The Con Man Down Under

The following program contains names, places and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. The following program is provided for entertainment purposes only and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances. If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for support. Happy Dating Detectives Monday! Hi, Mackenzie, you look beautiful with your new extensions. Look at that long mermaid hair. I got new mermaid hair. They make me look like a mermaid. It's gorgeous. Thank you! You know who else was gorgeous? Our guest this week, Seamless Transition. I really did like her. She told an incredible story. You guys, first of all, I always want to express our gratitude for you guys being here and listening to these guests tell their stories and just creating this community for all of us, including our guests. And we are just so, so grateful for you. So thank you for listening. Thank you for joining our Patreon and just being a part of this community and helping it to grow and create these conversations that sometimes are really hard. We appreciate you sending in your stories also, everybody who sends them in. And if you have one to send in, email us, investigate at thedatingdetectivespodcast.com. But first and foremost, gratitude. Thank you so much for being here. And for Patreon, if you're interested, we do extra episodes every month. We have a little community where we all kind of can chat and debrief on episodes. We do a book club where we get on Zoom and talk about books that are dog fishy. There's $5 a month for all of that. And then if you want no ads on any episodes, there's a $9 a month option to the girlfriend experience. We bring. So our guest this week is Tracy Hall. She's fantastic. And she's with us, not anonymized because she has a book about her experience. It's called The Last Victim. I'm not even going to read the rest of the title because I don't want to give it all away, but we'll put the information for her book and other resources to find her in the show notes and talk about that. In our dogfish debrief at the end, because you're gonna want more. You're absolutely going to want more. You have more questions than answers. Welcome to my life as a P.I. Well, what's fun is a lot of times people are like, Oh no, I wish I could look up the person. I wish I could see the actual people involved this time you can. But wait till the end. Don't spoil it for yourself. And also, I think that this is such a good story to listen to if you are someone who feels dumb after being dogfished, because all of our guests are smart. All of our guests are wonderful. It's never their fault. She is just such a high powered, like badass executive woman that there's no, there's no way you could walk away from the story being like victim. Victim blame me. She really did everything and is just so phenomenal that I think it's important to hear the stories. It reminds people that victims of dogfish are not idiots. They are not. You didn't get victim illness. Because you're dumb. It's usually just the opposite. No. Yeah, let's meet Tracy. You guys are going to love her. Let's get into it. Hi Tracy. Thank you for being here all the way from Australia. Thank you guys. It's so nice to be here. It's so nice to meet you. Shall we get into your story? Take us away Tracy. Will you have the floor? My story was, it's not unusual. It is pretty wild and it started back in 2016 when I decided to start online dating. I'd been separated from my husband for a little over a year. I was working in a pretty big marketing role at eBay in Sydney, Australia. I was getting my head around single parent thing and I decided in all my ways to start online dating. I guess I thought I was ready. I didn't want to meet another husband. I wasn't going to have any more children at this point in my life. I was 40. I just wanted to meet someone who had some more values and interests to me. Literally someone I could do some stuff with on the weekends. I swiped right on a man by the name of Max Tavita. He was 41. I have a question. Yes. Really quick. What apps were you on? What apps are popular in Australia? That might be a silly question, but I'm curious if they're the same ones that are popular over here. I think they're the same now, but back then it was an app called Happen. H-E-P-P-N. It was based on kind of a location. You put your thing in so someone was in five kilometers of you or ten kilometers of you or whatever. They're very, very similar to Hinge and Tinder and Bumble and all of those. I think it's probably like it is in the US. Most people are on most apps. Are you the same people as you're swiping through different apps? Yes, sadly. Sadly, you do. Anyway, it was an app called Happen, which I don't believe exists now or perhaps one of the other ones bought it. But yes, I swiped right. His name was Max Tavita. He was 41. He told me he was a chief investment officer for a family office. We started a lot of bands who were on line. There would be a lot of back and forth. We had some phone call. Then eventually, after quite a number of weeks, we actually met. He lived in Bondi Beach. I live on the northern beaches in Sydney. For those who don't know the distance in traffic, that's probably about an hour's drive. Without traffic, maybe half an hour. It wasn't a big distance. We were in the same city. We saw each other for dates and dinners and weekends and paddle boarding and surfing and running and all the things that I loved to do. Who was driving to who? Did he make you drive all the way there? It was a mixture. So depending on what the plan was, it depended on what we did. But I worked in the city every day, so we would go out for a meal in the city. And after work, if I didn't have my daughter, he would offer to drive me home or catch a new girl home, whatever the case may be. So I would say the relationship was a very slow burn, which suited me. But I didn't have a lot of time. You know, you're a single mom. You're working many, many hours a week. And I had very few windows where I could actually spend time with him. But we did talk a lot. We spoke constantly. We text a console. My constant WhatsApp in constant video call. So our relationship just grew slowly over the next 18 months. We talked politely together. We went away with my family. We did a lot of things that we really loved to do. It was a very simple relationship. So like in this moment, what did you know about his past? Was he married? Did he have kids? And why did you fall for him? Yeah. So he expressed to me that he had been engaged before to women who had three boys, but that relationship didn't work out. He had also told me in relation to his family and his history, he was an orphan from the age of six. So both his parents died in a plane crash is what he told me. And he was brought up in the foster system. And so I heard a lot of stories about the people that had taken him in. I saw photos of these people, ski trips they were on, the names of these people, what street they lived in, and all in Sydney, all Sydney based. So that was all very familiar to me. And then he expressed to me that he had spent 16 years in New York working on Wall Street as an investment banker. And there were many, many stories about that. And I guess the reason I fell in love with him. Do you know what? He was a great listener. He was a generalist. We would go for meals out, those sorts of things. But we were happiest when we were sitting on the beach, having a beer, eating hot chip and surfing. That was our thing. And he was a great surfer. So he was encouraging me to do that. He would be so patient, we'd go out in the ocean and he would push me on 50 waves. Now, I don't know if you've ever been surfing, but for so long to be in the ocean and push you on wave after wave and help you get better. Like there's a lot of patients involved in that. And we would go running, we would walk. We had similar values in terms of our health. And we just had really great conversations. Really active together. That's awesome. He sounds fun. You guys are a fun couple. And do you know what? We grew up in the same era of Australia. So our cultural references were the same. And our humour was the same and our banter was the same. He was actually pretty funny and highly intelligent. So our conversations were rich. He had a level of emotional intelligence that I really responded to. And he was the guy that would lie in bed at three o'clock in the morning and listen to the stories that stopped you sleeping. And he was very patient. And he was just a great partner. I thought I'd met my match. I thought I'd met my person. That's how I felt. I'm kind of in love with him after that. It was a good description. Yeah. That went on for the better part of 18 months. And we took holidays together up to Byron Bay, which is an idealic coastal town. Ten hours north of Sydney. The surfing is amazing. There is boys dolphins jumping in the ocean. So we would go up there and my family would come and see us. We took my daughter on a few trips. My mum stayed with us on the sofa. Everything was heading in the right direction. We looked at properties to buy up there together because that's where we wanted to see ourselves and move to. So we were talking about years into the future in terms of us being together. It all happens slowly over a long period of time. There wasn't really intense lob bombing at the beginning. It was a very, very slow burn. And that worked for me because I was new out of her marriage. I was managing a five year old. I had a huge job. I didn't have a lot of time to give, but he didn't pressure me. It was just like when we could see each other, that was enough. I'm stressed about that because one of the things we tell people all the time is don't rush, slow burn, wait it out. And it's like even sometimes when you do everything right. The slow burn usually gives you time to get to know someone. And so it just goes to show you that whether it's a slow burn or whether it's super fast, you never know what could happen. We could still end up on the dating detectives. So far, it sounds great. This guy's a good catch. You're both adventurous and very active together. That sounds amazing. Yeah, and he understood the corporate world that I lived in. So that was really important to me too because I was under a lot of pressure with work. I had a big team. I had big budgets. I had a lot of responsibility. And he had worked in this corporate world in investment banking and he never winched or moaned that I had to do work on the weekend or at night. All he did was support me. He's my biggest cheerleader. He's my biggest fan. He was so uplifting and he would say these things to me like, you are the hardest working person I've ever met. You deserve everything. He was just so generous with his arm. That's so nice to be acknowledged as a woman like Thwune and also he'd listened. I mean, how many of us just pray for a man that will just listen? It's very simple, but often we don't get that. So all in all, the package, whilst it wasn't perfect and he was quirky in some ways. I was genuinely happy. And yes, we didn't see each other every day. In some cases, we didn't see each other for 10 days, maybe two weeks. But we were constantly in communication. He was always letting me know where he was at. He was always treading in with me. There was messages and calls. That's so nice. Oh my gosh. How nice. Who would have thought that that would be so attractive? Truly. And also that sounds ideal because at some point you're like, maybe I want my own space to do my job, raise my kid. A long-distance relationship is actually nice in that regard. Yeah. I was really focusing on my career to become financially independent after my divorce. All the things that you're doing and there was no pressure from him. That was attractive to me because I didn't have a lot of time to give. And he never made me feel bad for prioritizing my daughter. It was always she comes first. Did your daughter like him? Yeah. Yeah, she did. They didn't have a close relationship. So I was really cognizant of the fact that it was my relationship with him. So why my time was so limited was I only saw him when I didn't have her. And we were together for nearly 18 months. So over that time, of course, she met him. For her, he was a guy that was on the other end of the phone a lot. So he would call and he'd be on speaker and he'd have a joke with her and won't have you. And then there was some holiday that we talked, which my mum came to as well. So she obviously met him and she knew him, but it wasn't like he was with her all the time. Yeah, it's not like here's your new dad. Right. No, she has a dad. And when she was with her dad, that's when I spent time with him. He was not pushing in there at all. Yeah. Green flags, Tracy. I'm hearing green flags. Where are the red flags? I don't want to know. What's happening? There were some quirks. 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Go to Shopify.com slash dating detectives at Shopify.com slash dating detectives. He was not that comfortable socially with my friends and he didn't have that many friends. So that's weird, you know. But he explained it away. He said, look, I've been in New York for 16 years. All my friends have moved on. I'm just getting my feet back into the Australian market. And that all made plausible sense. Everything had a story attached to it that was not just a throwaway line. It was a long, detailed, very plausible explanation of why the thing wants the thing. In terms of my friends, he did entertain it a little bit, but he also said, Trace, I haven't seen you for two weeks. I just want to spend the night with you. Can we not just go for dinner? There's so much I want to catch. You know, and again, music to ease. Oh my God, this guy just wants to spend time with me. And yeah, for me to agree. Totally. Yeah, and that was enough for me to go, you know, okay, no worries, of course. We've only got one night and a half a day between now and two weeks from now. Of course, we're going to spend it together. And we're in the new stage of our relationship. So we wanted to invest that time with each other. It just seemed plausible to me that that would be the response. But of course, in hindsight, there's a different outcome. Always in hindsight. We've heard this before and I'm sure you have too, but having a very traumatic childhood and excuse for not having a close family, what he said about your friends and the long distance friends. We were just talking about the sun girls got to eat where it's not people that are just like, I have no friends. They have great stories for it. And you're not a monster. So you're not going to be like, I don't believe that you're a foster child who lived in New York. Exactly. And if someone tells you their parents have died, you don't go, oh, but did they let me see the obituary? Let me see. Yeah, yeah. The listeners of this show will at least give it a Google. Yeah, but as he told me the story, it would have happened in the 70s. And I did Google this story that he taught me about his parents. But of course, and this was another vulnerability of mine, I would get home from a date. It might be 11pm, 1130 by the time I got into bed. I am absolutely busted, so exhausted. And I know I've got to get up at six o'clock the next day and do it all again. And so I'm like Googling, trying to figure out the story that he told me. And of course, I have a bit of a scroll, nothing comes up and my eyes are closing, phone goes on the side table, off I go to sleep and then tomorrow starts again and we're running, we're running again. So that was my vulnerability. I was tired. I was distracted. No, it's time to be a P.I. Right. And when you don't suspect something of this caliber, why would you go deeper? Why would you keep looking? There's no motivation intrinsically to do that. And I would ask Christians, I'm like, oh, I didn't see anything about this. So why don't you have a profile on LinkedIn? And of course, again, there's just story after story of so much detail that matches everything he said previously. So in my head, I'm like, there it is. Yep. Okay, that makes sense. Let's move on. The world means very quickly. And you just don't, if you're not suspecting, you don't delve in, you don't keep asking. And that's one of the things I tell people to do. Keep asking the question. That's what I do too, but I would never ask, oh yeah, let me see the obituary. So what do you do? And most people just take it with a grain of salt and move on until there's something to be concerned about, but you don't know what you don't know. So this relationship was moving slowly. It was all moving in the right direction. And during this time, we had hundreds and hundreds of conversations about his job as a chief financial officer for a family office. He spoke about money and investing all the time. And over the course of our relationship, he essentially guided me to set up a self-managed superannuation fund. And a superannuation fund in Australia is like your 401k. So it's where a portion of your salary goes into a retirement fund that is managed and invested on your behalf. It's a regulated environment and you put that in. Now in Australia, we have the choice to pull it out of a regulated environment and manage it ourselves. So you can buy Crocodile with it, you can do your own investing, whatever it is. There are a lot of rules around doing that. Essentially, he had said to me, let's take your superannuation, so 22 years of career savings, my pension fund, my 401k, and put it into a self-managed fund that he would manage on my behalf based on his experience and expertise as chief investment officer for a family office, managing some of Australia's wealthiest family money. The conversation came in sentences over a long period of time. So probably the first conversation was something along the lines of, do you know how much you're paying in fees to your superannuation fund? And that would have come after a conversation about the money that he was making for his family office clients at a lower fee rate. So that previous conversation might have come two weeks or three weeks or four weeks before. And then the next conversation, hey, Trace, do you know how much you're paying in fees on your superannuation fund? And I'd say no. And then of course I'd go and look at it. And then I'd come back to him another two weeks later and he's like, oh my gosh, those fund managers, they're thieves. They are thieves with the amount of fees that they're charging you. And what return are you getting? And of course previously he had told me returns that he was getting for his clients, which were far greater than what the fund was getting. So again, that was another confirmation that matched up. I won't speak for you. I would have been like, oh, he knows more than me. I'm embarrassed to tell him the fees. It seems like he set you up to be the lesser, even though you are obviously so successful and smart in your own right. I felt like there could have been a bigger opportunity is how it was sort of positioned. And again, it was so patient and slow. And in between all of this was a lot of very beautiful conversation. It was very encouraging. Things like Trace, you're the hardest working person I know. You deserve to be financially independent. I want the best for you. This process took the better half of that full relationship for him to set me up to the point where I thought he was the perfect person to invest my life savings. I had not a shadow of a doubt. Because there was conversations, there were Bloomberg monitors in his lounge room. There were people from his back office that were executing trades for him that I overheard on conversations. He sent me reports and documentation on letterhead. He spoke about families that he invested money for. And it wasn't just a throwaway line. They were big, deep, detailed stories. We're at dinner one night and he was saying to me, I need to take a phone call when it comes through and I'm going to apologise in advance if you hear me talking away that doesn't feel right to you. I'm like, Vincent's weird. And he's talking to his CEO on the phone about one of their employees that was asking for an advance on her bonus because she'd taken some bridging finance. And the CEO was trying to convince him that that's what they should do. And he was like, no, it's her fault. She shouldn't have taken that bridging loan. He got quite aggressive about it. And he got off the phone and he said, sorry about that, but sometimes you just got to put your foot down. This stupid idiot at work, got bridging finance ahead of her bonus. She shouldn't have done that. And it's not our problem. What did you think in that moment when you heard him talk that way? I saw a side of him that I didn't necessarily like. It was quite aggressive. It was quite pointy. But he did warn me that that was going to happen. And he said, Trace, it's business. You know me. You know what I'm like. But in some cases you have to. Now I've worked in corporate for 25 years. I know that sometimes those tough decisions have to happen. I've heard them before. I've seen them find out in my workspace. So it didn't bother me to a point where I was really concerned about it. But I did see a different side of him in that moment. But he explained it beforehand. He explained it after we had a beautiful meal. And he apologised for me having to witness that. Okay, that will make sense. That's just work. That's just business. So he's broke through his CEO a lot. I overheard conversations many, many times. And one night they were out for dinner and he called me on faith time. So I spoke to both of them and they were out for dinner having a glass of wine. So it was quite a jovial conversation. But I knew who she was. And so I was like, okay, he's out having dinner with his CEO. And that was something that happened regularly. They were very close. He had told me that they worked together in the States and she had come back to you for him and got him in. And then I also met her in real life. I was coming home from the city and he had had dinner with his CEO and another gentleman. And I got out of the Uber. They were standing in the street. And that's when I met her face to face. And I said, hi Anna, I'm Tracy. Met the other gentlemen. And we had a chat in the street. But of course it was, how was your meal? How's your day been? Have you got a big week coming up? Whatever the conversation was, it was the first time I'd met her face to face. It was a small talk. Yeah, it was a small talk. But you were verifying her. Yeah, she was definitely a real person. I had heard her on the phone many times. I'd seen her on the faith time and then I was meeting her in real life. And Matt said, okay, let's head down to Bondi and let's grab a drink before we go home. And I was like, oh, okay, great. And then we're in the Uber on the way back to his place. And he's getting messages from her saying, oh, we should have all gone for a drink and it all happened so quickly. We liked it. No trace better. And he was like, oh, what a shame. Next time I said, oh, I thought the same. It would have been nice to have gotten to know Anna. But in those moments, no names were used, apart from me saying, hi Anna, my name is Tracy. His name was not used. So toward the end of our relationship, this is where the funds moved and everything was set up perfectly. Everything was in my name. I had filled in all the documents. It's quite a regulated environment in Australia in terms of the retirement fund. And so there were a lot of things that you have to have in place for a regulated superannuation fund to release the money to have it be managed personally. All of that was in place because of course he helped me do that. It was all in my name. There was a constitution. There was directors rights. There was the whole thing. And that was all set up legitimately. And when you say helped me do that, was he like next to you at the computer? Max worked with the solicitor and the lawyer to set up those documents. And he did all of that for me and then took me through that piece by piece. So he went and did all the leg work. These are the five things you need. Let me help you do that again. Thank you so much. I've taken one thing off my plate. He spoke me through everything. I signed those documents and a fund was set up in my name for my personal retirement fund. And then what happened was for him to invest that money, it needed to go into a trading account. And that trading account, I believed with that in my name. I filled in the documents. I've had a JP sign them and that was all legitimate. And then a check was made out to that trading fund that was going to put that money into my account. Now I passed out some RSU, so some shares that I had received from working. I worked in big tech for many years and that all went into that fund as well. So in total, the amount of money that I was investing in the self-managed super superannuation fund was $317,000. So that was my entire career pension fund for R1K. It was my RSUs, my tech shares that I had accumulated. Oh my God. It was everything. It was everything. And that was also me along nicely. Max provided me with reports from the trading firm that all of the pages and pages of reports of the different trades he had made, the money that went in, the money that went out. So to profit, it did take me a bit to get that report. And I asked him for the log in accounts, which were this future. Yep, I'll get those to you when I get home. And like I said, my world moved pretty quickly. And maybe that day he didn't get me the login details. So I'd ask again in a few days and what happened. But the reports came. I saw the reports. I saw it all in my name. The money was coming in. The money was going out. All the trades looked legitimate. So that all seemed fine. We went up for another trip in early July. We went up to Byron Bay again. I was doing a presentation, a marketing presentation to a women's conference. And we went up there and he said, look, let's take the weekend. Let me come and support you. I'll drive out. I'll bring all the surfboards, all the stand up paddle board. I'll bring everything in the truck. I'll drive up. It's about a 10 hour drive. You fly out. You do your talk and then we'll have a nice weekend together. Let's go look at some properties. It's a happy place. Let's go spend some time and celebrate you. Again, sweet. Great. Oh my God. You know, he's like, I'll pick you up from the air. Yeah, this is amazing. Yep, I'll have your wet suit. I'll have your surfboard. We'll do this. I'll book this restaurant like all the things. Delete me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. And when I say everyone, yes, I mean you too. I've been a private investigator for 20 years. And when I'm telling you it is so easy for data brokers to make a profit off of your data. The information is out there and your data is a commodity. But delete me helps you to protect your privacy. 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It was a beautiful weekend and I came home and I felt for the first time almost ever in my life. I had someone who was really supporting me. I felt those things. I felt so I wrote him a message and I said I've never felt like this before. You're my person and you are my biggest cheerleader and I've never felt so confident in myself having you support me. And then I get home and the day after I get home I missed a call from him and it was in the morning and I was busy getting the kids off to school holiday camp getting into the office getting back into life. And I missed a call from him and I spent the rest of that day trying to get back in touch with him with no luck, which was very, very, very unusual. We were in constant contact all the time. And by the time that night rolled around, I was getting pretty worried because again it was just very odd. Didn't sleep that unusual. Very unusual. Very no text. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. Nothing. Just this mist. We're a little worried about him. Wonder where is that? What's going on? Yeah, worried during the day. By that night I was pretty worried by the next morning and a sleepless night. I was frantic. Yeah, I would have been like, where's my man at? And how long had you all been together at this point? Well, 16 months. Okay, so it's not enough time? It's a long time. You're worried. Yeah, 100% I called Bondi police and I asked them to do a wellness check on him because I just felt like something was wrong. And while they were doing that and that was pretty early in the morning, a girlfriend of mine called and I'm thinking, it's weird. It's weird. It's a bit early for her to be calling and I took the call and she said, how are you? And I said, I'm absolutely exhausted. I have not slept a wing. Really worried about Max. Something's happened. I feel like something's wrong. And she took a deep breath and she said, I'm going to send you a link to a news article and you're going to open the article and then you're going to call me straight back. And immediately, of course, I'm thinking, oh my God, there's been a shark attack, a surfing accident. And I said to her, I said, she's dead, isn't he? He's dead. He's dead. And she said, no, Tris, he's not dead. Open the link and call me back. So I click on this link and up comes an article with a video that is being posted by Crime Stoppers with him being arrested outside of his Bondi Beach apartment. And his face is blurred out. But of course, I know. Without a shadow of a doubt, but it's him. Oh God. And the headlines were saying things like Bondi Beach man, 47, superannuation fraud. And I'm reading this and I'm like, my brain cannot keep up. And I'm thinking in my head, they've made a mistake. They've got it wrong. Because Max is only 42. Yeah, yeah, no way. I was going to say you said 42 or something. Yep. And that's when everything came crashing down and my stomach dropped. I could not feel my legs, my arms went numb. I was in shock. No. I was in denial. And then in that moment, I called back Bondi Police and I said, you don't need to do that wellness check. He's not dead. He's been arrested. And they said, yeah, we know. Because they had been doing some, yeah, we know. Swizzle happening. Yeah. And they said, yeah, we know. But the name of the person who lives at that address, his age, everything about him that you told us is not true. He's not accurate. I said, yeah, it is. I've just been with his man for nearly 18 months. So he lives there. I was so certain. And they said, no, it's not. It's not his name. It's not his age. That's not who it is. Oh my God. Freeman, I'm like, who is it? Like, who? Who is this man? Like, who is it? And they said, look, we're not out of liberty to tell you. You need to contact the detectives working on the case. Oh my God. But then I did that. And the head detective that was working on the case, you told me his name. And it was not Max? No. His name is Hamish McLaren. And he happens to be one of Australia's most notorious common. Oh my God. So I'm at work at this point in the city. I leave work. I call my bestie from work and she said, are you okay? And I said, no, I'm not okay. No, definitely not okay. Meet me at the cafe and armed with his name. We sat in this cafe and we started researching. And there is a very, very, very long history of information on the internet about a man called Hamish McLaren. And he had been arrested for swindling 15 Australian victims out of $7.6 million. Holy shit. How far back does this go? What year did you start finding stuff about him? The criminal case went back about six years. And he had never been arrested or indicted until now? No. He'd lost some trading licenses, but everything he did was on the side. It wasn't through regulated environments because he couldn't get a license. So I had to go out to the detectives. I just left work. I took my girlfriend with me and I sat with them for a few hours and they said, have you given him money? I said yes. And I said, is it likely that I'll get that money back? And at that time they said, well, we don't know about, we don't think so. And that then kicked off a process where I worked with the detectives for three weeks on a statement. I'm thinking the previous 18 months of my life. Just that moment of hearing them say, no, probably not. How did that feel? I just felt numb. I felt numb because the thing to understand is I've lost the love of my life in this moment, but I've also lost my life savings. And those two things together were just too much to even process. At the time I'm still thinking it's made a mistake. Surely there's an answer for this. This is marked. He's one of the most solid people I've ever met. This can't be true. That's my guy. There's no way he's done. Yeah. There's no way. There was just nothing in my consciousness that would have ever imagined that this would be who he was. And so trying to get my head around that was just wild. And then at the same time, starting to realize that all the money that's with him is at risk. And at this point, I wasn't entirely sure that I believed them that the money was gone because I thought everything was in my name. Everything was set up legitimately. Right. And then did you give him money? Not technically. Like you invested your money and he helped manage it, but you didn't necessarily think that you gave it to him. No, that's what I believed that had happened. I thought the trading account was in my name, so I had all the documentation. So I was so discombobulated in my brain because I was trying to figure out a world where Max didn't exist. Like it was like he had died. It was like I was grieving is what it felt like. I was like grieving this death. But I was grieving a fake human and a fake relationship. And then I was starting to hate myself because I was now grieving a criminal. And trying to put all of this together in your brain within a short space of time, it's just wild. And so that kicked off a three week process with the detective because he wasn't arrested on the crimes that he committed against me. What was the arrest? It was on the charges for three other victims. And that was enough to arrest him and put him in jail and have him bail refused, which is what they wanted. Did you know anything about the other three victims and who they were to him? No, not at the time. I didn't find I didn't get any information from maybe you're in the heart. Okay, we'll get there. Oh my God. The phone calls that I missed on the day that I got back from bar and bay was actually him calling me to tell me he'd been arrested. And probably trying to get me to a nice ale and like that. That was that phone call. What we're trying to get ahead of it. Yeah, I think you get one phone call for something and his phones were taken off him at that point turned off and that's when I couldn't get back in touch with him for the rest of that time. I did have contact with him in the subsequent weeks and months afterwards. He called me from jail a number of times, which is interesting. Have you ever received a call from someone in jail? Yeah, I haven't. You get six minutes in Australia and it says you get a call from an unknown number and it says you're about to receive a call from an inmate at ex prison. If you want to take the call, it's down the line. If you don't hang up now and I'm like, I'm in God. When you first got that, did you say? Yeah, well, I took the call of course, because I was so desperate. I would have too. I had no answers. The police couldn't tell me anything. The financial institution, everything was like, grout and in the criminal case that had these privacy things about it. And you want to hear like, dude, this isn't true. There's no way. Don't believe them or you want to hear something, right? I just wanted answers. I wanted some knowledge so that I could put an exotic puzzle together in my mind. So he calls me and he's coming to me. I'm like, you have to explain yourself. What is your name? What is your identity? Where do you live? Where are you married? Are your parents dead? What job did you have? Who was this person? Who was Claudia? Who was Anna? Who was it? I was rapid firing because you can imagine I was just in this complete state. And this was probably maybe three or four weeks after he was arrested. So there was a lot of gap in between for me to piece together 18 months and go through all these characters in your movie. And so I'm rapid firing the questions at him. And he's just like, so offhandish with me. So nonchalant. T. It's just a name. Don't get hung up on a name. It's not who I am. It's just a name. Excuse me? I'm sorry. I'm like, what? Yeah, I'm like, are you for fucking real? Like what universe do you live in? No, that's the government. Like it's not just the name. It's your legal name. And I think that he had planted letters in his letterbox addressed to Max to Vita that he knew I would pick up on my way up to his apartment. Oh my God. And I was just there going, it's your identity. It's who you pretended to be for 18 months. Who have I been sleeping with? Who are you? I just needed to know who this man was and he couldn't tell me. And six minutes, mate, that goes pretty slow when you're waiting for your lunch to defrost in the office microwave. But six minutes when you're talking to your boyfriend, he's now criminal. It goes so quickly. And I was just in state of panic. I bet. Job and so didn't get any answers. And he continued to call for a while. But again, there was no true coming out of his mouth. Answer any of my questions. During our relationship, we would drive into the city and we'd pull into the street where his office was, which he had sent me photos from his office, people in his office, his computer desk in his office. He would pull up in the street and he'd say, Trace, I need to park four floors under. So why don't you hop out here and walk down to eBay? Have a great day. And of course, I didn't think anything of it because I didn't suspect anything. But the truth was he didn't have an office. He didn't have a job. He turned the car around. He drove back to Bondi Beach. He put his board shorts back on and he worked out more ways to still more money for more people. Oh my God. There was this movie that he created. And there were all these pieces that matched so that when he finally got to the conversation with me about my retirement fund, I had no doubts in my mind that he was the perfect person to do that. I call it like death by a thousand cuts. This came to a sentence at a time over the course of 16 months and everything matched. That's such a good way to look at it. It is death by a thousand cuts. Yeah. And it's never the first cut that will kill you. It's the thousand cut where you'll bleed out and that's exactly what happened. Yes. And then he started sending letters to my work address and they went from at the beginning, trying to garner empathy from me because it took him 11 days to get a pen. How the food in prison is not so great. The things he's seen. Feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for me. Sorry. Nobody asked you. And I'm like, I feel so sorry for you, please. Police. And so I get these letters and then they turned into these rambling of memories, beautiful memories of what we did together and all the times we'd spent. And at the end he'd say, you know, just read through these traits and you'll see what we had. This is just one of the many chapters of our lives together. And I'm like, mate, this is the finale. There are no more chapters in this story. Yeah. And then the final letters were all about how fortuitous it would be if I went and visited him in prison because the phone calls and the letters get monitored, but the face to face discussions do not. So he was insinuating that if I went and saw him in prison, that he would be able to give me some information that might be beneficial to me and my money. Totally. He was dangling a $317,000 carrot in my face to get me to go and visit him. And to be honest, I considered it. Yeah, I would have. I totally would. I wouldn't. You know, I'm 42. I'm a single mom. I've got zero money apart from my income from my job, which I was scared I was going to lose because I was so distracted. And I'm sure he's going, you know what, if you come and see me, maybe I can give you some information that will help you get that money back. Were you able to talk to any of the detectives on the case or any authorities or even friends? Who were you talking to about this? I had a very close circle of friends that knew. People didn't know that this had happened. I was so devastated. I was shocked. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I didn't know a lot of the answers that people were asking me. So I had a very tight circle of girlfriends that knew and of course my family. The detectives that was a very late, your statement and evidence and your bank statements and text messages and WhatsApp videos and all of the stuff I had to get for them. And the communications stopped about six months after he was arrested when I received the biggest bunch of flowers that I have ever received at work. And there was a card in it that said, see you soon. Love, Hamish. Why see you soon? What is that? Why? That's scary. I threw up. I felt so sick. I went to the office toilets and I threw up. And at this point, I have not slept for six months. I've not eaten for six months. I've lost incredible amounts of weight. I am running on nerves and adrenaline and he sends this to me and I'm thinking, fuck, he's downstairs. He's gotten out of jail and they haven't told me. And I called the head detective and I told him. And he didn't know about the letters in the phone call. I hadn't told the police about that. And in this moment, I was like, this has to stop. And so I called the detectives and then they had a word with him and made it stop. He would still enjoy. I don't even know how he made that happen. There's someone that did that for him on the outside. I called the florist because of privacy that can't tell you. I don't know how he paid for it. The biggest bunch of Australian natives. They can tell the police. Yeah, I don't know. They probably did, but I don't get access to that information. So that was the communication until the court process started. I didn't speak to him, but I saw him during that process. Can you just talk a little more because this is a part of your story that's going to make a difference for people. I just know it holding that into just yourself at work. I'm sure you're putting on a brave face for your daughter. Yeah. The embarrassment, the shame, the trying to survive. That's just such an isolating feeling. Yeah. It was the hardest time of my life. And in my book, I explained all the things that have happened in my life. This kind of wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to me. It was pretty bad. But in those moments, it was the hardest thing that I ever had to do was get myself out better every day, go to work, run a team, run a business unit. Manage a five year old and work with the police and all of this stuff going on in the background. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And I did make a decision very early on that there would be no tears at the dinner table. My daughter with six at the time, she doesn't understand a non-compliant self-managed superannuation. She doesn't understand why he'd been arrested. She doesn't understand fraud. And nor should she. They're adult problems. And so I decided no tears at the dinner table. She didn't have a relationship with him other than he was a guy on the phone at night. And so I just put on a brave face with her. I'd got up every morning, went to work because that was my only financial life line was my monthly income. And had I lost my job, I really would have been in trouble. So I'm 42. Yes. I've got nothing apart from my forced to go. I'm a single mum responsible for everything. And to be honest in retrospect, there was so much value in that distraction. Because when I was at work running a big team with a multi-million dollar budget and making decisions and running campaigns, I wasn't the girl who just lost her savings to the lot with her life. When I was at home being a mum, I don't know if you guys have kids, but I don't give a shit about your feelings. For a minute. No. About their world. And so that was a great distraction too. And I thought, who's going to get hurt to school every day if I'm lying in bed crying? Who's going to get hurt through her activities? Who's going to keep fucking show on the road if I'm in a fetal position? And so I quite happily compartmentalized that side of my life and then put on a brave face everywhere else. And the people that knew me would say, The first time your children can save you and you don't even realize it. 100% and my job did too. Yeah, but you moms are amazing. It's just this instinctual being and people would say to me, people that knew what had gone on, they're like, Trace, you're so strong, you're so resilient, you're doing a great job. And underneath I'm thinking, I am so disassociated, I am so numb. This is not resilient, this is survival. But of course they didn't say any of those things because I just had to keep a lid on it. And it's not until many, many years later that I've been able to process all of that. But there's value in the distraction and the busyness at work and children when you're going through trauma. 100%. But it's probably a long to make you a journey because I had to put it on hold. And it wasn't until, this is a great story, it wasn't until about nine months after Hamish with the rest did, that my daughter, I was going to hear a shower one night and we're in the bathroom and we're doing the nighttime routine and she says, ah mum, we haven't heard from Max in a while. In my head I'm thinking, oh my God, I've done a good job. We did not miss a beat. She had no idea what had happened. She hadn't even thought about the fact that he hadn't called it and I thought, you know what, done a good job. You've done a good job. I was just about to say that. Yes. So then we embarked on what ended up being a three year criminal process, which is very unusual for fraud as well. Fraud is very difficult to prosecute. But because there were so many victims, there was so much money. We went through a very public criminal process in Australia. Hamish was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the crime scene committed against 15 Australian victims of $7.6 million. And that was later reduced to 12 years on appeal with nine years non parole. Now nine years non parole comes up this July. So he's been in jail for nine years. What was that case like again? It was bit lengthed receiving criminals from jail. I've never been through anything like this before. The justice system is interesting. I learned a lot and I realized that is not a system or outcomes based on what's right or what's fair or what's moral. It's a system of technicalities. Yes, you're exactly right. What is the precedent in cases of white collar crime in Australia? Because he pleaded guilty, he gets a 25% discount on whatever sentence he would have received. What are we buying in bulk? That's so garbage. Yeah, it's just the way it goes, right? And this is the justice system. So I did learn a lot about that. I had to get my head around the fact that it is not what's morally right or fair. And what about him finding God in jail? Did that help him? Yes, he'd all presented a perfect inmate. The guy became the head plumber for one of the jails he was in. He couldn't touch a toilet seat. He couldn't do a poo in an apartment if you were there. He had to leave and go and get coffee and croissants while he did his business. The guy was a German poet. He was never going to be a plumber, but suddenly he's the head plumber. It's wild. He found God. He did a theology course. Now, this is the biggest atheist I've ever met in my life. So it's all just, it's a game for him. You know, it's a game. So he's just taking on whatever role gets him the best outcome? 100%. And he's been doing it for many, many years. So we went through this three year criminal trial in parallel. At the same time, I was introduced to an investigative journalist from the Australian newspaper. Now the Australian newspaper is our key kind of academic masthead. I guess you could say very well regarded, incredible journalism. And Greg was the journalist was going to write a story just about what had happened to me. And he came along to Hengish's plea hearing where Hengish clicked guilty. And we received a document at that hearing that outlined the 15 victims, the amount of money lost, how it happened, when it happened. It was a 33 page document called the statement of fact. This was nearly a year and a half after he'd been arrested was this document. And this was the first piece of information that I had all my hands on that actually told me what exactly he had done, who the victims were, what had happened, all the things. And who he was. And who he was. That's right. So that was an amazing document to get our hands on. But in the moment, the journalist said to me, Chase, this isn't bigger than you. This is a podcast. Now this is back in 2019 when podcasts were just getting going. And he said, I want to do a podcast. Can we do a podcast? And I said, of course, everyone needs to know this story. And so the podcast that was created by the Australian was called Who the Hell is Hengish? And Greg spent a year investigating Hengish and the crimes not only in the past six years and what the police were investigating, but his life over the past 30 years. And Greg did it on cupboard that conservatively. Hengish has stolen close to 80 to 100 million dollars from people around the globe. Oh my God. Wow. He has victims everywhere. There is victims in the US, Canada, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong. Where did all this money go? Do we know? According to the detectives, no. He did have a very affluent lifestyle back in the early 2000s. Certainly when we were together, he was comfortable, but it wasn't of this lifestyle that he's reported on. Whether he used some money to pay back other people, whether he lost it training, whether it's screwed away somewhere in an offshore account, whether he gambled it. Who knows? The only person that knows this Hengish. So he could get out of jail and go to an offshore account or whatever and just have it. Potentially, if it's then. We all need to go listen to this podcast and I want to hear his stories with all the other victims, but I'm curious if we could go through some of the early lies that you found out from this information. I'm like, did his parents die on a plane crash? What lies did he tell you early on that you found out about? So many lies. And the weird thing was every story was two lies and a truth, or two truths and a lie. So part of it was accurate and then part of it was just completely fabricated. Well, the best lies are close to the truth. That's right. And his parents, I believe, are still alive. Wow. Well, I mean, I'm glad they're alive. I'm glad they didn't die on a plane crash, but that's crazy. I don't know that for sure, but I know they didn't die on a plane crash. He was not engaged. He was married to a woman with three boys. So he told me the correct name and that she had three boys, but he said they were engaged, not married. He had not, in fact, lived in America for 16 years. So remember the story about the dinner where he had to go a little bit postal on his employee? Oh, yeah, yeah. He was talking to his CEO, Anna, that night, but he was actually talking about one of the other victims who was pressing them to get the money back because she was under pressure. And basically he was saying to Anna, Anna was somehow involved in this victim discussion. And the victim was putting pressure on Anna and Anna was calling Hamish to say, what do I do here? Now, he's pretending it's an employee that wants an advance bonus, but it was actually a victim wanting the money back so that she could pay the mortgage. And so he's got full conversation. And I think back about that conversation. I now know that victim and we've put the theaters together. Just crazy, crazy thing. There is not a dex that he would not go to to get money from somebody. So for example, and it's all in the cult cast, his wife had three boys. One of those boys had a girlfriend that lived in their house at the time. Hamish had a predatory affair with this 16 year old girl. Oh, no. Oh my God. Get to her grandparents who came into some money because the grandfather had had a compensation claim through work and they lost about $1.6 million. Oh my God. And as you're finding all of this out more and more and more, is there ever a point where you're like, I'm done? I don't want the story to keep going. This is a lot to find out. It was a lot, but it did come over a period of time and the journalist was so generous with the information he gave me in a way that I was getting nothing from the police. Because they couldn't. He would call me up, he'd go, I'm stressed. Never guess what I found out. And so he'd tell me the story and of course every week an episode would release and I found out more things. And there wasn't a time where I thought it's too much because I had this world in my life that had so many missing pieces and so many questions. And the thing about our brains is we actually can't rest until the puzzle is put together. And so as each... Oh, that makes sense. ... puzzle came to me. It was a piece of the story where my brain could actually rest. Okay, that makes sense. Got it. These 15 victims, he had a movie going for each of them. For one, he was a barrister. For one, he was a business strategist. For one, he was a triathlete. On some level, this guy is actually genius. Not to give him any credit at all. But I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. And this guy got 15 movies going. Oh, they're good at what they do. Yeah. Holy crap. Did he have any other romantic relationships at the same time as you? Not that I'm aware of. It wouldn't surprise me if he did, but nothing's come out since. So these were all... He had this relationship that he had with people and their money. A very, very high profile, famous Australian fashion designer. Or Stoker a million dollars. And they were... They're Australian made off. Yeah. 100%. And there are many, many victims that decided not to come for it because of the public nature of it. Or they've just put it in the path that it wouldn't have been passionate. And then of course there's other jurisdictions where many people have lost millions of dollars. You mentioned Anna. So we have who the hell is... Hey, man, who the hell is Anna? Did he have other people working with him? I still don't entirely know who Anna was. I think she was a pawn in his chess game. She never made a statement, although I believe she also lost money. So she was not on the victim's co-board. Sadly, she has died since he was arrested. Oh, no. So we'll never find that out. And his sister, who I also believed might have somehow been involved, maybe knowingly or unknowingly, I don't know. Sadly, she has also cast away since he's been incarcerated. Wow. But we know that Anna was not the CEO of a company because that company did not exist. No, she was just someone that was involved with him in some way, shape or form. Wow. So... This is wild. Yeah, it's wild. Like, you couldn't stuff up. So the podcast came out in 2019. It was huge. And then we finished the criminal trial and I went back to my life essentially putting myself back together, rebuilding my finances, had done bum up. I worked in tech for another seven years. And then in 2023, I got offered to write a book about my experiences because the podcast is really about Hamish, right? Who the hell is Hamish? And my book is a really a deep dive into how this could possibly happen to someone like me. You know, I never thought it would be me. Yes, I'm glad you did that. Yeah, I've traveled the world. I've had a stellar education. I've worked for some of the biggest companies in the world. I have amazing friends on paper. I would be the last person you would expect this to happen to. And yet, you know, here I am. Great, because you're so smart. You know, and this is a thing. It's got nothing to do with intelligence. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. It never does. And he had done this craft for 30 years. It was really good at what he did. I was just unlucky to meet the wrong person at the wrong time. And yes, I had vulnerability. Yeah, we're all vulnerable. Some of my vulnerabilities where I was tired. I'm stretched. I'm single parenting. I was working 16-hour days and I was navigating a divorce. And that's not a crime. And it was nice to have somebody to connect with. And he wasn't being pressuring or anything. And he was happy to take it slow in that still-along con. I got an offer to write the book in 2023, which I did while it was working full-time. And it was published in 2024. And then I just started getting asked to speak to people, speak to companies, talk about compliance training and how we can make that better. How do these things happen? Good for you. And whatever these whims, yes, scams and fraud has exploded. There is not a day that goes past when people aren't contacted by somebody to fool them or to extract money or data. Oh yeah. I got like six today. Yes, they are out like crazy. 100%. And the thing is, most people don't know what's coming at them. And so I use my story to get people to listen to start with, because no one wants to listen to their banks talking about scams. But they will listen to this crazy story. I go on to say, this is what's happening in the world. This is why we have to be so careful. There is a scam for teenagers, teenage extortion going through the roof. There is a scam for our seniors because they don't understand the technology as well. And there is a scam for us. Yes. There is a scam for everybody. There's more scams than we can imagine because of how fast technology is developing. I want to tell you, we had an episode not too long ago where a similar professional, wonderful woman was dating a guy who was very involved in crypto. And she did not invest her money through him. She invested through an app that he recommended that she verified online. And it turns out he had built the app. Yeah. I hear stories like that. And we didn't even know people could build apps like that. Like it's wild. It's also true what people don't understand is that it transnational organises crime. There are compounds in South East Asia with thousands and thousands of employees that are often victims of human trafficking themselves that are lured in by slaymen. Yes. Pig butchering. Pig butchering. I hate that term. Pig butcheringickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenickenicken I talk about it the better. I'm curious in your work what are steps that you think Australia needs to take or We need to take or the world needs to take I don't even know where to begin in terms of solving this problem What do you think? Yeah, it depends if you're talking about from a consumer point of view or organization and government point of view But if we talk about consumers because they're probably the people that are listening right now The most intelligent thing that you can do is to humbly accept that it could happen to you I never thought it would be me I saw these stories on the news and I'd roll my eyes and I'd branch past and go What an idiot to believe something like that and I ensure that people think that about me Which is why I wrote the book because I wanted to explain in detail the coercive nature of these crimes and how deep and insidious they are So that it gives people some level of empathy and compassion that it could happen to them And if that's your starting point, then you're already more protected I think we need to understand the threat landscape People don't understand that there are criminal syndicates that have technology that are so far advanced that the things coming out You don't even know what you're looking at We don't even know what we're seeing is real or not anymore So how do we trust so how do we teach trust literacy? We teach digital literacy. We teach financial literacy How do we teach trust literacy? Because it's very very difficult to know what's real and what's not anymore and then of course There are some really easy tech tools that you can implement if something comes your way Green grab the email that you get and chuck it into chat GPT and say is this a scam more often than not It will come back accurate. So I'm teaching my mom how to do that now Tissue early parents have voice cloning work Turn off your personalized message on your voice Because that's the quick and quaint for a criminal to scrape your boy. Yes. Oh my god I've never thought about yes, let's be automated system 100% because people have a personalized voice mail message, but then people also don't answer the phone calls from numbers They don't recognize Quickest way for a criminal to get your boy if you're not doing public speaking online and things like that and then they I was gonna say We're kind of screwed. Yeah, we're we're everybody else. Yeah, thank you So family have a family password So if you ever get an email or a phone call from someone asking for passport detail license detail So data or money The person asking you needs to provide the family password now criminal won't have that genius, you know It's really really simple. So the other thing that I said you is learn how to do a reverse image search Especially if you're dating online so reverse image this or for seniors find things on market flights A lot of stock images to use from marketplace. So do a reverse image search teach your parents how to do that learn how to use a URL Domain lookup so that's your web address or it's the part after the at in your email address You can plant that into a domain lookup and I can provide both details and you can see when that domain Was bought when it was launched what country it's in I've looked at these things for people and then being emails from big banks And the domain was set up six months ago and it's in a country in the Caribbean that is the tax haven Those two things alone tell you that is probably dodgy So there are little things you can do that are super super easy. Make sure your passwords are strong It is easy But it's like most things in life. You don't take notice until you or someone you love has been directly impacted There's this crazy statistic that says something like More than half of all burglar alarm sisters Are installed after someone's been burgled. It's exactly the same Very mckezy. What do you always say the traffic light? They don't put up a traffic light until somebody dies there It is a bit the same But I think it's just so common for people to be Scammed defrauded targeted loot money or not loot money Whatever the case may be that we cannot afford to ignore this conversation any longer And for governments and corporates I'd play ball your compliance training But I don't know about you, but when I was in corporate and did those stupid compliance training I just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible And I forgot everything they told me the minute I looked out the door the thing about cyber breaches in big company More often than not it's a human hack So scammers don't hack systems. They hack people So they use social engineering to get access to a system to then get information from a company Most firewall In corporates will stop the attacks coming through that you call a human and apply some urgency and pretend you're from the It department someone will do something for you That's how they're getting you to with the pretend irs. We'll call and say you owe taxes and there's this urgency there Another one that I've experienced is being on social media. Everybody wants to be on social media They want their account to grow and so you'll get an email that'll say yeah, I'm from for me It's beauty stuff. So they'll say I'm from benefit cosmetics or whatever cosmetic company And we want to work with you and blah blah blah and all you have to do is send us the shipping and handling And we're going to send you this big package and you look at the email address and it's gmail.com And it's like this needs to be like benefit.com or whoever and so things like that are things that we can do to just protect ourselves It's just looks most of the times if it feels too good to be true it is always every time that's hard It's getting harder to spot in the 80s and the thing about scams They'll get you into heightened emotional state first and those emotions are things like fear excitement hope and love So think about the benefit example and I see a lot of this happening with teenage Extortion so an account will come at a teenage girl and say we love your look We'd love you to be an ambassador for us. We'll send you some stuff. But first we just need some pics right And to a teenage girl. I've got a teenager The brain is already being hijacked. She's like i'm going to be an influencer. They think i'm something special I'm going to get a free staff And not they're not thinking about these other Consequences of that because already their brain has been hijacked. You think about those irs things It's like if you don't do this this will happen Suddenly i'm fearful that i'm in trouble. They'll apply urgency Which means you don't even have time to stop and think You've got biases like authority bias if someone from the irs calls you act right and then there's a vulnerability Especially right now at tax time. They time it well They do and our service providers aren't talking about they're like watch out for the irs scam watch out for the amazon scam It doesn't matter what scam it is. It's the tactics they use that you've got to Appreciate and realize and I think that I try and teach people more about those things than the actual the scams will evolve and change But they all have these same psychological elements And that's the thing that will protect us if we can get that through to people And governments and organizations working together. It's really difficult because You'll get attacked or some sort of scam or fraud will happen on social media platform You'll then invest at the banks involved maybe you'll get a phone call from someone so your telco is involved There's a lot of different party sharing of that data is very difficult coordinated effort is very difficult And law enforcement once the money goes offshore. There is no coming back from that the money's gone There's nothing to do. It's a very very difficult problem to solve but I spent a lot of time at fraud conferences and working with heads of fraud and They're worthy really hard at this. There are no simple solutions which is why education and empowerment around our money and Our protection around our digital identities is so important to have we cannot stop educating people So thank you for And law enforcement has to step up too in every country because we can't keep up with it And so we need to train more law enforcement. It's just not enough yet. No, it's not and quite often law enforcement Can't actually do anything and in Australia we're seeing less and less reporting to law enforcement because More often than not especially in cases like mine So intimate fraud where you actually know the person not a digital case They will tell you it's a civil matter Because on paper I freely gave him that money worry. I put that money Well, I thought it needed to go that is seen in most cases in the eyes of the law This is why the technicality is coming to play it is seen as a civil matter go and get a lawyer and sort it out between you Now I've just lost my life saying I have nothing. Do you think I can afford a lawyer? I'm afford a lawyer and the coercion element is not factored in the same way that it isn't factored in a lot of intimate Partner violence and the coercion nobody knows how to how to penalize coercion. How do we That right so we can say oh you stole this many dollars. So that's this grand theft or whatever We can call it what we want but how do you quantify coercion? And then how do you prove it? And so there's not enough justice for coercion No, and coercion has in Australia just become criminalized. So there's a step forward But not in the way that it's attached to financial crime And what's really interesting Is the tactics and behaviors that are used in family violence when it comes to financial abuse Are very very similar in terms of these intimate fraud. It's just the outcome is different So in family violence for financial abuse, it's all about control and in financial crime. It's all about getting money So it's really interesting to see how the overlay of the true Huge issue in our communities at the moment are actually playing out and seeing that side by side because I found that Fascinating to understand that as well. So are there any final updates about Hamish? Right now. Well, I do believe that he has a girlfriend They with the woman that was visiting me in jail. Yeah, and I believe that's still going on It's not something that I want to not your circus not your monkeys Yeah, and I think just if that is still the case with all the information that is out there the full podcast Investigation the criminal case There is no doubt that these things happened. It is not a he said she said scenario with the criminal case So with all of that information in hand people can make their own decisions We know how good he is at spinning a yarn. So we don't know what he's telling people at this point It's really hard to think about. Yeah, and he will be eligible for parole in July this year So that is likely to happen and I understand and respect that people can't be incarcerated forever as much as we would like them to be So it will be interesting to see What happens after that? I just want to focus on my own life and what I'm doing I mean, yes, this story is huge and it's really interesting and it is a way for people to listen But for me it's about Contributing to solutions for the problem that we're all facing. So that will play out in whichever way it's going to play out Are you fearful in any way? About his release you have an army of our audience behind you at this point And then some there are conditions that I can request as part of his parole It is quantity my focus is to just Move ahead with my life rebuild my own life rebuild myself And focus on solving this huge issue that everyone's facing good for you. That's good to hear. Thank you for sharing that I'm so excited that you have a book. Will you talk about so your book is called the last Victim. Yeah, my book is the last victim and I was the last victim of Hamish McLaren before he was arrested so that's why it's called that and it really dives deep into my life before I met Hamish What happened when I met him and then what happened after he was arrested and sent to prison? So it's in three parts. I've been told it's got good humour and it's not too heavy There is a lot of laughs. It's fast-paced. Most people read it within a few days But it really does get to the heart of these types of crimes and how easily it can happen to any of us So for me, it was really A warning siren for others. I do pull out red flags as an element of the book Which I didn't see at the time you can only see them in reverse, but I have pulled them out in chronological order Oh, yeah And then also a beacon of hope at the end that yes while it was the hardest thing at being true You can rebuild and you can Build a life afterwards that he's not going to be the same but it's going to be okay and so I really wanted to showcase that because You don't have to lose your life savings to comment to be financially vulnerable We're financially vulnerable in our relationship. You know marriages at work through business We are all financially vulnerable and women particularly And so if something does happen They're in a light at the end of the tunnel and you can rebuild and things are going to be okay I love that you said that it's not going to be the same, but it is going to be okay. Yeah, I'm doing really well It's been nine years in same ish with arrested there has been a lot of time to reflect and Obviously the book helped with that and I forgot to mention the book actually launched in the u.s This week's a mid-march sent for March at launch. So it's available on Oh Relations to you. Thank you. Yeah, so it's on amazon. It's on Barnes and Noble Velas victim and I'm just so stoked that People globally will hear this story because it's not unusual like I said at the beginning It is something that everyone should be aware of so I've left corporate marketing for big tech and this is my full-time job now So I travel the world. I educate people on scams and fraud. I work with women. I work with organizations I'm advocating for victims the poor changes to regulation That needs to acknowledge these financial crimes. There's so much work. I'm doing in this space And so I just have this fire in my belly to do it because A I don't want anybody else to experience what I have been through But b I really believe that lived experience needs a seat at the table. I hear all of these 100 Through problems and which you've never been there. Like how do you even know that this is a good outcome? Let me help you. I've worked in corporate. Let me sit with you. Let's work out how to make your apps safer Let's put in some smart friction. Yeah from the people whose voice Is really really the most important Yeah, so that's incredible. Yeah, sorry. That's what I incredible I do now and I absolutely love it I know the conversations are making a difference and yeah, I'm just 100 here for anyone that wants me to come in Talk to their teams or work with their companies to to make this a better world because this isn't the issue That's not going away. It's getting worse. So whatever we can do is just a great starting point How can people find you Drop the socials. Yeah, my website is very easy tressiehall.com.au My instagram handle is tressie leigh hall And I'm very active on linkedy and I put a lot of content up there that educates So any of those or my email address is on my website as well, but please reach out connect with me tell me your stories Read the book and let me know what you think and I think the most important. Let's keep this conversation alive this is why I love what you guys are doing because These people live amongst us like these things happen all the time and there's so much shame And if we don't keep this conversation alive, then we're never going to evolve it Thank you so much for sharing this. This is so important because like you said There's a lot of shame and embarrassment around it But at the end of the day, you're just a person having a human experience and it's not your fault It is never your fault. And so you sharing this and now having this book It's gonna really help people to see number one. They're not alone and number two This is how you can avoid this type of situation. So thank you for putting that out there and using your Own experience to help others. That's how we grow communities. That's how we support one another And I'm just so grateful for you and I'm so sorry that happened to you, but Damn, you're gonna wait a turn and yeah, incredible. Yeah, that's not easy to do and we recognize that. Thank you I loved meeting you. It's so nice to meet you both If you hear of any conferences that need speakers because I'm getting to learn the market over there That I'm 100% after it's fish and other books there Thanks so much. It's so nice to meet you both. No, thank you are so wonderful. This was amazing Oh Holy crap you guys Okay, I adore her. I really love her imagine I mean, there's so much to talk about and I feel like we'll go through as much as we can But just the part at the end when she talks about how it felt like he had died like because max had died max never existed so She was like losing this money and then also mourning somebody that never existed There were so many emotions that I couldn't believe that she was so strong And I thought it was interesting. She said this was like death by a thousand cuts It wasn't like one big thing that happened. I mean in the end it feels like a big thing But it's the little by little by little by little. It's those it's the death by a thousand cuts. It just you don't How painful oh my god, everything builds There's so much. Okay. So he stole $317,000 from her in total and he had 15 victims that we know of 7.6 million dollars That we know of And I'm glad he was sent to prison, but it wasn't even really for her specifically like this guy Who knows what else he's done and what else he could do He has a girlfriend now in prison Oh my god girl I don't I don't how does that even happen? And I also want to point out that sometimes if they go to prison Even though they've they've they've conned you right? So they've committed this crime against you Some people don't consider that justice if they're in prison, but it's not for the charge against you They feel like that's not justice and I could see both sides. Like some people are like well, he's in prison That's where he needs to be I'm fine with it But other people are like So I would like to know our audience's take on that like he didn't go to prison for what he did to her But specifically yeah justice it's an interesting question I'm glad that she feels good about where she is in her Current relationship with her kids and her job and is feeling okay about him getting out soon But I I mean we always share with our guests if you have messages of support that you want to comment on instagram or dms or email whatever so That's a lot and I don't know that a lot of people have that experience But I know some of our listeners do so as far as her having to kind of navigate that when he gets out of prison soon Well, we'll make sure to pass along your messages of support because that's yeah Can we also real quick talk about the financial abuse aspect versus like the you have like the financial slash mental abuse Then you have physical abuse so physical abuse like this that people think that if they don't get hit or if they don't get touched Violently that it's you know, it's not really abusive. It's not there's no crime here and although it's hard for specifically law enforcement to take those Non physical abuses and turn them into something It's still abuse. So when it comes to physical abuse, we know what that is Someone has touched you or hurt you or harmed you or invaded your space in a way that's illegal, right? But the mental and financial abuse that's like kind of like the death by a thousand cuts thing That's sweet. Yeah, they need something back from you So they're going to build your trust make you okay giving them something and so it's almost like this It's it's it's grooming. Yeah, they're grooming you to get what they want from you It's important. I think the main takeaway and that she made so clear and is now living her life fighting for is recognizing that financial abuse is as significant and its own kind of significance in terms of the aftermath and the repercussions of it like there is not a lot of education about financial abuse About how to prevent it or how to recover from it and there's a lot of resources Yeah on law enforcement and and also just the fact that she had to Yeah, I mean all of our guests are it's just like kind of your shit out of luck like law enforcement And our law is in general and she's in australia, but it sounded like it was there too They just shrug at you and say i'm sorry. You lost 300,000 dollars It sucks and it's like I don't know what the solution is But I know that we really leave people high and dry when they're going through a breakup going through betrayal going through the worst financial situation of their life and going through the shame of what happened to them and when she said No tears at the dinner table was the way that she kind of got through it for her daughter like my heart I don't even it couldn't take it like that's so powerful to Live for your kid in that way and I all the mom is out there and the dads you're all amazing and it's metaphorical too, right? It's it's literal, but it's also metaphorical like this This is a metaphor for so many things and I just I can't how intelligent and Successful this woman is and she still was victim to this guy and it's just how how happened to anybody Just think about how Skilled he was at getting her to trust him so much to the tune of that many dollars Like this is someone who knows what to say and when to say it Let's quickly go through some of the things that he did in the build-up. Yes, okay It was a slow burn She talked about how he never put pressure on her to rush the relationship which is often a red flag We see so he was not that was not a flag for them. He had a sob story that comes up a lot I was an orphan at six. My parents died in a plane crash. I was in the foster system I Hard to verify and also hard to say you might be lying but a lot of dogfish have traumatic backstories and later We found out he did not have that backstory He said he had no friends because he was in new york for 16 years That was a lie No community is a red flag Big red flag. I don't even care if people say well, some people are just want to be private Okay, I still don't trust you go find someone else who yeah, like I don't know you don't have anybody who can vouch for you although She met his boss quote boss. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she did meet people Oh, and he didn't have family like it's not he had a good excuse for everything but in hindsight hindsight's 2020 I'm not saying she should have seen these things. I'm just going through them She used the word mirroring like he did a lot of mirroring based on her actions he would respond Accordingly in the way that made sense for manipulating her She was so busy like she was just such a busy person that he the long-distance relationship fit into her life And she didn't have time to be a pi like She was a perfect target in that regard And yeah, he definitely took advantage of that for sure. Yeah, he knew that he could distract her easily because she was busy How about the fact that he was kind of weird with her friends? like yeah That's the thing about isolation like that's that's a lot of the big reason why abusers want you to be isolated because they don't want that That in Interjection from the friends or whatever. Yeah, so it could have been intentional. Yeah, he probably was awkward around them because he's like If anyone's gonna catch me in a lie, it's her friends Yeah, exactly But I get it. I mean it's like if they're perfect on paper and everything else you want is there And the only thing is that they're kind of uncomfortable with your friends. Is that enough to? Break up or accuse of dogfish? No, not for everybody and that's fine like it makes sense Yeah, it becomes like this personal preference, but you have to determine Is that something that you're willing to deal with like is this something that's okay long term? And it sucks because it's like well Just because he's not okay with my friends. I still feel loved by him So should I stay and then it's a matter of what are you willing to put up with? But what you're willing to put up with is the expectation you're setting for them of what you are willing to tolerate and then they kind of It's they take advantage of it. It's awful I don't even need to go over it again because she explained so beautifully the way that he groomed her into moving that retirement fund from a regulated fund to self-management and Like go back and listen again send it to any friend who you think is in a financial abuse situation because I've never heard it described so well the way that he Dry begged her in a way. He didn't direct ask her to let him manage the money Let him do something for her. He just planted the seeds again and again and again so that it was her idea And again, that's what dry begging is dry begging is oh man gosh. I really wish I had this kind of whatever What's your like return? Oh, that's not the same like I get a better one That's all he said he just and then it's her idea. Yeah the implication itself. Yes, that's the dry begging part And he never gave her the logins of the account. He only gave her reports That's a that's something I learned from this. So if somebody even if somebody you trust is not bernie made offing you Like you need to have the access to your own accounts. Yeah always and you need to be checking them I know it sucks guys, but we have to check and that's why there are apps that help you There are apps that helps like solidify your solidify. No consolidate. That's the word. I'm thinking yes Yes, yes, yes consolidate where all your finances are. I know it's a pain in the ass. You have to have a money date with yourself I call it a money date I do it. I try to do it like a like a detailed money date once a month, but I also put my credit card like on my home screen So it shames me if I have a balance like I see it on my home screen and I Before I was doing that I was like not thinking about it as much and it's so easy to not catch stuff I did want to bring up also She said something that I thought more people should do that I think a lot of people don't and that is the family password thing Yes So when people are trying to get information from you like they'll be like, oh, what is this and this is a great way to avoid falling into a scam So whenever someone asks you for something and you want to make sure it's them Or you want to make sure you're giving it to the appropriate person you want to ask them for a password, right? So it's like well, what's our and it's like oh Parakeet and if they don't say the word parakeet if they don't know it then it's like Oh Like my son and I have a code word where if he says if he says mom Can I stay the night at someone's house or there's a code phrase like mom my toe really hurts Can I stay the night at someone's house? I know that if he tells me his toe hurts I'm going to say no, sorry. He's not allowed and then it's my fault. He doesn't want to Because he doesn't so he's basically telling me that's our code for like he and that's by the way that's not the code I just made that up but he does have a code to tell me so that I'll be the bad guy form whatever But that's the same thing you can do with your family. And so he know if he's in danger He uses this code word. We know that this means business Yeah, and so it's something that you should set up and it's a really great way To just have a word set up that you know that if something is wrong you need to notify someone use this word period I love that. I think that's so smart especially So yes, the example you gave is great because he's in a position where he doesn't want to say how he really feels Right in front of them, but that can also be like what you would just just the fight moment like sometimes we're not Emotionally at a place where we can really communicate why we feel a certain way but having a word to just be like let's take a break or let's Not Continue whatever's happening. It's so helpful. It's a safe word. It's a safe word And then on the other hand if somebody says hey your mom said I could pick you up from school today And they don't have the password. You're not going with them. You know what I mean? Yeah, what's okay? Cool? What's the password like period there are so many reasons why that would help? And so yeah, so she at the end there we went into like all kinds of scam conversation. That was so Good. I also I didn't think about don't have your own voice on your voicemail message Yes, because they can use it as AI and they can use it to say something you didn't say That's so smart. I mean the personalized voicemail message is crazy I also just like the phrase trust literacy that she used Like building your trust literacy and that is something that is a skill like We're always looking for the signs of oh my god How can I know if they're lying to me like we wish there was a manual to find a liar? But really what it is is building our own ability to trust ourselves and trust what we see I just thought that was good And there's a lot of times that we that we don't trust ourselves and something happens to us and then we get so mad at ourselves Like how could I let this happen to me? You are still not dumb. You are still not at fault, but it does kind of make us question Gosh, can I trust myself next time? But that's when It next time happens and you start to see those signs And this is when you actually do build trust in yourself because it's like you learn from the last time So you can trust yourself Even if you get scammed Well, she's such a great example of taking her experience and making something amazing with it I looked up who the hell is Hamish the podcast that goes into his whole case. So it's not just hers. Yes It's not her specific story. It's his all of his His victims and such so obviously we're a story We're a podcast where we want a guest to come and tell the story from their perspective and that's important to us But I am so excited to listen to who the hell is Hamish I also looked up pictures With my mom right after we recorded and we both were like my mom was like, oh, I would have fallen for him 100% like they're a couple adorable and I I not that that's like they don't have to be hotties to manipulate but I was like, oh that charm worked in his Favor for sure. So go look at hundred percent who the hell is Hamish and of course again Her book is called the last victim By tracy hall with summerland and it says serial con man the ultimate betrayal and a breakable woman The full story behind the relationship made famous by the hit podcast who the hell is Hamish? So look it up. Go go get it. That's gonna be great and tracy's just awesome I want to keep following all that she's doing for scam education We put all of the information about that in our show notes and we want all of your questions comments concerns Support messages you can comment on spotify if you listen on spotify. They have like a comment section for each episode Or dating detectives podcast on tiktok facebook your five star reviews are amazing. We really appreciate when you guys do that Thank you so much for all of your kind comments and really supporting our guests and just everything Supporting our podcast in general on the patreon and just everything. We're so grateful. Thank you for being a part of this community And helping to grow this community. We just want to reach more people We want more people to tell their story. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you I think that's it for our darkfish debrief. I love you mckenzie I love you and thank you again to tracy for sharing this incredible story and We love you so much and as always Trust your friend intuition You