Cheating The System: Financial Fraud. Matthew Cox

Money You Should Ask

Episode 228: If a situation presents itself and you could commit fraud and not suffer any consequences, would you do it? When someone thinks about committing fraud, they’re likely thinking about the financial benefits that can come from it. What goes through a person's mind in the moments leading up to and during a fraudulent act? Is it about the money or is it more?

Our next guest, former licensed mortgage broker and now true crime author Matthew Cox was declared as “one of the most prolific mortgage fraud con artists of all time,” by CNBC's American Greed. In this episode, Matt and I discuss his mindset around money before, during, and after his time in prison. He sheds some light on how perpetrators rationalize their behavior and what motivated him to commit fraud.

Matt’s criminal case received national media attention after he used forgeries, combined with stolen and synthetic identities to swindle America's biggest banks out of an estimated $55 million. Despite numerous encounters with bank security, state and federal authorities, Cox narrowly, and quite luckily, avoided capture for nearly a decade. Eventually he topped the Secret Service's most wanted list, and led the U.S. Marshals, FBI, and the Secret Service on a three-year chase, while jet-setting around the world.

Matt is a published author of several popular true crime books, including: Shark in the Housing Pool, Once a Gun Runner, Generation Oxy, Bent, and It’s Insanity. Check out Matt Cox's Inside True Crime channel on You Tube where he highlights unique, clever, and bizarre true crime stories.

Learn more about this episode at https://go2.money/fraud