520 // The Anatomy of a Romance Scam w/ Brian Haugen & Andy Robertson

Crawlspace - True Crime & Mysteries

Crawlspace Media

True Crime, News, Society & Culture

4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to Crawlspace. In this new episode, Tim Pilleri & Lance Reenstierna have a wild conversation with Brian Haugen and filmmaker Andy Robertson. Brian is the central character in an elaborate plot to scam women across the globe. Andy directed the docu-series on Hulu, "Hey Beautiful - Anatomy of a Romance Scam" which tells the story of Brian and the women who fell prey to this intricate romance scheme. *This episode is brought to you by Mood, the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges – from sleepless nights to stress-filled days. You can get 20% off your first order at https://mood.com/ with promo code Crawlspace.* Watch "Hey Beautiful" on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/hey-beautiful-anatomy-of-a-romance-scam-f723d592-657b-4b9a-b2c7-763186df033c Visit Brian's make-up and cosmetics brand, ByBrian: https://bybrian.shop Check out Andy's work: https://trinoculusfilms.com/ https://www.instagram.com/loimnd/?hl=en Follow Crawlspace: IG:⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/Crawlspacepodcast⁠⁠. TT:⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@crawlspacepodcast⁠⁠. FB:⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/Crawlspacepodcast⁠⁠. X:⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/crawlspacepod.⁠⁠ Spotify:⁠⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/7iSnqnCf27NODdz0pJ1GvJ⁠⁠. Youtube:⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/crawlspace⁠⁠. Apple:⁠⁠ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crawlspace-true-crime-mysteries/id1187326340⁠⁠. Follow Missing: IG:⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/MissingCSM/⁠⁠⁠. TT:⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@missingcsm⁠⁠⁠. FB:⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/MissingCSM⁠⁠⁠. X:⁠⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/MissingCSM⁠⁠⁠. Spotify:⁠⁠⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/0yRXkJrZC85otfT7oXMcri⁠⁠⁠. Youtube:⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/missingcsm⁠⁠⁠. Apple:⁠⁠⁠ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/missing/id1006974447⁠⁠⁠. Check out our entire network at⁠⁠ http://crawlspace-media.com/⁠⁠. Follow Private Investigations For the Missing, and join our virtual fundraiser on June 11th @ 8pmEST on the Missing YouTube Channel! ⁠https://www.youtube.com/missingcsm⁠⁠⁠⁠. Please donate if you can: ⁠⁠https://investigationsforthemissing.org/⁠⁠. ⁠⁠http://piftm.org/donate⁠⁠. ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PIFortheMissing⁠⁠. ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/PIFortheMissing/⁠⁠. ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/investigationsforthemissing/⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Tim here today with Lance. Lance, how are you today?
0:32.5	I'm doing fantastic today, Tim. I hope everyone who's listening, I hope they're doing just as fantastic.
0:37.1	And the people that we have on today, we have such a treat. I mean, these two gentlemen who've come on are part of this story that is now a docu series on Hulu. So the trailer leads you in a direction that is one way. But the story itself is completely different. I can't really put it into words.
0:56.8	You have to listen to this conversation. But Tim, I can't put into words how you are because I just
1:00.7	keep talking. So how are you? I'm doing great over here. Really excited to introduce this conversation
1:06.5	with Andy Robertson and Brian Howgan. And Andy directed the new docu series on Hulu.
1:14.2	It's called Hey Beautiful Anatomy of a Romance Scam.
1:19.0	And Brian Howgan is the man at the center of the scam,
1:24.0	even though he did none of the scamming.
1:26.8	It's a wild story. His image was used and essentially
1:30.0	his identity was stolen thousands of times. And it's really kind of a wild dilemma, I think,
1:36.2	to have. And I think people would react all different kinds of ways. So I'm really glad we get to
1:42.6	speak with Brian who told us how he reacted.
1:46.7	Right. And I think it's important to know how he reacted. And like you said, we would all react in
1:50.4	different ways. This is a perspective of this type of story that we've heard before with like the
1:55.9	Tinder swindler. You have these people who will prey on the lonely population out there who are trying to find
2:03.9	love or trying to find friendship online and they will pray upon them and they will take from them
2:10.1	and take from them until they have nothing left. But this perspective is totally different.
2:14.0	And one thing that you just said that made something click in my head was that
2:18.2	you went almost as far as saying it's a cautionary tale. Like this is a cautionary tale. Everyone has
2:23.5	their social media sites. And at one point, Andy says, like, set your stuff to private, set it to
2:28.5	private. And then Brian comes in and says, that doesn't even matter. matter like he had his stuff set to private too he had a
	...

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