The scammers instructed Jill Creasy to take this photo to demonstrate she was not being coerced into purchasing Bitcoin – an action she bitterly regrets.
The scammers instructed Jill Creasy to take this photo to demonstrate she was not being coerced into purchasing Bitcoin – an action she bitterly regrets.
Scammers who used an AI-generated deepfake video of Christopher Luxon to steal $224,000 from a Taranaki grandmother have now been caught on a secret recording trying to extort even more money from the pensioner.
The recorded conversations show the fraudsters attempting to regain 72-year-old Jill Creasy’s trust just months after siphoning her retirement savings to purchase Bitcoin, and coaching her on what to tell bank staff if questioned.
The audio clips – obtained by the Herald and passed to authorities – also reveal the criminals’ cunning tactics and sophisticated scripts, designed to build false hope and rush victims into rash decisions.
In a series of phone calls three weeks ago, so-called investment adviser Adam Manola and his “supervisor” Jessica asked Creasy why she had been uncontactable – and warned her she was at risk of losing her money.
During the recordings, they say they can help Creasy recoup her huge cryptocurrency investment, but need immediate remote access to her computer so they can deposit nearly half a million dollars back into her account.
“Jill, we only care about you,” Jessica tells the retiree.
“We have been trying to reach you because you have lots of money that you’ve been investing with us for quite some time and you’ve made lots of profit. The only reason we tried to reach out to you was for your own safety, the safety of your funds.”
‘We don’t want to lose the money’
Creasy saw the fake Luxon video on Facebook and alerted police and TSB after realising she’d been defrauded in August.
In the recording, she tells the scammers she has been unwell and needs her money immediately returned for her treatment.
“You have to understand I’ve been in hospital, and I want you to deposit my money into my TSB account.”
Manola indicates he is happy to facilitate the deposit, but says Creasy needs to open software giving him remote access to her computer to “make sure everything is still working”.
Jessica interrupts to say the company will not process the transfer without first checking “that the exchanges are actually available”.
“We don’t want to lose the money. There are many people who are not doing it in the right way and the funds are just lost.”
Taranaki grandmother Jill Creasy, 72, lost $224,000 in an investment scam. She was tricked into investing in Bitcoin after seeing a deepfake video of Christopher Luxon recommending Kiwis invest in cryptocurrency.
Creasy says her eyes hurt and she wants to wait until tomorrow when someone can help her.
Jessica warns that Creasy’s procrastination is costing the company money.
“I don’t understand who do you need to help you. You have us. We want to help you to get the money into the bank.”
Growing increasingly anxious, Creasy says she is relying on the pair to help refund her investment.
“I am in a position where I need to get that money returned to me and I need your help to get it back and my only way of doing that is trusting in you.”
Jessica responds: “You have all the trust Jill. We’re not going to go anywhere.
“That’s why I want to help you,” Jessica says. “Please understand that we’re on the same side, we have the same interests. I want you to get your money back.”
In another recording, Manola can be heard coaching Creasy on what to tell bank staff if questioned about a suspicious $10,000 payment he is attempting to arrange.
Manola says the money involves an Auckland man’s ANZ account who is a “personal friend of mine”.
He then pretends to be a TSB bank employee quizzing Creasy about the upcoming payment and reason for the money transfer.
“And by any chance are you dealing with a company on that?” Manola asks. “Somebody guiding you or someone bloody working with you on any of this?”
Being scammed was a “crime of shame”, Creasy said, with many victims too embarrassed to speak up.
“I really feel as though I am a fool but I’m not the only one.”
She felt Facebook was partly culpable for hosting paid scam advertisements and should refund her stolen money.
“Mark Zuckerberg is a multi-billionaire. It’s a pimple on his bum to pay me back my $224,000.”
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Photo / Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times
The Herald asked Facebook’s parent company Meta why it was hosting paid scam ads and whether it would accept responsibility and refund Creasy for her loss.
A spokeswoman said the company did not want scams on its platform and was investing in technology to detect and stamp them out, including facial recognition technology to prevent “celeb-bait scams”.
“The safety of our users is of utmost importance. While no enforcement is perfect, our focus is towards tackling these issues at scale by investing in new technologies and methods to protect people on our service from these scams.”
A fraud expert told the Herald the recordings provided insight into the scammers’ tactics and “psychological tricks”.
“Fear of missing out, persuasion, and when that doesn’t work they use the pressure tactic - the supervisor - bring someone else in - the heavy hitter.”
The victim was desperate and the scammers played on that desperation, the expert said.
“She’s clearly vulnerable, she has health issues, probably not that computer savvy. All of that stuff just plays into the scammers’ hands.”
The scammers were skilled and their scripts “word perfect”. They seemed to be operating from a large “boiler room” that was likely targeting thousands of global victims.
Off-shore scammers are using complicated scripts and psychological tricks to hoodwink Kiwi victims into handing over their life savings.
They could be operating from South East Asia or the Philippines, “they could be anywhere.”
The recordings provided valuable evidence for the finance sector about how scammers operated and the way they coached victims to help bypass interrogation from bank staff.
Lane Nichols is deputy head of news and a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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