Show Your Stripes
Deep Voice
Two years ago (!) when I started this newsletter, one of the first stories I wrote about was a British company being scammed out of money by a hacker using audio deepfake technology. Now it’s happened again, in the UAE:
In early 2020, a bank manager in the United Arab Emirates received a call from a man whose voice he recognized - a director at a company whom he’d spoken with before. The director had good news: his company was about to make an acquisition, so he needed the bank to authorize some transfers to the tune of $35 million.
A group of scammers used a combination of email compromise and what we’re now calling “deep voice” tech to convince an Emirati bank to send millions of dollars to accounts around the globe. It’s only the second known case of audio manipulation in a BEC scam, according to Forbes, which makes me feel like I’m really staying on top of this stuff.
America’s Frontline Doctors
Last month we talked about a couple of the groups pushing quack COVID-19 treatments in the US. One of them is America’s Frontline Doctors, or AFLDS. Now the Intercept has received a bunch of hacked files from two of the companies working with AFLDS to provide health “services” to people seeking ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine treatments, and it’s pretty grim:
America’s Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group founded last year to promote pro-Trump doctors during the coronavirus pandemic, is working in tandem with a small network of health care companies to sow distrust in the Covid-19 vaccine, dupe tens of thousands of people into seeking ineffective treatments for the disease, and then sell consultations and millions of dollars’ worth of those medications. The data indicate patients spent at least $15 million — and potentially much more — on consultations and medications combined.
That’s a lot of money for a group that’s been around barely a year. They make most of their money offering $90 phone consultations with AFLDS’s “trained physicians” though sometimes they don’t even provide those:
The drugs are delivered by Ravkoo, a service that works with local pharmacies to ship drugs to patients’ doors. Of course, that’s if patients ever get the consultation; many customers told Time they never received the call after paying.
Unlike Jerome Kory of the FLCCC who has tried to appear a professional authority on alternative treatments, the founder of AFLDS is a proud anti-vaxxer:
AFLDS’s founder, physician Simone Gold, was arrested and charged after the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
She used the Capitol riot as an opportunity to spread more vaccine disinfo:
Gold was spreading her brand of politicized medical misinformation during the siege too. In the FBI’s flyer of those most wanted for “violence at the United States Capitol,” Gold, No. 21, is pictured holding a megaphone, which she apparently used to a give a speech inside the federal building, as the Washington Post was first to report.
The good news, I guess, is that both Cadence Health and Ravkoo - the telemedicine and prescription platforms AFLDS was using - have cut ties with the group, cutting off their cash flow for now. Whether they’ll find other ways to issue prescriptions for off-label COVID-19 treatments to more victims of their disinformation campaign remains to be seen.
Moderna
It’s generally acknowledged that of the mRNA vaccines, Moderna’s offers the best protection against COVID-19. The company was, until the vaccine, a small biotech startup in Massachusetts who’d never taken a product to market. Now that it is sitting on incredibly valuable IP, however, Moderna seems more concerned with its bottom line than getting its shots in the arms of poor people:
After developing a breakthrough vaccine with the financial and scientific support of the U.S. government, Moderna has shipped a greater share of its doses to wealthy countries than any other vaccine manufacturer, according to Airfinity, a data firm that tracks vaccine shipments.
[…]
Of the handful of middle-income countries that have reached deals to buy Moderna’s shots, most have not yet received any doses, and at least three have had to pay more than the United States or European Union did, according to government officials in those countries.
Thailand and Colombia are paying a premium. Botswana’s doses are late. Tunisia couldn’t get in touch with Moderna.
Not great! It’s important to remember that Moderna received a lot of money from the government to develop its vaccine, and had outside help:
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health worked with the company to develop the vaccine. The United States kicked in $1.3 billion for clinical trials and other research. And in August 2020, the government agreed to preorder $1.5 billion of the vaccine, guaranteeing that Moderna would have a market for what was an unproven product.
So what’s the problem? Well, Moderna claims it doesn’t have the production capacity to make enough doses of the vaccine:
[CEO Bancel] said that Moderna tried and failed last year to get governments to kick in money to expand the company’s scant production capacity and that the company decides how much to charge based on factors including how many doses are ordered and how wealthy a country is.
However, Modern has refused to share its recipe with global organizations so they can produce their own doses:
Moderna has no plans to share the recipe for its COVID-19 vaccine because executives have concluded that scaling up the company’s own production is the best way to increase the global supply, the company’s chairman said Monday.
Right, sure. That wouldn’t have anything to do with the huge profits they’re making on it:
The company has said it expects its vaccine to generate at least $20 billion in revenue this year, which would make it one of the most lucrative medical products in history. Ms. Andersen, the Morningstar analyst, projected that the company’s profits on the vaccine could be as high as $14 billion.
Making 70% profit margins on a lifesaving vaccine you refuse to distribute to poor countries is not a good look. Much of the profit is likely coming from gouging poorer countries:
In Thailand, where about 32 percent of people are fully vaccinated, a government spokeswoman said the government was paying Moderna about $28 per dose for one million shots
[…]
In Botswana, the health minister told Parliament in July that the government had ordered 500,000 shots from Moderna, at nearly $29 per dose
[…]
Colombia ordered 10 million shots from Moderna. The government budgeted about $30 per dose
The US government pays between $15 and $16 dollars per dose, not counting the $1.3 billion the government gave Moderna to develop the vaccine, which I guess was just a gift? It’s been a good couple of years for Moderna, whose founders are now some of the richest people in the country. Not so much for the countries who can’t afford vaccines, can’t get doses, and can’t make their own because the US government is protecting the patent rights of drug manufacturers so they can reap record profits during a global pandemic.
Mobsters
Organized crime is perhaps one of the most dramatized types of crime around - you don’t movies about romance scammers or coupon fraudsters. One common trope in mafia movies is the boss who won’t retire, to his eventual downfall. Sometimes, an underling tries to usurp the throne. Or, in the case of the real life Colombo crime family, they get everyone arrested because just can’t stop texting:
A new generation of wiseguys didn’t properly learn the business, according to former government investigators. Older members complain that the millennials—who grew up in the suburbs instead of city streets—are softer, dumber and not as loyal as mobsters of the past. Plus, they’re always texting.
“Everything is on the phones with them,” said a former made member of the Colombo family who knows some of the men accused in the case. One Colombo associate is accused of sending threatening texts to a union official over extortion collections.
“Hey this is the 2nd text, there isnt going to be a 3rd,” the associate wrote, according to court records.
Millenials really are ruining everything, even the mob! Colombo boss Andrew Russo was recently arrested along with many of his senior lieutenants, accused of extorting money from a NYC union and healthcare fund. It’s not relevant to the case, but his nickname was “Mush” which wouldn’t normally inspire confidence in leadership, but he ran the family for decades so I guess, sure. Staying in charge for so long was his biggest mistake, according to people who write about the mafia:
[Former FBI Agent Scott] Curtis, who isn’t involved in the court case, said Mr. Russo failed to follow best business practices established by past generations of chieftains: Keep a healthy distance between the caper and the boss.
Mr. Russo, nicknamed “Mush,” was too hands-on, Mr. Curtis said. Prosecutors said in court papers that the alleged Colombo leader, who has seven previous convictions, knew the nitty-gritty in the alleged shakedown.
“That’s why you see some of these guys getting arrested repeatedly,” said Mr. Curtis, who now works as vice president of investigations at Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. “They have to have their hands on all these minute details of the scheme.”
Mush was too hands-on, which got him tied up in the extortion scheme, and he had a bunch of bumbling, texting millenials who didn’t follow “best business practices” while doing their crimes, and now they’ve all been arrested. At least one of the underlings pinned the blame on Mush’s refusal to step aside:
“The problem is, that old man, he wanted to be boss his whole life,” he said.
Considering the prison time Russo is facing, and his age, he might get his wish.
Gifts
One of my favorite stories about Donald Trump involves him giving fake cufflinks to dinner guests:
Actor Charlie Sheen recently called out The Donald for the ruse, saying Trump once gave him his own cuff links as a wedding present and boasted that they came from one of the city’s leading jewelers.
“He says . . . ‘I want to give you an early wedding gift as a gesture from me and Melania’ — and she doesn’t say a word, she’s very sweet and very pretty but just kinda sits there,” Sheen told the BBC, referring to a time he ran into Trump and his wife in a restaurant about five years ago.
“He says, ‘These are platinum diamond Harry Winston,’ and he pulls off his cuff links, and he gives them to me.”
The actor said he took the links to an appraiser six months later, only to learn that they were worthless.
“She took [her magnifying] loupe, spent about 4 seconds and kind of recoiled from it,” Sheen quipped. “She says, ‘In their finest moment, this is cheap pewter and bad zirconias.’ And they’re stamped ‘Trump.’”
Apparently this was a common habit of his before he became President - and maybe during his time in office, who knows? - and it’s funny in the way that all the truly dumb stuff Trump does is funny.
With that in mind, the government has been attempting to sort through all the gifts the Trump White House gave and received during his time in office, and it’s a total mess:
The State Department’s inspector general is investigating allegations that Mr. Trump’s political appointees walked off with gift bags worth thousands of dollars that were meant for foreign leaders at the Group of 7 summit planned for Camp David in 2020, which was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
[…]
The inspector general continues to pursue the whereabouts of a $5,800 bottle of Japanese whiskey given to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — Mr. Pompeo said he never received it — and a 22-karat gold coin given to another State Department official.
There is also a question about whether the former second lady, Karen Pence, wrongly took two gold-toned place card holders from the prime minister of Singapore without paying for them.
It’s entirely unsurprising that the Trump administration was full of people who would steal gift bags and place card holders, and that many of them either didn’t know or didn’t care that they had to pay for and keep track of all this stuff.
However! There’s one set of gifts in question:
The Saudi royal family showered Donald J. Trump and his entourage on his first trip abroad as president with dozens of presents, including three robes made with white tiger and cheetah fur, and a dagger with a handle that appeared to be ivory.
[…]
On the last full day of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the White House handed them over to the General Services Administration — the wrong agency — rather than the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which seized the gifts this summer.
At that point, there was a surprise.
The furs, from an oil-rich family worth billions of dollars, were fake.
“Wildlife inspectors and special agents determined the linings of the robes were dyed to mimic tiger and cheetah patterns and were not comprised of protected species,” said Tyler Cherry, a spokesman for the Interior Department, which oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Oh man. Reading this, I immediately thought of Trump’s fake cufflink gag. The Saudis Trumped Trump! Excellent.
Then, it occurred to me that maybe…Trump kept the real furs and had fakes made? I don’t know if he’s a fur guy - we know both his sons are psycho hunting enthusiasts - but I can’t put anything past him at this point. It may be a relatively easy mystery to solve - we can wait and see whether the furs crop up at any of his golf resorts or hotels, since he likes to display his ill-gotten trophies there.
While researching this story I came across a piece from last year talking about how Trump sort of stole a bunch of art from the US Ambassador’s residence in Paris, much of which turned out to be fake, or copies. So, yeah, who knows. The guy doesn’t even care if stuff is real!
Short Cons
WaPo - “State regulators reported a surge in commodities fraud — particularly investment schemes tied to gold or silver — that frequently target seniors. Last year, state regulators opened up 147 investigations of commodities schemes, up from 69 in 2019.”
WaPo - “These days, navigating Amazon, Walmart and Google’s maze of third-party sellers or judging hip-looking social media ads requires the same kinds of skills as identifying misinformation and conspiracy theories.”
Bloomberg - ““During investigative testimony, Gu said that, although he is not currently using his trading strategy, he may do so in the future,” the SEC said in its complaint. “Gu also admitted that he continued to engage in wash trading after receiving the SEC’s investigative subpoena.””
Tips, thoughts, or photos of fur robes to scammerdarkly@gmail.com.