AI money scams; teens and gun access

Thanks for joining us on this Thursday, November 12th. I'm your host, Charlie Langton. Welcome to Detroit Talk City. All right, let's get right into today's topics. Scammers using AI deepfakes to drain bank accounts. Attorney Paul Stoma, he is going to join us to expose how those criminals are pulling it off and how he is fighting to get victims' money back. We'll talk about that, but first... There's been a wave of Metro Detroit school lockdowns this week. Oxford University is right around the corner. Community activist Vu is joining us here to tackle the hard truth about teens and guns and what he is doing about it. Which brings us to our poll, our question of the day. Is it too easy for teens to get their hands on guns? Just scan the QR code. It's right there at the bottom of your screen, and we will show you the results later on in the show. And, of course, it's all about you, the viewer. We want to hear from you. Let's have a conversation. You can weigh in. You can text us. You can call us, 313-765-8844. Join us in the Zoom room. Our meeting ID number, 892-4909-0290. And, of course, on social media, hashtag us at Detroit Talk. City, Negus Vu is here. He is with the People's Action. Good to see you again. Likewise. It's been a little while. Oh, yeah. It's been a while. It's not too long ago, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all good. People's Action. Let's just get right into this thing. Let's get it. Do teens have too many guns? Are there too many? Forget teams. There are too many guns in Detroit. Oh, man. It's really a thing in America, right? There's millions and millions of guns. It says like 100 for each individual. So it's way too many guns here in the city of Detroit, but also across the nation. So it's a national thing. Is it easy to get a gun? Absolutely. I mean, with these kids, they can get a gun quicker than they can get an Xbox or a PlayStation. So it's all over the streets. How? How young is the, how old do you have to be or how young do you have to be to get a gun? Can you get a gun? I mean, if you're five, you can get it as long as you got money. That's how easy it is on the streets. How much does it take to get a gun on the street? I guess as low as $300, $400, $200. Just depends on what kind of gun it is. Most of it, obviously, is going to be illegal guns, pass-through. And that's what 89% to 90% of the weapons that are being used right now for, like, shootings and homicides are illegal guns, right? Pass-through. They've been purchased. But they've been passed around. They're no longer in the possession of the actual owner. Do you need a gun to live in the city of Detroit? No, I don't. I don't carry a gun. No, you don't. You don't. However, when you carry a gun, you can create more problems by carrying a weapon. And you may have a false sense of protection, a false sense of courage to do things that you normally wouldn't do under those circumstances. Give me a rough, because you've been in Detroit a long time. Yeah, for sure. Give me a rough idea. How many people under the age of, say, 18 have a gun or access to a gun? What percentage? I can't say that. I don't want to give off any kind of stereotype, but I would say there's more than too many that have access to it, because we see it happen all the time. We have fatal and non-fatal shootings by a young teen. They have access to a gun. So I don't know the percentage. I'm not going to say every other kid has it, but I would say... If three or four has it, that's way too many. I've read a number that the cops recover about 7,500 guns a year because of crime. Do you think that number's right? Yeah, well, I mean, there's roughly across the nation 175 people that go to the hospital every day from gun fatalities. Every day? Every day, roughly about 175. So it's very believable. And then 62% of those, apparently, all the crime that's committed, most of them are with guns. Yes, yes. Okay, so you've got an area, the People's Action, you're in what area? Let's talk about it. Yeah, so we're from 8 Mile to Curtis, from Burt Road all the way to Wyoming. That's five square miles. When we initially started in 2023, we only had four square miles. So we stopped at Humble, but now we're all the way to Wyoming. And you're talking about CVI, which is? Community Violence Intervention. Community Violence Intervention. Yes. Back in 2020, this is fascinating to me. Yes. There was money from the feds? From the OPRA dollars. Yes, from the feds. Okay, from the feds. And then the city designated, what, six different groups to get money and they could get $700,000 a year. That was the base, yes. That was the base. And then they gave you four, or in your case, five square miles of your area. People applied, groups applied, you applied, you got one of them. And there's incentives if you can get the crime numbers down. What's incentive? So if you get your fatal or non-fatal shootings down by 20% per quarter, you can get incentivized and you can get double of what you would quarterly get off the base. So the base is $700,000. If you get 20%, then you can get $175,000 of that for that quarter, but just for that quarter. If you do 10%, you can get half of that, which is $87,500. That's a good deal, isn't it? Now, it is. It sounds like a lot of money, and to the average person, that definitely is, right? But the reality of it is, when you think about $700,000, and you think about the job that we have to do, we are responsible for four square miles of fatal and non-fatal shootings. We are responsible for any shootings outside of self-inflicted wounds. So if somebody says, you stepped on my shoe, And you shoot me, then we take a hit for that. So we have to work diligently day and night to make sure that these individuals that have the highest propensity to commit gun violence are not doing that. So what do you do with the money? We hire people, we do emergency intakes, where we assist families, right? We go into the schools, we support the schools, we hire more people, we get volunteer coordinators, more outreach people, bigger facilities where we have fellowships, programs six days out the week. There's a lot of stuff we do, field trips for the kids. Is this Cortez from your group? He was on two days ago. Fascinating interview. That's why you want to... Outstanding. He was very, very good, but he told a little bit about what he does. But you, you... It's your job in a way to prevent crime, it's kind of a genius, because you know you guys are cops, right? You can't make arrests, right? Right, right, right. You're just trying to prevent crime. Yes. And there's an incentive built in. Yes, it is. That's a great idea, isn't it? Yeah, it is. But the real incentives is the rewards from seeing that the reduction has happened, right? Of course the money is fine and stuff, and it helps make us more effective by hiring more people. The reality is, I can't express And Cortez can know firsthand, every day he comes with me with testimonies about how these kids, we impact their lives, about how they'll be out doing something if it wasn't for us being and providing a space for them to actually just be a kid. Some of these kids don't have the opportunity to just be kids, Charlie. They really are just out here fending for themselves. Their mother or their father is gone working or some kind of thing, and they're out here in the streets on their own. We provide a space for them. We provide a sanctuary for them just to be kids and normal. When we take them out of town, when we take them on trips. These are the beautiful things, putting young men, young adults, getting them jobs. All of these things are impactful. That's the greatest reward for us. Besides preventing gun violence, which is one of your missions, the other thing you say is that you want to really address the root cause of poverty. Yes. What does that mean? Well, when we talk about root cause of poverty, it's a multifaceted. In the CBI world, we talk about things called... The social determinants of health. What does that include? That's the economy, right? We talk about jobs, access to jobs, referrals, jobs placements. We talk about social engagement in the community. We talk about social norms. How many block clubs are in that community, right? How many people know who their elected government official is, you know, city councilman, right? Or even a neighborhood officer, police officer, right? Because we have one of the best Detroit police departments in the city. They're very engaged. They're out there trying to communicate. And they respect the work that we do. But you believe there's a connection between poverty and crime. Ain't no doubt. It's an easy one. Ain't no doubt. Ain't no doubt. Yeah, yeah, don't doubt. There's not a coincidence when you go into a poverty-restricted community, most of the poverty-restricted communities, unfortunately, have a high level of crime, and there's other components of that, right? Education, the education is poor. Healthcare, no access to healthcare, right? Other part is, and then one of the things that we do, Charlie, in our neighborhoods, we do surveys in the community. We ask people what are some of the biggest issues. The biggest issues they normally say is blight, and guess what the other one is? Nothing for kids, no recreational centers, nothing for them to do. Let's take a call here. Rich from Brownstown, you're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Rich. How you doing? Listen, I was listening to your program, and what I can see is that the crime does not finish the punishment. When these kids go out, or men go out and shoot somebody and kill somebody, they put them up in a Motel 8 with three square meals a day, roof over their head, heat, gymnasium. I mean, I just don't understand why they don't make a punishment more. If somebody stole a horse back in the old days, they hung them in the street. Well, punishment, crime and punishment. Is he referring to the police or referring to us? I think it's from the criminal, the people, the criminal, the people are doing the crime. He says it's not tough enough. You're being too easy on criminals. I think that's what he says. Well, I mean, statistically, we all know that the enforcement of lock them up and throw away the key is not, doesn't work. It has not been effective. There's many studies and things on that. We come from a, do it for a positive reinforcement. We don't. With war, we don't advocate for anybody killing anybody. Like, if there's an individual that has killed somebody, we're not trying to put them in a hotel. We're not trying to help them or hide them or anything like that. We don't interfere with law or anything of that nature. I think from our approach is all ours is about prevention, right? Violence is treatable, it's curable, and it's predictable. We look at things from a health lens, right? But if you get wind that there's going to be a teen takeover, like Cortez was talking about, or like this Christmas tree lighting, you're going to go out there and try to stop it before it becomes a problem, right? Well, that too. But the thing that we're going to do is we're going to reach out to the person who's actually planning an event. We're going to try to figure out why is this individual, we're going to evaluate the problem, we're going to figure out why is this individual want to have a teen takeover anyway, why you want to cause havoc, what things, or what attention. Because a lot of it is about attention. It's a cry out for help. All right, let's hold that thought right there. Douglas Vu with the People's Action. One of the CVIs, they say, in the city of Detroit is here. This is the part of the show we want to hear from you. We're talking generally. Is it too easy for teens to get their hands on guns? Detroit Talk City, back in just a moment. So you want to zoom on Fox 2? We want you to zoom on Fox 2, but we want to make you look and sound really, really good. So four easy steps. First of all, take the phone and turn it on its side. We want you to fill up the entire screen. Then you've got to look around and you've got to find the light. Remember, we want the light in front of you, not behind you. That's good. And then unmute. We want all of Detroit to hear you. And finally, turn down the television like I'm going to do right now. We want to hear you, not the TV. All right, let's review these easy steps. First, flip it, light it, unmute it, and turn down the TV. And then you are ready to Zoom on Fox 2. Remember, you can be a part of Fox 2's Detroit Talk City and the sports office. Just Zoom in live. Watsons. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Light. Tonight, is it too easy for teens to get their hands on guns? We're talking to Vu. Vu is the president of the People's Action, one of the community violence prevention organizations in the city of Detroit. All right, let's take a text, all right? Okay. Here it is. Do we have the text ready? Let's do the text. It is absolutely not easier for a teen to get a gun now than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. Can you believe that? No, I see it. I'm in the midst of it. They can get access to a gun at any time. Really, it's easy. It's been like that for a while. I wish that was true, that it was a lot harder. But we see it all the time. These kids are getting guns. And a lot of times, too, unfortunately, part of a lot of the beefs that come when these teens are fighting each other, because they're stealing each other's guns and they're backdoing each other. All right, let's take a look back to the calls now. Jay from Detroit. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Jay. Hello, our kids are taking over because they don't have enough recreation and things for the kids to do out here. That's why they're too busy fighting each other and it's easy to get guns. We need something for our teens to do. And, you know, it's funny, I spoke about that earlier. That has been the sentiment of mostly the community. We need more recreational centers. I think what Mary Sheffield is doing right now is phenomenal that she did during the summer. The summer thing about having the recs open late. She's doing all her best and her team, Furry Brand, a lot of them, are taking on initiative to do things for kids because they understand that these kids need to. The biggest thing is occupancy of time. They need their time occupied, and the people in the community know that. They need things to do, and that's what we're going to work on, and that's what the city of Detroit is going to continue to work on. Gail from Livonia, you're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Gail. Hi, guys. I just wanted to chime in if I could. Thank you. As it relates to the young people today, guns are very much accessible. It was accessible when I was a young child. I'm 61 years of age now, and I understand, depending on what group that they're hanging out in, you can get a gun anywhere. What our young people need is people to invest into them. It starts at home, and I believe that most of us as parents are failing our children when we don't know where they're at, when we're not instilling values in them. So I'm grateful that my husband does prison ministry for young people, yodeling and ministering to the young people to let them know there's a better way. So when the people at home first begin to love on their children the way they need, and then when the city itself makes the recreation, I agree with you about leading recreation and things. When we were growing up, it keeps you out of trouble. And until we get a hold to what, you know, gives them something to do, this is where we're going to be at. Thank you, Gail. Do you want to respond? No, no, absolutely. I recommend for all the people across the city of Detroit, there's a CBI group, mostly in every neighborhood. You have Team Pursuit on the east side, which is near 7 Mile and Gratiot. You have New Era Detroit, which is over there on 6 Mile. You have Detroit 300, which is over there on Grand River. You have LIP East Davidson, and then you have Detroit Friends and Family. So there's a lot of CBI groups that's in your area, oh, and Detroit 300, but we recommend that you reach out to those groups and they'll be willing to assist and help and occupy the kids' time. competition amongst you. You guys all do the same thing. No, well, you see how I shout out everybody. No, it's all love. It's all love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's all love around the whole city from the mayor to the DPD office to the state representatives. We're all a big ecosystem in working together. Cynthia from Southfield, you're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Cynthia. Hello, how are you? Good. I just want to say that I agree with the gentleman today when he says that the crime does not exist The time if we keep looking at just the crime and letting these guys go on killing people and not doing anything about it, which we which we have been doing it for years, they just keep committing these crimes. And I don't think it's fair. It's not fair to the people that are losing their lives over these kids out here just killing people. Yeah, it's prevention is what you really want to do. That's what Cynthia's saying, I think. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You want to prevent the crime. Once they get into the system, that's a whole other issue. Correct, correct. You get into the system, you do time. There's no good time in Michigan. You have no good time on the state side, nothing. That's right. If you just sentenced it to 10 to 15 years, you'd do 10 years. That's not good. Let's take a text here. They messed up when they took away the Boys and Girls Clubs. So now, where do they have to go? Yeah. So you're right. So one of the things that we got is CBI Athletics, where we do CBI basketball and we do CBI football throughout the year. We're looking for that online. Also, like I said, the mayor, she has a whole summer program. The leader recs open. She has Occupy the Summer. Look for those kind of things. We're doing our best. But we also need volunteers. We need more people to come out. We need the community to come together and work and deal with these kids because these kids are just crying out for help. I also want to let people know, and this is a little bit off subject. The numbers are going down. When you had Todd Bettison and several others announce that the numbers were going down, we had a few naysayers, okay? The crime is down. Nobody's making up the numbers. The hospital has to report them. There's different entities that actually has to go through the different reports of fatal and non-fatal shootings. So I just want to dispel any kind of rumors that the numbers are not real. Detroit is getting safer. However, it's a few heinous crimes, it gets on social media, but let's not let this go to the head. Things are changing, and things are for the more positive. And you know today, in your area, you're four square miles, you know exactly the numbers today, right? You have to, because your bonus is based on those numbers, right? Correct, correct. So you keep tabs, and when there's a bad one, you're upset about it. Absolutely, every time. Let's take another text over here, talking about some numbers here. 2026, current stats suggest 22% decrease in juvenile... Juvenile, non-fatal shootings with broader declines overall in Detroit. That's about right, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. That's what the mayor was talking about the other day. Yes, yes. If you look at the 90s, let's look at the 80s and 90s. The homicides are nowhere near as they are now. In the 80s and the 90s, they was in the 4s, the 5s, and the 6s. Right now, last year, we were under 200. That's unprecedented. We haven't seen that in a long time. That's not a coincidence. Why do you think that? I mean, there's a lot of people, too. But I mean, why do you think that is? Why is homicide down? Because you have the city working together. You have the community violence intervention, which is a multi- You have a discipline strategy to reduce gun violence through mentorship. You have people like Mary Sheffield and her department doing things, community outreach. You have DPD that's doing also- But they didn't have you guys back then, did they? They did not. They did not have any of the citizen type groups. The outlier is definitely CVI, right? CVI. But it's also the leadership. I'm not gonna take it away. It's a commitment among them. But the outlier is definitely that. We came in 2023, that's when you seen the downward trend, and then when you seen other new leadership come in, it took off even more. It's the golden age, baby. Yeah, every single city, every part of the city has a CVI group then? No, there's still non-CVI zones, and that's mostly where you see uptick in violence. So downtown does not have a CVI zone. The main areas is where there's six areas that's CVI zones. You think there should be more? Absolutely. Have them in every city, and city council wants that. We need to have more funding, and we need more groups in the CVI zones. All right, hold that thought. We're not done yet. By the way, the Zoom room is open. Is it too easy for teens to get their hands on guns? We're talking to Vu from The People's Action. Your calls when Detroit Talk City returns after this. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Langton. Is it too easy for teens to get their hands on guns? We're talking to Vu from the People's Action Group. It's a CVI in Detroit trying to prevent crime. It is four miles on the west side, five miles on the west side of Detroit. Let's go back to the phones right now. Chuck from Clinton Township. Hey, Chuck, you're on Detroit Talk City. I just want to ask that gentleman that you're interviewing, what motivated him? Was there a specific event that happened that he decided to do this? Because I think this is awesome that he's doing, and I want to say thank you for everything that he's doing. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you so much for that. I really appreciate that comment. This is just part of me. It's something who I always was, even when I was a kid. People that know me from my childhood, they'd be like, I'm not amazed that you're doing something like this. It's just been my heart. And this is my life experience. I'm just a humanitarian. I love people. I care about people. I always want to help people. So that's just who I am at heart. How old are you? I'm 44 years old. That's young. That's young. You grew up on the west side? I grew up on the west side on retirement and living noise. 48205. 48204. The original west side. The original west side. All right, Reggie from Harper Woods. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Reggie. Hey, Charlie. How you doing? I, uh... The comment I wanted to make to the young man was about the guns, and it's a very important thing. And bullets, they are too accessible in the inner city. Yeah, let's go back there, the ammunition. Can you get that, too? Oh, yeah, you can get all that, bullets, guns. I think one of the things that we have to do is we have to teach, get kids education about guns, the severity of it. Because I don't know if everybody's watching the news, there's been a lot of young kids getting access to their parents' guns and shooting themselves. So a lot of it is education as well. The unsecured guns. Yes. That's a big deal. Locks and stuff like that. We could do a whole other hour on this one, Vu, but we've got to move on, though. Thank you. Let's do it again, though, okay? Absolutely, absolutely. Vu, reach out. The people's action. Appreciate that. All right, coming up next half hour, Deepfake AI. AI is taking your money. That's next on Detroit Talk City. All right. Thank you. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Langdon. All right, still to come this half hour, after a wave of Metro Detroit school lockdowns this week, Oxford University, Oxford anniversary of the high school shooting, that's coming up. We are going to talk about the teen violence. That's part of our poll question. Is it too easy for teens to get their hands on guns? All right, that's our poll question. Now, this part of the show, we're going to be talking about AI. Is it real? Or is it fake? Do you think that you could be scammed because of AI? All right, joining me right now is our guest. He's an attorney. He's got a heck of a record. Paul Estoma is here. We do want to hear from you, though. Our number is 313-765-8844. Of course, you can join us in the Zoom room as well. All right, Paula Stoma, you are an attorney, and what you try to do in life here is you basically try and get, if people have been scammed, Telephone scams, whatever, AI, internet scams, you try to get their money back. That's what you do. That's the goal. Is it easy to get scammed these days? First of all, thank you for having me on the show, Charlie. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, so recently there's been a huge uptick in scams, predominantly on the internet. And one of the biggest challenges that people are having is that they're getting scammed and they're getting scammed for so much money they don't know it until the end. How much are they getting scammed for? We have certain clients up to millions of dollars. And I'll tell you- A million dollars scammed? A million. Just let's go with a million dollar one, how did that one happen? So this is what happens generally. So you'll have somebody that meets a person online, right, over Tinder or over some type of media app. They'll talk to them like me and you, you know, we're friends. Hey, Charlie, I talked to you for about six months. And then one day I mentioned the word crypto to you. Hey, my uncle owns a crypto company. My brother does crypto investing. And before you know it, I get you to put in five thousand dollars, maybe ten thousand dollars. And then you look on the screen and it becomes thirty, forty thousand dollars. And then they let you pull it out. And then you think it's real. And before you know it, you're mortgaging your home. You're selling off assets because you're making a financial decision by saying, hey, this is legit and I'm gonna make a whole lot of money. And by the time you realize that you've put in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then that's when they pull the rug on you. So this could be over a course of a year, you say now it's a scam. Yeah. Can they come to you? Can you get Is that money back? Yeah, usually it's a very cutting edge right now, right? Because the hardest thing is not suing somebody. It's recovering the cryptocurrency and the digital assets, right? Cryptocurrency, cryptography, it's secured for a reason. This is why they use these types of technologies and scams. Because you send it to a bank, it's completely different. The bank can seize the assets. But with Bitcoin and Ethereum and other digital assets, you need to have something called the private key. And it's a long password and only that person can have access to that crypto account. Anyway, you work with the federal government also to try to get the money back. Yeah, so my background, so I'm an engineer, I have my master's in computer science. I love blockchain technologies and learning about blockchain technologies. You work for the Securities Exchange? Yeah, so as a 2L in law school, I got to intern at the SEC with Commissioner Hester Peirce. That was a great experience, and a year later, I got to intern a whole year at the US House of Representatives, and that was an amazing experience in itself. All right. Back to the beginning, tell me about the scam. Do you think, there's a couple different scams, I mean, we could go down the line here, but the calls, my little nephew is in trouble, he needs a couple thousand, that's a typical scam. What is that, like a phone scam? Let me explain this to you like this. Because of AI, you're on the phone, I can make your voice sound completely different than it is right now. I can make you sound like a girl if I use AI, right? So, a lot of these scams are not in the US. They're in Cambodia, Thailand, and Southeast Asia. So you're getting a phone call, and it sounds like a beautiful girl from Florida. And she's telling you with this beautiful voice, hey, I got a brother that does investing or crypto investing, and you think it's real. And even when you FaceTime them and video call them, it's not their real face. It's all AI. It's deep fakes. And people can't tell? You can't tell because they build a relationship over months and months. It's the grooming process? It's the grooming process, yes. These scams are hurting America more than you think. Is that because we are just so vulnerable or we seek attention or we seek companionship or that type of thing? You know what it is? And this is unfortunate, first it's an education thing, and people don't think it could happen to them until it happens to them. And the other issue is it's a lot of older people that are getting scammed, which is a huge issue, right? They don't understand technology, they don't understand crypto. They just think, hey, it's a quick way to maybe make some money, and then they put in their whole life savings, their whole 401k, and everything they haven't earned, thinking they're gonna make it rich, and then it ends up being like a scam. Could you be scammed, do you think? Um, believe it or not, I've had those text messages. I've seen them. It's very simple. I could tell you all day about stories about how people reach out to me, but it's, you'd be surprised. It's a very sophisticated scam. If they say crypto, is that a red flag? I would say crypto is somewhat of a red flag. I would say blockchain technologies is less of a red flag. Anybody promising you ridiculous gains, it's a scam. Bitcoin, is that a... So let's not call Bitcoin a scam. The idea of the scam is getting rich quick. If somebody's promising you that, and it's been for generations the get-rich-quick idea, right? It's just a different medium now with cryptocurrency. But you've got a success rate, though. Try to get the scam, the money back. Yeah, that's the goal. All right, hold that thought. All right, Paulus Toma, an attorney. He is going to try to talk about, he's going to talk about how to avoid getting scammed, okay? We want to hear from you. Fake or not fake? AI, do you think you could be scammed? Let us know. Detroit Talk City. Back in just a moment. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Lighton. Are you able to tell if it's real or is it AI? Have you been scammed? Paulus Thomas. Toma is here. He's an attorney. He is going to hopefully get your money back if you can, if you've been scammed. All right, let's go to the text. We have a couple of texts. Let's take the first one here. Cryptocurrency, it should have been banned. It's like counterfeiting, it's a counter currency. Do you agree with that? You can't ban it, you can't ban it. If you wanted to ban cryptocurrency, you would literally have to have to shut down the internet. And if you shut down the internet, you're gonna have way more problems with any type of financial. But real companies are taking cryptocurrency, Bitcoin and- I mean, the government can criminalize it if they really wanted to. But then there's a risk that foreign countries will start using it and becomes a predominant cryptocurrency in a different country. It's just a risk though, if you deal in Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. There is an inherent risk, yes. It's because you're not protected by, let's say, a Chase Bank or another financial institution that's involved in the transaction. Yeah, what would you say, though, if someone gets a, if they get this cryptocurrency, would you say that they shouldn't do it, or how do you protect yourself? Education is probably the most important thing. Like I said, if you buy it from an exchange like Coinbase or Robinhood, it's generally safe, but when somebody's telling you they're going to make you rich, that's a whole other issue that you have to discuss. Let's try another text here. Here it is. Yes, I need help. Recovery, a crypto scam. What is the first step that I would take to get help? Good question. Call you. Call me. What is it? 586-494-0422. All right. It's 586-494-0422. That's okay, but so in a couple minutes, how do you do it? Okay, so the first thing is an investigation. So the beauty about blockchain technology is every single transaction's public. You don't know who's transacting. Like if I sent a Bitcoin transaction, you wouldn't know it was me, but we know there is a transaction. Then what we would do is after the investigation, we would compare it to the government assets and which assets the government has seized. And then we would try to- So you gotta go back over here. How does the government seize assets? So usually from an exchange that they know that has criminal proceeds located at the exchange. And how do you find out that your client is part of that exchange? So every single transaction is recorded. So let's say you scam me, Charlie, right? Yeah. And I send you a transaction. That transaction is written in concrete forever, okay? Then later down the line, the government gets access to that cryptocurrency. I can prove the tracing. So the investigative part is very important to recovery. That's hard to do though, isn't it? It's not. It's not impossible, but there is really good software out there. Is the government doing most of the investigation or is it you? You're doing the investigation on behalf of the client. The government's doing an investigation against the criminal empire, the criminal syndicate that's effectuating these crimes. How often do you find where that money was coming from? You know where the money is. So the hardest thing about crypto is not finding out where it goes, it's getting it back. Yeah. So the government seizes these assets. Once they seize it, now somebody has it and they can do whatever they please with it. All right, let's take another text real quick here. What protects me from scammers? I don't have any money to fool around with. If someone calls me and asks me or offers me a gift or money, I just hang up. That's the only advantage of me being on a fixed income. You don't have anything extra to risk losing. So scams in general have been Become increasingly more prevalent. Even gift cards are a big thing I've heard about, like, you know, they'll buy gift cards and send them to the scammers. You got to just slow down when you're, anytime you're in a financial transaction and just be like, hey, is this, you know, a legitimate transaction or not? They use a lot of fear tactics. They'll call you, hey, you know, your brother just got arrested. Please send over, you know. Yeah. And they're really good at getting you to act impulsively and to make those types of decisions. And that's where you have, that's when you, if you're being forced to do it, that's the thing. All right. We still want to go back with the government. We're going to have a little bit more of this, though, because the government's going to seize the assets and then you've got to you've got to get it back from the government. Yeah, that's that's hard to do working with the government. Depends on on how the government looks at it. Right. Like, of course, they want to help victims. Right. They want to make sure the victims are recompensated. All right. Hold that thought. We're not done yet. We've got a lot more of the show coming up. More of your texts, more of your calls. You are watching Detroit Talk City back in just a moment. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Leichter. We're talking about cyber scams. Are you able to tell if something is real or is it AI? Could you be scammed? Paulus Toma, he's an attorney. He tries to get your money back. Let's see, a lot of people want to talk to you. Let's go to the text right now. Let's take this first one. What can we do about the avalanche of phone calls, text messages, voicemails of the scammer? It's a great question. I think the best advice is don't answer, don't respond, don't engage, because once you start engaging, you might go down a rabbit hole. They're persistent, though, aren't they? They're very persistent, and they're very sophisticated. I'm going to investigate it. Let's go to the phones. Tom from Ann Arbor, you are on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Tom. Hey, how are you guys doing? How are you talking? Good. I had a question on the scam. Now, if you get scammed and he wants you to invest $5,000 and he shows you profits of $30,000 and you said the money is good that first time to build confidence, Could you just quit after that and say, you know what, I'm done, thank you, and it'd be the person scamming the scammer? This is a great, great, great question. Great question. A lot of these scams, what will happen is the person will initially invest $10,000, and the scammers will see $40,000 on their screen. The scammers are making so much money, and these scams are so sophisticated, they will let you pull out the money. Once they let you pull out the money, you know that it's real, and that's the danger. Right. You can walk away and take home the money. Right. But a lot of people don't do that. What they do is they put the money back. And then they go and mortgage their home, and they go put in more money. That's what makes these scams so dangerous. They don't take their initial $10,000 out? No, generally humans are a little bit greedy when it comes to making money quick, and it's just in our nature to always... But it's a grooming process, though. It is, it is, but it's very easy to get caught up in it. Let's go back to the phone calls. Mary from Lincoln Park here on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Mary. Well, hello there. How are you, Mary? I'm doing good. Hey listen, I just wanted to call and tell people that you can make a lot of money in crypto. I did, a few years ago, and I did it through Homebase, and also you have to be careful of the scammers, because recently, like in September of this year, someone came in while I had my account open, and they tried to tell me that they were a manager. And what I did was you just have to shut everything down, close your windows. I was on a computer doing that. I don't do cell phone anymore since I'm a retired hygienist. And so you just close everything down, turn off your whatever, your phone or your computer. So I just wanted to warn people about it and also tell them, don't be afraid to invest in crypto. It's a fabulous thing to make fast money. I know people like to make fast money, but I made a lot of money really fast. Within two weeks, I made $30,000 on about a $6,000 investment. Oh, my gosh. So they know that. Mary, you should be. I'm not a rich person, but I always had money saved because I was a hygienist and I made really good money, like $35 an hour, a lot more than the average woman who was making like $8 or $9 an hour. That's a lot of money, Mary. Can you make money on crypto like that? Yeah, yeah, you can. There's a lot of legitimate, you know, like if you, there's a lot of people that made a lot of money on Bitcoin, for example. Yeah. But the problem is, is she was probably investing in real cryptocurrencies and not a scam. That's not a scam. That's not a scam, yes. Zachary from Detroit, you're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Zachary. Hey, how you doing? Good. Yes, it's a lot of scammers going on on these phones because my phone just got scammed, and I had to restart my whole phone. So if y'all can do something about that, that'd be a good thing for everybody who's trying to, who is scamming phones and who is hacking on the phones. My phone just got scammed, and I have $400 on my Cash App. I get back. Yeah. Can you get $400 back? That's hard to get back. He said Cash App. I would recommend, this isn't legal advice, but I would recommend reaching out to the bank that you associate your Cash App with and see if they can help you with that. But the question though, I thought he was gonna say though, is should you ever catch the people that do it? You may intercept the money, the feds do, but do you ever get the people that actually did the scam? They're not even in US jurisdiction. They're in like Thailand and Cambodia, relating to crypto, they're so far away. It's bringing them here would be international law disaster trying to put them in a US court. The best thing is just get the money back. Get the victims compensated back, yeah. I mean, they do extradite criminals from foreign countries into the US, but it's not as common as we would like it to be. It's more about getting their money back. Let's take another text here. If mankind can supposedly put a man on the moon, a person on the moon, land on the moon, if satellites can operate in space, if sophisticated technology can tell people about solar flares, Coming radiation storms? Why can't scammers be stopped? As the character said in one of Shakespeare's plays, something is rotten in Denmark, to speak metaphorically. Scammers, yeah. They're professionals. They're professionals. It's a business model for them, right? It's a business model. Scams have been around since the dawn of the age, right? There's always been scams. Now they're just, with AI and new technology, just an easier medium to effectuate those scams. Let's take another text over here. Actually, yesterday, I just went through the same thing, but the difference is I called YouTube TV to change my payment method. Then the next thing you know, they took all the money out of my account and left me with a dollar. The bank was notified. Does that make sense? I just, it doesn't seem like he was talking to YouTube TV. That's fake. That's, I think they're, yeah, so you know, you have to verify who you're calling. It doesn't seem like it was a real YouTube TV. And they're so clever. They're very sophisticated. It's a business model. You know, it's a real thought out business plan. Unbelievable. Let's go back to the phones now. Sean from Detroit. Oh, we just lost shot, all right, we'll take some more calls. I wanna go back real quick before we get to the calls and the text real quick. You say that you go, then you reach out to the, is it Department of Justice that seizes the money? Yup, yup. And then how long does it take before there's a match between your client's money and the money that they have? It does take time. It's not a quick process by any means. We're on the cutting edge right now, and we're figuring out how to exactly recompensate victims. As time goes on, it's hopefully going to get faster and faster and be more routine. But it should be. You know, one to three years is like a time frame. Do you think there's any laws that need to be changed or modified? Yes, so one of the, there's a, so we passed clarity, we passed the Genius Act in the House and Senate, it's a law, right? And then they attempted to pass something called the Clarity Act, which had many more provisions in there to protect victims by ensuring banks are following certain codes. And it didn't. It failed out of the Senate and now with this new change in Congress, hopefully it gets back on the floor. So what would that bill do? It would add more consumer protections to platforms like Coinbase and other cryptocurrency exchanges. The other thing is it's gonna allocate appropriate more money to the government agencies so they can investigate crimes with a lot more money so they can help victims recover down the line. Do you think that the government's ever gonna reach out to the people that have been I've been scammed and undo you. There's just so many victims that I don't think so. They just give public notice on forfeiture.gov and they- How many victims would you say in a given day here in Detroit, Metro Detroit, are being scammed right now? You'd be surprised. I would say, if you look at IC3 reports, after you get scammed, you report something. It's 180,000 people filed an IC3 report. And it's known that only about 10% of victims will file an IC3 report. What is that? So after you get, it's internet crimes report. After you get scammed, you report it to the FBI, they give you an IC3 report, you fill it out, how you got scammed. I see. Yeah, so it's- You fill out the report then? Yeah. So how many, hundreds every day? I mean, you know, like over a... I would say thousands of people are getting scammed every single day. Thousands of people are getting scammed every single day? There's people right now that don't know it yet, but they're in the middle of a scam. Pam from Madison Heights, you're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Pam. Hi, how are you? Good. I'm calling to ask this gentleman. I've been getting hacked. From a person that lives in Snellville, Georgia, the Madison Heights police here will not help me. His name is Peter Crowfoot. He's a felon. See? This was back in 2008. We don't want to accuse anybody of a crime, but you believe you're being scammed, Pam. All right. We don't want to accuse anybody, but go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I am being scammed. All right. Not scammed. Hacked. Hacked. All right. So what can she do? As a local person, it looks like she believes she's being hacked. I mean, if she believes she's being hacked, I mean, if it's on her phone, I'd probably shut off the phone and go talk to somebody that specializes, like myself, in these types of situations. If it's your computer, I would for sure shut it down and make sure that nobody has access to it. And those are the steps until you really find somebody that can actually help you. And you think that, so do you think that, is this, in the new Congress here, we've got a lot of younger people being elected, do you think that that's going to help in your world? I think crypto is here to stay. I think financial technology is always going to evolve, and I think it's important that the United States, you know, has a clear, thought-out regulatory plan to help with these situations. Let's see if we can get one call in before the show. It's Richard from Detroit. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Richard. Yeah, red flags. Biggest red flag, get rich quick, make a lot of money, or just anything... A stranger talking to you about money. Anytime a random person calls you or talks about money, that's usually a red flag, something about finance. And then say, cut right there. Cut right there, yeah. But you gotta be careful, cuz they'll groom you, they'll talk to you for six months and not mention anything about crypto, and then on the 100th day, they'll mention it. What's your number? 586-494-0422. Attorney Paulus Toma, he is trying to get money back from people who have been scammed, 1,000 people a day. Oh, thank you, I appreciate it. It's always a pleasure. All right, stay with us. We've got the results of our poll, our question of the day, when Detroit Talk City returns after this. Welcome back, Detroit Talk City. All right, now is the time for the results of our question of the day, our poll, which was, is it too easy for teens to get their hands on guns? And the answer, overwhelmingly, yes.