Pod Insights The Binge Cases: Doctor Billions Catch Me If You Ken I 3. IG Hottie About this episode When Ken’s new girlfriend finds an Instagram page dedicated to exposing her fraudster boyfriend, everything clicks into place. But instead of walking away, she hatches a plan—to help take him down.
Binge all episodes of Catch Me If You Ken, ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access.
The Binge – feed your true crime obsession.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.
0:31 Speaker 01 Listen to all episodes of Catch Me If You Can ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit Subscribe at the top of the page, or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge: Feed your true crime obsession.
0:55 Speaker 01 Campsite Media.
0:58 Speaker 01 Sophie is standing on the street in Marbella, Spain. It's early 2022, and she's holding her phone in disbelief. People walk past her, locals going about their day, tourists in search of the best paella. But Sophie is locked in to what's on her screen, because she's just texted the number of a woman. A woman who alleges that Sophie's boyfriend is a con artist who owes her money. Sophie stares at the screen.
1:26 Speaker 02 She messages me back, "Brittany," immediately. She's also at first suspicious. She's like, "Who are you?" She probably thinks I'm Ken, and so I'm like, "No, no, no, I'm not. Like, we can get on a phone call." I sent her my Instagram, I sent her photos of me and Ken together. I'm like, "No, I've been dating him. Can we please talk? I want to find out more." And so she's like, oh my god. I can't believe I found someone that's like gone through the same thing.
2:06 Speaker 01 They get on a call. The woman's name is Nancy. She tells Sophie that she was friends with Ken back in New York before Sophie met him. Ken had presented himself as a rich kid heir and they'd gotten close. She says she ended up giving Ken around $20,000.
2:22 Speaker 02 She was telling me that she found out he's a scammer because he never paid her back and she was doing research on him. And she was actually actively working on exposing him. So she had created this Instagram page called something like Ken's a scammer or something like that.
2:41 Speaker 01 The page is called Ken Yanai Scammed Me. It's an entire Instagram account filled with details of Ken and his cons. The woman sends Sophie a link to the page. Sophie stares at it in horror.
2:54 Speaker 02 I think this is when like my whole world kind of crumbled, like on this phone call. Because I was like, how can this be? And I still thought to myself, well, he might be someone who lied about these things and he might have stolen from me. I'm sure some of the other parts are true, like I couldn't really fully grasp that entire thing was a lie. It just seemed like there's like limits to things. Like you can't lie about those things, like that's impossible. How can the person do that? I remember that I was so, I was just so mad.
3:37 Speaker 02 Like my first reaction was just anger. And my first reaction was also like, no, he's not gonna get away with this. Like, no, this is not gonna happen to me and he's gonna pay for this. And so I even told her on the phone, I was like, no, no, no, like, we're gonna get him. And he is absolutely gonna suffer. He was also at this point texting me, asking me like, where am I? Because I was probably on the phone for like an hour with her.
4:06 Speaker 01 Sophie stands there trying to figure out what to do. And this episode is from Sophie's perspective without Ken's input.
4:13 Speaker 02 This felt like a movie. Because I can't go back to the apartment now and confront him. Obviously, the dumbest thing to do would be to confront him because he could be a violent person.
4:26 Speaker 01 But luckily for Sophie, she's a pretty good actor. And she's about to take on the role of a lifetime to finally catch Ken.
4:43 Speaker 01 From Sony Music Entertainment and Cat's Eye Media, this is Catch Me If You Can. Episode three, IG Hottie. I'm Natalie Robimod.
4:58 Speaker 01 Last episode, Rita, the house cleaner, tried to get her money back any way she could. But Ken and Becca slipped away before she was able to. And we met Ken's new love interest, Sophie, the blonde student who started dating Ken back when she was studying abroad in New York. This episode, Sophie zeroes in on Ken and finally gets the cops on the case. Sophie is still standing on the street, utterly shell shocked.
5:26 Speaker 02 I feel like I'm in one of those movies where you discover something about someone, but you have to pretend that you don't know. And you have to like pretend everything's normal.
5:36 Speaker 01 She goes back to the apartment she's sharing with Ken and opens the door.
5:40 Speaker 02 I have to go back and just kiss him and pretend like everything's normal. But I'm looking at him and I'm like, oh my God, who is this person? It's so funny because I think at this time, the documentary The Tinder Swindler came out.
5:56 Speaker 01 The Tinder Swindler is a documentary about a guy who poses as a rich mogul, only to con the women he meets online out of millions.
6:04 Speaker 02 That evening, or the next day, we were actually watching it together. And he kept saying like, oh my God, how terrible. And I could never do something like that. I was looking at him and I was like, how is he so good at lying? He was crazy.
6:22 Speaker 01 Because Sophie has more in common with the Tinder Swindler victims than first appears. Remember, she met Ken online and she also gave him money, lots of money. But unlike the victims in the documentary, she's sitting next to her scammer right now. And she has a chance to fight back.
6:44 Speaker 00 New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.
7:15 Speaker 02 Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy terms and conditions.
7:49 Speaker 01 So at this point, you might be asking, how did Sophie get herself into this situation? How did a smart girl from an upper-class background get wrapped up with a guy like Ken? The answer? Well, it's complicated. And it reveals just how good Ken is at manipulating people. Even very intelligent people. And that's one of the things that sets him apart from other con men. He doesn't just go after easy marks. He targets all sorts of people. Let's go back in time to the beginning of Ken and Sophie's relationship. All the way back to their first date, about six months before this Marbella trip. It's September 2021, and they've just wrapped up dinner at a casual restaurant in Sophie's
8:34 Speaker 01 neighborhood.
8:35 Speaker 02 He needed to go to the toilet at the end of the date. He asked me, "Well, does your building have one?" I was like, "Yeah, actually, sure. So you can walk home with me?" That was probably a mistake, looking back, probably. Don't bring strangers to your address on the first date. But I did that anyways. And then somehow there wasn't a toilet in the lobby. So this is again, a mistake that I probably shouldn't have done. But I did bring him up to my place.
9:15 Speaker 02 He saw my apartment on the first date already and it was quite a nice apartment at the time. A concierge, it had all the amenities. It was quite big for a New York apartment. One bedroom, but closet and all of these things. I think he could tell right off the bat. Well, the girl seems to be well off in some sense. And then the second date, he mentioned to me that he loves reading and I love reading as well. So he suggested, well, why don't you meet my dog? We can go to Central Park and have a little picnic and bring our books and read. And so that's what we did.
10:00 Speaker 02 That was our second date.
10:02 Speaker 01 The dog, by the way, is another French bulldog, like the one he had back when he was with Becca. This one is called Luigi, like the Super Mario character.
10:13 Speaker 02 His dog is actually the cutest. The dog is so friendly and he also has quite a unique look. He has one blue eye. He has this blue special coloring. They're very expensive in general to get those kinds of purebred Frenchies. He claimed that the dog was actually twenty thousand dollars.
10:40 Speaker 01 The cute dog, the reading date, all of this appeals to Sophie. Ken doesn't seem like a guy who's just trying to sleep with her. He seems serious.
10:49 Speaker 02 He was never pushing in any way, physically or romantically. I don't think we like even shared the case until like the fourth or fifth date. So he was very taking it slow, like gaining my trust.
11:04 Speaker 01 Remember, Sophie is new to New York. She's only been in the city for a couple of weeks and doesn't know anybody. She doesn't have a ton of other people to hang out with.
11:12 Speaker 02 Pretty soon, he made it clear with me that he really liked me and that he was serious intentions. And he said, "Look, I want you to be my girlfriend."
11:22 Speaker 01 Sophie's only 20 years old. She's still in college. And even though she's well off, she's a hard worker, ambitious. Her new boyfriend is 13 years her senior. It seems like he can help her get to where she wants to go. As they get closer, Ken confides in Sophie that he's the son of the founder of Uniqlo.
11:41 Speaker 02 He claimed that he had started Pokemon Go also, which is funny. I later looked, actually looked that up, but only later on, who were the founders of Pokemon Go? And his name wasn't there. But then he claimed that he wants to be anonymous. In general, he said that he is a very anonymous person, and that's why there's not much about him online. So that kind of made sense to me because a lot of guys in the tech space are like that. So I believed him. Whenever I would try to research him, which I did, then later on,
12:23 Speaker 02 maybe a month into it, and tried to see this Tadashi and I, who are his children. Well, apparently, he's one of them. Why is he not on there on Wikipedia? He would say, "Well, he's father, they have a bad relationship. He also doesn't really want to be known online," all of those things. So he always had an excuse.
12:49 Speaker 01 And again, this isn't totally unheard of for a super-rich person. There are firms you can hire to scrub yourself from the internet. Maybe that's what Ken had done. So when Ken suggests they go on a trip together to Disney World, just a few weeks into dating, Sophie's down.
13:05 Speaker 02 So at first, he was offering to get us the tickets and a hotel. And I thought it was pretty normal. Because I've always been kind of dating guys who are more in this like traditional provider relationship where the guy, he pays for dinner. He would take care of the trip. That seemed pretty normal to me. Also, since he was apparently so much more wealthier than I was at the time. So we got to the hotel in Orlando. And then when we checked in, they, of course, always asked for a credit card on file. And then for some reason, his credit card wasn't working. And then he was pretty distraught about that.
13:51 Speaker 02 And he would pull out a different card and give them another card that also wasn't working. And he was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I'm so embarrassed about this. I don't know what's happening right now. And because he was so distraught and like overly reacting about this, I just kind of wanted him to calm down. I was like, no, no, it's OK. Let me just put down mine and like I'll cover it.
14:18 Speaker 01 People pleasing. It's a disease. I've got it too. When you see someone having a terrible time, you'll do whatever you can to make them feel better, even if it means putting down your own credit card when you weren't expecting to. Because you're hoping it'll just make this awkward situation go away.
14:35 Speaker 02 And at that point, he was also saying, I'm so sorry. I'm so embarrassed. I'm going to pay you back immediately after. I don't know what's going on. I have to call my bank, this and that. Later in the evening, he told me this whole story that him and his dad had this very bad relationship. And his dad had actually blocked his trust fund because
15:04 Speaker 02 Apparently, all of the children in this family had gotten a trust fund, which makes sense if he does come from this billionaire family background. And because his dad and him were not really speaking, they had locked his card at this point.
15:24 Speaker 01 For Sophie, Ken has a new twist, one that makes her feel like this is all her fault.
15:30 Speaker 02 Apparently, his family also had found out that he was spending a lot of time with me, that he was dating me, and they were apparently not approving this relationship because they wanted him to be with someone that's also from the same ethnic background, also Japanese.
15:49 Speaker 01 Ken's family apparently don't like that he's dating a white European girl, and that's part of why they've cut him off. Sophie feels awful about this.
15:57 Speaker 02 I kind of felt bad for him because I totally believed his story. And I also felt guilty because he made it sound like, well, his family is not approving of this relationship. I also didn't want to come across as someone that's a gold digger. So I was kind of even trying to prove that I was not after anything like that.
16:20 Speaker 01 So when they go to Disneyland the next day and Ken's card doesn't work again, Sophie puts her card down again and again and again.
16:32 Speaker 01 She spends about $2,000 on the trip. When they get back to New York, Ken opens up even more, as though Sophie stepping up financially made him trust her emotionally. He tells her he has a history with drug addiction, that he used to spend $100,000 a month on drugs, and that's why his family keeps such a tight leash on him. Then he tells her his mother had died.
16:55 Speaker 02 I saw him as this guy who was really just struggling with his mental health, who had gone for something so traumatic, like losing his mother, who he said was kind of his main person since he wasn't really close to his dad. So this made me feel sympathy for him. I really felt like this was someone I needed to protect. He said also that his father was abusing him as a child and was beating him and things like that. So yeah, this whole story, it made me really sympathize for him so much.
17:40 Speaker 01 Sophie feels so bad for him. So when Ken needs help paying for a lawyer and his accounts are still blocked by his mean family, Sophie steps in.
17:49 Speaker 02 I think it was like 2,000 or 3,000 that he needed to pay to get the specific document to send to his uncle. And so I was happy to do that. And he even gave me the name of his attorney and I looked it up.
18:05 Speaker 01 It all checks out. The attorney is real. There's something else, too. Ken's been living in a hotel, but now there's a problem with that as well.
18:14 Speaker 02 He wasn't able to pay for it anymore. So then he asked if he could move into my place just for a couple of days until this issue was solved. I told him very clearly that I wasn't really comfortable with us living together long term. But of course, if he needed the place for a week, of course, he could move in. And at this point, we were obviously like much closer. I felt that I really, really liked him. I wouldn't say falling in love because I'm not sure if I was ever really in love, truly in love with any of my exes.
18:57 Speaker 02 But I definitely had feelings for him at the time. And so I was happy to help him and I didn't really see an issue.
19:11 Speaker 01 Do you remember being 20? I do. It's a chaotic, sticky time. You're a fresh adult who's just been unleashed on the world, and you're out there dating and partying and trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. You think you're all grown up, but everything you're feeling is still new. For Sophie, each day is still filled with firsts. Her first time living in New York City, her first Central Park date, her first New York fall, her first whirlwind thrilling romance with an older, richer guy.
19:43 Speaker 02 I actually told my friends quite early about him because I was so excited and I thought he was great. So I told them really early on. I was like, oh my God. I met this guy, he's so smart, he knows all these people, he's a programmer, this and that. So they knew about him. I'm very social, like I go out, I love house music, I love raves. So there would be this festival that I would go to called Time Warp at like this warehouse in Brooklyn.
20:23 Speaker 02 And so I would go with my friends there and just wanted to have a fun night out. But then every time I would try to attend to have a night out, there would be something happening where he was saying like, "Oh, I feel so uncomfortable with you there. I'm actually feeling so depressed. I feel I'm relapsing," all of these things. So then in the middle of the night, I felt so bad for him. I felt like I needed to be there for him. I had to just end my night after being out maybe for an hour and just go back.
21:07 Speaker 01 She's away from her family. Her boyfriend of a few weeks, who's about 13 years older than her, has just moved in. He's not paying rent. And somehow, he's making her feel bad for this.
21:19 Speaker 02 He was saying how he was so depressed every day because he was feeling so bad for me that he would have to take up the space. And then I was actually justifying it. And I was saying like, oh no, like, don't worry about it. Like, I don't want you to feel so bad and depressed.
21:36 Speaker 01 The whole thing is so intense, so dramatic. Sophie is totally and utterly caught up in it.
21:42 Speaker 02 There was actually a point where he pretended to leave. And he left a letter. He was like, I'm so sorry. I feel like I have destroyed your life in some way.
21:56 Speaker 01 Ken vanishes. Sophie panics. Somehow, she feels as though this is all her fault, as if she hasn't taken good enough care of him or reassured Ken enough. And she's worried about him.
22:08 Speaker 02 And I was stressed out because I was like, oh my God. No, I don't want to lose him.
22:13 Speaker 01 Sophie cares about Ken. And even though he owes her money and is the one staying in her apartment for free, she feels bad for him. Sophie's stuck in a game of high stakes poker. But it's not just money on the line. It's her feelings. Her ability to trust someone else, believe what they're telling her. She reassures herself it's going to be fine.
22:35 Speaker 02 I'm sure he would get access back to his funds. And he's a smart guy, so, you know, he also has his Google job. All of these things. He said that he then later got fired from Google. This was probably also like around November because he was trying to expose their practices, something related to the algorithms and how they would manipulate people. He never got access back to his funds. Apparently, his family was really looking him out.
23:09 Speaker 01 This is where things take an even darker turn, where the emotional poker chips reach a towering stack. Because around December, Ken starts telling Sophie that he's experiencing suicidal ideation as a result of all this money stress with his family.
23:25 Speaker 02 And I felt extremely bad for him. And I was just like wanting to keep him alive. Like, I thought this was a life-or-death situation. And kind of telling him like, "No, we're going to get through this, and it's fine."
23:42 Speaker 02 This made the whole thing emotionally so much harder.
23:45 Speaker 01 Sophie doesn't want Ken to take his own life. Even if she's stressed out, she feels a responsibility to say everything's okay, to keep Ken alive. She's hoping she can stay strong and that they can get through this whole thing together. She's also hoping that Ken's finances will turn around, that he'll be able to pay her back the tens of thousands of dollars she is now out. And there are signs that make Sophie believe the money part will get fixed.
24:10 Speaker 02 There was also little signs that he does actually have money and he was going to pay me back. So, for example, at some point, he accessed his supposed storage in New York. He came back with a bunch of stuff. He had a Chanel bag, and he said that belonged to his mother. It was a vintage one, a very old, like, vintage one. And it felt very sentimental because it's from his mother, right? And it also made the whole story more believable that he was someone who does have money. Then, like, once in a while, he would pay for things. So, for example, in December, it was actually my birthday, and I wanted to go for a birthday trip. And I suggested Tulum. And he said, "Look, actually, I know a hotel owner there.
24:55 Speaker 02 He's one of my friends. He can probably get us to stay for free." Then I was like, "Okay, great. Like, I'll pay for the rest. Like, I'll get the flights and stuff." And we went to this very expensive hotel in Tulum. So then again, that made it believable to me. Like, oh, he does have connections. He does have some friends. He did actually pay for that hotel that we were staying at. And I did also have, like, two friends from Europe coming, two girlfriends. So some of my girlfriends had met him. And they also... They didn't really see anything wrong with him. Like, none of us sensed any red flags.
25:37 Speaker 01 It's around this time that Ken presents a really great solution, one that would help get him out of this pickle.
25:46 Speaker 02 He said, "Look, I have this project. I know we're going to make a lot of money out of this. If you can put some money in, then we're going to get it back almost immediately, 10 times of that. This is like a guy that I know really well. He's so smart. I worked with him. It's a great coin."
26:10 Speaker 01 It's a new cryptocurrency, not one of the main currencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, but a smaller coin. Now, remember, from the very beginning, Ken has told her he's a big investor in crypto with lots of connections in this space. So it makes sense that he would be invited to invest early in a sort of friends and family round.
26:30 Speaker 02 I think at this point, it was like 20K or something was the minimum to be one of the investors.
26:35 Speaker 01 So she logs into her cryptocurrency wallet and sends Ken $20,000 to invest in this new coin, money she's made from being a social media influencer, from getting into crypto early and doing well with it. Ken tells her it's all good.
26:50 Speaker 02 He just showed me on his phone, like, "Look, here it is. Here's the coin. Here's this, like, wallet, they call it. It's going up. We're making money. Great." I was like, "Wonderful."
27:04 Speaker 01 Then Ken decides he's going to make his own coin.
27:07 Speaker 02 He said, "I'm going to launch this. It will do well, but the whole launch for this thing, there are so many things he needed to do. He needed to hire other programmers. He needed to invest into the marketing. There's just so many, you know, costs associated with that. And this was like, kind of when I started giving him more and more, I think. So this is probably when the rest of the 50K or something came in, in January. He kept just needing more and making up excuses like, "Well, we need to hire these programmers. They cost this much." "And then we need to have an initial amount of liquidity to launch this coin." "And this will cost this much."
27:51 Speaker 02 And so then it just kept going and going because every time that something good was supposed to happen, like the day we were supposed to get the money back, he then in the morning woke up and told me, "Oh my God, we got hacked." Like something happened. All the money's drained.
28:06 Speaker 01 But now, sitting in this apartment in Marbella, looking at an Instagram account dedicated to calling her boyfriend a scammer, Sophie realizes that hacking was probably fake. Ken's robbery was probably fake. In fact, Ken's entire cryptocurrency investment, the coin he apparently started, him having a trust fund at all, maybe none of that was real. She says she's given him close to $150,000. And she wants to get her money back.
28:43 Speaker 03 Observe: The North American Dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle, no one called him "boss." He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.
29:13 Speaker 00 New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.
29:45 Speaker 01 So while Sophie pretends everything is normal on the outside, sitting in this apartment with Ken, internally, her mind's going a million miles a minute. She sits on her laptop, pretending to do schoolwork, and starts figuring out a plan. She wants to build a case against Ken, gather all the information she has about what she sent him and when, information she can take to the cops. Remember, they're on vacation in Spain.
30:11 Speaker 02 I figured, well, I need to go back to my home country because I speak the language. So I made up an excuse to him of why we need to go back to my home country. I said that my parents were missing me. They wanted me to come back and I needed to do something for my school in person, things like that. And I told him, "Look, I can find us an Airbnb there." So during all this time, I'm preparing. I'm trying to gather everything together. I'm trying to make sense of the timeline. I actually started writing this huge report that I was planning to give to the police, where I would write the first day we met, this and that. It was like a 20-page report. I didn't want to wait any longer.
30:56 Speaker 02 I didn't want to pretend to be normal and like sleep in the same bed with him and all of that. Like, I guess I was grossed out by him at this point.
31:07 Speaker 01 So Sophie and Ken travel back to Germany, where Sophie is from. And once they're there, settled into their new place, Sophie makes up an excuse that she just needs to go to her school library just to do something boring that Ken definitely doesn't need to come along for.
31:22 Speaker 02 And during this time, I actually went to the police station.
31:28 Speaker 01 She tells the police,
31:29 Speaker 02 "Look, I got scammed out of 100K. You need to help me. I have all the documents here. They were not that busy, so they immediately took me in. I went to a room and they were very helpful. They were very nice. They had a specific term for this, love scamming or something. I'm not sure what the term in English is, but this is like quite the common thing, where partners will have victims and they try to make them fall in love or be in a relationship and then take money from them in some way. So, yeah, they were really nice and supportive and they immediately believed me." All the police really needed,
32:11 Speaker 02 they needed exactly the amounts of what I had transferred. And they needed proof that I had transferred it to him, like the screenshots and like all the transaction receipts.
32:21 Speaker 01 Sophie has all that to hand in the dossier she'd already compiled for the German police. In Germany, cops can pick someone up on suspicion alone, but they've got 48 hours to make a case. If a judge doesn't see enough evidence to press charges in that window, the person has to be released.
32:38 Speaker 02 They were like, OK, we're going to arrest him. How can we do it?
32:43 Speaker 01 Sophie says that the cops tell her to lure Ken to a public place where they can arrest him. And reminder, this episode is from Sophie's perspective.
32:52 Speaker 02 So I messaged him and I said, can you meet me at the station? Because it was kind of quite late at night, like a train station coming back from school. Meet me there.
33:04 Speaker 01 Sophie's a young woman. She doesn't want to walk home from the train station late at night alone. It makes sense to ask her boyfriend to meet her there.
33:11 Speaker 02 But in reality, I was with the police, and the police had planned this setup.
33:16 Speaker 01 Sophie stays safely in the police station while the cops head out. She can't believe this is real. The butterflies in her stomach are doing jumping jacks.
33:26 Speaker 02 Five police officers or something like that, like they go there. I'm quite excited, actually, that this is happening. I'm telling my friend who lives in the same city. I'm like, OK, he's about to get arrested. Like, get a video of this.
33:39 Speaker 01 It's winter. The trees outside the train station are bare. The slabs on the floor damp with recent rain. The officers are in plainclothes, big coats and beanies for the cold. Ken arrives to meet Sophie, or so he thinks. He's wearing a red hoodie, dark jeans, and white sneakers.
33:58 Speaker 02 He's texting me, hey, I'm here, where are you? I feel slightly guilty, actually. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm like participating in this. I'm drinking it.
34:08 Speaker 01 The police pounce, pulling Ken's hands behind his back.
34:12 Speaker 02 So then he gets thrown to the ground, like this whole dramatic arrest. He keeps yelling out, what did I do? What did I do? What are you guys doing? Like as if he's so innocent.
34:26 Speaker 01 Ken gets taken to jail. Sophie is flooded with relief. She thinks, now I'm safe. Now I'm going to get my money back. Now this will all be over. But Ken has other plans.
34:46 Speaker 01 Next time on Catch Me If You Can.
34:49 Speaker 02 I pretended to him. Yeah, if you can pay me, we can be together.
34:54 Speaker 04 There's a reason why you see a lot of really wealthy, gross-looking men with a lot of really attractive younger women. And it's money.
35:01 Speaker 05 There were a few brilliant traders, and one of them was our scammer.
35:09 Speaker 06 Catch me if you can.
35:16 Speaker 06 What's it take to be a mentor with big brothers, big sisters? It takes 30 minutes and a cup of coffee, a video game, best two out of three. It takes sharing thumbs-up emojis, clapping emojis, and loaded nachos at halftime.
35:30 Speaker 01 That's how you make an impact on a young kid's life. So go on, share a few hours a month, because mentorship may sound huge, but the truth is, it takes little to be big. To learn more, volunteer, or donate, go to bbignow.org.
35:51 Speaker 01 Catch Me If You Can is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media in association with Ish Entertainment. It's written and hosted by me, Natalie Robamed, and executive produced by myself and Vanessa Gregoriadis. Our senior producer is Abakar Adan. Our producer is Julia K. Levine. Our story editor is Michael Kenyon Meyer, and our assistant editor is Emma Simonoff. We had help from Blake Brook and Lily Houston-Smith, who managed the production. Sound design, mix, and engineering by Mark McAdam. Voice acting for Ken by E. Nguyen Lai Trumien. Becca by Lily Houston-Smith, and Sophie by Madison Lanacy. The executive producers at Sony Music Entertainment are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch,
36:35 Speaker 01 Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, and Matt Share at Campside Media, and Michael Herschorn at Ish Entertainment. Thanks to Jess Antonini, Joe Mancino, and Reagan Graham. And thanks to Campside's operations team, Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, and Sabina Mara. And thank you for listening.
36:56 Speaker 00 New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess Collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.
Previous Catch Me If You Ken I 2. Cleaning House Next Catch Me If You Ken I 4. Hacking the Hacker Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated