The MGM Casino Hack w/ Mel Mitchell

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Lacey Mosley
Scam cause robbery and fraud scam cause. Robbery and fraud scam. Got it. What's Poppin congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, aka scam goddess.

Back with another installment of the podcast all about robbery, fraud and those who practice it. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them. We'll see. But y'all already know if you listen to this podcast that I'm very. What?

Yes. Excited, thrilled, elated. Y'all been taking voice classes. Is this voice more soothing to your ear? I'm really trying to give y'all an ear massage.

Is it working? Let me know. I'm so thrilled to have this guest. We scammed another icon off of the Internet. You know, this is about to be a good time.

We have amazing content creator and comedian on the show. She is a Miami native. A shout out to 305 residing in Atlanta, Georgia. Moving from one scam city to the next. You've seen her hilarious viral skits like Black Hogwarts and the misogynist podcast, Perry.

Hoes not humans. I love hoes, not humans. Oh, bucket hat. Check out her podcast, jokes on you with co host comedian Tally Berry. Baby, wherever you get your podcast, congregation, please welcome Mel Mitchell to the show.

Hi, Melanie. Hi. I'm so happy to be here. Hey, guys. I'm so happy to have you.

I feel like we got you off the Internet, and I was so thrilled. Cause I love ho's not human. Those skits are so. Oh, my goodness. Thank you.

Mel Mitchell
They're my pride and joy. I love buckethead mish, and of course, the quandietrich. Quandietrich is down so bad, and he's always down terrible. He's just. He has the worst luck, and he deserves it.

Lacey Mosley
He does deserve it. But I love his enthusiasm to just keep fighting from that mattress on the floor and, you know, telling these females about their low value, you know, you. Know, because only a high value man can sleep on the floor. You know, you gotta get. You gotta be high to get that low.

Exactly. When you so high, nothing can lower you. Listen, when you are a high value man, it don't matter how low to the ground you are, because that value is high and it's higher than these. Females, then he's female. That's really what matters.

And if you don't know what we're talking about out there, you must be living under a rock and shout out to you, because I'm on the Internet constantly ruining my mental health very chronically online. That's my problem as well. Mel makes hilarious videos about all of those toxic bro y podcasts. And what's so wild to me about it is you are doing parody. And literally, word for word, bar for bar.

I swear, after that, I see another clip going viral of men saying the same thing in full earnesty, and it always cracks me up. So I'm like, how you're making the material just so, so easy. I literally can't make it up. And I kind of get so overwhelmed with, like, making the videos because they're always so long because I have so, like, I have too much material. I don't know what to do with the material.

Mel Mitchell
And literally one of the manosphere people stumbled upon my videos and thought I wasn't talking about him and, like, posted, like, showing love to me. Like, yeah, see, she making fun of these dudes and that. I don't do that. That's not me. Cause the problem with y'all females is y'all y'all single mothers, and that's why y'all not in the home.

And that's the problem with. And I'm like, hey, excuse me. You're literally the main inspiration for Quan Dietrich. And he deleted my comment and then untagged me from the video but left it up. That's how good your content is.

Lacey Mosley
I'm not deleting it cause it's doing numbers, but I will give. I made sure to screenshot. Cause I was like, I know the type of person I'm dealing with. You're gonna delete my comments. So I screenshotted as soon as I did it, and then I refreshed it.

Mel Mitchell
The comment was gone. And then one of his friends was like, bro, I think she's making fun of you. Hit. He's like, nah, couldn't be. No way.

Lacey Mosley
No, she's uplifting us. You saw what she said about these females. It's like, wow, y'all really are denser. Than we thought. Like, y'all really are this dense.

I didn't know you could be that dense. But, you know, shout out to you. Cause I would like more Dululu in my life. Personally, I'm trying to live a more delusional existence because in reality, people are so unhappy. Mm hmm.

Smiling all the time. And I want that for me. I want that for y'all. Add a little dululo into your morning routine. Congregation, get out there and just live.

Live your imagination. We love that for you. But also I have to ask you, because Miami native, I used to live in Fort Lauderdale. I'll tell the girls who don't know Miami. But, you know, I guess now Jocelyn Hernandez has made Lauderdale something on the map.

Lauderdale. Lauderdale. I was like, you know what, Jocelyn? You keep persisting. She's really a scam in herself.

And I love that. For Shanelika Betancourt. What a queen. What a queen. Actually, on iCarly, they let me name part of my character Harper.

So her name was always Harper when I got the role. But my showrunner ally was like, what do you want her last name to be? And I was like, can it be Betancourt? Cause it sounded rich. And she used to be rich.

But then I told them why I wanted it to be that. And I showed them Jocelyn's fake id and I was like, she was Schnella Cabetncourt and is the most hilarious fake name I've ever known. It's like, how did you even come up with that? That's why always appreciate Issa Rae, because she in rap. Shit.

Mel Mitchell
Can we cuss on here? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just make sure this is always my question. Can I cuss?

But on rap shit, she names all the characters after female rappers. And Dominique's Perry. Dominique Perry's character is named Shanellica. Yeah, that's why they call her Nelly. It's Shanelica, as in Jocelyn Hernandez and I, you know, we love some homage.

You know, Jocelyn, she didn't go back to the strip club. And I can always appreciate that. Listen, she got into much more dastardly activities, if you ask me. But at the same time, what are. You going to rough at the strip club, right?

Lacey Mosley
That now seems more wholesome than what she's out here doing. But, you know, fair. Fair. That's her life. That's her life and her is her own.

But so living in Miami to living in Atlanta, I'm sure you have quite the familiarity with scams. Cause, you know, Georgia is like the highest scams per capita in the continental us. That's where they come out of. I am absolutely sure. What's your relationship with scams?

Mel Mitchell
Do you love them? Do you hate them? Have you ever been scammed? Have you seen some scams you can talk about? And the feds don't slide?

I love a good scam. You know, I never went full scam, but, you know, I was a 23 year old in Atlanta at one point, so I used to be out here getting my, you know, having my way with things and having my way with things. I would find my way into parties and places I shouldn't have been or wasn't invited to. And I was just telling a story at my show on Saturday about how one time, like, I went to the club with, like, some rich in words. And you can say all the words here.

I was out with some rich niggas, period, and they handed me a wad of cash at the strip club, and I only threw, like, $17 at the strippers, and I put the rest in my purse. Amen. No, listen, we all did wholesome scam. Those are the scams you're supposed to do, okay? I was taking down big corporations like big nigga, and I was taking them down.

Lacey Mosley
Big nigga ink. Big nigga. Big nigga. The productions for big nigga have been. They're in the green ThIs year.

We're up. We're up. We're in the black. Yes. Honestly.

Mel Mitchell
And so I almost was recently a victim of a scam. So the story I was telling you, you know, I had a show on Saturday, and, you know, sold out. I was so excited. So, you know, on a high, headlining for the first time an hour. And then one of the club owners came up to me, was like, hey, we got people outside talking about, they have a giveaway.

They got. They won tickets in a giveaway. And I was like, I didn't do no damn giveaway. I didn't give nothing away. We sold everything.

No, you need to go buy your ticket. What are you talking about? So I look at the email, and, you know, there's very few men that I compliment on their character, okay? That gosh darn Kevin Fredericks did a giveaway on his Patreon for tickets to my show. He gave out, like, 30 tickets to my show.

And those people are outside ready to retrieve said tickets. I didn't know anything about it. So I'm thinking, oh, this is Atlanta. We've been scammed. Immediately.

Lacey Mosley
Immediately. I had to call Kevin. You know, Kev's a busy man. So I was like, I'm at the call, Kevin. Hello.

Mel Mitchell
Like. And he answered. And I was like, hey, did you buy tickets? He's like, oh, yeah, I did. I was like, what?

Lacey Mosley
And such a good thing. People pull up to the show. Like, I. Again, I cried eleven times this weekend. But again, that was a wholesome moment.

Mel Mitchell
But that could have easily been some Atlanta shit because scams people have scammed before. When I was in Tampa, someone came to the show saying they were my cousin and to let them in. I don't have any cousins in Tampa. I still don't know who it is, but because it was like, oh, you're black. Sure, right?

Lacey Mosley
Like, we could. Because I actually might have cousins in Tampa. There's a whole side of my family that we're like my grandfather and my. They might be. They might have 23 and ancestrid you.

And was like, I do have some. People in Tampa and central Florida, but we didn't have a conversation about it. Ma'am, I don't even know you. So I. Why are you telling me that you was my cousin?

Mel Mitchell
To get in the show. You are going to hell. I don't know who that person is, but hella waits. You listen. I got a fake cousin, too.

Lacey Mosley
And she stays on my instagram saying she my cousin on my daddy's side. And, you know, everybody was. Talks about how, like, your biological father, for some reason, we're never as close to our relatives on our biological father's side as we are to the relatives on our mother's side. Like, I know all my cousins on my mama's side, but on my daddy's side, it gets a little dicey. Like, I got my favorite cousin Ronald, and that's it.

Mel Mitchell
Yeah, I have. I know it's more over there, but I do not know them for real. It's just me and Ronald. It gets kind of shaky. Like, my dad's side, I have more.

Family and I know more of their side because he has a bigger family. My mom's side is smaller and I'm closer to them because it was smaller than, like, you're just naturally gonna be close to your mom's side. But I have a bunch of cousins. It was so bad that I would be in class at FAMU and we would go through the role sheet and one of my family names is roll. R o l l e.

It's like a bahamian name in Miami. And I was like, girl, you might be my cousin. She's like, no, we're cousins. No, no, we actually are. You were like, ran around.

Lacey Mosley
She was like, no, we are. No, she was like, no, we're actually cousins. Actually. Like, for real. And I was like, that's why coming.

Mel Mitchell
And she was for sure my cousin. Yes. And you were like, hey, cousin. Now y'all gotta go to the cookout. And I already had a cousin in that class, so I had two cousins in that class.

Lacey Mosley
Then your whole family. True. Supporting famu, y'all. Y'all gotta. No, literally, I'm third generation.

Mel Mitchell
Both sides of my family. Famu. I gotta go sit on Mel Mitch bench. I'm gonna give me one. Honestly, once I get my money.

For real. Cause, like, will Packer got a whole amphitheater. I want a Mitchell terrace. I want something with my name. Mitchell Terrace could be cute where they look down at people.

I want, like a little garden or something. I need, like, a staircase. Something gonna be named after me at that campus. They need to do something for me. Cause I deserve.

I did not leave with a husband or any of the other things that I wanted from FaMU. So y'all need to give me something. Yeah, we gotta get you at least a door, a lamp post, a window, a statue, at least a seal. You know what I mean? Singular classroom.

I ain't gotta have the whole building. I just want to be the Mel Mitchell classroom. Whole building. Maybe the cafeteria. I spend a lot of time in the cafeteria.

Maybe a Mel Mitch menu item. Exactly. Like, they put it over the little sneeze guard, and it's just like, Mel Mitch. Keep it using. I love placard right there.

Honestly, we all deserve that. And I can't wait to go to the ribbon cutting of my sneeze guard. Yes. Signature cocktail in the cafeteria. Something.

Lacey Mosley
We gotta have it. We gotta have it. Or at least, I want at least my name on the soda fountain. Like, every time you get you a little of that mixed up, a little. Orange soda mixed with some fruits.

If we're sponsored by Pepsi, when you get your starry. If we sponsored by coke, when you get your sprite. It's just, you see my face smiling. Maybe I can do, like, a commercial like Tyrese. And that'll be my big break.

Mel Mitchell
It was a heartthrob. Good times. He used to be. They took Tyrese from me. Tyrese took Tyrese from me.

Cause I grew up in a Tyreese household. I did, too. I used to not think the intro to baby boy was weird. It was Tyrese naked in a fake womb as a girl, it just. And I was like, this makes sense.

Lacey Mosley
Like, he's got ass oh, baby boy. Umbilical cord. Duh. A grown man swimming in the amniotic sack. Y'all don't get it.

That's art. High art. Yeah. Tyrese really, like, he should sue Mark Zuckerberger, because Instagram really ruined Tyrese for all of us. Cause it was Twitter.

It was Twitter. Jack needs to pay for his crimes for many things, but it was Twitter first. Cause Twitter. I remember when Twitter came out, 2009, I saw it on the news, and this was. I wasn't allowed to have social media.

Mel Mitchell
Like, when MySpace was hot, I never had a MySpace. I didn't have Facebook. And I heard about Twitter, and I was like, let me hurry up and make one of these motherfuckers before my parents tell me I can't have it. And that's when you could really. That's when celebrities started getting broken down.

And then even in high school, I was like, oh, these niggas can't spell. They could not read good. I was like, oh, and it was Tyrese. Cause he'd be misspelling shit. I'd be like, mister Gibson, what's going on?

You was so busy on that goddamn train or bus in that Pepsi. Or was it Pepsi or coke commercial singing to? Was it Maya Campbell he was singing to? Or Tatiana Ali, one of them brown? I can't remember.

Lacey Mosley
But yes, you singing on the bus. You should have been going on that bus to school. But you're forgetting. After he was singing on the bus and after he was in the womb in baby boy, you know, then he started flying cars to the moon in Fast and Furious. He didn't have time.

You know how many two fastest and furiouses they done made? He didn't have time to read. Okay, listen. God gave him abs, a great voice, he's attractive, and then literacy. God was like, you can't have that.

And, you know, it just wasn't happening. Because, again, it happened so fast. He was in transformers, too. We love transformers. Mm hmm.

Mel Mitchell
He's fighting robots that were also cars. And at some point, there's no reason you are hot. You have abs. You can sing. Why are you corny?

You are literally God's favorite. He could have it all. That's why God was like, let me even this out with a dash of corniness. Otherwise, he might have brain cells up off you. Yeah, you don't need those.

Lacey Mosley
Cause I gave you the abs. Those are gonna do a lot of the work. And the singing is gonna do a lot of the work, so just run up off them. That IQ. You don't need all that.

Don't worry about that, sweetheart. But 1994, I had to look it up. 1994 on the Coca Cola bus. Oh, okay. I actually do not remember that then.

I don't think I've seen it online. But I don't remember it in real time. Cause I was also born in 1994. But I remember the lore, you know. It'S a lore for me.

Cause I was like, I don't think I actually saw it when it happened. I was probably in utero, like, he was a baby boy. But I still remember, like, the tyrese of it all. Yes. The era.

Oh, sweet sweetie. Lady Kim battling usher in the my way video. So good. See, I was there mentally when I saw it again. I want r and b men to go back to really singing about love, singing about pain.

We need to get more of y'all dancing in the rain. I'm so tired of these rap songs. It's like, then I bring her to the crib, show her how I live, fuck her in the hearse, steal from a purse, call that uber, kick that female loud. Wow. What are we doing?

Like, where's the love making? Like, you know, we brought this up. On my podcast, too. Cause, like, okay, misogyny isn't new. No, it's not a new concept, but at least there was a sense of discretion with it.

Mel Mitchell
You know, the James Browns and the Teddy Pendergrass was going home and beating hoes up. But when they're in the studio, something terrible. When they were in the studio, they were in love. They reverenced the black queen. They loved you.

When they got, like. It was different. But at least in the studio, in the confines of the studio, there was love there. Now, the NCR, they don't use sexual innuendo no more. It's I wanna fuck you in your ass.

Lacey Mosley
Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Like, what happened to a metaphor? You can't make them. Some can't make. My coochie used to be a flower.

It was a lotus flower, Bob. And now it's just, give me that pussy. Oh, no. I'm a lady like you. Scaring the hoes.

What's going on? I, as a representative of the host, am afraid. Terrified of fear. And at least just ease us into. We know you ain't no good.

We at least say, sorry, Brit. Don't never apologize, Brit. Just like, I ain't shit. Fuck you, bitches. And then.

Mel Mitchell
That's just the song. You should have known I wasn't shit. Never respected you. Like, what? I'm a fucking mama, too.

And I hate you, host. I'ma hit you in a vase f you. They get too specific. Drake be doing reads that. I'm like.

Lacey Mosley
He's like, then you went to the club with your fake Glenn cleef. And we know you got your BBl and Dr. And it's like, wait a minute, so does you. You are in women business. You are too deep in women's business.

You're supposed to be singing about how big. You know what, Drake we are. It ain't got too bad. Cause he would be so oddly specific. Like, that poor girl from fucking hooters on pizza.

Hooters on pizza. Couldn't even go to fucking work no more. Cause Drake wanted to put her in a goddamn song. And he put her directly in this. Song, cortisol from Hooters on street.

Real bitches. And frequently. These wasn't real hoes, right? Keisha shut down.

Mel Mitchell
These aren't real bitches. These are general hoes. Right? Would be Melanie, who lived on the. East side and went, okay, be serious, Drake.

Lacey Mosley
Like, you giving out bitch. You doxing bitches on the songs. How you be doxing? Host? Like, DMX would be like, cookie.

I met her at an ice cream parlor. But Drake is like. Drake is like, Felicia, she work at the post office on third Mao. Like, what do you mean she gotta. Go back to work?

Drake, she on the 09:00 a.m. Shift getting her shit. What do you. Now we know exactly. You got a side bang like that.

Mel Mitchell
Now you know exactly who the fuck. Now everybody know you fuck Drake. She got a mole on her left cheek. Like, what? Drake.

Lacey Mosley
This is too specific now. But I remember when he did something where he was hanging up jerseys like strippers that he retired. Cause it didn't have to strip nobody without their consent. Malia is like, 42. She refuses to stop twerking because she has to defy Drake.

Mel Mitchell
It's been like ten years since he. Hugged her jersey up. She was like, bitch, I didn't say I wanted my Jersey hung up. Fuck you. And she's still stripping.

Lacey Mosley
She came out of retirement just because Drake told her she couldn't. Well, I didn't plan on retiring, but now I'm definitely not. How you gonna retire me? Yeah, you can't retire me. Going to the fucking staples center.

Mel Mitchell
And it's like, hey, hey, LeBron, you're done, pal. We're gonna hang your jersey up. I know you wanna play in the league with your son, but you're done. Yeah, we gotta get rid of you. No, it's ridiculous.

Lacey Mosley
But I wanna say that I'm glad that you ask them where they got. See, I'm spinning the block out. You asked them where they got their giveaway from? Because it would have been funny if Kev got a text or something. Or like, people got on Patreon and they were like, Melmitch just came outside and beat us up.

Cause she said we were scamming her show. You lying ass bitches. I'm trying to make money. This is my. She took a baseball bat to my car.

Kev, no. So I'm glad that he's such an icon. He's such supportive. He love us for real, and I. Love him for real.

So I'm glad that that happened. And congratulations on headlining one of what will be many more headlinings and specials. Cause you are so talented. So we're so happy to have you here. Scout.

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And we're going to get into our first segment here. Okay, as y'all can see, me and mel are going to have a good old time, so y'all can just come along for the ride, you know what I mean? Have fun with us. So this is our first segment here called what's hot and fraud. This is where we warn our listeners about popping scams and the zeitgeist.

Or more often than not, we get a letter from you all. As always, snitch on your friends, family, and your enemies@scamgottispodmail.com. Dot. Just make sure the scam is retired so we don't what? Yes.

Fuck up your bag. Amen. So, Mel, all I need from you is a fake name for this person. We don't care about gender here. It can literally be anything.

Mel Mitchell
Okay, I already thought about this. Cause I was like, okay, let me practice for the pot. Bethesda. Bethesda. Isn't that in Maryland they got a Bethesda Marilyn?

I think so, yes. It's one of the Bethesda. The inside her purse smells so good. She always got a peppermint. You know what I mean?

And lotion, and lotion, and lotion and lotion. And a tissue, baby. Okay. Dry them tears up. Okay.

Lacey Mosley
Bethesda is definitely on the ursha board at church. She got her white gloves on, and she will make you go to the extra seating if we are full. And you cannot come in when prayers are. Never catch her without pantyhose on. Always got a pantyhose on.

Mel Mitchell
But that's not walking around here. Bare pantyhose. Okay. Since the eighties, she was like, no, these pantyhose are never coming off bare legs. No, that's for my husband and can't be seeing my leg pores.

Lacey Mosley
Never that. So. And I feel like she got hair under the pantyhose too, which I don't know how you do that. Cause that makes my legs hurt. If I ever have, like, a little hair and I put on pantyhose, they.

Mel Mitchell
Still stick out, but she refuses. But it's the thick pantyhose, so. Oh, yeah, for the elephants. No, she can't. It's like the sheer, like, that brown, like, that terrible shade of brown sheer.

And you can't see nothing that no. Black person has ever been. I'm never married. Where did y'all see anyone's brand? It's just like, a sheer.

Not even. Dude, shree bark. I guess, like, literal paperback color. Cause, like, no one is this color. So why is being used as a barometer for anything?

Lacey Mosley
I would feel better if it fits somebody's shade, but it literally fits no black person's shade. They were like, what if we just made a brown that no black person could use? That way, everyone is dissatisfied. That'll help them. Yep.

Legs. And, you know, you get them at the CV's or the Walgreens. When you're in a pinch, it's usually. When you are knee highs. What if they're not even real penny hoes?

Mel Mitchell
They just knee highs. And she just. Now, you know, knee highs are for huzzies. She got the habit going all the way up to the bra line. The knee hussies.

Oh, my God. Okay, we're back. So Bethesda says, hi, scam goddess. I'm reaching out because I was recently scammed out of dollar 800 by one of my personal heroes in the nail industry. Celebrity nail technician.

Lacey Mosley
I am not going to say the name because I just found a new abugado abugata. Y'all know people be trying to sue me, but she. Bethesda's putting the name on blast. Full government. But I'm gonna.

Let's call. What do we want to call the fake nail technician? Give me an instagram y name. Nails by Nisha. So we're gonna call the fake nail tech.

Nails by Nisha. Okay. So Bethesda says she was scammed out of dollar 800 by one of her personal heroes in the nail tech industry. Celebrity nail technician. Nails by Nisha.

So last summer, nails by Nisha reached out to me via Instagram DM about participating in a project in New York City for the 50th anniversary of hip hop. We exchanged phone numbers, and she told me over the phone that she was creating a commemorative nail kit and hosting a massive event to launch it in November of 2023. Celebrity Nail Technisha has reached out to Bethesda on the Instagram DM's and was like, hey, girl, it's me, your favorite celebrity nail hero, the cuticle queen. And naturally, at the 50 year celebration of hip hop, we need to do something for nails, and I want you to be involved. Hip hop.

Now, women in hip hop did have very iconic nails, but when I think of 50 years of hip hop, I don't immediately go, what are the nails given? Are they doing the nails drives, or who's doing the nails? Cause that's figure out the fingernail problem. Not the music, not the outfits, not the iconic hair. Again, if it was, like, sneakers.

Mel Mitchell
Cause I know, like, Nike did stuff that makes sense. The rappers had on sneakers. I don't think krs one had a full set. He ain't have some french chips with some rhinestones. I don't think that rapper's delight was getting a feel.

I don't think. I don't think he was like, uh, coffin, you know, I don't think. I don't think that was something that the people were pressed about. And again, I do think nails were a thing, especially in R and B. You know, SWV had the nails going even slow.

Joe had nails. Yeah. Her nails would cross the finish line before she did. They would. And those were real nails.

Lacey Mosley
So they would, like, curl over, and I would curve. Yeah, same with SWV. Well, I don't know if they were real, but I know SWV's would like. Cause after a while, your nails curl. That's why I'm like, why?

Y'all let them grow to the curl point? But that used to be the thing in the nineties, like, the little curly q nails. You could buy them like that. It reminds me of the people who. Have the world records.

Mel Mitchell
Their nails just, like, keep swirling into each other. It's really gross. It's so grossy. So now nails by Nisha has roped in our girl Bethesda. And Bethesda says, I agreed to participate.

Lacey Mosley
There would be nail polish in the kit named after me. There was also going to be an event in August of 2023 where participant texts would get to do an Instagram live with a yet unnamed female rapper. She told me this was going to be career changing project, and it would open many doors for me in this industry. So now, nails by Nisha has promised Bethesda. Okay, I'm gonna name a nail polish after you.

We gonna have Bethesda blue. Bethesda, baby. Bethesda blue is crazy. But what does Bethesda blue have to do with 1973? You were not there at that Harlem basement party.

You're doing too much math, okay? You are in trigonometry right now. We are in grade school math. We got a red folder. The math is not going to math as hard.

I feel like you are in calculus right now, Mel. And you got to bring it all the way back to one plus one. Cause it's a scam, so it don't. Have to make sense. Go ahead.

Mel Mitchell
I'm sorry. Yeah, the math. Mathing like that. You got a ti? 89.

Lacey Mosley
Babes, we're ready to start a calculator. My bad. I'm sorry. We got a calculator. We got for free out the wallet at the marshalls.

You over here with nine pro? No, you arithmeticing? Okay, okay. Go ahead, go ahead. Listening.

Promising. Instagram fame, which now everybody wants to get more followers. I understand. In this particular industry, because if you want to do high profile clients, who obviously will pay a lot more for your services, and also when you do high profile clients, then you can charge your other clients even more, because you're like, when I'm not doing your nails, like, I'm doing Chloe Ann Halley, or I'm doing, like, my nail tech is a celebrity nail tech, and she is not cheap, but she's also very, very, very good and makes herself available. So it's like, I'm getting what I pay for.

So I understand. Like, if you tired of doing a field for $25, you trying to move up into where you can charge the girls 250 for a set, and they definitely do out here. So I understand why she's falling for this. And right now, it doesn't seem that weird, like, this person's legit on the Internet, you know, whatever. So the only catch is, as a show of good faith, now, mind you, good faith?

You told me I'm gonna do a celebrity female rapper's nails. You haven't told me who, where, when, why, but I gotta show good faith. But you ain't making me nothing. You ain't showing me nothing. So, as a show of good faith, nails by Nisha told Bethesda that she had to purchase one of the kits for dollar 800.

The kit itself would have been worth the money. And I was told my flight and accommodation would be taken care of for the event. Before I sent the money, we signed a contract track to this effect. Now, here's my thing. A nail kit versus the flight and accommodation.

One of those is more expensive than the other. And I'm gonna go with the flight and accommodation. You know, Boeing only got two planes left that the doors ain't flew off of. So if you want to get on one of them good joints, that's gonna take off and land, like, it's gonna cost you. So why would I pay for the nail kit?

And you're paying for the most expensive part. So what's the nail kit? Because let's get some clarity on what the itemized contents of this nail kit is. What is that in here? I think she's going to tell us a little bit about what the nail kit is, but it's a little out of order.

So I think we're going to get an answer to your question. So, long story short, the event that she signed the contract for. Bethesda signed the contract for never happened after being pushed back over and over again. I think a version of the event did take place at a small pop up, but my flight and hotel were never mentioned again, and it's unclear whether the kits were actually even produced by this point. I had told nails by Nisha that I no longer was interested in the kit, and I would just as soon get my money back.

So Bethesda was like, give me my money back. You ain't giving me nothing. Hand it over, Zelle Venmo cash app. If you're really doing crime, I'll take a carrier pigeon, a raven from Game of Thrones. Just give me my coins back in my pocket.

I'm with you on that, Bethesda. Yeah. Cause also, she doesn't have this nail kit, which was also promised. Right. Bethesda said that.

She told me it would be no problem. That ain't no problem. Get your money back. And that I would get it back within 24 hours. But of course, this never happened either.

My friends and I finally did some digging, and it turns out that not only has she been previously arrested for identity theft, but this is a scam she's been perpetrating for a while, creating pop ups and events and getting nail techs to put money up under the promise of career advancement. We dropped the shark. Nails by Nisha been doing. I didn't. Now, Nisha, that's a big fail.

Mel Mitchell
Fail? We pop ups, you popping up. Popping about people's debit card transactions. She said pop up, and I'm gonna pop out. Okay.

Lacey Mosley
Pop up, and then she's gone. That's why they're called pop ups. Cause she can't say anything. We're stationary. She gotta get gone quick.

So these we're looking at kind of nail kits. Right now, Judith pulled up, which. These are, like, manicure sets. And, like, typically, they come with lots of colors. You can get, like, sometimes they have colored acrylics and things that you would use.

Mel Mitchell
You know, I don't care. These are, like, art sets. Remember, you get art sets when you was little? This is giving art sets. Even the little drills is $20 on Amazon.

Lacey Mosley
Yeah. Jeff Bezos say you can get this for $44.99 if you want the deluxe. So that's a little curious. So nails by Nisha has been impersonating people, robbing people, and doing these pop ups and popping out, right? She's not a catfish.

She is actually a celebrity nail technician. And here is her full government name. Bethesda. I'm not gonna say the full government name. So Bethesda said I was a genuine fan, and I was so excited, she reached out to me.

I don't want to be the person to do this to her, but it doesn't look like anyone else's efforts to stop her have worked. So I'm calling on you for help. Okay, Bethesda, if this is something you're interested in covering, I can send you our DM and Instagram history, the contacts, et cetera. But this is all I'm gonna take because I do not want to be sued by this person. But I will say there's a lot of this happening currently, because when people get followings on Instagram, people will trish you differently if they see a blue check.

If they see if you have over a certain amount of followers, they do assume things about you that may not be true. A lot of people who have hundreds of thousands of followers on Insta or on TikTok, or they have even millions of followers. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have money. Followers does not equate income. It does not equate success in every right or facet of that, you know, industry, whatever the industry may be.

And people now equate that. Like, oh, if you have a lot of followers, you must be rich or you must be successful. You must have opportunities at all, at all. People can buy their followers. People can, you know, I mean, with the algorithms now, you can't even tell who bought their followers anymore because it looks like I bought mine sometimes.

Because Mark Zuckerberg would be like, if you pay us, we hide in everything you post, right? Sometimes I post something and then just archive it to fuck with the algorithm. Cause I'm like, I don't know what to do. Like, you're not gonna let me have my platform anymore. Cause I won't give you $14.99 a month.

Like, be serious. Literally, I have 350,000 followers on TikTok, and sometimes I get 200 likes on the post. Yep. That's why they came up with high, like. Cause they know I'm like, how do I have a.

Mel Mitchell
It's bad. What are we doing? And it'll be like five. It looks like I purchased my followers. It looks like that for a lot of people now.

Lacey Mosley
And people are doing all they can to try to beat the algorithm. I'm like, I don't got do like a static post. Just a picture on the picture website. And they're like, fuck you. Right now.

Mel Mitchell
You got a damn near dance in the background of your flyer. So it's just so you can. It can be a real. That's literally what the girls are doing. They are dancing with their flyer in the background.

Lacey Mosley
And if you edit it on TikTok and save it and put it on Instagram, it will also be suppressed because Instagram can read where the video was edited. And if it says TikTok and whatever code, they will suppress it because that's not their site. They want you to put the reel up and edit it on Instagram. As if it's easy to do that on Instagram. But like, Instagram, step your shit up if you want to.

Mel Mitchell
If you gonna hold a hostage, I'd be having to edit stuff in inshot and then post on both. But God forbid I put text in the video that says, like, click bye bye or something like that. Then it's up hidden. If they see a link in Lincoln, where link to where is it to Instagram shop? Well, then we ain't leaving.

Are you taking people off of my application? That's crazy. Cause we will not be letting that happen. Robbery. Life is a highway, and on it there will be many chicken sandwiches.

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Lacey Mosley
And fraud. But let's get into my favorite segment of the show, historic hoodwinks. This is where I will regale mel with a famous concept group of criminals. We'll see. And we're gonna get our opinions all throughout, interrupt tangents, whatever.

Let's have a good time. I do want to make a content warning up here. There is a mention of sexual assault and violence. Y'all know that this podcast, we keep it pretty light, so we're going to go over that with a lot of ease and care and move past it as quickly as possible. But we'll put a content warning and a time warning in the episode, just in case.

You know, I understand. Sometimes we try to hear that, but also just hearing that up top. Thank you for the warning, Caitlin. I don't know if I'm going to. Be on the scammer side, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be.

Actually, I can almost be positive, unless that happened to somebody else and the scammer didn't do it. So we'll see. But so today, we're going to be talking about something that happened over the course of five days in the fall of 2023. So recent, a group of hackers tried to take MGM Las Vegas fourth most profitable casino for 30 million of them things. So the heist on the night of Friday, September 8, 2023, just four days after Beyonce's birthday.

Mel Mitchell
Right? When the girls are really broke, you know? Cause Beyonce really came for our coins, and she's coming for them. Recovering from Renaissance. Yeah, she's really not giving us a break here.

Lacey Mosley
She was like, and now cowboy Carter. And it's like, I need the merch. I need to go on the tour. Yeah. Did you see the $300 jacket?

Mel Mitchell
Did you see it? Now, why would you tell me about that? Cause now I gotta go look at it after this. The $300 jean jacket that she's selling, and it's like, beyonce, we don't have any more money. I don't have any more money.

Lacey Mosley
Beyonce, she was sacred hair care. I'm like, beyonce, we're poor. Still klarning their renaissance tickets, right? They ain't paid those off, Beyonce, at least in the. Remember in magazines where they used to have samples and it'd be like in a little plastic thing you could squeeze, dab it on?

You would rub the magazine all over your body. That's all we got. We affirming the last thing you released? Yes. This is the jacket.

Judith, you are wrong for this. Why would you pull up this jacket? Like this, Judith. Cause now I'm looking at it, and I really want it on my body. Don't I need that?

Mel Mitchell
That ain't no dollar 300 jacket. Beyonce. You could at least put some Beyonce sweat on it and a couple locks of hair, right? Maybe she touching each one. If they told me she ran her hand over it, maybe, you know.

Lacey Mosley
Oh, it says 100% no, I need this on my body. Beyonce. Give me, like, a Beyonce sneeze on the sleeve. I need to know that there's some Beyonce DNA on it before I pay $300. Like blue eye.

We need a dance in each one. And then mail it to the box. You got my money? Yeah. She's gotten all of my coins.

She said, I'm not done. I would like more of it. Oh, man. And now, like, you know, cowboy Carter. Now we have the, like, sharon's and the carols from Hr.

They love cowboy Carter, and I love that for them. But now I just know that this tour is going to be even harder to get because Carol inherited a house in the will, and she definitely got some coins set aside, whereas I don't own property. The tour is going to be crazy. I'm not going to fight for the tour. But I just hope that this gives mother her album of the year, because if they play in her face again.

Mel Mitchell
Cause I know Taylor's dropping this year, too, but if they play in Beyonce's face again, I'm going to have a problem. We all will. I mean, I think the Grammys needed to be having higher security. We will be outside, and we are finna trust you. You will be dealt with.

Lacey Mosley
Trust and believe. Okay. We are all going to be standing on Fortune 500 business if she does not win. We are tired of the Disney. We will be outside of the recording academy with razor blades and lemon juice.

Ready? And lemonade. Okay. For you? Ah, we make a lemonade out of you.

Also an album that should've won album of the year. So facts. The heist on the night of Friday, September 8, 2023, a group of mostly teenage hackers called Star Fraud. Love the name. We love branding.

Y'all are stars. Y'all doing fraud. We know what we're getting. And sometimes they were called scattered Spider that don't hit his heart. Let's go with Starfight.

Mel Mitchell
Yeah, I don't like that. They made a call to MGM Resorts tech support. The person on the line claimed to be an employee. They're from Starfried. They claim to be an employee.

Lacey Mosley
Calling MGM's tech support, but had forgotten their password. And was locked out of their account. So they say, hey, it's me. I work for y'all at M the GNDM, and I'm locked out of my account and my password, I don't have that. So MGM verified their information and tech support.

The agent helped them reset their password. Oh, man. So, MGM tech support. Are y'all outsourced? Cause it's giving.

You're nowhere near the MGM, and maybe you're in some part of India or Florida or. How did we get here? Hey, it's me. I work for y'all. Yeah, I forgot my password and my name and my social and my current address.

Mel Mitchell
Oh, yeah. Can you hear someone's personal infocommation? Like what? Okay, go ahead. Go ahead.

Lacey Mosley
By the time the actual employee received a notification that his password had been reset and contacted tech support, it was too late.

So he got an email and was like, yo, we've updated your password at your job. And was like, where's my password? No way. I'm at my desk. What's my grandmama maiden car?

Wait a minute. How do we even. My favorite bird. Who knew that? Wait a minute.

Mel Mitchell
How'd you even get my security questions? Ugh. Okay, that's why you need to make your security questions. If these are high school kids, these are teenagers. Why y'all not in school?

They don't give our homework no more. Listen, they're in the school of life. They're going to scam goddess school of fraud. This is for my twins. And Compton, time really moves past you.

Just 16. Okay, go ahead. Yes. Always a Beyonce moment. Always.

Lacey Mosley
No, I love it. Always Beyonce. Always on. Always on burglary. Always on.

B. On burglary. I was going on burglary on call. Okay, so, Starfraud, let's figure out a little bit about them. So it sprung out of a large online community called the.

That's with an m. The calm. So, over the last five years, the calm has become one of the biggest cybersecurity problems in the continental us. Love that for them. They said, we are a problem.

We online, we doing crime, and we're having a great time. I'm here for it. This online community has spent years honing and sharing techniques and scripts to maneuver their way through the weak points of, like, over a dozen major companies. So this is a community I've been talking about how we need more shared spaces and community, and these people have gotten together. They're lifting each other up.

You can say that. That you're about to say in Filoni's activities. But okay, they're mentoring one another. But like, are they getting the money? How are they getting the money and not getting caught?

Mel Mitchell
Are they all rich? Like, are they all still trying to get it out the mud? Because at this point, you on your fifth big scam, it's giving get it. Out the mud because they're all sharing information, which means nobody really had all the keys to the kingdom. So somebody got to get all the rings, like thanos, and then they gon run the perfect scam.

Lacey Mosley
So the comm has successfully posed as FBI agents to trick Apple and meta agents into handing over their home addresses and phone numbers of users. So they don't call Steve Jobs and them. They didn't call Tim Apple and them and got people's information. We're like, hey, it's us, the FTB in the eye. Cause I feel like anytime the FBI calls a place like meta or apple, they're like, oh, lord, what do we do this time?

Did they find out about the trust laws that we breaking? Like, they don't break so many laws over there. Sorry, y'all. Okay, y'all, private info is. Is on the net, all right?

You gave it to us. Yeah. Like, did you read the Apple contract. That says, we are not liable for anything that we do to you at any time? Cause we make it real long.

So you just click, okay, accept, and then keep going. I never read it. I probably would have sworn over my firstborn. I'm sure they got my kidneys at this point. Like, I know they do.

Somebody just gonna show up at my door and be like, remember you got that iPhone 14? Yeah, we gonna need that. We gonna need that. Kidney stink a butt. Yeah, run it up.

Mel Mitchell
We gotta put it in this little cooler. Cooler on some ice. We gonna do it in your house on some ice. No hospital treatment. You got two ocular nerves.

Lacey Mosley
We gonna need you to come up off one of them. Just. Okay. We need that whole spinal cord up off your big dog. Thank you.

Yeah, lay down and stay down. So they've hacked their way into Microsoft, Nvidia, Uber, and Samsung. And I wanna note here that Nvidia is a tech company that invents the GPU and drives advances in AI, HPC, gaming creation, design, and autonomous vehicles and robotics. So all the things that we saw in movies that were warning us that we did not need Nvidia is doing them. So I don't know if I mind that y'all are getting scammed because we really don't need AI.

Somebody tweeted the other day, they were like, right? Someone tweeted. They were like, why do we have AI for doing artistic, creative things or all the work that I want to do, but there's no AI to do my dishes and my laundry? That's what we want AI for. Why is AI doing all the stuff we want to do as humans?

But not, like, you can get an AI girlfriend, but ain't nobody AI mopping my floor yet. What's going on? AI taxes going, AI going to the DMV. And that's, you know. And then that would be just robots.

Mel Mitchell
But again, irobot has told us repeatedly, don't y'all make them damn robots? Right? Because robots gonna start beefing with us. They're gonna be like, I hate her. That chest gonna turn red.

Lacey Mosley
I don't even have a roomba. Cause I don't play that. My roommate gonna roll up on me in the middle of the night. I hate him. Cause, like, when the lights go out, he gets to beeping and just rolling around.

Mel Mitchell
No. Yeah. What you mean? You roaming around my house, you don't pay rent here, and you really not. Cleaning up that well.

Lacey Mosley
Just moving around, just doing a two step, trying to tell somebody. You getting dirt, right? And you a circle. How you hitting corners? Roomba ain't doing shit.

Not here for it. So many members of the comm have an affinity for targeting gaming companies, probably cause they play a lot of games, too. So last year, a fringe group called lapis. Sorry, lapsus. And the last s is a dollar sign.

So they really trying to tell you they get money. These names, lapsus, they said they sus. And we on a laptop. Laptop suspicion. It's led by a 17 year old.

And they stole the source code to the then unreleased grand Theft auto six, and tried to exploit its developer, Rockstar games, for millions of dollars. So they said, if you want grand theft auto back. Cause we just grand thefted it from you. Rockstar, you're gonna have to run up on some coins. And that potentially, if that game linked online, like, that game makes so much.

Mel Mitchell
Money that people have been waiting over ten years. I mean, I played vice city. I never did any of the challenges. I just drove around and stole money from people. I don't know if that's good for your psyche, but I had a good.

Time, you know, I played grand Theft auto for the first time, for real, like, last year. And I was driving around. I'm just not. My only driving game that I previously played was crazy taxi. So I was driving like it was crazy taxi and grand Theft auto does not allow that.

Like, you are getting actual damage to his vehicle now. You can't drive it anymore. Like, I got in a police chase, and I got stuck, and I couldn't back out. They were shooting at me. Mm hmm.

And I managed to get away, though. It was really crazy. Cause I'm just like, but the way. That, like, the police chase and it. Starts flashing red and I was covered in sweat, I'm like, how do y'all play this?

Lacey Mosley
You stressed out? That's how I feel about restressed. That's how I feel about certain rap music. Like, I have a very good friend Bree, who loves, like, any new rap song that comes out trapping, rapping. Like, she's on rap genius, memorizing the lyrics and driving around with it bland full blast in her car.

And a lot of those songs have lots of gunshots in them and sirens. And I'm like, I'm jumping. Cause I'm like, is someone shooting, or are the police following us? I'm like, how do you just listen to this on your serene drive to your job? I don't know.

Mel Mitchell
Like, my friends make fun of me because I'm always listening to, like, nineties and 2000 R and B. But it's calming. I tried to, like, listen when that little trend was like, lil von King Von in little dirt. It's like, yeah, that's evil twin. Okay, this is fun on TikTok.

Let me listen to the whole song. Murder, murder, murder, murder, kill, kill, murder, murder. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Stay. Kill.

Blood, blood, blood. Shot, shot. Pop, pop. And people are like, this is what I meditate to. Like, every day.

Lacey Mosley
I get up and I set my intentions to. Johnny Gill. Johnny would never say these things, right? He sure wouldn't. It's a good christian car, though.

We have as much more than they can see. Like, I gotta. That's what I need, what we have. I can't be listening to that. That's what makes me.

Morning. First thing, I wake up before I put all my makeup and say a little prayer for you. I gotta hear the gunshot. Morning. I wake up before I put on my makeup.

Makeup. Listening to some Ozzy brothers or something.

Mel Mitchell
I don't need it. I can't do it. I'm not Griselda. I can't do it. Comps exploits have even left the digital world.

Lacey Mosley
So we were talking about the digital spaces where they're stealing, right? They've been known to hire accomplices to throw Molotov cocktails and fire guns in the homes of their rivals. So they are Internet gang. But I say this. This is gang activity now.

Mel Mitchell
Gang shit is what they're. They're finding IP addresses. Are we saying. Cause I'm scared now, right? I don't want them to get my ip back.

Please do not pull up. Please do not cocktail me. Please. I'm doing the best I fucking can. You know, out of gangs there always sprouts a rapper.

Lacey Mosley
You know? So I can't wait for. There's already some IP, like, TikTok rappers. We talk about TJ six, but I want a rapper to come out and be like, hey, yo, drop that IP. We gonna slide through.

You been typing big shit. Let me see your crew. We coding all night. Got them scripts, right? Then I hacked the MGM.

Get that money tight. Yeah, I could do this. What the video victims look like for, like, the. For hackers, they gotta be like a. They gotta be like, Sims.

Mel Mitchell
Like, they gonna be like Sharon Plankton's wife. It's gonna be like a computer with wheels, and it's gonna have, like, titties. And just gonna be like, yep. I wanted to be like that girl. What was her name?

Lacey Mosley
Pinky doll or something. I'm like, tastes so good. Ice cream. So good. Yum, yum, yum.

Tastes so good. Yeah. Yup, yup. I want that to be their babbage. Like their blow up dolls.

Mel Mitchell
Because what? Let's keep it in theme. Hackers have stolen millions. This has included victims that were teenagers on the other end of sextortion schemes, which. That is fucked up.

Lacey Mosley
And if you don't know what sextortion is, we now have a word for it. We call it home passion. On this podcast, y'all know what that is? Where, like, maybe you're on Tinder, or maybe you're, you know, in a dating app or something, or somehow someone has gotten a hold of your, like, nudity or explicit videos or things like that, and they'll be like, I'm putting this on Facebook for your grandpappy to see unless you send me some money or whatever. You know what I mean?

Like, extortion via, like, exposing sexual things of a sexual nature. According to cybersecurity firm unit 221 B, which is a reference to Sherlock Holmes's address. 221 B Baker Street. I love that y'all are getting into the lore with these names. Most of comm's members are, in quotes, basically children from the US, Canada, and the UK who grew up in online communities that groomed children to do cybercrime.

Mel Mitchell
What? So y'all gotta watch y'all's kids, when they logging on, when they logging off, because back in the olden times, they used to. We got on the computer, it'd be like, listen, so your parents could hear when you got online. Now you got a computer on your phone. You got laptops, iPads.

You know, what kind of groom. Like, that's a hard level grooming. It's one thing to do, like, sexual grooming. Cause not that it's good, but, like, that's not really hard to do, but for cyber security. Like, when I was on the Internet as a teen, I was watching j smooth videos.

They was humping ottomans in living rooms. They were grinding and gyrating. That's what I wanted to see. These kids are getting introduced to a life of crime. They get Ricos off the Internet.

Lacey Mosley
And to be roped into a RiCo as a kid is just nasty work. But these kids are thinking, like, it's a quick, easy way. Make money. I mean, we see that colleges aren't guaranteeing careers anymore, so people are trying to figure out how they're gonna get their coins when they have to move out of their parents house. You know what I mean?

You only get free nine months rent in the womb. And then if you're lucky and get good parents, you might get 18 years at the crib. Oh, if you're real lucky, you might get, you know, maybe to 25, 26. You know what I mean? Just depends on how blessed you were with who you were born to, which is not always the case.

So they were grooming these kids, right? And Starfried began targeting MGM's weakest point, the tech support systems that helped people get into their online accounts. When they were locked out, they were able to gain the personal information used to verify employee identities with support agents by mining massive hoards of stolen data on the Internet. So, like, anytime you get on the data, when they say they gave them cookies, babes, those cookies are expensive. Those are designer cookies that they're stealing from you.

And so, once they have aggregated enough information from a specific MGM employee, then they're like, okay, let's go over here and pretend to verify that information so we can get the real passcodes. So, in other cases, Star fraud was also known to target people individually and threaten them into releasing their personal information. So they say, either we're gonna get it online cause someone already stole it from you, or we're gonna slide up to your house with our laptops. Gang, gang, we're gonna beat you with the MacBook, and then we gonna need you to type in your information after the beating. You know what I mean?

Computer pretty durable when it's closed. At first, some of Starfroud's activities with MGM were more juvenile. Like, they would rename files with racist or crude names, of course, and use eggplant emojis prodigiously. Teenagers, I don't know why, but, like, this is a part of so many, like, young, non grow up people of color. Like, why?

When y'all were teenagers, y'all had a racist face. I never had a racist face when I was a teenager. They all. It's just like, oh, that's fun. But you know what?

Mel Mitchell
Especially, like, you're a white boy, but you're a loser. I need to make someone feel. I need to feel better than someone. Oh, I'm not black. F'em.

You know? Or even the soccer. The girl is too. I'm not a girl, so I can punch down on girl. I'm not gay, so let me.

Lacey Mosley
At least I'm not black. There was that one girl who went viral on TikTok. She's like, I may be poor, I may be ugly, but at least I'm not black. And I was like, oh, baby, I'm neither of those things, but I am black. You just down bad, sweetie.

What was that girl from the harmonies, one of them fifth harmonies. Who had the racist? Camilla had a full KKK tumblr. Like, male. Yeah, like Normani, the crazy one, right.

Now, have I been on the KK website as a kid? Yes. I wanted to see what they were doing over there, but I was not contributing. But they had a website. I said, let me read it.

I didn't know they was going to ask a public. Www. Dot KKK. Www. Dot Kkk.

Okay. You can see they bulletin boards, you know, maybe they having an ice cream social. All the ice cream, little mixer, you know, where you can meet racists near. You, which y'all doing for Black History Month. You know, just crime.

Mel Mitchell
Hate one. Hate one. They celebrate it in the opposite way. So they're obviously gaining access to more and more things. They're growing so when they gain access to more and more accounts.

Lacey Mosley
By the evening of September 9, MGM executives knew that there was a full scale crisis because they had started getting all these people's information from tech support. And then the real employees would call and be like, I ain't changed my password. And then MGM was like, oh, maybe a snafu. And then too many snafus started to line up, and MGM was like, now. Wait a day, a minute.

But we snapped like they done Shannon once, and now they shannon again and again and again. So around 05:00 a.m. The following morning, chief executive Bill Hornbuckle. Hornbuckle. You know, he got money.

Money. If you lived your whole life with that name, you got coins. No one insults the Hornbuckle name. Doug Demidone ass name. Right?

He is a Doug Dymadone ass. Yes. And look at him. He is given. Hornbuckle.

Mel Mitchell
That is Horn duckle. What is it? Hornbuckle. Hornbuckle. You couldn't get that suit tailored, all that money you got.

Lacey Mosley
He said, I got so much money, I don't even got a tailored big. Body men's ass suit. Okay, go ahead. Right, right. It is definitely given, like, Easter Sunday, or like, I got court in 15 minutes.

So we just had to swing by the warehouse very much. Public defender ass suit. Ooh. It is given. Public defender.

It's given, let's plead out. And it's like, you don't know my name. You don't know your name. What I did, you did it. Whatever it is you're giving, you did it.

Mel Mitchell
Whatever it is you're looking at, you're guilty. Yeah. Due to five years. Okay. So Hornbuckle gave the order to start shutting down some of the company's systems.

Lacey Mosley
Communications between employees would become more difficult, but at least it would shut down the hackers and give the it team time to clean things up. So the IT team basically is gonna work on cleaning it up, getting rid of the hackers. But in order to do that, they have to shut down communication between a lot of employees. Now, what is that? Leaving Hornbuckle, you made the wrong choice.

I hope you lost your job after this, because. So you want the people who are already being hacked to now be in the dark and unable to communicate with one another? Like, the hackers aren't going to be like, this is perfect. The hackers found a window opportunity, and Hornbuckle, you opened the damn door. They were like, let's walk right outside the community.

Mel Mitchell
And they took it. Clean your feet on the welcome at y'all. Cause we indoors now. Like, what? So, however, repairing the systems proved to be like a whack a mole.

Lacey Mosley
And when a member of the incident response team tried to use Microsoft Teams to call an employee whose password had just been reset, one of the hackers answered. So now they call the people on teams, which Microsoft Teams, please get your system together, because I get so stressed when I have to use it. But they done called on teams and the hacker picked up, like, hello? Yeah, it's me. Real employee at MGM.

What's good? Oh, I've been hacked. That's crazy. What's my new password? What?

Mel Mitchell
So how do y'all keep fucking up like that? Because they weren't prepared. These kids have been online, studying. They're getting straight a's in crime. I'm trying to figure out.

What do you get from this? Go ahead. They trying to get the bag. So this is when all hell broke loose. By Monday morning, the hack had made international news, and MGM released a statement that it was investigating the cybersecurity issue.

Lacey Mosley
Guests at the casino began experiencing compounding problems as the company shut systems down. Or they were infiltrated. According to one player, he tried to cash out his winnings at a slot machine, but was met with an error message. And he waited 45 minutes for help, and no one showed. Look at this.

Now, it was no error when I put my coins in, but it's an error when I want my coins out. Run me my money, MGM. And then it's like this cartoony ass, power Rangers ass graphic. What is this graphic? This don't even look like a professional graphic.

Mel Mitchell
Somebody made this on Microsoft Word. They were like, we'll never have to use it. Just have a little paper clip. Just arrange it on clip art. That's all we need.

Lacey Mosley
Just put it in. If you're missing a comma. He was shove at the bottom right of your screen. You sure like move. Paperclip.

Mel Mitchell
Damn right. Paperclip definitely designed this. Okay. Cause y'all didn't spend no money on this. So, like many casinos on the strip, MGM offered most of its services on apps, including hotel check ins, room keys, and slot machine balances.

Lacey Mosley
So when the apps were offline, the entirety of MGM's resort scrambled to turn up its operation, including 37,200 hotel rooms and 1 million casino floors. And they had to go back to manual mode for all of that. So you went from having the key cards and it's all digital, to like, hold on, y'all. We got somebody hand me key. 24, 56 on floor 46.

Here go your key. Jingling. This is a nightmare. This is horrific. And it's your birthday.

Mel Mitchell
You about to get some. And you came to get your God doggone room. Oh, no. You're not getting no birthday sex. You're not getting no birthday drink.

They probably was hunching behind the slot machine. Somebody was in a hunching in the lobby. Cause, like, look, a new problem arises. It's just hedonism. Now.

Lacey Mosley
Everyone we gotta. It's my birthday. I can't get in my room, and I'm drunk. So we're gonna just hunch right here by the fountain. Fuck you mean by the lions and MGM?

And you'll be fine. You go into the public bathroom, people in their shower, and they locked our rooms out. So we gotta get our shower room, right? We gotta get to Adele tonight. What do you mean?

Adele didn't have no breakdown. Like, we gotta get over there and roll is performing. I gotta go to usher and y'all talking about, right? I get it. You gotta go smelling good at usher.

Cause you know he gonna grind up on everybody. Wife. So they now had to check in thousands of guests with a pen and paper and issue the physical hotel keys. Like, we were talking. Elevators normally operated through mobile app had to be reassigned to individual employees with walkie talkies just to operate.

So now you got an old school elevator operator in there pushing buttons like, hey, club, what floor y'all going to? That's ridiculous. They may as well gotta get in there, right? Lauren, on the pulley. Like, how many floors?

Tell me when to stop. Goodness gracious. So it wasn't until the following morning that MGM received an email with Starfraud's demand. Starfraud emailed hornbuckle a standard ransom note stating that he had installed software that would freeze systems across the MGM network. They were demanding more than $30 million for the cryptographic keys that would allow MGM to resume operations.

So they said, do y'all want to be a casino again? Run us our 30 million? Otherwise, have fun pulling your elevators up and writing down your room numbers. So how does this work? So they send the 30 million, and then these 14 year olds all over the country just split 500,000.

Mel Mitchell
Like, what? How do we. They probably have, like, a wallet, a digital wallet that no one can access. And then they probably, like, split the money out of that digital wallet. Like, maybe they all have the passcode to that one wallet, and then it'll be in bitcoin or some other kind of, like, cyber coin.

Lacey Mosley
And then they can use that to convert it into USD or canadian dollars or UK pound because they were in different countries, too. What I find so interesting about this, too, is I hope if you were in the MGM while this hack was happening, that you went to your minibar and you just. Just took everything out and ran it up. Cause how they. Who gonna check you, boo?

Y'all gotta get y'alls too. Find time to order room service. The stove's probably cut off. Everything. Operated by a computer.

Mel Mitchell
It's like eagle Eye. Really, it is. But once you start leaning in too hard, this is gonna happen. So last year, Starfroud partnered with a russian group called the AlpHV, known to the FBI as one of the most active hacking operations in the world. Plan to use AlpHV's ransomware software to encrypt and essentially cripple thousands of MGM computer systems and claim that they would issue the keys that would decrypt them once MGM paid up the 30 million s in coins.

Lacey Mosley
Right? I'm not working with no Russians on no type of crime because I just feel like that's not collaborative. Like, I'm gonna be dead by the end no matter if it goes well. I've never heard anybody they crime too good. I can't imma be intimidated.

No. Also, I just feel like I've never heard anybody who was not russian, like, not in the gang, be like, oh, I had a great time working with the russian criminals, and they didn't murder me or defenestrate me at all. Yeah, no, thank you. Y'all got it? No, ma'am.

No. Y'all got it? Yeah. Strachbutzi. I can't get involved with y'all.

So MGM didn't respond, likely because their email was down and Hornbuckle did not have access to his inbox. When Hornbuckle and his security team finally received communication of their demands, they found them ridiculous. So Hornbuckle couldn't even get in his own damn email. But by the time he got in, he was like, we ain't doing this. It's already bad.

So by this point, MGM systems had already been down for two days, and they had no reason to trust that starfy was going to give it back. MGM continued to ignore the hackers increasingly angry messages. So at first, they were like, hey, 30 mil, we'll fix this problem for you. Now they're like, hey, bitch meal, did you not hear us? We gonna shut everything down.

Ain't gonna be no m, ain't gonna be no jim. Ain't gonna be no other mistake when we done. And, like, it's just increasingly angry. Your mama. You a bitch, eggplant.

Mel Mitchell
Well, now I'm not sending in $30 million now. Cause you're being rude, right? Not. You're talking about my mama. So as Starfraud was booted from their network, they threatened to break in all over again.

Lacey Mosley
And there was little stopping them. So they say, oh, you kicking us out? We will be back tomorrow and worse on MGM's part. They were now faced with the task of not just cleaning up the infective parts of their computer systems, but having to rebuild thousands of servers from scratch. And the cost to do that far exceeded the ransom request.

MGM did the rebuild anyway. Now, y'all be a petty. Just go ahead and give them the 30 mil. But you know what? Who's to stop them from doing it again?

You give a blackmailer money, once they coming back, they spin in the block. Eventually it's just gonna be like, hey, MGM, it's time for your month or yearly 30 mil so that you can. Y'all lost it. You're locked into our plan. Now, we protect you from being hacked by us, by you giving us $30 million each year.

Y'all like it. So meanwhile, the players still couldn't use tickets to cash out winnings at the casino. Floor executives walked around with fanny packs of cash to help the waiting players. The lines to receive money were so long, some people waiting for just a couple dollars walked away. MGM got to keep a couple bucks.

Guests waiting in long lines to check into their rooms were handed cocktails as a consolation. So they're like, let's get them drunk. Then they won't realize they don't got a room to sleep in. This is a lot of people. It's giving very much, like, end of the world, Armageddon type.

Right? You came to Vegas for a good. I know. I didn't miss their flights. Ooh.

Or like, I just know that, like, imagine dealing with this many angry people. Like, you went from working at a bougie hotel to now you basically customer service for spirit. Cause everybody who walks up in this line is gonna cut you out. Everybody's pissed. Look at this thing.

Mel Mitchell
They got the hands on the hips, feet wide. Oh, yeah. These are angry stances. They're pissed. Look at this one white woman in the front here.

Lacey Mosley
She got one arm across her, like, under her bosom, and then one arm. That's the stance of a woman who's had enough. Like, she's calling that kid. She's Karen so hard when she gets up there. Woo.

And she's far back in the line. So by the time she get up there, she gonna be nice and angry. I know. It's zigzag all the way up. Jesus.

Mm hmm. This is like a Six Flags line. You're not getting any closer. It's just zigging and zagging you. Yeah, I hate those kinds of lines.

They know they wrong for that. Cause you don't think it's short of entertainment or nothing. You just standing in line. Y'all gotta get the flamethrowers out or something. But I guess they were giving them cocktails.

Like, we get them drunk, they wait in the line. So the aftermath. Six days after the hackers first called, MGM claimed that guest relations mostly returned to normal. They made a regulatory filing 25 days after the initial breach in which they admitted they were still restoring client facing systems. So when I hear client facing, I already know what that is.

It's a cute, fancy way to say customer service. Like, I'd be saying, I'm client facing because I'd be talking to people. So it's like you're telling us that you're telling the pressure, right? And you're also telling the press, oh, everything's all good. We're back to business as usual.

Y'all come down to the MGM, and then they get there, and they still gotta wait in that Six Flags line. Cause y'all really haven't fixed it. You know what you're doing. How could you possibly fix that that quick? Exactly.

So the lasting damage would hang around for weeks longer. That same week, Caesars Entertainment, arguably MGM's biggest rival on the strip, reported that they paid half of a similar $30 million ransom demand to a group of hackers over the summer. So Caesars was like, oh, that ain't no problem. We'll bring you the money. Cause we are not about to fix this.

MGM was like, uh, uh. We. We're not. We don't bend the knee to cyber terrorism. Y'all might have needed to bend that knee.

Cause Caesars was like, we've been up and running for half the price, right? And all of that. But it's like they just walk around like Devo to all the hotels. Give me your money. I'm hacking all your shit, yanking every hotel's chain.

They said, give us the money, or we taking the water fountain out front. The water is not gonna dance. Twerk. Give it here. But it ain't gonna move again.

Mel Mitchell
Handy. The water never gonna ballet, okay. Unless you give us the money. So while Starfod was able to steal names and contact information for a number of guests before March of 2019, MGM maintains their credit card and bank information was still secure. MGM, I don't know if y'all telling the truth, because it seems like they were like, don't worry about that, sweetheart.

Lacey Mosley
Everything is good over at MGM. Give us your card. Number isn't. However, a number of MGM employees claim their information was, in fact, stolen info that included their Social Security number, bank info, and their children's Social Security number. Not they robbing your unemployed children.

How you gonna give my baby bad credit? And they in the first grade. That's not right. Oh, no. So we're looking at a release text here.

It said it's not just our work schedule. This is an MGM employee. They're saying it wasn't just our work schedule that essentially was hacked. It's anything to do with being an employee at MGM. No schedule, no vacation, pto hours.

All info pertaining to my 401k, my time card, and tokes made. And tokes made. I don't know what toques are. Attendance points, tokens made, probably. They hacked into our entire employment info.

My social, my husband and my kids socials, all my bank info. We have gotten zero answers about anything. You can repost this, but keep my name out of it. They are more worried about the slots and ATM's working. Wow.

So first of all, why do they have your social and your little baby social? I mean, if they breach the data, then they breach the data. So that's, I guess, all part of the big data of it all. To answer those, you know, maiden name questions in elementary school and all that other shit. It feels a little scammy to me that the MGM was like, okay, we gotta get the slots and the ATM's back working so we can get our coins, but, oh, wow, your PTO disappeared.

Damn, that's crazy. Well, I guess you gotta just earn more. And we can never remember how much PTO you had. So it's. No, no, don't piss me off.

Mel Mitchell
Cause I still gotta get my work through all of this bullshit. And PTO, if you don't know, is paid time off. So it's actually convenient for MGM to be like, oh, we don't know how much paid time off we owe you, so maybe just time off without pay.

Lacey Mosley
And they got the kids names and the husbands because of healthcare. So if you have your family on your healthcare plan from MGM, then they have to give their information too. So, damn, you got insurance and now you in bad hands. So a number of MGM employees claim their information was stolen, right? In total, Starfrid cost MGM about $100 million in lost hotel and casino revenue, in addition to $10 million in payment for the cybersecurity response.

Roughly $80 million more than requested ransom payment. They expect cybersecurity insurance to cover the cost. I don't know, because I feel like insurance for that much cybersecurity might be like, well, did you pay the ransom, because Peter's palace paid the ransom, and then you could cover the ransom. It's like, it's a slippery slope. You pay the ransom like you said, they come back around that.

Mel Mitchell
That bike, like Debo. Okay, I'm back again. We'll hack you again. You can't just come get rent. No.

Lacey Mosley
And now this is called protection. That's what the mob does. And once you acquiesce to the mob once for protection, you are now getting protection from them. They're like, hey, you want us to protect you from us, you should give us some money. Otherwise we can't guarantee what us will do.

So, hey, it's time for your monthly protection payment to us, so we don't harm you. Thank you so much. We love keeping you safe from us. Run it or you can't. Right?

And I do want to point out here that they are still at large. So these online crime syndicates, stark, fraud, the. They have not been caught. They got their coin from Caesars, and I guess they just had a good time fucking with MGM. But Mister Bournhuckle.

Hornbuckle, I don't know if you made the right choice. Cause you could have saved bucket bucket like a McClellan. Can I come? Hornbuckle, you didn't buck hard enough. You did not buck hard enough.

And you should have paid them their bucks. You could have just paid that 30. Mil and been done with it. But again, who's to say that they would have stuck to it? They could have been like, if you.

Pay the 30 mil and then pay the ten mil to get your systems redone at a pace that works, it's still less than $110 million. Yeah, Mister Hornbuckle, I don't know if you need to be working over there no more. Yeah, Mister Hornbuckle. But that brings us to the end of a fantastic episode. Mel, we always ask on this podcast, where would you like to be found online?

Anything people can see in person, your comedy, all of it. Yes. So I should have some dates coming up in some cities. Don't know. Nothing's in stone yet, but my instagram is it'smell Mitch like it's male Mitch.

Mel Mitchell
And then I'm the baddest Mitch on just about everything else. So, yeah, that's where I am. My podcast is jokes on you, pod. And yeah, and y'all get into her content. She is so hilarious.

Lacey Mosley
I'm constantly reposting, retweeting, you're so funny. Thank you for the joy. We really, truly need it in these times. We do that are trying. And y'all, if you want to see these photos of scam got us pod on Instagram.

If you want to chat with me, scam got his pod on Twitter. Pre order my book. The link is in the footnotes of this episode, scam goddess. It's a very fun book. You'll learn about true crime stories.

I have it covered on here. You'll also learn a lot about me and the crimes that I've been involved with that it's been so hard not to share on the podcast. So you'll learn a lot. But congregation, y'all get out there and y'all stay bucking, okay? Getting them books and keeping them books.

All right, we're out. Bye bye. I've got it.

This has been an earwolf production in association with team cocoa scam goddess stars and is hosted by me, Lacy Moseley, aka Scam goddess. Our producer is Judith Cargbo, and our audio engineer is rich Garcia. Research for the show is done by Kailyn Brandt. Stay scheming Dunkin cold coffee can be brewed at home in your Keurig coffee maker with Dunkin cold k cup pods. Just brew it hot over ice and enjoy flavor that's crafted to serve cold.

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The MGM Casino Hack w/ Mel Mitchell

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1: Introduction

2: The Hack Explained

3: Cybersecurity Tips

4: Wrap-Up and Reflections

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