Chris Hansen
If you’re like most Americans, you know all too well how pervasive credit card fraud is. You might have been a victim yourself. A few years ago, I got a call from my bank asking if I had charged $24,000 dollars at a store in New Zealand? I most certainly had not, but I had bought my son something on a Website that apparently was not secure and thieves were able to obtain and use my number.
In a groundbreaking investigation a year in the making, we’ll take you into the thieves markets on the Internet where your stolen credit card numbers and identity information could be for sale at this very moment. Very seldom are we able to infiltrate a criminal syndicate the way we do in the case of our investigation into identity theft and credit card fraud.
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by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
“My name is Mrs Maryam Ibrahim,...{I am} suffering from long time cancer of the breast...Before my late husband died {he} deposited the sum of 20 million dollars ..20% of this money will be for your time and effort...”
If you’re like me, you’ve likely received unsolicited e-mails offering you the chance of a lifetime. A financial windfall is out there and all you have to do is take advantage of a rare opportunity. They usually sound a little fishy. The pitch goes something like this -- a government official or someone with influence in an African nation has access to a fund containing millions of dollars. But, for some reason that person needs your help to get the money out of Africa and into another country. Oh, and by the way, you’ll need to come up with $14,000 in processing fees and expenses. Once you wire the person this money…the multi-million dollar funds transfer can go through and you’ll get a generous cut of the deal, perhaps $2 million dollars.
You might think that most people would simply hit the delete button, but our investigation reveals that perhaps tens of thousands of people each year take the bait and are taken for a ride, some losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Usually these cases go uninvestigated, because federal authorities are busy with more pressing matters like counter-terrorism. We decided to take up the challenge and go after these scammers. As you’ll see it’s an investigation that takes halfway across the world and let’s us turn the tables on the conmen.
Chris Hansen reports on 'To Catch a Con Man,' Dateline Tuesday, March 20, 8 p.m.
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by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
This “To Catch A Predator” special takes a look back at our earlier investigations as well as a look forward at some critical areas involving online predators we’ve yet to explore.
More important, it’s told in a unique way. Producer Lynn Keller interviewed me, Del and Frag from the online watchdog group Perverted-Justice, some of the law enforcement officers who ran parallel investigations to arrest the men we confronted, and a prosecutor.
The story is told in essentially our own words. It will take you behind the scenes, going back to our very first investigation in Long Island, New York. You’ll see how the investigations developed and became more sophisticated. There are moments that are startling, disturbing and in a few instances even humorous. We’ll answer some of the questions you’ve raised here on the blog.
You may know that I recently wrote a book called “To Catch A Predator” in an effort to explore several important aspects of this subject that we’ve not had time to flesh out on television. One of those areas is that of collateral damage-- what happens to the wives and children of the men who are arrested. You’ll meet Darlene Calvin who appears in the book and you’ll hear the inspirational story of how she put her life back together after her husband’s arrest. You’ll also hear the unique prospective of Bob Shilling, a Seattle Police detective who investigates sex crimes against children, who himself was the victim of sexual abuse as a child.
Take a look at the program. I think you’ll find it interesting and insightful.
These posts were meant to coincide with the broadcast.
by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
8:03 p.m.
Usually when two potential predators arrive at close to the same time, I try to move quickly through the first interview so that we are ready for the second. But here in Flagler Beach, you’re about to see something I’ve not done before. Two men show up so close to each other I have no choice but to conduct the interviews at the same time. Watch as I introduce the two men to each other and see if you can figure out which one has seen our previous Dateline investigations.
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by Chris Hansen, Dateline Correspondent
As our “To Catch a Predator” investigation in Flagler Beach, Florida continues, you’re going to see something we don’t experience very often. It’s hard to imagine, but we had an active duty member of law enforcement arrive at our hidden camera house after an extremely graphic online chat with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl for nearly a month.
We didn’t know it at the time but 41-year-old Todd Spikes was a police officer for the Florala, Alabama Police Department.
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This was Tuesday's live blog. These posts were meant to coincide with the broadcast.
by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
7:55 p.m.
Meet a the guy who thinks he’s about to get away it, at least for a few minutes. Mohamed Abdalla walks into our hidden camera house oozing with confidence. Notice how relaxed he is talking with our actress posing as a young teen home alone. Even when I walk out to talk to him, he’s got his story all set and he’s sticking to it.
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by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
Since we started our “To Catch A Predator” investigations almost two and a half years ago, I have confronted more than 200 men who had sexually explicit online chats with decoys posing as young teens before showing up for a date at one of our hidden camera houses.
Many of the men ultimately admit their intentions and sometimes go into great detail about their online addictions and compulsions that led them to our door.
But every once in a while, I run into someone who comes up with what he thinks is a plausible story-- an “innocent excuse” if you will -- for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. CONTINUED >>
This (live) blog was meant to coincide with the broadcast.
by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
7:56 p.m.
I’ve read some of your blog comments and a few of you asked me if confronting the men who come into our hidden camera houses gets tedious. The answer is no. Not just because I am genuinely curious about what brought the men into our hidden camera house, but also because of the things these guys admit to me.
Take the case of one of the first men your going to meet tonight in Long Beach, Calif. Corye Blagg is a former Marine who works for a computer company in San Diego. Blagg told a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl on line that he wanted to take her virginity in the hot tub. But when I start asking the questions, he says he was just coming over to hang out. He also tells me that this isn’t the first time he set up a date with someone he met online, although he says the others were of legal age. He even makes a surprising admission: that one of his dates ended up being a transvestite. CONTINUED >>
by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
Long Beach, California is our eighth “To Catch a Predator” investigation in two years. You’d think by now that potential predators would get the message -- not so.
In Long Beach, we saw the second highest number of men in any of our previous investigations. 38 men showed up in three days. 35 of them were charged with crimes including an attempted lewd act upon a child. So far, 12 of them have pleaded no contest or guilty.
We did see something in Long Beach that we didn’t see in our previous investigations and it forced us to adapt behind-the-scenes: Some of the men, perhaps having heard about our earlier shows, were afraid to come to the house and instead wanted to meet at a different location.
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This (live) blog was meant to coincide with Tuesday's broadcast.
by Chris Hansen, Dateline Correspondent
7:54 p.m.
We've just come off of an eye-opening investigation in Petaluma, Calif. and are now in Long Beach, Ca. Once again we tried to set up the house so that my confrontations with the potential predators would be outside on the back patio. The weather cooperated. The sound of jets taking off and landing at two nearby airports did not.
Plan B, as you're about to see, is to set up a bar and stool inside the house. As a location, Long Beach was perfect: easy to get to and surrounded by several major metropolitan areas, but inside the house we're a bit cramped, so much so that a few guys actually spot some of our crew and try to make a run for it. CONTINUED >>
