A brave new world

Part one of making sense of my illicit love affair with a French Millionaire.

And for about ten days there was a connection. A spark. It started, like many things do, with a question about favorite books. If there is a way to get a writer to open up, that’s the way.

She asked what one book was a must read. I thought long and hard about it and narrowed the list down to three. One of them was “anything by Roald Dahl.” I didn’t know that we would end up comparing themes and deeper meanings, trading quips about Henry Miller’s erotic introspection, magical realism in early twentieth century Soviet lit, and Joseph Heller. And then when we switched to music, Beethoven to Bowie. We were grooving. Eventually We swapped best of stories. I opted for the one about my dad and I winning most creative cake in a Cub Scout Bake off.

She was a single mom. An entrepreneur who admitted she had Paris sophistication but never really outgrew her farm countryside roots - who was raised on an Alpine ranch. And then I asked her quite innocently, “what would she go back in time and say to her younger self?” And I read the text, “Not go to the Paris Opera in 2015.” She had lost her husband and the father of her daughter. So when she shared that she likes to go slow and build a connection for when we meet who was I to doubt that.

But what she did not share was that she was a machine. Or rather - a human (or team humans working in shifts) pulling the levers of a very sophisticated AI machine trying to get me roped into a bitcoin scam known as PIG GUTTING.

For the uninitiated, Pig Gutting is the informal name and modern update of what was once branded the “Nigerian Prince” scam. But my Frenchy failed to mention that in her well articulated intentions.

Not till day ten.

What makes the whole thing most profoundly confusing and brings home the big ideas of our times (ie deep fakes, etc) in a very intimate way is the real feeling of connection. You see, I felt really seen when I would text answers to her open ended questions asking me what my creative process was like, where did I feel most at peace, etc. She was genuinely interested in me. Like truly wanting to know who I was. Inside. And she liked writing and reading as much as me.

This very successful, French /American Business woman thought I was the bees-knees. Plus, she seemed really kind. Whenever I answered her questions, she would respond in detail how she related and then follow up with more questions. And her answers were thought out, and optimistic, and really profound. And she was able to do all of that because she was engineered to mirror back exactly what I wanted to hear.

Pig-gutting requires a slow connection to be built over several days and then the mark is told something that unlocks everything. I was told that she had not been crazy for a man in eight years. That it was strange how much we got to know about each other. Then, she thanked me for being patient. That not a lot of guys would be like that.

Lastly, her piece de resistance, was when she asked if she could share something personal. I, of course, texted yes.

Then, she “shared” that when she was at a temple in Thailand, she had an experience in forgiveness that she didn’t understand till today. That she now knows everything does happen for a reason; that all of the experiences, good or bad, led her to this moment. And thank you.

It was so intimate and hot. Even in a text. Then she told me she wanted to give me two thousand dollars worth of bitcoin to play with, for fun.

Oh yeah. I had forgot. She mentioned Bitcoin once. I barely tracked it. It was an off handed remark. Something about her uncle moving it between platforms to exploit supply and demand. And I remember she used the word “nodes.” I recall being vaguely confused but also, we were connecting on like French New Wave movies, I didn’t think twice. And then she sent me a picture of what she was having for dinner.

It was a bit strange, the casual bitcoin thing. But I dismissed it.

I mean I’m not a sucker. I know how to spot bullshit scams. They are so obvious. Right? This was just her hobby. Besides, I know people who do bitcoin stuff. Some of them are close friends. And they all have made a lot of money.

Plus, I wanted to meet her, and rip off her clothes. I chalked off the odd bitcoin thing and delays in getting together to her being a mom, a business owner with weekend commitments. I didn’t mind being patient. I’m a gentleman after all, right?

What I didn’t know was that My Frenchy was a part of a package you can purchase for 87 yuan. The package comes with a built in “legend” (intelligence term for a cover). It included plausible reasons why she was shy to talk at first, and why she had to wait till November, after seeing her family and a work trip before we meet up. The level of sophistication went so far as to include actual pictures backing up her claim of a work trip to San Francisco. Pictures of her at a restaurant along the water front. I was being strung… like a pig to slaughter. But delicately. And all along told exactly what I wanted to hear.

It’s easier to be gutted when you are being led by an insanely gorgeous woman.

You see, she sent me a selfie. Yowzers. Not a naked whatever, just a casual shot of how incredibly beautiful she was, winking at me, her hand on her heart. My jaw hit the floor.

Was it all too good to be true? Maybe. But I had been married to a beautiful Swedish woman who was heir to a huge business and like land the king gave her family hundreds of years ago. I had dated a Swiss flight attendant who was a member of Mensa. I was not intimidated by beautiful and powerful, central European women or felt like they were out of my league.

Plus, I was lonely and hungry and grieving the loss of a recent relationship. Maybe that had a tiny tiny little influence on why I was a good target for Pig gutting. Who doesn’t want to feel truly seen after not feeling seen from being in a relationship where your fundamental needs are misaligned?

You might be asking, why you? I did. Like why would they think had money? Worth the investment required for a proper pig-gut?

The only conclusions I could come up with was that they must have thought I was a rich TV writer. When I shared about making a small film, maybe she or her bosses thought I had millions? But I didn’t pay much attention to the flaunting of wealth, mentions of the executive airport-lounge, because I was more interested in the story she told about the golden retriever that protected her when she was a child.

But the real reason why I was targeted was because I didn’t have money..

Too bad, she played her hand a little too boldly with the offer of two thousand. My spidy senses immediately went to red alert. I looked back through the chain or our communication and started noticing tiny, little, time line discrepancies.

I was like — wait: how could she work for this French company and Louis Vittan? Isn’t there a conflict of interest? But the thing that did it was when she said she had gotten all the way to a suburb in the Inland Empire in an hour after landing at 4 pm on a Friday at LAX.

And when I asked her, “didn’t she go to Ontario airport?” Her answer was “never.” Why would she not use that airport if she traveled as much as she said she did? And why were there so many pictures of Asian cuisine? Or mentions of Singapore and Australia? It all started to fall apart. Or come together. The illusion … the fantasy.

But I needed something else. So I asked for another picture. And compared them.

Aha! The phone case she had was different. I then plugged in one quote she said about what she learned at a Temple in Thailand into an internet search and voila —

My jaw hit the floor… again. Right there in front of me was an investigative report of an 8 billion dollar criminal enterprise based in Mainland China with tentacles in Australia, and Malaysia. Word for word, I read direct quotes of things we had shared, or she said. There was mentions of food selfies, a plausible story to reinforce why waiting to meet or talk was needed. A tragic story about a daughter, that she was a widow. But not a victim, strong. On and on…

At this point, I could have just unfriended, blocked, and reported. But I wanted to simply see what the response would be if I confronted her. So I did.

She said two thousand dollars was not a lot of money to her and then told me she was going golfing with her colleagues. Earlier, she had said she was busy all day working. Which is why we couldn’t get together. And I may be wrong, but she never stuck me as an avid golfer. I got the answer I needed, blocked, and reported.

So what was the con, you might be asking?

First off, I’m not an expert and grew up making theater, so digital finance might not be my strong suit. But —

According to my experience and the articles I read, “marks” like me are led through a beat by beat script meant to gain trust. Once that has been built, she makes declaration of real feelings, how she hasn’t been “this boy crazy in years” then and only then there is a promise of how to make fast money if you follow an investment system. To coat the moment with sugar, the offer is made in the form of a gift, rather than an ask.

And that gift is in the form of block chain (the foundation of bit coin) that would basically feed any gains, plus the initial investment, back into the source (who wrote the block chain) for any and all withdrawals and or deposits. In other words, you even though the value is listed as in your portfolio - it isn’t.

What makes it even more sinister is that website is mirrored. And built with encrypted malware. That once anyone links “Coinbase” account to theirs all the trading would feed into them. And the thing that makes it even more and more sinister is if you follow it - it makes actual money, and a lot of it. But when you finally wanted to pull out …it vanishes; along with anyone else you link into it.

You see, the block chain is written in such a way as to send all profits to .. her uncle. Whoever that was. Unless, of course they just want to grab the money earlier.

And because bitcoin can be moved from platform to platform and has code written into it that allows for this flexibility - it isn’t entirely illegal.

If I learned anything from AI-Frenchy, it was that I’m not fundamentally greedy. I value things other than money. Like Roald Dahl books. And Steve Earle records. Mozart piano quartets and the Talking Heads. And odd as it seems, I know my value better. I know what I actually like. And, I like the feeling of being seen and for people to be genuinely curious about me. Authentic me.

Maybe it is the sign of the times that I had to learn that from a machine that was designed to con me.