Tracing a Romance Scam: A Survivor’s Story and the Investigation Behind It

Ari Redbord (00:02):

I am Ari Redbord and this is TRM Talks. I'm Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, we provide blockchain intelligence software to support law enforcement investigations and to help financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses mitigate financial crime risk within the emerging digital asset economy. Prior to joining TRM spent 15 years in the US federal government, first as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice, and then as a Treasury Department official where I worked to safeguard the financial system against terrorist financiers, weapons of mass destruction proliferators, drug kingpins, and other rogue actors. On TRM Talks, I sit down with business leaders, policymakers, investigators, and friends from across the crypto ecosystem who are working to build a safer financial system. On today's TRM Talks, I sit down with Detective Matt Hogan and scam survivor Jackie Crenshaw to hear their story. But first Inside the Lab where I share data-driven insights from our blockchain intelligence team.

(01:05):

On today's Inside the Lab, we highlight one of my favorite recent cases and one of my favorite people. Recently, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, with support from TRM Labs' Kyle Armstrong secured the return of stolen funds in a major pig butchering scam. TRM through Kyle provided the expert forensics report and live courtroom testimony to show how on chain evidence traced victim deposits through complex laundering networks. What started as a romance fraud scheme evolved into co-mingled crypto flows across multiple pig butchering operations. But by merging cases and mapping shared infrastructure, investigators were able to isolate and recover approximately 550,000 US dollars for LA victims. The court accepted TRM's use of proportional tracing to untangled commingled funds and allocate each victim's share. This case makes three points clear: pig butchering scams often hide behind multiple fronts, but share laundering pads. Two, blockchain analytics can stand up in court even when funds are mixed. And three, collaboration between law enforcement and crypto intelligence firms turns opacity into accountability. That's inside the lab for today, showing how blockchain visibility and expert analysis this time by friend Kyle Armstrong can deliver justice in even the most tangled crypto frauds. And now Detective Matt Hogan and Jackie Crenshaw.

(02:39):

Today I am joined by Detective Matt Hogan from the Connecticut State Police and also Jackie Crenshaw. Matt, I'm going to start with you today and I get asked, I don't know, at least weekly, Hey, how do I get into cryptocurrency investigations? How do I become an investigator in this space? Talk us through your story. We'd love to hear about your journey.

Det. Matt Hogan (02:59):

I guess it started off with just general financial crime, right? I was working a lot of financial crime cases, and I think a lot of what we saw, and you probably saw as a prosecutor was there. The crimes didn't really change, they just changed their vehicle. So I saw a lot of our typical white collar crimes that were starting to touch crypto and no one anywhere was doing anything with it, quite frankly, especially at our agency. So my partner and I, Mike Grabowski we're classmates. We went to the academy together, so we're very good friends and we were just like, you know what? We're going to try and do something with this and see what we could figure out. So I think you have to have a want for it because as you know, it's super technical for a lot of this stuff. So I think if you're just getting into it now, it's going to be very difficult.

(03:37):

But for us, I felt like because we got in so early now, we kind of started off with everybody else almost. So I think from there we just started talking to organizations like yourself. We started meeting with people like Erin West and people from other agencies that we knew were kind of doing it. We went to the DOJ, we spoke with HSI and some other agencies and we're like, Hey, what are you guys doing with this? And once we were able to get a couple of training classes under be, went to NCFI down in Alabama for a course, and I took some other things that were kind of free because nothing gets paid for these days. So I had to take some free courses and I just took a liking to it. Honestly, what I think what I liked about financial crime the most is A, there's a paper trail always, and especially true with blockchain, and B, it's like an untapped area where detectives almost were like, I don't want these cases. It's too complicated. We got that a lot and I like complicated. It was something where I could really dig my teeth into it and figure things out. I'm working a account takeover case now for a local institution and I'm like the spiderwebs that come off these things. You pull one thread and it's just like reading a really good book to me. So I think that's kind of why I really dug into it.

Ari Redbord (04:35):

How long did it take you to really get into this space doing this work? When was it on that policing journey that you said to yourself, Hey, I really want to become an expert on whether it's cyber or in crypto and the stuff you do today?

Det. Matt Hogan (04:46):

I mean, can actually, I remember the two cases that really did it for me and my prior agency down in Georgia worked in DeKalb County, Georgia. So it was very metro chasing bad guys, running and gunning kind of thing. Came up here and it was more investigative work, which I loved. I took two cases almost back to back somewhere in 2018, 2017, 2019 timeframe. And one of 'em was just an embezzlement, very kind of rudimentary person. Skimming, wasn't anything crazy, but I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. Kind of cool. $25,000 embezzlement. Cool. I worked it, I arrested the person, did all that. And then I got another case, well actually three cases, but one of 'em was convoluted. I won't go into it, but it was a big deal. And this third case I got was a woman who was on a dating platform and she had lost $487,000 to a romance scam, and it was traditional old school wire transfers.

(05:36):

And I started digging into that case and I hopped on to Secret Service as a TFO, the task force, and was able to really pull that case apart a lot more. And I flew down to Miami to go interview one of the subjects that was laundering. We started touching other parts of this case. There was a Nigerian aspect to it, shockingly. And once that happened, I like, my gosh, this is an awesome, really fun. We get to do all these things traveling around and actually putting handcuffs on a bad guy that actually hurt this woman. It was great. And then when crypto came around, I was like, now not only can I do that same thing, but I might have an opportunity to get the money back for someone. So that's where Kyle was like, this is I think where we need to pay attention.

Ari Redbord (06:14):

I love that story so much. So you had that one case where you were saying it was pre crypto, it was wire transfers. How did you really start to be the guy focusing on crypto enable scams? What's colloquial known as pig butchering today or these types of romance investment scams?

Det. Matt Hogan (06:30):

I think it's just because no one was doing it, honestly. Mike and I were just like, we got to do something about this. We're not getting help anywhere. It was kind of like people still think it's funny money, but the reality was people were losing money legitimately and no one was getting help. And I've been a member of a couple of ACAMS IFCI and stuff for several years now. So I've been in the community and this seemed like this was still an untapped area for most law enforcement generally, and it still is quite honestly, local and state-wise. So Mike and I were just like, we're either going to get in trouble for starting to do this ourselves or we're going to actually get it done properly. So right off the bat we're like, we're going to sit down with people who are doing this and figure out how we structure this the right way so we don't get yelled at by our agencies for doing this kind of stuff.

(07:12):

So we literally were sitting down with the proper people, taking lots of notes, taking lots of classes, and we're like, you know what? Either they yelled at us for this or we go ahead with it. And we started getting cases slowly trickling in. We pushed out a lot of media press, so if we did a seizure, we immediately pushed out to our PIO and was like, Hey, let everybody know this is what we're doing. And small agencies started recognizing that we were doing it. And literally I get probably two a day now and almost sometimes requests for assistance from local PDs here in Connecticut.

Ari Redbord (07:38):

It's so cool. Obviously you've become very closely associated with now this entire world of investigating scams and fraud within the crypto ecosystem. According to TRM, we've seen about $53 billion in these types of cases within crypto since 2023. So about in the last two and a half years or so. Talk to me about your caseload vis-a-vis these cases. Is this all of your work these days?

Det. Matt Hogan (07:59):

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the major problems in state and local generally is that there's still not a focus on these. So I'm still a general detective. I take sex assaults, robberies. If the murder comes in, we go to those too. So this is just for fun, almost. I'll get paid extra for this or anything like that. So we're like, we're doing it because we want to help people to get answers. So we're doing anywhere from about 150 cases a year, and those are anywhere from assists to local and federal because a sub office of Boston and New York, so they don't have a full-time fed office here typically. So we help Secret Service other agencies out a lot with that kind of stuff as well as the state and local agencies. And we get requests from even AARP, we'll have people reach out. We have people, Bitcoin Depots reach out to us directly for people. So we're getting 'em from all angles. Local institutions will reach out to us for general white collar cases, so we get crushed with cases.

Ari Redbord (08:50):

Just incredible to think that you are sort of on the wheel as an on-call detective for a homicide, and yet you're doing hundreds of these really sophisticated financial crime cases.

Det. Matt Hogan (09:00):

Yeah, it's been three years of over a hundred cases a year.

Ari Redbord (09:04):

Just unreal. So one of the cases that you worked over the course of the last year or so involved Jackie, who I asked to join the podcast. Jackie, really excited to bring you into the mix. I would love for you to tell the audience a little bit about who you are.

Jackie Crenshaw (09:18):

So I consider myself a hardworking person who has committed to my community. I've been in radiology for going on 41 years now. I was a technologist, but I'm into, I'm the manager of breast imaging at one of the largest hospitals in Connecticut, and they teach people how to examine their breast. And I go out in the community and do things, and I managed these 55 women, which is a huge, but again, I worked really hard and I saved a lot of money and never married. I dated someone suggested this dating service to me and I was just really looking for someone to share it with.

Ari Redbord (10:01):

Would you tell what happened to you?

Jackie Crenshaw (10:03):

So again, meeting on this dating platform, which I had never done before, I barely had social media because again, I'm so busy. I had LinkedIn and that was it. This was suggested by a friend. And again, in hindsight, yes, not seeing the person's face, but almost like the best boyfriend you could ever had. And as Matt investigated, I was sent a hundred thousand dollars check. We later find out a year or so later that the person that sent me the check also sent it to someone else. So those are trust things that these scammers use when they get your trust and then there's gifts, there's food, there's all these different things

Ari Redbord (10:42):

Basically. So you meet this individual online, you start to have sort of a back and forth which becomes romantic from an online perspective. And why the check? What led to a hundred thousand dollars check being sent to you?

Jackie Crenshaw (10:55):

So after several weeks of communicating, we started to talk about crypto. I had heard a little bit about it and I started asking my friends, anybody if they knew about it.

Ari Redbord (11:07):

What was it about crypto that he said that also sort of hooked you for lack of a better description?

Jackie Crenshaw (11:13):

Well, so at the same time as him asking me about crypto, I was looking at the news and at the time, I guess the SEC before it got approved, some were saying it was fake, some were saying it wasn't real. And I was kind of reading like, oh, this takes the middleman out and you get to, the average person can invest in this crypto. So I thought, sure, I have my assets that I can just dabble or go into. So the first initial was 40,000, and it kind of like the signals crossed because when I sent or bought crypto with the 40,000, I got a hundred thousand dollars check. And at that time, since it was romantic, it was part of our future. And then I was getting what Matt found are very, they look very authentic, but these fake statements

Ari Redbord (12:03):

Got it. And you get a hundred thousand dollars check in the mail, which had to be a wow moment.

Jackie Crenshaw (12:08):

Well, and again, I wasn't hurting for money, but I called the bank that issued the check and they said, it's a real check. I even went to the police department at that time because Isaid to my my girlfriend, what am I going to do with this check? And it had the woman's name on it. I tried to Google her, but when I went to the police, my local police station, it kind of blew me off and didn't really know what to do. They're like, oh, deposit it. If it goes through, if it does, it doesn't. But we know in hindsight, if they had just taken, I don't know, five, 10 minutes or even reached out to Vero Beach, Florida where the check came from and kind of edged them to say, what's going on with this? We got one of our residents with this check. But that didn't happen. And that again, later on led me to testify at the state banking to get a law passed for the crypto.

Det. Matt Hogan (12:59):

Matt, go ahead. What she's talking about where she went into the local PD, and basically I blown off is what we get a lot from these cases generally from white collar perspective. So we have anybody from many of these agencies takes a financial crime case. They just go and that's literally what they do almost all the time. So it's an education problem, unfortunately from a baseline of what a financial crime is.

Ari Redbord (13:21):

What's really extraordinary about this story is that Jackie, in the middle of it, if you will, had red flags that she then tried to verify with law enforcement and with a financial institution, which could have obviously preempted some of this. So you get this a hundred thousand dollars check, you cash it, what happens next?

Jackie Crenshaw (13:36):

So slowly, and it was, again, this is over a year, so there was no urgency about the money. It sat probably for three weeks or so before I was coaxed into, oh, we'll buy some more Bitcoin and put it in this account, which I was of course told, oh, you're the only one that's going to have access to it. So it was all fake, but I'm thinking I'm the only one. But another red flag, white flag was the 40,000 was supposedly 60,000 added even before the hundred. Oh. But no, he was just giving me that money. So his statement said, millions.

Ari Redbord (14:13):

I see.

Jackie Crenshaw (14:13):

So slowly, and I didn't send it all at once. There were several purchases of the Bitcoin that again goes to an eWallet and Matt knows once that money reaches that eWallet, it is gone.

Ari Redbord (14:26):

So you kept funding, then you said, oh, I got this great return and you kept sending more money to this address that he had provided for you.

Jackie Crenshaw (14:34):

And I think there were several addresses. I believe I had the same one, but Matt with this great work traced one to Shanghai and the other one to Nigeria. So I basically said, oh, I stepped in international doodoo.

Ari Redbord (14:46):

Yeah, talk me through then how this ultimately develops and plays out.

Jackie Crenshaw (14:50):

So yeah, so was always one step ahead. If I said, oh, I think one time there was something delivered with a different name on it, and again, I'm working 10 hours a day, I'm just conversating and having all these interaction, it was multiple times a day, just like I said, getting gifts, even money came back my way and I started planning for the 60th birthday party, which ended up being like $80,000 if I'm retiring soon, which I thought I was, I don't think I ever will. I would've never had a $80,000 party, but as there was always excuse of why he couldn't come. And again, unknowns to me and I would say to everyone else as far as getting off the platform, and of course now not giving your information, but it was a slow burn.

Ari Redbord (15:44):

Thank you for sharing this. It's just what other people need to hear, and I think that's why it's so incredibly powerful. How does this all sort of end ultimately, if you will?

Jackie Crenshaw (15:52):

Well, it's never ending because a condo that I had paid for, I refinanced. So it's in foreclosure sitting here still. It's been a year. My 403B, they're so clever. I guess once you have someone's information, you can google them, but I would get real estate postings like, oh yeah, we're going to look at this house and look at that house. It all was just mind blowing. And I'm like, I can't believe I fell for it sometime I feel like it's the twilight zone, but it really did happen. And what's crazy is back in June of 24, it started in June of 23, I get a call from my local police department who had I gone to a year before that said they received a call, anonymous call stating that they felt sorry for me because I was being scammed. So the earth just fell beneath me.

(16:46):

And he said, are you being scammed? And I said, no. And I sat for two hours thinking, oh my God. Oh my God, oh my god. And I actually the next day went back to the police department. I was already overwhelmed. They wanted me to catalog all these things and it was just, I felt like again, they didn't know how to help me. Then they told me, oh, call IC3. I think I filled out the form three times to no avail. I finally just called the state police and probably I don't know how long of a message I left, but Matt did call me back and I always say so dramatically because when I did get an appointment to go with Matt, I went to Best Buy and I went to the GeeK Squad and it took them six hours to get all the emails and everything off my phone onto a C drive. And I even made, I don't know, 10,000 copies in a suitcase. So there I go, dragging my suitcase at the state police.

Ari Redbord (17:44):

Ultimately it was a call from the police department itself that kind of keyed you into that your instincts were right. Alright, Matt, at some point in all of this, I assume it's when the call comes to Jackie from the local PD, you ultimately become involved after she leaves this long message. How does that even happen? Will you just walk me through the mechanics of how you get involved in a case like this?

Det. Matt Hogan (18:05):

Yeah, so Mike and I, because we had done so many of these cases and we put it out to the press, we had actually created an email router specifically for crypto cases. We were starting to get flooded with them and it was going to random places We wanted get consolidate it to one spot. So that kind of helped narrow the focus of where all of our calls were going. And so once we got Jackie, she legit to come in with a suitcase full of documents and threw it on the table and Mike and I were like, oh my gosh, this is a big one. So yeah, we sat down with her, we got her story. We're very structured how we do cases. So we went through our standard operating procedures if we will. It's kind of how we work our case. And we were going through her device to get her addresses that she was sending to getting timeframes broken down.

(18:47):

And we started with obviously going with the most recent transaction first to get a taste for where it was going. And then we worked backwards. We figured by the time, the problem with all these cases obviously is the lame reporting, right? By the time it actually gets to us and we started tracing the assets, a lot of times it's been months, which in this case it was so many times, these are in the wind to an exchange overseas. So yeah, we started with her most recent transaction first worked ourselves backwards and I mean it was a really complex trace because they exfil to multiple exchanges. It wasn't just like they were hitting one or two, they were exfil to multiple. So it was difficult because we would have to line item specific ones to this exchange. We had to send it to this exchange. Some of them were ones we know of that don't respond or take months to respond in the first place. But yeah, we were just digging in deep trying to get this in. And also there were gift cards involved in this part because jacket done gift cards as well. So there was a mix of old school financial crime case as well as the new age blockchain stuff. So we were kind of hitting both at the same time. So Mike would do, he did the gift cards right away and I started working on the most recent transactions and we're just trying to work through it.

Ari Redbord (19:55):

It's so interesting and I think that there's this view of the world that a crypto related case is all crypto, but I think the reality is that we're seeing all kinds of different typologies play out in sort of each individual case. Talk me through the gift card piece a little bit. How did that work?

Det. Matt Hogan (20:09):

There was probably, I want to say it was like 12 gift cards. You were buying stuff on behalf of him is what you were supposed to be doing. You were purchasing the gift card and then you were giving him the number and then he would purchase on his end. So it was just another way for them to launder assets of hers and they wound up, I think using those to purchase electronic devices.

Ari Redbord (20:27):

Literally there's no way to follow the money there. That's really interesting.

Det. Matt Hogan (20:30):

We follow the transaction of what they purchase, but it goes to places that are not going to help us.

Ari Redbord (20:35):

Alright. Matt, back to the crypto aspect obviously. So you chased it to a number of different global exchanges, I assume. Where were you able to identify the funds going?

Det. Matt Hogan (20:43):

So she was using I think an Exodus wallet I think is what they directed her to use. And from her, she had one single wallet and from that one wallet were her transactions and they were going anywhere from Binance to HitBTC, Remitano, n.exchange, stake.com, OKX, MoonPay. They were going everywhere. I had never seen one this offshoot, usually it's one or two exchanges, they swap it to USDT and they move it through Tron or something like that. This was like they were going into multiple exchanges and doing other things besides that, which I thought was interesting.

Ari Redbord (21:15):

Ultimately. So when the funds are going to these exchanges, were you able to do anything, you mentioned relationship with exchanges. Were you able to ultimately do anything there?

Det. Matt Hogan (21:22):

The problem for us in Connecticut generally as we can't act like the feds, right? I can't just go seize a wallet, so I have to attribute her assets to what's currently in the wallet. And we couldn't do that because they would deplete the wallets a lot of times or the account would get shut down for AML reasons. So we were able to show the deposits hit and the transactions and withdrawals would occur, but there was no balance there for us to take anything. And that was the running problem we would have. You'd see her money come in, it would immediately go out and other money would come back in, but it wasn't hers, it was someone else's probably. I think generally most states function the same way, where if I want to do an asset forfeiture, I can't unless I have civil abilities to do so, which we are working towards.

(21:58):

And we kind of have fixed that in the state a little bit. But during her case, we didn't have that capability. So if I were trace someone's assets to an exchange, I can only take what I could prove to be hers. Exactly. So I'd have to see the deposit come in, I'd have to do the accounting on the wallet at Binance or wherever it was and go, okay, this is definitely still hers. Or hey, they swapped the USDT and they're holding it as a spot balance on the account or something like that. And then I could do asset forfiture and seizure. So what we would do in that case is I would go to our state's attorney's office locally and I have to write a search warrant, not a subpoena, which is also a complex problem. Now I have to write a 1314 page search warrant enumerating every step that happened in the transactions, and then I have to explain what the blockchain is, what Bitcoin is, all these things to a judge that doesn't quite get it, and then they have to approve it. Obviously you have to get it and you have a short window. A lot of these exchanges only freeze accounts for seven days maybe if you're lucky. So that was a hurdle where, hey, we have to explain this to someone who doesn't understand it in English. We have to explain the transactions, especially if there's 19 of them in a fluid way so that they can comprehend what we're talking about. And then I have to get that done in seven days maybe to an exchange. So that was one of the biggest hurdles.

Ari Redbord (23:06):

That makes a lot of sense. We're hearing that across the board at state, local, federal, is that just the ability for these firms to hold funds for enough time for you to actually take action? I'm hoping that's something that we can solve through legislation for sure. Anything else we should know about Jackie's case in particular?

Det. Matt Hogan (23:21):

Yeah, I mean, quite honestly, there's two things that come to mind immediately is that something that she did was that people who were victimized don't typically speak out a lot. And what she did was she removed that veil and kind of stepped out and was like, Hey, listen, I'm a victim of this and this is the typology, this is what happened to me. And I think that's super important for a lot of us. I can only do so much as from my agency's perspective, I can't really go out there and talk about a lot of this stuff all the time. So having someone who's actually been through it and spoken about it really helped a lot. And who are partnering with AARP because we work with them super closely. I do presentations with them all the time and they've been so helpful, but because of what she did, it also spurred legislation.

(23:55):

So now we were kind of alluding to is that Connecticut now has a mechanism that we're slowly building to do total wallet forfeitures like the feds specifically for crypto cases because of people like Jackie. So that was one zoom out thing I think really helped a lot. And then for her case, like topology wise, I mean all these have, they steal someone's profile and they use it. The person's always overseas, they're working on an oil rig or they're working in some war zone or whatever. That's always been the type, but hers was a little bit different where the gift cards were involved more. We didn't have that so much. Usually, like I said, you have an investment page, that investment page is connected to 300 other investment pages that are very similar on the same domains, and they're propositioned by someone who works at an asset management place like JP or whatever, and they're like, oh, well my uncle told me that I have this really great investment opportunity.

(24:41):

And they'll do exactly what they did for Jackie is they'll let you pull funds out. And I think that's really interesting because that nuance I think allows people to feel like they were in control of their money still. So the psychology of allowing them to have some money back really plays with them a lot. So that's very common across the board for all these. And then once that line's turned off and they no longer can withdraw, and they're just like at that point, they do that when they know the victim's fed into the investment page enough where they can actually sense it, right? Because talking to Jackie, they could see the worry on her face, they could hear it in her voice and the tone, so they know when they got 'em on the edge. And at that point that's when they're like, you know what? If you want your money back, you can pay the taxes or you haven't met the minimum threshold investment amount. And that's where I think people a lot of times are like, oh, I got taken. And unfortunately that's been months and it's too far out for us.

Ari Redbord (25:25):

Jackie, Matt got into this a lot and it's really extraordinary. You're an absolute hero. You are speaking out. Would you just talk a little bit about when you're talking to AARP, when you're talking to government officials, legislators in Connecticut and elsewhere, what's resonating in terms of your story? It sounds like you've really had a huge impact.

Jackie Crenshaw (25:44):

Well, first of all, I tell people I know I didn't do anything wrong. People call me Betty by the book. I've just always been very disciplined and I think a lot of people are just mortified of embarrassment. So I saw someone and I was telling her what happened to me, and she just so happened to be an intern for someone on the local news and she said, I'm going to have him reach out to you. So he ran the story first. And one of the things, like my staff and I went to my vice president of where I work, and I said to her, I just want to give you a heads up. I said, I've been a victim of a crime, but I didn't do anything. And she said, it's not work related, don't worry about it. But I knew that it was going to be out there and I was just willing to take all that it was. And most people, they couldn't believe it or they didn't because when I was going through it or when it happened, I don't know, have a nervous breakdown. That just gave me so much more fight. I don't even know where the strength comes from sometimes.

Ari Redbord (26:46):

Where does the strength come from? I feel like that's a message in and of itself for people who are listening.

Jackie Crenshaw (26:51):

Well, I feel like if I give up day one, so I have to fight and I have to let people know I have to because most people are afraid to, I mean, what can happen? I'm still here. I'm working hard every day, but I'm getting the word out.

Ari Redbord (27:07):

It's extraordinary. If there was one thing, one message that you wanted to get out to people about your experience, but about these cases more broadly, what would it be?

Jackie Crenshaw (27:16):

It's about protecting your information, which once I trusted them, it's like I just gave it all up. And you have to protect your information even though they're so clever now, I worry about AI and all what's going to happen. They're just finding ways to get you, their job is to separate you from your money.

Ari Redbord (27:39):

Matt, in all the trainings that you do, what do you feel like the message that resonates the most with or what would you want people to understand or believe about these types of cases that you're doing?

Det. Matt Hogan (27:48):

Well, I think there's two parts, right? There's the, I say civilian side, I guess, right? People need to realize that there is anyone could be a victim like you kind of said before, I think the IC three report that came out recently, you look at the dollar mile loss, yes, 60 plus people lost more money wide, but if you looked at the 55 down to 30, they were the largest victim group generally. So anyone could be a victim. So I think people need to kind of remove their pride a little bit and recognize that we could all be taken at any point. So kind of like Jackie saying, I think we just need to be cautious about anything you can get now and text message wise. If you are waiting for it or anticipate it, it's probably likely a fraud and confirm it. So I think people need to be more careful, especially as we move into 2026 with the AI and everything else that's going to be happening.

(28:31):

Every case we have now has some kind of facet of AI involvement, whether it's the transactions themselves moving by bots or something like that, or all the other mechanisms that create the frauds. And then for law enforcement, I think this is hard to say, but there needs to be more empathy I think, for us. And I think people need to be less afraid to take on difficult cases and really try to step out of their comfort zones and work on difficult cases. Yeah, this stuff's complicated and takes a lot of time, and I do this after hours all the time for free. So it is just really, I think people need, especially detectives need to really go, Hey, listen, this isn't going anywhere. If the agency is not going to support you, you need to figure out how to do it yourself, whether it's funding your training or education. Do it yourself to find a way to get it done because no one's going to help you

Ari Redbord (29:13):

Back to that end. I ask every TRM guest a question at the end about sort of what they do to decompress a little bit, hobbies, interests, but you set it up so well there because you're taking homicides and sex offense during the day and you're doing hundreds of cases involving pig butchering for free in your spare time, you have a family that is a huge priority for you in your life. What does Matt Hogan do to not have his head in this space where people are losing their life savings all the time?

Det. Matt Hogan (29:40):

I have a really great morning routine. I get up anywhere from four 30 to five. I have a detached garage gym that I go into. I work out for an hour or so. I do a little Bible study for myself quietly, I think, and I talk myself there. I listen to music, relax, and I do that up until I'm getting ready for work. And then I spend time with my wife and four kids for breakfast, and then I make sure that when I get home, I attempt to shut it off, which is impossible in this world. If I get a phone call and they're like, Hey, I just got this. I help everyone, so I'll stop what I'm doing to do a quick trace if need be. But generally, I try and cut it off at a certain time at night and do my morning routine, and that's how I've been able to keep myself free of stress.

Ari Redbord (30:19):

Well, look, I personally, and at TRM, we are so grateful to have you in this space and doing what you do, Jackie, keep doing what you're doing, and we want to be part of that story for you to help you amplify the just absolutely incredible work that you're doing all over the country.

Jackie Crenshaw (30:33):

I thank you and I appreciate you two. And Matt, he's my hero.

Ari Redbord (30:37):

Thank you both for being on so much and really excited to continue to work with you both and keep on fighting. This was a really extraordinary conversation. I'm still sort of a little bit shaken, just listening to Jackie, who is just an extraordinary person, not just because how strong she was in terms of the scam and what happened to her, but the way she's been speaking out, the way she's working with policymakers, the way she's working with a RP on getting the word out on public service announcements. You don't meet people like Jackie every day, and I am just incredibly honored and humbled to have spent time with her today. It was also just so extraordinary to have Matt to hear how he was a resource to her in this moment of need, how they became really a team over the course of time. And also amazing to hear from Matt about his dedication. This is a police detective who's doing homicides and sex offenses and running to scenes. And yet in his spare time, he's investigating cryptocurrency related crimes because he is someone who has the expertise and the talent and the training. And if there's any one takeaway, when you meet someone like Matt, you realize we need many, many more Matt Hogans out there who have the skills, who have the desire, the dedication, and really understand the importance of working with survivors of these types of scams. Like Jackie.

(32:05):

If you love the show, leave a review wherever you're listening to it. Follow us on LinkedIn to subscribe to our newsletter, the Weekly rRoundup to get the latest news on crypto regulation, compliance, and investigations.

TRM Labs (32:20):

TRM Talks is brought to you by TRM Labs, the leading provider of blockchain intelligence and anti-money laundering software. This episode was produced in partnership with Voltage Productions. The music for this show was provided by iKOLIKS.

Ari Redbord (32:37):

Now let's get back to building.