Fraud Friday: The 90’s Bank Bamboozlers w/ Jojo T. Gibbs

Laci welcomes Jojo T. Gibbs (Fresh, Twenties) for the 100th episode of Scam Goddess, and they discuss one of the biggest bank fraud schemes in history. Plus, someone posing as actor Colin Firth scams three Italian women out of thousands of pounds. Stay Schemin’! (Originally Released 08/23/2021) CONgregation, catch Laci's TV Show, Scam Goddess, now on Freeform and Hulu! Did you miss out on a custom signed Scam Goddess: Lessons from a Life of Cons, Grifts and Schemes book? Look no more, nab your copy here on PODSWAG Follow on Instagram: Scam Goddess Pod: @scamgoddesspod Laci Mosley: @divalaci Jojo T Gibbs: @jojotgibbs Research by Kaelyn Brandt SOURCES: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/john-ruffo-elusive-nyc-swindler-still-run-after-20-years-n934741 https://www.wkbn.com/news/national-world/us-marshals-asking-for-help-in-cracking-most-wanted-cold-case/ https://www.the-sun.com/news/3312321/con-artist-colin-firth/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  My name is Jessa. One of the things I love the most about working for United Healthcare is that everybody matters. Every moment matters. There's a person behind every problem. I care because it's what I was put on this earth to do.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I'm Ben, and I work at United Healthcare. I am just one piece of a larger puzzle, but every piece matters. It's more than just work. We want to make the healthcare system better for everyone. I care because I want to make a difference. That's what committed to care means to me.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  She'd throw things, wander, and started hoarding. Mom's Alzheimer's was already so hard, but then we found out she had agitation that may happen with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. And that was a different kind of difficult. So we asked her doctor for more help.

• 1:19Speaker 00

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• 1:54Speaker 03

  I'm glad I asked for help.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Ask your loved one's doctor about Rexulti.

• 2:00Laci Mosley?

  What's poppin', congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. Welcome to an episode of Fraud Fridays, where we release older episodes from the Scam Goddess vault. That's right, Fraud Fridays is where we bring back your favorite episodes from behind the paywall. Enjoy this episode from behind the paywall, and as always, stay schemin'.

• 2:42Laci Mosley?

  What's poppin', congregation? I hope y'all are wearing all white, because you know, today is a church holiday. It's a high holiday, if you will. You know, we have a pastor's anniversary that comes around once a year. But this is a special anniversary. This is 100 episodes of Scam Goddess. That's right, 100 episodes of scams, cons, robbery, and fraud. I know this sounds like an ad. It's not an ad. This is actually the introduction to the podcast. Guys, it's me, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. And yes, I'm still raspy as hell, so I guess enjoy that if that's what you're into. Please stop tweeting it at me, though. Guys, I'm always what? I'm always very, yes, very excited.

• 3:27Laci Mosley?

  But today, I'm very particularly excited, because this is a very good friend of mine. This is the homie. She's got a second season of her hilarious, amazing show coming out on BET 20s. Guys, give it up for JoJo Gibbs. Like, give it up in your car. Give it up for the 100th episode. Yes.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Go, Lacey. Go, Scam Goddess.

• 3:50Laci Mosley?

  I can't even do a Jamaican earworm, because I told you, like, I lost my voice. It's coming back, though.

• 3:58Laci Mosley?

  JoJo, how are you?

• 3:59Speaker 01

  I'm amazing. How are you?

• 4:01Laci Mosley?

  I'm good. I'm good. Wait, so you've been on this podcast before?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  I have. I'm sorry. I was shy. I had to hide that countdown, because it was giving me anxiety. I was like, oh, my God, the numbers I just...

• 4:14Laci Mosley?

  Oh, okay, so we record on Zoom, guys, and I keep track of the time. And sometimes I let it go and, you know, mess up all the segments. You guys know. But for the most part, I do try to keep it organized for you guys. But yeah, I guess if you had to look at that...

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Well, it was the big screen in my Zoom uh view. So it was just like you and me were small and big numbers.

• 4:38Laci Mosley?

  Okay, one day we're gonna talk about minimizing. We're gonna go through a whole thing.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, I did it. I did it. I I figured it out.

• 4:45Laci Mosley?

  Oh, my God. So wait, how has your relationship been since since you first came on the ep- the podcast with scams? Like, how you?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Ooh, scams, man. I feel every day, every day in my life, I feel like it's it's a scam. I'm just like, this is it, man. I love it. Like, God is good.

• 5:03Laci Mosley?

  You feel like you're running the scam, so you're like, oh, this is this, okay.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Right, right. I was just like.

• 5:09Laci Mosley?

  This is what fraud is about?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  They didn't say, they said work was gonna be rough. And, you know, times it is, but I I really love what I do, and I think that's the biggest blessing, you know. Uh, I I earned this scam. This ain't a, this wasn't an easy scam.

• 5:25Laci Mosley?

  Right. Let's get into it with JoJo. What's hot in fraud? This is where we warn our listeners about scams that are popping in the zeitgeist. And more often than not, we'll get a letter from one of you guys. So as always, snitch on your friends and family at [email protected]. Just make sure that your scam is retired, so we don't fuck. Yeah, fuck up your bag, all right? Yes. JoJo, I need a fake name for this person today.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Um, this person's name is, um, Willa Jean.

• 5:55Laci Mosley?

  Willa Jean, wow. Willa Jean?

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yes, Willa Jean.

• 6:02Laci Mosley?

  Says Lacey, long time listener, first time mailing. But I've had a really shit day, and I'm listening to your podcast to cheer me up, and it's working. So I'mma tell you a story about a scam my sister and I ran in high school. So my sister worked as a forerunner because she had a cosmetology license, and it paid better than most places, but not really enough, hence the scam. She got some sort of discount, I think 10% something, but not a lot. Oh, okay, so basically, if you're gonna put some stuff out of order, Willa Jean, like.

• 6:35Laci Mosley?

  To read that. So basically what she's saying, Willa Jean is saying is that her sister gets ten percent off of products that have been opened and returned by customers.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Okay, that ain't enough.

• 6:50Laci Mosley?

  Right, I'm like, it should just be free.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  I mean, no, because then you people will be opening stuff all the time.

• 6:58Laci Mosley?

  Wow, you can't, wow, okay.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  I'm a CEO, okay. I'll trust nobody.

• 7:08Laci Mosley?

  Said nah, nah, nah, cuz then they all gonna start opening them up themselves.

• 7:13Laci Mosley?

  I feel like this should get better to ten, I feel like at least fifty.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Fifty, yeah, fifty at least.

• 7:18Laci Mosley?

  Cuz I am taking a significant risk, like you come back in with some eyeliner, you know, I gotta put that on my eye, what should, I don't know.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Personal choice that you making for yourself.

• 7:31Laci Mosley?

  Y'all don't wanna work for JoJo.

• 7:36Laci Mosley?

  JoJo, we need a lunch break, she's like, what are you talking about, you ate yesterday.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  No, I definitely think everybody should get an hour cuz you need to decompress.

• 7:46Laci Mosley?

  Right, oh my gosh, so um, they would like get to see the products that had bought, been bought, been opened, maybe tried and returned. So the store couldn't sell them again, duh, so this is how they minimize the loss. Still not a great discount though, but for products that we really needed, I would go and buy the product when my sister wasn't working. Then I would open the product and return it when my sister was working so that she could then buy it with her discount. Fuck Sephora and their jacked up prices, also my sister was able to give away unlimited trial products. So ask for those every time you go in and say you aren't sure how it'll react to your skin.

• 8:26Laci Mosley?

  And then get a bit of the product for free. Okay.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Girl, we all know about getting samples, honey.

• 8:32Laci Mosley?

  We do. But hey, listen, you know, sometimes like people don't know like behind the counter, like if you're just like, what samples do y'all have? They'll have extra samples, so not even the ones that you can buy with your points. Can you tell I go to Sephora way too much? I think I just made that very clear.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Sephora is a, you know, um, my, my, my partner, she goes there quite a lot too. She got a lot of points as well, so.

• 8:54Laci Mosley?

  Yes, we love a point. Also, when you get points, it's Sephora, pretty sure it's for like spending one dollar a point. So then when you start to rake the points up and then you see the points, you be like, wait a minute. There's, is that thousands of points or thousands of dollars?

• 9:10Laci Mosley?

  Y'all do no bonus points or can I get double coupons? Okay, no.

• 9:16Laci Mosley?

  This is a pretty harmless scam in my opinion.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Listen, first of all, she just proved my point, okay? She said they will intentionally buy items, open it, and then take them back. And then tell her sister to get it.

• 9:31Laci Mosley?

  Okay, but you, okay, but you have to account for a certain amount of loss in large businesses anyway. So they was buying them, or they were like buying them, opening them, and then returning them. Like, that's a whole, like, you could do that even if you didn't work there.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  But you ain't gonna get the ten percent off, they just gonna have a lot. You don't wanna encourage that type of behavior.

• 9:55Laci Mosley?

  Okay, Dr. Evil. I love this for them. Sephora don't pay that well.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  I love it for them. Yeah, no, ten percent ain't even a lot. Like, that's the, that's the least they could do. You know, like, really, it should be like twenty-five at minimum. You know, I feel like they should, Sephora should at least give their employ- first of all, what is their discount? Do they not get a discount off rip?

• 10:19Laci Mosley?

  So the employees do get a discount, so I think this is an extra ten percent maybe off the discount. Maybe that's making it a little more cute.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  See, see, now you looking at things different, ain't you?

• 10:32Laci Mosley?

  Man, don't you, when did you become a bootlicker? Cause I don't know when you became, now you, now you full CEO.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yes, I am.

• 10:41Laci Mosley?

  Next you gonna tell me you fiscally conservative, wow.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  I am, I am.

• 10:48Laci Mosley?

  What a transformation. Scum.

• 10:52Speaker 05

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• 11:22Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ushkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 11:37Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 11:48Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 11:53Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 11:59Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 12:19Laci Mosley?

  Cuz. And we're back with my favorite segment of this show, Historic Hoodwings. This is where I will regale JoJo with a famous crime caper, maybe group of criminals. We don't know yet, and maybe we like them, maybe we don't, we'll see. So 23 years ago, two men pulled off one of the biggest bank fraud schemes in history, all without a computer. Through know-how and little to no oversight from accountants or executives, John Ruffo and Edward Reiner were able to scam $350 million in loans from banks. Today, one of those men still holds a place on the top 15 most wanted list. We love to hear that.

• 12:59Laci Mosley?

  So in 1993, John Ruffo was running a small company in midtown Manhattan that sold and serviced IBM computers. Wait, is this what this guy looks like?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Oh, let me see.

• 13:10Laci Mosley?

  He's got, his, it's given seventies, it's given cocaine, but it's nineteen ninety-three.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  He looks like this actor I've seen before. He almost looks like he could be an actor. I don't know, I don't know, but.

• 13:26Laci Mosley?

  Which I think with scammers, like, that works out pretty well if you look like, but also, like, I don't know, he has a very specific face.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  It's the tinted glasses for me.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  That's what I love.

• 13:38Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, his wife is a baddie, though, so he must have been making coin because his wife is way out of his league.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Way out of his, oh, he was definitely making coin.

• 13:46Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, that's the kind of wife you get when you got health insurance. So, this is in nineteen ninety-three, even though it looks like it's like in the seventies. Linda Ruffo's wife described him as the kind of person who would give a job opportunity to the most undesirable person because they really needed a job. He would really give money out of his pocket to someone on the street who needed it. So, I mean, that's very kind. Linda, are you trying to also tell us he's a sucker? Cause I don't know, it didn't sound like, you know, when people are like, this person's very benevolent and generous. Like, they'll say, like, they'll help anybody. The way she described it was, he would give any vagabond, he'd give any, like,

• 14:27Laci Mosley?

  despicable person a chance. Like, the way she described it doesn't make it sound like he's like a bleeding heart. It makes him sound like, I don't know.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  I don't know, he just wants to say he's doing something. I don't know.

• 14:40Laci Mosley?

  Well, she said the most undesirable person, so in my eyes, that doesn't necessarily mean, like, the worst job candidate. Like, it kind of feels like she's saying, like, shady person.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I got from it. So maybe, was he one of those people that's like, I'm gonna choose people like me?

• 15:00Laci Mosley?

  Right. Like, maybe she knew he was involved in crime. She was like, everyone he always hired was sweaty as fuck.

• 15:07Laci Mosley?

  They were all constantly looking from side to side. As if somebody was going. She's saying it like he is hanging out with some shady people, at least that's how it sounds to me. So, all the time Edward Reiner was recently laid off as an executive from Philip Morris, a tobacco and cigarette manufacturing company that sells products such as Marlboro. Reiner and Ruffo had previously worked together on jobs obtaining computers for the tobacco giants. So they would get IBM computers for the cigarette man and that's how they became friends, these two dudes. Where Ruffo was subtle and relatively modest in demeanor, Reiner was flashy and boisterous and known for his red Jaguar. He'd drive around town.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 15:51Laci Mosley?

  Okay, so.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  He can help himself.

• 15:52Laci Mosley?

  Could help himself. That's like if you go rob a bank and then immediately you, you go right to the Lamborghini, uh.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  It's dumb. It's dumb. That's, that's where, uh, that what they said and set it off, right? Like, hey, lay low. You know, that's the, that's where you go wrong every time.

• 16:10Laci Mosley?

  But if you got, okay, I don't know, if you're gonna get the money, you can't floss a little bit? I gotta wear New Balances and dad jeans for the rest of my life and just know that I'm rich inside?

• 16:20Speaker 01

  See, Lacy, that's why I could never, ever do a crime with you. Because you, you would be the weakest link. You would be the weakest link.

• 16:27Laci Mosley?

  That's not true.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  And then they would send us to separate prisons and I would sit there and mull over for twenty years how I wish I could whip your ass for going to the Louis Vuitton store and buying up the motherfucking store with cash. This dumb bitch.

• 16:42Laci Mosley?

  I'm buying shit that ain't even my size. Give me the mics too.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Listen, just buy shit. Just ballin' out. I can see you now.

• 16:51Laci Mosley?

  Load it up. I have twelve buy box waiting out like a Sex and the City.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Police across the street taking pictures like, damn. She, I mean, she is poppin'. She got a show she got, but she just dropping dollars.

• 17:02Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, this feels like a little too much. I don't think they giving her that much over there on that garlic. In the crime though, I feel like I would lay low though. Like I would lay low and then maybe I'd go ball out in another country. You know what I mean? Like where they would have to really guess, like.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Well, that's when they, that's when red flags, I think, really go off. I think what you gotta do is have somebody else go buy it.

• 17:26Laci Mosley?

  Hmm.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Different people. I don't know, them people be running their mouths, I don't know. Ah, it's just no.

• 17:33Laci Mosley?

  I love how you just called me the weakest link, but then you said, let's go get if people involved who are not involved in the crime and, and, and, and rope them in, and then we're gonna explain to them. Next thing I know, we gotta do a murder. I ain't never signed up to do a murder. I just wanted to scam.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Listen, you gonna be the brains, I'mma be the bronze, but then you like the flex. You do, you, you like the floss. And I think that you just gonna be.

• 17:59Laci Mosley?

  You don't like the floss as well, just because yours is abs and mine is shoes, like.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  I ain't gonna lie, since I was a kid, I be that motherfucker that had the, had the money piled up in my room. I just wanna look at the money.

• 18:09Laci Mosley?

  You was holding it up to your ear, making money phone calls, hell out.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  I got a picture like that, I'mma send you one.

• 18:15Laci Mosley?

  Oh my god, please.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  But I, it was just for me, it was just for me. I was like, I said, matter of fact, no, I can't send it to you.

• 18:23Laci Mosley?

  This was your self-care.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  On my phone, I'mma just have to show it to you on my phone because I can't never let nothing like that get out into that shit.

• 18:29Laci Mosley?

  And I immediately was thinking about posting it.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  I know, see, that's why you can't trust.

• 18:35Laci Mosley?

  Okay, well, you didn't say, you at that point didn't say it couldn't be for consumption, so, you know, y'all are just gonna have to imagine JoJo withholding the money up to her ear, like, hello?

• 18:44Speaker 01

  You got a picture of me rolling, that's how you gotta do it.

• 18:47Laci Mosley?

  So the initial scheme, uh, together, Ruffo and Rayners had wild investing plans to play the stock market and play like piles of cash. They thought they were gonna make piles of cash on the stock market. Unfortunately, they didn't have a pile of cash to invest with. Yeah, that's a snafu, where you like, oh, we about to go to Wall Street. Okay, so, did you bring the money?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:10Laci Mosley?

  Oh nah, I thought you brought the money. Oh, okay, wow, wow. That's cra- like, if somebody says that's crazy, I pack up my shit because I already know they have nothing else to offer me. That's crazy? All right then, I'll get, wear the coats.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Crazy, that's wild.

• 19:28Laci Mosley?

  Also, we didn't need some money to get investments going. Okay, cool.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  So what did they do? Okay, here it comes.

• 19:32Laci Mosley?

  So to get their money to find the investments, the men decided to target banks and convince them to give them large loans. Their solution was this: they would tell all the banks that they were leading an international research program on tobacco alternatives for Philip Morris. The project would require the purchase of hundreds of computers, the hiring of staff, five offshore locations, blah, blah, blah. It was just enough, a bend of the truth and lies, combining both their backgrounds and resources that at face value, no one would question it. As long as the banks did not contact Philip Morris directly. So, this is the nineties, right? So this is like when the computers were still like ghosts, right? Like, it was like, it was green in there.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  They were slow. They were moving slow.

• 20:14Laci Mosley?

  It was like one one zero, one one zero, but you could see it on the screen.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes, I know.

• 20:21Laci Mosley?

  So at this time, like, information moved so much slower. Um, you know, like, communication is, and that was like advantageous to the scam, because they're talking about like, "Oh, we work with Philip Morris," and like, "Oh, you know, we gotta, we do the hiring and the firing and the computer supplying."

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:37Laci Mosley?

  So, "We gonna need this loan and don't ask no questions." And like, by the time you ask questions, they could have already walked out of the bank with the cash.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Right, they go. But, but the thing is, it's just, I don't, I guess it is the nineties, but I consider like, you going through so many like, paper trails, you know what I'm saying? Like...

• 20:55Laci Mosley?

  Right. But at the same time, paper trails were literally paper.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  True, true, because the computers, so by the time they catch up...

• 21:05Laci Mosley?

  Because the cloud is forever. Like, you gotta go and, and look through the file cabinet and, and, you know, go to slot M and then open it up and then look through everybody else before you get to like...

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Before you figure, before you put it all together. Hey, they were smart. They were smart. But the problem was, they should have just took the money and ran, rather than...

• 21:24Laci Mosley?

  Well, we'll see. We don't know if they did or not.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  My bad. It's, it's more to the story.

• 21:32Laci Mosley?

  Okay, so their men's first target was Signet Bank. During their pitch, Rayner required the bank to sign a confidentiality agreement that barred them from discussing the project with anyone else, including people at Philip Morris. So, they were like, okay, before we tell y'all that we work at Philip Morris,

• 21:52Laci Mosley?

  y'all have to sign this confidentiality agreement because the business that we starting up is super confidential.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 21:58Laci Mosley?

  So confidential that you can't ask no questions to the business that's associated with it.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Wow. You know what kind of confidence you gotta pull up on them with to tell them?

• 22:09Laci Mosley?

  Right. Also, like, none of this is ever ironclad. Like, I talked to my lawyer once about confidentiality agreements and NDAs, and she was like, uh, the best way to keep a secret is to not tell anyone.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Truly, because people don't read that stuff.

• 22:25Laci Mosley?

  Also, like, people don't abide by it. It's not like ironclad. Like, everybody thinks, like, once you sign that, that, like, now it's against the law for you to talk about things, but it's not.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 22:35Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, it's more of like, I mean, y'all didn't hear this from me, but apparently there's ways around it.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  It's just like a scare tactic, basically.

• 22:44Laci Mosley?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  More or less.

• 22:47Laci Mosley?

  So, hey.

• 22:50Laci Mosley?

  So, they did all this, they told y'all, y'all can't tell nobody, nobody. We out here to pitch. Okay, cool, cool, cool. So, Signet knew Rayner's from his previous work with them, and they had no idea that he no longer worked with the company, which helped minimize suspicion. So, this guy used to come in all the time. They don't know he got fired on his day off. So, they're like, oh, Rayner, like, yes, oh, more coins? Sure.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:12Laci Mosley?

  We know you, Mr. White Man. This is some only white man material. Like, if this was a black president in the 90s, they would be checking your ID every day. Even if you came in every day, they'd be like, alright Pamela, let's see some identification.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Truly, truly. Like, the outlandishness of this story. Like, this is only, this is beyond my realm.

• 23:32Laci Mosley?

  Just as I said, I am out of my depth in this one. I am too.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Maybe one day. I don't know.

• 23:41Laci Mosley?

  The way you said that, why you had to look up like orphan Annie? Maybe one day.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Maybe one day, I could, nah, but nah, with the progression in technology, I doubt anybody can pull this type of thing off again. But, yes, this is definitely in the nineties, this is a very Caucasian man.

• 23:59Laci Mosley?

  So, Signet knew Rayners, right, from the previous situation, so this is where we are. Still, there was one last pitch, like, there was one last thing that they had to do to get this bank to give them this money. So, Signet required a certificate authorizing Rayners to conduct business on the company's behalf. They required the document to have a company seal, an executive signature, the works. But like, okay, it's the nineties, you just asked me for a piece of paper.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:25Laci Mosley?

  Like, I can go get a piece of paper for you.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Um, but it was the nineties, it might have been more difficult to find somebody to print that stuff, you know what I'm saying?

• 24:35Laci Mosley?

  My mama had a rubber stamp with her signature, and I would wipe the corners off and stamp all my detentions with it.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Hilarious. You, you been scamming since elementary?

• 24:48Laci Mosley?

  Listen, okay, I was constantly tardy, as we, as we discussed earlier, so I would get detentions for being late. They were like, Lacey, how are you late to all your classes? You're inside the same building. I was like, you know, I be making my rounds.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Taking your time. It's okay, though, it's okay.

• 25:06Laci Mosley?

  Truly. So, now they gotta figure out how they gonna get this stamp and this piece of paper, right? Cool. So, they were able to find a place where they could forge a seal with little question, but ran into difficulty obtaining the sign-off from a Philip Morris executive. They found their, their solution when during a cab ride uptown, they were listening to the radio station, and they announced a prize for, for like, a certain number caller. Having found the means, they picked their target and assassin, I'm sorry, assistant.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Oh, it was

• 25:35Laci Mosley?

  I can't read. I can't read. So, uh, having found the means, they picked their target, an assistant corporate secretary named Diana McAdams, who was a little known enough not to like set off too many alarms. So they found somebody working at somebody's desk, getting coffee and stuff, and they said, her. So the man, the men posed as employees of the radio station, offering the prize, dinner at an expensive Manhattan restaurant called McAdams. Under the premise that she won, in order to claim the prize, she needed to sign the release and send it back to them. Wow. So basically, they were like, hey sis, bing bing, it's us from the radio. Uh, what, what station you at? Um, W, W S C A M. Yeah. So, um,

• 26:21Laci Mosley?

  you won a prize. All you need to do is send us your signature and then we gonna send you the prize. And so, this is how they obtained a signature.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Wow. They was like, who is not the prize?

• 26:36Laci Mosley?

  It's like, why, why do you need to sign something? They can't just mail you the gift card? Why you gotta sign something?

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Girl, making that, eh, well, hey, it worked. Hey, sometimes, that's why it's just like, sometimes you just need to throw spaghetti up there and see what stick, you know, see, cause she did it. She was like, I want that prize.

• 26:55Laci Mosley?

  I mean, she did. She sold out her company for the prize with haste. She was like, yo, yeah, absolutely. But the thing that's funny to me is that like this worked. Like, it's kind of like that Trojan horse thing of like, they probably did. I wonder if they mailed her an actual gift card, or did they just take her signature and leave her high and dry?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  I doubt they went the extra step to mail the gift card. Cause then that's just, nah, we, we good. Now we can keep it pushing.

• 27:21Laci Mosley?

  I feel like I would have mailed the gift card, cause you never know. People be petty. You don't mail the gift card, maybe she gonna start looking into y'all. I don't know.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Oh, true.

• 27:29Laci Mosley?

  People be real petty. So McAdams bought it and with that Ruffel and Rainier, I'm sorry, Ruffel and Rainers had everything they needed to force the like the certificate for the bank. And sign assumed that the signature was an executive signature, which is crazy to me because then it's like, why did y'all just sign it yourself as somebody else? Like, I guess. So it's, I guess that's risky too, though, because like if you don't sign it correctly, then it's all over real quick. And if they work with those people a lot, then they might know.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  They got a lot of money.

• 27:57Laci Mosley?

  And back in the nineties, I feel like everybody thought that they were like a, a, a calligrapher and a handwriting analyst.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Everybody could do it.

• 28:07Laci Mosley?

  Because signatures were really all we had. We didn't have like thumb prints. You didn't, you couldn't like pull down your pants and show, uh, you know, Facebook your booty hole and then get access to your contacts.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Right. That's true. That's true though.

• 28:20Laci Mosley?

  Relatively new. So I guess back then everybody was like, this doesn't curve like it did in this one.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Damn, Lacey, you won't even realize you just exposed a conspiracy that I've been considering for a while. And that's that. The, the, the world is trying to transition us into like being able to keep track of our fingerprints and like, because think about it. How, they don't even teach kids cursive no more. And a lot of times we don't even sign stuff and then we do a lot of e-sign and stuff. Like they'll suggest your signature to you. Like if you sign a contract now, they'd be like, do you like this?

• 28:57Laci Mosley?

  Is this one cute? How about these initials?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  What about this one? Yeah.

• 29:02Laci Mosley?

  We had it saved. Oh yeah, Daki-san had all my signatures now. They're like, and which ones would you like this evening, Lacey?

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Nah, nah, fuck Daki-san. I'm sorry. Let me tell you how I want my signature to look. You ain't finna volunteer my signature to me.

• 29:15Laci Mosley?

  But now you can't switch it up. I went to Make Up America and I guess I had put a little flair on my signature in years past. Um, and they were like, who is this? They were like, they made me keep writing my signature over and over again. And then eventually I had to just reinstate a new signature.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. You couldn't copy? What was going on with you?

• 29:35Laci Mosley?

  That was good, look, I am not an artist, okay? There's certain things about it that are the same, but they were getting nitpicky.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  You didn't remember that time in your life? Oh, okay.

• 29:45Laci Mosley?

  So it was like something they'd be like, oh, the Y is too wide, like.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Oh, no, they were doing too much.

• 29:51Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, I think they were trying to play with me now that I think about it. Maybe that was a scam. Cause I was like, why am I in here signing? Like, I feel like I'm in fifth, like, in, uh, elementary school, sitting here on the bubbles, trying to make the bubbles work. But no, JoJo, you're right. We are a society moving towards more stealth, like, well, I guess more secure technology, but also technology that requires us to give up more of our information. However, like, when people are like, it's always the people to be who are like the least interesting, who are worried about putting like foil on their heads and shit. I'm like, what does the government need from you, Tanya?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Right, ah, ah, that's my mama name, ah, ah.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  That's my mama name.

• 30:32Laci Mosley?

  I wasn't thinking of.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Pick another name.

• 30:39Laci Mosley?

  I really cannot, I can't do it. I can't, okay, okay. Another hypothetical name for a tangent. Bye, JoJo, don't be like, killing me today. So, alright. As soon as Signet received the certificate, twenty-five million was wired to Ruffo's bank account, all without the bank contacting anyone to verify their story. This is likely due to the sheer amount of money these loans made. The bank, the bankers looked at two percent fee from the loan in addition to interest payments that Ruffo and Brainerd always made sure to pay. So basically, the bank was like, oh, we got the bag. And then, uh, you know, instead of calling, just to make sure that everybody at Philip Morris was like a part of this. They were like, oh, no, no, just run it up.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 31:25Laci Mosley?

  We, we want our interest, we want our two percent commission, we wanna go to steak dinner tonight, and, uh.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Wow, but, uh, they had to really believe in the mission. To get to sign over that type of money, they was like, man, these men must have been selling a real good, good little PowerPoint presentation.

• 31:43Laci Mosley?

  Right, the the power was pointing, okay?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  The power, listen, they sold it.

• 31:48Laci Mosley?

  Right, they must have had a hand clicker, it was probably before their time.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  But they had to be. Cause how do you convince somebody to sign you back in the nineties, thirty two million dollars without?

• 31:59Laci Mosley?

  Well, this is twenty five million and it's gonna get worse. So over the next, over the next three years, Ruffo and Reiners continued to convince seven more foreign and domestic banks to loan them over three hundred and fifty million dollars. Reiner said in the NBC News interview in nineteen ninety nine, I had a harder time getting a home mortgage than I had getting these loans. Reiner threw his money, as planned, into stocks as well as a Trump Tower penthouse apartment. Ugh, ugh, how's that working out for you?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 32:32Laci Mosley?

  No, that investment ain't paying off.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 32:36Laci Mosley?

  Ruffo, on the other hand, stayed in the same two-story attached house in Queens he moved into with his wife Linda over a decade before. So he kept it low key, so we say, you said that, I would be the flash one, you would stay in the Queens house.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:53Laci Mosley?

  So unbeknownst to even his wife, Ruffo had stashed his millions in offshore accounts. This was likely a wise decision, as in March nineteen ninety six, the scheme began to fall apart. So he put his money, you know, in the Caymans, he put it, you know, in the Swedish bank accounts.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  He was smart.

• 33:11Laci Mosley?

  So a Japanese banking executive at a long-term credit bank of Japan decided the documents relate, like, related to one of the loan accounts were a little suspicious and worth another look. So now people are like, huh, somebody comes in, does a little audit, they were like, hey, guys, the math ain't mathin'.

• 33:28Laci Mosley?

  Literally, on this one. So the executive faxed a copy of the forged and cumbussy certificate to Ms. McAdams for verification. So remember, Ms. McAdams was the girl who won the Manhattan Dinner from the radio station in exchange for her signature, remember?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 33:47Laci Mosley?

  Okay, so I'm still curious as to if they mailed her the certificate ever.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Right, don't sound like it, cause what she about to do?

• 33:57Laci Mosley?

  Let's see, let's see.

• 34:00Laci Mosley?

  She replied the same day and confirmed that the document was fake. That Rayners no longer worked for Phillip Morris and that she was only a secretary and never would have had the authority to sign such paperwork in the first place.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 34:14Laci Mosley?

  Mmm.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  A woman scorned.

• 34:16Laci Mosley?

  Should've gave her that gift card.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Should've gave him that gift card.

• 34:19Laci Mosley?

  See, that's why you can't leave ends uh uh loose like that, okay? Cause people are petty. People are petty.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  And you know what? You know where I thought this story was gonna go? In the beginning, I thought they was gonna get her in on it. You gotta put somebody in on it. You gotta, you know, y'all being selfish, y'all could've gave her a meal. And she would've been good. She would've been at work, chilling every day.

• 34:41Laci Mosley?

  Right.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  You know?

• 34:42Laci Mosley?

  And if she got that confirmation, we're like, yep. But at the same time, like, you know, let's see. So, they had one of Ruffo's employees, a single mother from New Jersey named Jody Bachman, pose as Mrs. McAdams, though they pitched it to her as another secret project for Phillip Morris. So then a trick this woman into playing a secretary to trick these men, which is a lot.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 35:06Laci Mosley?

  So, this ultimately meant that she could claim lack of culpability as she had no actual knowledge of the wrongdoing. The meeting was a sting. And when Rayner and Ms. Bachman showed up at the Phillip Morris office, Ruffo had the good sense not to go. FBI swooped in and arrested both of them. Oh, okay, so now I'm getting what happened. So, what happened was is Phillip Morris reached out to Ms. McAdams, the secretary. And they said, "Hey sis, is this you? This you? This is your signature? Did you want 25 million?" And she said, "Oh, no, that's not me. I don't know the girl." Um, and then furthermore, we remember that McAdams was the one, right, who didn't get the gift card. I'm pretty sure she didn't get the gift card, so she not gonna be helping.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, she did, mmm.

• 35:47Laci Mosley?

  So, the FBI were immediately called in and the bank contacted Rayner for answers. So now the bank is, this is very white, because if 25 million dollars has been uh removed in a shady manner, I feel like you don't call to people first, like, "Hey, Rayner."

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like.

• 36:06Laci Mosley?

  Ah, this is gonna be crazy. I know it's gonna be crazy. I know, I hate to bother you during dinner.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:10Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, so, uh, yeah, we just got off the phone with the F, the B, and the I, yeah, they're just saying, uh... You know, you know, Eric, I know you. I know you're a good guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just saying of the signature that we have. It's uh from someone who's like not authorized. So you know, I just thought that was crazy because I know like you're always good for it right now. So. Oh, you're going out of the country tomorrow. Oh, well, have a good time. Call me when you get back. What are y'all doing?

• 36:31Speaker 01

  What?

• 36:32Laci Mosley?

  Why y'all just show up to his house?

• 36:34Speaker 01

  And listen, and scene, that was amazing. First of all, I pictured that whole scene happening and that's exactly how it went down. Because guess what? He was given the benefit of the damn doubt, which is crazy. This man.

• 36:49Laci Mosley?

  I just feel like that's too much benefit. That's way too much.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Twenty-five million, man. They just got too much money.

• 36:55Laci Mosley?

  Right. But also I bet you because they have a vested interest too. When you're talking about the two percent interest and and you're also talking about the interest fees, you know, hap- accruing. So like they have a commission, right? The two percent commission and the interest they have accruing. They have a dog in the fight too. So maybe they don't want it to be fake. Maybe they

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:16Laci Mosley?

  want him, you know, to be able to pay.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Damn, especially if, girl, imagine the day you think you had if you go home thinking you secured a twenty-five million dollar investment loan on a great project that was with Phillip and Morris. You know what I'm saying? You probably gonna go have some drinks. You gonna celebrate. So yeah, you call them back. You be like, come on, man, please. Please don't tell me. I know they tripping because I know we talked about it. And you said what you said and I had said what I said and we both agreed that this is a good idea.

• 37:47Laci Mosley?

  I love that mine was very like chip and and Scott and yours was very like in a relationship. You were like, please don't tell me this is true because we talked about this.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Please, come on, man. I know, I know it's them and not you because I know you.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  They like, no, no, no, no. It's just him.

• 38:09Laci Mosley?

  I feel like they're both two sides of the same coin though. Like, I know you'd never do this to me, buddy.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  This was his interview. The voice you used was the voicemail.

• 38:18Laci Mosley?

  Right.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  That's, that's, this is being recorded.

• 38:20Laci Mosley?

  But inside, he's like really getting emotional. He's like, come on.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Come on, man. Come on now, dog. He's off the strip. That you was telling the truth. God damn, I got a, I got a family.

• 38:35Laci Mosley?

  I got a family.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  I got kids, bro.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Please don't tell me that.

• 38:43Laci Mosley?

  Bro, that's why banks shouldn't be doing loans off the strip. Okay, it's like, we gotta do the most to get a damn loan. White man come in and this is like a handshake at a cigar bar.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  This is why we need a rainbow of representation in all levels of management and ownership.

• 39:01Laci Mosley?

  Exactly, exactly. Robbery.

• 39:06Speaker 09

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• 39:36Speaker 06

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• 40:01Speaker 06

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• 40:06Speaker 08

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• 40:12Speaker 06

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• 40:32Laci Mosley?

  So, they are backed into a corner, but Rufo's not stupid. He has a feeling that something is up. So what they do is, they tell one of their employees, a single mother, which like, first of all, how y'all gonna get a single mother who works two jobs and loves her kids and never stops, with a gentle hand and a heart of a fighter, a survivor, how y'all gonna rope her in to y'all's scheme?

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Ruthless.

• 41:01Laci Mosley?

  Ruthless. She got, she gotta take care of them kids. If she get locked up, what's going on? So she's from New Jersey, and her name is Jody Bachman. So they had her posed as Ms. McAdams, remember, the scoring secretary who never got her gift card? Um, though they pitched it to her as another secret project for Philip Morris. So basically, they pitched her, like, hey, you're doing a secret job for us for Philip Morris, but really, they were sending her as a decoy to walk into a FBI sting. And she's a single mom who works too hard and loves her kids and never stops.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 41:34Laci Mosley?

  They ain't right.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, it sucks for anybody. But that's messed up. Where the kids gonna go?

• 41:42Laci Mosley?

  So, what they are saying ultimately was, is that she could claim lack of culpability because she actually had no knowledge of wrongdoing. So they were like, yeah, we sending you into a FBI sting, but you actually don't know what's going on, so it's cool, like, you gonna be good. They gonna arrest you a little bit. They are gonna put your head on the pavement, but...

• 42:03Speaker 01

  It's like, yeah, but first I gotta prove I don't know anything. How do you prove that ain't nothing in my mind?

• 42:09Laci Mosley?

  Well, you gonna spend a few hours, uh, down at the station. They got coffee, they got good cop, they got bad cop.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Man, I'm at, like, first of all, people, people act like it ain't nothing when they inconvenience you. It's like, you inconveniencing my time, bro. I gotta deal with the government, or like, you get hit or something like that, and they like, I got insurance. But yes, you got insurance, but now I gotta deal with your insurance. That's time. That's an investment of my energy.

• 42:37Laci Mosley?

  I love how, how being arrested for, like, basically, like, being trapped is like, uh, a mild inconvenience for you.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know.

• 42:48Laci Mosley?

  Like, you wasting my time. Now I gotta go down to the jailhouse, take photos.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  I feel like, with my wit and charm, I'd be out in 24.

• 42:59Laci Mosley?

  Mike went in charm. Oh lord. So, the meeting was a sting, obviously. And when Rayner and Ms. Bachman showed up at the Philip Morris office, Ruffo had the good sense not to come. The FBI swooped in and arrested both of them. So Rayner kinda lowkey sold out Ruffo because he did tell Ruffo that he thought it was a sting.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:21Laci Mosley?

  Wow. So, Rayner was charged with a number of crimes, including bank fraud and money laundering, and was ultimately sentenced to sixteen years and ten months in prison. Wow, murderers get less time.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Sixteen months and how much?

• 43:33Laci Mosley?

  Sixteen years and ten months.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Oh wow.

• 43:37Laci Mosley?

  When you fuck with white people's money, then they're like, throw the book at them.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  You can't mess with the bank. They like, oh no.

• 43:45Laci Mosley?

  But god forbid, you're just like a police officer who kills someone, you'll get way less time. Like sixteen years?

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Is it stuff like that based off of how much you took too? Like if they had taken less money?

• 43:56Laci Mosley?

  It's like counts and like, so it's like, yeah. So it's not even just how much he's taken, it's also like how many counts of like different crimes? You know what I mean? So there's the fraud.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  And you had to do a lot of crimes.

• 44:10Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, you had to do a lot of crimes to get over three hundred fifty million dollars. So charges against Ms. Bachman were dropped eventually, so they did uh get our girl, our single mom, back to her kids, okay? Now they were probably at home crying on the bedroom floor because they was hungry. But she got back to them. So it took a year to arrest John Ruffo, and when they finally did, March nineteen ninety seven, he was indicted on a hundred sixty counts of bank fraud and money laundering. His bond was set at ten million. Somehow he was able to convince six sets of family members to offer their homes as collateral. Wow.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Six. Man, I need to read this dude's book. He got a book or something? He is just...

• 44:49Laci Mosley?

  You're gonna convince six separate people's families?

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Not only that, but to get to where you are right now. He's had to convince somebody to give him the money, somebody, he had to convince homie to do it with him. Like, it's just, it's so many people, he had the gift of gab. I wanna, I'm gonna have to look this dude up.

• 45:07Laci Mosley?

  He offshored his money too, remember?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  He was smart.

• 45:10Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, like Rayner was putting his money back in the stock market, which is essentially gambling. And Ruffo put his in offshore accounts. And like where it was inaccessible to the US. So like, and remember he didn't move out of his house in Queens and he stayed with his original wife. You know, we love to see it.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, we love to see. I like Ruffo.

• 45:28Laci Mosley?

  So at his sentencing, Ruffo was given seventeen and a half years in prison. As he was put in handcuffs and being led out of the courtroom, Ruffo's lawyer announced the prosecutor agreed to a deal that would allow Ruffo to self-surrender when his sentence started five weeks later. So talk about privilege. He walked out, they said seventeen years. And they said, okay, but it don't start for real, for real.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  For five weeks.

• 45:52Laci Mosley?

  It's in five weeks. So I'mma go home, but don't worry, I'll be back.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  I'll be back. Don't worry about it. What day? What's the day?

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, that's crazy.

• 46:06Laci Mosley?

  Not what's the day? Okay, no. Put it in my calendar. I'mma put it in my calendar. I'mma be back. I'mma be back to do the jail, to do the bid.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got, I got, I got millions offshore, but don't worry about that. Don't worry about that.

• 46:17Laci Mosley?

  Don't worry about none of that. I got six people willing to put their house on the line if I'm five a flight risk, but don't worry about that.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Don't worry about it.

• 46:24Laci Mosley?

  So the judge was incredulous, but upon confirmation with the prosecutor, agreed. And Ruffo was allowed to be a free man till November ninth, nineteen ninety-eight. On one morning, November ninth, Ruffo dropped his wife off at the train station headed into the city. He then stopped at an ATM in Queens and he bought a ticket in cash at JFK International Airport and vanished. He's not been seen since. Damn, that's kind of romantic because he could have vanished like right away. He waited until the last day, dropped his wife off, gave her a strong Christian hug, maybe a kiss with some tongue.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Where his wife though? She went to meet him.

• 47:05Laci Mosley?

  And they disappeared.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  They just couldn't go together. She had to go meet him.

• 47:09Laci Mosley?

  She, she, there's no way they would allow her to like this, because if she disappeared, then I think she would also be like culpable, right? It's like she gotta stay.

• 47:19Laci Mosley?

  So before even returning home that evening, Linda received a call from the FBI and they were screaming at me. She said, where is John Ruffo? She said the blood rushed down my body and my face turned to ice. So she didn't even know when he dropped her off at the train and he was about to be gone, girl.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  But hold up, she didn't know what day he was supposed to go to jail?

• 47:41Laci Mosley?

  She did, uh, maybe she thought, here's my thing, was you, was he just gonna drive to jail on his own?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'm just like, who taking the car home after?

• 47:52Speaker 01

  There's holes in this story, what? Ruffo, Ruffo is, uh, he is about himself though. I wonder what his sign is.

• 48:01Laci Mosley?

  Right.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Probably cancer.

• 48:03Laci Mosley?

  We should figure it out. At home, she found a suicide note that neither she nor the FBI believed. Damn, they didn't believe your suicide note?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Hey, bro, they said, we need teeth, we need a body.

• 48:17Laci Mosley?

  Right, Ruffo was like, I cannot take it no more. Uh, I love you all.

• 48:28Laci Mosley?

  Like, this is just a Marilyn Monroe quote from one of those meme pages. This is not a note.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  That's, this is the, this is the real note.

• 48:36Laci Mosley?

  This is the note, this is what he said. He said, sincerely, definitely for me, I'm definitely dead, but don't look for me cuz I'm, cuz I'm dead somewhere you'll never find.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. So he was a Sagittarius.

• 48:48Laci Mosley?

  Was he really? Okay, that mean he loves to travel, so this was great for him.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 48:53Laci Mosley?

  Running from the law is actually what I said Sagittarius should be doing, so.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. See, he's living his dream.

• 49:00Laci Mosley?

  Yes, so, okay, so nobody believed that he actually died. Uh, after Ruffo vanished, the government went after his family and friends for any information on his whereabouts. The family put up their houses for bond, mo- most of whom were in their seventies and eighties, were forced out of their homes.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Aw, man.

• 49:17Laci Mosley?

  Ruffo's own mother died shortly after, alone in a nursing home.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Aw, man.

• 49:23Laci Mosley?

  Okay, do we think that Ruffo broke these people off with some coin in exchange for their houses as collateral?

• 49:29Speaker 01

  It don't sound like it.

• 49:31Laci Mosley?

  Damn, that's messed up. If he just, he really got six people to like, hold him down and then he left them all homeless. That's See, I don't ever think about the other side of bond. Like, if they don't, if they do decide to run off on you and then you just lose all your money.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Not only do you lose your money, you are now like, you, you're saying I'm accountable for this person. Like, I, I don't know. I don't, I don't think you gotta go do their time or nothing like that. I just think.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't really know what happens, but I know you probably get in trouble because it's kinda like, you're saying I'm their guardian. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know what happens.

• 50:08Laci Mosley?

  Cause I know that they take your collateral, but I don't know if there's anything like penalizing beyond that. But I am like, damn, that's so fucked up. Like, but I guess that also like gives the government that like, there's another incentive for somebody else to be looking for this motherfucker other than us.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

• 50:23Laci Mosley?

  If you want your house back, you better find your friend.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I can't believe he did that. Ruffo is definitely the type of person that acts and thinks only in the moment. And for, and, and, and.

• 50:35Laci Mosley?

  So, I mean, you know, they're both, they're both a little shady. Helen Fahey, the former US Attorney General, we're getting to the end of this. Uh, for the Eastern District of Virginia, which was prosecuting the case, said he did this huge, huge fraud with this wild, wild scheme. Why all kinds of people didn't pick up on it? You gotta be kidding me. Where are the accountants? Where was literally anyone with a brain?

• 50:59Laci Mosley?

  Where were you, US Attorney?

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Criticize, criticize, criticize.

• 51:07Laci Mosley?

  When you point out, you got what, four, three fingers pointed back at you?

• 51:13Laci Mosley?

  So, uh, basically regarding his bail, obviously in retrospect, the government should have screamed bloody murder. And it should have been revoked. Ruffo is still at large with a twenty-five thousand dollar reward for any information related to his captive or his capture. So that's US Marshals, like, top fifteen most wanted list since two thousand. We'll put that in the bio.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Which one is he?

• 51:35Laci Mosley?

  If you wanna find him and maybe try to get the bag.

• 51:40Laci Mosley?

  You know what? Ruffo, now that he's in his older age, literally looks like any old man who works at a bodega. He's probably in a bodega near you.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Any man, anybody. Ain't no telling.

• 51:52Laci Mosley?

  Right. Or he's in Italy. I wonder, he got a whole new family though. He's definitely got a whole new life.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Oh, he definitely got a whole new life. Cause wherever he is, he got money.

• 52:01Laci Mosley?

  He's believed to have dashed away eight million dollars likely living overseas.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Oh wow. See, I believe it. And the thing is, he's already cool with living low key. So it ain't like he gonna ever blow that. He probably somewhere with a one bedroom house. Like, all I need is a roof over my head and I don't wanna be locked in a cage.

• 52:21Laci Mosley?

  Come on, Ruffo.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 52:23Laci Mosley?

  You know what? The simple things in life. And it's time for Scammer of the Week. This is where we highlight an honorary charlatan, criminal, group criminals. And you know, maybe they are honorary, maybe we hate them. We'll see. Uh, but today we're talking about a con artist posing as Colin Firth, who scammed three Italian women out of thousands of pounds. Okay, um, can I get a picture of Colin Firth up? Because I feel like Colin Firth is one of those white men that you definitely could pretend. There's like six white men in Hollywood right now who have this exact same face.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  He looks familiar, but.

• 52:59Laci Mosley?

  He don't look that familiar to me.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  He looks like a director. He doesn't really look like an actor.

• 53:03Laci Mosley?

  That's not Colin Firth. I thought Colin Firth was the one who used to wear the beanies in, in the hot LA weather. Is that Colin?

• 53:10Speaker 01

  The King's Speech. What did he play?

• 53:13Laci Mosley?

  Oh, The King's Speech was good. Oh, okay.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Okay, he looks familiar now without the glasses and, you know.

• 53:23Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, okay, that's where I remember him from. Cause I did watch The King's Speech. Okay, Colin. Sorry, we would put some, we're gonna put some respect on your name, Colin. Sorry. So, he, this guy is not even Colin Firth. It's someone who's pretending to be him. I can see how somebody could pretend to be like a older Colin Firth, for sure. So the scam began in May, when a man posing as Mr. Firth contacted one of the women on social media after seeing photos of her. Her two sisters were also fooled and soon all three were eagerly messaging him. So, wait a minute. You got the sisters turning against each other too? Cause now they all think they talking to Colin Firth. And none of them mentioned it to each other in the group chat, like.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:04Laci Mosley?

  Who you talking to Colin Firth like?

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Right, what?

• 54:08Laci Mosley?

  So he was said to resemble the actor on video calls and mimicked his posh accent. Once they were regularly messaging, the scammer told the woman he was creating a website and needed financial support. Okay, there's like Squarespace, you know, like it's like, I feel like if you need to create a website. The it's not the Go Daddy.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  They'll walk you through it.

• 54:30Laci Mosley?

  Right, I don't think it's that expensive. The sister sent him almost three thousand pounds, which is about four thousand US dollars. In three separate bank transfers. So, okay, I will say at least it was three separate transfers. So it's like he got them all for like a little bit. But still a thousand pounds to build a website, bro.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  But it's like, why would Colin Firth need you to send him? Money for a website? Think about it, just think, huh?

• 54:58Laci Mosley?

  Right.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  It's three y'all, they must've been like in brand or something, cuz.

• 55:02Laci Mosley?

  Look, look at what we had to do though. We was like, oh Colin Firth, and then we had to look and then we had to find a movie from a while ago to recognize him. So maybe it was like Colin Firth, maybe he on hard times right now, but he still. He's still Colin Firth, he's still got that D, like, you know.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Hey, who knows? Yeah, don't be making assumptions, you right.

• 55:23Laci Mosley?

  Cause acting is one of those careers where like you could be very famous and very broke at the same time if you're not responsible with your money. Because we don't get paid like normal, regular checks like everybody else unless you're like on a job.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. You gotta, you gotta a budget.

• 55:41Laci Mosley?

  And they said he looked like him on video chat, so.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  That's crazy, that's weird, that's almost creepy.

• 55:46Laci Mosley?

  Right, but there's, they say there's at least six people in the world to look exactly like you.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  You know?

• 55:52Laci Mosley?

  Just to assist us wise.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Six people?

• 55:54Laci Mosley?

  At least six.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  At least six? Ah, you know what's so crazy? It was a girl in a crowd at a basketball game I was at. My friend was like, that little girl looked like you. It was the first time in my life and I was like, damn, she does look like me. She look like she be my little sister. But I ain't go talk to her or nothing. That would've been weird, like, hey, little girl, you look like me.

• 56:15Laci Mosley?

  Hey, listen, you might need her prints or her info one day.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Something, right. But you know, you gotta really wait till both everybody is an adult, cuz people be changed.

• 56:26Laci Mosley?

  That's true, that's very true. So with increased confidence, the scammer then told the sisters that he bought them cars as gifts, but needed twenty-five thousand dollars to get them through customs. So now he's doing the Nigerian scam on them of like, I got all this money if you wire me the taxes and fees, basically, then you can have this thing. Like, you can have these cars, just gotta give me the taxes and fees. Why couldn't you pay for taxes and fees?

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:50Laci Mosley?

  Why do I have to incur a twenty-five thousand dollar debt cuz you wanna give me a gift?

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Make it make sense. Make it make sense.

• 56:58Laci Mosley?

  So, anyway, luckily at this point, the bank got suspicious of the behavior and tracked where the payments were being sent to, so they sent them, wow. The receiving account ended up being featured on a blacklist. The police are currently attempting to discover the culprit's identity. So they haven't found Colin Firth. He probably still out here on FaceTime with, uh, I bet you he rubbed some baby oil on the camera.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  What?

• 57:20Laci Mosley?

  Before he get off FaceTime.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  What? They have not found this man?

• 57:24Laci Mosley?

  No.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 57:26Laci Mosley?

  He put a little filter on.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  He probably don't do nothing like Colin Firth in real life.

• 57:31Laci Mosley?

  At all.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 57:32Laci Mosley?

  But listen, I love that for him. Uh, he put a little baby oil on the camera, he said, it's, it's, it is I, Colin Firth. So.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  It's so many scams out here. Sometimes it's like, you know, if you are dumb enough to get scammed.

• 57:47Laci Mosley?

  Now, we don't say dumb enough on this show cuz we can all get scams. I get scams. You were with me on the boat scam.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  I just said, we all get scammed. We all get scammed. But that was a blatant, like, I mean, eh, I just ain't never sent nobody no money. I just ain't doing that. But you know, everybody's in a different season in their life.

• 58:09Laci Mosley?

  That's true. Now, I do think that we should all get out of the season of, uh, I met a stranger. We did some blurry FaceTimes and he told me to give him twenty-five thousand dollars for some taxes and fees. Like, we should know better than that. But, you know, that's what this podcast is for. So, we always ask JoJo, where do you want to be found? What's coming up? What do we need to be looking out for? Where can we find you online?

• 58:32Speaker 01

  So, online, you can find me on my Instagram, jojo t gibbs. Um, you know, ain't nothing really happening on there right now, but you know, life bout to start popping. So, you know, I might, I might get back on Instagram and do stuff. Instagram is, anyway, that's neither here nor there. Uh, jojo t gibbs on Instagram, also on Twitter. I, uh, I have a, uh, film coming out probably sometime next year called Fresh. It's a social thriller, co-starring Daisy Edgar Jones and Sebastian Stan. Um, I also, of course, and the lead, um, co-lead on Twenties, uh, which is our show that is gonna be coming out on BET and Showtime.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know if I can officially announce the release date yet.

• 59:18Laci Mosley?

  Okay, well, we'll stay tuned. We can go on your Instagram.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Coming, yeah, coming this fall. That's what I'll say.

• 59:25Laci Mosley?

  Season two of Twenties, I'm so excited.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, season two of Twenties coming this fall. I'm so excited. You guys are gonna love this season. I had an amazing time, I'll say, every single day. So, I'm just really happy about seeing what they put together. Um, and I know it's a lot of people that are, you know, excited to see what comes next too, so.

• 59:43Laci Mosley?

  Including me, I'm so excited. I, like, devoured the first season, it was so good, you're so good. Yes! And as always, guys, if you wanna snitch on your friends and family, [email protected]. Just make sure your family's retired, so we don't wanna fuck up your bag. Yes! If you wanna find me, D I V A L A C I, Diva Lacy, on all platforms. I currently streaming now on Paramount Plus. A Black Ladies Game Show is streaming in full on HBO Max. Give us five stars! Help us, sister, out! And to celebrate one hundred episodes, we're doing thirty percent off on PodSwag right now. So, go ahead and scam your merch and your pod merch right now, thirty percent off, using offer code SCAM30. Get into it! All right, congregation, stay scheming.

• 1:00:32Laci Mosley?

  Scam Goddess stars and is hosted by me, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. It's produced by Judith Kargbo, engineered by Marina Baies, and researched by Kalen Brandt. Stay scheming.

• 1:00:45Speaker 05

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