Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
How Hackers Sell Your Stolen Info | Underground Credit Card Markets
Fri, 30 May 2025
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Chapter 1: What led to the rise of underground credit card markets?
In my mind, I always thought having a million dollars would make me quit the game. It never would. What I ended up doing was brokering information to other people who decided they wanted to go do that kind of fraud. Use Bitcoin instead of cash. You can transfer it anywhere. It's untraceable. I jumped on a plane under an assumed identity that I had been holding on to in case of an emergency.
And I went to Miami. Now, I had the connect that changed my life. Some say for the worse. Some say for the better. I mean, I'm going to say it just changed my life forever because. OK, so I was born in Oakland, California, born at a time when Oakland was transitioning. It was kind of like coming away from the. Black Panther movement to black people just really being independent, owning property.
A lot of the white people and upper-class people were moving out to the valley, but here it is in Oakland. We were middle-class. My mom worked at a bank. My dad, he got into law enforcement, mind you. They came from Mississippi together with about $200 between them, and they were able to build something before they started a family.
So what happened was I came along, and then a couple years later, I had two smaller brothers.
my dad he always wanted more i'm sorry how old were your parents when you were born my parents was like 20 23 24 when i was born okay mind you like my dad got a job for the city but basically it was a government job so that was a great job to have back in the day because he knew he had some type of security and then my mom worked at a bank until an accident happened at a bank where someone threw some keys across the bank and hit her in the head
So from there, she went out on leave for about four months and she was having like blackouts and things of that nature. So she ended up having to retire early with the settlement. I think it could have been like about 15 or 20K, but we're talking about 1982. About 15, 20K is a bunch of money. And this is when they bought their house. They bought a house. So I never lived in an apartment before.
We always lived in a house. We always had money. I mean, not rich, but we had money, middle class. But the thing about that is... She didn't work no more, so she became an entrepreneur right then and there. She opened a child care center. She opened up a janitorial service. My dad still made more money, I want to say, but we made it all the way through.
But we went to public school with the rest of the kids that didn't have a lot. Right. The kids at my school were on fixed incomes, single parent homes, just a mom, welfare or food stamps. And I didn't even understand why. My major question was like, why are these kids disadvantaged and we're not? One of my friends at school told me that they didn't have any food at their house.
And that bothered me. I was like, what do you mean you don't have any food at your house? But I kind of overlooked it, thought he was joking because when he came over our house, he got to make food. Ate good, even took some food home with him. But after a couple of times, I thought this kid is telling the truth. He doesn't have any food.
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Chapter 2: How did early life experiences shape criminal choices?
That whole thing's bad.
Yeah, he's in a van. You mean you got in a van with a stranger? I'll beat you if you do it again. And she meant it. So I couldn't go anymore. But my friends kept going. But my younger brother told me something. He's like, how about we go to Price Club, we buy our own candy, get on the bus and we go to the opposite side where he is that day and we sell our own candy.
First time we did it, we made $200 in one day, 200 bucks.
my mom didn't like that either you're lying to people you're not taking donations for any support group or you're not helping anybody out you're doing this to keep money for yourself so i don't want you doing that either so she stopped us from doing that but my friends that i went to school with they kept doing it and it was cool because now they have an extra money we go to school after school they take me to the store everybody buys each other stuff we all have a bunch of snacks and a bunch of treats so now
Remember I said my parents, they worked, they had money, we weren't low income, but I had family members all around the city that were going through the same thing that a lot of the city was going through. Single parent homes, living in a not so good area, and the crack came in. The drugs actually came in heavy.
Actually, Oakland is one of the first places where they say that drug landed in the first place where it was turned from one thing to another. Is that where the...
I want to say Snowfall. Snowfall actually was based on that. And it was, oh God, what's his name? Franklin. No, no, I'm saying the drug dealer that went to prison and got out.
Oh, Freeway Rick. Freeway Rick Ross.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Rick Ross.
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Chapter 3: What were the risks of selling drugs at a young age?
Get some clientele that will call me on my pager, only come to me, and then I'll be able to advance past these guys that's on my same level really quick. So my younger brother, he's playing baseball at the time, and he's like, yo, I need some cleats. And I'm like, well, how much are they? And he's like, they're like $36. And I'm like, well, why don't you go ask mom and them for it?
He's like, well, she said they'll do it next weekend, but I need them because we got a big game. We're going to travel. And I was like, here, took the money.
gave him the money for the cleats, he went and bought them, he was happy, he's like, wait, wait, wait, are you, he's like, you, you, you, um, got, and I was like, yeah, I got it, what's up, he's like, well, I want in, I'm like, nah, you playing baseball, you can't get in, he's like, well, I need to make extra money, so I don't have to be asking you for money, so therefore, he was like, what's up, so I was like, um, all right, I got you, I give him like 20 worth,
Told him he can make 40 of it. He made the 40 and he immediately wanted to buy 40 worth to make 80. Within three days, he had 300 of his own money just from starting that. But the problem with that is that he didn't want to play baseball no more. He said, I'm done with that baseball, man. I'm going to make some money, man.
You guys held this from me all of this time and I could have been out here with you. So what I didn't like was he was pretty good at baseball and the coach came over to the wash house we were hanging in front of at the time and and got out of the car and begged him to come back to practice and come back to play. I see something in you, man. Don't hang with these guys and your brother over there.
And he called me a name, your stupid brother over there that gave you that shit. Cause one of the other players on the team told the coach that his brother gave him some. And now they're,
right they're doing it right so he's like your stupid brother i'm tempted to go knock on your door and tell your parents i was scared to death i was like oh shit if he goes and tell my parents i'm done my father kill me himself or he just might arrest me and just just book me and take me in that didn't happen he just steadily pleaded with my brother to come and get away from hustling and getting away from um
doing that illicit activity but bro didn't listen he was already in too deep and it was kind of like my fault i felt like it was my fault but once he caught on and got the hang of it he blew past me pretty quick because he had a better structured program my younger brother blew past me he's only two years younger than me by the way but he blew past me in the game because
All he did was that no hanging, no talking. Go there. Make my money. Go in the house. Hide the money somewhere else. So my parents will never find it if they search his room. And he was more disciplined. So he was like, yeah, but I got like twelve hundred dollars already. He wasn't even in the whole game a month. I'm looking for a car to buy at junior high school, seventh grade.
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Chapter 4: How did the criminal enterprise evolve over time?
You haven't been to school. The people from the church and the neighbors see you hanging at the wash house and they see you hanging at the liquor store. It's only one or two things going there. You using it or you selling it? And I want all your money. Mind you, at this time, I'm about like 15K. I know I had about 15,000. I had to pay. He said, you're not a doctor. You're not important.
Give me the pager or you getting the fuck out tonight. And I'm like, I don't have nowhere to go. He's like, Give it up. All of it. Everything or go. So I looked around. My mom comes into the room. She hears a yelling. She hears a commotion. She's begging for him to allow me to stay. He tells her, no, shut up. Get out of here. I run this house. I will not let this kid run my household.
It's no way in the world. He's getting out. So I looked around, almost had some tears in my eyes and I left. I'm not giving up everything that I made to live what I was living as. Like a normal kid.
Like a normal kid. I'm not.
Big mistake. That night I had to go stay at the prostitute motel, 20 a month, where it's nothing but prostitutes, nothing but drug dealers, nothing but other people that are in the game, nothing but people that are hustling, that are grinding actually at the time. And you're what? You're 15. I'm about 14 at this time. I'm about 14 at this time. About 14 because now I'm not going to school no more.
School is over with. I'm hustling all day. No one even can tell me what to do. So I go stay at that hotel for that night. And I was like, no, I don't want to do this. I asked one of my friends. He only lived there with his mom. I was like, hey, will your mom let me stay over here at your house for a while? And he asked her. She's like, yeah, but he has to give me 200 bucks a month.
And I was like, 200 a month. OK, that's fine. I'll make that in a couple of days, whatever, maybe even one day. So I want to stay there. Everything went downhill. I'm hustling all night. Stop caring about people. I'm getting into altercations with dealers and the users. I'm getting into altercations all the time. I start drinking beer and whatever the E&J, the lightweight stuff, or what I call it.
But it's still bad for a 14-year-old kid. But I'm so stressed out that I... I just didn't know what to do, man. I'm stressed out. So I'm hustling every day. I got a gun on me every single day as a kid. But mind you, everybody in that community does. So you looking at people who are dangerous and you have to be dangerous as them or getting taken out the game.
So what I ended up doing, I'm standing over there with him. We still hustling. I had to hide my money with my little brother. I'm like, well, look, I need you to keep this money safe. I can't bring it over here. I can't keep no more than about a thousand bucks on me at a time because I'm sleeping at somebody else's house and I don't have my own space.
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Chapter 5: What role did police corruption play in the drug trade?
Everybody was happy. We're making money. I start buying cars. Oh, I had to go back to school for the last year of school, though. That was a stipulation when I came out of the boys home since I was going to school there. I had all of my credits. You just go back to school. You'll finish school. Everything's going to be cool. Going to school every day, I bought me a car.
Had enough money to buy a Grand National, which was a big deal at the time. I bought a 1987 Buick Grand National. All the older guys wanted it. I paid about $15,000 for it. They couldn't believe it. But everybody wasn't happy for me again.
I was going to say, those were the ones that were kind of...
kind of boxy but they had like a ton of horsepower right like didn't they have like 300 horsepower 300 yeah something like a lot of horsepower buick grand national they were beating like the uh the mustang uh 5.0 they were beating mustang 5.0s and it didn't look like it didn't even look like it looked like a little boxy monte carlo some little two-door coupe but i bought one of those i bought me an old school chevy but at this time i'm having like 50 60 000
At that age, 16 going on 17, I was close to 100K. And everybody wasn't happy for me again because they start competing with me, calling the cops on me. But this time, like I said, it got really vicious because the police didn't like it either. You guys are making all of this money. We have to make $60,000 a year or less to chase you criminals around. So they start playing dirty.
Like I said, everyone I know has had a fight with an Oakland police officer that was around my age group. So what they would do is, again, they will watch from a distance, watch you hide your bundle, watch your workers. And if they catch you in those backyards or they catch you in one of those alleys, it's on. So one day I run in the backyard.
I'm going to go get some stuff to hand off to one of the one of the guys I work with. And it's a cop standing right there. And I ran right into his arms. So he grabs me. But I'm like, who? And I'm not really seeing as fully as an officer yet. We wrestling. We fall on the ground and I hear his keys and his badge. We're literally fighting in the back of this house. It's a grown man. I'm a kid.
I'm probably 120 pounds This dude's 180 to 200 pounds strong working out everything We're fighting. We're wrestling. He's trying to beat me. I'm trying to get him I kind of like elbowed him on the side of his head. That's when he let me go I try to run away grab my leg. I know what you're doing. I already got your shit already got your shit and I'm like, I start yelling, help, help. He got me.
It's Maxon. He got me. He got me. So people in the front are like, what do you mean? It's who? It's a certain cop that came around that beat named Maxon that was known to beat guys up. Maxon. He was known for beating ass. He was known. He don't care. He's not going to report it. He will not report. He fought you. So he's like, help, help, help. This dude hears me in the front.
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Chapter 6: How did personal relationships impact criminal activities?
Who's the guy that drove off in a white car? And I mean, I'm just letting you know, man, that they did ask me about you. So I don't know what their surveillance is, but just kind of be aware. Come to find out they had been watching me. And label me as a supplier. So all my my whole job now was to not get caught with anything. Just don't get caught. All you have to do is don't get caught.
Like because, I mean, they can think whatever they want, but if they can't catch me with anything or in the same place with the drugs, I can do this for five more years. And then I can come to you guys and tell you guys that I'm off the game, whatever amount of money that I have. But it's just not that easy. It never works that easy.
I mean, once you hustling, once you dealing drugs, it's almost like in too deep. That's another movie that they made about being deep in a dope game. And it was kind of like what I took for it is like when you get in the game, it's so hard to turn away. It's like what's going to happen if you turn away, man? People might get mad at you for leaving the game.
People might get mad at you because they depended on you. And now you're out of it. they can who knows what can happen so um from there I backed off but didn't quit and that's when um the best connect that I ever had came to me through a good family friend he uh he he he uh met up with me one day we was at the park nobody's around no cell phones no pagers and he was like yo uh
yo bro what's up i was like nothing he said bro you've been getting some getting a lot of money lately i know you have and i'm like nah not really it's all right i downplayed it at this time i'm like close to about five or six hundred thousand four to five hundred thousand dollars at a young age i'm not i'm like like 19 years old about in between 18 and 19 i'm all the way up to about 450 500k not even knowing that that's what it was but the thing about that was he was like you know every time you call me
I make about three to five thousand off your order. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah, I mean, I make like three, five G's every time you call me, man. But this is the thing I'm thinking about moving, man. And you're going to need the guy who I go to. But the only way to get to him is through me. And I was like, OK, well, introduce me to him. He's like, no, don't work like that.
He's like, I want that Rolex off your wrist, and I want $15,000. And I was like, what? This is the first Rolex I bought. I'll just buy you one. Don't worry about it. He's like, nah, nah, I want that one off your wrist. And if not, then you're going to have to find somebody else. And I was like, wait, how you sound like you giving me an ultimatum? You know, I don't fuck with that.
I don't deal with no ultimatums, bro. I don't even need you, right? I don't know why I told him that, because I did need him. He had the best plug that I ever had in my life. So I started scratching my, he said, well, think about it. I'll see you tomorrow. Matter of fact, next time you want to do this, just, just let me know. But that's what I want. So I called him back.
I was like, bro, just let me buy you a watch and give you 10 K. He was like, nope. Already told you the terms. Let's do it. And I'm like, oh shit. Oh shit. So I knew I couldn't switch the watch off. He knew the watch. I had it. I paid a lot of money for it. I probably paid $17,000 for the watch back then in 97, 97, 98. I paid $17,000 for it.
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Chapter 7: What were the consequences of getting caught?
Why don't you come over here and let me give a millionaire a hug or something to that effect? Like because it was a song out at the time called like Hot Boys and they had a song like that. And it's like the people who were high level, they would give each other hugs when they greet each other and shake hands and embrace and show love. And I'm like, what do you mean give a millionaire a hug?
He like, bro. I know how much money I've been making. And that means you have to have at least 1.2. I know you're over a million. I'm like, nah, nah, I'm getting there, though. I'm getting there, though. I hadn't even counted up my money before. Never counted up all my money before. I'm a young kid. I don't have a clue of what's going on.
All I'm doing is hustling, working, messing with girls, hustling, hustling, working some more. And working, I mean, going in a lab. Nobody can know where these labs are at. Once you're there three to four months, if the neighbors start noticing you, you have to get out of there and already have another one to transition into because that's the way you won't let that one get busted.
And then you just I just like I don't want to be in another house with drugs in it. I just can't be in the same place with these drugs. And as long as I'm doing that, I don't I don't even think I understood conspiracy back then. All I thought was don't get caught with drugs. Right. So when he told me that. I went and counted up all the money and he was right.
300 here, 200 there, 350 here, another 140 there, 170 here, 170 here. So once I counted up this money and I realized it was about what he said and how he knew was intriguing to me because I'm like, God damn, I'm not even paying attention to how much money I'm really making, but I'm out here in these streets every day. I'm slipping. I'm thinking in my mind, I'm slipping. I'm not applying myself.
How old are you? At this point, I'm about 21. I'm going on 22. My first daughter is born. This is when I really decided that I was going hard, full fledged, no plan. Just like I'm hustling every my whole life was grinding, waking up in the morning, a joint before I brush my teeth, a shot of Grey Goose or whatever we were drinking at the time, maybe some Cristal.
Maybe he was drinking Moet and Cristal all the time because we just knew that we were winning, but I didn't know I was winning at that magnitude. But the bad part about that is once he told me that, I started acting like I was what he told me I was, spending money so fast. Another Rolex, a different car.
Another car that rims music, just old school cars, just like go buy a Chevy, put 10 G's in music, just like this money start dwindling so fast. And I slacked off my grind. The same guy, which is a drug dealing mentor, if that makes sense.
I know a lot of people didn't ever hear of a drug dealing mentor, but you need mentors in whatever you do, because he's the one that pulled me by the collar, snatched me up and like, bro.
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Chapter 8: How does one escape the drug lifestyle?
We're inmates. But the thing about the firefighters who actually work for the Department of Forestry, they don't treat you like an inmate. If you're on the side of them fighting a fire, your civil duty is to protect this dude's life. That's how you made it there. You said you would protect somebody's life and they would protect yours.
So if you see something coming, some flames, a wild animal, a rock falling off of a hill, you should protect these people. So but my perspective changed after that though. It was kind of almost like this shit ain't worth it for me man. I'm doing pretty good. I'm having money. Everything is cool.
But this is right here the time when I knew I couldn't do it because remember I said I was on my way to a brand new place that no one knew I had. So since nobody knew I had this place except for the person that helped me get this apartment what I was able to do was hide a bunch of shit there. So I called home from the county jail and I was like, hey, you know, I didn't feed my animals, man.
I got like three or four puppies that I had just got. And they're over here at this new place. So the person on the other line, they knew exactly what I meant. So once you go over there and pick them up and make sure they're all right. So by the time he gets there, he like, oh, they're gone already. And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, somebody let him out. Somebody let him out.
There's no dogs, there's no puppies, there's nothing there. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, there's nothing there. The person that helped me get the apartment broke into the apartment and took everything. This was about another 200K, close to 250K worth of product inside of an apartment that nobody knew about.
So when you got out, so you knew that before you went in? That what? You knew all that stuff was missing before you went in. No, no, no. He took it the day I got arrested. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So you got arrested. He took all the stuff. Then you do your time. Then you go to get out. And what happens then? You get out. You thought you had this stuff. No, I didn't think I had the stuff.
I knew he had got it. I know. I'm saying you thought... You knew that stuff was gone, so you're getting out to nothing, and you know this guy ripped you off. I know he ripped me off.
He did it maliciously. He never had any intent to help me out. He just used it for himself, but he never came up off of it, and then he went and told everybody that I would come after him forever. I was accusing him of doing it and I will come after him for that.
Did you accuse him of it?
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