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Sept. 30, 2023 - Blood Money

01:09:58

Child Kidnapping and Ransom Crimes in the USA w/ Jennifer Destefano

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	♪♪♪
	I'm gonna ask you to dive right into it.
	This, you know, before every episode, we get sent a press kit by the person that's being interviewed, and this one was one of the most insane stories I've ever read.
	So, could you just tell us a little bit, you know, about yourself and, you know, lead us into all this craziness that happened to you?
	Yeah, so I have four kids.
	I had two that were training for a ski race, and I had one that was at dance rehearsal.
	So I went to go meet my daughter that was at dance rehearsal while my other two were up training.
	I received a phone call.
	It said unknown number.
	I was going to let it go to voicemail.
	I was getting out of my car.
	And instead, I chose to answer it because it can be a medic sometimes or a doctor or hospital.
	And I knew that I had two up on the mountain, so it's not a concern for their safety.
	So I decided to go ahead and answer it.
	And it was my older daughter's voice saying, Mom, and she's sobbing and crying.
	And she's a very particular sob and cry.
	It's more of an internal sob.
	It's not a wail. It's not a scream.
	It's not a freak out. She's very controlled.
	So, didn't think anything of it.
	Okay, what happened?
	Mom, I messed up.
	Okay, what'd you do? What's going on?
	And then all of a sudden I heard a man say, lay down, put your head back.
	And at that point, I started to panic because I thought she had been severely injured, maybe being tobogganed, whatnot, down the mountain.
	And all of a sudden she goes, Mom, these bad men have me.
	Help me, help me, help me.
	And this guy gets on the phone and she's pleading for help.
	He takes over the phone and says, listen here, I've got your daughter.
	You call the police, you call anybody.
	I'm going to pop her stomach so full of drugs and have my way with her.
	And I'm going to drop her in Mexico and you'll never see her again.
	And at that point, and it even still gives me chills, I just started shaking.
	I was walking into my other daughter's dance studio, and I started screaming for help.
	There was a few moms there, fortunately, who came around me and heard all the threats the man was making with my daughter.
	One called 911.
	Another one sat beside me.
	Well, the third one, and my...
	My younger daughter was a witness to the conversation, her phone out, and I was instructing her to call her dad, call her sister, call her brothers, find out where her sister is, what's going on.
	So the other mom went to her side to help start dialing those numbers and calling people and trying to figure out and locate where Bree is.
	And that's my older daughter.
	In that process, the man demanded a million dollar...
	I was like, I don't know how that's going to be possible, a million dollars, whatnot.
	He got really angry at me, started making more threats, and then came down to $50,000.
	At that point, the mom that was on with 911 came back inside and had informed us that 911 had told her that there was a AI scam going around where they can take someone's voice, it can be a small snippet, they can replicate their voice, their inflection, their cry, everything, and that this has been going on.
	Which was a little reassuring at that point in time, but still I couldn't say that that was exactly what had happened.
	So at this point with the $50,000 I was asking him for how do you want the money, do you want a wire, what's the routing number, He refused.
	He wanted it to be nontraceable, so he was demanding that he come pick me up, that I was to be bagged so I wouldn't know where I was being transported to.
	He was going to pick me up in a white van and that I better have all the cash, otherwise my daughter and him and myself are both dead.
	And he wanted to make arrangements for the pickup.
	So 9-1-1 at that point were requesting dispatch for police officers to come to me.
	We didn't know if he knew my location.
	We didn't know what. I wasn't giving him my location.
	He was getting angry that I was delaying the conversation.
	And then at that point, the third mom finally was able to locate Bree and locate through my husband.
	And my older son was also able to get his sister on the phone.
	So she came to me and told me that she was safe with my husband.
	And I didn't believe her the first couple times she told me because her voice was so real.
	And she's like, how can she be with my husband?
	And yet, how can she be with these men?
	I don't understand. I just at that moment was trying to have a hard time processing what was real and what was not real.
	So when I finally got the chance to speak to my daughter on the phone and she reassured me if she was fine where she was at, she was able to confirm where she was at physically, then I knew that the voice that had been on the phone with me was not real.
	And at that point in time, I Called the men out for what they were doing and then I hung up on them.
	I did talk to the police because there was no money transferred and there was no physical kidnapping even though there was intent.
	There was nothing more they could do so now we're having the conversation so hopefully they can stop it happening to other people.
	I mean, that's the most insane part of the story is them saying that there's nothing they could do because, I mean, what are they waiting for?
	Like somebody to actually, you know, pay the ransom?
	I mean, how bad does it have to get before they take it very seriously?
	Because this is just insane that anybody could do this to somebody.
	I mean, we started off with these scams where, hey, I got a bank account over here and wire me $10,000 and you'll get $20 million or whatever.
	But this is like really sophisticated.
	I mean, ruinous people.
	What should be done in terms of addressing this issue?
	So I brought that up to them.
	I know somebody else, once we started having these conversations, who actually did transfer money, they received a phone call and actually came up on their phone as their daughter's phone calling them, where mine was just an unknown number.
	So they didn't have any doubt in their mind and had wired $1,500.
	The police did get involved in that, but it ended in Mexico and that was the end of it.
	And when I put the story out there on next door, as a warning, a number of people came forward and people who had transferred money, I never heard of one prosecution.
	So I you know, that's a great question as to what can be done about this.
	I know the FBI is looking into this topic.
	I was informed later that one suggestion, or if anyone is to receive a call like this, is to tell 911 to immediately turn it over to the FBI, because then the FBI can look at it differently and then track it.
	So that's a great advice. But as far as coming to a conclusion, I haven't heard anything yet.
	Wow, wow. I mean, it's, you know, one of the things we hear, we just interviewed a lawyer and he was complaining, a really prominent lawyer, and he was complaining that because of the way the system works right now, where everything seems to be like for-profit focused, something like this that would probably take millions upon millions of dollars to properly investigate these kind of cases are often Brushed under the rug.
	Is that the impression that you're getting that they just have no interest in investing time and money into pursuing these sorts of scams?
	Unfortunately, yes. I was offered for a police officer to call me to give me comfort that I'm safe, but that doesn't give me any comfort, especially when they were a physical pickup, a physical kidnapping of me by using her voice as a lure.
	That scared me. Then you bring that forward.
	Well, now you can actually use it for physical kidnapping, for physical human trafficking, and that scared me to my core.
	And I don't know if that's what it's going to take in order for someone to finally do something, and it should not have to get to that point.
	I mean, is it a concern that I guess they found your daughter's voice online or something?
	I mean, how were they able to replicate your daughter's voice, do you think?
	So that's been a conversation that's racked my brain.
	She has had a couple of public interviews.
	She's in athletics. She was sponsored for an outerwear company when she skied, but she doesn't have public accounts with her talking social media of her own.
	They were photos or videos of her racing or she had some TikTok videos on a very small account of them dancing, but that's it.
	All of her stuff is very private.
	And the crying and the sobbing and the uniqueness of that, that really is what baffled me.
	I know there's some conversation that's come out about Snapchat and AI that they now have on Snap.
	I could see that being a source.
	But like I said, I have four children and out of my four children, she is by far my most quiet, my least active.
	Because she has a brother who's a newscaster for school, and so he's published every week in video.
	And she has a younger brother who's a sponsored athlete, so he has a public account for his sponsors and endorsements.
	But so if I were to pick, if I was the person doing this, this would be the last child of mine that I would be able to get that information from.
	Well, so what are the actions now that you're taking?
	You know, now that you know there's this really significant issue that AI is so available right now that this could, I mean, you know, millions of people could fall victims to the stress, the anxiety, the loss of money, potential kidnapping, like you almost became victim to.
	I mean, what are the steps that you're taking right now to, you know, inform people of what's really going on?
	So the immediate steps is awareness, obviously, creating a safe word, safe conversation, something that you can have so you can make sure you can identify that the person you're speaking to is really them.
	Other conversations we're having is communication.
	A lot of people have come to me, they were afraid to share their story, they were afraid to ask for help, because they really believe that the person Their child who had been kidnapped or whoever it was, was going to be harmed if they shared and asked for help.
	And so they transferred money or they acted without having conversations, without communicating.
	So bringing comfort to that.
	And then as far as going forward, I would like to see some kind of licensing, some kind of tracking, if nothing more than to help police and law enforcement be able to track down these perpetrators who have been exploiting this and exploiting people as a result.
	Wow. Okay.
	And is there the response in terms of when you're speaking with people?
	Have you been speaking with people in political realms?
	What's the feedback been like?
	I haven't in the political realm so much.
	I have entertained that idea.
	It would be a great conversation to have with politicians on what we can do.
	I know we've had some conversations, I've had some conversations before about privacy and security and some other matters with school boards and whatnot.
	I definitely think this is a topic that needs to come forward and needs to be entertained on what we can do for protecting families and Yeah.
	I mean, in a perfect world, you know, this sort of thing.
	I mean, I'm assuming a lot of this stuff is coming from overseas, probably like you're giving that one example of they tracked it down to Mexico.
	Is that something that is safe to assume that a lot of this is from overseas?
	Like those kind of, you know, they used to joke about the Nigerian banking scams because so much of them were coming, being emailed from Nigeria.
	So is that the same similar in terms of this issue?
	I could see that being very real.
	I used to study in Mexico.
	I definitely could have traced my situation.
	I could see how it could lead to Mexico.
	The only thing I would say is that I have heard another story, and this one blew my mind.
	It was a lady who was interviewed about how the bondsman, because it was a car accident, Showed up at her door to collect the bag of cash.
	So that kind of then shifted it.
	Well, I don't know if it is all international, obviously, if there's actually physical contact being made in this one lady's situation.
	But, you know, what the situation with my other friend's cousin, it did trace to Mexico, so that would substantiate that.
	Yeah, yeah. And in your situation, they were talking about you actually having a physical meeting.
	So, I mean, it could also be that they have a dual thing going on.
	There's overseas people, there's people local.
	I mean, it's just mind boggling.
	It seems as though this is something that should be taken really seriously with like federal task forces, literally hunting down these individuals.
	Because, I mean, if you don't, the next thing that happens, like the quote unquote, the Nigerian email scams, is they go on forever, you know?
	And there are, I mean, just based upon our research, there are laws in place that give the United States international jurisdiction when people in the United States are being harmed by crimes that are committed in other jurisdictions.
	So you think that, you know, but again, the The topic we keep coming back to is that, you know, we have a social contract with our government and it seems as though that is kind of not being necessarily upheld because something like this would seem like it should be top of mind and not some of the other nonsense that we're wasting money on, you know? I agree.
	I was floored when I put this on Nextdoor, how many people came forward with their versions.
	And it wasn't all just, I hung up, I knew it was a scam.
	There was a lot of, one lady told me how her husband was driving halfway to Mexico with a bag of cash until he could finally get in touch with his daughter.
	And fortunately in Phoenix, we are a huge highway.
	We all know that human trafficking is large here.
	The reason why this story was held back specifically was because it was during the Super Bowl and during the Phoenix Open where they know that that's also high time for human trafficking.
	So that is a reality and a risk.
	And like you said, we shouldn't have to wait for something to become so drastic in order for measures to be taken.
	Yeah, and by the way, on the topic of human trafficking, there's some ladies we interviewed recently, I think, I hope I'm not getting the episode wrong, I think it's episode 72 or 73 of Blood Money with the Patriot Chicks, and they actually talked about how they made a documentary about human trafficking around the Super Bowl,
	because this year it was in Arizona, in Phoenix, and based upon their research, it seems as though human trafficking is at its highest Even though Arizona is traditionally, unfortunately, a state that has a lot of human trafficking, but around the Super Bowl, it seems to be hitting a peak and some of their findings were rather shocking, like how, you know, especially with young girls in human trafficking and pedophiles and that sort of thing.
	So anyway, I encourage people to check out that episode because these two ladies are literally Doing Project Veritas type work where they're embedding themselves in a place like the Super Bowl to expose how bad the human trafficking is in Arizona.
	And again, you'd think their big complaint was that, hey, you have these local law enforcement that have Tiny budgets because they're getting defunded in such a bad way and so their task force is when it comes to human trafficking and pedophiles has been slashed and there's absolutely no federal task force and the federal government doesn't seem to care even though it's clear that you know they don't have a huge budget they're doing this all out of pocket yet they're exposing so
	much of this stuff with their very limited means it's obvious that this is of epidemic proportions One hundred percent.
	In fact, I had an instance when I was in real estate.
	I had brought a client to a home and it was evident that this was involved in human sex trafficking.
	And there was, without getting into so much detail because it's horrific, there was lots of pornography.
	There was evidence of children that had been there, of women, whatnot.
	And I I tried to report it and I hit every wall that was possible and then I was able to find the owner through a public record and reached out to him and he pleaded with me for help because he would go over there and chase everybody out knowing what was going on in this house that he owned that he was trying to sell during when we had the real estate market collapse.
	So I had to call personal favors up to the governor and then from a couple of different people to have this situation looked into because I was literally told by the PD that we just don't have the manpower to do anything.
	Wow, wow, that's crazy.
	One of the points that I was actually writing down this note so I wouldn't forget, one of the points that the ladies made from the Patriot Chicks is that slavery is human trafficking, that this is just a different form of, I mean, human trafficking is almost a nice word because it is really slavery at the end of the day that we're talking about.
	And, you know, not to get too controversial here, but we just interviewed an attorney by the name of Todd Callender, right?
	And we had a conversation, I mean, this is a highly experienced attorney, and we had a conversation about how, you know, for example, by law, man and woman is protected by law, by constitution, right?
	The minute you get into all these other sexes, you're basically falling into a slave state because those laws no longer apply to you.
	That's a literal legal definition he was telling us about.
	The reason I bring this up is because, you know, there's definitely been a movement to forget that we are man-woman and introduce these 72 other sexes and put cis in front of man-woman.
	You know, it just seems to be a perversion of the law in order to land us into more of a slave state.
	And, you know, it's just no wonder that things like human trafficking that is basically modern day slavery and modern day slavery is worse than any other form of slavery historically, even though we sit here and we talk about, you know, historical slavery in America.
	The fact is that this is we're in a time that slavery is at its worst when you when you really look at the definition of what things are.
	So And it's just interesting that we keep turning a blind eye to that.
	So anyway, that's my little rant about the topic.
	Jennifer, do you have anything else you'd like to mention in closing that we haven't touched upon?
	Websites where people could help you, you know, anything of that sort?
	You know, the mic is yours. Yeah, there's one other thing that came to my awareness and that's not only can they do this with a small snippet of audio, but they can also do an entire visual presentation with just a photograph.
	So I also like to bring awareness to this just came and used very easily off the internet as well.
	So someone could take just a photo of your child and create an entire visual presentation with a video chat.
	So this goes so much further than we're aware of.
	And so you have to stay on top of it and be aware and spreading the message.
	So thank you for that.
	Yeah, that's insane.
	I mean, I just, it harkens back to, you know, you've seen, you know, I'm sure you've seen these movies about slavery where they have, you know, if they would, if they had cameras at that time, I'm sure they would put pictures up of, you know, this is what the person is, you know, but they used to bring them on stage and do their presentation.
	It's just insane. People could literally create that, you know, I just look at the implications of this, of letting This continue, really being that it doesn't become, you know, just this AI thing, it really manifests itself into real kidnapping, real human trafficking, like who knows what would happen to you if you'd gone along and met these guys, you just, you know?
	So it's just wild that this is something that's so obviously happening in front of us, the repercussions of which are so clear and, you know, I don't know.
	You don't need to be a genius to realize where this could go, yet it's brushed under the rug.
	Jennifer, thank you so much for showing up to this episode of Blood Money.
	We really appreciate your time and your willingness to share this incredible story with us as a warning.
	Thank you for the viewers for showing up to this episode.
	I hope you enjoyed this episode.
	I'll see you next time.
	Bye.
	This, you know, before every episode, we get sent a press kit by the person that's being interviewed.
	And this one was one of the most insane stories I've ever read.
	So could you just tell us a little bit, you know, about yourself and, you know, lead us into all this craziness that happened to you?
	Yeah, so I have four kids.
	I had two that were training for a ski race, and I had one that was at dance rehearsal.
	So I went to go meet my daughter that was at dance rehearsal while my other two were up training.
	I received a phone call.
	It said, unknown number.
	I was going to let it go to voicemail.
	I was getting out of my car.
	And instead, I chose to answer it because it can be a medic sometimes or a doctor or hospital.
	And I knew that I had two up on the mountain, so it's not a concern for their safety.
	So I decided to go ahead and answer it.
	And it was my older daughter's voice saying, Mom, and she's sobbing and crying.
	And she's a very particular sob and cry.
	It's more of an internal sob.
	It's not a wail. It's not a scream.
	It's not a freak out. She's very controlled.
	So didn't think anything of it.
	Okay, what happened?
	And mom, I messed up.
	Okay, what'd you do? What's going on?
	And then all of a sudden I heard a man say, lay down, put your head back.
	And at that point, I started to panic because I thought she had been severely injured, maybe being tobogganed, whatnot, down the mountain.
	And all of a sudden she goes, Mom, these bad men have me.
	Help me, help me, help me.
	And this guy gets on the phone and she's pleading for help.
	He takes over the phone and says, Listen here, I've got your daughter.
	You call the police, you call anybody.
	I'm going to pop her stomach so full of drugs and have my way with her.
	And I'm going to drop her in Mexico and you'll never see her again.
	And at that point, and even still gives me chills, I just started shaking.
	I was walking into my other daughter's dance studio, and I started screaming for help.
	There was a few moms there, fortunately, who came around me and heard all the threats the man was making with my daughter.
	One called 911.
	Another one sat beside me.
	Well, the third one, and my...
	My younger daughter was a witness to the conversation, her phone out, and I was instructing her to call her dad, call her sister, call her brothers, find out where her sister is, what's going on.
	So the other mom went to her side to help start dialing those numbers and calling people and trying to figure out and locate where Bree is.
	And that's my older daughter.
	In that process, the man demanded a million-dollar I was like, I don't know how that's going to be possible, a million dollars, whatnot.
	He got really angry at me, started making more threats, and then came down to $50,000.
	At that point, the mom that was on with 911 came back inside and had informed us that 911 had told her that there was a AI scam going around where they can take someone's voice, it can be a small snippet, they can replicate their voice, their inflection, their cry, everything, and that this has been going on.
	Which was a little reassuring at that point in time, but still, I couldn't say that that was exactly what had happened.
	So, at this point, with the $50,000, I was asking him for how do you want the money, do you Do you want a wire?
	What's the routing number?
	He refused. He wanted it to be non-traceable, so he was demanding that he come pick me up, that I was to be bagged so I wouldn't know where I was being transported to.
	He was going to pick me up in a white van and that I better have all the cash, otherwise my daughter and him and myself are both dead.
	And he wanted to make arrangements for the pickup.
	So 911 at that point, we're requesting dispatch for police officers to come to me.
	We didn't know if he knew my location.
	We didn't know what. I wasn't giving him my location.
	He was getting angry that I was delaying the conversation.
	And then at that point, the third mom finally was able to locate Bree and locate through my husband.
	And my older son was also able to get his sister on the phone.
	So she came to me and told me that she was safe with my husband.
	And I didn't believe her the first couple times she told me because her voice was so real.
	And she's like, how can she be with my husband?
	And yet, how can she be with these men?
	I don't understand. I just at that moment was trying to have a hard time processing what was real and what was not real.
	So when I finally got...
	The chance to speak to my daughter on the phone and she reassured if she was fine where she was at.
	She was able to confirm where she was at physically.
	Then I knew that the voice that had been on the phone with me was not real.
	And at that point in time, I called the men out for what they were doing.
	And then I hung up on them.
	I did talk to the police because there was no money transferred and there was no physical kidnapping.
	Even though there was intent, there was nothing more they could do.
	So Now we're having the conversation so hopefully they can stop it happening to other people.
	I mean, that's the most insane part of the story is them saying that there's nothing they could do because, I mean, what are they waiting for?
	Like somebody to actually, you know, pay the ransom?
	I mean, how bad does it have to get before they take it very seriously?
	Because this is just insane that anybody could do this to somebody.
	I mean, we should start off with these scams where, hey, I got a bank account over here and wire me $10,000 and you'll get $20 million or whatever.
	But this is like really sophisticated.
	I mean, ruinous people.
	You know, what should be done in terms of addressing this issue?
	So I brought that up to them.
	I know somebody else, once we started having these conversations, who actually did transfer money, they received a phone call and actually came up on their phone as their daughter's phone calling them, where mine was just an unknown number.
	So they didn't have any doubt in their mind and had wired $1,500.
	The police could get involved in that, but it dead ended in Mexico and that was the end of it.
	When I put the story out there on Next Door, as a warning, a number of people came forward and people who had transferred money, I never heard of one prosecution.
	So, you know, that's a great question as to what can be done about this.
	I know the FBI is looking into this topic.
	I was informed later that one suggestion or if anyone is to receive a call like this is to tell 911 to immediately turn it over to the FBI because then the FBI can look at it differently and then track it.
	So that's a great advice. But as far as coming to a conclusion, I haven't heard anything yet.
	Wow, wow. I mean, it's, you know, one of the things we hear, we just interviewed a lawyer and he was complaining, a really prominent lawyer, and he was complaining that because of the way the system works right now, where everything seems to be like for-profit focused, something like this that would probably take millions upon millions of dollars to properly investigate these kind of cases are often brushed under the rug.
	Is that the impression that you're getting, that they just have no interest in investing?
	Time and money into pursuing these sorts of scams.
	Unfortunately, yes. I was offered for a police officer to call me to give me comfort that I'm safe, but that doesn't give me any comfort, especially when they were a physical pickup, a physical kidnapping of me by using her voice as a lure.
	That scared me. Then you bring that forward.
	Well, now you can actually use it for physical kidnapping, for physical human trafficking, and that scared me to my core.
	And I don't know if that's what it's going to take in order for someone to finally do something, and it should not have to get to that point.
	I mean, is it a concern that I guess they found your daughter's voice online or something?
	I mean, how were they able to replicate your daughter's voice, do you think?
	So that's been a conversation that's racked my brain.
	She has had a couple of public interviews.
	She's in athletics. She was sponsored for an outerwear company when she skied, but she doesn't have public accounts with her talking social media of her own.
	They were photos or videos of her racing, or she had some TikTok videos on a very small account of them dancing, but that's it.
	All of her stuff is very private.
	And the crying and the sobbing and the uniqueness of that, that really is what baffled me.
	I know there's some conversation that's come out about Snapchat and AI that they now have on Snap.
	I could see that being a source.
	But like I said, I have four children and out of my four children, she is by far my most quiet, my least active.
	Because she has a brother who's a newscaster for school, and so he's published every week in video, and she has a younger brother who's a sponsored athlete, so he has a public account for his sponsors and endorsements.
	So if I were to pick, if I was the person doing this, this would be the last child of mine that I would be able to get that information from.
	Well, so what are the actions now that you're taking?
	You know, now that you know there's this really significant issue that AI is so available right now that this could, I mean, you know, millions of people could fall victims to the stress, the anxiety, the loss of money, potential kidnapping, like you almost became victim to.
	I mean, what are the steps that you're taking right now to, you know, inform people of what's really going on?
	So the immediate steps is awareness, obviously.
	Creating a safe word, safe conversation, something that you can have so you can make sure that you can identify that the person you're speaking to is really them.
	Other conversations we're having is communication.
	A lot of people have come to me.
	They were afraid to share their story.
	They were afraid to ask for help because they really believe that the person Their child who had been kidnapped or whoever it was, was going to be harmed if they shared and asked for help.
	And so they transferred money or they acted without having conversations, without communicating.
	So bringing comfort to that.
	And then as far as going forward, I would like to see some kind of licensing, some kind of tracking, if nothing more than to help police and law enforcement be able to track down these perpetrators who have been exploiting this and exploiting people as a result.
	Wow. Okay.
	And is there the response in terms of when you're speaking with people?
	Have you been speaking with people in political realms?
	What's the feedback been like?
	I haven't in the political realm so much.
	I have entertained that idea.
	It would be a great conversation to have with politicians on what we can do.
	I know we've had some conversations, I've had some conversations before about privacy and security and some other matters with school boards and whatnot.
	I definitely think this is a topic that needs to come forward and needs to be entertained on what we can do for protection of families and Yeah.
	I mean, in a perfect world, you know, this sort of thing.
	I mean, I'm assuming a lot of this stuff is coming from overseas, probably like you're giving that one example of they tracked it down to Mexico.
	Is that something that is safe to assume that a lot of this is from overseas like those kind of, you know, they used to joke about the Nigerian banking scams because so much of them were coming, being emailed from Nigeria.
	So is that the same similar in terms of this issue?
	I could see that being very real.
	I used to study in Mexico.
	I definitely could have traced my situation.
	I could see how it could lead to Mexico.
	The only thing I would say is that I have heard another story, and this one blew my mind.
	It was a lady who was interviewed about how the bondsman, because it was a car accident, Showed up at her door to collect the bag of cash.
	So that kind of then shifted it.
	Well, I don't know if it is all international, obviously, if there's actually physical contact being made in this one lady's situation.
	But the situation with my other friend's cousin, it did trace of Mexico, so that would substantiate that.
	Yeah. Yeah. And in your situation, they were talking about you actually having a physical meeting.
	So, I mean, it could also be that they have a dual thing going on.
	There's overseas people, there's people local.
	I mean, it's just mind boggling.
	It seems as though this is something that should be taken really seriously with like federal task forces, literally hunting down these individuals, because I mean, if you don't, the next thing that happens, like the quote unquote, the Nigerian email scams is they go on forever,
	you know? And there are, I mean, just based upon our research, there are laws in place that give the United States international jurisdiction when people in the United States are being harmed by crimes that are committed in other jurisdictions.
	So you think that, you know, but...
	Again, the topic we keep coming back to is that, you know, we have a social contract with our government and it seems as though that is kind of not being necessarily upheld because something like this would seem like it should be top of mind and not some of the other nonsense that we're wasting money on, you know? I agree.
	I was floored when I put this on Nextdoor, how many people came forward with their versions.
	And it wasn't all just, I hung up, I knew it was a scam.
	There was a lot of, one lady told me how her husband was driving halfway to Mexico with a bag of cash until he could finally get in touch with his daughter.
	And fortunately, in Phoenix, we are a huge highway.
	We all know that human trafficking is large here.
	The reason why this story was held back specifically was because it was during the Super Bowl and during the Phoenix Open, where they know that that's also high time for human trafficking.
	So, you know, that is a reality and a risk.
	And like you said, we shouldn't have to wait for something to become so drastic in order for measures to be taken.
	Yeah, and by the way, on the topic of human trafficking, there's some ladies we interviewed recently, I think, I hope I'm not getting the episode wrong, I think it's episode 72 or 73 of Blood Money with the Patriot Chicks, and they actually talked about how they made a documentary about human trafficking around the Super Bowl,
	because this year it was in Arizona, in Phoenix, And based upon their research, it seems as though human trafficking is at its highest, even though Arizona is traditionally, unfortunately, a state that has a lot of human trafficking.
	But around the Super Bowl, it seems to be hitting a peak.
	And some of their findings were rather shocking, like how, you know, especially with young girls in human trafficking and pedophiles and that sort of thing.
	So anyway, I encourage people to check out that episode because these two ladies are literally Doing Project Veritas type work where they're embedding themselves in a place like the Super Bowl to expose how bad the human trafficking is in Arizona.
	And again, you'd think their big complaint was that, hey, you have these local law enforcement that have Tiny budgets because they're getting defunded in such a bad way and so their task force is when it comes to human trafficking and pedophiles has been slashed and there's absolutely no federal task force and the federal government doesn't seem to care even though it's clear that you know they don't have a huge budget they're doing this all out of pocket yet they're exposing so
	much of this stuff with their very limited means it's obvious that this is of epidemic proportions One hundred percent.
	In fact, I had an instance when I was in real estate.
	I had brought a client to a home and it was evident that this was involved in human sex trafficking.
	And there was, without getting into so much detail because it's horrific, there was lots of pornography.
	There was evidence of children that had been there, of women, whatnot.
	And I I tried to report it and I hit every wall that was possible.
	And then I was able to find the owner through a public record And reached out to him and he pleaded with me for help because he would go over there and chase everybody out knowing what was going on in this house that he owned that he was trying to sell during when we had the real estate market collapse.
	So I had to call personal favors up to the governor and then from a couple of different people to have this situation looked into because I was literally told by the PD that we just don't have the manpower to do anything.
	Wow, wow, that's crazy.
	One of the points that I was actually writing down this note so I wouldn't forget, one of the points that the ladies made from the Patriot Chicks is that slavery is human trafficking, that this is just a different form of, I mean, human trafficking is almost a nice word because it is really slavery at the end of the day that we're talking about.
	And, you know, not to get too controversial here, but we just interviewed an attorney by the name of Todd Callender, right?
	And we had a conversation, I mean, this is a highly experienced attorney, and we had a conversation about how, you know, for example, by law, man and woman is protected by law, by constitution, right?
	The minute you get into all these other sexes, you're basically falling into a slave state because those laws no longer apply to you.
	That's a literal legal definition he was telling us about.
	The reason I bring this up is because, you know, there's definitely been a movement to forget that we are man-woman and introduce these 72 other sexes and put cis in front of man-woman.
	You know, it just seems to be a perversion of the law in order to land this.
	Into more of a slave state.
	And, you know, it's just no wonder that things like human trafficking that is basically modern day slavery and modern day slavery is worse than any other form of slavery historically, even though we sit here and we talk about, you know, historical slavery in America.
	The fact is that this is we're in a time that slavery is at its worst when you when you really look at the definition of what things are.
	So And it's just interesting that we keep turning a blind eye to that.
	So anyway, that's my little rant about the topic.
	Jennifer, do you have anything else you'd like to mention in closing that we haven't touched upon?
	Websites where people could help you, you know, anything of that sort?
	You know, the mic is yours. Yeah, there's one other thing that came to my awareness and that's not only can they do this with a small snippet of audio, but they can also do an entire visual presentation with just a photograph.
	So I also like to be doing awareness to this just came and used very easily off the internet as well.
	So someone could take just a photo of your child and create an entire visual presentation with a video chat.
	So this goes so much further than we're aware of.
	And so you have to stay on top of it and be aware and spreading the message.
	So thank you for that.
	Yeah, that's insane.
	I mean, I just, it harkens back to, you know, you've seen, you know, I'm sure you've seen these movies about slavery where they have, you know, if they had cameras at that time, I'm sure they would put pictures up of, you know, this is what the person is, you know, but they used to bring them on stage and do their presentation.
	It's just insane. People could literally create that, you know.
	I just look at the implications of this, of letting This continue, really being that it doesn't become, you know, just this AI thing, it really manifests itself into real kidnapping, real human trafficking, like who knows what would happen to you if you'd gone along and met these guys, you just, you know? So it's just wild that this is something that's so obviously happening in front of us, the repercussions of which are so clear and, you know, I don't know.
	You don't need to be a genius to realize where this could go, yet it's brushed under the rug.
	Jennifer, thank you so much for showing up to this episode of Blood Money.
	We really appreciate your time and your willingness to share this incredible story with us as a warning.
	Thank you for the viewers for showing up to this episode.
	I'm going to be doing a video on the new game, and I'm going to be doing a video on the new game.
	So, let's get started.
	episode 94 with Jennifer DiStefano.
	Child kidnapping and ransom crimes in the USA. So, you know, I'm just going to dive right into it, or I'm going to ask you to dive right into it.
	This, you know, before every episode, we get sent a press kit by the person that's being interviewed, and this one was one of the most insane stories I've ever read.
	So, could you just tell us a little bit, you know, about yourself and, you know, lead us into all this craziness that happened to you?
	Yeah, so I have four kids.
	I had two that were training for a ski race, and I had one that was at dance rehearsal.
	So I went to go meet my daughter that was at dance rehearsal while my other two were up training.
	I received a phone call.
	It said, unknown number.
	I was going to let it go to voicemail.
	I was getting out of my car.
	And instead, I chose to answer it because it can be a medic sometimes or a doctor or hospital.
	And I knew that I had two up on the mountain, so it's not a concern for their safety.
	So I decided to go ahead and answer it.
	And it was my older daughter's voice saying, Mom, and she's sobbing and crying.
	And she's a very particular sob and cry.
	It's more of an internal sob.
	It's not a wail. It's not a scream.
	It's not a freak out. She's very controlled.
	So didn't think anything of it.
	Okay, what happened?
	And mom, I messed up.
	Okay, what'd you do? What's going on?
	And then all of a sudden I heard a man say, lay down, put your head back.
	And at that point, I started to panic because I thought she had been severely injured, maybe being tobogganed, whatnot, down the mountain.
	And all of a sudden she goes, Mom, these bad men have me.
	Help me, help me, help me.
	And this guy gets on the phone and she's pleading for help.
	He takes over the phone and says, listen here, I've got your daughter.
	You call the police, you call anybody.
	I'm going to pop her stomach so full of drugs and have my way with her.
	And I'm going to drop her in Mexico and you'll never see her again.
	And at that point, and even still gives me chills, I just started shaking.
	I was walking into my other daughter's dance studio and I started screaming for help.
	There was a few moms there, fortunately, who came around me and heard all the threats the man was making with my daughter.
	One called 911.
	Another one sat beside me.
	Well, the third one and my My younger daughter was a witness to the conversation, her phone out, and I was instructing her to call her dad, call her sister, call her brothers, find out where her sister is, what's going on.
	So the other mom went to her side to help start dialing those numbers and calling people and trying to figure out and locate where Bree is.
	And that's my older daughter.
	In that process, the man demanded a million-dollar I was like, I don't know how that's going to be possible, a million dollars, whatnot.
	He got really angry at me, started making more threats, and then came down to $50,000.
	At that point, the mom that was on with 911 came back inside and had informed us that 911 had told her that there was a AI scam going around where they can take someone's voice, it can be a small snippet, they can replicate their voice, their inflection, their cry, everything, and that this has been going on.
	Which was a little reassuring at that point in time, but still I couldn't say that that was exactly what had happened.
	So at this point with the $50,000 I was asking him for how do you want the Do you want a wire?
	What's the routing number?
	He refused. He wanted it to be non-traceable, so he was demanding that he come pick me up, that I was to be bagged so I wouldn't know where I was being transported to.
	He was going to pick me up in a white van and that I better have all the cash, otherwise my daughter and him and myself were both dead.
	And he wanted to make arrangements for the pickup.
	So 9-1-1 at that point were requesting dispatch for police officers to come to me.
	We didn't know if he knew my location.
	We didn't know what. I wasn't giving him my location.
	He was getting angry that I was delaying the conversation.
	And then at that point, the third mom finally was able to locate Bree and locate through my husband.
	And my older son was also able to get his sister on the phone.
	So she came to me and told me that she was safe with my husband.
	And I didn't believe her the first couple times she told me because her voice was so real.
	And she's like, how can she be with my husband?
	And yet, how can she be with these men?
	I don't understand. I just at that moment was trying to have a hard time processing what was real and what was not real.
	So when I finally got the chance to speak to my daughter on the phone and she reassured me if she was fine where she was at, she was able to confirm where she was at physically, then I knew that the voice that had been on the phone with me was not real.
	And at that point in time, I called the men out for what they were doing and then I hung up on them.
	I did talk to the police.
	Because there was no money transferred and there was no physical kidnapping, even though there was intent, there was nothing more they could do.
	So now we're having the conversation so hopefully they can stop it happening to other people.
	I mean, that's the most insane part of the story is them saying that there's nothing they could do because, I mean, what are they waiting for?
	Like somebody to actually, you know, pay the ransom?
	I mean, how bad does it have to get before they take it very seriously?
	Because this is just insane that anybody could do this to somebody.
	I mean, we started off with these scams where, hey, I got a bank account over here and wire me $10,000 and you'll get $20 million or whatever.
	But this is like really sophisticated.
	I mean, ruinous of people.
	You know, what should be done in terms of addressing this issue?
	So I brought that up to them.
	I know somebody else, once we started having these conversations, who actually did transfer money, they received a phone call and actually came up on their phone as their daughter's phone calling them, where mine was just an unknown number.
	So they didn't have any doubt in their mind and had wired $1,500.
	The police did get involved in that, but it ended in Mexico and that was the end of it.
	And when I put the story out there on next door, as a warning, a number of people came forward and people who had transferred money, I never heard of one prosecution.
	So I you know, that's a great question as to what can be done about this.
	I know the FBI is looking into this topic.
	I was informed later that one suggestion, or if anyone has to receive a call like this, is to tell 911 to immediately turn it over to the FBI, because then the FBI can look at it differently and then track it.
	So that's a great advice. But as far as coming to a conclusion, I haven't heard anything yet.
	Wow, wow. I mean, it's, you know, one of the things we hear, we just interviewed a lawyer and he was complaining, a really prominent lawyer, and he was complaining that because of the way the system works right now, where everything seems to be like for-profit focused, something like this that would probably take millions upon millions of dollars to properly investigate these kind of cases are often brushed under the rug.
	Is that the impression that you're getting, that they just have no interest in investing?
	Time and money into pursuing these sorts of scams.
	Unfortunately, yes. I was offered for a police officer to call me to give me comfort that I'm safe, but that doesn't give me any comfort, especially when they were a physical pickup, a physical kidnapping of me by using her voice as a lure.
	That scared me. Then you bring that forward.
	Well, now you can actually use it for physical kidnapping, for physical human trafficking, and that scared me to my core.
	And I don't know if that's what it's going to take in order for someone to finally do something, and it should not have to get to that point.
	I mean, is it a concern that, I guess they found your daughter's voice online or something?
	I mean, how were they able to replicate your daughter's voice, do you think?
	So that's been a conversation that's racked my brain.
	She has had a couple of public interviews.
	She's in athletics. She was sponsored for an outerwear company when she skied, but she doesn't have public accounts with her talking social media of her own.
	They were photos or videos of her racing or she had some TikTok videos on a very small account of them dancing, but that's it.
	All of her stuff is very private.
	And the crying and the sobbing and the uniqueness of that, that really is what baffled me.
	I know there's some conversation that's come out about Snapchat and AI that they now have on Snap.
	I could see that being a source.
	But like I said, I have four children and out of my four children, she is by far my most quiet, my least active.
	Because she has a brother who's a newscaster for school and so he's published every week in video and she has a younger brother who's a sponsored athlete so he has a public account for his sponsors and endorsements but so if I were to pick if I was the person doing this this would be the last child of mine that I would be able to get that information from.
	Well, so what are the actions now that you're taking, you know, now that you know there's this really significant issue that AI is so available right now that this could, I mean, you know, millions of people could fall victims to the stress, the anxiety, the loss of money, potential kidnapping, like you almost became victim to.
	I mean, what are the steps that you're taking right now to, you know, inform people of what's really going on?
	So the immediate steps is awareness, obviously, creating a safe word, safe conversation, something that you can have so you can make sure that you can identify that the person you're speaking to is really them.
	Other conversations we're having is communication.
	A lot of people have come to me.
	They were afraid to share their story.
	They were afraid to ask for help because they really believe that the person Their child who had been kidnapped or whoever it was, was going to be harmed if they shared and asked for help.
	And so they transferred money or they acted without having conversations, without communicating.
	So bringing comfort to that.
	And then as far as going forward, I would like to see some kind of licensing, some kind of tracking, if nothing more than to help police and law enforcement be able to track down these perpetrators who have been exploiting this and exploiting people as a result.
	Wow. Okay.
	And is there the response in terms of when you're speaking with people?
	Have you been speaking with people in political realms?
	What's the feedback been like?
	I haven't in the political realm so much.
	I have entertained that idea.
	It would be a great conversation to have with politicians on what we can do.
	I know we've had some conversations, I've had some conversations before about privacy and security and some other matters with school boards and whatnot.
	I definitely think this is a topic that needs to come forward and needs to be entertained on what we can do for protection of families and Yeah.
	I mean, in a perfect world, you know, this sort of thing.
	I mean, I'm assuming a lot of this stuff is coming from overseas, probably like you're giving that one example of they tracked it down to Mexico.
	Is that something that is safe to assume that a lot of this is from overseas like those kind of, you know, they used to joke about the Nigerian banking scams because so much of them were coming, being emailed from Nigeria.
	So is that the same similar in terms of this issue?
	I could see that being very real.
	I used to study in Mexico.
	I definitely could have traced my situation.
	I could see how it could lead to Mexico.
	The only thing I would say is that I have heard another story, and this one blew my mind.
	It was a lady who was interviewed about how the bondsman, because it was a car accident, Showed up at her door to collect the bag of cash.
	So that kind of then shifted it.
	Well, I don't know if it is all international, obviously, if there's actually physical contact being made in this one lady's situation.
	But, you know, the situation with my other friend's cousin, it did trace of Mexico, so that would substantiate that.
	Yeah, yeah. And in your situation, they were talking about you actually having a physical meeting.
	So, I mean, it could also be that they have a dual thing going on.
	There's overseas people, there's people local.
	I mean, it's just mind boggling.
	It seems as though this is something that should be taken really seriously with like federal task forces, literally hunting down these individuals.
	Because, I mean, if you don't, the next thing that happens, like the quote unquote, the Nigerian email scams, is they go on forever, you know?
	And there are, I mean, just based upon our research, there are laws in place that give the United States international jurisdiction when people in the United States are being harmed by crimes that are committed in other jurisdictions.
	So you think that, you know, but...
	Again, the topic we keep coming back to is that, you know, we have a social contract with our government and it seems as though that is kind of not being necessarily upheld because something like this would seem like it should be top of mind and not some of the other nonsense that we're wasting money on, you know? I agree.
	I was floored when I put this on next door, how many people came forward with their versions.
	And it wasn't all just I hung up.
	I knew it was a scam. There was a lot of one lady told me how her husband was driving halfway to Mexico with a bag of cash until he could finally get in touch with his daughter.
	And fortunately in Phoenix, we are a huge highway.
	We all know that human trafficking is large here.
	The reason why this story was held back specifically was because it was during the Super Bowl and during the Phoenix Open where they know that that's also high time for human trafficking.
	So that is a reality and a risk.
	And like you said, we shouldn't have to wait for something to become so drastic in order for measures to be taken.
	Yeah, and by the way, on the topic of human trafficking, there's some ladies we interviewed recently, I think, I hope I'm not getting the episode wrong, I think it's episode 72 or 73 of Blood Money with the Patriot Chicks, and they actually talked about how they made a documentary about human trafficking around the Super Bowl,
	because this year it was in Arizona, in Phoenix, and based upon their research, it seems as though human trafficking is at its It's the highest, even though Arizona is traditionally, unfortunately, a state that has a lot of human trafficking, but around the Super Bowl, it seems to be hitting a peak and some of their findings were rather shocking, like how, you know, especially with young girls in human trafficking and pedophiles and that sort of thing.
	Anyway, I encourage people to check out that episode because these two ladies are literally doing Project Veritas type work where they're embedding themselves in a place like the Super Bowl to expose how bad the human trafficking is in Arizona.
	And again, you'd think their big complaint was that, hey, you have these local law enforcement that have...
	Tiny budgets because they're getting defunded in such a bad way.
	And so their task force is when it comes to human trafficking and pedophiles has been slashed.
	And there's absolutely no federal task force and the federal government doesn't seem to care, even though it's clear that, you know, they don't have a huge budget.
	They're doing this all out of pocket, yet they're exposing so much of this stuff with their very limited means.
	It's obvious that this is of epidemic proportions.
	100%. In fact, I had an instance when I was in real estate, I had brought a client to a home and it was evident that this was involved in human sex trafficking.
	And there was, without getting into so much detail because it's horrific, there was lots of pornography, there was evidence of children that had been there, of women, whatnot.
	And I I tried to report it and I hit every wall that was possible and then I was able to find the owner through a public record and reached out to him and he pleaded with me for help because he would go over there and chase everybody out knowing what was going on in this house that he owned that he was trying to sell during when we had the real estate market collapse.
	So I had to call personal favors up to the governor and then from a couple of different people to have this situation looked into because I was literally told by the PD that we just don't have the manpower to do anything.
	Wow, wow, that's crazy.
	One of the points that I was actually writing down this note, so I wouldn't forget, one of the points that the ladies made from the Patriot Chicks is that slavery is human trafficking, that this is just a different form of, I mean, human trafficking is almost a nice word because it is really slavery at the end of the day that we're talking about.
	And, you know, not to get too controversial here, but we just interviewed an attorney by the name of Todd Callender, right?
	And we had a conversation, I mean, this is a highly experienced attorney, and we had a conversation about how, you know, for example, by law, man and woman is protected by law by constitution, right?
	The minute you get into all these other sexes, you're basically falling into a slave state because those laws no longer apply to you.
	That's a literal legal definition he was telling us about.
	The reason I bring this up is because there's definitely been a movement to forget that we are man-woman and introduce these 72 other sexes and put cis in front of man-woman.
	It just seems to be a perversion of the law in order to land this Into more of a slave state.
	And, you know, it's just no wonder that things like human trafficking that is basically modern day slavery and modern day slavery is worse than any other form of slavery historically, even though we sit here and we talk about, you know, historical slavery in America.
	The fact is that this is we're in a time that slavery is at its worst when you when you really look at the definition of what things are.
	So And it's just interesting that we keep turning a blind eye to that.
	So anyway, that's my little rant about the topic.
	Jennifer, do you have anything else you'd like to mention in closing that we haven't touched upon?
	Websites where people could help you, you know, anything of that sort?
	You know, the mic is yours. Yeah, there's one other thing that came to my awareness and that's not only can they do this with a small snippet of audio, but they can also do an entire visual presentation with just a photograph.
	So I also like to be doing awareness to this just came and used very easily off the internet as well.
	So someone could take just a photo of your child and create an entire visual presentation with a video chat.
	So this goes so much further than we're aware of.
	And so you have to stay on top of it and be aware and spreading the message.
	So thank you for that.
	Yeah, that's insane. I mean, I just, it harkens back to, you know, you've seen, you know, I'm sure you've seen these movies about slavery where they have, you know, if they would, if they had cameras at that time, I'm sure they would put pictures up of, you know, this is what the person is, you know, but they used to bring them on stage and do their presentation.
	It's just insane. People could literally create that, you know, I just look at the implications of this, of letting This continue, really being that it doesn't become, you know, just this AI thing, it really manifests itself into real kidnapping, real human trafficking, like who knows what would happen to you if you'd gone along and met these guys, you just, you know?
	So it's just wild that this is something that's so obviously happening in front of us, the repercussions of which are so clear and, you know, I don't know.
	You don't need to be a genius to realize where this could go, yet it's brushed under the rug.
	Jennifer, thank you so much for showing up to this episode of Blood Money.
	We really appreciate your time and your willingness to share this incredible story with us as a warning.

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