Pod Insights The Binge Cases: Doctor Billions Catch Me If You Ken I 6. The Search Is On About this episode Natalie digs into Ken’s apparent past—from his birth in Singapore to elite bowling tournaments—to hunt down his real identity.
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Transcript 6,129 words · 12 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
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0:55 Speaker 01 Campsite Media.
1:01 Speaker 01 We're going across the world, to Singapore, a tiny island in Southeast Asia with a population of just 3 million people at the time. And it's about to add one more. The year is 1988, a year of big shoulder pads and even bigger hair. It's late winter, but in this tropical climate, that doesn't really mean much. The temperature stays jammed between the high 70s and high 80s, and it's humid, like really humid, the sort of humidity where you walk outside and your glasses fog up. But on this day, February 3, 1988, I want to bring your attention to a hospital room,
1:45 Speaker 01 where you will be witnessing the birth of a baby, a boy who would go on to have many different names.
1:52 Speaker 02 Kendrick Chu Wen Long. Ken Ya Ni. Kendrick Chee, C-H-E-E. Wen Long Chu. Kazumi Ya Ni. K-E-I. Ben Ya. Kendrick. With a D.
2:04 Speaker 01 And this boy would go on to become many different things. The son of the founder of Uniqlo, the co-founder of Pokémon Go, an employee of Google X, the entrepreneur behind an upscale Airbnb, and a weed farm, and a cryptocurrency. He would no longer be from Singapore. He would become Japanese. And he would soon jet away from this small island to the USA, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, all the while leaving a trail of wreckage in his path.
2:40 Speaker 01 But who is Ken Yenai really? How did he become so heartless? And where in the world is he now?
2:55 Speaker 01 From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Catch Me If You Can. Episode 6, The Search Is On. I'm Natalie Robemed.
3:11 Speaker 01 Last episode, we followed Ken to Italy, to the final alleged scam we know of, where a musician named Antonio says he gave Ken more than $100,000. And Sophie, Ken's ex-girlfriend, says she got paid back about half of what she was owed. This episode, we finally uncover more about Ken and the path that led him to this life. And we raced to track down the man who still owes his alleged victims hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, do you want to introduce yourself?
3:41 Speaker 03 Yeah. Hi, my name is Abukhar Don. I am a senior producer here at Campside.
3:47 Speaker 01 For the last few months, Abukhar, who, like me, is an immigrant, he came to the US from Ethiopia, has been helping me find out more about Ken. Because sifting through what's real and what's untrue with a guy like Ken is really, really difficult. But luckily for us, Abikar has some experience.
4:06 Speaker 03 I think a lot of the stories that I've worked on have been about scammers.
4:10 Speaker 01 How does Ken compare to some of those other alleged scammers that you've reported on?
4:15 Speaker 03 Ken is really good at what he does. He's very digitally savvy because he's managed to like scrub his digital footprint, which a lot of people aren't able to do. So when I start on a project, typically I start with like social media and like messaging boards, the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine, all of these things that we have access to, but can be very powerful tools if you know how to use it. And I was just like surprised at how little there is about him. A lot of people slip up and maybe there's like a photo that they forgot. But for him, he's done a really good job of just kind of getting rid of everything.
4:54 Speaker 01 This is something we heard repeatedly from Ken's alleged victims while reporting this story. Crystal Sable, Becca's aunt.
5:01 Speaker 04 He doesn't even exist on the Internet whatsoever.
5:04 Speaker 01 Rita, the housekeeper.
5:06 Speaker 05 For Ken's name, absolutely nothing came up. He's a ghost. He's a ghost.
5:12 Speaker 01 At first, Abikar had the same experience. We had documents that told us Ken was from Singapore, but we needed more information. Had he grown up in Singapore or just been born there? Was any part of his claim to Japanese identity true? There was so little online, it seemed impossible to figure out. But one night, Abikar was working late, scrolling through archived editions of Singapore newspapers, when he suddenly noticed a familiar name.
5:42 Speaker 03 I saw that there was, there was an obituary for one of Ken's cousins in 1999.
5:51 Speaker 01 That obituary blew Ken's backstory open.
5:54 Speaker 03 Through that article, we managed to find pretty much like his entire family tree on his mother's side.
6:03 Speaker 01 Ken wasn't a ghost anymore. He was a real person with a family and roots, none of which were Japanese. Because Ken is, as we already mentioned, actually Singaporean.
6:15 Speaker 03 What we know right now is Ken was born on February 3rd, 1988. And we know that for sure because his government documents, both his American and Singaporean documents state that. And he was raised in what appears to be a Christian family. His mom is Sharon Yook Lang Wong, and his dad is Tao Kha Kia Chiu.
6:41 Speaker 01 Abikar started working with a local producer in Singapore. In journalism, an on-the-ground person helping outsiders with a story is called a stringer.
6:51 Speaker 03 One of the things that our stringer told us was that his mom's first name is Yook Lang, and her last name is Wong. Sharon is either her Christian or give an English name, which is very common in Singapore. And the other thing that our stringer said was that just based on Ken's father's name, it's very likely that he is ethnic Chinese Malaysian.
7:19 Speaker 01 Ken grew up in Singapore with his parents and one brother. He went to an all-boys Catholic school called Maristella High School and spent some formative years there. Nowadays, it's a sprawling complex of white buildings dotted with air conditioning units and palm trees. A white statue of Jesus stands guard by the entrance.
7:39 Speaker 03 The school was founded in 1958 by the Marist Brothers, which is an international Catholic organization. And it's very highly regarded in the area, both for academic excellence, but also character building.
7:55 Speaker 01 It's a good private school.
7:57 Speaker 03 It's a school that you test into, but it is subsidized by the government. And so, a Singaporean would pay what is the equivalent of like 20 to 25 US dollars per month.
8:11 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
8:12 Speaker 03 It is just difficult to get into. You just have to be very smart and driven, as Ken was.
8:18 Speaker 01 This place isn't just about getting good grades. It wants to teach its students how to be good people out in the world.
8:25 Speaker 03 The school's motto is "Every Marist, a gentleman of faith, vision, and service."
8:32 Speaker 01 From everything I've heard about Ken, I have a hard time considering him a man of faith, or vision, or service. But there is one place from his childhood where Ken might have learned a few things about spin, about playing a perfect game, and about staying out of the gutter. And that place is the bowling alley. Because, believe it or not, as a teen, Ken was a superstar bowler.
8:58 Speaker 03 He was nationally ranked. And before he was in high school, one of his first group of friends was through bowling at the Singapore Island Country Club.
9:11 Speaker 01 The Singapore Island Country Club. A giant, modern-looking facility with a perfectly manicured golf course, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and, yes, a 12-lane bowling alley. I can just picture Ken as a teenager, his baby face even babier, with black hair and stubble just beginning to sprout. He picks up the bowling ball, fits his fingers into the holes, and turns towards the pins. The ball is heavy, but in his hands, it feels just right. He knows he's in complete control of the situation and can make the objects before him bend to his will with just the right touch. He begins his stride, running quickly like a long jumper preparing to launch. As he nears the front of the lane, he bends and ducks his right leg behind his left.
9:56 Speaker 01 His arm swings forward, releasing the ball in one graceful motion. It leaps through the air and onto the slick wood, barely making a sound on contact. Then the ball is spinning, gliding, tunneling down the alley. Ken watches, hoping, willing it to stay on target. The ball careens closer and closer towards the pins, lined up neatly at the end like army cadets at detention.
10:23 Speaker 01 A strike, the first of many.
10:27 Speaker 01 Ken is so good at bowling that he represents his club in several international competitions. But he's not quite good enough to go pro. Or maybe even that sounded too much like a real job to him anyway. After high school, we believe he attended the G and Polytechnic, which is similar to a trade school or community college in the US. A pretty common stepping stone for lots of Singaporeans of his ilk. We don't know what he studies, but from there, he heads to military service.
10:54 Speaker 03 All males who are 18 in Singapore have to serve at least two years of military service. In 2007, 2008, he was in the military.
11:04 Speaker 01 During this period, Ken seems to have had a big group of friends, friends with cute haircuts and nice watches, who posted a lot on Facebook. And this is where Abakar found his next major clue.
11:16 Speaker 03 Even though he's deleted his Facebook and he tried to get rid of as much as possible, there were these photos that resurfaced. And we got a really clear picture of the kind of person that he was. He seems very affable, very charismatic. He had a bunch of friends. This friend group, they did a lot of stuff together. We have photos of late-night games and sleepovers. And the other thing too is, they would travel quite a bit. So we saw trips of them in Hong Kong and in London.
11:49 Speaker 01 We tried repeatedly to talk to these friends.
11:52 Speaker 03 I reached out to most of these people who knew Ken at the time. About 15 at least. And they did not want to talk to us.
12:02 Speaker 01 Our local stringer had an idea as to why.
12:04 Speaker 03 So basically, his theory is that a lot of Singaporeans, at least compared to Americans, especially those who are upper-middle class, just don't like to start trouble.
12:14 Speaker 01 Eventually, Abakar was able to find sources who knew Ken back in the day. They wanted to remain anonymous. But they painted a picture of a social, outgoing guy. But even back then, Ken showed some signs of who he might become.
12:31 Speaker 03 The people that knew him at the time described him as just being very, very flashy.
12:39 Speaker 01 Flashy, perhaps with a flair for performance, or wanting to seem like he was something other than what he really was. Because Ken was running in some elite, upper-class circles, but it's possible he wasn't actually rich himself.
12:53 Speaker 03 I think he was around people who were wealthy and who were upper-middle-class, but I don't think he himself was upper-middle-class, at least based on some of the people that we spoke to that wanted to remain anonymous. You talk to the people who knew him, and, you know, they say something to the effect of he wanted to appear wealthy.
13:16 Speaker 01 This seems to fit in the grand scheme of whatever makes a guy like Ken tick. He's surrounded by people who are guaranteed an easy life. Maybe he fakes his own wealth for social status to fit in with the crowd, but the whole time, he's feeling resentful. And eventually, he hits on a way to live the good life with minimal personal effort, just like his leisure-class pals. But it actually goes even deeper than that, because according to these interviews with former friends, something else was off, too.
13:46 Speaker 03 Both partners and even some of his closest friends, one thing that they tell us is that they've never actually met his parents, and he would go to great lengths to conceal who his parents are.
14:00 Speaker 01 This would be woven into his alleged scams in years to come, when he'd go on to tell Sophie and others that his father founded Uniqlo, or that his mother was dead. According to another woman Ken dated, he claimed his father was a former Citibank banker who started his own firm, and his mother was a former Emirates flight attendant and model. Perhaps Ken was trying to make his parents a big deal because he was ashamed of his humble origins, or maybe they just didn't get along. Whatever the case, he seems to have been hiding their true identity long before he started his alleged scams. We tried to get in touch with Ken's family, both his parents and a slew of relatives in the US.
14:38 Speaker 06 Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
14:42 Speaker 03 My name is Apple Cardon, and I'm a journalist based in New York. I'm working on a story about Ken's child.
14:48 Speaker 06 Is not available. At the tone, please record your message.
14:53 Speaker 03 I am trying to learn more about him, and I'm wondering if he'd be open to chatting.
14:58 Speaker 01 But the secrets of Singapore didn't open themselves up to us. And pretty soon, Ken would leave his parents and Singapore behind, and go to America, the new world, the great nation of fresh starts and fresh marks.
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16:27 Speaker 01 So in 2010, Ken came to America, to Los Angeles, the city he would settle down in with Becca several years later in the lavish mid-century modern mansion in the Hollywood Hills. But for now, he was somewhere a little more humble. An apartment complex in a neighborhood called Westwood, right near UCLA.
16:48 Speaker 01 Ken's living in an 800-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment with a roommate. It's pretty basic, but the place has got nice amenities: a pool, a gym, that sort of thing. But right away, Ken starts getting in trouble. First, small things.
17:04 Speaker 03 In 2010, when he gets a speeding ticket in Orlando.
17:08 Speaker 01 Then, much bigger things.
17:10 Speaker 03 He also was sued by landlords twice during that time for failing to pay rent.
17:19 Speaker 01 This is all according to court documents.
17:21 Speaker 03 For one of them, he was ordered to pay $10,000.
17:25 Speaker 01 As far as we know, this is his first major run-in with lawyers. It's not exactly a scam to not pay your rent, it's just ripping someone off. But it likely did set the pattern for what would become Ken's modus operandi: Pretend you're richer than you actually are, and then coast on that image for as long as possible. Because in reporting on Ken, we've uncovered a pattern of Ken repeatedly moving into homes and then allegedly not paying rent. I talked to the landlord of Ken's Hollywood Hills home, the house Rita cleaned, where Ken lived in 2018, and that landlord said Ken owed him tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent. He told me he tried to get lawyers involved, but they were not able to find Ken.
18:08 Speaker 01 Then, less than a year later, Ken got sued by another landlord in Marina Del Rey for over $88,000 in damages. According to court documents, that landlord won a default judgment, meaning the judge ruled in his favor after Ken failed to show up in court. Ken would have been legally required to pay this judgment. They'd even have the right to garnish his wages, if he ever got around to earning any. But apparently, the courts couldn't find Ken because the judgment still hasn't been paid. It's possible, according to sources, that he used forged documents to secure these rentals. And the same documents that helped him fake his way into these rentals also helped him avoid consequences after he didn't pay.
18:51 Speaker 01 But that case from the landlord in Marina Del Rey also named a co-defendant: Becca Sable, the Kendall Jenner look-alike. Becca Sable didn't talk to us for this podcast, but I've been thinking a lot about her. Sophie, Ken's next girlfriend, claimed that Ken was manipulative, that he threatened suicide and made her feel bad for going out with her friends. And I've been wondering about Becca. Did Ken manipulate her too? At first glance, Ken and the glamorous Becca were an odd match.
19:26 Speaker 08 I'm not going to say he was an ugly person, but he was nothing. He was nothing. He was special.
19:31 Speaker 01 That's a guy I'm going to call Ben. He met Ken and Becca in early 2019, after they were set up on a kind of friend double date.
19:38 Speaker 08 And so my wife asked me to come because she didn't want to be stuck socializing with them on her own.
19:44 Speaker 01 They went to a restaurant called Superba in Venice, a very airy, industrial spot with hip, brightly colored booths and new American food.
19:52 Speaker 08 We were sold the bill of, oh, this guy, he's part of the Uniqlo family. I don't know if he full-on invented Pokemon Go or had something to do with it, but was one of the creators of it. He showed up in, I believe it was a Bentley or some fancy car. They were lovely enough at dinner. Becca was talking about, I think she was going to be starting a fashion line and Ken was going to be helping her financially with that. Whatever. We thought nothing of it.
20:17 Speaker 01 Because all of this is pretty normal in L.A. An age gap, even if it's only a few years, and a younger, hotter woman with a less hot, wealthy guy who just happens to be her benefactor.
20:30 Speaker 08 Wealth makes you look more attractive, no matter what it is or you believe it. But 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. They might have a personality, but I'm going to go ahead and say it's the money that's that first attractor.
20:48 Speaker 01 And to Ben, Ken having a beautiful, young woman on his arm helped communicate Ken's status.
20:54 Speaker 08 It sells the image he's trying to sell you of, look at me, I have all this money. Money's not an issue for me. I have my Bentley outside, my attractive, younger model, girlfriend or wife or whatever it is. It just paints that picture that he's trying to put in the head of the people he's trying to scam.
21:11 Speaker 01 Now, Ben ended up giving Ken thousands of dollars. And according to Ben, he never sold that money again.
21:17 Speaker 08 We didn't have $10,000 to lose. And it'd be really nice to have that money back.
21:25 Speaker 01 So did Becca realize that she was helping to lend Ken an air of credibility when he went after his supposed targets? You have to remember how young Becca was at this point. Like Sophie, Becca was only about 20 years old when she began dating Ken. She married him just a couple of weeks after she turned 21. That's really so very young. When I was 21, I thought a pint of beer could substitute dinner. Half my head was shaved. I was in no place to be making wise life decisions. And the relationships I had at the time, they weren't the most stable. If I had happened to be pursued by an older man, one who was charismatic, seemingly rich, good at making me feel as though everything was my fault,
22:08 Speaker 01 I don't like to think about what might have happened. But not everyone shares my opinion. Remember the Sables, Becca's Uncle Steve and Aunt Crystal, who were so eager to meet Becca's new boyfriend Ken at the Christmas party? They watched the niece they thought of as bubbly and fun-loving marry this guy who was supposed to secure her future. And then watched as Becca's grandfather signed over $50,000 that he hoped would help fund Becca's grandmother's dementia care. There's something we haven't told you about how grandpa's investment went down. Who did he make the check out to?
22:46 Speaker 04 Becca Sable.
22:50 Speaker 01 I've seen a document that seems to confirm this. The $50,000 check was made out to Becca Sable personally, not YourSky Investments LLC or Ken Yonai.
23:01 Speaker 04 Becca flies back to California and cashes the check the same day that she picked it up and the same day that it was written.
23:09 Speaker 01 The check being made out to Becca's name doesn't necessarily mean that Ken wasn't still pulling the strings. According to court documents, he and Becca were married. They were living together. And it's not much of a stretch to think that he could have potentially had some control over her financially, too. Maybe Becca made the same mistake as Ken's other victims and assumed he was wealthy and capable of big things when he was really just using her. But after years of fighting to get Becca's grandfather's money back, Steve and Crystal are no longer willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
23:41 Speaker 04 You had to have known that this is not a legitimate business. And Becca had to know.
23:46 Speaker 01 Rita's another person who was once close to Becca, who wonders what Becca knew.
23:50 Speaker 05 I think he had to tell her at some point because, I mean, you just had to know it. Like, thinking about her face that day when I walked in to hand the cash over and clean their house.
24:05 Speaker 05 Yeah, she knew at that time, for sure.
24:12 Speaker 01 Becca and Ken were married for three years and with each other for longer than that. Their relationship went on much longer than Ken and Sophie's. She was only dating him for a few months. And Rita thinks surely Becca must have gotten wise to what was really going on at some point. But even that doesn't fully make sense to Rita.
24:30 Speaker 05 Why would you get your parents involved in that? Why would you take money from your parents, knowing that your dad only works for Pick 'n Save or Big Lots and your mom's a freaking PE teacher or whatever?
24:44 Speaker 01 According to legal documents, Becca has been named in two different money-related lawsuits alongside Ken that we know of. One from the landlord I already mentioned, where the judge issued a default judgment, and another from the guy who helped set up her fashion business, who I mentioned in a previous episode. That lawsuit was dismissed after they couldn't find Ken. Looking at Becca's Instagram today, you'd have no idea about any of this. Because Becca is still on Instagram, very much so. Even though her clothing line never got off the ground, Becca ended up in fashion. Now she's a successful working model, apparently signed to the Wilhelmina Agency, according to her digital trail.
25:26 Speaker 01 She's doing that rigid model walk down the runway at fashion shows, posing in shoots for brands. On April 14, 2025, she posted an Instagram story of black text on white background. It read, "Became everything I wanted to be as a little kid and almost didn't notice."
25:46 Speaker 01 Whether that's a victim or a survivor, we'll never know. Ken might just be a terrible chapter of her life she's now closed. To me, this whole situation is so sad. Steve and his brother no longer talk to each other. The Sables still hold a ton of resentment towards Becca and her family. And I think it might be easier for the Sables to be angry and blame Becca than to think that their family lost money to a guy who has disappeared. Vanished. Because you can't be mad at a ghost. And now it's time to turn back to the ghost at the center of this whole thing. Ken Yunai. And find out where exactly he is now.
26:33 Speaker 09 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.
27:03 Speaker 00 They're running a Cover 2 defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
27:40 Speaker 01 So throughout this investigation, we've been following Ken and trying to figure out why law enforcement hasn't been able to nail him down. The Sables in Ohio were told that their situation sounded like a civil case, not a criminal one. When Rita called the FBI, she heard a similar thing. And every time we contacted law enforcement, we were met with confusion.
28:01 Speaker 10 Yeah, I cannot verify that. I don't have any of that information in my office.
28:05 Speaker 01 Reluctant.
28:05 Speaker 10 The case is closed. It's not like we're gonna open up a case and just give information to anyone that calls on the phone.
28:12 Speaker 01 And lots of dead ends. Sometimes an officer working the case had retired. Sometimes records couldn't be found. As you already heard, the calls to German and Italian police went nowhere either. It just seems like Ken has been able to get away over and over again. But our efforts to find Ken did help clarify why he's been able to evade consequences. The cases are spread across multiple jurisdictions that don't communicate with each other, making it easy for Ken to slip through the cracks. Even with the case numbers, getting the information was difficult. Now imagine trying to piece together a larger pattern without a centralized system. And this led us to a sobering realization.
28:56 Speaker 01 Without a private investigator or federal authorities like the FBI connecting the dots, he will not be stopped. During the reporting of this story, we've been trying to find Ken, not just through police and victims. We've been attempting to make direct contact with the man himself. We tried lots of different ways of reaching him, but we never heard back. After Italy and Antonio, he vanished. Then we got a tip that Ken was back in Spain. We found a photo posted on social media of Ken's dog sitting outside a restaurant. We were able to locate the restaurant in Alicante, Spain.
29:37 Speaker 01 It's another seaside city, about five and a half hours' drive northeast of Marbella. We knew it was Alicante because it has distinctive lampposts, which a researcher cross-referenced for us with other towns nearby. It's a beautiful place.
29:55 Speaker 01 But it turned out to be another dead end. Online, Ken's evaporated too. According to our research, the last time any of Ken's known emails were used was in August 2023. And then I found something: a crypto wallet. Now, I know of more than a dozen wallets allegedly associated with Ken that victims say they sent money to. But this one is the only one still active. And it's the same wallet that Antonio says he sent more than $100,000 to, though none of that money is in there anymore. As of May, the wallet holds $4 worth of a cryptocurrency called Tron
30:37 Speaker 01 and a ton of another coin called Kyhaxi, spelled K-Y-H-A-X-I, a currency with no listed value. Judging by the wallet's transaction patterns, an expert I spoke to told me Ken could have allegedly been running what's called "a peel chain", where someone laundered large amounts of cryptocurrency in small increments through multiple different wallets to avoid raising alarms and disguise the cryptocurrency's final destination. It works like this. Let's say someone sends you $1,000. You peel a dollar off of that and send it to a different account. Peel off another dollar and send it to a second account. Peel off another dollar and send it to a third one. Each of those accounts split that dollar up,
31:23 Speaker 01 exchange it, convert it to a different currency, over and over and over, until the full $1,000 winds up in completely different bank accounts, ones you also happen to have access to. I used a crypto-tracking software to look into the wallet Antonio says he sent money to. And it appears to show a similar pattern. That wallet went on to send crypto to two wallets. One of those wallets went on to send crypto to more than 700 other wallets, the other to more than 900 wallets, and so on and so on. It appears to be a web, a long, complicated web. But without a specialized crypto investigator poring through every transaction,
32:08 Speaker 01 it's nearly impossible to decipher. So how the hell is this allowed? Well, one answer could be that the wallet is held on a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange called KuCoin, which as of January 2025 is banned from operating in the US. According to the Justice Department, KuCoin flouted US anti-money laundering laws by failing to implement effective anti-money laundering programs. The DOJ also accused KuCoin of failing to report suspicious transactions. KuCoin's leadership pled guilty and agreed to pay a $300 million fine. Even more interesting than that, until at least July 2023, KuCoin did not require
32:51 Speaker 01 customers to provide any identifying information. That means Ken could have theoretically set up wallets without ever identifying himself. He's still out there, somewhere, someone may well be being victimized, maybe lots of people. We just don't know where or how. And with the knowledge that he still may be active, I'm left wondering many things. But one of them is, why does Ken do what he does? Is it just for the money? I remembered something interesting Sophie had told me about Ken.
33:29 Speaker 11 I actually told him at some point, like, "Well, if you want to pay me back, why don't you just get a job, like a normal human, and then pay me back gradually with the money you make? Even if it's just a barista, even if it's just anything." But he would refuse to do that. He never had a job, and he never will, I don't think. Because he thinks that he can get money so much easier through lying, through scamming people.
34:01 Speaker 01 Sophie said that Ken seemed to think that people who have jobs are losers. To her, he seemed to believe that he'd hacked the system by not having to work hard for his money, or worse, to watch others work hard for their money and then allegedly take it as his own.
34:17 Speaker 11 He looks down at people who work and who have a normal life. And he thinks he's so much smarter with what he's doing. But he's really just like a threat to society.
34:31 Speaker 01 But I wonder if it's deeper than that, if it's something pathological. Because Ken seems to have a compulsive urge to keep scamming, to keep lying, even when he's gotten so much out of his alleged victims already. I wonder if the same thing that keeps him manipulating is also the same thing that keeps him suckered on to people. Because it strikes me that Ken is, in some ways, incredibly emotionally needy. Beneath the designer clothes and ruses, there's an insecure man, someone who needs to pretend to be so many different things to get people to like him, to date him, to even talk to him. Sophie says something similar.
35:11 Speaker 11 He doesn't have any real friends because nobody knows who he really is. He never had any hobbies or skills or anything, really. Really anything, like his entire life was consumed with making fake screenshots, creating fake documents, taking things from people, constantly being on the run. Does not have a residence, does not have a home, nothing. I almost feel that whatever has happened, and even though I lost money, like, my life will always be so much richer than his because he essentially lives a lie every day.
35:51 Speaker 01 In the end, I can't help but think about the alleged victims. Sophie, the savvy ex-girlfriend, says she still owed over $50,000. Antonio, the Italian musician, says he still owed more than $100,000. The Sables say they never got back their grandfather's $50,000.
36:12 Speaker 01 Most of all, I think of Rita, the housekeeper who gave Ken $60,000. When I talked to Rita, she was actually at work.
36:22 Speaker 05 That back half is done. I do have some vacuuming in here. Maybe 10 more minutes, but you're welcome to come in.
36:29 Speaker 01 Something about that broke my heart. Like she was so busy at her job, trying to make ends meet, she couldn't take two hours out of her day to sit and talk to a journalist.
36:39 Speaker 01 And that's the toughest part of this story. It exposes our uneven and highly emotional relationships to money, something that should just be a currency of exchange, but is actually so much more personal than that. For a lot of people, money determines our self-worth, our identity. Some of us work our asses off to do well. Some of us decide jobs are for other people. And some of us never have a chance in hell. It's not fair, not by any means. I find myself wanting to believe in some sort of karmic justice, that somehow, somewhere, all these people will be made right.
37:20 Speaker 01 That you can't just get away with ruining someone's life without any repercussions. That you'll get what's coming to you, in this life or the next.
37:31 Speaker 01 Because while Ken's still out there, still on the loose, perhaps now working under a different name, it's hard not to look over your shoulder and wonder if a ghost is coming to get you.
37:51 Speaker 00 They're running a Cover 2 defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
38:25 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 Robemed, and executive produced by myself and Vanessa Gregoriadis. Our senior producer is Abakar Adan. Our producer is Julia C. Levine. Our story editor is Michael Kenyon Meyer, and our assistant editor is Emma Simonoff. We had help from Blake Rook and Lily Houston-Smith, who managed the production. Sound design, mix, and engineering by Mark McAdam. Voice acting for Ken by E. Win Lai Trumueen. Becca by Lily Houston-Smith, and Sophie by Madison Lanacy. The executive producers at Sony Music Entertainment are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch,
39:09 Speaker 01 Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, and Matt Scher 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.
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