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Stolen Identity - Stolen Peace

Release Date: 03/04/2026

Easy Prey

Aging parents often rely on the people closest to them for help, but what happens when that help becomes a way to take control? For Charles Wallace, the warning signs started small. His mother’s fridge was suddenly overfilled. A caregiver refused to provide receipts. Spending patterns began to shift in ways that did not make sense. At the time, each concern could be explained away. Looking back, they were part of something much larger. Charles spent 15 years in banking and finance, and after his mother’s death, he used that experience to reconstruct more than 3,000 transactions. What he...

Art Heists

Easy Prey

The world of art theft looks glamorous in the movies, but the reality is far more complicated. From multi-million dollar forgery schemes to undercover FBI operations recovering stolen national treasures, art crime is a global industry hiding in plain sight. This conversation digs into how these crimes actually play out and why the people who pull them off often end up stuck with the very pieces they thought would make them rich. My guest today is Robert Wittman, a former FBI special agent and the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team. Over a 20-year career, he worked undercover in more...

The Power of Prediction

Easy Prey

We make predictions all the time including about the weather, about traffic, about what someone is going to say next. It feels natural, even rational. But when algorithms start making predictions about us, whether we'll repay a loan, reoffend after prison, or respond to a medical treatment, something fundamental shifts. The forecast stops being a guess and starts becoming a verdict. My guest today is Carissa Veliz, a philosopher and associate professor at the University of Oxford, where she also researches at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her work focuses on the ethics of technology, privacy,...

Privacy vs Reality

Easy Prey

Online security advice often sounds simple until you actually try to follow it. Between password managers, privacy settings, and data brokers, protecting yourself can start to feel like a full-time job. That gap between what sounds easy and what’s actually realistic is where a lot of people get stuck. My guest today is Yael Grauer, a freelance investigative technology reporter who covers privacy, security, digital freedom, hacking, and mass surveillance. She also works as a program manager of cybersecurity research at Consumer Reports, where she manages Security Planner, a free resource that...

Wired to Trust

Easy Prey

It’s easy to think scams only work when someone misses something obvious. In reality, most of them don’t look obvious at the start. They show up as normal situations with just enough friction to notice, but not enough to stop. That small gap is where people tend to move forward instead of stepping back. My guest today is Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist who studies how we form beliefs and make decisions. She’s known for her research on the neural basis of human optimism, and her work has been published in leading journals. In her books, The Optimism Bias and The Science of...

Intimate Partner Fraud

Easy Prey

Most scams leave a digital trail. A fake email, a spoofed number, a fraudulent website. You can trace them, report them, sometimes even reverse them. But what happens when the scam has no digital trail at all, because it isn't happening on a screen? What happens when the con is standing right in front of you, making you laugh, meeting your friends, and planning a future with you? My guest today is Tracy Hall. She's an author, keynote speaker, and senior marketing executive with over 25 years at some of the world's most recognizable tech companies including eBay, Virgin, GoDaddy, and...

Identity without Passwords

Easy Prey

Every day, employees at hotels, restaurants, and resorts across the country are doing exactly what they were hired to do: being warm, responsive, and eager to help. It's what makes hospitality work. It's also what makes hospitality one of the most targeted industries in cybersecurity. When your entire workforce is trained to say yes, teaching them to be suspicious is an uphill battle. The smarter solution might be to take the target off their backs entirely. Jasson Casey is the co-founder and CEO of Beyond Identity, a company built around one idea: making identity-based attacks impossible....

When Cybercrime Gets Personal

Easy Prey

Most security breaches don't begin with sophisticated code or elaborate technical exploits. They begin with a phone call, a convincing email, or someone at a help desk who just wanted to be helpful. The human layer is often the weakest link, and the criminals who understand that are the ones causing the most damage. My guest today is May Chen-Contino. She's the CEO of Unit 221B, a threat disruption company that delivers actionable intelligence to enterprises, law enforcement, and government agencies. Her background spans cybersecurity, fintech, and SaaS leadership at companies like PayPal and...

Stopping Phone Scams

Easy Prey

Phone scams get dismissed as background noise or just annoying interruptions and unknown numbers with robotic voices we learn to ignore. But behind that noise is an industry built on psychology, automation, and staggering profitability. My guest today is Alex Quilici. He’s an engineer, entrepreneur, and the CEO of YouMail, a company focused on protecting consumers and businesses from unwanted and fraudulent calls. Alex has spent years analyzing how robocalls and scam campaigns are designed, how they evolve, and why they continue to work despite better technology and increased awareness. What...

Stolen Identity - Stolen Peace

Easy Prey

Identity theft gets talked about a lot, but usually in the abstract: freeze your credit, watch your statements, don't click suspicious links. What doesn't get talked about nearly enough is what it actually feels like when someone isn't just using your card number, but is actively living as you. My guest today is Brooklyn Lyons. She's 25, recently married, and by her own admission, had no particular expertise in fraud or cybersecurity before October of 2024. That changed when her car window was smashed in a parking lot, and her work bag, laptop, wallet, driver's license, and everything...

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That changed when her car window was smashed in a parking lot, and her work bag, laptop, wallet, driver's license, and everything was gone by morning. What followed wasn't a quick nightmare with a clean ending. It stretched across months, multiple counties, a jail communication system, the dark web, and a wanted fugitive who dyed her hair to look more like the face on a stolen ID. Brooklyn didn't just sit with it. She pulled criminal records, reverse-searched phone numbers, tracked an inmate's transfers across four facilities, identified a suspect on her own, and eventually filed a civil lawsuit without an attorney.

We talk about what it feels like when someone is pretending to be you, not just spending your money, but messaging people as you, signing up for accounts as you, building a life in your name. We also get into the specific steps she took to fight back, the tools she wishes she'd known about sooner, and what recovery actually looks like when the case isn't closed, and the person still hasn't been caught.

Show Notes:

[1:47] Brooklyn introduces herself as a 25-year-old from Texas with no prior experience in fraud or identity theft.
[2:13] She describes moving to the DFW area after getting married in June 2024 and being aware of the high rate of car break-ins in the region.
[3:32] Her car window is smashed overnight, and her work bag is stolen, containing her laptop, wallet, driver's license, and all her cards.
[4:03] Brooklyn's immediate response is to freeze her credit with all three bureaus and cancel her cards within 10 to 15 minutes.
[4:57] Despite locking everything down, her cards are maxed out, and a police report is filed with little follow-up from law enforcement.
[5:12] A period of quiet follows before a letter arrives around Valentine's Day 2025 claiming she rented a U-Haul and never returned it.
[5:48] Experian alerts her that her driver's license has been found on the dark web, arriving almost simultaneously with the U-Haul letter.
[7:14] While checking USPS Informed Delivery for a wedding invitation, Brooklyn spots a certified letter from a county jail addressed to her with an inmate's name listed beneath hers.
[8:28] She contacts the jail and discovers an inmate had listed her as his girlfriend when booked, requesting she pick up his belongings before a prison transfer.
[9:53] Brooklyn looks up the inmate in the state conviction database and finds a record including identity theft, car burglary, organized crime, and credit card abuse of the elderly.
[11:58] A jail investigator reveals that the inmate's girlfriend had created an account in Brooklyn's name using her driver's license photo, editing her own appearance to match Brooklyn's features.
[14:02] Brooklyn traces the same pattern across multiple county jail facilities the inmate passed through, confirming the woman repeated the identity fraud at each one.
[15:13] A detective confirms the woman has stolen or attempted to use 17 other identities, and that Brooklyn is the only one who has caught on so far.
[16:52] Four police departments become involved, and Brooklyn begins coordinating with investigators across all of them through a shared email thread.
[19:22] Pulling her credit report reveals phone numbers tied to the suspect, leading Brooklyn to discover PayPal accounts, Cash App profiles, and a Facebook page created in her name.
[20:58] Brooklyn uses a PayPal password recovery prompt to identify the first three letters of the suspect's real name.
[22:03] She requests all jail booking documents containing her name from every county involved and receives text message logs from one department.
[22:33] Using a birthday and partial name found in the messages, Brooklyn searches mugshots.com and identifies the suspect herself, later getting vague confirmation from investigators.
[24:38] Chris asks whether the suspect and inmate were in a relationship, and Brooklyn explains they appear to share a child and were trying to manage a custody situation.
[27:57] Brooklyn investigates whether a Verizon phone number was tied to an account in her name and later finds the suspect's real email embedded in her electricity account profile.
[29:27] Brooklyn details changing her driver's license four times throughout the ordeal and suspects the woman is using her information for utility accounts to avoid being found.
[31:02] Two police departments issue arrest warrants for the suspect, but she remains at large and difficult to locate.
[31:33] Brooklyn files a civil lawsuit on her own without an attorney, drafting the paperwork herself and submitting a known address for the suspect.
[32:04] She drafts a settlement agreement requiring the suspect to delete all fraudulent accounts, send proof, and return her physical driver's license, emailing it directly to her.
[33:12] The suspect signs the agreement but does not comply with any of its terms within the deadline Brooklyn set.
[33:37] Brooklyn files a motion to enforce the settlement agreement, which has since been approved by the court.
[36:58] Discussion turns to whether the original car break-in was connected to the couple, with Brooklyn expressing frustration that law enforcement never attempted to link the CVS footage to them.
[38:14] Brooklyn reflects on how the situation became consuming, describing obsessive monitoring of jail systems, court records, and criminal databases at its peak.
[39:18] She shifts toward healthier monitoring habits, including monthly credit pulls, USPS Informed Delivery checks, and identity protection subscriptions like Aura.
[40:33] The emotional toll is discussed, including nightmares, anxiety, therapy, and the strange experience of seeing someone try to physically resemble her.
[43:22] Brooklyn describes seeing light at the end of the tunnel, connecting her recovery to moving out of the area and reclaiming her sense of self.
[46:13] She reflects on pride in handling most of the case herself and finding closure in knowing the suspect is now aware that Brooklyn knows everything.
[48:03] Brooklyn expresses empathy for others who may not have the same access to legal knowledge or law enforcement relationships that helped her navigate the process.
[49:14] Practical tips are shared, including USPS Informed Delivery, e-verify identity freezing, and the IRS identity theft PIN available during tax filing.

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.

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