WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.560 JACK: This story takes place in Yonkers, which is about thirty minutes north of New York City, 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:09.520 and what I learned about Yonkers is that almost 15% of the people who live there 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:13.680 have ancestry that traces back to the Dominican Republic. Apparently, 00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:19.760 a lot of people migrate from the DR to Yonkers, New York, which made me wonder why. 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:25.680 I've come to understand that they move from the DR to the US for three main reasons; one, 00:00:25.680 --> 00:00:31.280 because they're a dreamer, two, because they're a hustler, or three, because they're a struggler. 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:36.080 The dreamers come chasing a bright, new future where they can get good-paying, 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:41.440 steady work, a better life for their kids, and even legal citizenship. The hustlers 00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:44.960 don't always follow the rules. They're scrappy. [Intro music] They're always on the lookout for 00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:50.640 new opportunities. They're good at negotiating, and they're persistent. The strugglers, man, 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:53.840 they just want to survive. They don't have big plans, and they're not trying 00:00:53.840 --> 00:01:01.520 to find shortcuts. They just want to do what it takes to get by day by day. 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:10.880 (Intro): These are stories from the dark side of the internet. 00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:28.600 I’m Jack Rhysider. This is Darknet Diaries. 00:01:28.600 --> 00:01:29.600 JACK: 00:01:29.600 --> 00:01:36.160 This is a story about a guy named Alberto Yusi Lajud-Pena. He was born in the Dominican Republic, 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:40.560 and when he was a teenager, his family immigrated to the United States, to Yonkers, 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:45.040 New York, to be exact, which is about an hour north of New York City. By the way, 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:50.000 Washington Heights, a neighborhood in New York City, has so many people from the DR, 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:56.480 its nickname is Little DR. For a lot of people, being in the big city fills them up with big 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:03.040 ideas. Opportunities seem endless anywhere you look in New York City. I'm sure Alberto took 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:09.920 trips to the big city sometimes. I wonder how that affected him. I wonder if he wanted to be 00:02:09.920 --> 00:02:16.880 a dreamer, a hustler or a struggler. [Music] He was enrolled in Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, 00:02:16.880 --> 00:02:20.560 New York, and he found some other kids there who are also from the Dominican Republic. Like, 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:24.240 Elvis was one of his friends. He was also born in the DR, and his parents immigrated to the 00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:29.440 US just like him, and these were the kinds of people Alberto gravitated towards as a teenager. 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:34.800 Yonkers alone has 30,000 residents with DR-descent, so it's not that hard to find 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:40.320 other people like him, people who had dreams but also had pride of where they came from. 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:44.800 Alberto, of course, dated while he was in high school, and hooked up with girls who were also 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:50.240 from the Dominican Republic. One of them he got serious with. He met her family. She met 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:56.320 his family. Everyone was getting along, and they fell in love. He finished high school and then 00:02:56.320 --> 00:03:02.720 started working just basic jobs. They weren't great, but fine as a teenager. I guess that 00:03:02.720 --> 00:03:09.520 made him a struggler. He worked hard to scrape up enough to pay the bills. Think like cashier, 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:14.160 delivery jobs, stuff like that. This was also the case for his other friends from the DR. Elvis, 00:03:14.160 --> 00:03:20.080 for instance, he was a school bus driver and also was a delivery driver for Domino's Pizza. But I 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:26.400 bet Alberto dreamed about getting a better job, a job that would pay him more for his 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:33.680 wits and his cleverness, because Alberto definitely thought he was a clever person. 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:39.280 Alberto went online a lot in 2012 when he was in his early twenties, and he was really good 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:46.720 at computers, so he eventually found his way to places that most people never go; the dark web, 00:03:46.720 --> 00:03:53.520 a place where it's not uncommon to find illegal online marketplaces, forums discussing crime, 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:59.520 and other dark topics. He lurked around, reading what people were into, and he started to discover 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:04.720 how some people make money online. There was an ad he spotted which was interesting. Here 00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:10.640 was the pitch; looking for reliable people for ATM runs, no experience required, clean work, 00:04:10.640 --> 00:04:16.560 fast pay. Must be trustworthy and reliable. Alberto was interested, 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:22.640 and he had just stumbled into the world of cashers. A casher is someone who takes a stolen 00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:27.440 credit card or debit card and goes to an ATM and uses it to withdraw as much money as possible, 00:04:27.440 --> 00:04:32.960 then go to other ATMs and do it again and again until the stolen card stops working. See, 00:04:32.960 --> 00:04:36.240 thieves are stealing people's credit cards all the time. There's lots of ways to do it. 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:39.840 Obviously, you could just steal someone's wallet or purse and then use their credit 00:04:39.840 --> 00:04:44.640 card before they report it stolen. But the way the world works today is we're doing a 00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:50.000 lot of our purchases online using credit cards. If someone could somehow intercept 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.400 those transactions and see the credit card details being used in the purchase, 00:04:54.400 --> 00:04:59.440 then you could just take those numbers and go reuse that yourself somewhere, or it's possible 00:04:59.440 --> 00:05:04.960 to hit the motherlode and hack into a database of credit cards and steal thousands at once. See, 00:05:04.960 --> 00:05:09.360 credit cards are essentially digital money, so if you can get your hands on the credit card data, 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:13.680 it's just as good as if you had a physical card in your possession. The card itself is 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:19.280 not what's valuable. It's the information on the card that's worth money to the card owner or to 00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:23.920 thieves. Once thieves get credit card details, they'll try to drain as much money from it as 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:28.240 possible before the bank marks it stolen or turns it off and they can't take any more out. 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:31.600 But it's tricky since you can't just transfer money from the credit card into your own bank 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:36.240 account. That would leave a trail, and you don't want that, and you can't order things that just 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:40.160 get shipped directly to your house, because then that leads the cops right to you. So, 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:45.520 going into a store and buying giftcards or just withdrawing cash from an ATM is a clean 00:05:45.520 --> 00:05:50.400 way to drain a stolen card, ‘cause cash is king since it isn't traceable or trackable. It's not 00:05:50.400 --> 00:05:55.360 linked to anyone's name, so it's clean money. But the problem is, thieves sometimes have way 00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:00.320 more cards than they can cash out, so they hire people to do it for them. Sort of like, 00:06:00.320 --> 00:06:04.320 hey, I'll give you these stolen credit cards; you go and try to get as much money out of them 00:06:04.320 --> 00:06:10.400 as possible, and then you keep a cut. Okay, deal. Back home in the Dominican Republic, 00:06:10.400 --> 00:06:16.160 they have a name for this; tarjeteros, which means ‘card guys’ in Spanish. Thieves, 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:22.080 honestly. The tarjeteros in the DR drive good looking cars and flash their money around. 00:06:22.080 --> 00:06:28.640 I wonder if Alberto saw some of these tarjeteros around the DR and thought maybe that's what he 00:06:28.640 --> 00:06:32.720 wanted to do. After all, he would go back home every now and then and visit and see 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:38.160 what everyone was up to. Well, for whatever reason, Alberto was in. He found someone 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:42.960 with stolen cards and was talking to them. He didn't know who they were. The person had good 00:06:42.960 --> 00:06:46.880 OpSec. They weren't revealing any personal information about themselves. They just had 00:06:46.880 --> 00:06:52.080 a username. I imagine he had to prove his trustworthiness and commitment at first. So, 00:06:52.080 --> 00:06:56.320 I'm guessing the first round was just a small trial. Like, here's a card; go pull some money 00:06:56.320 --> 00:06:59.920 out and send half of it back to us in an envelope, or something like that. I mean, that's how it 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:04.000 typically goes, you know? [Music] Well, however it started, after a while he earned the trust of 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:09.440 this person that he was messaging online, and they started talking about doing bigger jobs. 00:07:09.440 --> 00:07:16.080 This guy told Alberto that he's working on getting a debit card that was practically unlimited, 00:07:16.080 --> 00:07:22.080 which crucially didn't have a daily max withdrawal either, which meant Alberto could use this single 00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:27.360 card hundreds of times or even thousands of times to take as much money out of the ATMs that they 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:32.640 would spit at him. The problem, though, is even though the card has nearly unlimited funds in it, 00:07:32.640 --> 00:07:36.560 you could only take out a little bit at a time, whatever the ATM was willing to give you. It 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:40.800 would have been nice to just withdraw a few million dollars, but ATMs don't work that way, 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:44.320 and he can't just go into the bank and ask the teller to do it. That's just way too 00:07:44.320 --> 00:07:49.760 risky. But this supplier guy said this debit card would only be active on a specific day, 00:07:49.760 --> 00:07:54.720 which meant there was a window of time when Alberto would be able to pull as much money 00:07:54.720 --> 00:08:00.000 as he could out of this card. Alberto did the math. This could be a serious payday. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:06.640 If he could hit ten ATMs in an hour and do it for six hours, that's like $50,000. 00:08:06.640 --> 00:08:10.960 But he would only get a cut of that, I'm guessing around half. He looked at that and he's like, 00:08:10.960 --> 00:08:16.320 okay, this is nice. I'd be happy with this kind of extra cash for a night of work. But 00:08:16.320 --> 00:08:23.280 then he got thinking. How could he hit even more ATMs in that window? If only he had more hands, 00:08:23.280 --> 00:08:27.920 more fingers to punch in the pins and insert cards, then he could do two or three machines 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:34.480 at once. That's when it occurred to him; maybe Elvis can help him. [Music] Elvis was his old 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:38.320 high-school buddy who was currently working as a school-bus driver and Domino's Pizza delivery 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:42.640 driver, and they were in their early twenties at this point. If he could get Elvis on board, 00:08:42.640 --> 00:08:46.320 he could do twice as many ATMs. So, he called up his old friend. 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:50.240 Alberto told Elvis about the cashing. He was probably like, I've got this opportunity, 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:54.560 a chance to make a lot of money. It's quick, safe, easy. Elvis was interested. 00:08:54.560 --> 00:08:58.720 He wanted to learn more. Alberto explained the unlimited debit card that he was going to get, 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:04.400 that they could use that as many times as possible on a specific day and keep a cut of the money. 00:09:04.400 --> 00:09:09.760 Elvis was in. But not only was he in; he also suggested if they got even more guys, 00:09:09.760 --> 00:09:14.960 they can make even more money. So, Alberto and Elvis started recruiting even more people to 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:20.880 help them on this epic ATM run. There was a few other people that they knew from high school. 00:09:20.880 --> 00:09:24.560 They called them up. They were in, too. Elvis knew some other school-bus drivers and asked 00:09:24.560 --> 00:09:30.880 them. They were game. They eventually had a group of eight guys all ready to run the ATMs. There 00:09:30.880 --> 00:09:38.720 was Alberto and Elvis and their friends, Amir, Jose, Yael, Chung, Juan, and Evan, 00:09:38.720 --> 00:09:44.240 a bunch of twenty-something-year-old Dominican guys, immigrants. None of them had any serious 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:51.040 criminal records, but now all of them were hustlers who all thought they were clever, 00:09:51.040 --> 00:09:57.840 smart, and wanted to make some money illegally. Alberto had the plans. He explained to everyone, 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:01.120 look, when you steal someone's debit card, you don't actually get their debit card. You get 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:05.440 the numbers on it. Like, there's a 16-digit number, an expiration date, and a CVV code. 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:10.720 With this information, you can encode that onto a blank card. So, they got some blank cards and a 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:15.440 writer and started getting ready. His hookup gave him the debit card details and the date for when 00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:21.280 it would be enabled, a single card that can be used unlimited times. Holding it in their hands, 00:10:21.280 --> 00:10:27.040 they must have imagined its potential. ATMs can only dish out so much money before you 00:10:27.040 --> 00:10:31.760 hit the ATM limit or the ATM runs out of cash. So, they can't just go to one. They 00:10:31.760 --> 00:10:37.120 have to hit as many different ones as they can. But to have a card that can continually 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:43.200 pull out as much money as they wanted must have felt like a magic wand in their hands, 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:49.120 or a magic card. [Music] He handed each of them their card, all identical, plain white 00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:54.240 with a black stripe on the back. It didn't look like much. He told them what the pin number was, 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:59.280 told them to memorize it. Alberto and his boys were holding cards that were essentially free 00:10:59.280 --> 00:11:04.800 passes to as much money as they could possibly want. Where was it all coming from, though? 00:11:04.800 --> 00:11:08.320 Well, they didn't really know, and they didn't really care, but they were ready to pull out 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:12.640 as much as they could. Some didn't believe this was going to work, but others were getting really 00:11:12.640 --> 00:11:17.840 hyped. So, they started planning out their route. They were going to go to New York City for this, 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:22.560 one of the biggest cities in the world, where there are tens of thousands of ATMs 00:11:22.560 --> 00:11:29.120 and millions of people everywhere. It'll be easy to blend in and find targets and spread out. 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:33.280 They did some research and discovered that some ATMs let them withdraw $800, 00:11:33.280 --> 00:11:37.760 and that's the ATM limit, not the card limit. So, find an ATM, withdraw as quickly as you can, 00:11:37.760 --> 00:11:42.320 do it a couple times, then get out. Go to another. But don't be too obvious or raise 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:47.360 suspicion. If someone is around, just do it once. Otherwise you'll stand out stuffing a 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:51.760 backpack with a wad of cash. Some of the guys thought this is going to be easy, 00:11:51.760 --> 00:11:56.560 but other guys were wondering, wait, isn't someone going to notice us? Good point. 00:11:56.560 --> 00:12:00.480 After you hit an ATM, don't just use the one right next to it. Even though you'll want to run to the 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:05.600 next ATM and do that again and again, you might become obvious, so you gotta take a little walk. 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:11.200 Act normal, keep an eye over your shoulder, make sure you're clear, and then hit another ATM. But 00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:15.280 don't take too long, either. We're working against the clock. We've only got a few hours to pull out 00:12:15.280 --> 00:12:22.160 as much as possible. That's it. So, be fast and cautious. There's an art to this cashing thing, 00:12:22.160 --> 00:12:26.720 you see? All the planning was making everyone excited and a bit nervous, 00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:34.480 but they had to wait for December 21, 2012 to do the heist. It was only on that day that these 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:39.440 cards would work. It was literally the perfect day for the heist. The day in December was Friday, 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:43.760 so if they started after 5:00 p.m., everyone at the banks would be going home for the weekend, 00:12:43.760 --> 00:12:47.600 and they'd have the ATMs to themselves, and barely anyone around to watch. 00:12:47.600 --> 00:12:52.000 But that wasn't all; the week after would be Christmas, so many bank employees were taking 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:56.640 their Christmas breaks and holiday vacations. They'd be understaffed, which would make it easier 00:12:56.640 --> 00:13:01.280 to not get noticed. I imagine the excitement that everyone must have had leading up to this, 00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:05.440 thinking about their route through the city, the plan, the money they could get from all this. It 00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:10.160 was starting to feel real. Alberto, Elvis, they all went back to their jobs, driving busses or 00:13:10.160 --> 00:13:17.520 working at Kmart, doing deliveries, waiting and worrying, daydreaming at the register, or staring 00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:24.240 blankly at the road, thinking over the plan again and again, knowing that soon, if they really could 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:31.600 pull it off, they might have enough money to live the life they really wanted. I wonder how Alberto 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:36.880 woke up on that day of December 21 when you know you're going to commit a bank heist that night. 00:13:36.880 --> 00:13:44.320 Do you just roll out of bed like a normal day? The plan was for everyone to get into Manhattan alone. 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:49.920 They wanted to be clever and not be seen together, just in case. Everyone would stay 00:13:49.920 --> 00:13:56.480 in communication by text. Alberto and his guys got into town one by one. Elvis had to leave 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:00.320 work early in order to make it in time, and he was still wearing his Domino's Pizza hat by the 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:04.560 time he got to his starting point in Midtown Manhattan. Alberto was checking his phone, 00:14:04.560 --> 00:14:10.080 waiting for the signal from his supplier. Everyone was ready. The guy who gave him the 00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:16.320 cards would tell him when to start. Bing, just on time. Alberto got a text message that said, 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:21.600 it's go time, and he sent everyone else the message. The clock had started. [Music] All 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:27.360 at once these eight cashers from Yonkers walked up to ATMs at banks spread across the city. The 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:32.320 lobbies were closed, but the ATMs weren't. Alberto walked up to one carrying an empty 00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:36.720 backpack. He looked around. The coast was clear. He looked up. A camera was pointing 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:44.080 right at him. Breathe. Play it cool. He put the card in. What was the pin? Oh, yeah. 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:50.480 He typed it in. The screen was loading. Pin was accepted. Nice. It's a good start. 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:58.240 Time to try the first withdraw. Enter a custom amount, $800. Accept the fee. Transaction 00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:07.200 processing. Processing, processing. Come on, is it always this slow? But then — approved. 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:14.480 Money started dispensing. Ah, easy money. He grabbed it from the machine. Phew. There it was, 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:20.640 $800. It felt good. This is really happening. But he quickly stuffed it in his bag, pulled 00:15:20.640 --> 00:15:24.800 his card from the machine, and did it again. After doing it a couple times on this ATM, 00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:30.800 he left. A few thousand dollars was now in his backpack. Act normal. Don't panic. He 00:15:30.800 --> 00:15:36.320 walked slowly. How do you tell if someone's watching you? It's hard not to be paranoid. 00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:42.000 Thousands of dollars, a month's pay stolen, and it's in his bag. This wasn't a trial 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:46.880 run anymore. This was really happening. He checked his watch. No time to spare. 00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:51.680 He went to another bank and he did it again; got to the ATM, inserted the card, entered the pin, 00:15:51.680 --> 00:15:58.960 withdraw $800, complete the transaction, rinse and repeat. ATM, card, pin, withdraw, 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:03.920 repeat. At the same time, his friends were doing the same thing all over New York City, 00:16:03.920 --> 00:16:09.360 blending in with the crowds, moving calmly but quickly. An hour passed, two hours. The 00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:13.440 bills were piling up in their bags, and they were having to make sure to keep it zipped tight. They 00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:18.560 didn't want to accidentally spill $10,000 out on the sidewalk. That would have caused chaos. Like 00:16:18.560 --> 00:16:24.800 clockwork, just like they talked about, each of them cashed ATM after ATM. They took the money, 00:16:24.800 --> 00:16:30.160 repeated, got out, then acted normal, took a walk, hit a new ATM, repeat. Don't rush, 00:16:30.160 --> 00:16:34.400 but go fast. Time is ticking. Before they knew it, they were getting the hang of this, 00:16:34.400 --> 00:16:38.240 and their backpacks were starting to feel heavy and full. This was a lot more money 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:43.040 than any of them had ever seen before in one place, at least. It was all coming together. 00:16:43.040 --> 00:16:49.200 Bing. At two and a half hours into the operation, Alberto got a text. It was his supplier telling 00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:53.920 him, that's enough, stop, get out of there. Supposedly, the guy who gave him the cards had 00:16:53.920 --> 00:16:57.600 visibility into all that Alberto and his crew was doing, and he could see all the money that 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:02.240 they had collected and felt like the operation was complete. So, Alberto told everyone else, 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:08.640 time's up. Everyone go home. Everyone went back to Yonkers with backpacks full of cash. Once they got 00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:18.800 back to Yonkers, Alberto and his friend counted the cash; $382,000. Wow. I imagine they all stared 00:17:18.800 --> 00:17:25.280 at the money and cracked open a couple beers to celebrate, to let off some stress. All this money 00:17:25.280 --> 00:17:34.160 wasn't for them, though. The guy who gave him the cards wanted his cut. They got to keep about half 00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:43.600 of it and send the other half to their supplier. [Music] Now, criminals have a lot of creative ways 00:17:43.600 --> 00:17:48.400 to move money around the world. You can invest and transfer cryptocurrencies or move it through 00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:53.520 a complicated network of bank accounts or money mules, but cash is king and clean. 00:17:53.520 --> 00:17:59.200 So, why launder it when it's already clean? No need to make a trail. Just bring the cash to the 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:06.160 boss. But this was going to be tricky since the boss wanted Alberto to deliver the cash himself 00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:15.520 to Eastern Europe. Specifically, they were told to bring around $200,000 to Bucharest, Romania, 00:18:15.520 --> 00:18:22.160 and then they can keep the rest. Okay, so Alberto had to deliver it, but he didn't want to go alone, 00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:29.120 so he got Elvis and Amir to go with him to Romania. But this must have been some adventure. 00:18:29.120 --> 00:18:34.160 How do you transport $200,000 in cash across the ocean like that? You probably don't put 00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:38.640 it all in your checked luggage. It probably can't all fit in the carry-on, so they had to split it 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:44.320 up among three of them and somehow make their way through TSA and onto a plane, all without spilling 00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:49.040 out or looking too suspicious, and that's just the cash. What about all their other travel items like 00:18:49.040 --> 00:18:54.880 clothes and toothbrushes? Packing for this trip must have been interesting for these three guys 00:18:54.880 --> 00:19:01.360 in their twenties, who have probably never been to Europe before, with $200,000 in cash in tow. 00:19:01.360 --> 00:19:07.040 They make it to Bucharest, though, and carry their $200,000 in cash to the destination. 00:19:07.040 --> 00:19:11.200 They meet with their handler. It wasn't the guy who gave him the cards. Of course not. Whoever 00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:16.240 he was seemed to be the mastermind, and he was good at OpSec, staying private. This guy they 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:21.200 met with was just a handler. So, they hand him the cash, and that was it. He disappeared with 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:27.520 the money. Job was done, though, and the boss was happy. Phew. Time to get out of Bucharest 00:19:27.520 --> 00:19:33.680 and head back home and party, since back home waiting for them was their half of the money, 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:39.840 almost $200,000 to split amongst themselves. So, they get back home and split it eight ways. 00:19:39.840 --> 00:19:43.840 Alberto got more because he was leading this crew, and he had to buy cards and writers and 00:19:43.840 --> 00:19:49.280 plane tickets and organize everything. [Music] But even though it was a nice payday, it wasn't enough 00:19:49.280 --> 00:19:55.440 to make everyone quit their jobs at Kmart and Domino's Pizza, but this made them dream bigger. 00:19:55.440 --> 00:20:00.000 If they could do this a few more times, then, yeah, it would be enough to quit 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:06.320 work and live comfortably with everything they ever wanted; fancy cars, a nice place 00:20:06.320 --> 00:20:12.720 to stay. Alberto married the girl that he fell in love with and would go with her to the DR to 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:17.840 visit her family and his family there. I'm sure he got her something nice after this, 00:20:17.840 --> 00:20:23.600 but I'm not sure if she knew where this money came from. There was good news; the 00:20:23.600 --> 00:20:28.240 boss guy was very pleased with these boys. They followed directions perfectly, got loads of cash, 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:32.880 and delivered it personally to Romania. The boss guy definitely wanted to work with them again, 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:37.520 and a few months later asked them, so, you want to do it again? [Music] Alberto was like, 00:20:37.520 --> 00:20:44.080 hell yeah. The boss guy was like, okay, but this is going to be a bigger one. Alberto's like, 00:20:44.080 --> 00:20:49.760 all right, tell me more. The boss was like, okay, well, I cut you off at two and a half hours last 00:20:49.760 --> 00:20:56.080 time. This time you can go all night long if you want. Alberto started doing the math. 00:20:56.080 --> 00:21:01.360 Let's see, they stole $380,000 in two and a half hours. So, multiply that by, what, 00:21:01.360 --> 00:21:07.360 four, five, six times? This was looking good. So, Alberto asked the crew, and they were all 00:21:07.360 --> 00:21:11.680 ready for round two, and they all thought that they'd be more efficient this time, 00:21:11.680 --> 00:21:18.400 too. They were smarter now, more clever, faster, bolder, and were better hustlers now. Alberto told 00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:23.360 his boss his crew was in, and we're all ready. The boss sent him the card details. Same thing; 00:21:23.360 --> 00:21:28.720 an unlimited debit card. Go make copies. He got the pin and distributed the cards to the crew, 00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:35.600 and was told what date it would be turned on, February 19, 2013. The eight people in the crew 00:21:35.600 --> 00:21:38.960 were more prepared this time than before. They had better ideas for routes through the city 00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:43.280 and ways to go faster, how to handle large amounts of money, and the excitement grew 00:21:43.280 --> 00:21:50.000 as it came closer to the date. On February 19, 2013, all eight of them took the one-hour trip 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:56.800 from Yonkers to New York City with the goal of trying to steal over a million dollars this time. 00:21:56.800 --> 00:22:01.520 Jose was one of the guys in Alberto's crew. I took a look at his Facebook. He's a family 00:22:01.520 --> 00:22:05.760 man. He's doing all kinds of stuff with his wife and kids at the time. In fact, most of these guys 00:22:05.760 --> 00:22:10.320 had a family, and I'm not sure if the wives or girlfriends knew what they were up to. I mean, 00:22:10.320 --> 00:22:14.960 after all, this was supposed to be a top-secret mission, right? Because if your plan is to rob 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:20.000 banks for over a million dollars, you've got to be very careful who you tell right? So, 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.640 this guy, Jose, was twenty-four years old on the day of their heist. He came dressed in a black 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:30.080 winter jacket over a white shirt, black pants, a black beanie. He bought a bigger backpack for 00:22:30.080 --> 00:22:35.280 this one. He ditched his old back-to-school-style backpack and got a bigger camping-style backpack, 00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:39.120 and it was totally empty as he rode to the city. He was planning to fill it all the 00:22:39.120 --> 00:22:43.360 way up by spending the whole night stealing more money than he'd ever earned in his whole life at 00:22:43.360 --> 00:22:48.320 that point. This was his second time doing this, and he was pretty serious about it this time. 00:22:48.320 --> 00:22:51.280 These men all arrived in New York City and were spread all over the 00:22:51.280 --> 00:22:55.680 city. They were standing waiting for the signal from Alberto to get started. Bing, 00:22:55.680 --> 00:23:02.320 there it was. It's go time. Jose started uptown at Morningside Heights. The first transaction is 00:23:02.320 --> 00:23:07.280 always just to see if the card works, and it did. It worked perfect, just like before. With that, 00:23:07.280 --> 00:23:18.160 the heist was on. [Beeping] Five withdrawals, and Jose left the bank, $2,400 in his bag. [Music] It 00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:23.120 started out just as he planned, and he was faster and better this time. He started walking south, 00:23:23.120 --> 00:23:28.320 down Broadway. He hit eight ATMs in his first eight blocks alone. He kept going; 00:23:28.320 --> 00:23:34.000 on the Upper West Side, three banks on 96th Street. At 4:31pm, he reached Bank of America, 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:40.480 and he took out five withdrawals there for $4,015. Jose felt unstoppable. He didn't 00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:45.200 think anyone was suspicious or watching him, and so he just kept going. But as you know, 00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:49.520 banks have cameras, and everything he was doing was being recorded. 00:23:49.520 --> 00:23:54.880 Jose hit up seven more ATMs around 86th Street alone. He walked further south past the Beacon 00:23:54.880 --> 00:24:00.000 Theater. He got to 72nd Street, hit twelve more ATMs in that area. At another Bank of America he 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:07.040 took out $2,400 from an ATM. Soon, he was in Times Square. Thousands of people were around. It's easy 00:24:07.040 --> 00:24:12.080 to slip into the crowd, change directions, or lay low for a few minutes. It's good cover for now, 00:24:12.080 --> 00:24:16.800 at least. But he didn't daddle. He was on the move. More ATMs hit. His backpack was starting 00:24:16.800 --> 00:24:20.800 to feel heavy. You don't realize how much money weighs until you got a backpack full of tens of 00:24:20.800 --> 00:24:25.520 thousands of dollars. But he wanted to do more, because imagine having an unlimited credit card 00:24:25.520 --> 00:24:28.880 that you could just take as much money out as you wanted, and you had all night to do it. You're not 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:33.040 going to want to quit early or go to sleep. This is go time. He was gaining confidence, 00:24:33.040 --> 00:24:37.360 and he felt a surge of urgency, because when he curved up and around the bank on the east side, 00:24:37.360 --> 00:24:42.320 he was doing seven withdrawals at a time, $5,600 on the spot. 00:24:42.320 --> 00:24:47.920 Where to next? He went into the late hours of the night. His bag was bulging, becoming completely 00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:52.160 full. But in such a New York way, people using the ATMs right next to him didn't even glance 00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:56.960 in his direction as he would put money in his backpack. All eight of the people in Alberto's 00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:03.040 crew had similar experiences. The cards worked seamlessly. No one had any problems, and they 00:25:03.040 --> 00:25:11.520 all went all night long. In total, eight of them made 3000 withdraws until they ran out of places 00:25:11.520 --> 00:25:15.680 to put the money. Their backpacks were full. Pockets were full. Alberto gave the signal, 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:21.680 and people started heading home. Phew, they did it. It was a huge success for all eight 00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:26.480 of them. Each of them brought home more money than they've ever made in their whole lives, 00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:31.200 and got home safely. They got away with it. When they got together the next day and counted their 00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:42.160 money, they had a total of $2,800,000. Wow, they stole $2.8 million from banks all across New York. 00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:46.480 If you look at that dollar amount of loan that was stolen, this is one of the largest bank robberies 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:52.720 ever in the history of New York City, all done by eight hustlers with big dreams. For context, 00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:58.240 the biggest bank robbery in New York was for almost $6 million, the Lufthansa heist at JFK 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:02.960 Airport, a case so big Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro made a movie about it called 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:08.480 Goodfellas. [Music] This was a massive success for them. They started partying and celebrating. 00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:13.920 You know, when you're looking at $2.8 million like that, it starts to change you. You start thinking, 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:18.640 should we just take this money for ourselves and disappear or give the boss his cut and 00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:23.840 look for another job in the future? We're not exactly sure how the split happened from this 00:26:23.840 --> 00:26:29.280 heist. I suspect that they sent the boss his half of the money. Alberto, of course, 00:26:29.280 --> 00:26:32.560 wanted to be clever. He was starting to get nervous about all this money around, 00:26:32.560 --> 00:26:38.960 so he packaged up $800,000 so he could stash it somewhere safe. No, not in New York. 00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:44.000 That would be too close to home. He wanted to be more clever than that. Florida seemed far enough 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:48.720 away. After all, he liked going down to Miami sometimes, so he had someone take the money down 00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:55.200 to Florida by bus, because it's less suspicious that way. It took the guy twenty-four hours to get 00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:59.760 there and then meet Alberto there to give him his money. But in the meantime, the boys were 00:26:59.760 --> 00:27:05.920 partying, living a new lifestyle. I saw one photo they took; it's got four cans of Coors Light with 00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:11.280 a pile of cash on top of it, and then a Dominican Republic hat on top of that, which I think is 00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:17.520 funny. Like, with all that money, they chose to show off pics of them drinking Coors Light. Like, 00:27:17.520 --> 00:27:22.080 what kind of flex is that, where you're like, look at all this money we have, and we have 00:27:22.080 --> 00:27:28.240 Coors Light? They liked partying in Florida, and they would take trips down there and just live 00:27:28.240 --> 00:27:34.320 large. They went on shopping sprees in Miami, they bought new cars, $10,000-Rolex watches. 00:27:34.320 --> 00:27:39.040 On one wild, drunken night at a club in South Beach, Florida, they danced and splurged on 00:27:39.040 --> 00:27:46.000 bottles of Moet and Dom Perignon until 4:00 in the morning. The bill was $4,000 plus tip, or in other 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:53.680 words, one ATM’s worth. Life was going really well for them. It was like the world was theirs. But 00:27:53.680 --> 00:28:00.000 with $2.8 million missing from New York banks, some investigators started looking for clues. 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:03.840 Alberto was the first to sense something was off. Maybe his boss tipped him off, 00:28:03.840 --> 00:28:08.640 or someone told him that they got a call from the police, or maybe he just sensed it. I imagine the 00:28:08.640 --> 00:28:13.120 hairs on the back of his neck would tingle every now and then. I mean, they had to know there were 00:28:13.120 --> 00:28:16.640 cameras all over New York City, and it was just a matter of time for someone to figure 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:21.520 out which cards were used, which transactions were fraudulent, and then pulling up that surveillance 00:28:21.520 --> 00:28:28.480 video of the people using the ATMs. Alberto had a feeling that someone was watching those videos, 00:28:28.480 --> 00:28:34.760 watching him. It was making him paranoid, so he wanted to get away and lay low. 00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:40.880 [Music] Alberto was starting to think being in America is becoming risky. It might be a better 00:28:40.880 --> 00:28:45.680 idea to leave the country, go back to the DR for a while, wait for things to cool down. He wanted 00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:49.840 to play it smart, and he thought with his cut of the money, he could live a happy life with 00:28:49.840 --> 00:28:54.880 his wife in the DR with that amount. It would be a good life. So, that was his plan. He got 00:28:54.880 --> 00:28:59.200 a plane ticket to fly to the DR and leave the country. He thought about it more, and 00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:03.600 he realized it's the only plan. If he stays, it's just a matter of time before the police find him, 00:29:03.600 --> 00:29:08.320 so he has to leave. But the trip to the DR was going to be risky. Alberto wasn't sure 00:29:08.320 --> 00:29:12.640 if the police had any info on him. If he tries to board the plane, are they going to stop him? 00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:17.840 But he took the chance anyway. He threw $100,000 in cash in his luggage and went to the airport. 00:29:17.840 --> 00:29:21.200 He was nervous about taking a flight with all that money and possibly under investigation 00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:27.200 by the feds, but he made it onto the plane and all the way home to the DR without any problems. 00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:33.200 Alberto got away with his split of the money, safe and sound in his wife's hometown with 00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:38.480 his wife and family. It felt good to be home. But what about the other guys? They were all 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:43.120 in the US still. When Alberto fled the country, Elvis realized he should probably go on the run, 00:29:43.120 --> 00:29:47.120 too. Alberto was the guy who knew everything. It's a bad sign when your leader leaves you. 00:29:47.120 --> 00:29:50.400 Elvis suddenly felt like everything was closing in on him. So, in a panic, 00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:54.960 he left behind his mom and siblings and raced to the JFK Airport. He didn't want to draw any 00:29:54.960 --> 00:29:59.440 attention, so he only took $2,000 in cash with him, but it didn't matter. By then, 00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:04.560 the investigators had positive IDs on him and others, and when Elvis got to the airport, 00:30:04.560 --> 00:30:10.320 he was arrested. Alberto felt bad for his buddy. Man, someone got arrested over this. This is 00:30:10.320 --> 00:30:15.360 getting serious. But at the same time, Alberto felt even better that he left the country when he 00:30:15.360 --> 00:30:21.200 did. He must have just barely slipped the police. But all the dominoes started falling one by one. 00:30:21.200 --> 00:30:26.000 Each of the guys Alberto worked with were either arrested or turned themselves in. Did Alberto 00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:31.040 feel guilty? I don't know. He probably couldn't believe his own luck. He was in the DR with his 00:30:31.040 --> 00:30:36.320 family. So, he splurged on a Toyota pickup truck and used it to split his time between Santiago, 00:30:36.320 --> 00:30:39.920 where he was born, and the nearby city of San Francisco de Macoris, 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:45.840 where his wife's family lived. Alberto's plan was to lay low, kick back, relax, and enjoy the money, 00:30:45.840 --> 00:30:50.480 but the paranoia ate at him. [Music] The money was like a curse. He had a lot of it now, 00:30:50.480 --> 00:30:57.680 cash physically with him, and other people knew that. He was safe from the FBI, sure, 00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:04.320 but his friends and family knew he was loaded, and word was spreading. So, he bought a 45 Glock 00:31:04.320 --> 00:31:09.200 pistol and carried it around wherever he went. The rumor goes that even when Alberto walked a 00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:13.120 short distance from his front door to his truck in the driveway, he wore it outside 00:31:13.120 --> 00:31:18.720 his clothes just in case anyone was watching. Alberto was slowly unwinding into his new life. 00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:23.280 He'd been in the DR for two weeks now and was staying at his wife's place, a single-story 00:31:23.280 --> 00:31:29.280 concrete house, and he liked to play dominoes with his cousins. One night, when playing dominoes with 00:31:29.280 --> 00:31:35.280 them, two guys came over that he wasn't expecting, and they immediately looked menacing, both of them 00:31:35.280 --> 00:31:40.800 wearing hoods and moving in quickly, and they drew their guns and pointed them at Alberto. Alberto 00:31:40.800 --> 00:31:45.920 looked up and reached to grab his pistol, but he was too late. The two men opened fire on Alberto. 00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:50.320 They shot him in the left side between his hip and his rib cage. The bullet traveled through 00:31:50.320 --> 00:31:56.160 his torso and exited his right side. His cousins screamed and started to run. They were eighteen 00:31:56.160 --> 00:32:01.280 and twenty years old, but even they weren't safe. The cousins were both shot in the thighs. 00:32:01.280 --> 00:32:10.400 The men came closer to Alberto and shot him again, four more times, and killed Alberto. Then the 00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:18.240 hooded men fled. They got into an SUV and sped away, going south. Police arrived on the scene. 00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:24.880 They found an M16 machine gun, a 9-millimeter Smith and Wesson pistol, 22-caliber Ruger handgun, 00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:31.200 some boxes of ammunition, and according to one local news outlet, three swords. But the 00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:37.840 strangest part was when the police investigated the house, they found a pile of Alberto's money 00:32:37.840 --> 00:32:44.240 lying right there on the table. So, I'm not sure why the killers left without taking it. 00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:48.560 Maybe they simply stole whatever Alberto had on him and ran. Maybe they were met with some 00:32:48.560 --> 00:32:54.720 return gunfire from someone. Maybe they were just panicked and wanted to get away. But it seems like 00:32:54.720 --> 00:33:01.200 they didn't take much or any of Alberto's money. Alberto was twenty-five years old when he died. 00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:03.080 REPORTER: John, good morning. What a story. 00:33:03.080 --> 00:33:06.080 JOHN: This is a brilliant case by the US Secret 00:33:06.080 --> 00:33:10.305 Service that's being prosecuted by the US Attorney in Brooklyn, Loretta Lynch. 00:33:10.305 --> 00:33:12.560 TYLER: [Music] This is an incredible story we're about to tell you, the feds 00:33:12.560 --> 00:33:19.600 busting an international cyber bank hack that funnelled millions of dollars from ATM machines 00:33:19.600 --> 00:33:23.440 in Manhattan. Senior correspondent Scott Cohn here with the latest developments. Hi, Scott. 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:27.640 SCOTT: It is a wild story, Tyler. $2.8 million in a matter of hours in Manhattan alone. 00:33:27.640 --> 00:33:31.880 TYLER: This is one of those interesting stories which leads to basic questions like how, who? 00:33:31.880 --> 00:33:34.160 SCOTT: You know this is — if you're a criminal, 00:33:34.160 --> 00:33:38.960 this is a gorgeous scheme. If you are a bank, this is your worst nightmare, 00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:43.680 and if you're a prosecutor like Loretta Lynch or the Secret Service agents involved in this case, 00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:48.120 it's a great caper in terms of the case, but you realize you're just at the tip of the iceberg. 00:33:48.120 --> 00:33:51.680 JOHN: Eight people indicted in New York. Seven of them are in custody, 00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:55.440 but authorities say they're just the New York cell in a global crime ring. 00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:00.240 SCOTT: [Music] What you have here is you've got backers. These are people who've got big money who 00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:04.960 are paying people to break into the bank systems, get the pin numbers of debit card accounts, and 00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:10.880 so on. Those are the hackers. So, the backers pay the hackers, then you go to the cashers, and the 00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:15.280 cashers — once the backers have paid the hackers, they've broken through, they've now gotten the 00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:20.880 pin codes, and they've raised the limits on the accounts to be unlimited for withdrawal. 00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:24.880 The cashers go out, and when they get the pin numbers and the signals on their smartphones, 00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:30.080 they're told ‘go’. In the case in New York, the New York cell went up and down Broadway, and in 00:34:30.080 --> 00:34:40.000 the course of two hours took $2.8 million out of ATMs from 116th Street to 23rd Street in a line. 00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:42.800 JOHN: We're joined live now by the federal prosecutor in the 00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:47.200 case. Loretta Lynch is the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Well, 00:34:47.200 --> 00:34:50.640 thanks for joining us. So, just explain a little bit more the mechanics here. 00:34:50.640 --> 00:34:55.120 LORETTA: In the New York crew during the second attack in February, those eight 00:34:55.120 --> 00:35:00.640 guys only had one account among them, and that account limit had been raised to $40 00:35:00.640 --> 00:35:05.840 million. They look at prepaid debit cards because they're not tied to an individual, 00:35:05.840 --> 00:35:09.600 not tied to an individual's checking or savings account. People tend to check 00:35:09.600 --> 00:35:15.840 those. You would notice if your own personal debit card limit shot up to $40 million, 00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:21.040 and you’d probably call somebody. But the most sophisticated part of this attack is the hack 00:35:21.040 --> 00:35:26.800 itself. These are patient cyber-criminals. It takes anywhere from two to eighteen months to 00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:32.480 execute the kind of control needed to really get inside these credit card processors. 00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:35.520 JOHN: The people that you did arrest, 00:35:35.520 --> 00:35:40.320 that you announced yesterday, the aid in New York, say they're low-level, right? I mean, 00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:44.920 they're not doing the high-tech stuff. They're essentially street criminals? 00:35:44.920 --> 00:35:50.480 LORETTA: Well, they're not doing the high-tech stuff and — but we wouldn't call them low-level, 00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:54.800 because without them you could not plunder the bank accounts the way in which they were 00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:59.200 plundered. They're actually a vital part of the organization. Everyone seems to have equal 00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:03.840 importance, just a very, very different role in this. But these guys were the feet on the street, 00:36:03.840 --> 00:36:09.120 so to speak. They were the ones who were commanded and directed to go to the ATMs, 00:36:09.120 --> 00:36:14.560 to wait for that code, to spring into action, and cash out as much money as they could 00:36:14.560 --> 00:36:28.297 before the credit card processor or the bank or someone else discovered what they were doing. 00:36:28.297 --> 00:36:31.200 (Outro): [Outro music] Thanks for listening. This episode actually links up with another 00:36:31.200 --> 00:36:36.000 episode I made, which is actually bonus episode number 7, called Seagate. See, 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:40.800 the mastermind behind all this was a guy named Seagate, and he was the one who got the magic 00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:45.120 cards, and he wasn't just getting Alberto to cash them. He had teams all over the globe doing it. 00:36:45.120 --> 00:36:49.280 When I made that episode I didn't know about Alberto's story, and then once I heard this, 00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:54.720 I was like, Bo, this needs to be its own episode. Hell, this needs to be a movie. Even though it's 00:36:54.720 --> 00:37:00.720 only a microcosm of the whole operation, it's still quite the story, don't you think? Anyway, 00:37:00.720 --> 00:37:04.400 like I said, if you want to hear the bigger story, that's bonus episode number 7, 00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:08.480 called Seagate. How do you get bonus episodes? Well, I'm glad you asked. 00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:14.160 Go to plus.darknetdiaries.com, and there you can sign up to be a supporter. When you do, 00:37:14.160 --> 00:37:18.720 boom, you get eleven bonus episodes to enjoy right now. So, please consider 00:37:18.720 --> 00:37:21.680 supporting the show if you think it gives you value or you appreciate it, 00:37:21.680 --> 00:37:26.640 because I really appreciate it when you support me back. This show is created by me, 00:37:26.640 --> 00:37:31.200 the base-64-encoded Jack Rhysider. Our editor is the control bit, Tristan Ledger, 00:37:31.200 --> 00:37:35.760 and our sound designer for this one was Mr. Carriage Return, Andrew Meriwether, mixing 00:37:35.760 --> 00:37:40.560 done by proximity sound, and our intro music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. My 00:37:40.560 --> 00:37:44.640 favorite joke about banks is that every time I go into a bank, they ask me, hi, how can I help you 00:37:44.640 --> 00:37:56.000 today? I always say, oh, I'm just seeing if you have any free samples. This is Darknet Diaries.