiencing a romance scam never accept that it was, in fact, a scam.
Speaker: That FBI agent said that his team found when they execute search warrants and investigations that as few as 1 in 15 to 20 victims have reported the crime. So 20 crimes occur, one person record reports it.
Speaker: So when the FBI attempts to intervene directly and correct, the victims will often resist. He says, we'll show up with the data and say, here's a picture of the same guy with different names. We reverse image search it. We have reports from other victims, a person in Ohio, someone in Oklahoma. They're all sending money to the same account.
Speaker: But it's really tough to get the romance victim to understand and agree they're being victimized. They are emotionally invested in the person. So it goes on to talk more about this book.
Speaker: And they give us other examples here. But let me pause here for a second. What do you think of all this?
Speaker: I think it's an advertisement for the book. It kind of reads like an advertisement. I don't think this article being out there is necessarily going to stop this, right?
Speaker: Well, it's not going to stop it. But I think it... it gives perspective and it's all, it's, you know, people will say, Oh, it's all this technology, except technology may make it easier, but like, this is all the confidence game, right?
Speaker: Yep. That's all it is. It's, uh, cultivating fake, uh, manipulation tactics through relationships to steal people's money. Right. That's all it is. And,
Speaker: you have to be on guard for that at all times, not just from somebody that you have a perceived relationship with online.
Speaker: Correct. And so to me, I do think it's way underreported. I also think that, like shame on all those people that do this, but it's like their job.
Speaker: Right. It is. And it's i'm goingnna I'm going to put this. ah There's a link in the show notes to this where you could go and look at it. um So Kleinert is who we started with.
Speaker: And that's who the article ends with. And she found a project called the Unbreakable Project, and the trauma units there are sent to victims to help them when they report these crimes.
Speaker: So she crochets blankets and sends them to police stations with a personal letter ah in this little package that she calls Kate's Hugs. This is meant to humanize the victim for law enforcement, to help them feel seen and comforted as a source of support.
Speaker: But I found her... her story was one of the wildest. um She says she couldn't afford to bring someone in to repair her broken central air conditioning after her money was stolen. So she had rigged this portable unit in her living room with an extension cord so that she and her dogs could get through the heat during the summertime.
Speaker: She said that July she woke up around five in the morning to discover that the cord in the unit were spitting flames across the floor. The dogs ran to the, the dogs ran to the back of the house.
Speaker: And while she was trying to beat out the flames, she didn't want anyone to know what she was going through. But the drapes caught fire, and then the sofa caught fire, then the wind kicked in and came through a window. She had she ended up running out to the street in her underwear in a neighborhood that she'd been living in for 42 years.
Speaker: Her house burns to the ground. She loses her dog. She loses everything she owns, everything that she had of her late husbands. She said they had this collection of Christmas tree ornaments. She lost that, their wedding photos, everything.
Speaker: So her friends started a GoFundMe page for her. And the guy that had scammed her called to ask her for another $50 gift card.
Speaker: She told him that everything was gone. And he mentioned that there was still a balance on the GoFundMe. Because to this day, he's still watching her. That's messed up.
Speaker: That is so evil. So evil. i don't and yeah I don't have a ton more on this. This was one of the stories I could not share. And the book the book title alone was so weird for me.
Speaker: You know? Yeah. No. You're right. no ah It's alarming. But again, this has always been out there. this is nothing new. Right?
Speaker: Well, yeah. It's not new. It's not new. Do you have a lot more on this one? No. Okay, I'm going to throw one more thing in here. um If you get a chance, go to the FBI.gov page and look under Most Wanted.
Speaker: Currently, they have a flyer up for the Chalk family. says the FBI is offering a reward of $15,000 for information. Related to location um and or recovery ah of three members of the Chalk family, that's CHOC.
Speaker: And it says the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Mobile, Alabama field office and the Mobile County Sheriff's Office in Alabama are investigating the disappearance of Chalk.
Speaker: Aurelia Choc-Cac, that's C-H-O-C-C-A-C, and her two children. Her children's names are Nierka Zulatichok and Anthony Garcia-Choc.
Speaker: The Choc family was last seen at their residence in the 9,000 block up in Hamilton Road. Around 3 p.m. on January 30, 2026, they were reported missing January 31, 2026, and officers arising arriving observed there was appeared to have been a struggle inside the residence.
Speaker: Mom is described as a female born June 18, 1985. She's 5 foot tall, 140 pounds of black hair. ah The information they have on what she was last wearing is that she had a maroon jacket on with tan joggers.
Speaker: Zuleta is described as a female born February 15, 2008. two thousand and eight She's 5'1", 100 pounds, with black hair, last seen wearing a black top, ah black shirt with plaid pants. And Anthony is described as having a date of birth of July 9, 2023.
Speaker: He weighs around 30 pounds, has dark hair. He was last seen wearing a cartoon character hoodie with blue jeans. So we get a lot of listeners in Alabama, and I'm throwing that out there just in case more information can be found under FBI.gov, under their Most Wanted tab about the Chalk family.
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