Decrypting divorce, crypto scams and everything you wanted to know about forensic accountants.

Welcome to the podcast hosted by the Association for Women and Cryptocurrency, sponsored by Bracewell LLP. Bracewell is a leading law and government relations firm whose award-winning teams lead the market in cutting-edge transactions and litigation, regulatory matters, and government relations. You can learn more at Bracewell.com. Today's topic is decrypting divorce, crypto, scams, and everything you wanted to know about forensic accountants. The Association is a global professional network of women and supportive allies around the world who advocate for the equitable inclusion of women in the future of digital finance, blockchain technology, and Web3. The views of the speakers are their own and do not necessarily represent those of their employers, the Association, its sponsors, or its board of directors. This podcast is our opportunity to showcase the incredible work being done by our members around the world in the crypto, blockchain, and Web3 industries. I'm your host, Ann Walton, financial crimes expert with a focus on cryptocurrency for JS Hold. I'm excited today to introduce you to our guests, Victoria Fife and Alex Ring. Victoria Fife is a forensic accountant and digital assets expert for CBIS, forensic consulting group. She specializes in complex tracing, valuation, and division of assets in high net worth, divorce, and civil litigation matters. With over a decade of hands-on experience in blockchain technologies, she is among the first and few U.S. forensic experts providing full scope, crypto asset services, and litigation. Victoria is a featured speaker for the American Bar Association and the American Institute of Chartered Public Accountants and was selected for the 2024 women and fintech power list in the financial and professional services category. She regularly consults on cases involving digital assets, including breach of fiduciary duty, claims, disposition, and division of assets, and cryptocurrency scams. Victoria is known for developing practical methodologies and establishing a fair and logical approach to the treatment of digital assets and litigation matters. Alex Ring is a forensic accountant specializing in crypto investigations, financial fraud, and compliance risk management. Her background includes forensic accounting, internal and external audit, and regulatory compliance with a deep focus on crypto crime, money laundering, and financial misstatements. Alex works closely with law enforcement, regulatory agencies, and legal professionals to trace illicit funds, analyze financial data, and support litigation related to fraud and digital asset crimes. She plays a leading role at Operation Shamrock, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting pig butchering scams and crypto-enabled financial abuse. There, Alex spearheads the legislative advocacy group and partners with policymakers and industry leaders to advance stronger protections against fraud and financial exploitation. Additionally, she leads Shamrock's grassroots initiative at Train the Trainer Program to empower communities and improve scam prevention nationwide. Alex is a speaker, educator, and outspoken legislative advocate for safer, more accountable crypto business practices. Welcome, Victoria and Alex. So you both have very impressive resumes and backgrounds, and I'm hoping both of you will share how you've arrived in your current role. Alex, let's start with you. Thank you, Anne, for that intro. So my journey was definitely not clear cut. It was all over the place how I arrived into crypto space, but I'm a forensic accountant and I got interested in it after learning about Enron collapse. And I was like, wow, this is crazy and amazing and equally enraging. And so I want to know how to prevent another Enron from happening. And so I embarked on a journey of getting a degree in forensic accounting. And then based on a recommendation from my professor, he was like, hey, if you will really want to make a change, you should join the military. And I was like, okay, let's do it. And so I joined the military in 2017. And it was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. The journey was just so unique and amazing. But then in 2019, I stumbled up on a case I was doing counter threat finance in the military. And we had a case where a terrorist organization was raising funds through cryptocurrency. And we as the Department of Defense could not do anything about it. And so we handed it off to federal law enforcement. And then in return, they also couldn't do anything because it was crypto and it was brand new. And so I was like, okay, I need to start paying attention on this because as a forensic accountant, crypto is going to come and get me. And so I need to start educating myself. Fast forward a few years, about a year, a year and a half ago, I have discovered Aaron West on LinkedIn. I didn't know who she was. I didn't know what Operation Shamrock was. It was still kind of in the infant stages. But she started talking about transnational organized crimes and pig butchering scams and crypto crime. And oh, by the way, she did mention terrorist organization funding. And I was like, wait a minute, this is what I've been talking about for years now. And so I reached out to her and I just went down a deep rabbit hole. And I started educating myself and I took a couple of classes and I started networking with the industry. And then I just started talking about it and started posting on LinkedIn. And then one of a sudden, I kind of became the voice of reason on LinkedIn. And then the victim started reaching out to me like, hey, I was just scammed. There was a pig butchering scam or an investment scam or a Roman scam or insert any type of scam that involved crypto. And they started reaching out to me. And so I started collaborating with Operation Shamrock. But then attorneys started reaching out to me and they're like, hey, we see you talk about crypto and you're doing crypto tracing. Can you look at my divorce case that I have? And so I started one of a sudden doing divorce cases. And so it's a good mix of things that I do. And I think it's a very untraditional way probably. And I'm sure Victoria has a similar story how people end up in crypto spaces. But that is kind of like my journey. And the more people started reaching out to me, I realized that I needed to kind of take on the call that the universe was sending at me. And so I started a consulting firm, Aegis Resolve, which is what I do now. Awesome. And real quick for our listeners that might not be familiar, can you explain what pig butchering is? Pig butchering scams are a very sophisticated long-term scams that usually initiate via messaging apps or social media, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, even dating apps, LinkedIn, and they usually reach out to us. And it looks like a very innocent message like a wrong number. You know, hi, how are you doing? Or what time can I pick you up from the airport? Or can I, you know, my assistant throw down your number because we met at the golf course. And so, and then you respond, right? Because it's a human nature in us to respond and say, hey, I think you have a wrong number. But then in return, they reply back and they start engaging in a conversation with us. And they say, you seem like such a nice person. I would love to get to know you. I think this was destiny. I think this was fate. And I would love to make your acquaintance. And then what they do is they spend next couple of months grooming us and developing us. And they don't mention anything about any crypto or investments or anything like that. They're just being very nice to you. They're showering you with affection and compliments. And then at about two month mark, they introduce a investment opportunity. And that investment opportunity is always crypto or gold option trading. And they would ask you to invest some cryptocurrency with them because they're experts in that field. And then they would tell you to, once you buy that legitimate cryptocurrency on Binance or Kraken or insert any other major crypto exchange, they would ask you to transfer that into their fake trading platform. And then you would see on that fake trading platform that your profits are just through the roof. And sometimes they would even allow you to withdraw a small amount, which even makes it even more legitimate. And then you would invest more money into it. Or maybe you will ask your friends and family to invest in it as well, because look at the profits that I'm making. And so this is happening month over month. And then you reach a point where you probably have close to $1 million in this account. And you probably say to yourself, well, I think this is a pretty decent amount. I can take this out. I can pay off my house, or I can pay off my debt, or I can put my kids through college, and then that is the catch. They will tell you that you cannot withdraw that money because there is a tax that you have to pay. And oh, by the way, you cannot withdraw it with the money. You cannot pay with the money that you already have invested. It has to be clean money. And then some people do pay that tax. And that tax is usually in $20,000 or $30,000 segments. And you pay that, and then they say, oh, there's another fee. There is a withdrawal fee, or there is a tariff, or there is insert whatever they're coming up with. And that is usually when victims realize that they're being scammed. So it's a very elaborate and a very long-term scam. Yeah, that's incredible. And thank you for your service, Alex. Victoria, I want to hear about how you got started, and then we can dive right into your work with divorces and then when you've encountered scams. So first, set the table with us and let us know how you have arrived at, you know, where you are today. I have arrived. So totally by accident, similar to Alex, I actually went to school for astronautical engineering, and I thought for sure that I was going to work at NASA JPL. So I had an internship with them super briefly, and it was obviously not paying me enough to pay the bills. So I ended up working for a litigation support company in 2014. And then by 2016, I got headhunted by a forensic accounting firm. And even when I first started working there, I told them, like, this is temporary because I'm going to go into engineering and, like, this probably is going to last very long. And then within my first year, I kind of fell in love with the work. And next thing you know, I am pursuing a degree in accounting and business management and end up completing that and then start working on pursuing a CPA. And while I was at that firm, I got a lot of exposure. It was here in Los Angeles. And I mean, that firm specifically is known for working on high profile divorces, high net worth divorce cases. We had almost no civil work at that firm. But then I ended up transferring up to San Francisco, got a little bit more exposure to, like, working on, you know, Silicon Valley tycoon type divorces, which naturally started to involve cryptocurrency. And since I have been in cryptocurrency since 2014, I mean, just super, super small amounts. I've never had any great amount of money to invest with anyway. But I've always kind of just been interested in it. And so I was, I guess, among the first or second wave of, like, big investors for, like, you know, I had a coinbase account and everything. So since I was like one of the few people at that firm who even understood what I was looking at, I was able to kind of participate in those cases and kind of shed some light on it. That firm specifically, like, wasn't incredibly interested in pursuing cryptocurrency. And by 2022, I ended up going over to SEBAs, which is where I am now at forensic consulting group. And the woman who spearheaded forensic consulting group as a practice within SEBAs, she really empowered me to pursue cryptocurrency. It started popping up on divorce cases here. And I, you know, I overheard another director trying to turn away, you know, our ability to perform an analysis on crypto. And I just asked her, like, can you just give me a chance? Like, is that okay? And like, if it doesn't work out, then like, you know, then we know. But like, I would love the opportunity to just try to do this tracing on these crypto assets. I did not realize the scale of that first really big case until I was really deep in it. And I also did not realize that there is like, nobody doing this. Like, there is, there was no one I could turn to to be like, Hey, am I doing this right? It was really just me versus myself and then sending it to directors and asking them to like, review my work. And I knew that I was doing better work when they started to understand what it was that I was presenting them. For people who don't understand cryptocurrency, you need to make it more digestible for them. And especially for litigation matters, it doesn't really matter how smart you are or how good you are at your job. If you can't communicate the results effectively, it's not going to help your client. It's not going to help the judge understand it. It's not doing anyone any favors. And obviously, they're paying a lot of money for this. So with that case, I mean, I bumped my head a whole lot of times it took an excessive amount of time to figure out how to build out a model, but I ended up building out a full evaluation and tracing model complete with a timeline that can do like, you know, portfolio values, like combined portfolio values and stuff. And I have distributed that now to like opposing forensics and stuff for them to use as well. So that way we can all kind of get on the same page. And starting with like that kind of like sharing of information, sharing that kind of model that we're using in court with other forensics, I started to get invited to present at bar associations, Beverly Hills Bar Association, American Bar Association. And then now more recently, like, you know, bigger accounting firms are like, I get to present in October for like the National Forensic Section for AICPA conference in Aurora, which is super exciting. But it's mostly just to like get the word out. So people started to realize that like, this is becoming a more common issue in not just divorces, but also civil matters, you know, like estate disputes and stuff like that. And also with the rise of scams and fraud. And then of course, we have a lot of overlap where like, in the middle of a divorce, we'll request discovery for cryptocurrency documents only to receive a response that that individual has fallen victim to a romance scam. And what better time, really, like, what better time to target an individual than when they're going through a divorce and they need that attention, you know, they're looking for it anyway. And then to have someone who's seemingly, you know, this beautiful woman or very handsome man reach out to them and their time of need, like, they're not going to want to think it's too good to be true. They lean right into it. And I have had clients who, you know, have that thought process of like, well, I mean, I could pay all this money to my ex-wife or whatever, you know, I'm spending all this money on this divorce. What's another 20 grand sending to this beautiful woman who's giving me all these compliments and all this attention and, you know, is chatting with me all day long every day. So it's really, really hard, first of all, to get them to realize that they're being scammed. That's a big, a big obstacle. But then also to, like, admit that it's happened. When they do know that it's happened, we see a lot of this, like, people trying to kind of cover it up themselves and they don't want their spouse or, you know, ex-spouse to know that it happened. They're embarrassed because usually these are CEOs of companies or otherwise very successful or worse. They're the wives of someone very successful. And if they're the ones being left, they don't want to have to admit like, oh, I fell for this. It makes them feel like they're unworthy of ever having been married to their ex. It's super complicated. But now that we're seeing so much of that, there's actually an incredible demand for our services. So now, I mean, just in like the last year or so, I went from having, you know, like half of my case load was probably cryptocurrency related to now more than full-time is nothing but cryptocurrency in divorce and in damages cases. And it's more than full-time. It's like 16 hours a day and I'm still having to turn cases away. So when I met Alex, I like can't even tell you, like we really geeked out because we were so excited to finally meet someone else so we could like, you know, refer cases to each other and like help each other through this, which was really awesome. Absolutely. So we have this basically bi-coastal, right? Because Victoria, you're on the West Coast and Alex, East Coast. So now we meet here in the middle, seven with West. Yeah. A bunch of things struck me in talking with you both and I'm hoping you can touch on them. So I think the first is really the human aspect of your work, right? If you're interacting with people presumably in like these really vulnerable places or points in their life, right? If there's a divorce or some kind of damages case or if they've been victim to scams. So there's this real human component, right? You're really front lines. There's that. And then the other thing is just, you know, the variance of like capacity, sort of knowledge from industry across, you know, as you've spoken, developing that up in the forensic accounting space. And Alex, I know a lot of building capacity with state and local law enforcement. Like there's real opportunities to enhance all these capacities. So kind of hoping each, you know, you could talk about each one, sort of that human component and what you've learned from that, you know, or maybe what's probably really challenging about that. And then the other piece is like the real opportunity to enhance capacity across the space. Alex, you want to give us your thoughts? Sure. Well, the human aspect of it is ever evolving. And it is very complicated on its own because it's not one size fits all. And I'm sure Victoria has met potentially people who are refusing to accept that they're being scammed by someone who they believe that they're in an online relationship with. And I have just had a victim like this reach out to me. And it was surreal because he was a referral from my local police department. I volunteer with my police department here in New Hampshire. I'm very fortunate that they are very open to just me, a random person coming in and saying, "Hey, I do crypto. Can I help you in any way?" And they're like, "We're overwhelmed. We don't know what we're doing because there is no manual. There is no SOP, right, center operating procedure for law enforcement right now for state and local." And they're the ones on the front lines when a victim decides to go and report something. And so I have been working with them for months now. And they got alerted that a potential victim in our town was looking to deposit more than $10,000 into this crypto ATM machine. And so they called Hampton Police Department and they were talking to the guy and they're like, "This is a Roman scam. I'm really sorry to tell you this. You have been talking to this person for four months and they're asking for this money, but they're not real." And he refused to believe them. And so they were like, "How about we connect you with this woman that volunteers with this nonprofit organization called Operation Shamrock. She does a lot of work here in our town. Let's have her talk to her and see what she has to say and see if she can change your mind." And so I called him immediately and he was like, "I just don't believe you." And he's like, "I have been talking with this person. She is rich. She has these two businesses. She lives in the places where Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos live in Arizona. And I'm like, it is all fake. It is all fake." But he refused to believe that. And so I said, "All right, let's stop there because nothing I say is going to convince you. I can tell you a little bit about Operation Shamrock and you're probably going to say, "Yeah, but that's happening to other people, not me." How about I send you our victim? We have survivor stories at Operation Shamrock where we collect personal stories from survivors. And so I said, "How about I send you a couple of those stories and I send you some articles. And then you please do research. What is Pig Portraying Scam? What is Roman Scam? What is Crypto Scam?" And he said, "Okay. I'm asking you not to send money today. Do some research and then call me back." And so he called me today, but it was a different opportunity because a bank was calling him and they're like, "Oh, there's this money waiting for me." And I said, "Do you have an account with this bank?" And he said, "No." And I'm like, "It's a scam." And so he started yelling at me and he's like, "You're not trying to help me. There is money out there for me." So it's like that psychological aspect of how do I get through them because like I said at the beginning, expanding Pig Portraying Scam and that applies to Roman Scam and all of these other scams. They're elaborate and they last months. I was talking to a scammer. We talked for about 90 days and it took 47 days for this person to introduce an investment opportunity. So for 47 days, we talked every single day. And it was good morning, my friend. I hope you have a blessed and amazing day today. It was the words of encouragement that you don't get. Let's face it. What friend sends you that? Who's sending you such encouraging messages every single day? How is your day? I hope you do amazing today work. I hope the luck finds you. And it may be corny and cheesy, but those are the encouraging words that we all want to hear. But she's showering me with that stuff for 47 days. And she doesn't mention anything about where she's getting her money. She just tells me that she travels a lot. By the way, she's young and attractive. And she is very successful and I knew that. And so that 48 days, she introduces an investment opportunity. And if I didn't know that she was a scammer, I probably would have invested with her, right? Because it's weird. I do these community presentations and I talk about it all the time. I spend almost three months talking to her. I started to care for her. It is so bizarre. I knew exactly that she is probably now she. And she's definitely not this young, attractive Eastern European woman. But she sent me messages and we talked. She was sharing her fake life with me and stuff. And so it was very bizarre because it was a very bizarre feeling once I stopped talking to her. And so working with survivors, every case is different because everybody processes grief in a different way. And so in some cases, you have to be very firm with them. But in some cases, you just kind of have to let them come to their own realization. And the other part of that question and the other side of this whole thing is the law enforcement. Because currently there is no guidance for law enforcement how to do that. And it's a hit or miss. I'm very fortunate, like I say, and I always preach about them here in New Hampshire, because it's a really unique situation for me to have law enforcement that's very encouraging and supportive and they want to learn and educate themselves. And they're constantly seeking help, trying to help our residents who are getting scammed. We live in a very small town about 15,000 residents year to date, we lost $2.5 million. That's a huge problem. And we're still losing money despite me going around and holding these community classes all around my county. But law enforcement is not equipped to investigate these cases. That's a hard pill to swallow, I understand that. But to investigate crypto, first of all, you need to understand crypto. And not every police officer wants to understand crypto. They may be a financial investigator, but they don't want to get into crypto because they think that's not their jurisdiction. Even though victims are coming forward in unprecedented levels now to state and local police departments, but they just don't have time because, oh, by the way, they have to deal with domestic abuse and theft and money laundering and insert other crimes that are happening in our neighborhoods across the country. Now we have to deal with crypto as well. And even for the ones that do want to learn about crypto, they don't know where to get the resources. They need blockchain analytics tools for some of the small towns, they're very expensive, and they're not going to get approved to their budget committees. And there is lack of resources, there's lack of training. I mean, Victoria, we're talking about that yesterday. Where do you go if you want to be an investigator besides going to chanalysis, react their certification or TRM labs, there's nothing else that is going to teach you how to be an investigator. And I am trying to fill that gap, but it's just me. And I can't be the only person that's working on it, right? As much as that is ego boosting for me, that's not how we solve an industry problem. And so I'm developing a course that is targeting specifically law enforcement and prosecutors on how to investigate crypto using public blockchains. They don't need a lot of resources for that, right? Besides time, but you don't need a $100,000 chanalysis reactor license to do basic crypto investigations. So let's find you resources. So I have been, I spent last three months literally testing any public blockchain website that I came across from breadcrumbs, Arkham Intelligence, like, you know, I see it on LinkedIn, people talk about it, I go, I make an account and I try to test it out, right? To see, okay, this one works, this one doesn't work. If I can teach law enforcement how to use public blockchain, then maybe they can hand that over to the FBI. But FBI also doesn't investigate every case. And so at Operation Shamrock, we have been advocating for a national task force. And I would, we have actually met this morning, Aaron and me, we met with one of the congressional staffers who are interested in hearing our story and potentially helping us start this task force, because it's needed, because if the FBI is not taking care of all those cases and Secret Service is not, or DHS, HSI, somebody has to, right? And I think the solution to it that all of us have to do it. So why don't we all just pull our resources and make this task force, and then we can start taking care of some of these cases and taking care of victims. Like that is, that is the human impact. It's not, oh, we're losing money. Yes, we're losing billions of dollars. But who's losing this money? It's people like you and I on this phone call, right? It's, it's affecting everybody. I know all of you are getting messages that you have paid tolls, easy pass tolls, and you are getting, your package cannot be delivered and you're getting fake PayPal invoices and you're probably getting pig brain scams. So it's like, all of us are being targeted. Oh my God. Can I, can I just say something super fast on that note? So I had a hard time, I'll be candid here, but I had a hard time really relating to victims of pig brain scams. Just because like I'm a millennial, I grew up and like, you know, having these scams kind of thrown at me since I was little, right? And like watching my mom kind of start to fall for things or watching, you know, other people that we know, older generations kind of fall for things. But it wasn't until I really, I received a text message one morning, it was my daughter's birthday actually last year. I already been working on these cases and I was sympathetic to the clients and stuff, to the victims, but it still didn't quite click until the day that it was like literally the weekend after my daughter's birthday. She had told me the morning after her birthday, well, I thought I was getting a new cell phone for my birthday. And I was like, Abby, like you never even told me you wanted a cell phone. She's 17 and like she's, she's had a cell phone. She bought her own actually by investing in crypto, which was funny. But she apparently wanted like the new iPhone or something and she thought that I would get that for her. And she never told me she wanted it. So we had that conversation and then her dad picked her up so he could spend the weekend with her. Well, like the next morning, I get a text message early in the morning, like 8am. And it says, it's from a different phone number, but it's like a local area code kind of it's like nearby. And it says, mom, it's me. And I dropped my phone and it's broken. Please give me a call. And it's worded and spelled and the capitalization is like bang on to what Abby, my daughter would, would send me. And I fell for it hook, line and sinker because she has, she is known to do things like this. Like she would drop her phone because she wanted a new phone. She just told me that. So in my head, I'm just like, are you kidding me, girlfriend? Like, so I, but instead of responding to it right away and instead of calling that phone number, because my assumption, and this is something I guess the scammers can't quite figure out, is like, why would I call that number when I know you're with your father, right? And like, I'm, and also like, who's phone are you even using anyway? Like, why would I even text that number? Like, don't give them my number, right? Like, that's my like mom instinct. So then I call her father and he's like half asleep. And I'm, he's like, what's up? And I'm like, hey, did Abby seriously drop her phone just because she wants a new, a new iPhone? And he's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, she just texted me that she broke her phone. She wants me to call her. And I'm dead serious. Like, I had no idea that this was not her. And so she's like, hold on. And he gets up and he goes to check on her. And he's like, she is snoring. She's asleep right now. And so he wakes her up anyway. And I talked to her on the phone. And I'm like, Abby, did you text me? And she's like, no, I haven't, no, I've just been asleep. I'm like, is your phone okay? She's like, yeah, it's right here. It's charging. And I was like, I can't believe that just happened. I can't believe that. Like the timing of it was impeccable. It was probably just one of those like, you know, what are the odds of this happening? I doubt that anyone was actually like tracking me to know it was my kid's birthday or anything like that. But let alone knowing that we just had that conversation. But it is kind of that like random, like I'm going to throw something out there and see what I catch. And then like, for people like me being like, what are the odds? Of course, I'm like, I don't even think I'm just like, yeah, that happened. And like, there's no reason for me to doubt this. And I think that happens in other contexts too that aren't necessarily your kid breaking their phone and wanting a new one. But, you know, that happens with romance scams too and people pretending to know certain things about you. And they might just be sending that one text out to, you know, 200 people. But one of those people is bound to be like, wow, how did you know that about me? You must be someone that I know closely. So that actually really opened my eyes and kind of allowed me to empathize much more deeply with every single victim that I come across because it's social engineering. And like, they train people on this stuff. These encampments, they literally put people through training to teach you how to manipulate people. And they just call it social engineering, but it is hyper advanced. It's insane. That's crazy, by the way, like the fact that also the timing of it is like, whoa, I don't know. It's like all otherworldly. But and oftentimes, Victoria, in your divorce cases, right, you might be proceeding sort of, I don't know if any divorce cases business is usual, but you're going along, you know, there's crypto involved, due to do. And then at some point, maybe it comes out that somebody was scammed, right? So it's almost it. Do you find it's a double like it's re it's another form of victimization, like it's that much more painful for people to like move through because I'm just thinking about like the human toll and like the support angle. And yeah, yeah, it's it changes everything. So first of all, you have like the psychological aspect of it that comes with the emotional aspect of the person who was actually victimized. And if that happens to be what we call the in spouse or the higher earner, the person who is most likely to end up paying, you know, spousal support and definitely especially for longer term marriages, those individuals have to deal with the fact that first of all, if they admit that they've been scammed, this is going to be, you know, varying levels of betrayal. Because if they admit it's a romance scam, then it's going to sound like he was potentially already talking to her before the divorce. And maybe there's a cheating element, there's some jealousy element, there's a, does this, does this make me look like a bad person? So they feel guilty. But then there's also the aspect of like, I'm the breadwinner, I'm, I'm the person with all the skills, I'm supposed to be financially responsible. And here I am, I've been swindled, I've been scammed. How could I let this happen? And it's all just self blame. And they're embarrassed. So we have a section of individuals that this happens to who will pretend that they're not being scammed. And then it'll be something that I come across that I realize, he's sending a lot of money into this one thing. Oh, he's sending a, you know, we'll look into like his crypto.com account and see that he's sending a lot of money to this wallet. And then when I put it in chain analysis and I'm mapping it out, I can see that it's going into a reported scam operation and it's still happening. So then I have to confront, you know, if I'm on, the one time that this really did happen in a big way was I was on the opposing client side. So I was representing wife in the situation. And I had to talk to her attorney to be like, this is what this looks like. I know that we're trying to pursue him for, you know, a lot of these assets, but I really strongly believe that these assets don't exist anymore. They're not in his possession at all. So like, we need to work out a way to, like, we need strategies, how we're going to present this to our client without upsetting her in several ways. First of all, with like the, how could he let this happen? He is financially responsible. Are we sure he didn't just send this to a friend? Like, how do you know? Like, but then beyond that, having to reckon with the fact that she's not going to get half of those assets potentially. Like, there's a really solid chance that those are just gone. And that sometimes, in that specific case, it was a substantial chunk of their estate. It was, it was really heart-wrenching that we did ultimately end up helping him with the filing process and helping him report it to IC3. And it did, it was enough money. It was a great amount of money, but it was enough loss. It was in the several millions of dollars that the IC3 did pay attention to it. They did actually schedule a call with a Zoom call. And like, we got to actually send over all of our evidence and everything. But to my knowledge, no recovery has actually been made on that yet, which is, we already kind of had to temper their expectations that, you know, the chances of recovery are very low. But yeah, I mean, there's, there's also, I know that we discussed this previously, but just to mention here too, the issue of like my role as a forensic accountant, especially testifying in court, it really is my job to remain impartial. Although I'm allowed to take a position, I'm hired to take a position for the client, I need to keep myself separated emotionally, keep myself distanced just enough so that I can honestly say that I've remained impartial throughout this entire process, which when you're dealing with scams, when you're dealing with specifically pig butchering scams, and you see like the emotional toll it's taking on these individuals, and us being in the position of having to be the ones to tell them what this is. And, you know, it's like a melding of worlds for them where like they, they didn't know this was happening. And now you're telling them it's happening. And now they're having to reckon with like, none of what I thought was real is real. It's hard to not get emotionally attached to your client in that process, especially if your client's the one who's been victimized. It's really challenging to be able to distance yourself enough to say that like, I remain impartial. And it's important because sometimes I have had at least one case where we did confirm that the opposing client actually faked a scam. And I mean, that, that is something else entirely. And luckily now that I know kind of the signs to look for, like, I don't know that it's as easy as I thought it was initially, I was just like, wow, everyone's going to be faking scams soon. But now that we kind of know the patterns to look for, especially when you see it transferred to a wallet, it's just being held there for, you know, several months, long, long amounts of time that are very atypical for peg butchering scams. Now we know what to look for there. And I just don't think we're going to see that quite as much. But the possibility is still there. So just because your client says they've been scammed, you still need to be able to take a step back and say, is it really a scam? Or at least, especially if they're the ones coming to you with that information, you're not necessarily discovering it. But if they come to you and say, oh, I just lost all my money, it's gone to a scam, we still need to verify that. We still need to look into that. You still do have to remain impartial. But you also, it's so important to remain sensitive to them as well. Because, understandably, this is a really challenging thing to go through. Yeah, I mean, these sound like incredibly difficult situations and scenarios to be in. And, you know, I can't imagine what it would like to be a victim or be involved in a divorce. And then be a victim again in a situation. You know, I'm curious how you both prepare for these kinds of difficult conversations? Are there certain things you do? Or what have you learned along the way to like, prepare to have them or give people information at these really vulnerable time? I do. I actually have an entire, I have an email that I like to kind of customize and modify for each person. But I do have like, you know, a list of resources for them. I know that there's a support group that's free. I believe it's funded by Fenra. And so I link them to that. I encourage them to join that. It's free. And I think it's eight weeks. Don't quote me on that. But I think it's like a eight week long support group program. And I've heard really amazing things from it. It's very successful. I also, you know, give them reading materials. I give them links to articles. There's an article for a CEO of a major bank who fell victim to a pig butchering scam. And I like sending that one out because I think the default for a lot of these victims is to feel like it's their fault. They didn't, you know, see the signs or like they, you know, think that they're lesser than the average American or average, you know, person just because they fell for it, quote unquote. So seeing that like, you know, even a CEO of this like, major bank who's incredibly intelligent, very smart, super experienced and financially savvy, of course, even she fell for it. Like, I think that it helps. I think it's helpful. And I've gotten good feedback from it. But also I have, you know, I like to send them kind of a more, you know, tailored kind of message to them just to kind of reassure them that like, this can really happen to anyone. And now, especially with my own experience, I've started to open up about that one incident and telling them like, look, I work in this, I do this for a living and it like, it almost happened to me. So like, it can happen to anyone. But yeah, I think it's super important to like, provide them with resources, self-help resources and outreach resources, reading materials, podcasts. Erin West has a lot of different podcast episodes. And she's so good on podcasts and on video. And she's just amazing in general. But I love sending her podcast episodes and YouTube videos and even some LinkedIn posts and some of these emails. But I do have like one really big email that has all of my resources in it. And then I'll just kind of, you know, take things out or put more things in as needed client by client. I think for me is just a slightly different because I am part of Shamrock. And so that is like my first course of action, like, hey, fill this out. Let's get you in touch with our crypto coalition with our triage team to see if we can help you recover anything. And then the survivor stories where you can have a voice, you know, a safe environment where you can share your story. And we do have resources that we give out to Victoria. I can send you a few more resources that I know of that they're friends of Shamrock. But one of them is Kathy Wilson. She's a therapist. She posts a lot of stuff on LinkedIn, but she has a whole YouTube series on how to deal with grief with scams. So she's awesome. And so she sometimes comes on our survivor stories and like coaches victims on how to deal with some of the emotional trauma. But that's usually my first course of action. I haven't had a divorce case yet where there was a scam aspect of it as well. Most of my divorce cases are, I think my spouse is hiding money from me in his crypto accounts. And then it's the same thing like with scams you have with law enforcement, there is a lack of knowledge and lack of understanding. I think with the authorities is the same, same way, especially some of the older generations that have been, you know, practicing law for a few decades. I think it's kind of harder to get them to understand how crypto works and that it actually is a property on their US law and that it needs to be split. And, you know, there's that they can't just say that they don't have crypto and that's it, we close the matter. So that's kind of mostly what I have been experiencing with my divorce cases. Yeah, I think that's interesting on the divorce part about how different states will treat property. I mean, I'm a total novice layperson on that. But also, you know, I know when we were speaking, Victoria, that struck me of like, if you're married and getting divorced in like New York versus married and getting divorced in California versus other states and the treatment of that, which to me just adds to the further complexity of the situation. Like, which is the best state to become, to be, to marry and divorce in and own crypto? Is there like an ideal situation? Well, it really depends. I would say that if you were the person in possession of the assets at the date of marriage, probably New York is the better place to be. But you can also do that in California. Of course, California honors a separate property. So anything that you have at the date of marriage that stays your separate property throughout the marriage, no matter what. But I will say that like in California, anything acquired during the marriage, especially if there was incoming earned during the marriage, any acquisitions are more or less considered community property. So if husband decides he wants to, or let's reverse this, if wife decides she wants to invest in cryptocurrency, even though she's earning money, she's got, you know, money coming in, she's got a full-time job, we'll say she's a really successful attorney. And she decides one day, I'm going to take up crypto and I'm going to put, I'm going to take all my money out of my retirement maybe and put it into crypto. Assuming those retirement contributions were made during the marriage as well, she doesn't even have to tell her husband that this investment is being made. It just is 50% hoes now. So at the date of separation, she may not realize this. She might, we see this all the time where, you know, people try to argue, well, my spouse didn't even know that I was investing in it. And also like I was using my money that I was earning during the marriage, I never spent their money on this. And like they weren't involved in this at all. So why should they take half? It's California law. So we, a lot of what I do is actually disposition of funds analysis, which is just looking at like, okay, when were all of these crypto assets initially purchased? What money was used to purchase it? Where did that money specifically come from? Is there any chance any of that came from someone's separate property predating the marriage? And then what was the balance at data separation? And did any of those funds get transferred out anywhere else? Do we have an issue with disclosure? Is there a hidden wallet somewhere? I mean, that's always everyone's concern is that someone has, you know, they hear that someone was in crypto during marriage, they didn't know about it. And so now all of a sudden they're like, well, why was he in crypto? Like, he must have been doing something shady. Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't he get my, my input on this? And so a lot of what we're doing is just trying to kind of demystify that, shine a little bit of a light on it, show them, hey, nine times out of 10, these guys just wanted to be part of something really fun and cool and edgy. And they lost a lot of money doing it. And maybe, you know, they decided they wanted to build some NFTs for a second, realized that, you know, it wasn't going to be worth anything. It went kaput. He forgot about that wallet. And that's why it wasn't disclosed at the time of divorce. But here it is. Here it is. And here's what it's worth though, which is nothing. Hope this helps. And like oftentimes that, you know, just getting to shine that light in there and understanding what portion of that is there's why it's not worth anything. They can decide if they actually really do want to pursue that or not. Just knowing that it's there is really helpful for both sides. But in New York, I understand that it's not a community property state. I understand that if someone decides that they want to use their own income to invest in something like cryptocurrency, there is an argument to be made for that entire amount to be their own separate property. So very different from us. But if one spouse decides to use the party's, you know, joint account to invest in crypto, and they're the ones doing all the work, even if they weren't the ones who earn that money, I believe there's equitable division approaches that you can use to try to regain a big portion of that cryptocurrency, even if it wasn't funded by you in New York. That's crazy. I mean, you both have such tremendous experience and things that you've undoubtedly learned along the way, right? Lessons learned takeaways, what not to do, what to do. You know, I'm curious if you were going to advise someone coming up in the space, you know, that's interested of like one or two key lessons. Like, Alex, what one or two lessons would you share? Boy, that is a million dollar question right there. I would say in regards to crypto, double check triple check your work. That is a huge, huge deal. If you mess up your investigation, your crypto tracing, you can seize wrong assets. And I have seen it happen with law enforcement seizing wrong wallet. And so that just opens up a huge, you know, can of worms with like legality and fines. And yeah, it's bad. So I always try to verify a victim gives me a wallet address. I want to confirm that they are the owner of that address, that I won't need to have date time stamps. I need to know exactly where they sent the money. So I need those wallet addresses for these potential scammers. And that is my starting point. And so and then I like triple check the work to make sure that I am not giving law enforcement the wrong address because I will be sitting in the court testifying probably and being held accountable if we see somebody else's money. So that would be that would definitely be number one advice for somebody who is looking to do crypto investigations. Number two, I talked about this a little bit on LinkedIn, but it would be ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions like this industry such a niche industry. I mean, Victoria is the first person I met that is like into similar things that I that I'm in and I've been here for, you know, quite some time now. And so asking questions and learning don't be scared to do that and don't compare yourself like I see when I initially started in this industry, you see this like glamorous, glamorous life that, you know, crypto investigators have on LinkedIn, they're traveling their keynote speakers or this and that. But we often forget how much hard work goes in, you know, behind the scenes. And how did they actually get there? And I experienced that. And, you know, I was a analysis links few months ago, and I literally put in like 16, 17 hour days, we were recording content, and we were interviewing people and we're doing this and that. And based on my LinkedIn, you saw that I had a blast because I posted these like cute videos and stuff. But I was exhausted. I came home and I got sick because I was just so exhausted. And I was like, wow, you know, I used to like think about people seeing them on LinkedIn. I'm like, wow, like they're delivering this glamorous life. But it, you know, we're forgetting the hard work that goes behind to live that glamorous life that we're posting on social media. Totally. I think pieces of advice I would give are one, my number one piece of advice in any industry period, it's always been this way is just be nice, be nice to everyone, even if you don't like them, you don't have to like them to be kind, but just be nice because you never know when you are going to come across someone on the other side or when you're going to need their help or when they might need your help too. You just never know. And I think the worst thing we can do in this industry as forensics is create enemies or go up against each other and like hold grudges or be unreasonable to one another, especially in the crypto forensic space. There are so few of us. There's no need to be competitive and there's no need to be bratty or rude or obnoxious because I don't know about you guys, but like I am drowning in work. I would love to kick work to other, I would love to be able to refer a lot of these cases to someone else that I can trust to do the work and treat the client well. So, I mean, there's no need for like a competitive spirit. We're all in this together and also because of the how rapidly cryptocurrency and the digital asset space has evolved and continues to evolve, we really need each other to stay on top of all of these new developments. Any time that like there's a couple other people who work at firms nearby that I've actually helped teach some of the crypto stuff and they're using some of my models to do their work and they'll reach out to me and just ask like, "Hey, have you heard about this weird website that's new?" And my instinct is always like, "Oh, it's probably a fake exchange," but I always check it out or sometimes in rare circumstances I've heard of this altcoin that's coming up in litigation all of a sudden and I can give them my feedback on like, "This is what I understand, that altcoin. This is the purpose of that and I've seen this crop up in other places too and I think it's legitimate." But like being able to have that open dialogue is nice. Again, you don't necessarily have to like one another, but just keeping that kind of open communication and just kindness about you, that's how we all grow and expand and like that's how we're going to go further. That's going to make our lives easier as individuals, as professionals, and that's going to make our clients happier too. My second tip would be, I mean, I guess be collaborative, but that's kind of the same thing that I was just talking about. But to Alex's point of like, you know, make sure that you're reviewing your work and like your triple checking everything you've done, it helps having other people in the space that you can kick, you know, an analysis to and be like, "Hey, can you take a look at this? Does this check to you? Does that tie out at the bottom? Do you think I missed something?" Being able to have a resource like that, I mean, you just can't even put a price on it. So like, it's super important that you have kind of that team spirit, collaborative nature, and a willingness to be wrong is a big part of it. We cannot, there's no master's degree in forensic accounting or cryptocurrency. I mean, there are for forensic accounting, but not for like digital assets. And so there's no way for us to just wake up one day and have all the answers. The only way that we can learn really is by bumping our head into things and being wrong and being willing to admit that we're wrong and correct it and be right. So I mean, as much as no one really wants to admit that, you mostly learn by making mistakes. And in my experience, that's this entire forensic accounting industry. They can teach you these courses on forensic accounting all day, but until you're in it, it's really, really hard to just step into it and just know what steps to take, know what to look for, know the process, understand the case law, understand these different approaches you can take. But I guess that leads me to my final word of advice is just to lean into discomfort. If you're trying to break into this industry, you should really get used to being uncomfortable a lot of the time. You're constantly put in situations where you're unsure of yourself. You may not have the confidence, but it will come with time. And by the end of, you know, with each new analysis, I'll approach it confidently. Like, I understand what steps I'm going to take. I understand what I'm looking for. But inevitably, something different happens on every single case. There's always something that kind of throws me off. And the first few cases I had like that, I just, I blamed myself for it. Oh, well, if I was a better forensic, this wouldn't be happening. And so it sends you into like this anxiety spiral. But you know what? That's part of it. That's what this is. So getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is really, I mean, that's going to make you stand out in the crowd too, but that's going to make you successful in this industry. And yeah, like definitely if you or someone you know are interested in joining Alex or myself, please reach out to us. I don't mind if you work at a different firm, I'm just happy to have more people in the space than I think Alex does too. Well, thank you for that. And I don't know what you're doing, Victoria. My Magic Ape Ball tells me exactly what to do each day. It has all the answers. Lucky. Right? Where can I get one of those? Exactly. Magic Ape Ball has all the answers. Yeah. No, I mean, I think triple check your work. As you said, Alex, don't be afraid to ask questions. You both stress, you know, the importance in collaboration, being nice, being kind, being humble, being okay, being uncomfortable. You know, all those are great professional advice and also to be honest, life advice. I think we all can, we all can use that. No, thank you both so much for participating and talking today and listeners. Thank you for tuning in to learn more about the association. You can visit our website, www.womenandcrypto.org. You can follow the association on LinkedIn, on X. I know Victoria and Alex are both on LinkedIn. And a special thanks to Bracewall for her sponsorship and to Emily Horbrowski for her invaluable technical support.