Enter the ‘ether,’ where scammers weaponize your emotions
he caller ID flashed “Rockville Police Department.”
Judith Boivin had been driving, preoccupied that fall afternoon with getting her husband to a doctor’s appointment. She answered, figuring it must be important because it was the second call in two days from the local cops.
A male voice greeted her, then said he’d put her through to the head of the Maryland city’s police force. Another man came on the line and got straight to the point: Her Social Security number had been flagged in a crime, and she needed to clear things up or face charges. Taken aback, she readily agreed to cooperate. Because it’s a federal case, the chief told her, he’d have to transfer her to the FBI agent running the investigation.
When the phone rang
She soon was speaking with a third man, who informed her that a drug cartel had used her Social Security number to open several bank accounts. These criminal gangs were responsible for countless deaths, he said, and the relentless flow of illegal drugs in the United States.
“You don’t have a profile that would indicate your guilt in this case,” he said. “Would you be willing to be an asset?”
Of course, she said, “if I can be of some assistance.”
But she hadn’t been talking to anyone with the FBI. Or police.
That call in September 2023 was the first in a series of interlacing lies that would send Judith down a rabbit hole that would cost her most of her life’s savings and sense of security.
“He went through everything about me.”
— Judith Boivin said of the scammer
In twice-daily conversations over the next three months, the impostor FBI agent crafted a meticulously detailed story about her stolen Social Security number’s connection to an illicit fentanyl smuggling ring and the possible capture of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel.
If the FBI was involved, she reasoned, it had to be important. She wanted to help.
Shamed into silence
There have always been scammers. I’ve been writing about them for years.
Sweepstakes and Nigerian letter scams once dominated fraud prevention workshops. We’ve read about pyramid and Ponzi schemes, tech support and telemarketing swindles. And pig butchering — a type of investment scam in which the target’s stake is steadily “fattened up,” usually in the form of cryptocurrency, before the rhetorical slaughter — is a growing concern. Our electronic devices are inundated by phishing, smishing and vishing attacks, all designed to trick you into giving up personal information. This can take the form of malicious links or, in the case of vishing, the use of artificial intelligence to clone someone’s voice.
Judith came to learn the lies she was fed were part of a government impersonation scam. These typically start with a call, text or email from someone pretending to be with the IRS, Social Security Administration or, in her case, the FBI. Scammers leverage the veneer of government authority to manipulate their targets into handing over their savings. The money often ends up overseas, with criminal syndicates in Southeast Asia, Russia or China, where it’s generally gone for good.
An email to Judith from a scammer impersonating an FBI agent
This December 2023 email to Judith Boivin highlights some of the tactics the scammer used to make his credentials appear authentic.
Though a real FBI agent’s name is used, the email address incorrectly ends with .com. A government
agency email would have ended with .gov.
Victims are often given a fake case number
to make them believe they are involved in
a legitimate legal
procedure.
The email signature includes the official FBI seal to make the communications appear authentic.
Friendly language is used to evoke comfort and familiarity with the victim.
The number of victims and financial losses are scary, and growing.
But consumer advocates and law enforcement officials believe the actual toll is much higher because most victims never come forward. They remain silent, ashamed of being duped and dreading how others might react.
Such reticence is not misplaced. Even as I marvel at the sophistication of the scam that entrapped Judith, I know what she is up against. The questions that will hang over her.
How could you hand over so much money to a stranger?
Why didn’t you see the red flags?
What were you thinking?
And there it is — the judgment.
Judith has struggled with such thoughts herself. “As I’m speaking, I can see how stupid I was,” she told me after our first meeting last spring.
Wearing red glasses, a blue shirt and black pants, she appeared anxious as we gathered around the glass-top dining table in her condo just outside of Washington, D.C. She was surprisingly circumspect about her situation as we reviewed the stacks of documents chronicling her losses — bank statements, ATM and cashier’s check receipts, fake FBI email correspondence from the scammer, and then the emails from real law enforcement officials after the scam was discovered.
Judith speaks regretfully, at points berating herself for being trapped for months in a scheme specifically designed just for her.
She wasn’t stupid.
She was trusting.
Nor was she a willing participant; she was the victim of a ruthless crime. Until we understand that, other victims won’t come forward or get the help they need to recover. And if they don’t notify the police, it only feeds the fraud ecosystem.
This lovely, petite, soft-spoken retired therapist was concerned about being tied to illegal activity and protecting her savings. Mostly, she believed that by clearing her name she also would be “doing something for the common good.” She would be helping catch the criminals.
She and the millions of Americans who get scammed every year deserve our empathy. They are just as much victims as anyone robbed on a city street.
Over multiple interviews, Judith opened up about what happened to her, unspooling the scheme’s many steps in hopes she might spare others her torment.
After deconstructing how the scammer twisted her into submission, it wasn’t hard to see what she saw or feel what she felt.
Her coming forward is an act of bravery.
Case No. CP920-416
Judith’s criminal handler introduced himself as FBI special agent Wayne A. Jacobs. When she looked up the name online, she learned that a Wayne A. Jacobs ran the criminal and cyber division of the bureau’s Washington Field Office.
The handler gave her a criminal case number for reference — CP920-416 — and called from numbers manipulated to appear as if they originated from an FBI office.
“I checked out the phone numbers and the names,” she said. “All the phone numbers panned out.”
He swore Judith to secrecy, adamant that no one, not even her husband, was to know about her involvement because it might jeopardize the investigation. Whenever they spoke, she said, “the first thing he asked is if I was alone.”
The scammer called her twice a day — 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. — from mid-September 2023 through mid-December. They would talk about developments in the case and steps to ensure her safety.
They came up with a code word so she would know when calls were coming from his office. He asked what her favorite color was.
It’s beige.
“He said, so when anyone calls, I want you to ask them to verify that they are real and that they’re calling from this office,” Judith said.
It wasn’t long before he brought up the need to protect her assets; the cartel had enough of her personal information that her bank accounts weren’t safe. Could Judith fill out a financial disclosure form? The bureau needed to know exactly how much money she had and where it was held to keep it safe.
She was too vulnerable, he told her; she needed to move her retirement savings out of Morgan Stanley — in cash — and into a government “safety locker.”
In a follow-up email, she was assigned locker number SFTY-LCKR 196-00-706. The documentation had a seal from the U.S. Department of State.
It read, in part: “The Federal Safety Locker under the attorney’s panel is authorized to safeguard the victim’s financial assets in the form of Federal Transfers (Government Verified Bonds, Cash Bills, Bank Transfers and International Bank Wire Transfers, etc.) and be moved back into the new bank or same bank accounts and investments as per the victim’s new financials, under the current Social Security number.”
She would get her money back after the trial, she was assured.
But, her handler cautioned, she was not to tell anyone at the Morgan Stanley office in Green Bay, Wisconsin — which had managed her investments for three decades — the real reason she wanted to transfer all her retirement funds to several banks in Maryland.
“He explained that the goal would be to liquidate all the funds and get the cash to other banks where I could open checking accounts,” Judith said. “Because of the amount of my holdings, I needed to use different banks so the money could be accessed freely. He said I’d need to fill out a declaration of finances form that he would send me.
“I asked several times if we could meet, and he said it would probably not be until we had a court date.”
Below are text messages between Judith Boivin and the scammer, whom she believed was FBI agent Wayne A. Jacobs. The scammer used remote wipe technology that later deleted his side of the conversation.
Judith
According to my online account, it shows a balance of, 394.91
Also, I do have a 5:15 pm appointment tonight
Judith
Wed, Dec 13 at 11:02 AM
Have have 25,000 on hand in cash now both Chase and One are cleared out small amount left of a couple thousand less do you want a drop today?
Not 25K 20 K 500.
With her assistance, he emphasized, the FBI could make arrests, prevent money from being laundered using her personal information and break up a massive drug operation.
This resonated with Judith, someone whose life’s work centered on helping people.
She has been a registered nurse and licensed clinical social worker. She has worked as a psychotherapist, facilitated trauma counseling for victims of natural disasters and domestic abuse, and volunteered at a hospice. She’s worked in Belize, establishing an outreach center for HIV-positive children. Since closing her therapy practice in 2004, she’s also worked as a companion for dementia patients.
In 2010, she self-published a memoir, “Gift of the Japanese Red Maple,” as she was trying to heal from the suicide of her son. Paul, her youngest, was 22.
Born into a Catholic family before the end of World War II, “the middle child of six, I was raised in a secure and safe home,” she wrote.
Her upbringing taught her to trust authority figures.
The first call
Experts say the scammer would have counted on this. And it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to amass a detailed profile of her from information readily available on social media and career websites. There’s also a glut of personal and financial information floating in the dark web thanks to rounds of data breaches at, among others, American Express, AT&T, Facebook, Equifax and Marriott. Even federal agencies, including the State and Commerce departments, have not been immune to hackers.
“He went through everything about me,” Judith said.
He knew about her career path and what drove her. Anything the scammer didn’t know already, he learned from their daily conversations.
This knowledge made him credible.
It’s how he stole her savings — $595,000 in cash.
Part 2 | The Criminal
Enter the ‘ether,’ where scammers weaponize your emotions
he man Judith Boivin came to know as her FBI handler called twice a day for three months. He’d ask about her life and tell her about his family.
He knew about her 78-year-old husband’s struggles with Parkinson’s disease and when they had to see the doctor. She told him about her kids and grandkids and when she was leaving town. Sometimes he’d let her in on his plans, like that trip to Italy to attend a friend’s wedding. While he was gone, he told her, another agent would take over their daily 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. check-ins.
An alliance developed, she said. “I was respectful of him, and he seemed to be respectful of me.”
This is how people are drawn into what scam experts call “the ether.”
These seemingly innocuous conversations are actually well-rehearsed orchestrations of a relationship, the flood of attention designed to work them into such a heightened state of emotion that they suspend reason. But these interactions rely on secrecy, because the criminal can’t risk raising questions from outsiders, or anyone who might seed doubt and break their hold.
“You know, what I do is I ask them questions until I find their emotional Achilles’ heel.”
— According to a con man interviewed by Doug Shadel, a fraud prevention expert
There’s a common misconception that financial fraud victims are uneducated, lonely, isolated, or lacking common sense — none of which applies to countless victims. There’s also an assumption that seniors are more vulnerable to fraud because of deteriorating cognitive skills. In fact, according to the Federal Trade Commission, people in their 20s are scammed at higher rates than older Americans. This is partly because they spend more time online, where there is simply more exposure to fake shopping sites, bogus job offers and investment scams.
Personal conversations
Anyone can be conned, said Doug Shadel, a fraud prevention expert who has spent much of his career studying scammers and co-authored “Weapons of Fraud: A Source Book for Fraud Fighters” with Anthony Pratkanis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The two have listened to hours of scam calls and know how a master “con criminal” or “con grifter,” as they call them, wheedles past defenses.
As one con man told Shadel: “I ask them questions until I find their emotional Achilles’ heel.”
The simple truth is older Americans like Judith, now 80, are targeted because many have amassed great wealth through workplace retirement plans, traditional IRAs, home equity and other investments. In fact, Fidelity Investments reported a record number of 401(k) and IRA millionaires in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, the number of adults 60 and older scammed out of $100,000 or more has tripled since 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s annual report on elder fraud.
Americans were scammed out of more than $10 billion in 2023, FTC data show, with seniors representing nearly a fifth of that tally. But because most scams are not reported, the FTC estimates these numbers represent only a fraction of the losses.
Shadel and Pratkanis said the levers used to swindle Judith out of nearly $600,000 followed a template of sorts; a three-part strategy that swindlers customize to each potential victim.
The first step is to gain their trust.
“To get you to trust me, you have to like me,” Shadel said. “And to trust me, you’ve got to be like me. If you’re a Democrat, I’m going to be a Democrat. If you’re a Republican, I’m going to be a Republican. I’m just trying to match whatever interests you have with my interests so that you will trust me.”
To build this level of intimacy, scammers spend hours on the phone with their victims or bombard them with email or texts. The exchanges are intended to extract personal details to build rapport ahead of any request for money.
Below are text messages between Judith Boivin and the scammer, whom she believed was FBI agent Wayne A. Jacobs. The scammer used remote wipe technology that later deleted his side of the conversation.
Judith
Fri, Dec 15 at 5:17 PM
Any news about when?
OK Wayne I’m coming up to the drop point
Judith
Sat, Dec 16 at 12:28 PM
Await your call here until 6:30p
Judith
Tues, Jan 16 at 7:34 AM
Welcome back , hope you really are back...all well, albeit very cold. En route back from WI and funeral for my sister...should be back by Tuesday
So if you’re lonely, the grifter will play into your desire for intimacy. If you’re a caregiver, it might be identifying with your exhaustion. If you’re a Beyoncé or Taylor Swift fan, they bond with you over their music.
The second step of the fraud playbook is to get victims “under the ether,” the frenzied state in which they suspend reason.
Everyone has something that, when surfaced into awareness, “destabilizes them or causes them to go into some emotional state,” he said. “And it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a positive emotion or a negative emotion.”
You get folks talking, and a road map to overcoming their doubts will present itself.
“We tell people, ‘don’t give out your bank account information or Social Security number,’ and that’s all true,” Shadel said. “But you also shouldn’t be telling a complete stranger about your grandchildren or what your concerns are in life.”
Traveling to New York
The scammers quickly assess the situation, peppering the victim with questions to feel them out and extract information that could be used against them. They sample for psychological triggers — such as the potential for financial losses after being told their personal information or Social Security number had been stolen, or the desire to develop an intimate connection, which is what romance scammers exploit.
They also capitalize on their fears and worries, such as an ailing spouse. “I was carrying the responsibilities of having my husband with Parkinson’s, and a lot of my life had changed after his diagnosis,” Judith said, reflecting on her state of mind.
In fact, on the day of that first phone call with the scammer in September 2023, she had been driving her husband of 33 years to a doctor’s appointment and was distracted.
“We’re looking at it from the outside, and we may not see all the little details and trappings that create that powerful situation for the targeted victim.”
Lastly, the impostors try to create a sense of urgency. For example, they might tell a victim that if they don’t move their money out of their accounts, the people who stole their Social Security number will take it all, or the funds will be frozen as part of a criminal prosecution.
“It’s baked into our brains to respond to threats,” Shadel said. “You’ve got to create a reason for them to do something now.”
Criminals construct a wonderland of the mind, a reality that appears authentic to the scam target. This is why the oft-used maxim, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” isn’t the most effective way to fight fraud.
Shadel and Pratkanis like to use Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride to illustrate how scammers conjure up these fantasy worlds. Both get participants to suspend reality.
At the amusement park, customers willingly participate in an illusion. Of course the treasure and cannon blasts are fake. Yet a minute into the ride, “you’re totally swept up in it,” Pratkanis said.
“You’re rocking back in the boat. You’re looking all around to see the pirates and everything that’s happening. At that moment, you’re not thinking, ‘Gee, did I leave my lights on in the car?’ That world is totally gone for you. It’s behind you now.”
Why Judith needed cash
How real and intense can it get for victims?
“It’s scary how good some of them are,” Pratkanis said of the scammers he has engaged with. “Even me, role-playing on the calls and knowing that there is zero chance of me going in for the fraud, it’s hard.
“I know exactly what’s going on, and I’m like, ‘Man, I can really see how somebody … could easily get wrapped up in this.’”
Resources for financial fraud victims
If you or a loved one has been scammed, call the AARP Fraud Watch Network helpline at 877-908-3360 or go online at aarp.org/fraudhelpline.
AARP Fraud Victim Support Group provides an online forum for scam victims. Group sessions are confidential and led by trained facilitators. They also are open to friends and family; go to aarp.org/fraudsupport.
Though coming forward can be difficult if you’ve been victimized, it’s important to notify law enforcement. File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.
About this series
This is part one of Scammed, a seven-part series that deconstructs how one woman lost her life’s savings in a government impersonation scam.