The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see aside of life the average persons never exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. The bad guys always target vulnerable people, and no one is more vulnerable than someone looking for love. When former detective Kylie Dennis found out her mum was a victim of a romance scam, she decided to use her skills as
a detective to expose a scammer. Today, I speak with Kylie about her police career and the world of romance scammers. Working now as a private investigator, Kylie has made it her life ambition to expose the low lives behind those scams and stop them from taking advantage of vulnerable people. Have a listened to what she has to say. It will shock you and educate you about this growing despicable crime. Kylie Dennis, welcome to I Catch Killers.
Well, thank you very excited to be here. Thank you.
Well, I'm glad I like what we gets say they're excited to. It would be terrible if oh yeah, anyway, now, former detective, if you left the police you bought a pub, yes, and then became a private investigator and your main focus is romance scammers. Yes, absolutely, romance scams. Just give us a sense of what we're talking about. If someone says a romance scam, well.
I sort of deal with that digital romance scam, the one that you go online dating profile, fake profile, You engage with that profile, believing it is who they represent themselves to be on a dating app, and then they take you off the dating app and take you into this dark world of conversations, and then you start engaging with them and then send money and your world is just destroyed in a very very basic way.
The magnitude of it, I get the sense that a lot of times the romance scams, people don't want to put their hand up about it. You feel like an idiot if someone's someone scammed you, especially when you're vulnerable, you're looking for love or looking for a companionship. But what sort of scale are we talking about?
Look for us now it's number three in Australia, so we've got the investments and then you've got business, email, compromise and then romance. So worldwide we're still talking in that top five scams worldwide, So we're talking billions of dollars long lost. But that's that's only what's recorded because I talk to a lot of victims, but they don't report it, so realistically, we don't actually know the financial extent and also the emotional extent, but the financial extent
as to what's going on. So we know that it's you know, transnational organized crime. We know that the money is being utilized towards the drug trade, you know, weapons, whatever, but we don't actually know the actual extent of money being lost, and certainly in Australia, we don't know.
And saying that you're not sure how much has been reported, I would imagine if I naively went online dating and was scammed. It's not the type of thing that you put your hand up.
That's the hard part is that if you do get scammed very much, you're upset, you're embarrassed, and it doesn't matter whether it's And we spoke about shopping. I love online shopping. So I've been scammed with that, and I tell everybody about that, but I haven't reported that, so you know, and I wasn't embarrassed because that was my own silly fault with a glass of wine.
But some of the best bargains are done when you've got a glass of wine and ten o'clock at night.
Oh yes, yes, yes, I've got to stop doing that. But that's a whole different podcast. So I didn't report that because I didn't need to report that, But I understand was someone who's lost one hundred thousand dollars, you know, that sense of shame because then they then talk about how stupid they are internally, not externally what we say as a community. So that's why they don't go and report because it's hard to sort of then relive it. Yeah, because you've got to go through the tick the boxes.
Well we're not just talking financial loss here it's emotional.
Yeah, and that's worse than the financial. So any victim will talk about the emotional loss, the loss of what they thought was somebody of importance in their life has now on. So for them it's yes, I have lost forty thousand, and that's devastating within the financial aspect, but I've also now lost who I am as a person. You know, what did I do wrong? So there's there becomes that self blame of I'm stupid, I'm dumb, you know, and we all do silly things in our life. But
we can move on from that scam. Victims take a long time to actually accept that.
Well, to be a victim, there's a vulnerability to start with, isn't it? And that and I'm talking in a general sense here, but if it's loneliness and someone's looking for companionship, they're not in a good starting point. And then to find that you have been manipulated, I can imagine that it would take a long time to reset your life after something like that.
I would actually say, some of them, don't you know it is a real challenge because there's no there's no direct processes for them to go to, Like I you know, I will say to them, look, you know you need to go and seek help. Three your GP, go and find a counselor who is understanding of that trauma. You know, we've sent victims of crime to counselors when they've been severely assaulted, etc. And I think counselors can understand that. But this is like a this is a digital crime,
so this is another another whole different world. So you try to get them down that path, but then they've sort of got to accept that they have been a victim of a crime to start off with. To then go and get help. You know, it's a real challenge to sort of get them out of that dark.
And I don't think we fully appreciate it because quite often the times that you're exposed, unless it's someone that you know, to a romance scam, it's a segment on the Current Affair or a show like that. And I'm sure like all of us, and this is something that hopefully we dispel today when we discuss how cunning those scammers are, but we all sit there and think, how could that person be so stupid? Absolutely, yeah, it is it just women or men as.
Well, both both, and I think it's equal within you know, we're not I might be talking fifty one forty nine that type of but it is an equal, an equal sort of playing field for both sides. And they still they equally don't report. And I think the statistics women lose more, men report more so. And I think it's our DNA as women that we you know, we become that sense of shame or women not not saying that you guys don't carry shame.
I don't want to a lot of things. I'll argue that point. I just don't want to talk about shame.
That's right either, do I. But okay, again that's another podcast. Yeah, it's interesting and I don't know why. I don't know whether is it is it internally with a female that they don't report as much as what a man. I'm not too sure why that is all my female victims have not report. And that is that deep sense of family, you know, the internal fight within within themselves. The men sort of go oh, after they've accepted, they go, okay, well, I think I have to, you.
Know, And it's interesting. I don't know I'm surmising here, but I think you see a man, elderly man and all of a sudden, a young attractive woman's fallen madly in love with him online, and it's almost like the men culture can almost laugh at each other about it. Oh, I got taken for a ride there. Yes, probably it's more deep when women have genuinely looking for the love of the companionship, and that might be why they sit on it more so than the men.
Yeah, I think so. Look, I talked the other day about that that you know, the Halo buyers, you know, we all have that within ourselves, you know, and within that romance world. Well that exacerbates a bit more because there's someone that's come online and usually they look you know, trustworthy, so you know, and as a female you sort of look at that and go, well, if you're here's this photo, you look trustworthy, or you might be a doctor, whatever,
so then we'll engage with that. Where if it was at a bar, at a pub, there is a high likelihood that not being disrespectful. But a seventy eight year old woman is not going to go up to somebody who is, you know, in their mid thirties.
That's whereas our spokesly us possibly have a stupid enough to think, yeah, I'll have it go okay, all right, well this is about romance. I want an attack on how stupid some minutes, some not all, some only some. Before we go further down the rabbit hole of romance scheme, let's talk about you for a bit. And because you're a police officer for what fourteen early fourteen, when did you join and why so?
I joined in nineteen eighty nine, and I joined because I was raised as a copper's kid. So when I was about eleven twelve, an incident happened at our house where our neighbor was shot on our doorsteps and she's fived and I watched. I went out there and I placed a towel over the wound of the victim, and then I watched. The cops were in a very small
country town, and how they worked was just brilliant. You know, we didn't have mobile phones back then, so when the shooting had happened, Dad gone outside, retrieved the firearm, bought it inside and had to go to the phone that was on the wall. Everybody turned up in the you know, all the cops turned up because of detective sergeants shooting, and it was an interesting process watching how they all worked. You know, there was no way I was doing anything
with medical because that was just too hard. But it was just it was a well oiled machine.
Seeing how the police is.
Yes, it's great. They really came together. It was structure only twelve, but I just really went this is pretty good. This is cool.
If you suppose that's a lot of criticism of police by the public and different places, but when the ship goes down, the police are the ones that have got to respond. And saw that. Where was that? Can you say?
Well, yeah, so that was at Wentworth, so very small country town on the border of Victoria and South Australia, Tiny little country town. It was just the best life. Back again, we're talking back in the olden days where we got to climb trees and everything. But it was a great lifestyle. And being raised as a copper's kid in the country town. You know, your friends were the coppers kids.
You know.
We I spend many time sitting in the cells, you know, the old police for paying the old police blankets. They all have a smell. I can still to this day remember that that smell. It was just a good life and we all got on. They all got on, well, I mean the kids got on well, but the husband wives got on well. It was just you know, I'm not going to dismiss about it was a hard life back then too, because of course Dad was the only one. Dad was the detective sergeant, so of course he was
always off doing something. And I just looked at that and went, yeah.
I want that, Okay, I really want that. That's interesting. So when you joined the police in eighty nine, the academy down at Golbin, how do you enjoy you loved it?
I would say that that. I was talking to an ex cop the other day. We talked about that. You know, back then we were on the ladder of where we stood. You know, students were below police dogs. But they trained us hard, and that was for a purpose because once you left, you're not going out there for fairy tales, you know, and lollipops and everything. You're going out into a very hard world. And I love that. I love that style of training. I like that and want to
call it military style of training. Ever, you don't want to use the word bastonization.
But it had a purpose, but there was there was a degree that it needed to be because I liken it too, and I'm not sure how it plays out now, but break you down, which they did and then rebuild you.
And yeah, A taught resilience.
Absolutely, And I think I don't know how training is, so I don't want to criticize it now, but I think that if you've changed the training and make it all fairy dust and perfect, you're doing the wrong thing to the student because you have to be taken to your core. And then, like you said, rebuilt. It was hard and there was nothing. I loved it. There is nothing negative I can talk about six months training down there.
I loved every bit of it and we were pushed to it and I wasn't physically fit, but I wasn't in the F Troop. The boys in the F Troop, my god, I cannot blame We had that. Remember you have T shirts made up. Oh my god, they were the great thing F Troop And you know when I was running, they would be behind me and they would say the most awful things to get my lazy ass over because we had to do it in a time. But it was great. We worked together as a team and I
love those blokes for it. I love that. I mean, there was only three women in our in our F Troope but we work together perfectly, and that's and that's what team works on.
You need to work as a team when you're out on the out on the streets. Absolutely, so okay, your fresh face, you got your shiny new uniform on, and.
Spit polish boots, get the spit.
How much of a pain was that you weren't allowed to do it in your room? If you did?
And then with the cigarette lighter, oh my goodness, the things. And I don't know where they do that now too, but I had We had a lot of pride with that.
Well I can't imagine, but you would stand the attension they're coming in and inspecting how you made your bed.
Absolutely like I don't know whether they do that, No, I don't know, but I laugh about it now.
But it was fun. It was because we're all winging about whether your bed's being made properly or your boots have been paid.
You stood out front of your room and you made sure they came through. It was Christine, and your uniform was ironed perfectly. Everything was. But that's that's what it was meant to be. They were, you know, sinning.
Well, I would have felt cheated if it wasn't that way, I thought, you're going to the academy, that that's what you expected delivered. How was your your experiences out on the street when you started.
Look, I went to marrackvill and that was that was a really hard patrol. Again, we're in a patrol which there are only five women, and I think we may have been under the students on the on the ladder of where we where we fit within the organization. Which was fine because I went in there with that belief. Well, you know, you needed to work hard to prove that you were, you know, a member of this team. Basically a couple of things that sort of weren't to Marrafa
wasn't the greatest. Oh no, it was good, but it had a few sprinkles of not good.
And well, it was a different world. It was a different policing. Policing was different, but society was also different. What went down at the police stations back in those days wouldn't stand up to any scrutiny, but in the same regards, it was the values of the society at the time.
But it also certain parts of it. So I did a piece the other day about community based policing and I remember back then walking the beach. And I know we can't do that now because we're understaffed and all that. But back then, we went to the pubs, We sat down with the licensee who just happened to know everything that fell off the back of a truck. We went to the local shops and we had coffee, or we'd go down the street and meet up with Mary, who's
there is I need to tell you something? Come inside. But we gathered intel, and we gathered in a very basic way, but that intel formed amazing jobs that created lockups that were brilliant.
I was always always surprised where a crime had happened, and detectives or police that have been in the area for a long time would go out or instantaneously say this is where we've got to go these people who have done it. And that's that type of community policing.
And I think and that's where we fail a little bit more now that we don't want to do. You know, sitting in the pub is deemed as you know corruption or you know, even going to in Marricko, they'd have the closing down of you know KFC, I mean high end food quality, you know, like so good, so they'd either you know, you're ring the local cops, the local fires, or the ambos and they do a rotation. We've got leftover buckets of chicken. You like some chicken, like high
end stuff. But you know, but that's we'd be out patrolling and doing stuff. Yeah, sure, why not, let's pick that up.
You had your finger on the pulse on what was going on in the community.
Everything, and we knew where the bad boys were. We knew that, well, we'll keep an eye on them tonight. We know that they are there. Intel has said that, you know they're going to be thinking of doing something, we'll just back off here, you know. So it was just I think it was a very well oiled machine back then. But again, we didn't have phones, social media, we didn't have any of that. But policing was policing, and it was it was good, it was hard, and you still had to run after them.
And I like the fact that they're sitting down speaking to a former cop that enjoyed it, because I still think it's one of the world's best jobs policing.
For me today, it is one of the saddest things that I never got to spend more time than what I did I still to this day bleed blue no matter what.
Yeah, I can see in the way that you're talking about your body language that you enjoyed it. Detectives. How did that start? Because you went into a listing, which is preparing the pectique.
So I started. I sort of put my foot in it. I wanted to do it in Marritam when I was junior, and then that happened when I went into Flemington. I sort of put my hand up then and said I'd like to sort of do that a list and go through the ball ring and all that sort of stuff. So that was that slow process there, and I've trained at that stage. I did the Special Forces Undercover Commercial course for the operation for us to do three months
in a pawn shop. So I did that, and then I went and trained in the negotiators as well, and then that sort of all just I don't know, it was like my.
Next you got the taste taste of it.
The next step was I knew I was always going to be detective, and without me knowing, I sort of followed my dad's footsteps.
You know.
He worked at Newtown, he was at twenty one Division. I was at Marrickville. I went to Flemington. Dad was at Flemington. Then he went to all and like I wasn't sort of realizing that that was the steps that I was taking. He went to the crime squad and all that. So I knew that that's what I wanted to do from the moment I joined the cops. I was going to be detective.
Okay, let's talk about the pawn shop. When you're working undercover there, I'd like that operation that was And we're just clarify when we're talking porn aw PA W undercover in porn, it sounds that's a shame. I'm sure that listeners would have loved to hear about working undercovering the pornorn shop.
Yes, and I always have to say, hey, people go, why are you spelling it out? So think about it. I'm not It's not a pawn like O r N. I don't know how that would have worked with a high crime rate around, you know, in a city Sydney. But anyway, Yeah, that was but yeah, that was an interesting three months operation.
Tell us about that because I remember when that was going down. I think it was Phil Mehan and Martin Slott from the region I was working in, were involved in it. There would have been a few others, Yes, explain it because it was at the time I thought the novel idea and I subsequently had a former law enforcement officer from the US and they got great results with that type of operation. So tell us about that.
It was the first of its kind in Australia. So we had four shops, so the four regions, three operatives in each region, and we just opened up this daggy pawn shop on the side street because we had high instance of breacan Enna's robbery anything that was within the property fences and was out of control. And I do believe it may have started in the UK on a smaller level. And whoever came up and said, well, here's a great initiative. We will open up four pawn shops
and we will collect everything. And we did. We collected everything that was legitimate and also stolen.
And then you know, so basically I understand pawn shops and how they work, but it's where people come in with property, yes, that they want to sell the property or hock the property there and come back and buy it, buy it.
Yes.
And at the time you're talking about the amount of stolen properties, Heroin was still in the streets. Robbery breaking in as were a big fige. So someone that breaking and steal the VCR and take it to the local pawn shop or jewelry. And you guys were in there pretending to be just the daggy type people that are running a pawn shop and dealing with these people and asking where did you get that from?
And because they would just they would just talk to you because you'd be sitting down with them, and they'd come in a couple of times, and some were legitimate people. You know, you just said, oh, okay, I just want to put this for three months. And we ran the business like a business, so you still had a ticket everything, so people still had to have that if they wanted to just get a bit of a loan, and we
had to do the loan and everything. We had to cash everything up, so it was really like a proper business. But we also knew when you know, naughty Fred came in, we knew, okay, he's done a break an enner. And slowly they'd start telling a bit more information. So of course then you're creating intel reports, your understanding processes. You understand exactly what they're doing, and we just kept all the property and everyone got it back, well most people
got it back. I mean that was another process to then give it all back to the owners.
Well, I remember there was a big resolution day where we got called in people not working on the actual operation. There's a job. Everyone needs to be in here at five am in the morning. We'll tell you what about then, And we got handed briefs of evidence. And I still remember locking up people and it was I shouldn't say fun people, but it was fun because we got fatos of the people coming in the store the properly if so, knock on the door and yeah, where'd you get this from?
And so many people got locked up. Ye from it, didn't they.
And they knew they had no way of saying no, no, no, because everything was there, everything was digitized, everything was recorded, and I don't believe our statements were anything too big. I think we were. We just did more more contemporarious notes at that time because everything was recorded anyway. So it was a great operation. It was a very successful operation, my belief was very successful. I know. After that I
went to another one Northern Beaches. That was a flow on effect from that, so and more of more of that investigative side, not the undercover side.
Yeah, okay, so you enjoyed doing that covert work?
No, not really, well, no that was fun. I was never and I remember training doing undercover. Look, I was never good at drugs, I'd be honestly. That was just no, no, no, give me jewelry, give me clothing. I just was never going to be a drug operative. And we had a couple of had a girl trained with this and she was a tiny little thing and i'man tiny and I used to say to them, well, I'm too fat to be a druggie. I can't be. I do not look
like a heroin junkie. There was never going to be any reason for me to look like a heroin junkie. So I was never going to go down that path. I played a role with a couple of girls who sorry a girl who was doing the heroin side of it all and trying to get all that sort of stuff, and I did a couple of jobs in the cross with that wasn't my jam. Sort of, We got ourselves into a bit of a tight spot with a couple of blokes who were very bad people, and I thought this is not going to.
It is a fine fine line. You've got the work, especially as a female in that environment undercover operative. Yeah, well, you know what the blokes are after, and.
Yes, and that's what they're after. And it was we're in a bit of try, We're a bit of strife here. Okay, we need to talk ourselves out of this. We need to and we did and we got ourselves out and we walked down the street and it was sort of like, thank god, Okay, that one was a bit that one's a bit hairy. But we had to go back the next night. So there was a reason. We knew that the offender was committing Oh, he had committed a homicide.
There was something more there, but there was drugs involved, and it was just like, okay, this is huge, this is this is huge. This one was like and I knew that at that stage I was marriage, so I couldn't tell my husband. He knew that I was doing an undercover job, but I said, I can't tell you anything. I couldn't even tell him when I got home went oh that was oh, that was that was that was close.
That was okay, exciting, but maybe.
Maybe a little bit so that wasn't my jam. I sort of just didn't think that that was Yeah, I couldn't do that for months on end.
Okay, yeah, you also had a shot that in negost I love that tell us about that.
They are just most amazing team. You know, there's a team of You've got your four with your you know, your your bosses and everything, and you know you're on call every six weeks. And you know, I used to I've been called to go to Bankstown Airport where I jump on the plane with the and they were men boys in black, then with the police dog and then you've got this tiny little plane and you have to fly to Orange. I mean, it was just that is a magical team. I mean, I'm sure they're still they're
magical today. They work hard. You know, we're smart, we know what we need to achieve. We achieve it together as a team. You know, you're still at your prime and your secondary, your intel, You've got your doctor, like everybody was there and the boss were just the boss was always there. So it was one of the saddest things that I lost when I left the cops.
Yeah, I know you're and you're involved in the thig of it. I was in the tactical side of it. So I was laying out in the bushwai. You guys are a talk talking about talking to the crooks. But you're getting a first class seat in some of the big crimes that are going down and big things, so I can imagine the excitement. It is a lot of pressure there too.
But especially there was a job. There was a job in Northern Beaches and he had taken hostage his girlfriend and he had a knife and he was harming her whilest they were talking. And that was a very intense job, and it was it was a bedroom, so you know, you guys were there, negotiators are still talking at the door. That was a very intense job because you guys couldn't go in there because he's got the knife. You had no means of getting getting into that room. So you know,
you're right, you're right in the thick of everything. And there are a lot of funny times when I did a job where one of you guys had had a vasectomy and he was in a lot of pain and he's trying was funny because we're trying to negotiat he's moaning because he's got to have an ice pack. Could hurry? Well, I mean they were a good time.
I must must admit. Sometimes when the siege is out in the bush where you didn't have the telephone, communication or radio, it's on the loudhailers and laying out there if it was cold or hot, I'm laying there. Oh, for fox sake, give me the loudhailer. I'll talk about because yeah, I know, you've got to just hurry, hurry, I'd say, I know, And you've got to laugh at the situations because some of the situations are just ridiculous that you find yourself in.
Look. I I remember the blow a bloke sitting on the rooftop and we would do two things that we would smoke as a negotiator. My girlfriend she would drink Coca cola. That was her jam. She just loved coke. So when i'd negotiate, well, I would negotiate and I'd have a smoke. So they'd want to smoke and come down smoke, and so they would come down. You know, you guys will help them down. I'd walk over there and before you locked him up, made I promised your
cigarette here, have a smoke done easy? How easy is that? Okay? That job's finishing there's my other time. Okay, home now. And that's all I had to do was just to talk them down, and most of them just wanted to talk, you know. I mean, there were some sad ones on the gap and you know, things like that. But the negotiators, they're just a great bunch, that whole that whole team, you guys and us. It just worked well.
Now I can understand why it would have been hard leaving that. Why did you leave?
So? I had my second baby, and we had a few issues with child care at that time for my second one, and my husband had just bought a pub, so he was working long hours, and I didn't have any family down there at that stage. So I asked the cops for an extension. I wanted either another six months leave without pay, or could I just come back part time, just for six months, just so we could sort of get a few things organized, and they knocked
me back on both. And I couldn't go back full time because at that stage I was on care for child protection, so I still had to do that. I could have given up the negotiators, but that was sort of that was like chopping off my arms, and I didn't want to do that, so I resigned and I remember driving to Congrad to give my badge over and I just cried and cried.
I think we lose out in There should be more flexibility, and I'm not sure where it is now, but more flexibility in people just having career breaks and yeah, because the way the police is set up, you leave the police and you're out and you can you can't come back in, or you come back in, You've got to start at the bottom again.
And I found that hard because I wanted to come back in and I didn't want to give up my detective status because I'd worked really hard for that. And I still you know, I still have that same mindset today and we're talking twenty years ago. I still think exactly the way that they trained me in the cops, I haven't lost that. Well.
We're struggling for policing across the country, not just New South Wales. I think if we had that flexibility, there's plenty. I saw so many police mid career leave the police for whatever reason. They hit the wall, they needed a break and they're angry at the cops and they left, and I reckon I could count on one hand the ones that haven't tried to get back in. Yeah, like they realized what they miss absolutely, and if we could open the doors for people like that, I think it
makes for a better police officer. You get some life experience and come back and recharge. We didn't mention child protection. You worked in that for a couple of years.
A couple of years down the other one.
I reckon. That's probably one of the hardest areas of policing to work in, and it always seems desperately under resource. Yes, a lot of pressure. Tell us about your experiences there.
I always thought that I had a great time in child protection, and I think my husband and might disagree with that. Yeah, I think you thought I bought it home, which I didn't think I did. But I worked in the joint investigative team, so I worked with Department, Community Service and US so we would do the initial investigation, then hand off. If we couldn't take it, then they would then do their parts. Look, I found it rewarding, I found it frustrating. I found it sad. You know.
I can look at some of the jobs we did and it was interesting. We did one he was a young boy, he was only about eight, and we just knew we didn't have enough, but we just knew something wasn't right and he wouldn't disclose. And no matter how much we sat in the interview room and you know, I sat down and talked to him and colored and all that, we just we weren't getting anywhere. And that you know, they're they're the hard ones. There wasn't enough
for us to do anything. Docs took you know, did their part, but they're the ones that were hard or even just going to picking up the babies that you know, the cockroach infested nappies, like those type of worlds. We just go, oh my lord, I can't believe that this is real.
And because there wasn't under resourcing. Yes, I would imagine the pressure. And it's not like, well, I say homicide and there's nothing more extreme. But if someone's being killed, unless we're tracing the serial killer, yeah, the immediate risk is not ongoing.
Correct. But with children and child protection.
You make the wrong call or no, I'm too tired, I can't be called out out now, or don't pick up the phone. Yeah, you know a child could be suffering.
Absolutely. That was the hardest part about it is that you wanted to solve everything. I mean, there was a big cult thing happening down in Illawarra at that time, bit more down now, and my boss and I we were working on it, but we still we still didn't have anyone to say that he was doing this. The offender was doing this to the children.
We just knew on the hunch and we would go to.
And we'd sort of go, okay, well we'll follow them here, and we just didn't have enough. And you know, years later, yes, he did get arrested, and you know, the child Protection did a great job and we're able to know collad all that information, but we just at that bigin and then we had nothing. So it's that frustrating part that you knew that that is happening. I mean, and you know this is still happening today, and so today I think would be harder as well, because now it's digitized
as well. Yeah, you know, that adds a whole different level of just awfulness. But child protection was hard.
And you thought you were caping really well because I mentioned to you that would have been tough. No, I thought I was caping really well, but my husband suggested otherwise. Yes, So how did it manifest itself what sort of things was alluding to.
I think I was very hard on the girls, like really hard, very structured, and don't do this and not. I thought I was cotton wool and fairy tales and no no. And I used to say, oh, I know, it's like a story book. And I'd read this story which was going to work, and then I'd come home and the storybook was closed. I don't think I did that. I think I withdrew and they're only little, so we're still just talking. I was so tough on Bree, so she would have only just been three hyper yes, yes,
don't do this, don't do it. So yeah, so Michael said it was I was very I was a different person, and I was and look, cops do make you tough, don't get me wrong. And you know, you tend to become concrete for blood, as someone once told me that I had. But I still wear that with a badge, because that's just we saw the worst of the worst.
And I think with cops that you can make a definitive stand on something. You know, a good cop, I'm saying, and that that's what years and years of policing you'll call bullshit out it doesn't always make for an easy life.
But no, and look, and you know my dad will say the same thing. You know, you see the worst of people, you know, you see the best of people. You know, you come across families that you love, but you see what humans can do to humans.
And sometimes it can be a situation you know, someone's introduced your friends group or family and you can see right through them and get I've seen this person. This person's a piece of shites. We shouldn't have anything to do with it.
Absolutely, absolutely, and I mean I still do that today, but that I'm still look and at them. Yeah, no, you're not my jam.
This is happening New South Wales. Police lost was the hotel industry's game because you went from an extreme so you went from police into you guys owning a pub.
Yes, but my husband was was born Bret, a hotelier. So I just came in, as I called it, the plus one, the one who used to just do the the books. But you know, going from the cops to doing bookwork. Stab myself in the eyeball. It was boring. It was really boring, and I struggled, and I struggled with that for a long time because you think about every day is different in the comps, but being back of house every day wasn't different.
I think that is the trouble with the cops. People ask me, would you join the cops? And I say yes, like I love, loved every day of it. But I said, once you've got a taste for it, it's going to be very hard to find the job that's as fulfilling. It's challenging because you hit the nail on the head and that was the beauty of it. No matter what was going on, you could turn up to work one day and you'd be doing things you had no idea you'd be doing. So every day had the potential to
be something completely different, and you miss miss that. We've taken you through your career in polices, you're working in the hotel industry, and then something changed dramatically in your life.
Please tell so I receive a phone call from my mum. I'll set the scene typical, great Sunday afternoon, it's hot, I've poured myself a glass of Chara. There's a bit of a theme here with does come up a lot, Just so you know that's that's just in case you've want to buy me one, but that's a charney unwadded. So and I'm just sitting at the kitchen bench and my mum rings to say that she's met somebody. So I was quite excited for that. She'd been single for twenty years.
Wow, how old you?
Mum at that stage was seventy eight, So I went, happy days. You know, great, you're going to go on cruisers, You're going to live your best life.
You'd be happy.
She then says to me, his name's Donald, he's sixty nine, he's about to retire. Okay, ten years differently, you know, nothing, no red flags. Until she said he was in Turkey just finalizing a contract. I sort of did you okay, okay, well people, you know, people travel. Then I said to her send me some photos because I just wanted to
be a bit nosy. So as soon as the photos arrived, I went, we've got a problem here because he looks like he's in his mid fifties and he had just finished a half marathon like he was looking looking kind of yeah one fight. I went, oh, damn, okay, we've got a problem. You know, there is an issue here. And I couldn't say anything to mum. Until I sort of had a bit more so in the office, I go and I start digging. Now I don't know anything
at this stage about reverse image searches. I know nothing about that world at all.
And she had met him online.
That's so, she'd met him on a dating app. She had spoken to him apparently via phone, very quick messages, but a lot of emails, so a lot of WhatsApp, right, So I know nothing about red flags whatsoever. So I
go in and I start searching. In about an hour and a half later, I track down this real estate agent's Instagram page and I'm just going through and I'm thinking, oh, look, I don't know and then all of a sudden, a photo of twenty twenty appears, and it's the same photo that mum's got, so it's a different name, different person. So then I started doing a bit of a deep dive onto you know, Joe blogs, and I want to
know more about him. Find out that he's married, he's got this real estate business in California, him and his wife have it. He's got a daughter, he's got a grandson. He's not in Turkey. This is all from Fata. So I had a couple of photos.
At this point in time, your mom's oblivious to it.
She is she is happy as pig and mud. She's thinking her life is fabulous. So I sort of put all this together and realized that she's not speaking to Donald, that at this stage, you're a victim of a scam. And I sort of did a bit more about what does this mean? You know, I'd heard a little bit about scamming, so I've sort of did a bit more. Then I rang her and she didn't do much, but she was devastated.
How did you approach the conversation with her?
I just said to her, Look, Mum, I've gone and had a bit of a look, you are not talking to Donald. He's not in Australian he's not in Turkey. Mum. Those photos belonged to Joe Blogs. He's married. Mum, this is not Donald. You're a victim of a scam. The best part about Mum is that I suppose she knew who I am, she knew my background, she knew there'd be no reason for me to lie because I really wanted for her to meet somebody. So she took all that on face value, but was very shocked, and she
we had that conversation. It may only went for half an hour forty five minutes. She left it and then she rang me back and she said, how do you know? So I went through all the processes I did this, Mum, this is this photo. So I said, Mum, all this is nothing to do with a contract, and I said, this is all stolen. So I broke it down into every little fine detail so she could understand. But it took her a while. It wasn't something that okay, thank you for that.
That's great when you say a while over a matter of days.
Weeks, No, no, this is this took Mum a couple of months to really accept. And then what I did, which I don't do to anybody now, I actually showed her the real person, who the real person was, who the real person's you know, daughter is. I showed her where the photos had been stolen from right because I said to her, I need you to understand that this is real. There's no reason for me to lie to you. I want you to make mistake. Here, there's no mistake.
So I showed her and then she said, well, I'm going to contact this person and then we had to go through that process. Well, Mum, he's a victim of identity theft. You can't do that because you know that's and then we had to go down that why you can't do that, And it took her a while, but she was shattered, she was really shattered. And then when she went back online again, she would send me photos and say, well, no, that photo is stolen or that
one doesn't have any digital footprints. So I don't really want you to go to anyone who doesn't have a digital footprint because I can't identify who they are. So she ended up, you know, finding someone real. And that's what said. Unless you can touch, feel, taste them, they don't exist. That's what you got to do.
Mom, Well, I want to I want to talk about reverse imaging with the photos and all the lines of inquiry that you followed up, and we'll explain that. But before we do that, one moment in time sort of inspired you to get out of the books from the hotels and get your private investigator's licenses. What was your rationale behind your thinking there?
Well, I didn't think that there was someone here in Australia that was specific. Just in this field. There's a lot of pis that do a lot of stuff. I wasn't interested in hiding behind a tree and catching the cheating wife or husband that wasn't mine. I wanted to help people like my mum. So I thought, well, what I'll do is that I will get my pay i's license. And I reached out and i'd had my pei's license after I left the cops when I got that as well.
But again that was just from that was easy because tayfe I just showed exactly what I did prior learning, and the same thing. They accepted all my prior learning. And I'd also done a business law degree too in the last couple of years because I was just a bit bored and I needed to do something. So they accepted everything that I had done over the last twenty years. And I got my license and went and got my fingerprints done in the police station and you know, ticked
the box. You know, they went all this, oh, okay, now what I'm going to do with that? And then I, you know, then I created two face on that you come to two face investigations on that.
Part is there a player on the play on the type of thing that you.
Two faces there? So I and it was sort of like it was either going to be second face or two face. I was trying to come up with something that idea of you know, the original and the and the deceitful one side of it all. So I just then sat down and I really thought, boom, this is just going to take off and I'm going to be inundated with all these people.
Like on the movie when the Private Investigator, you sit in an office of dingy office with your phone just waiting for it to ring for your cat.
Is anyone going to reach out? Can somebody wring my phone? So yeah, so I just started that, and I just started. I mean, the business has pivoted like it's you know. I now I've broken into two parts. Now I have scam prevention in Australia, which is more of the proactive side that we need to talk more about it. And then I've got the reactive side where I really talk to people face to face via zoom to basically say listen, I don't know you. You need to stop talking to this
person because of these reasons. And that's a whole nother challenge.
With your mum's one, you said it took her months to get over. What were the type of things that were challenging. Your mum was at the embarrassment. And I say embarrassment because I think that would come in the play.
Well, because she was still engaging with the scammer even after you, even after she spent a couple more weeks talking to them, because that they want to see whether they can catch them out. And I kept saying to Mum, they're professional of this doesn't matter what you say. You're a seventy eight year old woman, yeah, lives in Sydney. That they don't. They're not going to saying oh, I'm so sorry. My name is Frank and I'm from Nigeria.
And they're not going to do that. So she just I want to catch them out, I said, but for what purpose? That's not going to close this chapter by you catching them out.
Just on what you're saying there, it makes me think that it's very human nature, isn't it. You think you're in a relationship. I just want closure. I just want they want to admit it. Yep, because in her mind and in that early stages of this might be the right person and then it's taken away. They don't even get the closure from Look, this relationship is not working out. Or I'm leaving you because of this, yes, so that they are left in that space of limbo.
Absolutely, and especially when I come in and say, no, this is not who you think and you're right a stranger, Well, Mum wasn't a stranger, but a mum talks, she says, and Mum's been interviewed before, and she said, when Carnie told me, I believed her. But I did believe her because I knew who she was, and I knew, you know, everything that she did, and I knew that she made sure that every you know, I was dotted and you know, to across and all that. I knew that she was
telling me. What she was telling me was right, But I still had that but in there. And that's an interesting thing that she still had that butt. And it took her a while to talk about it, like because I said to her, I want you to tell your friends about it. You know, they all you live in a retirement village. They all need to understand. But she had that shame, she had that embarrassment that she didn't now she'll tell anybody, She'll stand on top of a rooftop and talk about it.
Now, Well, I think victims in any crime, and the shame comes in quite often in the variety of crimes. And the thing is that there shouldn't be shame here a victim, and quite often they're victims because they're good, trusting people, and that's why they get targeted.
And that's why it works so well, because we are.
I would imagine family members or friends that the attraction the love is so strong in their minds, like the victims, that they push away friends. They'd be falling out with friendships and family when they say, oh, this is this is not right?
Understand And I think the problem we've got there is the way family and friends initially speak to the victim of this crime. You know, instead of going in there with a bit of empathy and understanding and compassion, we tend to go in there and say, no, you're an idiot, don't you know. So we use negative language, which then causes the victim to retreat because the scammers are telling them, don't believe what your families say because they're lies.
Right, Okay, so you're better off working with them moments they're not just hitting them up front you're wrong.
It's a slow process and it is something that you need to be there to support them through through this process. Because when we talk about the way a scam and anyone who's evil, because scamming is evil. Anyone who's that skill set to be able to deceive another human is evil. So they have manipulated you and use tactics to be
able to take you into a different world. So our language towards a victim of a crime has to be quite specific and understanding, and we've got to use I use a little bit of manipulation, you know, in the kind way, not the evil way, to try to get the victims away from the offender. And that's what it is, because they have put you into this whole different world of.
Well the world, and that's a scary world. And yeah, people online dating like that's a world that they didn't know twenty years ago. They're vulnerable. Everyone's looking for a companionship, love or whatever, and that's what they're praying on. When it's your mum, how angry were you were? You pissed off big time.
I was so excited and then I was cranking that it wasn't real.
Because I said, even impacted on you. They were so.
Excited for it, look't I wasn't cranky. Wasn't cranky at mum.
Because I'm not suggesting it, Mum, but I was.
Cranky at them. And the more I looked into it, the more it enraged me. And that's why I started, because I just went, this is so bad. I don't know this, and I thought, you know, I'm pretty out there. I pretty much noticed it. No, I didn't know anything about this. So that's why I went, well, what can I do to try to talk about that more so people can talk about it more so people can, like my mum can turn around and say, yes, okay, maybe I need to question this relationship. I have not met
them in person. Maybe I need to question it. Maybe I need to say to a friend, oh, look, can you just do a second set of eyes over this for me? Because look, I've been talking to Frank for six months but we haven't met and you know, I really love him. But so it was that that's I got that sort of fire in my belly, going, well, how do I now change that language so victims can say to somebody, let's have a look at this.
Well, I think it does become personal obviously when it's your mother, but we do look at those scams, and I'm guilty of it. As I suggest most people would be your sort of art. How could you be so stupid lately? But you know, I know my mother and it's not romance scams, but has been scammed a couple of times, and I can understand fully why she would believe what she's been told with the call or I need your details your day to birth?
You my mum also, and this one furiated me, and I did get cranky with her. She got done for the high mum scam. So she got the text message I Mum, I've dropped my phone in the water. She did the right thing, and she rang me three times as soon as she got the text message. Well, my phone was inside and I was outside, so I didn't answer it. So then she started to engage with the
scammer and tried to send them forty seven hundred dollars. Now, when I did come back inside and see three miscalls, I rang mom and Mum said did your phone dropping the water? And I said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no no no, Mom, don't have you. She said, I've tried to send the money. I said, okay, okay, breathe so I'm breathing, trying to not get cranky with her because we'd spoken about that before, but she hadn't taken that on board. So where my dad. He got the
same thing, and he just didn't engage. But he got it as a voice call, so he thought it was me. But I said, Dad, didn't really sound like me. He said no, but it was a female and it had funny noises in the background, he said, But I just wanted to wait until I spoke to you again. So he took a different approach than my mom, So it was a real They both went got same, same done, but Mom did a different approach where Mom tried really hard to send money through her bank to the scammer.
And I said to Mom, why didn't you just ring my husband? Why didn't you ring my kid? Why would I want money from you?
Like?
Why would I want She said, Oh, now I'm thinking, I said, because the urgency was there, so and we want to help our kids.
And that's the sad part because quite often the people that do become victims of the good, decent people that see good in everyone. But I'm with you, I just don't trust. I just know it. I think in this day and age, and it's sad. It shouldn't be the way. We might have a break now when we come back, I want you to break down like the type of red flags how they go about it, because talking to you the other day, I was shocked by the complexity of what goes into these scams. It's not just some
idiot sitting sitting at home scamming one person. This is a big time. This is huge and proactive. What can be done to prevent people becoming becoming victims? Just before we do, did your mum lose any money to this?
Mum has said she hasn't, and that's her story. I believe she lost a round between ten to twenty and thous because at that time, my brother passed away a couple of years ago, so there was a little bit of money, and mum had asked me for money around that exactly the same time, and I couldn't understand why she needed that type of money, and I sense and I've read a couple of the emails, so he was sort of feeding I'm here for an eighteen million dollar contract.
I know now that you know it's twenty million, but I've got a few issues with the bank so I could see the red flags within the emails. So Mama's always said no, and I respect that. I just have a gut feeling that she has, and that's that's her sense of embarrassment that she did lose that money. So it's a bit of a yes no answer. Yeah, yes I think she did, but no, she says no, and that's okay, and that's okay. Yeah, that's okay. The yeah, I will, I will, I will say yes.
All right, Well we'll have a break back shortly for Part two Excellence