Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man - $55 Million in Bank Fraud | Lex Fridman Podcast #409

She found like, $40,000 in cash in my freezer one night. So she's like, "What is going on?" You know? And I, so we have this conversation and I tell her, "Look, people are looking for me." "Who?" "Law enforcement." "Which ones?" "All of them." You know, and she's like, "That doesn't even, what, for what?" I go, "Mostly bank fraud." And she's like, "Well how are they not finding you? I mean everybody, you know, people know you, like, you know, your general contractor," which I met four months before, this guy six months before, this one two months before." You know? She's like, "So-and-so, so-and-so, so..." And I'm like, "Right, right, well," I said, "Well..." She's like, "I mean, they've got your name, they've got your..." I go, "Well, that's identity theft." And she was like, "W- what do you mean?" I said, "Well my name's not, you know, my name's not, it's not Joseph Carter." "And wha- what is your name? What is your name?" I go, "Look, you know, it's, it's, you don't need, don't even worry about it."

The following is a conversation with Matthew Cox, a con man recently released from federal prison where he served 13 years for bank fraud, mortgage fraud, identity theft, passport fraud and other charges. He has admitted guilt to all of it. He has written true crime stories of many of his fellow prisoners and now he continues this work by interviewing criminals about their crimes on his YouTube channel that I recommend called Inside True Crime. Exploring the mind of a criminal is exploring human nature at the extremes, often in its most raw and illuminating form, and that is something I definitely want to do with this podcast, to understand the human mind and everything it is capable of. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Matthew Cox. What was the first crime you committed?

The first mortgage I ever did.

A mortgage is me borrowing money from a bank to buy a house.

Yeah.

How can you find a way to commit crime in this? How can you do fraud in this space?

It's, it's very difficult for the average guy to commit fraud.

Mm-hmm.

Because there's so many safeguards set up. Um, you know, if you were to go in and say, "Um, I make $300,000 a year," okay well we want your W-2s, we want your pay stubs, we're gonna call your employer, we're gonna check to make sure your employer, how long they've been incorporated, we're gonna check to make sure they're registered, we're gonna... It's like, ugh, your whole plan fell apart. You know? Because the average guy can't do that. He can't even come up with a, with the pay stub and W-2. So the average person, you know, or I'm gonna put down this much money, but you're gonna borrow that money from the seller, you know? Okay, well then they start asking for bank statements, where did the money come from, how long has it been in your bank? Like you can't even have it put in your bank for a day, get a letter, you know, it's gotta have been there for 90 days or 60 days depending on the bank. And, and so there's all these ways, for the average person it's very difficult to commit fraud. The average guy that works at Walmart and makes $60,000 a year and he's been there for five years and he's saved his deposit, like, it's very, that's really the guy that those transactions are set up for. To borrow a mortgage from Bank of America, that's the guy they're looking for.