0:01

Okay, we're recording. So I'm going to call my

0:03

dad because he's going on about something in emails

0:05

and I just have to clarify what in the world

0:07

is happening. Hello. Hey, dad. How's

0:09

it going? I

0:14

thought you

0:16

were in DC. Oh, no,

0:18

I'm back now. Oh,

0:20

fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic.

0:22

Listen, I was trying to get... I

0:26

couldn't quite make it out, understand what it is you're

0:29

talking about in these emails. So I wanted to call

0:31

you to get clarification. My

0:34

emails. Yeah. So you

0:37

bought a TV in Mexico. Explain this story to

0:40

me. I

0:43

was in Mexico when I was ready to

0:45

leave to, I'd

0:48

say teenagers, saying, hey,

0:50

do you want to buy a

0:52

75-inch television? I said,

0:55

no. And he said, well, it's only $65. I said,

1:00

65. I said, open the box. I looked in. There

1:02

was something in there. I said, for 65,

1:04

you got to carry it to my car.

1:06

But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they

1:08

brought it to the car, drove it home. I

1:10

set it up in the living room, plugged it

1:13

in. It was so clear and vibrant. And

1:16

then I noticed that it was

1:18

the menu for KFC. Like,

1:21

wow. So it was like

1:24

you turn the screen, like that's the channel

1:26

it was on. It

1:28

wasn't a TV. It was the menu

1:31

from a KFC. Well, no.

1:33

So the KFC has screens,

1:35

has TVs that are

1:37

menus. The TV is a

1:39

menu. So you sure it wasn't just on

1:42

the... No. What

1:44

was it? No, it was

1:46

just the drive

1:48

up menu for KFC.

1:51

It wasn't even a TV. Wait,

1:53

hold on a second. It

1:56

was just like a light with a... piece

2:00

in front of it? Yeah but

2:02

it was very clear,

2:05

vibrant, chicken, three piece,

2:07

four piece. Yeah.

2:11

They stole the menu off the... Yes,

2:14

exactly. Exactly, it wasn't a TV. But

2:16

the good news is I put it

2:18

on the street to get rid of

2:21

it. Hold on, so

2:23

you put it on the street for

2:25

the trash truck? Enough

2:27

for anybody to pick it up, not the

2:30

trash. Somebody might want it. You put

2:32

like a sign on it or something? Well,

2:34

it said free, yeah, it said free.

2:36

But it was on the street. And then

2:38

the fourth day, I put for sale $25

2:40

and somebody stole it that night. These

2:53

are true stories from the dark side of

2:55

the internet. I'm

3:00

Jack Resider. This

3:03

is Dark the Diaries. This

3:21

episode is sponsored by Threat Locker. These

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shopify.com. Hey, how's it going? Hello, hello

5:37

Jack. It's nice meeting you. Yeah,

5:42

I'm excited to hear this story, but it

5:44

sounds made up. I

5:49

know. It's crazy, isn't it? I

5:52

know, I know. I'm excited. Listen, I

5:54

don't want my voice to be used, if it's

5:56

okay. Oh yeah, sure, of course. I won't use

5:58

your voice. Listen,

6:01

come closer, come closer. This

6:04

is a forbidden interview. The

6:07

powers that be do not want this

6:10

guy telling you his story. So

6:12

I got to do my part and

6:14

keep him a secret. But

6:16

I want to tell you this story so bad. So

6:19

what you heard there was a voice actor. And

6:21

he's just going to be reading the transcript for you of

6:23

the interview I did with him. But the

6:26

other thing is, I've got to conceal this guy's name.

6:29

So we're just going to make up a name and call him Fazal.

6:32

Meet Fazal. OK, some background

6:35

about me. I'm from Pakistan,

6:37

actually. I worked in a call

6:39

center for eight years. Fazal would

6:41

answer the phones all day in a call center.

6:43

He'd sit at the computer, put his headset on,

6:45

and wait for a call. And

6:47

when one would come in, he'd see on

6:50

the screen what company this person is calling

6:52

about. And he would handle customer support for

6:54

a handful of different companies. Customers would ask

6:56

about their account or trouble with their service.

6:58

And because he knew English and could speak

7:00

clearly, he was pretty good at doing this

7:02

call center work. There was a group of

7:04

us. We were all friends working there. But

7:06

we saw this other company had a

7:08

whole bunch of openings for call center employees.

7:11

Exact. Exact's website

7:14

says they're a leader

7:16

in IT globally. And

7:19

it looks like it's a very impressive company. I mean,

7:22

they've got a recruitment video. Here, let's take a listen

7:24

to this. There's one of the

7:26

few organizations nationwide that we've

7:28

been working on. Leadership to a group of

7:30

programs and structures by your party. Each

7:32

and every employee that works in the name of

7:34

the child has to reach the

7:36

highest level in the organization. They

7:39

had tall buildings all over. Karachi,

7:41

Islamabad, Lahore. And they had one

7:43

of the biggest transport fleets

7:45

as well. So they were

7:48

big. And we were excited. They

7:50

were like good money and opportunity. We

7:52

were tired of a call center anyway. So,

7:55

you know, it was time. Them

8:00

apply to work at exact and they

8:02

all got the job. It was a

8:04

much better place to whether we're used

8:07

to. They were in a six story

8:09

building and the pay was much better.

8:11

We started working in the mean hub

8:13

in Karachi not the we have this

8:16

cause into would work is we would

8:18

do customer support for Port of Oakland

8:20

we'd have my full plane was useless

8:22

d in Manchester England and this was

8:25

a little different than what I was

8:27

used to. He. Was answering calls,

8:29

helping students out with the south they

8:31

needed but it was also commission based.

8:34

Basically he'd be sitting around waiting for

8:36

of phone rang and if somebody were

8:38

to call and ask about like a

8:40

program at school she was supposed to

8:42

try to get them to sign up

8:44

for classes. And if he could,

8:46

he'd get some extra money from making the

8:48

sale. But the commission

8:51

was very small. And

8:53

not many people would even call that

8:55

would interest in. So. The

8:57

before this in was a d was

8:59

not really good. But

9:01

inside the cause and so was a

9:03

leaderboard. In fact, It

9:05

would sued this Leaderboard every time you

9:07

logged into the computer. You

9:11

could see how much money everyone

9:13

in the polls and the was

9:15

making and some people will making

9:17

slowly. great money slate insane amounts,

9:19

hundreds of thousands and you could

9:22

see who their customers would. Other

9:24

universities and they were very

9:27

possessive of that lives. Like

9:30

one day another team was very

9:32

busy. And one off because

9:35

drooled over to me and that

9:37

was what their university. I

9:39

answered it and immediately someone came running

9:41

or to me and said minimum transferred

9:44

that for me. We. Have decided.

9:47

So. I never got a chance

9:49

to get any good seal from other

9:51

universities. says.

9:53

All talk to his boss was like how can these

9:55

other teams are making so much more money than I

9:57

am of with their way that I can get a

9:59

better climb. Inter something. So. His

10:01

boss says. Ah, you know

10:03

one term. There is something here.

10:06

We. Have a brand new clients!

10:08

A just came onboard and

10:10

they're called Bay. Bay

10:13

know these Ill Ah, Bay City

10:15

Universe. Yeah, Base City University. That

10:17

sounds good on that same kind

10:20

of thing that you been doing.

10:22

You gotta help students with their

10:24

online classes. With you can

10:26

also and commissions and there's some big

10:28

potential here you're interested. As. As

10:31

all like answer. So. They

10:33

brought him over to this account.

10:35

The City University know be town

10:37

University? Yeah, that sounds better. Be

10:39

assigned to sit down to our

10:41

whole do. It was greens.

10:45

A few people on our team

10:47

were webmasters, developers, Oh few

10:49

would marketers and then the rest

10:52

of us were cause and to

10:54

workers. The. Webmasters got

10:56

to work at creating

10:59

the university's website a

11:01

Town university.com. And

11:04

said they've got scholarships, a robust

11:06

alumni network, student aid, and a

11:08

school ranked number four in the

11:10

country. Com take classes and get

11:12

a great career and the town

11:14

University. The made this website

11:16

in a couple of these. it looked

11:19

really good. It just as good as

11:21

any other fancy university out that. It

11:24

had a list of course as you

11:26

could dig a hole, bought it students

11:28

to London and the classes remotely even

11:31

in fact we had to do cleaning

11:33

so they could show us how to

11:35

help students dig that. Online courses and

11:38

be said of course is using sensors

11:40

which a lot of schools use. Canvas

11:42

utterly would be showed us how to

11:44

help students take their classes. It took

11:47

a couple of weeks to fully integrate

11:49

as university and get everyone trained up

11:51

on it. Then as all started. getting

11:54

emails and calls from students interested

11:56

in signing up basically people were

11:58

asking about class there, and Fazal

12:00

had to try to get them to enroll.

12:02

And if he could, he'd get a commission.

12:05

Hi, can you tell me about your teaching degree?

12:08

Oh, you called at the perfect time. Yes, of

12:10

course I can. We have one of the best

12:12

schools in the country. Our professors all come from

12:14

the highest rated universities, and our students typically go

12:17

on to make great money after getting their degree.

12:19

We also have an accelerated program where you can

12:21

earn your degree fairly quickly. Oh, and did I

12:23

mention that because we're online, we're one of the

12:25

cheapest schools around. The sooner we can get you

12:28

enrolled, the sooner we can get your degree. Our

12:30

next classes are starting up in two days. If we

12:32

can get you signed up in the next 24 hours,

12:35

we can get you enrolled in this semester's classes. Are

12:37

you ready to get started? But

12:39

Fazal was looking at this website and

12:41

checked into it, and

12:44

this school did not exist

12:46

last month. This university is

12:48

brand new. There are no reviews about it

12:50

or people talking about it. And

12:52

he looked at the address. It was a US

12:54

address, and he typed that into Google Maps.

12:57

There's no building there. He

13:00

was realizing this school doesn't

13:02

exist. This was something

13:04

that Exact created from thin air. There

13:06

was no real university. There

13:09

was no learning, no classes, nothing.

13:12

We were taking people's money and giving

13:14

them fake degrees. Did they know

13:16

it was fake? Maybe not at

13:18

first, since we had only a few classes

13:21

you could take a semester. So

13:23

to them, it might have felt like they

13:25

were cheating us. Because here's

13:27

the thing. When you go

13:29

on canvas to take the course, you

13:31

can just hit next on every lesson

13:34

to finish the whole course in minutes.

13:36

So they'd get done with all their

13:39

courses in like 20 minutes for

13:41

the semester. And feel

13:43

like we're the suckers for not making them

13:45

go through the course properly. Oh,

13:48

that's an interesting psychological trick, huh?

13:51

To set up the classes in a way that you

13:53

could easily skip through the material and just finish the

13:55

whole course in a couple minutes. This

13:57

made it seem like the students were the

13:59

cheaters. here, not the school, which

14:02

kind of brings them in on the scam even

14:04

more, you know, to make it feel like they're

14:07

the ones scamming the school almost.

14:11

The web team did great work at

14:13

building this university's website. They listed a

14:15

bunch of accrediting bodies, and if you

14:17

go on the accrediting bodies websites, you

14:20

see this school is approved. But

14:22

the accrediting bodies were all made up

14:24

too. They even went so far as

14:26

to put on the website that the

14:28

school is endorsed by Senator John Kerry,

14:31

even though John Kerry never actually endorsed it.

14:33

They even made us fake personas

14:35

on LinkedIn, which look

14:38

like we worked at this university. And

14:40

so if you looked up the university on

14:42

LinkedIn, you'd see all these employees there and

14:45

faculty. Now

14:47

this school website, besides it

14:49

being a scam, had

14:52

another dark side to it.

14:54

Here, check this out. So if a

14:56

potential student was interested in going to school

14:58

here, they could ask for more information about

15:00

classes on the website or whatever. But to

15:03

do that, the website would make the potential

15:05

student create an account on

15:07

the school website. And

15:09

they'd create an account on the site and it

15:11

would ask you for things like your Facebook profile,

15:14

your Twitter profile, your LinkedIn profile. And I mean,

15:16

this isn't so much of a stretch to ask,

15:18

right? I mean, I've probably been on dozens of

15:20

sites that have asked me for my social media

15:22

profiles too. But then

15:24

all this information has wrapped up and

15:27

given to Fazal to try

15:29

to follow up and make the sale. I

15:32

don't think you understand all

15:34

of it was given to me all

15:37

their information. Yeah. Okay. Then

15:39

explain what do you mean? So when they had to make

15:42

an account on the fake school site, they

15:44

had to enter in an email address for the

15:46

username and make a password. Well,

15:49

that password was stored in clear

15:51

text and given to me. Oh,

15:54

I see that is creepy. Yeah.

15:57

I thought the same kind of creepy. But

16:00

it's far worse than that.

16:03

I was talking with someone from another team. And

16:06

they said, go to facebook.com and

16:09

try to log in with this email and password.

16:12

And we were able to log in to

16:14

these people's Facebook accounts. Holy

16:16

cow! That's not creepy,

16:19

that's awful! So when you

16:21

put your password into the school's website, they would

16:23

just hand that password right to Fazal so

16:25

he could do whatever he wanted with it.

16:28

And this is a really good reminder that when

16:30

we log in somewhere, anywhere, we're

16:32

giving our password to the app

16:35

or the website. I

16:37

mean, we trust that they aren't looking

16:39

at our password or storing it

16:42

in clear text. We trust that they're hashing it

16:44

or encrypting it so they can't see

16:46

it even if they wanted. But here's

16:48

a clear example of what could go wrong

16:51

if we trust a website too much.

16:55

Exact employees could see

16:57

the user's passwords and

16:59

try using those passwords on their social media

17:01

accounts to see if they reused

17:03

the password there. And they

17:06

would sometimes be able to log in

17:08

to Facebook or LinkedIn

17:10

or even their email inboxes. And

17:14

the website had some kind of tracker

17:16

on the user. I'm

17:18

not sure how it worked. But

17:21

if I were on the phone with them, I

17:24

can see everything they're clicking and hovering

17:26

over. Okay, but why

17:29

are exact employees even logging in to

17:31

people's Facebook accounts at all? Because

17:33

what we were doing was building

17:36

a profile on every new student.

17:39

The more information we know about them, the

17:41

easier it is to sell them on the

17:43

degree. So once we learned

17:45

a lot of details about them, we'd

17:47

call them and say, I'm not sure if

17:49

you're interested in a business degree, but

17:52

we have a big sale on them right now. And

17:54

we knew very well that's exactly what they

17:57

wanted. Dang, dude, this is

17:59

the bonk. That's what this is.

18:01

Fake university, hacking into students' accounts

18:03

and fake degrees. It's a

18:05

scam. It's a big, big scam. We

18:07

haven't even got to step one yet.

18:11

We also had a lead generation team,

18:13

or maybe marketing team it's called, who

18:16

would find potential students. What

18:18

they did was made it

18:21

so that if anyone posted

18:23

their resume on monster.com or

18:25

indeed.com, the marketing team would

18:27

pick that resume up and look at

18:30

it to see if they would benefit

18:32

from a degree from our university. I

18:35

don't know how they were able

18:37

to immediately see everyone's resumes, but

18:40

we were sent a lot of

18:42

resumes. Okay, and what would

18:44

you do with that? We

18:46

then researched that person, look

18:49

for their social media profiles, try to

18:51

find out their goals and ambitions, get

18:54

to know them, then email or

18:56

call them and say something like, hey,

18:59

I know you're struggling to find work. I

19:01

want to help you with that. And

19:03

of course, I try to get them

19:05

to enroll. Oh man, you

19:08

know what? I've made accounts on these career

19:10

websites before and yet it seems like the

19:12

moment you apply for a job or post

19:14

your resume, you instantly get flooded with emails

19:17

about jobs you're seeking and it's extremely hard

19:19

to unstick yourself from this relentless barrage of

19:21

job opportunities. It's almost like these sites have

19:23

an active data breach or are selling your

19:26

data as soon as you give it to

19:28

them. Once I applied for a job in

19:30

2008 on one of these

19:32

job recruitment sites and I'm still getting emails

19:34

from people today saying they found the perfect

19:37

job for me. All

19:39

right, we at step one. Yeah,

19:41

yeah. Okay, step one. We

19:45

want the student to enroll. Yeah.

19:48

So we offer them a cheap introductory rate,

19:50

a few courses, maybe a few hundred

19:52

dollars. Where are these students typically

19:55

in the world? Like are they in Pakistan? No,

19:57

no, no. I never saw

19:59

any Pakistanis. Pakistani students. We

20:02

mostly targeted US, UK,

20:05

some of Europe and a lot in

20:07

the Gulf States like Saudi

20:09

Arabia, Jordan, Dubai,

20:11

UAE because a lot

20:13

of people there, money was not a

20:16

factor for them. Didn't

20:18

any of this feel wrong? Like were

20:20

you maybe thinking twice about

20:23

giving someone a big degree? It

20:25

wasn't just degrees, there

20:27

were certifications we were offering and

20:30

high school diplomas too. But

20:33

yeah, I did feel like

20:35

this wasn't right. But

20:37

exact charmed me

20:39

to get me to not care. It

20:43

was really weird. Let me tell you, you

20:46

ever see how Google's offices are? Yeah,

20:49

I did. I did go to Google office

20:51

once. And I remember they

20:53

had free food for the employees. There were

20:55

free rides to work. There

20:57

was a place you can get

20:59

your haircut in the parking lot. They were given car

21:01

washes in the parking lot. Yeah, we had

21:04

all that too. But like 100 times

21:06

more than what Google gives their employees. It

21:09

was nuts. To begin with,

21:12

exact offices had a kitchen with

21:14

chefs to make you anything you

21:16

wanted free, of course. But

21:19

they also partnered with the best restaurants

21:21

in town. So you could

21:23

go to an internal website, order

21:25

food from any of these restaurants. And

21:28

they bring you the food right

21:30

to your desk. And not

21:32

just like in a paper sack, whatever

21:35

food they brought you, it was always

21:37

done with a touch of glass, served

21:40

by a butler on a nice

21:42

metal tray. And they

21:44

would come collect the dishes from you and

21:47

bring you any drink you asked for. So

21:50

our food was taken care of while you were

21:52

at work. But our food was

21:54

taken care of at home too. In

21:57

fact, they didn't want you to

21:59

fuss with any anything outside the office.

22:02

If you needed groceries, just

22:04

tell them what you want and someone will

22:06

deliver it to your home. If

22:09

your wife needed to see the doctor, someone

22:11

would go to your house and pick

22:14

her up and take her to the doctor, wait

22:17

there with her and drive her home. In

22:20

fact, they gave us two company cars that

22:23

we could use however we wanted. And

22:25

they would get you anything you asked for. Take

22:28

it for a concert or a cricket match,

22:31

they'd get it for you and even

22:33

drive you there. What was

22:36

the craziest thing you saw that they

22:38

offered? Oh,

22:40

they had a yacht you could use. And

22:43

let me tell you, in a country

22:45

like Pakistan, this was extremely rare to

22:47

be able to have access to a

22:49

yacht. They didn't seem to care

22:51

at expenses when it came to

22:53

taking care of their employees. Dang,

22:56

man, this sounds like a great place to work. Now I

22:58

want to go work at exact. No,

23:00

no, no. Because they have you

23:02

work every day. 29 days a month.

23:07

That's what they required you to do. You

23:10

get one day of a month. And

23:12

no matter what you think you need to do, like

23:15

take your kid somewhere or give your mother

23:17

a birthday gift, they do it

23:19

all for you. So you could

23:22

really focus only on work. And

23:24

that's all they wanted you to do. Just

23:27

work all the time. And

23:29

with students all over the world, you

23:31

would always be busy. So

23:33

did they pay you well? The pay

23:35

wasn't really that good. The

23:38

commission was 1%. So

23:40

if you got someone to enroll and they paid

23:42

$300, you'd get

23:44

$3. But

23:46

because everything in your life is taken

23:48

care of, it felt

23:50

like we were living very well. All

23:53

right. So you told me step one. Are

23:55

there more steps to this? Yes. Okay.

23:58

Step two. So,

24:01

you know once you get them enrolled, they

24:03

might be in a one or two year

24:05

program to earn their degree and

24:08

new courses are released every few months for

24:10

them to finish. But

24:12

now that they are enrolled, I

24:14

can call them up and say, hey listen,

24:16

I know you're really itching to

24:19

get done with school. I

24:21

think I can talk to the Dean and get

24:23

more classes opened up earlier. Is

24:25

that something you're interested in? Okay,

24:28

but listen, what I'm going to

24:30

be doing isn't easy. The

24:32

Dean doesn't like me doing this and I

24:34

need a good reason to do it. So

24:38

if I can expedite your classes, so

24:40

you can just take all the classes you need

24:42

now instead of waiting two years, would

24:44

you be willing to pay $3,000 for that? And

24:48

yeah, a lot of them

24:51

were happy to hear they could finish

24:53

their degree in just a week. I

24:57

mean at this point, they had to know that this

24:59

is not a real school or a real degree, right?

25:02

Well, see, the school website looked

25:04

real. Like it

25:06

had accreditations listed. The

25:08

website was approved by Secretary of

25:10

State John Kerry. You know, when

25:12

the US State Department says this

25:14

is an accredited school, you

25:17

believe it. Even though

25:19

his signature was fake and he didn't actually

25:21

approve it. But yeah, I think

25:23

some of them did know and

25:26

they didn't care. They'd already

25:28

paid a little and were

25:30

convinced it was a real school, at least

25:32

at the beginning. So

25:35

if they felt it was real,

25:37

then maybe they thought they could get

25:39

away with it. They liked

25:41

it that it seemed so real, so

25:43

they could believe it and feel good

25:45

about it. So when we'd send them

25:48

the certificate or degree, we made it

25:50

all exciting and congratulatory for them. Even

25:53

send them a gown and graduation hat and

25:55

ask them to take a picture of them

25:57

wearing it, holding up their certification so we

25:59

can put it on our website and

26:01

they would okay

26:05

what what kind of degrees

26:07

are we talking about here

26:09

they had civil engineering degrees

26:11

aeronautical degrees teaching degrees you

26:13

know English language certificates law

26:15

degrees and a lot of

26:17

high school diplomas but

26:19

we never did fake medical degrees

26:22

that was always off-limits because

26:25

someone could get hurt now

26:27

while Fazal told me they never sold

26:29

fake medical degrees I

26:31

did find some evidence that nurses

26:34

and psychiatrists were buying degrees from

26:36

this company I mean

26:38

listen to this this is the CBC News out

26:40

there in Canada and they track someone down using

26:42

a fake degree they got from exact we're starting

26:45

our investigation with counselors treating

26:47

serious medical conditions with

26:49

fake degrees first up meet

26:52

Alfred Ojo he

26:55

treats ADHD anger

26:57

management depression PTSD

27:00

the list goes

27:02

on oh and

27:04

speaking of news stories what

27:06

is going on here listen to

27:08

this I artist says it is

27:11

concerned by the report that nearly

27:13

a third of Pakistan's civil pilots

27:15

have been flying using what's called

27:17

a fake licenses I

27:19

asked us calling it a serious

27:22

lapse and oversight Pakistan International Airlines

27:24

says it was grounded about a

27:26

hundred and fifty pilots and says

27:28

the problem is industry-wide yeah I

27:30

saw that news story too it's

27:33

unrelated to what we were doing

27:35

we did not sell pilots licenses

27:38

and that story was in Pakistan and

27:40

like I said I never saw any

27:43

Pakistanis enrolling in these universities

27:45

and by the way once we

27:48

had one university going good and

27:50

rolling they would stand up another

27:52

new university a few months later

27:54

because after a while these

27:57

things would be discovered as fake and

27:59

we'd have to to start all over. So

28:01

it was just good practice to

28:04

always be building new universities. And

28:06

they kept giving us new ones to control.

28:08

We're going to take an ad break here,

28:10

but stay with us. There's more steps that

28:12

Fazal is going to tell us about. And

28:14

I'm really curious to see who's behind this

28:16

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netsuite.com. There

29:31

was one university that was created out

29:33

of thin air called Newford University, and

29:36

they had a whole promotional video. Here,

29:38

this is the head of the university

29:40

talking. My name is Dani

29:42

Crane, and I serve as an HOD

29:44

at Newford University. NU

29:47

is an institution that prides itself

29:49

on excellence, and as such, we

29:51

strive to continually improve ourselves. Come

29:54

be a part of Newford University to

29:56

soar the sky of excellence. Here's

29:58

another one from Drew Mons, University of New York. The the

30:00

a fake university created by accept Juri

30:02

amount was an awful experience for me.

30:05

As over to earn my P

30:07

C and Leadership and Education ministry

30:09

said I had the best advisor

30:11

and was able to acquire a

30:13

lot of experience in the education

30:15

and ministries and fields. I'm finishing

30:18

my Phd at Dream Out University

30:20

and access to graduate This saw.

30:22

The to steam of. See seasons but these

30:25

are the people on the team would

30:27

pose as people who worked at the

30:29

school. So if you wanted to speak

30:31

to the dean. Or. Administration's department

30:33

of Prefer so or counselor. We had

30:36

it all set up to be able

30:38

to have these rules. You can talk

30:40

to anyone who like. Okay,

30:43

I think it's pretty Cd since not only

30:45

lie to your customers to make them think

30:47

that the school is real but the also

30:49

pose as a teacher. And. Act like

30:52

an expert in your field and give

30:54

students a bad education is one thing

30:56

just said. sell them a fake to

30:58

but it's a whole nother thing to

31:00

like scheme of false sense of knowledge

31:02

of anything. I just think that's a

31:04

pretty dirty trick. Marketing team

31:06

was pretty good at drumming up new

31:08

victims for this camps. they would spend

31:10

a lot of money on Google ads

31:12

are hyper targeting certain degrees and regions,

31:14

scraping resumes off job sites, targeting people

31:16

on social media, and running a C

31:18

O campaigns to get their school ranked

31:20

higher in the search results. How

31:23

much you seats company was making from all this.

31:25

Rights. Are team had a

31:27

ghoul of two point four million dollars

31:30

a month and they would win p

31:32

three teams in the company you could

31:34

see the leaderboard and how well each

31:37

team is doing. I'd say

31:39

eat You told me step one and

31:41

step two. Are there more steps to

31:43

this like I just imagine you could

31:45

just keep rinsing repeating start over of

31:47

take that victim, sell him another degree.

31:51

That are more steps yes but

31:53

sues when it gets weird and

31:55

you lose track of your steps,

32:00

Let's see, I had someone feet extra

32:02

to get the degree quickly. And

32:04

we send them to degree well, We

32:07

could go in. a lot of this index funds

32:09

from your one might be to call them up

32:11

and see there's been a mistake in the degree.

32:14

You could just make up whatever you

32:16

wanted at this point like you might

32:18

see. Sorry to inform you, but there's

32:20

been an adult you didn't Did all

32:22

the forces you needed to own does

32:24

degree. I'm. Sorry but we have to the

32:26

will to a degree. And.

32:29

Then tried to sell them on more

32:31

courses. Or. You might

32:33

tell them that this certification as expired and

32:35

they need a new one. Ones

32:37

who told someone said degree wasn't valid

32:40

until you get an authentication certificates with

32:42

the same best senator and it costs

32:44

an extra seven thousand. Five hundred dollars

32:47

to get that. People

32:49

would see consists of Extreme Live as.

32:52

The company just didn't care how

32:54

you got money from these people,

32:56

just get money from them anyway.

32:58

You can't soap some office would

33:01

call the person and pose as

33:03

the local government and season thing

33:05

like so I'm calling from the

33:07

government about your degree. Congratulations on

33:09

your degree but unfortunately it's not

33:11

a valid in this country until

33:13

you peace and input decency of

33:15

and thousand dollars and we'd get

33:18

people to be us all these

33:20

extra fees. And nice

33:22

cold dude. Just or another was that

33:24

read call them posing as a recruiter

33:27

for a big companies read: interview

33:29

them for a job, hire them for,

33:31

then see or or you're missing this

33:33

one Qualifications: You need to get an

33:36

English speaking endorsement Would say no way

33:38

you can get one for five thousand

33:40

dollars by the skin, nuttier and netgear

33:43

and you know it's the classic con

33:45

game. At once you get someone on

33:47

the hook for a little bit of

33:50

money, you can just keep. Upping it

33:52

and of thing it and it works because

33:54

that person has already gave you some money.

33:57

we humans have this flaw in our

33:59

operating says and regarding sunk costs, it's

34:01

hard for us to break off of something

34:03

that we've already poured a lot of money

34:05

and time into. So at this point, these

34:07

people have already spent thousands of dollars on

34:10

their fake degree. And it's just

34:12

from that alone that this whole thing becomes important to

34:14

them, that they don't want to lose it. And

34:17

since it's already caused them thousands, they're like, okay,

34:19

I'll pay a couple thousand more. And

34:21

this is called the sunk cost fallacy. And it's crazy

34:23

how effective it is against us. Oh,

34:25

and remember when we got them to take

34:28

a picture of themselves in the graduation gown

34:30

holding the degree? We

34:32

sometimes use that photo against them.

34:35

And just try to scam them by acting

34:37

like someone else and saying, you

34:39

don't know who I am, but I know

34:41

you bought a fake degree from the school. Pay

34:44

me $8,000 or I'll show this photo

34:46

to your boss. And dude,

34:48

you guys are straight up extorting people. Yep.

34:52

It was bad. It was really

34:54

bad. But it felt

34:56

so weird because exact claim to be

34:58

the largest IT provider and

35:00

had these big buildings and a whole

35:02

fleet of company vehicles. So

35:05

everywhere you looked, it

35:07

felt normal and okay.

35:10

My parents were proud of me for working in

35:13

the big office building, you know, and

35:15

having a butler come bring us dinner

35:17

at home from a five star restaurant.

35:21

It was very strange. So

35:24

not only are people getting extorted by exact,

35:26

but these degrees were catching up with people.

35:28

There was one guy who bought a fake

35:31

degree and then he got a job as

35:33

a criminal forensic psychologist and he used his

35:35

degree to get the job. And

35:37

then he worked on 700 cases, giving

35:40

his expert advice on them before

35:42

they found out he had

35:44

a fake degree. They arrested him, threw

35:46

him in jail for that. And I

35:48

think they had to reopen all those cases that

35:51

he was an expert forensic psychologist on. And

35:54

There was this Olympic diving coach who got in

35:56

trouble for using his fake degree to get a

35:58

job as a diving coach at Indiana. The University.

36:01

There was one other thing that we might

36:03

do with the person: the scamming. Sometimes.

36:06

We'd call them up to try to scan

36:09

them, but they would just like know week.

36:11

I know I've been scammed. I.

36:14

Beat all this money for to feed degree. You.

36:16

Can scare me for anymore. I'm on to you.

36:19

right? Well, In those cases

36:21

you would sometimes see ya. You know

36:23

what, You're right. Vr. Scammers.

36:26

But he do you want in on it

36:29

to. And what we

36:31

do is set up a deal with that

36:33

person to funnel the money through them. With

36:35

payments would go to them and they

36:38

could keep some of it. Oh

36:40

my God. know their converting the

36:42

victims into money mules. Okay

36:45

so a money meal is someone who

36:47

accepts like stolen money from someone else

36:49

and then sends that does scammers. And

36:51

this makes it harder for banks in law enforcement

36:53

to detect were stolen. Money is going and the

36:56

Money meal typically doesn't know that what they're doing

36:58

is illegal. And the deal is that

37:00

they can keep like a percent of the money coming

37:02

through their bank accounts and they do very little

37:04

to earnest. just let the money come in and and

37:06

write the check said send someone else. And.

37:09

So exact had this whole system of

37:11

moving money around to avoid detection and

37:13

sent on. It's easy for

37:15

big banks to recognize which bank accounts

37:17

that may be connected to exact and

37:19

to stop those transactions. but as they're

37:21

constantly shifting the money and of slowing

37:24

all around, the big banks just can't

37:26

to Texas very easily to stop it.

37:29

The. Money would get funded through different

37:31

accounts and would often end up in

37:33

the account for company in Cypru, so

37:35

Latvia, you know, places that have a

37:37

little more predicted for this type of

37:40

thing. Down. To

37:42

the honestly, I gotta hand it to

37:44

this exact company. It is really an

37:46

impressive operation that they had set up.

37:48

I mean thousands of employees and a

37:50

lot of them being highly skilled I

37:52

t workers building web sites and doing

37:55

all kinds of pretty advanced marketing. But

37:57

also they got this business model to

37:59

dial. Then we figured out the perfect

38:01

template to start a fake university stood

38:03

victims to come on to the sites

38:05

and then scam the amount of a

38:07

ton of money and then get that

38:09

money funneled through different mules and offshore

38:11

accounts. and. Then to do it all at

38:13

scale does the hiring more and more and

38:15

more and doing this every day's making their

38:17

workers work twenty nine days a month. I

38:20

mean, exact was growing leaps and bounds

38:22

and they were setting up hundreds of

38:25

sides. Here let me just

38:27

list a whole bunch of these sites

38:29

for you real quick. There was the

38:31

Al Arab University Alford High School, Almeida

38:33

University okay this one's cutaway, good video

38:35

and Sheila busy with good on his

38:37

I met So apparently they were selling

38:39

like some law enforcement training and apparently

38:41

a bunch of cops had gotten some

38:43

say degrees or training from this website

38:45

and then God jobs based off their

38:47

fake training. And got in

38:50

trouble for this. does it. Always rex

38:52

me to see people in authority breaking

38:54

the rules. It. Is sad or my

38:56

trust and like the system every time. Okay.

38:59

So. There's like so many of these sites. And

39:01

Barkley Universities they view: University

39:04

Bay City University, Baytown Universities

39:06

Chapel University Colombian A University

39:08

Fort Jones University Mcgraw University

39:10

James Harding University Pine Hill

39:12

University Western Advanced Central University.

39:14

So many, just so so

39:17

many of these. It's like

39:19

once the figured out the

39:21

game, they just kept copying

39:23

and pasting and expanding and

39:25

maximizing profits. So.

39:27

Who's masterminding this whole thing?

39:30

Cool. Thing at all this out. Well.

39:33

Exact. Was found by a guy

39:35

named. Swayed. Och

39:37

med sig this I met him

39:39

he would come to the office

39:42

and meet with the top seeds

39:44

and it's. And. I'll tell

39:46

you see did not seem like you don't

39:48

see the a scare me. He

39:50

appeared said and. And was

39:53

influences at getting you to do great work.

39:56

He never talked about all the funny things

39:58

going on. To listen. Was

40:00

it of things like how much of

40:02

an impact we are making giving people

40:04

an education and changing lives? And.

40:07

He encouraged us to achieve excellence

40:09

in our work, so I you

40:11

know if he was the mean

40:13

scammer here. Are gets look

40:16

I swear by not only started exact

40:18

but also started a Tv networks called

40:20

bowl Be or else just looking at

40:22

a you tube channel. They show music

40:24

videos, game shows, talk shows, and news

40:27

channels. They seem pretty popular Stare Youtube

40:29

channel has five million subscribers and the

40:31

website says they have one hundred and

40:33

sixty six channels and sixteen languages. This

40:37

is interesting, writes a guy who's running

40:39

a fake degrees scam. Is. Also

40:41

controlling the press. Is.

40:43

Got a lot of money and

40:45

it's pretty influential. One thing

40:48

about Pakistan is if you

40:50

have money, You. Have power,

40:53

You. Can get away with doing things that

40:55

are those would be arrested for. Oh,

40:58

and she was always. Seeing about how

41:01

he was. Donating to charities and

41:03

sitting of different things to help

41:05

the people of Pakistan. So.

41:07

Lot of people liked him. The.

41:09

Exact website says Sway Bar

41:11

has set up schools, food

41:13

and shelter systems, and health

41:16

systems all through his charitable

41:18

giving. And he himself

41:20

graduated from one of Pakistan's most

41:22

prestigious business universities. so he clearly

41:24

has great business skills. A

41:27

He's not the only one running the company. But.

41:29

I'm having a hard time finding a

41:32

clear corporate structure showing exactly who's there,

41:34

and I just don't know how many

41:36

executives were involved And it's possible that

41:39

one of the other executives made up

41:41

his scheme and got this whole thing

41:43

going. And maybe Swaim just doesn't know.

41:45

That there's like a big scam gonna. Tear

41:48

I just. I don't personally believe that theory

41:50

that he wouldn't know that what's going on

41:52

in his own company. And one reason is

41:54

because. What happened in two thousand and

41:56

Nine? or so in two thousand

41:58

and nine a woman from Michigan got her

42:00

online high school diploma from an exact

42:02

school called Belford High School. And I

42:05

guess she felt like they lied to

42:07

her. She must have paid for classes

42:09

and enrolled in the school. But then when she got

42:11

her diploma and realized it was fake, she

42:13

sued exact. And that case

42:15

got turned into a class action lawsuit. There were

42:18

30,000 people who

42:20

were also listed in this lawsuit,

42:22

suing exact. The lawyer

42:24

representing the victim said he heard hundreds of people

42:26

give stories about how they felt like they were

42:29

tricked by the scheme. So

42:31

imagine being exact

42:33

in this moment.

42:35

Okay. 30,000 people are suing you and

42:38

you need to represent yourself in court

42:40

in the US. So

42:42

do you go? Do you go to court? No,

42:45

no, God, no. Exact

42:47

does not want to show up in court because

42:49

it would absolutely taint the record no matter what

42:51

the outcome would be, right? But

42:54

a defendant did show up to

42:56

court, some Pakistani guy and

42:58

his name was Salem Qureshi. And nobody

43:00

had ever heard of him before. He

43:02

doesn't seem to be involved with exact

43:04

at all. Like he's not someone from

43:07

their legal team or executive team. So

43:09

what's he doing here in court? And what's he

43:11

got to say? Salem spoke up

43:13

in court and he's like, okay, listen, it

43:15

was me who made the Belford High School

43:17

website. I just made the whole thing up

43:20

inside my apartment. And yeah, I can understand

43:22

why people feel tricked. I'm sorry. I'm not

43:24

affiliated with exact, but I was the one

43:26

who made the thing. In

43:28

fact, this guy's Salem didn't even go to court. He

43:30

just phoned it in. He only did like a short

43:33

video call from some dimly lit apartment. And

43:35

he said he was in Karachi, Pakistan at

43:37

the time. It's prosecuting lawyers

43:39

like, no, no, no, hold on. The

43:41

mailbox for Belford High School is the

43:44

same mailbox for exact. And Salem is

43:46

like, Oh yeah, that must have been

43:48

a mistake. I'm not connected to

43:50

exact at all. And yep, that's my

43:52

mailbox. And the judge

43:54

was like, the

43:58

judge is like, okay, Salem. You

44:00

said you did it, so you're guilty. And

44:04

Salem took the fall. So

44:07

in 2012, the court ordered him

44:09

to pay $22.7 million to the

44:12

plaintiffs. But

44:15

Salem just LOL'd right out

44:17

and disappeared. He hasn't paid a

44:20

cent of that since 2012, and

44:22

investigators tried to find him, but nobody can.

44:24

He's hiding out somewhere in Pakistan. I

44:27

gotta say, that is a brilliant

44:29

legal move, if that

44:31

was the work of Exact's legal team, right? To

44:34

just grab some guy to like block

44:36

your whole incoming lawsuit, and

44:38

then just make the whole thing disappear. I

44:41

mean, really, honestly, hats off for that.

44:43

That is such a ridiculous move, and

44:45

it works so effectively. Why doesn't everyone

44:47

do that? I mean, if I ever

44:49

get sued, I'm just gonna grab someone

44:51

and be like, Hey, can you say

44:53

you're jacking? Just like take the

44:56

blame? It's just so comical. That's

44:58

this simple, stupid trick

45:00

work. Like, why

45:02

didn't the court see through this and be

45:04

like, No, no, no, no, hold on a

45:06

second. Get Exact in here. No,

45:09

this guy Salem convinced the court it

45:11

was him. Without

45:13

even trying very hard. Ah,

45:16

this is just, I can't get over this.

45:20

Okay, the serious face. So

45:24

at this point of the story, a

45:26

new protagonist shows up. His name is

45:28

Declan Walsh. Now

45:31

I reached out to Declan like at least three times.

45:33

I emailed him, I tweeted at him, I even went

45:36

through some of his friends, but no response. The dude

45:38

is mad busy, and I don't blame him for not

45:40

responding, but at least I tried, right? Anyway,

45:43

it doesn't matter because he left a mark

45:45

on this story and documented everything along the

45:47

way. Declan Walsh is a reporter

45:49

for the New York Times, and he was doing

45:51

a bunch of stories in Pakistan and saw this

45:53

and was like, Wait a

45:55

minute, there's something not right about

45:58

this company exact and investigated. In

46:00

fact, he spent two years investigating this story. He

46:02

spoke with a bunch of people who worked at

46:04

Exact, and he talked to people

46:06

who bought fake degrees from there. He even

46:08

spoke with Fazal, the same guy you heard

46:10

earlier. I mean, it was really phenomenal reporting

46:13

what he did, and he published a really

46:15

good article in the New York Times exposing

46:17

all the shenanigans that Exact was getting up

46:19

to. And he found that

46:21

Exact had set up over 300 websites of

46:25

fake schools, and like 18 of them

46:27

were accrediting bodies, you

46:30

know, the places that confirm a school

46:32

is legitimate. Dang, that's

46:34

just like a lot of schools that he's made up. So

46:37

much work went into building this company. Yeah,

46:40

well, when Declan's New York Times

46:42

article was published, it rippled through

46:44

Pakistan. People were mad. What's up

46:46

with this? It looked really bad

46:48

for a Pakistani company to be

46:50

so scammy, you know? So

46:52

the FIA, which is like Pakistan's FBI,

46:55

was like, okay, okay, we'll check into it. We'll

46:57

see if there's any fraud here. Meanwhile,

46:59

Exact's lawyers are sending letters to the

47:02

New York Times like, hey, you're writing

47:04

lies about us. We don't like it.

47:06

It's baseless and defamatory. We're gonna pursue

47:08

strict legal action against you. But

47:11

the FIA was investigating Exact. And

47:14

yeah, they found enough evidence to open a case. What's

47:16

more is they really didn't like the kind of

47:18

bullying behavior that they were trying to scam customers

47:21

out of more money by threatening them and deceiving

47:23

them. So the FIA

47:25

took action. They raided the

47:27

offices of Exact. They

47:30

just started grabbing everything once they

47:32

got in there, computers, documents, people.

47:34

But absolutely none of the executives

47:36

were around during the raid, which

47:39

is kind of suspicious. Like, how did those executives know not

47:41

to come in the office that day? But

47:44

the people they did grab, they questioned

47:46

them and just let them go. They

47:48

found in the building next to Exact is

47:51

where they were printing all the fake degrees.

47:53

They had printers there and fancy paper, everything.

47:55

And they just took it all. And

47:58

at this point, The

48:00

timeline becomes very dizzying to me. I tried

48:02

my best to like get it all sorted

48:04

out, but it's just, it's fuzzy. There's some

48:06

gaps, I'm sure. Um, but I'll,

48:08

I'll do what I can to explain what I

48:10

think happened, but I'm just, let you know this

48:12

story from here on out is kind of difficult

48:14

to know exactly what happened.

48:17

So the FIA raids the exact offices,

48:19

right? But they didn't arrest anyone. Well,

48:21

with the information they gathered from the

48:23

raid, they found enough evidence to put

48:25

out arrest warrants for 23 people,

48:28

including the CEO, Schwabe Shake.

48:31

I can't tell if any of them were actually caught

48:33

or arrested or if they turned themselves in or did

48:35

any jail time at all. And I can't even tell

48:37

you who the 23 people are that had arrest warrants

48:39

out for them. I'm assuming they

48:41

were executives or people involved. Actually,

48:43

I did see an article that said Schwabe's wife

48:45

was one of the people with arrest warrants, but

48:47

hers was dismissed because they didn't have enough evidence

48:49

on her. But I did read that

48:52

all 23 people who did get arrest

48:54

warrants were just like quickly released on bail. So

48:56

I don't know if they did any jail time

48:58

or just maybe a day or two before leaving.

49:01

And during that FIA investigation, they found that

49:03

guy, Salem, the guy who took the fall

49:05

for the class action lawsuit. A few years

49:07

back, he admitted that exact

49:09

had paid him to take the fall.

49:12

In fact, when he was appearing on

49:14

video in court, he only acted like

49:16

he was moving his lips and then

49:19

some exact official was like off camera

49:21

saying the things for him. And

49:23

then they paid him $250 to go into hiding and disappear. Well,

49:28

the FIA was like, okay, we

49:30

did our job. We gathered the evidence. We raided

49:32

the office. We arrested some folks. Court,

49:35

it's now on you to finish up and

49:37

sentence them. There's

49:39

documents that suggest that exact

49:41

made hundreds of millions of

49:43

dollars from their scams. They

49:45

took money from over 200,000 people around the

49:47

world. And

49:50

this means it was one of the biggest scams of

49:52

all time. Stephen

49:54

Colbert even joked about this here. Listen

49:57

to this. That's right. The Pakistani company

49:59

was selling. fake college diplomas, which

50:01

explains where Bin Laden got his degree

50:03

in women's studies. Luckily,

50:07

Pakistani authorities arrested the axe-axe

50:09

CEO, charging him with illegal

50:11

money transfers, forgery and fraud.

50:14

No doubt he'll represent himself in court. I

50:16

hear he's got like 20 law degrees. Well,

50:21

I for one am glad they caught the guy

50:23

charging people hundreds of thousands of dollars for fake

50:25

degrees is appalling. I believe that fake

50:27

college should be free. And

50:30

college should be free. I agree,

50:32

Stephen. Fake college should

50:34

always be free. Now,

50:37

before the sentence could be carried out,

50:39

this guy, Judge Memon, suddenly and out

50:42

of the blue, acquitted all of the

50:44

people who were accused. Like somehow the

50:46

number was now at 27 people being

50:48

accused. So Schwabe and 26 others just

50:51

all had their charges dropped just by

50:53

the judge and they were free to

50:55

go. Like, you're done. There

50:58

was no explanation or anything.

51:01

It was just unreal. But

51:04

the Pakistani courts like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

51:06

hold on. Wait, what just happened? And

51:08

they looked into this guy, Judge Memon,

51:10

further and they found that he

51:12

accepted a bribe from Schwabe for

51:15

about $18,000 to just acquit everyone.

51:18

What's the court found out about this

51:20

bribe? They fired the judge and unacquitted

51:22

all 27 people involved and

51:24

reopened all the cases. And

51:26

one guy was pretty unlucky in all this,

51:29

Umer Hamid. He was the vice

51:31

president of Exact and guess what?

51:33

He was living in the U.S. So the authorities were

51:35

able to nab him and he pled guilty. He

51:37

had no escape from the U.S. justice system. There was no

51:40

one to like put in front of him and say, oh,

51:42

there's this other guy. So he

51:44

went to prison for like a year and a half. In

51:48

2018, the Pakistani Sessions Court

51:50

found 23 Exact employees and

51:52

executives guilty of impersonation, cheating

51:55

and dishonesty, forgery and aiding

51:57

and abetting. And the judges.

51:59

like, okay, I'm going to give you all

52:01

your sentence now. But there's

52:04

this moment in court where the judge

52:06

is like, where is

52:08

everyone? None of the 23 defendants

52:10

showed up to their sentencing hearing.

52:12

None. The

52:14

judge is like, well, that's rude. I'm

52:17

removing all your bail and I'm calling for

52:19

your re-arrest with no bail option this time.

52:22

And then the court issued prison sentences for

52:24

all 23 people. I

52:27

think the highest that someone got was seven years

52:29

in prison, but collectively it all added up to

52:31

20 years prison time. On

52:34

top of that, they're all fine, like a significant

52:36

amount of rupees too. And

52:38

also somewhere in here, Schwabe lost

52:40

control over a bowl, that TV

52:43

studio he started, um, it

52:46

looks like the Pakistan Electronic Media

52:48

Regulatory Authority revoked the broadcasting license

52:50

that bowl had, I guess

52:53

until Schwabe stepped down or something, but

52:56

then in 2023, a different company came

52:58

in and bought bowls. So definitely out

53:00

of his hands now. Okay.

53:03

So that's that right? 23 people sentenced

53:05

to prison for this whole exact degree

53:07

mail scam. You'd think exact would

53:09

just like shutter its business and the CEO would

53:11

just face his punishment. Well, no,

53:15

from what I could tell, even though he was sentenced in

53:17

2018, it wasn't until 2023

53:19

that he was arrested. And

53:22

don't ask me how he managed to stay free all that

53:24

time. Like I said, the details

53:26

here are just baffling to say the least.

53:29

And I have a lot of questions, but

53:31

apparently business went on as normal and exact,

53:34

and there's a video of the FIA

53:36

arresting the CEO Schwabe at the Islamabad

53:38

airport. I'll try to describe the scene

53:40

to you. Um, Schwabe's wearing like a black polo

53:42

shirt and they still can very calm and a

53:44

little confused, um, but not struggling or yelling or

53:47

anything. And they put them in a car and

53:49

they drive them away kind of uneventful.

53:52

And even after all that, there's still a lot

53:54

of people on his side, like the bowl news

53:56

station with saying things like he's being abducted. We

53:58

don't know where they took them. And

54:00

they're only arresting him because he supports Imran

54:02

Khan! And this whole arrest is a violation

54:05

of freedom of speech! Well,

54:07

you can guess his arrest didn't last

54:09

long. I believe he only spent two

54:11

days in jail and then was released.

54:14

And all I can find is that he submitted

54:16

documents to the FIA, who then let him go

54:18

based off those documents. Are you

54:20

still working there? No, no, no.

54:24

My wife was not

54:26

happy with me being part of this and

54:28

wanted me to quit. So I did.

54:31

Yeah, I don't work there anymore. I've

54:33

gone to work for a different tech

54:36

company. So yeah, that's

54:38

where we stand today. Exact.

54:42

It looks to me that they're still

54:44

in operation. And the

54:46

CEO did not serve his prison sentence. And

54:49

I guess he's doing just fine out in the world. I

54:52

guess, what could he be doing? Appealing the

54:55

case? That's possible. Maybe he

54:57

just has some deals with people to like, don't

54:59

like arrest him anymore or like drop the case.

55:01

I don't know. It's just too hard for

55:04

me to cut through the noise to find answers of what's going

55:06

on over there. My guess is

55:08

that with his wealth and power, he

55:10

just has a lot of pull in

55:12

that country. Politicians and government officials have

55:14

been very vocal that they're on his

55:16

side. And who knows what they're

55:18

doing to help him get out of all this mess. I

55:21

have a feeling that this is not the

55:23

last time we'll hear about Exact. And

55:25

I'm really curious what they get

55:27

up to next. A

55:36

big thank you to Fazal, which is not his real name, for

55:38

sharing the story with us. And if it wasn't for him bringing

55:40

me the story and telling me all about this, I wouldn't even

55:43

know about this. Oh, and thanks

55:45

to Shrikant Joshi for doing the voice acting

55:47

on this one. If you're looking for a

55:49

new shirt, I got your back. Go to

55:51

shop.darknetdiaries.com and check it out. I think there

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are over 50 different shirt

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designs there. And I guarantee you're going

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to find one you love. Please

56:00

check out the show. This episode

56:02

was created by me, the TikTok

56:04

Tiger, Chuck Resider, sound designed by

56:06

the wily-whiskard Andrew Merriweather. This episode

56:08

was assembled by the strewned, perfumed

56:10

raccoon, Tristan Ledger, mixing done by

56:12

Proximity Sounder. Our theme music is

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by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. What

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