Stolen Podcast

Erin West

Scams, cryptofraud, investment fraud, celebrity impersonation, romance baiting, sexploitation, crypto ATM fraud, job scams, toll scams, human trafficking...  Stolen is a weekly podcast that uncovers the global rise of the transnational scam industry. Stolen investigates the global rise of digital crime — and the people caught in the crossfire. Join host Erin West — prosecutor, cybercrime investigator, global keynote speaker, and your guide into the dark corners of the internet. Hear from law enforcement, cyberfraud experts, and the survivors who’ve lived through the crimes. These are the voices behind the headlines and the crimes that cross borders and boundaries.  

  1. 2d ago

    His Mom Was Told Her Daughter Was Kidnapped (Patrick Coughlin)

    When Patrick Coughlin's mother Beth got a call telling her that her daughter had been kidnapped and would be killed unless she paid up, it wasn't real — but it was terrifyingly convincing. In this episode of Stolen, host Erin West sits down with Patrick, a former national security and cybersecurity expert, to unpack how that "grandparent scam" changed the course of his career. Patrick walks through the moment-by-moment terror of the scam call, why AI-powered voice cloning is making these attacks more personal and harder to detect, and what he learned mapping out the criminal ecosystems behind them. He and Erin dig into the structural failures enabling fraud at scale — under-resourced law enforcement, telecom systems built to connect calls (not verify them), payment rails that make stolen money nearly impossible to trace, and social media platforms with little incentive to intervene. Patrick's response wasn't just to write about it — his book, Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijack the AI Revolution, breaks down the "five families of fraud." He also co-founded Savvy Security, building consumer tools like Scamwise (a free scam-checking tool) and an in-call AI assistant that gives people a second opinion during a live phone call. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro 02:33 – Patrick's background in counterterrorism and cybersecurity 03:35 – The call: his mom, Beth, receives a fake kidnapping scam 08:01 – Where these scams are coming from 09:03 – The "five families of fraud" by region 11:08 – Why Patrick decided to write the book 14:13 – How the money moves — payment rails and crypto 15:26 – Why telecoms can't verify calls, only connect them 17:09 – Chasing ghosts: why law enforcement struggles to investigate 19:33 – Regulation vs. relationship-building across borders 20:34 – Why law enforcement is exponentially under-resourced 22:29 – Rethinking cybersecurity products for everyday families 25:26 – The mission behind Savvy Security 28:03 – Why we don't talk about this the right way 28:34 – A national security issue, not just a consumer one 33:14 – Social media's business incentives (and the Reuters/Meta story) 35:15 – Inside Patrick's product: Scamwise and Savvy Security 40:36 – Where to find the book and the app 41:15 – Looking ahead: the "deepfake decade" 44:53 – Final thoughts: what real progress would look like 🔗 Try the free tool: scamwise.com 📱 Download the app: Savvy Security (Apple App Store & Google Play) 📖 Get the book: Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijack the AI Revolution — available on Amazon and Bookshop.org Prefer to watch? Find Stolen on YouTube. Episode notes: https://operationshamrock.org/podcast/stolen Episode Sponsors Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, Biocatch and Scamnetic https://www.biocatch.com/ https://scamnetic.com/ Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back.

  2. Jul 22

    We Went to Nigeria to Hunt Sextortion Scammers (Paul Raffile)

    Erin and researcher Paul Raffile spent six days on the ground investigating the criminal network behind sextortion, a scam that has been linked to over 60 teen suicides worldwide. What they found: a Yahoo Plus voodoo ritual performed to "charm" a real US target, a room full of masked scammers who freely discussed their tactics, and — after days of OSINT work — a real scammer they tracked down and confronted directly. This episode is the debrief: the investigation, the fear, the breakthroughs, and what it actually takes to hold these criminals accountable from 6,000 miles away. If you or someone you know is being sextorted: don't pay, screenshot everything, block the account, and report it to NCMEC's CyberTipline and IC3.gov. Use Take It Down (takeitdown.ncmec.org) to help prevent images from circulating. This episode discusses sextortion and teen suicide. If you're struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text. Episode Sponsors   Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, ‪BioCatch and Scamnetic.‬ https://www.biocatch.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=stolen-q425 https://scamnetic.com/partner/?utm_source=stolen&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=q4 --- Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back.

  3. Jul 15

    From Blueprint to Action: Turning a Scam Prevention Strategy Into Policy (Kate Griffin)

    In this episode, host Erin West sits down with Kate Griffin of the Aspen Institute's Financial Security Program to unpack how she brought together 80 organizations — from banks to tech companies to nonprofits — to build the first-ever national blueprint for fighting scams. Kate walks through how the project came together, the four key focus areas the task force identified (data sharing, law enforcement collaboration, consumer awareness, and measuring the problem), and why getting competitors and cross-sector players to agree on anything is harder than it sounds. She also shares what's next: Aspen's new Scam Prevention Initiative, aimed at turning that 70-page strategy into real, actionable change — including work already underway with Congress, where dozens of bipartisan bills have been introduced this session alone. This conversation offers a rare look behind the scenes at the slow, often invisible work of building consensus on one of the biggest financial crimes of our time. Episode notes: https://operationshamrock.org/podcast/stolen Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, ‪BioCatch and Scamnetic.‬ https://www.biocatch.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=stolen-q425   https://scamnetic.com/partner/?utm_source=stolen&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=q4 --- Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back.

  4. Jul 8

    From Casino Scam Compounds to Digital Arrests: A 30-Year Fraud Fighter's Warning (Frank McKenna)

    Episode 61: Erin West connects with Frank McKenna, a 30-year fraud-consulting veteran and founder of Point Predictive, who has built four separate industry data consortiums — including efforts that now touch credit card, mortgage, ATM, and auto-lending fraud. McKenna shares how simple, incremental data-sharing agreements can disrupt fraud rings that are already collaborating freely on platforms like Telegram. The conversation moves from the origins of Southeast Asian scam compounds to how generative AI is transforming everything from romance scams to "digital arrest" extortion schemes, and closes with McKenna's prediction that fraud-fighting careers are about to boom, not disappear.   Episode notes and video: https://operationshamrock.org/podcast/stolen   Episode Sponsors   Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, ‪BioCatch and Scamnetic.‬   Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back.

  5. Jul 1

    "I Thought LinkedIn Was Safe": How a Utah Woman Lost $850,000 in a Scam

    Episode 60: Anola Johnson thought LinkedIn was the one platform safe from scammers — professional, vetted, serious. A connection request two days after a work trip to Paris changed that. Over the following months, a charming "oil rig engineer" supposedly stationed in Abu Dhabi convinced her to wire money again and again: $1.4 million to a supplier in Singapore, $180,000 more days later, and a $350,000 home equity loan she drained over multiple trips to her bank. By the time it was over, Anola had lost $850,000 — and her job. She joins former prosecutor Erin West to explain how it happened, why she refuses to fit the "little old lady" scam-victim stereotype, and how she's turned her story into testimony before the Utah legislature and her own podcast, Romance Scam Rebellion.   Episode notes and video: https://operationshamrock.org/podcast/stolen   Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, ‪BioCatch and Scamnetic.‬ --- Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting bac

  6. Jun 24

    The Boat Into Myanmar: Mariana van Zeller Inside the Scam Compounds Nobody Sees

    Episode 59: Her heart stopped when Mariana van Zeller climbed into a boat to cross into Myanmar. In this episode of Stolen, Erin West sits down with the National Geographic journalist behind Trafficked to talk about the two minutes that separate Thailand from Shwe Kokko — the gleaming, casino-lit city that a Chinese crime syndicate built on forced labor and pig butchering scams. Mariana describes the dog-and-pony tour, the anti-trafficking posters hung for show, the karaoke night with a criminal gang, and the moment she realized the scammers behind the keyboards were as trapped as the victims they targeted. Mariana van Zeller and Erin West are two women who've walked the same ground investigating transnational organized crime, money laundering, and the journalism crisis that's keeping the world's largest modern enslavement operation in the dark.   Episode notes and video: https://operationshamrock.org/podcast/stolen --  Episode Sponsors   Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, ‪BioCatch and Scamnetic.‬ --- Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back.

  7. Jun 17

    Investment Scam Exposed: A Victim’s Journey of Fraud and Frustration

    Episode 58: Despite his careful research and skepticism, scammers defrauded Syd of $50,000. Next came the challenge of dealing with law enforcement. Erin West sits down with a former securities industry professional who lost more than $50,000 to a technically sophisticated crypto investment fraud. Syd’s story isn’t one of carelessness; he had identified several earlier scam pitches before one — built over months on Facebook Messenger and dressed up in legitimate terms like “automated market making” — finally succeeded. In his conversation with Stolen, he traces his methodical research, the moment the scheme unraveled, and the maze of law-enforcement dead ends that followed. Episode notes and video: https://operationshamrock.org/podcast/stolen --  Episode Sponsors   Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, ‪BioCatch and Scamnetic.‬ --- Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back.

  8. Jun 10

    SOLUTIONS: One Thing AI Can't Fake — How Location Became the New Identity (Andre Ferraz -- Incognia)

    Episode 57: A scammer can counterfeit your face, your voice, and your documents. What they can't fake is where your phone actually goes. That's the solution André Ferraz built. The founder of Incognia joins Erin to explain how physical-world behavior — precise to eight feet, accurate enough to tell one apartment from another in a high-rise — became a living identity that AI can't counterfeit. They get into the tradecraft it defeats: wiping an iPhone in 30 seconds to spin up a new identity, one fraudster opening 60,000 accounts in a single week, hundreds of devices running out of one room. André also walks through Incognia's 2026 report on mule account handovers and why the people laundering scam money will share their location, then spoof it — only to get caught operating from sanctioned countries.   Episode notes and video: https://operationshamrock.org/podcast/stolen --  Episode Sponsors  Thank you to our Stolen podcast sponsors, ‪BioCatch and Scamnetic.‬ --- Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back

See All (67)

Trailer

5
out of 5
37 Ratings

About

Scams, cryptofraud, investment fraud, celebrity impersonation, romance baiting, sexploitation, crypto ATM fraud, job scams, toll scams, human trafficking...  Stolen is a weekly podcast that uncovers the global rise of the transnational scam industry. Stolen investigates the global rise of digital crime — and the people caught in the crossfire. Join host Erin West — prosecutor, cybercrime investigator, global keynote speaker, and your guide into the dark corners of the internet. Hear from law enforcement, cyberfraud experts, and the survivors who’ve lived through the crimes. These are the voices behind the headlines and the crimes that cross borders and boundaries.  

Information

  • Creator
    Erin West
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    67
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Stolen Podcast