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Inside The FBI's Hunt for Aurora Phelps' Unknown Victims · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine you've worked like your entire life. You put in
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the 40 odd years. You saved up this really healthy
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: nest egg. You navigated all the stress of a career
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and you finally reached that golden era of retirement. Right.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: The dream.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You have the house. You have the free time.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: But maybe as the days stretch out, the house starts
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to feel a little too quiet.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: It happens to so many people.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It really does. The isolation kind of starts to creep in. So,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you know. You decide to try and cure a little
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: bit of that loneliness. You download a dating app. You
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: swipe right. Yeah. You meet someone charming, someone who seems,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know, genuinely interested in you. And without even
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: realizing it, you step into an absolute nightmare.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: It's a vulnerability that, I mean, millions of people face
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: this every single day.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: The transition into retirement can completely sever these deep social ties,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: you know, leaving this vacuum that digital platforms promise to fill.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: But what we are looking at today in this deep
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: dive is not a standard story of someone getting catfished
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: for a few hundred dollars in iTunes gift cards. No,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: not at all. We are examining the complete, like, systematic
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: dismantling of human lives.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And I really want to set the stakes right now
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: for you listening. This isn't some retrospective true crime recap
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: where we're just, you know, dusting off closed case files
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: from the 90s.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: This is an active, highly volatile, ongoing FBI investigation. The
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: source material we're working with today is incredibly rare.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, extremely rare.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: It centers around this public plea from a broadcast called
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Prime Crime, where the FBI took this unprecedented step of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: unsealing a federal indictment specifically to beg the public for help.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: And to understand how rare that actually is, you kind
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: of have to look at how the Bureau typically operates.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Right. They don't usually do this.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: No. I mean, the FBI is an intelligence-driven organization that
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: guards its information jealously. They do not unseal federal indictments
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and go on television unless they have hit a terrifying
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: mathematical probability.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: By crowdsourcing this investigation, they are openly admitting that the
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: scope of this criminality is vast. Like the perpetrator exploited
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: systemic blind spots they cannot easily penetrate. Yeah. And there
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: are almost certainly more victims out there that they simply
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: cannot find using, you know, traditional forensic accounting.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: The person in at the center of this massive federal
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: dragnet is a 43-year-old woman named Aurora Phelps.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: She is based out of Las Vegas, but as we're
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: going to see, she has these deep, incredibly functional roots
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: in Mexico.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Very functional.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: In the broadcast, she is described as a romance scammer
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: on steroids. But honestly, looking at the stack of sources
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: we have, that label feels kind of insulting to the victims.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I would agree with that.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Authorities suspect her of being a highly organized serial killer
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: with at least 11 known victims.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: That is the grim reality here. I mean, we are
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: unpacking a catastrophic failure of modern security. Yeah. You have
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the inherent vulnerability of digital dating. The fact that a
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: predator can, you know, bypass your front door and access
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: your mind through a screen right in your living room.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Right. You invite them in, essentially.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And then you have the specific calculated financial abuse
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: of the elderly.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And perhaps the most difficult thing to comprehend, you had
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: this deliberate weaponization of international jurisdiction.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, the borders.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Aurora Phelps didn't just understand human psychology. She understood exactly
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: how the gears of the United States and Mexican legal
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: systems failed to mesh.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: And she basically built her hunting ground right in that gap.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: But, I mean, nobody just wakes up one morning, downloads Tinder,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and decides to execute a multi-jurisdictional murder and theft ring.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Right, there's a progression.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: There has to be a learning group. So how does
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: someone develop that specific lethal skill set?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Well, to understand the escalation, we have to look at
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: our background. Aurora was born in California, but raised in Guadalajara, Mexico.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And this isn't just like biographical trivia. It is the
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: absolute foundation of her methodology.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: She holds dual citizenship. So from childhood. She was conditioned
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: to navigate two distinct cultures, speak two languages fluently, and crucially,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: understand two entirely different societal and legal infrastructures.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: She moved seamlessly between the U.S. and Mexico, treating the
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: border not as a barrier, but basically as a shield.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And the sources show she really starts flexing that manipulative
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: muscle during her time living in Arkansas.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, her earlier days.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Right. This is her first marriage to a man named
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Alejandro Alvarez. They have three kids. The marriage falls apart
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: and they end up in this super bitter custody battle.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Standard, unfortunately, but then it escalates. Right.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Because when Alejandro is granted custody, Aurora doesn't just like
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: hire a more aggressive family lawyer. She decides to fabricate
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: an entire alternate reality to destroy him.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And this is where we really see the prototype of
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: her digital deception. She alleged severe physical abuse.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: But she didn't just say it. Right.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: No, she didn't just make an allegation in court. She
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: manufactured the digital footprint to back it up.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: That is wild.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: She coordinated with her brother, Abraham, who was living down
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: in Mexico. She instructed him to spoof phone calls and
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: text messages.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: She had him manipulate the telecommunications data so that violent,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: threatening messages appeared to be originating directly from Alejandro's phone,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: targeting hers.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I want to stop on this for a second because...
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: How exactly does someone just, you know, spoof a phone
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: number well enough to trick a court of law? Is
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: it like an app you just download on your iPhone?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: It's a bit more complex than that, and it really
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: speaks to her sophistication. The Global Telecommunications Network runs on
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: this signaling protocol called SS7. Okay. It was designed decades
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: ago with an inherent flaw. It implicitly trusts the data
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: it receives.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: So when you use Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: you can manually input whatever you want the caller ID
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: to display.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: That's terrifying.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: By coordinating with her brother in Mexico, she was routing
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: these digital text messages through international servers. So when the
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Arkansas police looked at her phone, the screen literally said Alejandro.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: But to actually prove it wasn't him, local Arkansas law
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: enforcement would have to subpoena international telecom providers, untangle foreign
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: IP addresses, and conduct digital forensics that, honestly, A local
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: family court is simply not equipped or funded to do.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: It's like a hacker finding a server that just doesn't
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: talk to the main network.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: She realized that local US courts and Mexican telecom networks
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: are basically running on two completely incompatible operating systems.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: If she commits the crime on the Mexican server, the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: US antivirus software literally cannot see it.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: That is exactly the mechanism. It shows a profound lack
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: of empathy. prioritizing her own desires over the destruction of
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: her children's father. Obviously. But it also shows a highly
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: analytical mind. She was testing the boundaries of the justice system,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: learning how cross-border coordination creates this thick investigative fog.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: But the fog didn't hold, thankfully. The Arkansas police actually
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: did their homework. They realized the text messages were mathematically
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: impossible based on Alejandro's actual cell tower pings.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Right, the data didn't match.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So they issued a warrant for Aurora's arrest. So, you know,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the system works. But her response is just to skip town.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she runs.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: She vanishes from Arkansas and pops up in Las Vegas.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: And fleeing jurisdiction is a classic avoidance tactic, but it
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: forces an evolution. She is now a fugitive, albeit on
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: a localized fraud warrant.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: She's starting over in a transient environment. And it is
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: here in Vegas that investigators believe she conducted a critical,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: terrifying test run that really changed the whole trajectory of
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: her crimes.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: The sources detail this test run, and it is incredibly dark.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: She targets a female friend, not a stranger, a woman
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: she had known for three years.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: They meet up in a hotel room in Vegas, and
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  Speaker 1: Aurora slips something into her drink. The friend wakes up
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  Speaker 1: hours later completely alone. Her wallet is gone, her identity
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: is stolen, and all her credit cards are maxed out.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: The psychological leap here is massive.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, moving from faking text messages to physically rendering
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: another human being unconscious requires a complete detachment from human suffering.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I am really stuck on the target selection here, though.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: If you want to steal a credit card, why on
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: earth would you drug a friend of three years?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: That's a good question.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Like, why not go down to a casino bar, find
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a tourist who is already three margaritas deep, and slip
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: something in their drink? Why target someone who knows your
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: real name, knows your face, and has your phone number.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: That seems so incredibly high risk.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: It seems high risk if you assume the predator is
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: acting out of desperation.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: But Aurora operates on opportunity and access.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, I see.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: To drug a stranger in a casino, you have to
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: bypass security cameras, build a rapid rapport, and lure them
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: to a secondary location.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: That takes time and carries the risk of intervention. With
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: her friend, the trust was already there, established.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: The friend willingly walked into that hotel room and let
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: her guard completely down. What Aurora learned in that room
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: was a revelation about control. She realized the sheer power
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: of pharmacology.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: What exactly is happening in the body during a drugging
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: like this? Like, how does it grant her that much control?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: So when you introduce heavy chemical sedatives, usually we're talking
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: about central nervous system depressants, like potent benzodiazepines. You aren't
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: just making someone sleepy. Right. You are chemically hijacking their
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: brain's neurotransmitters, specifically the GABA receptors.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It causes profound muscle relaxation to the point of paralysis,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: but more importantly, it induces anterograde amnesia.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So they don't remember anything.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The brain literally stops recording memories. Aurora Receptor. realized
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: that with a few crushed pills, she didn't need a weapon.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: There was no physical struggle, no screaming, no calling for help.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Just totally subdued.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Just total silent dominion over a compliant body.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: So she learns that chemistry basically equals easy money. But
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you can only max out a friend's credit card once
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: before the fraud department catches on.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: She clearly realizes she needs a much larger hunting ground
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and victims with massive liquid assets, which brings us to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the Las Vegas facade.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: And Las Vegas is the ultimate ecosystem for this type
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: of predation. It is a city engineered for transience, anonymity,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: and the illusion of connection. It attracts people with disposable
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: income who are inherently looking for an escape.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: For a predator armed with chemical sedatives and a total
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: lack of empathy, Vegas is a limitless buffet.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: She starts out working these, like, classic Vegas odd jobs,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: singing in bars, working at a restaurant, selling timeshares.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Trying to blend in.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And during this period, she moves in with a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: roommate named Sergio Herrera. They live together for about a
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: year and a half, and Sergio's account is basically a
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: master class in the warning signs of a psychopath.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Sergio's testimony provides a really crucial look behind the mask.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: He describes her behavior as exhausting and highly erratic.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: He noted extreme mood swings where her entire personality could
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: flip in three minutes.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Right, and it culminates in this bizarre power play. She
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: just moves her boyfriend into their shared apartment without asking
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Sergio at all.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: No discussion. Right.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Sergio pushes back, tells her the boyfriend has to leave,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: and Aurora's response. While Sergio is at work, She literally
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: changes the locks on the front door. He has to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: call the police just to get his own clothes out
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of the apartment.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: This is the mask slipping. When you live with someone,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: maintaining a false persona 24-7 is basically impossible.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the crack show.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Changing the locks was an impulsive, aggressive assertion of dominance.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: She views Sergio not as a human being with tenant rights,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: but as an obstacle.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: And when an obstacle is in her way, she neutralizes it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: It's a glaring red flag. And it was one that
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: a mutual childhood friend, Blanca Jimenez, had actually warned Sergio about.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: She told him explicitly, be careful with Aurora. She's crazy.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: But she doesn't stay a timeshare salesperson. That boyfriend she
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: moved in, that's Cody Phelps. She marries him. They have
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: a daughter and they settle into a seemingly normal life
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: near downtown Vegas. But that's just the physical reality. Digitally,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: she is constructing a completely different universe.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: She creates an influencer persona online using the name Boreas.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: The Boreas persona is really fascinating from a forensic psychology standpoint.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: She begins posting these high-end unboxing videos showcasing incredibly expensive
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: luxury merchandise, Dior, Chanel, designer shoes.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: We've all seen these videos, right? The ASMR of the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: tissue paper, the performative display of wealth. But how does
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: this connect to the crimes? Is she just Fencing stolen goods?
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: It's deeper than just fencing. As the investigators in the
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: broadcast analyzed, this wasn't just about the monetary value of
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: the handbags.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: It was about the dopamine loop of social validation. She
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: craved the spotlight. She wanted the adoration, the envy, and
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the perceived status of an elite influencer.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: It was an ego trip. Exactly.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The theft wasn't just to pay rent. It was
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: to fund a grandiose delusion of who she deserved to be.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: And to fund that delusion, she builds the trap. She
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: creates a vast network of dating profiles across various apps.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: She uses a rotating cast of aliases. Sissy, Laura, Aurora Alvarez, Flores, Velasco, Bori.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Changing her identity constantly.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Right. But she isn't just swiping randomly. She is hunting
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: very specific prey.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: She is essentially running a demographic algorithm in her head.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: She's looking for older men. typically retirees.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: The vulnerable ones.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Men with guaranteed pensions, social security, accumulated life savings, and
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: most importantly, profound loneliness. Yeah. Law enforcement explicitly referred to
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: these men as her piggy banks, which captures exactly how
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: she viewed them. Not as humans, but as fleshy ATMs.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I have a massive problem with this part of the story, though. Oh.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: She is living in a modest apartment in Las Vegas
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: with her husband, Cody Phelps. She is suddenly drowning in
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Dior and Chanel boxes. She has multiple cell phones pinging
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: with dating app notifications all the time.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And the husband claims he had absolutely no idea. I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: don't buy that. You don't just miss a mountain of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: luxury goods appearing in your living room.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Your skepticism is entirely warranted. Investigators always scrutinize the spouse
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: in these scenarios.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: As they should.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Cotillet's defense is that he was unassuming and ignorant of
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the origins of her wealth. To understand how that is possible,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: or at least how a spouse justifies it, we have
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: to look at the power dynamics of their marriage.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Well, the sources do mention their relationship was up and down,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: which feels like a really polite way of saying it
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: was volatile.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Remember the three-minute mood swings Sergio described? Imagine living
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: with that threat of explosion constantly hanging over your head.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: This leads to a psychological phenomenon often seen in abusive
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: or highly volatile relationships, which is Willful blindness.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Like the boiling frog thing.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The boiling frog syndrome. The spouse learns that asking
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: questions about the new Chanel bag leads to a screaming match, gaslighting,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: or threats. So they just stop asking.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: They just put their head in the sand.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: They compartmentalize. Whether Cody was financially dependent, emotionally battered, or
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: just cowardly, his silence provided the operational security Aurora needed.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: She was a mother and wife in the living room.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: and an apex predator on her iPhone in the bathroom.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And once the trap is set, the actual attacks are
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: terrifying in their efficiency. If we look at the blueprint
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of how she operates, it really highlights how defenseless the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: victims were.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Let's examine the first major encounter that hit the FBI's radar.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: This involved a man in his 60s living near Las Vegas.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: He had a very successful, lucrative career as a professional
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: in the Hollywood film industry. He was retired, financially secure,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: and just dipping his toes into casual dating to meet people.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: He matches with Aurora. She is persistent, charming, and eventually
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: convinces him to let her come over to his house,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: bringing food.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So she ends inside the sanctuary, they sit down to eat,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and the next thing this man knows, he is waking up.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: But he hasn't been asleep for a few hours.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: No.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: He has been unconscious, lying in his own home for
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: five days.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Five days.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And the only reason he even briefly regains consciousness is
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that he physically feels her shoving more pills down his
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: throat to maintain the coma.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I want you to really conceptualize the horror of that moment.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It's unbearable.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: You invite someone into your home for a meal. You
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: wake up days later, paralyzed. Your motor function is severely depressed.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And the last thing you see before going under again
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: is the person you trusted force-feeding you narcotics.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: By sheer luck, she steps out of the room for
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: a moment, and he manages to fight through this chemical
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: fog just enough to find a spare set of car
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: keys he had hidden.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Adrenaline is powerful. Right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: He stumbles to his car, tries to drive to the hospital,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and actually crashes his car because his central nervous system
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: is so heavily depressed. Yeah. He survives. His sister comes
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to intervene. But what they discover when they look at
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: his accounts is just staggering.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: While he was incapacitated, she conducted a total hostile takeover
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of his life. She took the physical valuables, of course,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: his iPhone, his iPad, his wallet. But she also systematically
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: breached his digital security. She transferred $ 65, 000 in cash out
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: of his USAA bank account. And then she attempted a
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: massive escalation. She tried to liquidate and transfer $ 3. 3 million
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: from his E-Trade stock portfolios.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: How does someone even attempt to move $ 3 million? You
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: can't just Venmo that from an app.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: This is where we see her understanding of digital finance.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: To move that kind of money, you usually face multi-factor authentication, MFA.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: But remember, she has his physical iPhone. She has an iPad.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: She can intercept the SMS codes. Furthermore... By initiating the
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: transfer from his actual devices connected to his actual home
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Wi-Fi network, she is spoofing the behavioral biometrics and IP
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: geolocation that banks use to flag fraud.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, so the bank thinks it's him.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: To the bank's automated systems, it looked exactly like the
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: victim was sitting on his own couch, deciding to cash
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: out his retirement.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: But the $ 3. 3 million transfer failed. The clearinghouse stopped it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, and that failure is a critical juncture in this story,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: which we will return to. But first, we have to
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: look at how she adapted this blueprint when she crossed
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the border. Right.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Because she targets another American, a U.S. citizen living and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: working as a chiropractor in Mexico. Yep. Same setup. Dating app, dinner.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: She drugs him at the restaurant and manages to transport
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: him back to his home in Mexico.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: What is distinct here is her behavior. Once she has
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: him secured, the illusion of romance vanishes the millisecond they
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: cross the threshold.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: She flips the swan.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: She drops him, semi-conscious. And immediately begins ransacking the house
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: for documents, cash, and account access. It is purely predatory extraction.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: But she hits a snag. The chiropractor has a live-in
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: housekeeper who wakes up, sees this strange woman tearing through
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the drawers, and demands to know what is going on. Right. Now,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a normal burglar would sprint out the back door. But Aurora,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: she looks the housekeeper dead in the eye and says, oh,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: he's just incredibly drunk. We need to wake him up.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: The nerve.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And then she convinces the housekeeper to help her drag
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: this man into the bathroom and fully submerge him in
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a bathtub full of water.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: We need to analyze the forensic reality of this bathtub technique.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, please do.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: When you drug a human being into a stupor, their
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: gag reflex is suppressed. If you place them in a
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: bathtub full of water, you are not attempting to sober
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: them up. You are executing them. God. But more specifically,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: you're executing them in a way designed to deceive a
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: medical examiner.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: How does water deceive a medical examiner?
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: If the victim drowns, the cause of death is asphyxiation
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: due to drowning. If they have drugs in their system,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: a local police department without the resources for complex toxicology
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: might just rule it a tragic accident.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: They'll say, an older man who drank too much took
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: a sleeping pill and slipped in the tub. Furthermore, prolonged
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: submersion in water can accelerate decomposition and complicate the extraction
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: of certain chemical metabolites from the tissue, giving her a
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: forensic smoke screen.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It's sickening. Fortunately, other staff members arrived, found him in
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the tub, pulled him out, and rushed him to the hospital.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: They saved his life.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: He woke up from a coma days later. He told
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: police he didn't even drink alcohol, but she still vanished
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: with $ 25, 000 in cash and jewelry.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Which brings up the most frustrating question for me. These
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: two men survived. Why didn't they immediately go to the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: police and have her face plastered on every news station?
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Because Aurora understood the most powerful silencer in the human
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: psychological arsenal. Profound silence. paralyzing shame.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: The investigator in the broadcast made a very specific point
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to say, these men were not stupid. The Hollywood executive,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the chiropractor, they were highly educated, successful professionals.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And that success makes the cognitive dissonance so much worse.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Imagine being a man who has negotiated million-dollar contracts, who
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: considers himself a shrewd judge of character. You admit a young,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: attractive woman into your life because you are lonely. And
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: you wake up having been robbed, physically violated with chemicals,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: and nearly killed.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's got to be devastating.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: The embarrassment is suffocating. You have to admit to your children,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: to your peers, and to the police that you were
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: conned by a dating app profile.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I can see why they'd want to hide it.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Aurora banked on the fact that these men would rather
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: quietly absorb the financial loss than endure the public humiliation
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: of exposure.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: But relying on shame is a fragile strategy. Because while
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the Hollywood retiree didn't want to make a fuss, his
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: bank did. That $ 3. 3 million E-Trade transfer was flagged by
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the clearinghouse and frozen. Right. And this failure changes everything.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: This is the moment the profile escalates from serial predator
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: to serial killer. Yeah. When E-Trade blocked that transaction, she
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: experienced a profound realization. A living victim, even one paralyzed
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: by shame, is a massive liability.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Because they can stop the money.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A living victim can wake up, realize their iPad
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: is missing, call their bank's fraud department, freeze all their assets,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: and completely lock her out of the millions she's trying
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: to steal.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: So she realizes that the only way to guarantee she
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: can drain the accounts is if the victim never wakes
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: up to make that phone call. Dead men can't freeze
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: their accounts.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Precisely. To secure the piggy bank, the owner must be
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: permanently silenced. But a string of dead, wealthy men in
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Las Vegas... would immediately draw the attention of American homicide detectives.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Right, that's too hot.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: She needs an environment where dead Americans are overlooked. And
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: she finds it by targeting the expat communities in Mexico.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: This brings us to the most tragic segment of our
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: deep dive, the fall of the legends. Let's talk about
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the ecosystem she infiltrates. If she needs victims who won't
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: be missed immediately, where does she look?
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: She looks at places like Lake Chapala and Ejijic in Jalisco, Mexico.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: These are massive havens for American retirees.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I've heard of them, yeah.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: They offer a beautiful climate, a lower cost of living,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: and a vibrant community. The people who move there have
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: solid pensions, social security, and substantial savings.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But they are geographically isolated from their safety nets.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The expat community is inherently vulnerable because they lack
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: the immediate physical proximity of their biological families back in
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: the United States.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: If an elderly father in Ohio... doesn't answer his phone
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: for two days, his daughter drives over and knocks on
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: his door.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: If an elderly father in a jijic doesn't answer his phone,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: the daughter assumes he's at the beach or the Wi-Fi
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: is down or he's just enjoying his retirement. That geographical
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: buffer buys Aurora the critical time she needs to drain
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: the accounts.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And this is exactly what happened to victim number three,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Robert Urbach. Everyone called him Bo or Bobo. This guy
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: was a legend. He spent 44 years as a stagehand
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: with Local 16. We are talking about a man who
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: toured the world with Muddy Waters, Pink Floyd, U2, David Bowie,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: An incredible life.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: He was a mentor to young stagehands. He adopted kids.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: He had this massive, generous heart.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Bow had retired to Mexico for his fifth act in life.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: He was exactly the kind of vibrant, trusting person who
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: makes those communities thrive. Yeah. He was seeking connection. And
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: he matches on Tinder with a profile named Sissy. Sissy,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: of course, is Aurora.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: He goes to the Hard Rock Hotel to meet her
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: in 2021. And Bo simply vanishes.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: His family back in the States, who he checked in
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: with constantly, suddenly can't reach him. And then the psychological
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: torture begins.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Awful.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Bo's son receives a text message from his dad as phone.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: But the text is written in broken English, claiming that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Bo has impulsively decided to move to Ecuador and that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: they shouldn't look for him.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: It is a cruel, calculated manipulation. Aurora is using the
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: stolen phone to inject false narratives into designed specifically to
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: stall the family from initiating a search.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Buying time.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: She is buying the days and weeks she needs to
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: navigate his finances.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And she guts his life's work. She manages to steal
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: about $ 300, 000 in cash.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: She even had the audacity to contact his union directly,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: pretending to be authorized to redirect his entire pension. She
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: attempted to drain over $ 3. 5 million from his accounts.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Just relentless.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, his family is in absolute agony. They don't know
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: if he is sitting on a beach in Ecuador or
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: dead in a ditch. And the heartbreaking reality is that
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: they didn't get answers for a year and a half.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: This is where we have to explain the jurisdictional nightmare
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: that Aurora weaponized. Why did it take 18 months? Yeah, why?
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: When an American citizen goes missing in Mexico, their family
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: faces an impenetrable bureaucratic wall. An American police department in
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: California can take a missing person report, but they have
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: absolutely zero operational authority across the border.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: They cannot compel a Mexican telecom company to ping a
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: cell phone. They cannot demand security footage from a Mexican hotel.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: And if the family calls the local Mexican police.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: You are dealing with local municipalities that are often underfunded, understaffed.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and dealing with incredibly high rates of cartel-related violence.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: If a local detective gets a call from a frantic
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: American daughter saying her 60-year-old dad hasn't called in a
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: week and the dad has phone-texted that he went to Ecuador,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: that case goes to the absolute bottom of the priority pile.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: They just don't have the resources.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: It's categorized as an adult who voluntarily relocated. The U.S.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: and Mexico have Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, or MLADs, But
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: navigating those requires federal involvement, diplomacy, and mountains of paperwork.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: So it's basically a stall tactic built into the system.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Aurora knew that a missing American in Mexico falls into
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: a bureaucratic black hole.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until the FBI stepped in, followed the financial
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: trail of the wire transfers, and connected the dots that
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: they found him. Boerbach had been lying in a Mexican
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: morgue as an unidentified John Doe for 18 months.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Tragic.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: The FBI had to repatriate his body just so his
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: family could finally honor his wishes and lay him to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: rest at sea.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: The emotional devastation on the families is unimaginable, but the
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: source material also highlights the severe toll on the investigators.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Right, Agent Franklin.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, FBI agent Zach Franklin recounted waking up from visceral
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: nightmares where Beau Urbach was begging him, help me, help me.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Gave me chills.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: This detail is vital because it shatters the illusion that
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: federal agents are just emotionless calculators looking at spreadsheets. They
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: knew they were hunting a monster and they were racing
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: against the clock.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: And they were right to rush because she was already
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: targeting victim number four, Manuel Gus, known as Gigi.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, Gigi.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Gigi was another absolute pillar of the expat community in
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: a Gigi. He was handsome, an extrovert, spoke fluent Spanish.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: He ran a food trailer called Krabby Fries and even
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: operated an informal local taxi service.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: A real character.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: He knew the best food, the best wine. And he
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: checked in with his daughter every single day without fail.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Gigi's case reveals the grooming phase of Aurora's methodology. She
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: didn't launch the massive cyber heist on the first date.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: A friend of Gigi's, a man named Lenny, told investigators
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: that Gigi was dating a married Mexican woman. Lenny noticed
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: a pattern. This woman was constantly asking Gigi for a
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: few hundred dollars here, a small favor there.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Lenny literally warned him. He told Gigi, listen, be careful.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: You are a target. But Gigi brushed it off, confident
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: he could handle it.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: This is classic grooming. By asking for small amounts of money,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: she tests his boundaries and establishes a dynamic of manageable dependency.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: She lulls him into a false sense of security, making
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: him feel like a provider rather than a victim. It
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: disarms his critical thinking.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: But in May of 2022, the Daily Phone calls to
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: his daughter abruptly stop. The daughter immediately calls the local
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Mexican police for a wellness check.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: And they find Gigi dead on his bathroom floor. His phone,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: his car, and his dog are all missing. And to
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: show you the sheer cold-blooded audacity of this woman after
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Gigi is dead on the floor, the FBI discovers that
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Aurora used his accounts to purchase a gold coin from
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the Americans. Precious Metals Exchange.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: And she had it shipped directly to her house in
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Las Vegas.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: She is literally sitting in her Vegas apartment doing unboxing
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: videos while opening a gold coin purchased with the blood
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: money of a man she just murdered.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: You know, looking at Bo and Gigi, I have to
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: push back on a massive misconception the public has about
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: scam victims.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Which is?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: The stereotype is that romance scam victims are naive, sheltered,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: or technologically illiterate people who just don't understand how the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: world works. But Bo toured with the Rolling Stones. He
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: survived decades in the gritty rock and roll industry. Gigi
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: was a street smart entrepreneur running businesses in a foreign country.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: These were not naive men.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Your pushback is crucial because blending the victim creates a
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: false sense of security for you, the listener.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: It wasn't naivete that killed Bo and Gigi. It was
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: a fundamental universal human vulnerability. As Agent Franklin observed, these
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: men were hopeful. They maintained a willingness to give in
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: to the chance for love and companionship.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Aurora didn't exploit their stupidity. She weaponized their humanity. She
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: identified their most beautiful trait, the desire to connect and
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: turn it into the vector for their destruction.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate betrayal of the social contract. But
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: despite her flawless, lethal success in Mexico, she gets greedy.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: She breaks her own rules.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: She does.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: She targets a man right in her own backyard of
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Las Vegas, and he becomes the loose thread that unravels
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: her entire empire. Let's look at the catalyst for her downfall,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: John Weems.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: John Weems is chronologically the last known victim, but he
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: is the domino that initiated the FBI's involvement. John was
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: an engineer, a painter, and a deeply devoted dog owner.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Like the others, he was tired of the silence in
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: his house. He told his family he was trying out
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: dating apps and was genuinely excited about a date he
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: had lined up at a local Vegas restaurant.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And the woman he met was Aurora Phelps.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: In 2022, a missing person report is filed for John.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: And the red flags are so loud they are deafening.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: His neighbor notices his front door is cracked open. His
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: car has been missing for days. And inside the house,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: his beloved dog is locked inside alone, barking frantically.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: The dog is the key here.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: John's son, Mike, tells the police point blank John would never,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: under any circumstances, leave his dog unattended for a single night.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: In investigative methodology, establishing a behavioral baseline is paramount.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: When a subject wildly deviates from their baseline, like abandoning
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: a cherished pet, it shifts the paradigm of the investigation instantly.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: It moves the needle from voluntary disappearance to critical involuntary event.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: So Mike Wiens flies to Vegas, gets into his dad's house,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and starts playing detective. He finds a stack of old
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: driver's licenses on the desk next to John's laptop. Mike
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: logs into the laptop, accesses his dad's email, and immediately
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: sees the digital footprints. There are massive, bizarre purchases being made,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: more Dior bags, and they are being shipped directly to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a physical address in Las Vegas, an address that belongs
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to Aurora Phelps.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Shipping luxury goods purchased with a victim's stolen credit card
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: directly to your own front door is... is an act
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: of spectacular hubris.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: It's so dumb.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It shows that she had operated with impunity for so long,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: insulated by the Mexican border and the shame of her victims,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: that she fundamentally stopped believing she could be caught. She
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: got sloppy.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: She does try to cover her tracks digitally, though. Just
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: like with Bo, she texts the police from John's stolen phone,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: pretending to be him. She claims everything is fine, he's
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: just on vacation, and he will be flying back to
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Vegas on a specific date. Las Vegas PD actually sends
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: officers to the airport to meet the flight. But surprise,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: no one shows up.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: But this time, law enforcement doesn't just shrug and close
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: the file. They pull the security footage from the airport.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: And they don't find John Waynes coming home. They find
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: footage of John Waynes leaving the country, headed south to Mexico.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And the context of that footage is one of the
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: most chilling details in this entire case.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Mike Waynes describes watching this footage, and it just turns
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: your stomach. John is not dressed for a tropical vacation.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: He is in old, baggy sweatpants. He doesn't have his
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: prescription glasses.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Poor guy.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: And most horrifyingly, he is slumped in a wheelchair. Aurora
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: is pushing him. Security cameras capture her wheeling a heavily drugged,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: incapacitated John Wiens directly across the border, straight through the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: pedestrian tunnel at the Tijuana airport.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: We have to analyze the social engineering at play here.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: How does she get away with that? Right.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: How does a predator move an unconscious hostage through a
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: heavily guarded international checkpoint? by exploiting the halo effect of
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: familial care.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Checkpoint security TSA. CBP is trained to look for behavioral anomalies, nervousness,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: or aggression. When an agent or even just a bystander
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: sees a younger woman diligently pushing an elderly man in
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: a wheelchair, their brain automatically categorizes the scene as benevolent.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Ah, of course.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: You assume she's a devoted daughter or a hired nurse
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: assisting an ailing relative. Our societal programming prevents us from
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: assuming we are watching a kidnapping and a death march.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: She hid her violence in plain sight by wrapping it
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: in the optics of compassion.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: She literally wheeled a dying man past armed guards. It
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: is audacity on a level I can barely comprehend.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: It's monstrous.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: The sources note she took him to a hotel in
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Mexico City. Phone records from the hotel check-in show John
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: sounding completely muted and disoriented. Days later, he was found
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: dead in the bathtub of that hotel room.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: The same method.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: He was buried locally, and when the FBI finally unraveled
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the timeline, they had to exhume his body from a
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Mexican grave just to confirm his DNA.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating, undignified end for John Weins.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: But his death and the sheer sloppiness of Aurora's execution
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: provided the breakthrough.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: It was the combination of Mike Weins' digital forensics on
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: the laptop and the sharp instincts of a Las Vegas
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: PD detective who realized this wasn't a standard missing person.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: That local detective picked up the phone and called FBI
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: agent Zach Franklin.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And that changes everything.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: That single phone call initiated the federal machinery that finally
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: cornered her.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: So the FBI is now fully engaged. They realize they
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: aren't dealing with a simple fraudster. They are hunting an
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: international serial killer hiding behind a smartphone. They lay a
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: trap and the takedown is basically a masterclass in jurisdictional chess.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: The legal strategy used to apprehend her is fascinating. Because
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: it required anticipating her counter moves.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, tell me how they did it.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Initially, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police arrested Aurora. But they didn't
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: arrest her for the murders or the massive cyber heist.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: They didn't have the airtight evidence yet. They arrested her
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: on that old, outstanding fraud warrant from Arkansas.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: The one regarding the spoofed text messages against her ex-husband?
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And because it's just a non-violent fraud warrant, she manages
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to manipulate the system one last time. She convinces a
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: judge to let her bond out. The second those handcuffs
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: come off, she takes a bus straight back to Vegas,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: packs her bags, and immediately boards a flight to Mexico.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: She thinks she has slipped through the net again.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: She really does.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: But she didn't realize the FBI was already three moves ahead.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: They didn't choose an extreme flight risk. They tracked her movement.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: As soon as she landed on Mexican soil, the FBI
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: coordinated with their legal attachés.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: What are those?
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: These are federal agents stationed in foreign embassies who interfaced
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: directly with foreign intelligence and police. Through this diplomatic back channel,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: they arranged for Mexican authorities to arrest her in the
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: state of Jalisco on a localized robbery charge connected to
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: their broader investigation.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: So wait, why arrest her in Mexico for a robbery?
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Why not just demand she be sent back to Vegas immediately?
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: It was a brilliantly calculated containment strategy. If she was
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: arrested in the United States, she would be entitled to U.S.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: procedural rights... bail hearings, and the endless appeal process that
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: a skilled manipulator can exploit to remain free.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Ah, that makes sense.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: By having her arrested and detained by Mexican authorities within
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: the Mexican penal system, the FBI completely neutralized her ability
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: to bond out. They locked her in a system where
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: she couldn't buy her way to freedom, instantly removing the
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: threat she posed to the public while they built the
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: federal case.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And the strategy worked flawlessly. She was forced to stand
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: trial in Mexico for the murder of victim number three,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Robert Bowe Urbach, She was convicted and she is currently
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: sitting in a Mexican prison serving a 37 and a
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: half year sentence.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: But the United States justice system is simply waiting its turn.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Once her sentence and legal proceedings in Mexico conclude, she
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: will be extradited back to Nevada to face the federal leviathan.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: In September of 2023, the FBI secured a massive airtight
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: federal indictment against her.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: The charges in this indictment are staggering. We are talking
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: 21 counts, including wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, aggravated
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: identity theft, and two counts of kidnapping.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Serious charges.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: One of which is specifically kidnapping resulting in death. If
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: she is convicted in federal court, she faces life in
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: prison without the possibility of parole.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Which brings us back to the core mission of this
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: deep dive and the entire reason the FBI stepped in
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: front of the cameras on prime crime in February 2025.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: They have secured the indictment. They have her in a cage.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: But they know the math doesn't add up. The scope
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: of her financial network and the length of time she
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: operated suggests a victim pool far larger than the 11
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: men they have identified.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: They believe there are ghosts in the machine. Men who
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: survived the drugging but were too paralyzed by shame to
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: ever tell their families.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Or worse, families who have an elderly father or uncle
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: who passed away, suddenly under slightly strange circumstances. and they
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: never quite understood why. The FBI is issuing a direct,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: urgent plea to you, the listener, to look back through
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: your own family's history for very specific anomalies.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: So the forensic markers they're asking the public to look
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: for are highly specific, centering around the years 2019 to 2022.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: They are asking you to perform a mental audit.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Did you or an elderly loved one experience a sudden,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: inexplicable draining of bank accounts or retirement funds during that window?
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Were there bizarre high-end purchases, specifically luxury brands like Dior, Chanel,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: or Precious Metals, appearing on credit card statements that completely
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: contradict your loved one's lifestyle?
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Did you notice FedEx or UPS packages being shipped from
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: your loved one's accounts to a physical address in Las Vegas, Nevada?
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Especially if your family has absolutely no ties to the city.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: And on a more physical, tragic level, did a loved
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: one who is strictly a non-drinker end up inexplicably intoxicated,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: leading to a fall or an accident?
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Did a relative who never used heavy prescription drugs suddenly
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: have sedatives, muscle relaxants, or benzodiazepines show up in a
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: toxicology report or a hospital blood draw? If any of
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: this triggers a memory, if you have ever felt that
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: lingering suspicion that a relative sudden death or financial ruin
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: wasn't just bad luck, the FBI needs you to come forward.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: The fact that the FBI is using a true crime
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: broadcast to cast this net tells you everything you need
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: to know about the scale of the carnage.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Aurora Phelps wasn't just a thief. She was an apex
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: predator addicted to the thrill of the hunt. She built
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: a bridge between two nations constructed entirely out of the
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: stolen assets and discarded lives of lonely men.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: It's just devastating.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: The sweetheart swindle has been around since the invention of
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the postal service. But the digital age allowed her to
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: optimize cruelty on an industrial scale. She didn't have to
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: stake out a country club to find a mark. She
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: could sit in her living room, manipulate an algorithm, and
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: cast a net across thousands of vulnerable humans simultaneously.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Which leaves us with a terrifying reality to consider. As
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: we close this file, we are entering an era with
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: an unprecedented aging population.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: We are.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: As more of our elderly loved ones turn to the
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: glowing screens of their smartphones to seek companionship, to cure
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: the silence in their homes, they are stepping into a
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: digital arena where they are fundamentally outmatched. Yeah. They are
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: facing predators who understand the technology, the psychology of deception,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: and the loopholes of global banking better than they ever could.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: It's a scary thought.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: So we have to ask ourselves, how many other influencers
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: are out there right now posting unboxing videos funded by
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: the life savings and the lives of the lonely? What
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: guardrails can we possibly construct to protect our families when
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: a lethal digital trap looks exactly like a friendly, understanding
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: smile on a screen?