The Phone Call

Summary

Podcast Summary: Criminal – "The Phone Call"

Host: Phoebe Judge
Guest: Bo (Beau) Prossert
Production: Vox Media Podcast Network
Date: September 19, 2025

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Overview

In "The Phone Call," host Phoebe Judge tells the story of Beau Prossert, a data analyst from Thailand living in San Francisco, who becomes the target of a months-long, elaborate international scam. Through Beau’s first-hand account, the episode explores how scammers cleverly use psychological manipulation and coercive tactics, making even the most rational people fall victim. The episode provides deep insight into the emotional toll of such scams, the warning signs, and the complicated aftermath.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Beau’s Background and Journey to the U.S.

• Beau moved from Thailand to the U.S. at age 18 to study psychology, later settling in San Francisco as a data analyst ([02:19]).
• Enjoyed her independence and never seriously considered moving back to Thailand ([05:03]).

2. The Initiating Event: Passport Concerns

• Early 2024, Beau returned to Thailand to renew her passport, spent time with family, and posted travel photos online ([04:03]).
• Upon return, she received a call from someone claiming to be from the Thai Embassy, informing her that her identity may have been compromised ([05:17–06:02]).

3. The Scam Unfolds

• Beau is told by "police" that she is a suspect in a complex international money laundering scheme ([08:25]).

• The scammers use plausible details: an embassy call, a supposed criminal investigation, mention of real names and photos, and complex narratives ([08:58–09:20]).

• The scam spans weeks; she is told to report her whereabouts four times daily and is threatened with possible extradition and imprisonment ([13:09–14:18]).

  "I cried myself to bed that night and it was like, I don't want to be put in jail. I'm just so scared."
  – Bo Prossert ([13:42])

• Beau describes increasing paranoia and isolation, feeling surveilled and unable to trust anyone ([14:42–15:45]).

4. Psychological Manipulation and Control

• Scammers create a sense of urgency and threat, enforcing secrecy, regular check-ins, and emphasizing Beau’s alleged danger and need to prove her innocence ([15:31–16:42]).

• The scheme escalates: Beau is told she must wire money to prove the legitimacy of her funds. The scammers manipulate her into thinking the FBI is involved and even fake a new bank account in her online banking ([17:51–18:44]).

  "I believed them. I really thought that that was the procedure, that I can just prove that I'm innocent."
  – Bo Prossert ([19:13])

5. Financial and Emotional Devastation

• Beau wires $81,000 initially, essentially all her savings ([21:22]).

• The scam continues; further pressure is applied through threats of harm or legal action to her and her family. She borrows money from her family, primarily her aunt, reaching over $300,000 lost ([29:34]).

• Photos of her family are sent as intimidation.

  "I started having these suicidal thoughts because I felt that the investigation is not going anywhere and I was tired of having to report myself four times a day..."
  – Bo Prossert ([28:13])

6. Realization and Aftermath

• After months, when communication with the scammers stops, Beau finally consults a friend who forces her to contact the real FBI ([31:20]).

• The FBI confirms it’s a scam ([32:21]).

  "And he [the agent] said that it's likely a scam, but he has not heard about it himself."
  – Bo Prossert ([32:47])

• Beau confides in friends and family, who encourage her to not blame herself. Both her brother and aunt try but cannot recover the lost money in Thailand ([33:00–34:22]).

• The experience makes her wary and distrustful; she joins a support group and considers starting her own ([34:22]).

7. Reflections on Scams and Vulnerability

• Beau acknowledges that she never thought a scam could be so prolonged and psychologically consuming, likening it to cult-like manipulation ([22:59]).

  "It's a whole story that they fed me… It felt like a cult that I couldn't see otherwise. I couldn't believe otherwise."
  – Bo Prossert ([22:59])

• She reflects on how easy it is for scammers to seem legitimate—using real names, personal information from her online presence, and technical tricks ([34:41–35:39]).

• Beau is slowly rebuilding her life with support from friends and family, acknowledging the road ahead ([36:39–36:59]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the emotional toll:
  "I cried myself to bed that night and it was like, I don't want to be put in jail. I'm just so scared." – Bo ([13:42])

• On coercive tactics:
  "I believed them. I really thought that that was the procedure, that I can just prove that I'm innocent." – Bo ([19:13])

• On realizing it was a scam:
  "It started to hit me that there's no one else on the other line." – Bo ([31:20])

• Support from family:
  "It's okay. Don't lose yourself. It was a mistake. That doesn't define who you are." – Bo’s brother ([33:00])

• On the feeling of being trapped:
  "It felt like a cult that I couldn't see otherwise. I couldn't believe otherwise." – Bo ([22:59])

• Reflections on vulnerability:
  "It never crossed my mind that the scam would last, you know, months." – Bo ([34:22])

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Important Timestamps

• 01:44–03:06: Beau’s background, move to the US
• 04:03–04:44: Visit to Thailand and return
• 05:17–06:29: The initial embassy call and identity theft suspicion
• 07:34–08:25: Introduction to the "police" and the scam narrative
• 13:09–15:14: Instructions for daily reporting, growing fear and isolation
• 17:51–18:44: Introduction of the fake FBI bank account
• 21:22: Beau wires $81,000; begins being manipulated in the bank
• 28:13–29:34: Beau’s psychological crisis and further financial loss
• 31:20–32:21: Consulting the real FBI, confirming it was a scam
• 33:00: Beau informs her family, receives critical emotional support
• 34:22–34:41: Reflections on long cons and changing perceptions

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains the empathetic, probing, yet calm and measured tone typical of Phoebe Judge, combined with Beau’s open, vulnerable narrative. It’s a mixture of investigative storytelling and personal testimony, aiming to both inform and emotionally engage listeners.

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Conclusion

"The Phone Call" is a sobering account that illustrates how even smart, careful people can be ensnared by sophisticated scams. Beau’s experience emphasizes the power of psychological manipulation, the importance of support in the aftermath, and the need for greater awareness around the evolving tactics of scammers.

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For those who haven’t listened, this episode is both a warning and an act of solidarity with scam victims—detailing not only the crime itself, but also the complex aftermath and the lifeline of compassion from friends and family.

Transcript

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Sponsor Voice]

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[Phoebe Judge]

Hi, it's Phoebe. Before we start, I have a favor to ask. We've been thinking about ways to make the show and Criminal plus our membership program better and we want to hear directly from you about what you're enjoying, what you want more of, and what we can be doing better. We've put together a [e-mail] survey. It shouldn't take long and it would mean a lot if you could fill it out. Thanks very much. This episode contains references to suicidal ideation. Please use discretion. How long had you lived in San Francisco?

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I moved here July 2022.

[Phoebe Judge]

This is Beau suppressored.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

It was one of my dream cities to live in. I was in Seattle before and had a few opportunities to come down to San Francisco and fell in love with it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bo says that on one visit to San Francisco she went to Land's End, a park with a view of the water and she says it was so beautiful that she promised herself she would move there one day and she did. She got a job there as a data analyst working in healthcare and and.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I'm just glad that this opportunity came up for me to move for work and yeah, just really started the career that I really enjoy and felt like I'm growing and learning and yeah, life was good.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bo moved to the US 11 years ago. She came from Thailand to go to school when she was 18.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I wanted to study psychology and thought that the US is one of the best place to do that. Then I was going to move back.

[Bo's Friend]

But then I guess life never really turned out the way you planned it. And I kind of just stick around.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

And the next thing I know I'm here 10 plus years now.

[Phoebe Judge]

And would you go back to Thailand often to visit?

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I haven't really gone back that often, once every few years. But my family do come for, we do take turn and I, I do get to see them. It was during the pandemic though that was really tough that we didn't get to see each other quite often and everything was just kind of put on pause.

[Phoebe Judge]

At the beginning of 2024, right after New Year's, Beau started to plan a trip back. Her passport was about to expire so she was going to renew it while she was in Thailand. But her passport was so close to expiring that she got a little worried. She got in touch with the Thai consulate in la. They told her she was fine to travel on her passport and that she could renew her passport once she got to Thailand. So Beau flew to Bangkok in February of 2024.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I was only back there for two weeks and the first week was getting the paperwork done so it wasn't, you know, the most relaxed vacation and whatnot. But the other half I did get to spend some time with my family. We went to Ayutthaya, which is our old capital nearby. I grew up in Bangkok so it was just an hour, an hour and a half drive and that was really fun. I get to wear like the Thai traditional cloth. We took pictures and get to eat.

[Bo's Friend]

All the good food. That's probably my family's love language, you.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Know, with time you're back, you just, you get fed with a lot of delicious food.

[Phoebe Judge]

It was a good trip. It was when, whenever you would go back to Thailand were you kind of split. I mean you loved San Francisco, but did you kind of think maybe I should be living back at home?

[Bo's Friend]

No, that actually never really crossed my mind. I liked it here so much and.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I like my independency here. Yeah, never really crossed my mind that.

[Bo's Friend]

I would move back.

[Phoebe Judge]

One day about three weeks after she got back to San Francisco, she received a phone call.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I was at work in my office and I remember exactly, it was 2:3pm on a Friday afternoon.

[Phoebe Judge]

The woman on the other end of the line said she was calling from the Thai Embassy in Washington D.C. and then she told Beau about a man who had just been detained while trying to enter Thailand.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

She said that guy had 8 passport in his position and he was trying to enter Thailand from la. And he got caught at the Suvarnabhum airport, which is the main airport in Bangkok. And one of the passport was under my name.

[Phoebe Judge]

The woman from the embassy told Beau the name of the man who was being investigated and asked if Beau knew him. Beau answered no.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

She asked me if I lost my passport or if anyone had access to it at all. And I said no, it's a new passport. It's with me, and I'm 100% sure because it's due in my suitcase. I haven't really unpacked my suitcase at that point.

[Phoebe Judge]

The woman recommended that Bo report it to the police in Thailand. It sounded like it could be a case of identity theft. Bo says she felt a little worried.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I left home when I was 18, so I don't actually have an identity in Thailand, if you know what I mean, in a sense. Like I don't really have a bank account or I did when I was younger and I close it the second time I went back or something when I was doing college. Like, I don't have a lot of paperwork in Thailand anymore. All the government knows about me is my passport and my Thai id. I never own any property. Nothing is under my name. So in my head, it makes sense if anyone wanted to, you know, just take my identity, because I do exist. But the fact that I'm not active citizen of Thailand, I. I thought it is possible.

[Phoebe Judge]

The woman on the phone told her she was transferring her to the Thai police, where Bo spoke with a police officer who introduced himself as Captain Supakhan Tipila and said he worked at the Central Investigation Bureau, or CIB in Thailand, an agency which handles major criminal investigations. Bo told him everything she just learned and said she'd like to report a case of identity theft. The officer began filing a report for her. He asked her for her Thai identification number. He said he needed to look her up in their system to verify some information. And then Bo says she heard someone in the background say your name and ID number, and next she can be very dangerous.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Proceed with caution.

[Phoebe Judge]

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. The police officer started asking Beau a lot of questions. He told her she was a suspect in a criminal case. Bo is confused. I mean, you talk to the police officer because you. You thought you were filing a report about identity theft. And then he says you're a suspect. That must have been shocking.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Very to my core.

[Phoebe Judge]

She was told that a group of people had been arrested in Thailand for running an international money laundering scheme. Four Thai nationals and one US Citizen, and the police said they knew that Bo or someone using Bo's information had opened various bank accounts to help the group move money around. Bo tried to explain to the officer that someone must have stolen her identity. She was just calling about a passport. She explained to him that she'd spent very little time in Thailand over the past 10 years and that maybe criminals could have been using her identity without her knowing it. The officer sent her the names and photos of the five people who had been arrested and wanted to know if Beau knew any of them. One of them was a man who worked at a Thai consulate in the U.S. beau says her head was spinning, but when she heard about the consulate employee, she felt like she began to understand what might have happened. She thought about how she had sent a message to the Thai consulate just a few months ago to ask if she could still travel on a passport that was about to expire. This consulate employee could have seen her message and realized that she was an ideal target for identity theft, and he would have had access to her new passport information. Bo explained all of this to Officer Tipula. He said the police were looking at all the possibilities, but he also made it clear that she was still a suspect and that if she wanted to get her name off the suspect list, she would need to prove her innocence. We'll be right back to listen without Ads Join Criminal plus thanks to Squarespace for their support. Squarespace is the all in one platform designed to help you make a great website. Whether you're just starting out or trying to grow your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to choose a URL, show off what you're selling, reach more customers, get paid, and do it all while looking professional. Everything in one place no matter what you're working on. Whether it's a podcast, a special event, photography services, or a consultation business, you can customize your website to reach the right people. If you're creating video content like online courses, tutorials, or workshops, Squarespace has built in ways to support that. With Squarespace, you can upload your videos into an organized, paywalled library, and they make it easy to collect payment with thoughtfully designed invoices and online payments. Plus, they have tools that make it convenient for people to keep in touch with you, tools that help you send emails to potential customers or that let your customers schedule their own appointments. Check out squarespace.com criminal for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

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[Phoebe Judge]

Officer Tipula told Bo that while they continued their investigation into the money laundering scheme, she was free to continue her daily life. But she needed to be in frequent touch so the police knew she wasn't planning to run away. The officer told Bo that she would need to send the police several daily updates about her whereabouts.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Four times a day at 9:12 noon, 5pm and 8pm with a short description. They asked me to write down my name, the time, and then what I was doing at that time. They said that this is the, the normal procedure that they use when someone is under an investigation.

[Phoebe Judge]

If she didn't cooperate with the investigation, she was told she could be arrested and sent back to Thailand and I.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Would be put in like a jail or detention center in Thailand waiting for the court date and who knows how long that might be. BEI could be there in jail or detention center for over a year. The justice system is not perfect here or there. Right. People do go to jail for the wrong reason, even for a crime they didn't commit. And I cried myself to bed that night and it was like, I don't want to be put in jail. I'm just so scared.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bo did as the officer told her. She sent updates four times a day and she also spoke with officer Tipula every day. The officer said he had undercover agents keeping an eye on Beau to make sure she didn't try to interfere with the investigation or escape. She thought that her phone might be tapped. A week passed.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I started to get scared and paranoia because they, they kept saying that, you know, they're people watching me. I started to look around and see who was looking at me. And then in my head I started making these stories that, oh, that person who crossed the street, they look suspicious. Oh, everyone looks so suspicious.

[Phoebe Judge]

And you were still going to work and trying to make it seem normal.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Yeah, that's what they instructed me to do, to seem normal. Continue living your life, continue going to work. But just know that if you know one wrong move, you can be taken away.

[Phoebe Judge]

Officer Tipila told her not to tell anyone about what was going on because this was a high stakes international investigation. He said the central investigation bureau in Thailand was working with the FBI to solve it.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I should be very careful about telling anyone because it's a national, a matter of national security.

[Phoebe Judge]

Belle wanted to prove her innocence, and she says she also wanted to help the police catch the people who had put her in this situation. She had learned from Officer Tipila that the Thai consulate officer had been arrested along with a US Police officer who was suspected of helping the crime syndicate and two Thai bank managers and an exchange student.

[Bo's Friend]

You know, I stay up late and trying to connect all the dots.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bo says she was having trouble sleeping. Weeks went by. She kept sending updates to the police four times a day, reporting where she was and what she was doing. Talking on the phone with Officer Tipula, sometimes for several hours.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I would be going for a run.

[Bo's Friend]

And I would just be super hyper vigilant about who's gonna, you know, who's running after me, who is running ahead of me.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

And I was really trying to figure it out.

[Phoebe Judge]

And then one day, Officer Tipula called Bo with news. One of the suspects in the money laundering scheme had confessed that Beau had been working with them.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

The criminal accused me that I sold my passport to them so that they can use to, like, you know, open bank account or whatever, and in return, I would get, you know, 5, 10% of their profit.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bo said that didn't make any sense. She had a good job in the US she had no reason to commit a serious crime just to make a little extra money. She said she could send over her bank statement. But the officer explained that with this kind of investigation involving large amounts of money, it wasn't that simple. They would need to work with experts.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

They are in contact with the FBI here in the US because this is a multinational money laundering case that they're trying to solve. And they would create a bank account for me so that I can deposit my money into that bank account so that they can do the investigation that out of the money that I made here was, you know, legit legal. And so that would be my evidence at the court that. That I'm innocent.

[Phoebe Judge]

Beau says she was told that the FBI would set up the account for her through her own bank. She went to look for it.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

That bank account appear on my, you know, phone, on my online banking app was there.

[Phoebe Judge]

But there was a change of plans. Beau was told that instead of moving her money into this new account, she. She'd need to wire the money to a bank account in Hong Kong where experts in money laundering would hold it. While the case was being investigated, she was told she would get her money back once the investigation was over. When they first mentioned that you were going to have to wire money, what did you think?

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I, I believed them. I really thought that that was the procedure, that I can just prove that I'm innocent.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bo says at this point she was sleep deprived, stressed and anxious after feeling like she was being followed, reporting her whereabouts and talking to the police every day. She didn't see this as a red flag.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I think that, that thought that I, I really want to prove that I'm. That I have nothing to do with the crime that they been accusing me of. Was very strong, that I needed to protect myself and my identity and my reputation. I came all the way here, you know, been living by myself 10 plus year, and I, I wasn't willing for anyone or anything to take that away from me.

[Phoebe Judge]

Beau didn't know it was a scam. She did as they instructed.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

They told me to go to the bank and just made up a story. If the bank asks where or whom I'm wiring the money to. And they made me, you know, be on the phone and call with them.

[Phoebe Judge]

As she walked into the bank, she had her AirPods in. She says her long hair covered them so they weren't noticeable.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

So they're like in my ear and they can hear everything I said to the bank teller.

[Phoebe Judge]

So you, you were on the phone with them secretly while you were at the bank?

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Yeah.

[Phoebe Judge]

What were they saying?

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

They didn't say anything. But the fact that they made me feel like they are monitoring me, I think that was the tactic they used to have control over me and my thought.

[Phoebe Judge]

Beau wired them $81,000, pretty much everything I had. In a study published in the British Journal of Criminology, researchers found that the tactics scammers use are often very similar to other types of coercive control. For example, domestic violence cases. The scammers establish a relationship with their victim, groom them over time, and manipulate them into believing in a, quote, exploitative reality. One police sergeant who led a task force investigating scams in Canada said that at one point he wondered if the scammers he was investigating could somehow be working with psychologists because they seem so good at getting people to believe their stories. Once, an officer stopped a money transfer that someone had made to scammers, but the scam victim is. Didn't believe them when they tried to explain that the whole thing was fake. The police sergeant said, it's a form of hypnosis. At one point, Bo actually received a text message from the Thai consulate in LA warning people that scammers were posing as Thai police. Bo says that she discussed this with Officer Tipila, and his explanation made sense to her, that the crime syndicate had moles within at least one Thai consulate in the US So they could have sent her this text to try and dissuade her from working with the police.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

You know, it's like it's. It's a whole story that they fed me. And in my head, I. I kept making, you know, connecting the dot by myself. And that's how I felt so hard for this story. And I just believed in it so much that it felt like a cult that I couldn't see otherwise. I couldn't believe otherwise.

[Phoebe Judge]

She says her mind was so fixated on this investigation that she started noticing weird little things that seemed to confirm that she was under surveillance by the authorities. While she was at work, she noticed a WI fi network that would sometimes pop up on her computer named FBI. Today, she says someone probably just called it that as a joke. But back then, it felt strange and scary to see that name on her computer in her office building.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Now, looking back at a lot of it is, you know, you. When you're so deep into some conspiracy theory or something, it spiral and it's hard to get out, and you see things you would not normally see. I think I was just very consumed by this thought that I'm a part of this big case. I knew I'm innocent and that I can get myself out of it.

[Bo's Friend]

But I.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Part of me also wanted to really help them solve the case.

[Phoebe Judge]

As the weeks and months passed, Beau was getting more and more anxious, and she couldn't talk to anyone about what was going on. The scammers had told her not to, and she was afraid of implicating others. But she decided she had to talk to a friend in case something happened to her. She asked one of her close friends to come over to her house. When he arrived, Bo put her phone in his car so no one could listen in on their conversation. Pulled her friend into the bathroom in her building lobby, closed the door, and told him the story in a whisper.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

My friend argue with me and trying to shake me and be like, bo is a scam.

[Bo's Friend]

I remember that day that I argued with him.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

We argued for a while, like over an hour, and I kept telling him.

[Bo's Friend]

That.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

It'S not a scam.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I started having these suicidal thoughts because I felt that the investigation is not going anywhere and I was tired of having to report myself four times a day and be very super paranoia about everyone and every single interaction that I have.

[Phoebe Judge]

Beau told the people she believed to be police officers that she didn't think she could handle it anymore.

[Bo's Friend]

You know, this so overwhelmed that I lost my sense of safety. Couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. I didn't want to live that way anymore. And they said don't stop. We're almost there. The case is almost over. You will have all the evidence and you will go to the court and the court will rule you innocent very easily.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

Because I've been, you know, providing evidence.

[Bo's Friend]

This whole time that I'm being very cooperative and helpful in the whole investigation and I will live a normal life again and that I. I should not let these criminals win. And I believe them.

[Phoebe Judge]

Beau eventually transferred more money. The scammers kept coming up with new reasons. Beau had to borrow money from her family, primarily from her aunt, who took money out of her retirement account. The fake police officer told her that her family's assets could be frozen and that charges could be brought against them too, if they got in the way of the investigation. He sent Beau photos of her brother and her aunt as proof that they were being surveilled. So Beau told her family that she needed the money to apply for a PhD program. In total, Beau wired over $300,000. About three months after Bode received that first phone call, the fake police officer told Beau that that they had presented all the evidence in court and that Beau had been ruled innocent. She could finally stop sending them daily updates of her location.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I'm off the suspect list. I can live my normal life again. And if I want to collect the money, I. I can go back to Thailand and someone will pick me up. I would go straight to the police station and I would collect the money.

[Phoebe Judge]

Beau started looking at flights, but she was scared to travel to Thailand. The police officer had made it clear that the money laundering syndicate had killed people who had talked to the police and provided evidence against them. She called Officer Tipula. Her call didn't go through, so she tried again. She texted him, but got no response.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

It started to hit me that there's no one else on the other line. And that's when I consulted my friend, the same one that told me it was a scam. And he sat down with me, made me call the FBI. But it was already late. It was closer to midnight at that point.

[Phoebe Judge]

They sat in Beau's friend's car while she tried to call the FBI. The next day, she decided she needed to see them in person.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

So I walked myself to the FBI office here in San Francisco during my, you know, lunch break. And I submitted my information to the FBI agent. They asked me to wait.

[Phoebe Judge]

Then Bo was taken to see another FBI agent.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

I asked him if he knew about.

[Bo's Friend]

Me, if he had my information, because the whole time I thought that, you know, the, the Thai police were coordinating with The US FBI, and maybe they already have my information, Right?

[Phoebe Judge]

When Beau explained everything to him, the agent said that's not how the FBI would operate if they had been involved.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

And he said that it's likely a.

[Bo's Friend]

Scam, but he has not heard about it himself.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

And he suggested that I make I file an online report.

[Phoebe Judge]

Beau walked out and went to see another two friends. She told the whole story again. Her friends made her call a few different agencies in Thailand. Everyone said the same thing. It was a scam. Bo says that's when it really started to hit her. She'd lost her own and her family's money. Bo says she told her brother first. Then she talked to her father. They both told her the same thing. It's okay. Her brother said, quote, don't lose yourself. It was a mistake. That doesn't define who you are. Bo's brother and her aunt went to the police in Thailand, but there is nothing they could do to recover the money. Bo says it's hard to trust people now. When we got in touch with Beau to talk to her for this story, she only agreed. After looking up our producer on several online platforms, Bo says she's thought a lot about how the scammers were able to pull her in. She says that before all of this happened, she'd heard about romance scams. But beyond that, she thought scams were mostly quick one offs.

[Bo (Beau) Prossert]

It never crossed my mind that the scam would be, would last, you know, months. I was more aware of scam that are more like quick money, right, Those, you know, USPS scam or I don't know, like Amazon scam or something.

[Phoebe Judge]

Bo says she doesn't think the scammers knew that she had just renewed her passport and had been in touch with the Thai consulate when they called her. The scammers probably just got lucky. But Bo says they might have known that she had just been back to Thailand because she had posted photos from her trip on social media. The woman who called Beau and said she was from the Thai embassy in D.C. was using the actual name of an embassy employee. And the same thing goes for the fake police officer, Officer Tipila. Bo had looked him up and everything looked legitimate. Bo has contacted her bank to find out how a new bank account could have suddenly appeared in her online banking app. The account that the scammer said the FBI had set up for her. Bo's bank explained to her that the account was actually an old credit card account that had been deactivated. And Bo says the scammers may have had access to her bank because she had logged into her account while while sharing her screen with them while she was trying to prove that she hadn't received payment from the crime syndicate. Today, Bo says she's doing a bit better and she's working on getting back on her feet. Her friends helped her pay off some debt and she says she's now managed to pay them all back. She plans to create an installment plan with her aunt. Bo has participated in a support group for scam victims organized by the aarp. She says it was great to have support, but also that it made her feel like an outlier. The others were mostly older Americans. Many of them had been victims of romance scams. Beau was thinking about starting her own support group, but she says she isn't quite ready yet. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for our [e-mail] Newsletter we hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program Criminal. Plus you can listen to Criminal, this is Love and Phoebe reads a mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co creator Lauren Spohr talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week, to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com plus we're on Facebook at thisiscriminal and Instagram and TikTok at Criminal Underscore Podcast. We're also on [e-mail] criminalpodcast criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more great shows@podcast voxmedia.com I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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