It was one of many hectic days at work — my education consultancy. Despite all the problems, I was awaiting the next opportunity. I was at my desk. Then, two middle-aged gentlemen walked into my office. One of them was a frequent visitor to the same business centre, where my small office was located —Let me call him Tom. He introduced me to Robert (of course, it’s not his real name), his partner, who was a complete stranger to me. But give him a few minutes and Robert knew how to become anyone’s friend. Robert and Tom were hungry salesmen, but they had a lot of patience to achieve their targets, sell their product, and their suggestions seemed truly life-changing.
They began talking. Robert spoke the universal language of many people like myself: Money. So I liked him. He said they could arrange bank loans for my clients who were facing financial difficulties. They talked about huge loan amounts that most of my clients couldn’t even imagine. My clients could hardly get those big amounts accepted by any financial institute. So what do I have to do here? It was simple. They asked me to refer clients to them, and in return, I’d get a hefty commission. I became genuinely interested in what they proposed. By the end of our initial conversation — that lasted for over an hour — I was hooked. They promised me my years of earnings in a few weeks. I know, I know. It was too good to be true. I should have ignored them. But if I comply, I get a hefty commission, and at that moment, I couldn’t look beyond that.
A few days later, with their proposal running through my mind, my aggressive hunger for money and knowledge overruled my common sense. While both Tom and Robert seemed to offer a great deal of money and knowledge, I totally missed out on one point: How the hell? How the hell are they going to do it? On the other hand, my role here — with both Tom and Robert — had no difference from a traditional “broker.” I could also justify my actions according to the book of law. So, after all, I decided to take a ride with them.
This was the very early stage of my education consultancy business. I worked so hard to promote it. I put a lot of work into it and spent hours and hours to have up-to-date intellectual properties. But I hardly made money. I thought I was in the wrong market, but it was only until I asked a client if they know anyone who needs a bank loan?
Working for Tom and Robert
The first three weeks were quite intense. Robert was a master when it came to client acquisition. I introduced him to three clients within the first three weeks (they were the only direct clients I introduced to Robert throughout this whole journey). These clients had introduced Robert to another 15 clients within a couple of weeks. Robert led me to talk to them first because they came through my initial reference (or so, I thought). So, I talked to them: I would introduce myself and get to know them. Then I would arrange a meeting with Robert. He also wanted me to take part in those meetings. That was his way of letting me know I was getting the commission from each client. However, there was more to this. I only realised it after a few months.
No one knew where Robert lived or what his real name was. No one cared! But everyone knew me. I had an office, a legal business, and an existing clientele. I was committed to what I do. I was the key contact point. I was the one to build trust and take responsibility. To put it simply, I was the BAITE! I don’t blame Robert, it was my hunger for money and knowledge that got me there.
[But before I realized this], working for Robert, I could soon spot the real reason behind Robert’s success. They had told me that what they did was ordinary bank loans, but I knew that wasn’t true. I sensed that the banking security systems, algorithms, regulators, artificial intelligence, etc., were just manipulated by a bunch of greedy but very average people.
Within the end of the first month working with Robert, I was acquiring a wealth of information about the process. But I couldn’t justify what I got myself involved in. I shouldn’t have introduced clients to Robert until I knew everything in detail. I didn’t question them about how they could possibly afford to pay me thousands of pounds per client, but I know I should have. There are only a few times that I was dishonest to myself. This was one.
Six weeks went by and I realized that I had to stop dealing with them. But I couldn’t just exit; I felt that I was liable and responsible to my clients — the ones I brought to Robert. For Robert, he was able to tap on the momentum on creating a new clientele with my references. And then, that was it. Within a few days, I lost control of all my clients. Everyone communicated with Robert directly, but if there was any issue, they rang me right away. I had no clue what was going on. Robert’s explanation didn’t add up. No one knew where he lived, or what his real name was, while I was holding a huge responsibility. This responsibility and my curiosity — for what was going on — kept me at this game. However, this decision was a real turning point in my career.
Convincing clients to stay away from Robert was hard. Most of them wanted money one way or the other; They trusted Robert to the core. They thought he could change their lives. Trust me when I say this that no one wanted to pay these loans back, and Robert promised them that there will be no consequences. By now, I strongly believed that Robert was a career financial criminal.
When we had meetings, we all knew we were all up to something bad, but everyone pretended like “no one knows.” Robert was a master of rationalising anything, and everything. He knew how to use cognition flexibility to the core.
Honestly, I didn’t see much of a difference between Robert and the clients I brought him. They were all criminals. Robert was making a lot of money not because he was smart or he was working hard. His secret to success was the dishonest society we live in.
Integrity to yourself
To be brutally honest, throughout my life, I have always considered all avenues to reach my goals as long as I thought they were practical and sensible. However, I’ve always had moral values somewhere deep down my heart. These moral values always kept my brain from utilising it to the fullest so that I could see more and more monetary gains. Whatever good I have done in my life was done not because I was scared of getting caught. It's not because I haven’t had opportunities to make an abundance of wealth the bad way, nor because I wanted social recognition. I did it because my heart said so. Many times, I chose peace of mind and left piles of cash. As Charles Swindoll once said, “Real integrity stays in place whether the test in adversity or prosperity.”
From that point, I took Tom and Robert one step forward and two steps backwards. I consciously hoped they would never get to do what they want to do. The money they offered me was just nothing considering the damage it could do to myself. This process made me a very unsatisfied person while I wasted my time constantly being irritated.
So, did I go to the police?
I am not a policeman.
But I should have made a complaint. But then, what, exactly?
There was nothing to complain about. Their whole set up looked legal, while the UK law enforcement related to financial crimes still lived in the 1990s. Further, I didn’t want to waste my time or risk my safety by reporting about these people. (I will explain my views on this in a future article).
To me, Robert was a master of stealing money, but legally.
So as always, I decided to utilise the opportunity to learn something useful and create some contacts until I figure out a sensible exit plan.
Within months, I learnt how to make the easiest £50,000 sooner than I could ever imagine back then (this was back in 2014). This just involved a proof of identity, proof of address, a decent credit file, a fictionalised commercially viable business plan, and a dishonest person. To be honest, none of these were rare. For me, sculpting a viable business plan wasn’t a big deal. This process could take anywhere from four to eight months, but the beauty was the possibility of doing multiple customers at the same time. So if everything goes well, we are talking about serious money here.
I thoroughly studied other avenues where financial criminals can make tons of money; it was a multi-billion dollar industry. I always noticed that money devalues rapidly when it reaches criminals. The reason? They didn’t understand what money was or what it could do. Easy money was spent meaninglessly in unnecessary commodities and on uncontrollable desires. This cycle continued daily.
There are many illegal ways to become a legal criminal
However, after a few months with Tom and Robert, my interest wasn’t about the money. I was truly excited about the knowledge. The knowledge helped fire my cognitive skills. I was embracing valuable information related to this growth-focused economy, greedy humans, and the dishonest world we live in.
Within months, I learnt how to legally steal money. Writing about it is not certainly how you do it. These criminals are hardly worried about getting caught. They knew many illegal ways of becoming legal. I will explain how they do it, but at a later stage of this series. Thankfully, for me though, I never thought of a fair reason to execute any of these strategies in the real world.
I realised that financial criminals have a huge demand in the financial ecosystem we live in. Robert was a career criminal. He invited me to almost all the initial client meetings, where the clients came through my reference. My curiosity couldn’t resist joining these meetings; I just wanted to know how they did this in the real world.
Almost everyone who came to see Robert come out to be lawfully honest people in the outer world. But they all had a price for their “honesty.” As long as Robert could afford it, their “honesty” was on sale. From politicians to bankers, accountants, solicitors and lawfully ordinary civilians, their honesty was on sale. It was just a matter of getting the right price. This process of honest people becoming dishonest was nonetheless fascinating. Humans have an amazing skill to be bad and good at the same time. On the other hand, being bad and being lawful, wasn’t that hard either.
While all these were happening, I had to look after my regular business to pay my bills (my education consultancy). However, in about four months from the first meeting I had with Robert and Tom, I noticed that more clients came to see me for bank loans than education consultation.
Thanks to my curiosity and hunger for knowledge, I had some fascinating information about money-making opportunities in the UK, which I proudly shared with these people. Some of these people who came to see me were very successful people; they were interested to listen to my findings and opportunities about the financial industry.
On the other hand, more people like Robert approached me: credit card fraudsters, hackers, money launderers, etc. They all wanted to access my clientele and knowledge. I also had clients queuing up for their initial assessment to get bank loans. I could easily become a better version of Robert. I was theoretically better than him apart from his years of experience and contacts, which played a huge role in this game. However, the more people I met, I saw no swag in stealing. It’s not only a bad thing to do, but involving your cognition to nurture dishonesty is an utter stupid thing too.
Stealing didn’t really tempt me.
With this new knowledge, I transformed my career from being an education consultant to a conceptual designer. My main focus was to design my own holding company. In about eight intense months of dealing with them, I realised that I have nothing much to learn from these people anymore. None of my direct clients were with Robert anymore. Throughout the process, I managed to keep my hands away from any illicit money. I only charged people what I deserved for my professional services; I didn’t want to risk the business portfolio I was building by getting involved in criminal activities. On the other hand, I wanted to go home and sleep peacefully.
When I first started working with them, I thought I will become a millionaire within a few years. it didn’t really change anything from the financial aspect, but this was a great start to explore the real world with real people and experiences. This experience and knowledge I gained in the context of “money, greed and life” was invaluable. It inspired myself to set up a solid foundation for a very potential holding company, to create jobs and to empower people. As Charles R. Swindoll once said “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it” and I couldn’t agree more.
The last time I spoke to Robert was back in 2017 and that was about three years since I had introduced him to a client. He called me with one of his partners to threaten me for not complying with them. At that time, I was researching criminals in a serious manner. I was studying high level criminals. I was exploring the epigenetic factors that influence them to commit bigger crimes and what made them more innovative than regulators. Robert was a small fish in this game. Shutting him down wasn’t a big deal then, as I was a totally different person by then than they knew. But I did not see any cognitive advantage by countering them, so I stayed away. I tolerated their verbal harassment — I was never an ego fighter. My battle was not the battle they were in. So I kept my focus on the bigger picture.
I moved on and continued to explore the bigger fishes in this brutally competitive, greedy and uncontrollable financial crime world. If anyone is wondering WHY? I have illustrated the reasons in my first article on this series.
Additional: In my point of view, the only way to stop financial criminals is through a technocratic approach where the authorities can identify and hack these criminals’ thinking process. Then get them to make terrible mistakes, and catch them “red handed” to punish them. Otherwise, the criminals will always stay one step ahead. With the data I had, I realised that the legal system is so backdated even to understand the value of such a system or to afford something like that. Back in 2017, I was working on a conceptual design on a program like this, but then I stopped as I didn’t have the manpower or the money to abstract data about the continuous changes in this industry.
Thanks for your time.
Hasitha Rodrigo
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