Cell Phones
September 4, 2023 4:32 PM Subscribe
“What did I do,” he began. He took a deep breath. Without visible emotion, he described gaining access to bank accounts belonging to Sidney Kimmel and to the doctor in Alabama, using their funds to buy gold coins, and shipping the coins to Atlanta. “I got possession of it,” he started to say, when one of his attorneys cut him off. “I think that’s enough,” the lawyer said. The judge accepted this, then shook his head. “If you would have taken the ability and knowledge you have and put it towards something that was legal and right—” he said, in Cofield’s direction. “I would be investing my money with him,” one of the lawyers said. from How a Man in Prison Stole Millions from Billionaires [The New Yorker; ungated]
“If you would have taken the ability and knowledge you have and put it towards something that was legal and right—”
Such as reminding us that billionaires and corporations steal trillions from people with next to nothing all the time, over and over, yet never get punished for it, perhaps...?
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:06 PM on September 4, 2023 [32 favorites]
Such as reminding us that billionaires and corporations steal trillions from people with next to nothing all the time, over and over, yet never get punished for it, perhaps...?
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:06 PM on September 4, 2023 [32 favorites]
Cofield’s dad made a lot of sacrifices for his son’s racing interest, and the 14 year old repaid him by stealing. Maybe Cofield could have opted for an education rather than threatening bank tellers with a gun.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:57 PM on September 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 5:57 PM on September 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
I didn’t grow up in a Black family in the American South, but my 14-year-old mind would probably have seen how much my parents sacrificed for me, how hard they worked, and weighed it against the wages one gets for hanging drywall in rural Georgia, and made the same conclusion this guy did.
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:43 PM on September 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:43 PM on September 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
I wasn't born on the Stanford campus and didn't grow up the son of two Stanford law professors or go to MIT, but my 30-year old mind would probably have seen how much privilege my parents had, how hard they worked to benefit me personally and ensure that I had a comfortable life ahead of me no matter what, and then weighed the benefits of merely being a modestly productive son of privilege versus bilking both investors and the public for literally billions of dollars, and made the same conclusion as Sam Bankman-Fried.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 6:51 PM on September 4, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 6:51 PM on September 4, 2023 [11 favorites]
It’s been a few years since I was in banking but I think the bankers mentioned in the first part of that story should be arrested because they were in on it somehow. Anything over $10,000 in cash should trigger lots of paper work and know your customer requirements. The banker are supposed to know where you got the cash, know it was legally obtained and not part of a money laundering scheme.
posted by interogative mood at 7:23 PM on September 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 7:23 PM on September 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
Not if you're not putting it in the bank. I'm not sure if they ever expanded it, but the feds were doing a trial run in Miami of a regulation that required real estate buyers to show the source of funds. Until then, there was no such requirement. Show up to a closing with bags of cash? No problem. No problem for the seller, who was presumably the bank's actual customer, since the source of the massive amount of cash they were depositing was the very well documented just completed sale of real estate.
Besides, the law is that banks and certain other financial institutions have to file a CTR for any transaction (or group of transactions) involving $10,000 or more in cash. It has not yet been made illegal to make large transactions in cash or to carry around duffel bags full of cash. Probably not bright (unless you are involved in criminal activity and want to avoid a money laundering charge) given how often the cops steal cash from people, but still not illegal.
posted by wierdo at 8:12 PM on September 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Besides, the law is that banks and certain other financial institutions have to file a CTR for any transaction (or group of transactions) involving $10,000 or more in cash. It has not yet been made illegal to make large transactions in cash or to carry around duffel bags full of cash. Probably not bright (unless you are involved in criminal activity and want to avoid a money laundering charge) given how often the cops steal cash from people, but still not illegal.
posted by wierdo at 8:12 PM on September 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's a little hard to feel sorry for the 'victims' here, to be honest. Sure, what he did was illegal and I'm not condoning it, but the closest thing to a victimless crime I can think of is stealing money from billionaires. Especially when it's aided and abetted by banks so blinded by having their nose so far up the arsehole of every rich person that they can't see anything but cheeks.
posted by dg at 9:49 PM on September 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by dg at 9:49 PM on September 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
Obviously the worst thing he did was order a hit that permanently paralyzed a guy whose only wrongdoing (going only by this article, so maybe there's more to it) seems to have been having a crush/tryst on/with the wrong lady.
Beyond that, he definitely picked the right targets. People so damn rich that they only even found about it - if they found out at all, and not just their lawyers being alerted, who have no reason to alert the client(s) in question since the money was apparently returned - via the banks inadvertently aiding and abetting the crimes, or the Secret Service reaching out to say "hey, btw, you've been ever so lightly robbed".
The amounts stolen from the targets in question would be like you finding out years after the fact that your nephew swiped a $10 bill from your wallet. Maybe you went "huh. I swore I had a $10 bill in here. Oh well..." but it doesn't appear any of the affected folks even knew about it without someone else telling them.
If he can pull this off from within prison, I have to imagine there's far more enterprising folks out there in the free world with better knowledge of security, encryption, VPNs, and hiding their tracks who are (and have been) doing the same thing completely undetected. With AI voice tools out there, you wouldn't even need to fake a voice.
*ahem* not that I'm saying anyone should do this, just... y'know, seems not impossible to pull off in a more optimized way.
posted by revmitcz at 10:22 PM on September 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
Beyond that, he definitely picked the right targets. People so damn rich that they only even found about it - if they found out at all, and not just their lawyers being alerted, who have no reason to alert the client(s) in question since the money was apparently returned - via the banks inadvertently aiding and abetting the crimes, or the Secret Service reaching out to say "hey, btw, you've been ever so lightly robbed".
The amounts stolen from the targets in question would be like you finding out years after the fact that your nephew swiped a $10 bill from your wallet. Maybe you went "huh. I swore I had a $10 bill in here. Oh well..." but it doesn't appear any of the affected folks even knew about it without someone else telling them.
If he can pull this off from within prison, I have to imagine there's far more enterprising folks out there in the free world with better knowledge of security, encryption, VPNs, and hiding their tracks who are (and have been) doing the same thing completely undetected. With AI voice tools out there, you wouldn't even need to fake a voice.
*ahem* not that I'm saying anyone should do this, just... y'know, seems not impossible to pull off in a more optimized way.
posted by revmitcz at 10:22 PM on September 4, 2023 [8 favorites]
There doesn't seem to be any evidence from the story that the rich guys whose accounts were targeted ever lost an unreimbursed penny.
posted by kickingtheground at 10:34 PM on September 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by kickingtheground at 10:34 PM on September 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
The ways they're getting into the ultra-wealthy bank accounts is the way they're getting into not-so-wealthy bank accounts.
Last year, someone authorized with a fax and a faked signature a wire transfer of 25k from my mother's credit union account to an account at another bank in another state. She was eventually reimbursed, but was never told how this happened. I noticed an altered email address in her online bank account, but no other unauthorized or otherwise suspicious activity. She also has a false memory (proven false by video) of an interaction that didn't happen at her new bank here where she'd just moved . . . which I'm 98% certain got into her head somehow while she was talking with the credit union person the day this came to light. She's in the early stages of dementia, so that's part of what's going on.
Anyway, given that there was and subsequently
hasn't been any other kind of identity theft activity on anything else, I feel pretty certain that someone at her (old) credit union was involved and that's why they never offered an explanation for what happened. I asked Mom several times if, during her conversations with the person at the credit union, there'd been any security questions and how she was contacted and how she was told to call back and the like, and I wasn't reassured. Worrying about this kind of thing as a child of an elderly parent is absolutely nerve-wracking because it runs right up against those competency issues balanced against preserving agency and the conflict and emotion that's involved is very, very difficult.
Like in this story, it may be surprisingly possible to get bank personnel to do things over the phone that they shouldn't do without more proof than the basic info (ss#, maiden name, etc) that is unfortunately floating around out there for sale in gigabyte text files on the dark web.
Other than the sad fact of a sixteen year-old kid sentenced to fourteen years in prison — which virtually guaranteed he'd never rehabilitate — none of the rest of this story looks to me to be more than typical fraud. The only thing that makes it noteworthy is that it was basically a few people doing it in a flashy way to their (and their confederates) personal enrichment and not as part of a larger criminal enterprise run by prison gangs, which I guarantee move around similar amounts of money.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:00 AM on September 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Last year, someone authorized with a fax and a faked signature a wire transfer of 25k from my mother's credit union account to an account at another bank in another state. She was eventually reimbursed, but was never told how this happened. I noticed an altered email address in her online bank account, but no other unauthorized or otherwise suspicious activity. She also has a false memory (proven false by video) of an interaction that didn't happen at her new bank here where she'd just moved . . . which I'm 98% certain got into her head somehow while she was talking with the credit union person the day this came to light. She's in the early stages of dementia, so that's part of what's going on.
Anyway, given that there was and subsequently
hasn't been any other kind of identity theft activity on anything else, I feel pretty certain that someone at her (old) credit union was involved and that's why they never offered an explanation for what happened. I asked Mom several times if, during her conversations with the person at the credit union, there'd been any security questions and how she was contacted and how she was told to call back and the like, and I wasn't reassured. Worrying about this kind of thing as a child of an elderly parent is absolutely nerve-wracking because it runs right up against those competency issues balanced against preserving agency and the conflict and emotion that's involved is very, very difficult.
Like in this story, it may be surprisingly possible to get bank personnel to do things over the phone that they shouldn't do without more proof than the basic info (ss#, maiden name, etc) that is unfortunately floating around out there for sale in gigabyte text files on the dark web.
Other than the sad fact of a sixteen year-old kid sentenced to fourteen years in prison — which virtually guaranteed he'd never rehabilitate — none of the rest of this story looks to me to be more than typical fraud. The only thing that makes it noteworthy is that it was basically a few people doing it in a flashy way to their (and their confederates) personal enrichment and not as part of a larger criminal enterprise run by prison gangs, which I guarantee move around similar amounts of money.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:00 AM on September 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Aside from ordering a hit, I don’t see what this guy did wrong.
posted by slogger at 9:15 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by slogger at 9:15 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by Jon_Evil at 5:03 PM on September 4, 2023 [40 favorites]