The FBI's Most Wanted Veterans Charity Scammer: Part 3
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2019
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
Bobby Thompson was once a respected fundraiser, generating millions of dollars for his charity, the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. When a Florida journalist uncovers that the charity is a scam, Thompson goes on the run. Eventually he starts a new life as "Don Morsette" in Portland, Ore. Living in a boardinghouse and claiming to work as a consultant for Boeing, Thompson thinks he's outsmarted the U.S. marshals hunting him. He even keeps a DVD of the movie "Catch Me if You Can" and $1 million in cash in a storage locker. But the marshals arrest him outside his home, ending their two-year manhunt. Although they know Thompson is the man they've been looking for, marshals still don't entirely know who he is. Thompson refuses to give his real name, signing court documents as "Mr. X."
Who is Bobby Thompson, and what led him to steal money meant for veterans? Federal investigators are determined to answer these questions. While he sits in jail awaiting trial, they dive back into the case, speaking to people who knew the man who called himself Bobby Thompson. In the end, these conversations reveal two clues, a haircut and eye drops, that will ultimately uncover Thompson's true identity.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week on AARP the Perfect Sca. |
| 0:03.2 | I think this is what I truly believe. |
| 0:07.2 | 75% of this has been uncovered. |
| 0:10.0 | There's still another 25% out there that I just don't know. |
| 0:13.2 | When I saw the case and I saw the degree to what he was doing and the fact that he chose to |
| 0:18.1 | victimize veterans, the prosecution was one of the most satisfying ones that I've participated in. |
| 0:25.0 | Welcome back to AARP The Perfect Scam. I'm Will Johnson, your host. I'm here with my co-host, |
| 0:30.0 | AARP's Fraud Watch Network Ambassador Frank Abagnale and we're going to talk about |
| 0:33.5 | Bobby Thompson again part three of this story. All right sounds great. A lot of this |
| 0:38.1 | story and Bobby Thompson who as we learned last week was caught after setting up this fake charity and then going on |
| 0:44.0 | the run. A lot of this story will find out has to do with fingerprints and what's in the |
| 0:48.2 | system, what's not in the system. It's pretty surprising in this day and age almost |
| 0:51.9 | for someone not to have their |
| 0:52.8 | fingerprints like in a database somewhere I mean I know if I go to my kids school |
| 0:55.9 | and volunteer you get fingerprints these days well this is true and this is what |
| 0:59.8 | happened with me. |
| 1:03.6 | They knew I was doing all this. |
| 1:05.1 | My fingerprints were left everywhere, but they didn't know who I really was. |
| 1:10.0 | Everyone described me as being 30 or older when I was probably 18 or 19 and the FBI |
| 1:17.0 | would check those fingerprints but they realized there were no prints and that's what I |
| 1:20.8 | think originally raised suspicion for Joe Shea, who started to say, |
| 1:25.0 | how could this be a 30-year-old? Obviously an American male, he's not a foreigner, who's never been fingerprinted, |
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