Oh My Fraud

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Caleb Newquist: It's a pretty gutsy move to just blatantly lie about such basic things, like whether or not someone is your lawyer, but aside from the hutzpah, it might reveal something deeper. Like is this pathological? Could he just not help it? Because all you have to do is call the lawyer and ask, hey, do you represent this guy? And if the lawyer says, I have no idea who that person is, what are you talking about? Then you know for a fact that the person you're dealing with is a baldfaced liar.

Earmark CPE: If [00:00:30] you'd like to earn CPE credit for listening to this episode, visit earmark Cpcomm. Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Continuing education has never been so easy. And now on to the episode.

Caleb Newquist: This is on My Fraud, a true crime podcast that features con men instead of contract killers. I'm Caleb Newquist.

Greg Kyte: And I'm Greg Kyte. [00:01:00]

Caleb Newquist: Uh, how's your self-esteem today, Greg? Doing okay?

Greg Kyte: Oh, my. My self-esteem is high but fragile as usual.

Caleb Newquist: Okay, so a five star review. Will that help you out?

Greg Kyte: Uh, yeah, a five star review. Will. Shouldn't bruise my delicate, uh, flower of a of a of a self-image.

Caleb Newquist: Okay, fantastic. Um, because I have one. And it is from thesda. Thesda Thesda writes on Apple Podcasts. [00:01:30] Best podcast ever. I found your podcast from my amazing sister. I am not a CPA or even an accountant. I am a nurse with an MBA. Health care focus. I have learned so much just from listening to your podcast. You keep it entertaining and my brain doesn't stray. Thank you. I appreciate you and your time. You give us. Maybe one day you'll give us a tax fraud case related to health care. Keep up the strong work.

Greg Kyte: Nice. Best podcast ever from a non accountant listener even. Uh that's [00:02:00] amazing. If you're a non accountant or even a accountant who learns something or are sufficiently entertained, or at least your brain doesn't stray while you're listening to our podcast, we'd love you to leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform, whatever that may be. And also Vesta. If you're listening, check out episode ten. That was about the Four Seasons Nursing Center. It is a health care fraud, maybe not a health care tax fraud, but still, it's in the health care arena. [00:02:30] Maybe, uh, check that, check that gem out.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah, it's a deep cut. That one.

Greg Kyte: Yep. That was.

Caleb Newquist: Episode ten.

Greg Kyte: That was episode ten. Good night. Time flies. Man.

Caleb Newquist: All right. Um, yeah. We appreciate all the reviews. And, uh, also just put it out there. Uh, we do keynote addresses on fraud and ethics at events and conferences or for in-house trainings. Uh, so if that is of interest to you, please get in touch. And don't worry, we're pros. We can work clean if that's what you need. [00:03:00]

Greg Kyte: If you want more info on pricing and availability of our speaking, uh, please send us an email at Omar fraud at earmark Cpcomm.

Caleb Newquist: Okay, Greg, getting into it when you were a kid, uh, what what did you want to be when you grew up? Do you remember?

Greg Kyte: Uh, no, I don't, but that's because there were so many things. Oh, okay. What I, what I do remember is every week when I was growing up, there was a new thing that I wanted to be. I remember wanting to be a chef. I remember [00:03:30] wanting to be a taxi cab driver and a pushcart owner operator and even a porn star because I was exposed to Playboy magazine way too early by by anyone's standards. It was way too early, and I was like, oh, could I get paid for that? Then I need to start brushing up my porn resume. Uh, then one day I remember being with with my grandpa kite, uh, and I was rehearsing all the different careers I wanted to be. I mean, all all the careers I wanted to be, except this [00:04:00] one that I just left. Conveniently left off the list. Um, but wait, what.

Caleb Newquist: Was it, grandpa? Was it grandpa? Kites? Playboy?

Greg Kyte: No, no it was. No, I'm not gonna narc out. Who who, uh. Who was who? The irresponsible adult was. Okay, okay. Uh, but but I do this. This is indelibly, uh, in my brain where I was telling him all these ideas, and my grandpa was who? Coolest guy. I loved my grandpa kite. Uh, he was just. He was so focused as even as a child, I remember him just being, [00:04:30] like, interested in what I had to say. Yeah, cool. Maybe he was faking it, but he faked it. Good. If he did, great.

Caleb Newquist: That's a great. That's a great grandparent right there.

Greg Kyte: Right. And he was like. He was like, listen, if you really want to make money, kid, get into the insurance racket. That was his. That was his advice. Wow. Uh, so that that made the list just because, you know, he wasn't a kite.

Caleb Newquist: Apparently he wasn't concerned about you dying of boredom. Right?

Greg Kyte: Right, right. But he was like, if you want to if you want the if you want that, that [00:05:00] the the long green, if you want the all the cheddar I think is what he said, go into that insurance racket. Um, but but uh, but then when I was 13, uh, I converted to evangelical Christianity. I got born again. I converted hard, and from then on, it was like I wanted to be a missionary or a youth pastor. And that was kind of it from, from that point on.

Caleb Newquist: So we don't have time to get into this now, but one day you're gonna you're gonna tell me the story of your conversion because, oh, [00:05:30] about 13, about 13 was about the time where I'm just like, hey, I'm not gonna do this.

Greg Kyte: Right. Well, I yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're not going to get.

Caleb Newquist: Into we're not going to get into.

Greg Kyte: It now. No.

Caleb Newquist: We'll have to have that exchange.

Greg Kyte: What about you? What kind of stuff did you want to.

Caleb Newquist: I was going to be a baseball player. Oh, there you go. Yeah, I, I loved baseball, um. As a kid, and I wanted to be a I wanted to be a professional baseball player. I wanted to play for the Chicago Cubs. Uh, what else did I want to be? I also wanted to be David Letterman. [00:06:00] Uh, when I was was I was whenever I kid as a kid. Yeah. I mean, I would have been a teenager probably by the time I didn't watch the old Letterman. But I loved Letterman as a as a young, as a young guy who loved making people laugh but also loved laughing. I just I just thought Letterman was so wacky and funny. Yeah. And I just but it was one of those things where, like, how the fuck do you become a talk show host? Like, how do you.

Greg Kyte: Get that job? I was gonna say, and now here you are, and I'm your Paul Shaffer. So [00:06:30] it really everything came together? Uh, I'm your less musical, but still the same hairdo. Paul Shaffer.

Caleb Newquist: Oh, you you do. You do have the Paul hair.

Greg Kyte: We've got the I've got. Yeah. I'm. I rock the Paul hair. And Caleb, the reason we're talking about childhood dreams of what our careers might be is because in today's episode, our main character, he had very specific dreams of what he wanted to do as an adult. And he, in a weird [00:07:00] and twisted way, was able to make those childhood dreams come true.

Caleb Newquist: Frederick Darren Mauskopf grew up in Oregon with his mother, three siblings, and dad. A butcher turned car salesman turned river guide who also happened to be a mean drunk. A Seattle Met article describes Darren as, quote, an obedient, outgoing and industrious kid, but [00:07:30] the old man considered him a sissy. Still, the old man saved the beatings for his older two sons, who then paid it forward to Darren.

Greg Kyte: As as good older brothers do.

Caleb Newquist: Indeed, indeed. Darren's sister says that when he was about eight years old, he created an alter ego for himself named Rod Taylor. Quote A smart, invincible character who never failed. My personal favorite, right?

Greg Kyte: I had a it wasn't so much an alter ego, it was just a cool name. Me and [00:08:00] my brother came up with, uh, Biff Malibu. Fantastic 1980s. That was that was right down Main Street. Yeah. For a for a character name. But, uh, we didn't get much further than that would be a cool name for the.

Caleb Newquist: Fact that you remember it is all I need.

Greg Kyte: Biff. Malibu man.

Caleb Newquist: A little bit of Miami Vice or not even Miami Vice. I don't know what that is. It's a little bit back to the future, and I'm saying something else just.

Greg Kyte: On brand for mid 80s. Whatever it was for sure.

Caleb Newquist: This [00:08:30] alter ego ran a bus company. Yep. Darren's grandfather drove for Greyhound and talked about his adventures, and Darren regularly immersed himself in this world. Quote away from the chaos of his real life. His parents divorced in Darren's teens, and later, after his mom remarried, he took his stepfather's last name, Berg. When he left home, Darren enrolled at the University of Oregon in Eugene. At [00:09:00] Oregon, Darren pledged with Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and later became the chapter's treasurer and president. But he also owned a charter bus company, the company of his childhood dreams. As treasurer, one of Berg's responsibilities was collecting the rent of his fraternity brothers. Then one day in October 1983, the landlord called the alumni advisor to the fraternity. A CPA by the name of Michael Stone, and [00:09:30] asked, where's the rent money?

Greg Kyte: So he just wasn't getting it correct. Okay.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. He wanted to know where the fucking money was. Lebowski. Yeah. Anyway, Stone started going over the fraternity's bank statements. This all this all struck him as weird. Okay. Oh, yes. Yes. So he started going over the fraternity's bank statements, and it soon became clear that Darren had collected the rent. And instead of paying the landlord, he [00:10:00] put the money into his charter bus company.

Greg Kyte: Because that's how dreams come true, man. That's right.

Caleb Newquist: So the CPA, Michael Stone, confronted Darren, and when this happened, Darren resigned. But then he denied everything in a letter to Stone. And I'm reading, um, I'm reading from that letter from the, from one of the sources that we that everything's in the show notes, but here we go. Quote [00:10:30] a word for the record, Berg wrote, I have at no time ever embezzled any funds from Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. What an erroneous assumption. It's for this reason that I welcome your audit. As always, you will find a reason for everything I have done. My bookkeeping will be no exception. Any money deposited into any account will have a tangible and reasonable explanation. It goes on. Unfortunately, I will be unable to participate [00:11:00] in your Perry Mason game, he wrote, directing Stone to a certain local attorney. He is paid good money to answer stupid questions, and I'm sure he'll be happy to answer yours. So this, uh, Darren, he's he's got a little sass.

Greg Kyte: Yeah, yeah. Well, a little sass or a lot of confidence because. Because, listen, I had I this was a few years ago now. I had this weird random email that somebody [00:11:30] that I pissed off sent to a bunch of the owners in my building that accused me of of, like, of embezzling and abusing my position that I have with and and I, I took a very similar position to this where I was like, uh, it's false. But, uh, and so because of that, let's go as deep into the books as you want and I'll show you everything you need to see. So there's for you. This is, this is but but that's the thing. It's the just the accusations weren't false here. But whether [00:12:00] accusations are are false or not, you can have that hard code. Yeah. Let's. Yeah CPA let's look into this. Let's audit this shit. Bring it on. Because you'll see that everything I do has a tangible and reasonable explanation. Bitch. And that's what I, that's how I, I, I mean. And that's sort of the swagger that I see is like, bring it. Because again, if you're if you're being accused of that stuff and you're like, bring it on. That's a, that's a way to, to [00:12:30] to have people go, oh, I guess maybe, you know, seemed like he was seemed like he was doing it good I guess.

Caleb Newquist: Right. So. Michael Stone called the lawyer. And the lawyer had no idea who Darren Burke was. Hahahahaha!

Greg Kyte: Brilliant.

Caleb Newquist: Amazing. Burke quit the fraternity, dropped out of school, and then later turned up in Portland where a few years later he was charged with bank fraud for stealing $30,000 in a check kiting scheme, which [00:13:00] I know we've we've talked about check kiting before, but that is the check kiting might be the dumbest fraud that a person can do.

Greg Kyte: It's pretty much the dumbest fraud. Like.

Caleb Newquist: It's just so ridiculous and we don't have time to get into it. But I love how dumb, I love how dumb check kiting schemes are.

Greg Kyte: I love, I love the name check kiting. It feels like it's part of my family history.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah, it's it's part of you, but. Right. Yeah.

Greg Kyte: But anyway. But there was so. And also I mean, it sounds, it [00:13:30] seems like from what we looked in the research, there were no repercussions for the $21,000 that we saw.

Caleb Newquist: No, the so what Stone did is he went to the authorities in Eugene, and at that time they they just weren't they just weren't interested. They weren't interested in pursuing anything. And so it just it just kind of went away. Jeez.

Greg Kyte: And then $21,000 just here. Here you go.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. I guess.

Greg Kyte: Oof! Yeah. Oof!

Caleb Newquist: Okay. And as far as, [00:14:00] like, the check kiting scheme, he actually did get busted for that. Berg was convicted, but did no jail time. The judge sentenced him to probation.

Greg Kyte: Berg moved to Seattle in 1989. That's my hometown. Uh, he wanted to start a new. And he spent the next decade, uh, building a business that bought and sold mortgages. And he eventually launched what was known as Meridian [00:14:30] Mortgage Funds. In 2001, Berg started and operated several investment funds and focused on real estate mortgage backed securities. So that's a little, uh, red flag right there in hindsight. And, uh, but and this was also interesting, he also specialized in seller financed real estate contracts or like private mortgages. So if you were wanting to buy my house and I go, cool, you can buy it. Just [00:15:00] pay me over time with an interest rate. That's a that's a private mortgage, that's a seller financed, uh, estate contract and that's.

Caleb Newquist: Are you familiar with those at all? Like, have you never I've.

Greg Kyte: I, I know not not firsthand. I know that they exist, but I don't think I know any I think I might have, I think the first house that I bought, I think the guy who sold it to me offered to, to finance it himself. Oh, really? And and I and he was [00:15:30] kind of and I was even though I knew him, it was probably because I knew him or I was like, no thanks. We'll go to it to a bank and do this legit. It just always felt weird.

Caleb Newquist: It it just feels weird to me. It's like you would have to be in a pretty tough situation where you're just going to work with the person selling you the house on the financing, right? Like, or there's a bank. There's a bank on every corner in this fucking country. Just go like they'll tell you whether [00:16:00] or not you can get the house or not.

Greg Kyte: Right. Another thing about Berg, though, as he launched, uh, Meridian is he possessed a kind of, uh, unflappable confidence, uh, the kind that that really, uh, that investors love. Uh, he sold them on his ability to manage the risk and to give them consistent returns. And there was hundreds of investors who put their money with Meridian. Uh, so, in essence, they put their money with Berg. [00:16:30] Here's a quote to local wealth advisory firms Cornerstone Advisors. And Kimball and Prentice counseled many investors to invest with Meridian. Others came to Meridian's orbit through friends or relatives wowed by the steady earnings it reported and the payouts they got whenever they asked, quote, my oldest friend was getting checks every month, 10%, I think, and for years, said Ron Neubauer, a former federal prosecutor who put money into Meridian [00:17:00] in 2006. Quote, the thing that impressed me the most about it was that he had audited financials from a national firm. So in just under a decade, Berg was able to raise $350 million from investors in 20 different states. The other thing investors loved about Berg was that he he just, uh, exuded success. He was always dressed immaculately. He had yachts, not [00:17:30] a yacht. He had two. He had multiple yachts. But but the multiple was two. Uh, he had two private jets. Uh, he had a mansion on Mercer Island. That's big, because I used.

Caleb Newquist: To. Yeah. You know, you know the area. Yeah. Is that a big deal?

Greg Kyte: Oh, my gosh, that's a big I mean, a shack on Mercer Island is a big deal. Okay, so a mansion on Mercer Island is a huge deal. But his mansion on Mercer Island also had a full time staff. Uh, plus, [00:18:00] he owned multiple homes in California. So kind of the idea is, if the guy I'm investing with has all that kind of cash, he's got to be good at investing. You bet. Because that's how he got his money, too, right? Uh, and on top of that, Caleb, there was the busses.

Caleb Newquist: Oh, yeah.

Greg Kyte: He started a new charter bus company called MTR Western. And by all accounts, building MTR Western was a dream come true for Little [00:18:30] Boy Berg, who made good on his childhood dreams of not having toy busses anymore, but having an actual fleet of kick ass tour busses. He spared no expense when it came to his bus company. The busses had oak floors. Not not not pine floors, not plastic floors.

Caleb Newquist: Mahogany.

Greg Kyte: Not mahogany.

Caleb Newquist: Mahogany would be nice.

Greg Kyte: But it was. It was oak floors. Can you they had the [00:19:00] think of the maintenance. Uh, he interviewed all the drivers. He dressed them in uniforms that came from Nordstrom. What I don't I don't have clothes from Nordstrom. But his bus drivers did. The Seattle Seahawks and the Oregon Ducks were customers. And even a governor of Washington state used one for his reelection campaign. Uh, Berg threw lavish parties for the drivers and other employees of the bus company. There's even a story about how he paid [00:19:30] Ben Folds and John Mayers to play at one of the events for his bus drivers. Now I know I Love you.

Caleb Newquist: Was that was that the case? Was it for bus drivers or was he trying to win business with the concerts?

Greg Kyte: I think it was for the bus drivers, but I it's unclear, I guess from the account.

Caleb Newquist: Well, we'll take this offline right now, but like it's in any case.

Greg Kyte: Leave this leave this in because it doesn't affect the story at.

Caleb Newquist: All. No, it does not. No, it does not.

Greg Kyte: So the experience [00:20:00] of the MTR Western busing company was amazing. However, the experience of the Meridian investment employees totally opposite one of the former HR managers from Meridian, tells the story of when he quit after Berg quote, flew into a rage screaming at me and everyone in the office. He picked up a stapler and threw it at me from across the space. Uh, that's amazing. That's that's called that's called passion [00:20:30] is what that's called. Other employees of Meridian Investments remember him throwing other things too, including laptops and coffee mugs? A couple other things I don't really want to get knocked in the head with are laptops and coffee mugs. Definitely. Employees say that everything had to run through Darren, uh, that he kept his people in silos and that he was often stressed or angry and would never, ever admit to being wrong. [00:21:00]

Caleb Newquist: In March 2009, Darren Berg spoke to a group of his investors in Meridian's Seattle office. Just four months earlier, Bernie Madoff had been arrested and investors all over the country were on edge. Berg, poised as always, reassured his investors quote, there's no magic here, he said. You might think it's magic, but it's actually real meat and potatoes stuff.

Greg Kyte: Yeah. You know, meat [00:21:30] and potatoes, like mortgage backed securities. Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: Real meat. Real meat and potatoes.

Greg Kyte: No, no no bed. We. Yeah. I just gotta go between Madoff and between the fact that the 2008 financial crisis was largely tainted by mortgage backed securities. There's a lot of there's a lot of stink that's got to be coming Berg's way because of both of those things. It's not aged.

Caleb Newquist: Well. It's not aged well, no. Berg's investors hung in with him. And why wouldn't they? [00:22:00] Many had received consistent returns on their investments for years. But one big investor, Cornerstone Investments, wanted out and requested a redemption of $30 million. Berg couldn't pay it. By August 2009, Meridian told its investors that it could not honor any redemption requests. No one could get their money out. And just in case there's any confusion, that is not good. Yeah. Not good. [00:22:30]

Greg Kyte: Yeah. When you go to the bank and say, I'd like to make a withdrawal and they're like, yeah, we're not going to let you that's.

Caleb Newquist: That's.

Greg Kyte: A, that's a, that's a pretty good red flag most.

Caleb Newquist: People have seen It's a Wonderful Life.

Greg Kyte: Yeah I have not.

Caleb Newquist: I really haven't either. But there is a bank run but there is a bank run. It's famous for that.

Greg Kyte: We both heard of a pop culture, uh, very widely known pop culture reference of a bank run. Uh, but but we're not [00:23:00] personally don't. That's what we're the only two people who haven't seen It's a Wonderful Life.

Caleb Newquist: I have a friend who watches it every Christmas.

Greg Kyte: I, I whenever I tell someone I've never seen it, they're like, what? Uh huh. How did you get through without watching it? It's like, yeah, you're.

Caleb Newquist: Like, uh, I chose Home Alone instead. Not hard. Right?

Greg Kyte: Right.

Caleb Newquist: But by June 2010, cornerstone moved to for some of the Meridian funds into bankruptcy. As those investigations move forward and the authorities started [00:23:30] to close in, Berg decided that he had wanted to cooperate and get to the bottom of what went wrong. In July 2010, Berg's attorney explained to investigators that starting around 2008, Berg started moving money around to keep his businesses solvent and try to hold things together until the market stabilized and then he could sell his assets to honor investors redemptions. Except that never happened.

Greg Kyte: But. But it was a real attorney, though.

Caleb Newquist: It was a real attorney.

Greg Kyte: Nice. Nice. [00:24:00] Good. He he can learn. Yeah. Burglar can learn from his past mistakes. Yeah. Slightly good.

Caleb Newquist: A bankruptcy trustee by the name of Mark Calvert, was appointed to control the money that was left on behalf of Meridian's investors. Berg seemed co-operative, meeting with Calvert and his team regularly, and quote appeared candid about his missteps and wanted to help them, quote, navigate the many records that would allow him to piece them together. [00:24:30]

Greg Kyte: So what was going on at Meridian, you might be asking? Uh, the answer is a lot of things. Mark Calvert, the bankruptcy guy, discovered that it all started in 2003, when Berg used $4 million from one of the Meridian funds to help grow his fledgling tour bus company. Again. Maybe he can't learn from his mistakes. Berg faked loans using all kinds of bogus paperwork, title reports, loan applications, [00:25:00] etc. uh, from proposed deals that never actually happened. The loans became real files documentation that ended up on Meridian funds books. This gave the appearance that the diverted cash that went to Berg's bus company and his houses and his boats and his jets actually became an asset on his financial statements because he was saying that those monies were actually loaned instead of just spent frivolously. But [00:25:30] there was one problem. Those fake assets would have to result in actual interest. If you own a loan as an asset, its revenue stream is the interest that you're charging the borrower. But there was no borrower and there was no interest income. Another thing Berg did is that he would sell an actual loan, a real one that Meridian had made, but he wouldn't record the sale. And where did the money end up? Who the hell knows? Not [00:26:00] in Meridian's bank accounts. That was for sure. Berg told prosecutors that he, quote, spent countless hours fabricating documents.

Caleb Newquist: Now, you might be wondering, what about those audited financial statements from a national accounting firm? Well, that also required another gargantuan effort on Berg's part. Part of the procedures that Moss Adams would do to audit the meridian funds included confirming the borrowers identities by mailing loan confirmation [00:26:30] letters to them. Yes. Right. So if you're not an accountant, we're gonna we're gonna explain this a little bit. So, um, if you don't know what these are, these confirmation letters, ask the recipients to confirm their information. Right. Just to say. Yep. It's correct.

Greg Kyte: Yeah. Okay. I've. I've received confirmation letters at work for for, uh, companies that we. What is it? Yeah, it's been for for banks that we have, [00:27:00] uh, received loans from.

Caleb Newquist: Yep, yep.

Greg Kyte: Okay, so.

Caleb Newquist: In this case, in the meridian case, it would be the information of loan borrowers, right. Because Meridian owns the loans. Right. So you can imagine that those confirmations have, you know, name of the, uh, borrower address, loan balance, stuff like that. Yeah. Right.

Greg Kyte: And when you receive. So and that's exactly the kind that I would receive. Yep. And when I would receive them, I like some of them are like, this is what we have on [00:27:30] the books. Is that the correct balance. Right. And you just have to check. Yes. And then sign it and send back some of them. Say you have a loan with the bank, right in what your loan balance is. So yeah.

Caleb Newquist: As of a particular date. Yep, yep. Exactly right. The auditors typically include a pre-addressed postage paid return envelope in their requests. So as Greg just. Eloquently explained, all the recipient has to do is fill out the info or confirm it. [00:28:00] Yeah, stick it in the envelope and drop it in the mail. Right.

Greg Kyte: Very easy. If I if I have to lick a stamp, you're not getting your. Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: You're not getting your fucking and I and I'm not.

Greg Kyte: I as a as someone who's confirming this stuff you're under no obligation to, to confirm it. That is correct. So they're just hoping that you're going to play play the game.

Caleb Newquist: Yep. But remember. The borrowers aren't real, right? Right.

Greg Kyte: So how Meridian with Meridian. Right.

Caleb Newquist: With Meridian, it was borrowers.

Greg Kyte: All fake.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. [00:28:30] Borrowers aren't real. So. How did these phantom borrowers actually respond to the confirmation request? Because remember, they had. Wait. Remember the financial statements are audited Greg Kite right, right.

Greg Kyte: So this is clearly how the fraud fell apart, right? Caleb.

Caleb Newquist: No. Get this get this. Burg opened scores of post office boxes under fake names and [00:29:00] forwarded all the mail sent to those P.O. boxes to an address in Seattle. So remember, he's got fake borrowers. Fake names. Fake addresses?

Greg Kyte: Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: He opened P.O. boxes.

Greg Kyte: Scores of them.

Caleb Newquist: Scores of them, not.

Greg Kyte: Dozens of them. We're talking like.

Caleb Newquist: Well, scores means scores, means dozens.

Greg Kyte: Scores means 20 scores.

Caleb Newquist: I thought scores meant dozens.

Greg Kyte: No, a score is 20.

Caleb Newquist: All right, well, four score.

Greg Kyte: And seven years ago, that's 87 years ago.

Caleb Newquist: Somewhere in between [00:29:30] dozens and scores.

Greg Kyte: Okay, here's the thing. Somebody, somebody, some listener out there who's nerdier than the two of us needs to settle this.

Caleb Newquist: This is semantics. It's not accounting.

Greg Kyte: Okay? Right. Well, I'm gonna Google it right now. Okay.

Caleb Newquist: Well, anyway, I'm gonna continue talking.

Greg Kyte: Yeah, you do that. All right.

Caleb Newquist: Berg Open scores.

Greg Kyte: 20 its 25.

Caleb Newquist: Nine Berg opened lots of post office boxes under fake [00:30:00] names, and forwarded all the mail sent to those Po boxes to an address in Seattle. Then he completed the confirmations himself.

Greg Kyte: Nice.

Caleb Newquist: And mailed them back to Moss Adams. Brilliant. I don't know how much time he spent doing all that.

Greg Kyte: And he did this himself. He was not having no an unpaid intern do this.

Caleb Newquist: For him by by all the accounts that I read. Yeah, he was doing this all himself, right?

Greg Kyte: Right. [00:30:30] Well, right. Because it wasn't there even something where like the handwriting was that. Yes.

Caleb Newquist: Yes, yes. No. Let me go on. I'll continue. Yeah. According according to the bankruptcy trust. Uh, according to Mark Calvert, that's the bankruptcy trustee, right? Yeah. Moss Adams didn't notice that most of the confirmations it sent out were going to post office boxes. And that if you're an auditor, you know this. But if you're not, you don't. That is usually frowned upon. Okay. Don't like if part of part of the [00:31:00] I remember being a young auditor and and and managers would be like can't can't be a post office box. It's got to go somewhere. It's got to go somewhere like real.

Greg Kyte: Yeah. So Darren Berg rents all these Po boxes all all over the place, and he uses those Po box, uh, addresses as the addresses for the fake documentation for the fake loans. Moss Adams gets those fake addresses, they send confirmations to those fake addresses, but all [00:31:30] those Po boxes are instructed to just forward whatever comes to them. To forward them to Darren Berg. Yes. Who then opens them, fills them out himself, puts them back in the self-addressed, stamped, the self-addressed stamped envelope business return envelope and mails them back to Moss Adams.

Caleb Newquist: Correct.

Greg Kyte: Amazing.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah.

Greg Kyte: That's dedication. That's that's methodik level dedication. Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: According to Mark Calvert. Moss Adams didn't notice that most of the confirmations [00:32:00] that sent out were going to post office boxes, which is generally frowned upon, but then also coming back with the same handwriting. Right.

Greg Kyte: Do you think you would notice that?

Caleb Newquist: I don't know, like in the account that I read that, that that I found that bit of information that is something where I found myself wondering. It's like, but would you know, would a person notice?

Greg Kyte: Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: Because like, I mean, our auditors do auditors need to be handwriting experts [00:32:30] now because that's kind of a that's a bridge too far, maybe.

Greg Kyte: And it's mind numbing work too. You're opening you're opening an envelope, you're seeing you're looking at a number. You're you're checking a box. You're going to the next.

Caleb Newquist: Are dealing with when you are dealing with a business like Meridian, where you have who even knows how many loans they had on their books. I mean, they had zero loans on their books, pretty much. But like, but like purportedly. Right, right, right. What are we talking about? Hundreds of loans. Thousands of loans. Like we there's we don't know. Right. But [00:33:00] if you're doing a, if you're doing a, if you're if you're confirming these as part of your procedures as an auditor, you're certainly doing, I don't know, say you're doing several dozen. Okay. 3040. It's like, can you imagine being the young auditor on that job licking every goddamn envelope like there's a risk?

Greg Kyte: Well, and and they're not they're not all coming in on the same day. No, of course not. So that's another reason you're not going to notice necessarily if the handwriting, you're going to have to really be paying attention. But [00:33:30] at the same time, I could see where people that's one of the things that people would get pissy about, where it's like, you didn't notice it was the same, right? Handwriting on every single one. Right? And then it's like, you don't understand.

Caleb Newquist: No, that's, that's there's some armchair auditing going on.

Greg Kyte: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But but regardless, he got it through Moss Adams even though there was ways for them to catch it. I guess that's sort of the, the moral of that part of the story.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. So Berg was giving investigators a lot of information and things [00:34:00] were starting to make sense, but he still wasn't being completely honest.

Greg Kyte: D'arenberg had shared a lot about the operations of Meridian. He'd voluntarily sort of with his arm twisted. Given a lot of information about the operations of Meridian, investigators knew that he had put more than 30 million of investor money into his tour bus company. Uh, put millions more [00:34:30] in a construction company that he owned. And he spent millions, obviously, on his lavish lifestyle. Meridian and Berg were both in bankruptcy by this point, and that allowed Mark Calvert, the bankruptcy guy, uh, to put many of these assets, including the crown jewel, the bus company, into bankruptcy proceedings in an effort to recover the missing investor funds. Meridian had very little real assets behind the mortgage funds. Calvert said [00:35:00] that those funds only had $11 million backing them up, while Berg had raised about 130 million and reported to investors that they had earned $80 million on that. But Berg still hadn't provided Calvert with access to certain bank accounts and post office boxes. This made Calvert suspicious that some assets were being hidden, of course, and in October of 2010, [00:35:30] a consultant working for Calvert found a bank account in Berg's name that hadn't been reported.

Greg Kyte: The bank account was only one month old, and according to an investigative report in the Seattle Met, the consultant saw that $145,000 had been transferred to this account from yet another account that Berg had opened only in February, that had $225,000 wired to it shortly [00:36:00] thereafter. So Berg told investigators that the money was for consulting work that he'd done after he'd declared bankruptcy, so he was entitled to keep it. It was like I declared bankruptcy already. So now this is part of my fresh start. I've been out there consulting because I'm a business genius. Right? And this is my this is my honest earned money. I get to keep that hands off motherfucker. The small problem with that consulting work, though, uh, the contract [00:36:30] show that the work was, uh, quote, related to owning corporate jets. And investigators could only find one person who had supposedly signed an agreement for this consulting work, but that purported client's name was a spelled wrong, and B the client said their signature was faked. So sounds like, uh, Pi Kappa Epsilon. Uh, rent again.

Caleb Newquist: Uh uh. Indeed.

Greg Kyte: Turns out that money [00:37:00] had actually come from the sale of another one of Berg's homes that had gone unnoticed by investigators. Berg spent the money from the proceeds of the unnoticed home, quote, on lease payments for two Porsches, 12 months advance rent on an apartment in Los Angeles. It went to an Audi convertible. It went to insurance on jet skis and a yacht and a retainer for a criminal defense attorney. [00:37:30] Because let me tell you, if you're bilking investors out of millions of dollars, you can still, it's unexcusable for your jet skis to be uninsured. I just think that's that's just common knowledge.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. That's just that's those are table stakes, man.

Greg Kyte: In October 21st, 2010, Darren Burge was arrested. Finally, he was charged with nine counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. Prosecutors wanted [00:38:00] Burge detained before the trial because they worried he was a flight risk, maybe because he had had access to private jets and was consulting other people who had private jets, or at least saying he was consulting other people who had private jets. They had uncovered evidence that he had tried to establish an offshore trust in Belize, so maybe he was going to flee to Belize. Burge claimed that he was trying to ensure some of his remaining assets, but nobody was buying it. A [00:38:30] judge ordered that Burge be held, at least partially, based on the fact that his cooperation with investigators had been inconsistent and manipulative. Eventually, another indictment came down, adding another charge of money laundering and one count of bankruptcy fraud, which bankruptcy fraud seems like a no brainer. Uh, Burge claimed that his businesses were legit and that the financial crisis put him into, quote, survival mode as he tried to save the business and [00:39:00] satisfy investors. Prosecutors didn't buy any of that, and said that Burge lied repeatedly to investors to raise the money. All told, Burge had fleeced more than 500 investors out of more than $100 million. And on August 2nd, 2011, Darren Burge pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering, and one count of bankruptcy fraud. He was sentenced to 18 years in federal [00:39:30] prison in February of 2012.

Caleb Newquist: Many of Darren Burge's victims were just regular people just trying to save money for retirement. In the many accounts of this case that we found, victims talked about having to go back to work after retirement, selling their homes and other major lifestyle changes. Around the time that investigators were building their case against Burge, Mark Calvert, the bankruptcy trustee that we keep bringing up, he told investigators [00:40:00] that they could expect to recover only 9 to 20% of the money they invested with Burge. Oof! Yeah. According to the 2018 report from the Seattle Met, it had risen to 26 to 28% better. Oh, but.

Greg Kyte: Oh, then they're fine.

Caleb Newquist: But but but maybe not. Uh, J.A. Jance, the mystery novelist. Maybe some of you have heard of. Anyway, [00:40:30] she she's written lots of books. When I was looking into this, she's written many books. So she's a mystery novelist. J.a. Jance, the mystery novelist, was one of Burge's victims. She and her husband lost about a half $1 million. And Jance actually wrote a book inspired by her experience entitled clawback. Except this time, the perp of the Ponzi scheme is murdered at the beginning of the story.

Greg Kyte: Because it's her.

Caleb Newquist: Story. Yeah, it's her story.

Greg Kyte: She can live out her fantasies in her own, uh, [00:41:00] mystery novel.

Caleb Newquist: That's right. And it's no wonder when you listen and when you listen to her talk about her experience. She was, uh, there's a couple places that that are in the show notes, uh, the AARP podcast, The Perfect Scam and seeing CNBC's American Greed. They, they both featured this, this story and, uh, J.A. Jance she is pissed. Yeah, she's super pissed. Um, and rightly so. Right. Yeah.

Greg Kyte: Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: But [00:41:30] she she readily admits, however, that she and her husband were lucky. She, you know, she's a published author and she has a steady stream of income from the sale of her books. Many of Burge's victims were not so lucky. Burge's fraud, like all investment frauds, had a devastating impact on people's lives. These are people who trusted D'arenberg and they liked him. The betrayal felt incredibly personal for them, but the profound pain caused by Burge's betrayal managed to get [00:42:00] worse.

Greg Kyte: The US Penitentiary in Atwater, California, is about 130 miles southeast of San Francisco. This high security prison hosts notable prisoners, including Muhammad Ali, who was a Somali pirate who was convicted for the 2011 hijacking of a civilian yacht where four Americans were killed. It also housed Jerry Alfred Whitworth, who [00:42:30] was part of the Walker family spy ring. Whitworth was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union in 1986, and he was sentenced to 365 years in prison, a sentence that he will clearly be able to fulfill to the last day. In 2016, Darren Berg was serving time not at the penitentiary in Atwater, where there are high fences lined with razor wires and six guard towers. But he [00:43:00] was at the minimum security satellite campus adjacent to the penitentiary. Uh, the Seattle Met describes this camp as having minimal fencing and security because the prisoners are considered so low risk. There are basketball courts and a track and field and a softball diamond. The men must keep books and other belongings inside their personal lockers. Only one framed photo outside is okay, and they're generally all required to work serving food in the cafeteria or [00:43:30] helping maintain the site for less than a dollar a day. On December 6th, 2017, at 3:30 p.m., a corrections officer did a routine afternoon count of the prisoners, and he came up one short because Darren Berg had disappeared.

Caleb Newquist: The US Bureau of Prisons notified the US Marshals Service, which put out a wanted poster for Berg the next day. [00:44:00] But by most accounts there was no trace of him. He had just walked away. Naturally, Berg's victims were incensed at the escape, especially since many of them protested that he would be serving his sentences in minimum security facilities. Mhm. One investor told the Seattle Met back in 2018, quote, I hope he's hiding out, wracked with paranoia and some rat infested, mosquito ridden dung hole, fearing for his shitty life, which pretty much. What [00:44:30] I would have said so right? But sadly that is unlikely given the most recent reporting on where Berg may be. Oh yeah. An Associated Press report from April 2019 suggested that he may be hiding out in Brazil. At that time, authorities were focused on Berg's boyfriend, Darrell Ray Blankenship, quote, a flight attendant with international connections and apparent access to a private jet.

Greg Kyte: Are there it is.

Caleb Newquist: There were several [00:45:00] suspicious links between the two men, including one photos posted by Blankenship weeks after Berg's escape of several men in Brazil, one of whom had a similar hairline to Berg's, which is a strange thing to use as I as as an identifying characteristic, especially since Darren Berg has a completely normal hairline, right?

Greg Kyte: I also like if you look.

Caleb Newquist: At pictures of him, you would not go, oh, I remember that hairline anywhere. Like, that's not what [00:45:30] it's not that kind of a hairline. Well, it's not a Costanza. He's not, he's not, he's not. We're not talking about the Larry fine here, you know. Right.

Greg Kyte: Well, but but even I mean, I have the same hairline as Paul Shaffer. Correct? I am also definitely not Paul Shaffer. There's a lot of there's a lot of other guys who have completely shaved domes. And that that's not doesn't seem like that narrows it down, but they felt like it did.

Caleb Newquist: Right? It somehow it made it into that AP story. Right?

Greg Kyte: Right.

Caleb Newquist: Anyway, [00:46:00] uh, another link, a message sent by Blankenship to Berg's mother at the time saying hello from Rio. Hmm hmm. That's sketchy. Weird. A message sent to a tarot card reader, which, okay, in early 2018, signed Darrell and Darren. And finally an Instagram message sent from Blankenship to a mutual friend saying he had, quote, just heard from Darren. Um, based on all [00:46:30] the research we did for this episode in the last five years, there has been no developments on the whereabouts of Darren Berg. Greg Kite, did we learn anything?

Greg Kyte: Yes. Uh, okay. There's there's a few things, you know, and again, there's things that were highlighted to me. One of the things was in one of the accounts, I know, I know, there was some accounts where people said that investors were getting a 10% return on their investment, which [00:47:00] is a really good return. It is, but it's not astronomical. Right. And in and again, I think it was in the Seattle Met article where I read that there was people who had gotten a consistent 7% return for years and years and years and 7% very modest, like there's better investments than 7%. And one of the things that we've seen, and that we pointed out in prior Ponzi schemes, is that your Ponzi scheme is more likely to [00:47:30] succeed for longer if you're if you if you're not promising wild returns for a couple reasons. First off, wild returns. That's a red flag. That's that's probably going to get you caught. But then the other thing is, if you're promising more modest returns, you're not going to have to pull in as much new money to pay out your old money so you can. So it's more sustainable if you're promising a smaller return. But that also and this is something that we we [00:48:00] saw way back. I was the episode two. We did the Mutual Benefits Company.

Caleb Newquist: Uh, yeah. It was mutual. It was was it called Mutual Benefits Corporation? Yeah, yeah.

Greg Kyte: Friends with Mutual Benefits, I think was what we call.

Caleb Newquist: That was the name of the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Kyte: And that but and so similar to that Ponzi scheme, neither of them started out as Ponzi schemes. That was something I also remember reading in the literature is that investigators were confident that this didn't. The intention from the get go wasn't, oh, I'm going [00:48:30] to start a Ponzi scheme and I'm going to screw people out of money. He he had he was legitimately collecting money and investing money and then got to a point where he was like, oh, or I could take some of this money from, from me. And so it it morphed into a Ponzi scheme. And I, I don't have any research. I don't have any academia backing me up on this. But my assumption just from my gut is that the vast majority of Ponzi schemes are that [00:49:00] exact same way where you start out legit.

Caleb Newquist: I think it's I think that's a decent hunch.

Greg Kyte: Yeah. Uh, so even with that, you go any red flags that would have been out front, but that at the beginning it was legit. So there weren't. Right. So. Well, that's what he claimed to fake red flags.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. And that's what he tried to claim too. And like, you know, on the prosecutor's side, like I don't remember which account it was, but um, one of the US attorney was like, this is what people always do. They always they, they try [00:49:30] to distract from their illegal activity by pointing to their legitimate business activity. Right, right. And that's that's what Berg did in this case is when he was trying to like, well, no, this is this is all, uh, above board, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then and and then they're like, until you started stealing the money, right?

Greg Kyte: Right, right. Exactly. Exactly to it. Yeah, precisely. Um, but along with that. Because like I was saying, the low, the the low or modest [00:50:00] returns that were promised on and maybe not even promised, but the people have been receiving on these investments. Um, that was one thing that helped, I think helped, uh, you know, make people feel like everything was legit, for sure. I, I thought the most telling thing was and we referenced him earlier in the, in the podcast, uh, one of Burge's victims was a former assistant US attorney who had prosecuted people who were [00:50:30] accused of running Ponzi schemes. And that guy never became suspicious of Burge. And he even says that among all the people that he'd invested with, Burge was the most convincing and seemed the most trustworthy, and that if if somebody whose job was prosecuting Ponzi scheme people says that about you, that means if a if a if a Ponzi prosecutor can get [00:51:00] duped into investing in a Ponzi scheme, then my my, I can test that all of us have already been duped into investing in a Ponzi scheme. Yeah, and we're all screwed. You'll never retire. Give up your dreams of of, uh, of the, uh, my ties on the beach, right?

Caleb Newquist: Yeah. And did you do you remember what that guy said? Uh, at the end of that paragraph?

Greg Kyte: Uh, yeah. Fuck. Darren Burge was that was that what? Maybe that was a no, I can't remember.

Caleb Newquist: I mean, he may have said that, [00:51:30] but he also said, uh. It was right after he said, um, he was the most convincing person that he had ever met. Uh, but then he said, but I've never met a sociopath I didn't like. Oh, okay. I'm like.

Greg Kyte: Yep, that's a good line.

Caleb Newquist: It's a good line.

Greg Kyte: There's a good line. Yeah. I mean, it's.

Caleb Newquist: Funny, it's like, you know, you read about these victims and or, you know, you listen to, you know, um, their accounts in the podcast or you watch the American whatever. It's like, it's fucking awful, right? But like, every once in a while when somebody's got a, you know, when somebody throws [00:52:00] a little humor in there, they have a little bit of sense of humor about it. It's like, yeah, yeah, see, people, people are, people are. Some people are okay.

Greg Kyte: Yeah. It's a coping. It's a coping mechanism. Totally. So totally. Um, and then I think the last thing and again, this wasn't something I learned, but something that was reinforced. We've talked about it many times on the podcast is, uh, I, I am exhausted thinking about the amount of work that Darren Berg had to do to just keep this fraud [00:52:30] going. The, the the P.O. boxes is above, above and beyond. I don't know, you know that I that's exhausting thinking about that I.

Caleb Newquist: Don't I, I, I don't know it I don't even it's just so hard to believe that he would do all that. Right. But when you kind of look at what was at stake for him, then you're like, of course, of course. Yeah, it's like, I'm gonna stay up all night and [00:53:00] I'm gonna, I'm in a complete I'm gonna fake all these confirmations, because if I don't, I'm going down, I'm going down.

Greg Kyte: Fake all the confirmations, fake my contract as a. Yeah, a private jet consultant. Fake my loan documents, fake my title reports, fake all this stuff I just go, oh I am so yeah I need a, I need a nap. Just thinking about how much work that is. And like you said, it makes sense because his ass is in a [00:53:30] sling if he can't keep all these plates spinning. Oh yeah, I but I don't want to be a nonstop. I don't want to. I mean, listen, I would love to be a professional plate spinner. Right. That sound that that's a skill that I wish desperately that I had. Great. But I also I don't want to do more than about a five minute act, maybe ten minutes tops. If I had to spin plates nonstop, for how many years would this for? He did for over a decade.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah, yeah, over a decade.

Greg Kyte: No. Forget it. [00:54:00] Fuck that. I you're you're already living in hell having to do that. So those are, those are my big takeaways from from Darren Berg. What about you. Anything really stick out to you.

Caleb Newquist: No I mean it's all it's all pretty cool. Feels all pretty classic. You know, classic Ponzi scheme, a timeless a timeless investment scam. Greg. Yeah. So my question for you is do you think. He had the escape plan the whole time. No, [00:54:30] no, no, because.

Greg Kyte: Because I am convinced that he. I mean, you're not you don't know where you're going until you're sentenced. True. And I think my likely he wound up there and then he was like, oh, I can totally get out of this. And clearly he had he had friends and he had more money stashed. They didn't find that was his whole once things started going down the tubes, obviously his whatever [00:55:00] his ADHD energy that he had, he redirected it from faking confirmations to hiding assets. Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: And there's a there's a Seattle Times article where they basically said this is basically The Shawshank Redemption, except he didn't have to crawl through a pipe full of shit. He just had to kind of. Yeah, he just had to walk. He just walk.

Greg Kyte: Around and go. I think nobody's looking. I'm just gonna. I'll just. I'm just gonna leave.

Caleb Newquist: And apparently, I think it was the American greed. I think it was the American greed episode, but that apparently that prison that can't [00:55:30] or it's a camp. It isn't. It's not the penitentiary, it's the camp. But that camp is like, right next to an airport. Oh.

Greg Kyte: So, so so.

Caleb Newquist: You know.

Greg Kyte: Like that.

Caleb Newquist: Was that was like. Yeah. Like whoever helped him just like, brought a change of clothes, um, you know, had, you know, I, I don't know if he would have been able to get like, if you imagine we talked about this in the previous episodes, like how you would escape or how you would disappear.

Greg Kyte: Oh, yeah. Yeah. He, he.

Caleb Newquist: Figured like he had. Yeah, he clearly had help. [00:56:00] But then yeah, he just they figured it out and they just hopped on a plane like right there. And then they were I think.

Greg Kyte: So I think he had the I think he had the resources available still. Yeah. And I think and my, my guess is that Blankenship is boyfriend was integral to getting him out of there. This is my this is my my speculation. Yeah. And that. Yeah. I didn't know that there was an airport. Right, right. By the, the prison camp. But yeah, it's like, okay, I'm going to have a, a Cessna that will that's going to touch down, won't come to a complete stop. [00:56:30] And you've got to jog to get in the side door that I'll kick open for you. And then we'll just take right back off. And that's how we get out of there.

Caleb Newquist: So yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's fuck, man. I mean, I feel for the victims, but. Yeah, but I feel for the victims, and this is a hell of a story.

Greg Kyte: It is, it is. And, uh, and now I think I'm going to put, um, Jay Chance's book clawback on my, uh. There you go. My Christmas wish list. Yeah. [00:57:00] For this year.

Caleb Newquist: Yeah, I kind of want to read it, too, actually.

Greg Kyte: Well, that's it for this episode. And remember, a good Ponzi scheme can make your childhood dreams come true, at least for a while.

Caleb Newquist: And also remember, when you escape from prison, the least you can do is leave a note letting everyone know that you'll be hiding out, wracked with paranoia and some rat infested, mosquito ridden dung hole, fearing for your shitty life.

Greg Kyte: If you want to drop us a line, please do send us an email at oh my fraud at earmarks [00:57:30] Cpcomm. Uh, Caleb, if people want to contact with you, connect with you out there on the internet, where can they find you?

Caleb Newquist: Linkedin slash Caleb Newquist. Greg, have you have you read it? Which subreddit are you trolling most days I.

Greg Kyte: I do not, I will I will go into Reddit when forced. Uh, that's that's about it. Like you'll I think you sent me. I want to say you sent me an [00:58:00] accounting subreddit for something for the podcast.

Caleb Newquist: It was for. Oh, because. Because Tony Menendez did an AMA.

Greg Kyte: Oh. That's it. Yeah.

Caleb Newquist: He didn't ask me anything.

Greg Kyte: So that's. Yeah. So Reddit's not that's not and I. All right.

Caleb Newquist: Never mind. Greg's not on Reddit everybody.

Greg Kyte: Sorry about that. You can't find me there. Uh, but but I think I am on there, and all of my social handles are at Greg Kite and even LinkedIn. That's probably the best place to try to connect with me. And I am just Greg Kite, CPA on, uh, on LinkedIn. [00:58:30]

Caleb Newquist: Oh my Fraud is written by Greg Kite and myself. Our producer is Zach Franc. Rate review and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on earmark, you can get free CPE. Outstanding.

Greg Kyte: Amazing.

Caleb Newquist: Join us next time for more avarice, swindlers and scams from stories that will make you say oh my fraud.