THE MOST AMAZING TRUE CRIME stories, in recent years, have ended in prison sentences. Frank Abagnale, author of Catch Me if You Can, served a few years; George Jung, of Blow, did a decent stint; even The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, had to do a few months. The list goes on and on.
My name is Matthew B. Cox and I’m a con man. I recently completed a lengthy prison sentence for a variety of bank fraud related charges, and I’m 100 percent guilty of them all. For over a decade I was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Coleman, Florida. It wasn’t a bad place, as prisons go. Some inmates do their time in the recreation yard—walking the track and doing pushups. Others learn to play an instrument. I spent my time in the institution’s library, writing my fellow inmates’ stories—sometimes it was a memoir, other times it was a true crime—as a result, I heard an outrageous number of stories. Some intrigued me and some didn’t. I tend to focus on the more unique, clever, bizarre true crime stories.
A few of my subjects are already infamous. Several certainly should be infamous and some shouldn’t be there at all.
The inmates that I chose to write about have amazing, unique, stranger-than-fiction stories filled with action and drama. Some are dark comedies and others are tragedies. But these individuals are more than kingpins, con men, gunrunners, cocaine cowboys, and bank robbers. They’re fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands. They’re anti-heroes and underdogs, trapped behind cinderblock walls surrounded by three layers of motion sensitive chain-link fences topped with razor-wire. Guarded by men in towers with high-powered assault rifles.
INSIDE TRUE CRIME is an online magazine focusing on nonfiction stories. The goal of the publication is to have these articles adapted to documentaries and film.
USING FORGERIES and bogus identities, Matthew B. Cox, one of the most ingenious con men in history, bilks America’s biggest banks out of millions. Despite numerous encounters with bank security, state and federal authorities, Cox narrowly, and quite luckily, avoids capture. Eventually he tops the Secret Service’s most wanted list, and leads the U.S. Marshals, FBI and the Secret Service on a three year chase, while jet-setting around the world with his attractive female accomplices.
Cox has been declared “one of the most prolific mortgage fraud con artists of all time,” by CNBC’s American Greed. Bloomberg Businessweek called him “the mortgage industry’s worse nightmare,” while Dateline NBC described Cox as “a gifted forger and silver tongued liar.” Playboy magazine proclaimed, “His scam was real estate fraud, and he was the best.”
CURRENTLY MY PERSONAL MEMOIR, Shark in the Housing Pool: On the Run with the U.S. Secret Service’s Most Wanted, can be purchased by clinking the link below. However, the 8,000 word synopsis is available on the site free of charge.
DUDE, WHERE’S MY HAND-GRENADE? is a dramatic, narrative account of one of the most sophisticated cons in Hollywood history.
The crux of the scam was conceived of by an ingenious, convicted con man while serving time inside of a federal prison. The confidence game centered around the motion picture War Dogs, a little known true crime memoir Once a Gun Runner, and an unpublished work of fiction Stranger Danger. By falsifying claims and filing a series of manufactured lawsuits involving some of the most powerful media, publishing, and technology companies on the planet, the con man was able to extract massive settlements out of some of Hollywood’s biggest players.
This is a bizarre true story of scoundrels, schemes, and betrayal.
BAILOUT, IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL true crime thriller that pits a narcissistic con man against an egotistical pathological liar.
Marcus Schrenker—the money manager who attempted to fake his own death during the 2008 financial crisis—is about to be released from prison and he’s ready to talk. He’s ready to tell you the story no one has heard.
Schrenker sits down with true crime writer, Matthew B. Cox and fellow inmate serving time for bank fraud. Schrenker lays out the details. The disgruntled clients that persecuted him for unanticipated market losses. The affair that ruined his marriage and the treachery of his scorned wife—the woman who framed him for securities fraud. Leaving him no choice but to make a bogus distress call and plunge from his multi-million dollar private aircraft in the dead of night. The $11.1 million in life insurance. The missing $1.5 million in gold. The fact is, Schrenker wants you to think he’s innocent. The problem is, Cox knows Schrenker’s a pathological liar and his story is a fabrication.
As Cox subtly coaxes, cajoles, and yes, cons Schrenker into revealing his deceptions his stranger-than-fiction life of lies slowly unravels. This is the story Schrenker didn’t want you to know.
CURRENTLY THE TRUE CRIME, Bailout: The Life and Lies of Marcus Schrenker, is currently being edited. However, the 9,000 word synopsis is available now.
HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLER, Douglas Dodd, and his clean-cut all American teammates—turned oxycodone kingpins—work the Sunshine state’s murky world of illegal pill mills. The unlikely group of, half-baked, over sexed teens, ultimately become a criminal enterprise, making millions shipping hundreds of thousands of prescription pain-meds throughout the country, while simultaneously duping the DEA and state drug task forces.
Dodd’s story takes readers into what Bloomberg Businessweek described as “ground zero of the painkiller epidemic.” An American crisis so dangerously addictive, it has been dubbed, “pharmageddon” by NBC News. Where, according to The Miami Herald, opiate addicts throughout the southern states, known as “pillbillies,” travel the “Oxy Express,” for a taste of what The Orlando Sentinel calls “hillbilly heroin.”
IN SEPTEMBER 2016 Dodd and I signed a deal with Skyhorse Publishing. His true crime memoir, Oxy Rush: From High School Wrestlers to Oxycodone Kingpins, was released in October 2017 under the title Generation Oxy: From High School Wrestlers to Pain Pill King Pins. However, Dodd’s first person 8,000 word Oxy Rush synopsis is available right now.
INKED FROM HEAD TO TOE, with an addiction to strippers and Cadillacs, John J. Boseak is not your typical computer geek. He is, however, one of the most cunning scammers, counterfeiters, identity thieves and escape artists alive—and a major problem for the U.S. Secret Service’s war on cybercrime.
With a savant-like ability to circumvent banking security, and stay one step ahead of law enforcement, Boseak made millions of dollars in the international cyber underworld. Then, leaving nothing but a John Doe warrant and an empty bank account in his wake, he vanished.
Boseak’s stranger-than-fiction tale of ingenious scams and impossible escapes makes Bent a true crime game that will keep you guessing.
BOSEAK’S 90,000 WORD MEMOIR is complete and available for purchase at the link below. The 8,000 word true crime synopsis, however, as well as the barbed-wire backstory, are available on the site at no cost.
ROBERT “SNOOP” GEORGE operates in the dangerous, crime infested world of the streets. Where the “players” speak a vernacular that the average citizen can scarcely decipher; women are “bad bitches” and “hoes,” everyone packs “heat” and aspires to be a “dope boy” or a “kingpin.” No one goes by their given name, and murders, violence and incarceration are the norm. There are confidential informants around every corner, “slingin’ dope” is a way of life and everybody is chasing that “gwap, fetta, chedda’…the almighty dolla’.”
But Snoop and his brother aren’t dope dealers, they’re brutal career criminals, and with the help of a dirty taskforce officer, they make it their business to rob drug dealers…and “bizness is a’ boomin’!”
AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED there will never be a Cash & Coke true crime—once you read the story you’ll understand why—but the 8,000 word synopsis is currently available.
INDEFENSIBLE is the story of Dennis Caroni and the leviathan. A Machiavellian tale filled with corruption and collusion at every level of the justice system; crooked government agents, an overzealous U.S. prosecutor and a biased, misguided, federal judge doing everything in her power to keep the truth from coming out. Hidden evidence, dead defense witnesses and a dead DEA agent.
There is a story here that no one has heard and the government is desperate to cover-up.
I’VE SPOKEN WITH CARONI about writing a true crime or even a memoir, but neither are planned at this time. However, the Indefensible synopsis is available right now.
IN THE MIDST OF THE MOST VIOLENT period in South Florida’s history Marlene Hudson—a gorgeous ex-call girl—immerses herself—along with her teenage sons, Michael and Douglas—into the perilous world of international drug-smuggling. A criminal industry infested with snitches, junkies, wise guys, and assassins; all intertwined with drug enforcement and geopolitics.
Despite murder attempts, prison sentences—daring escapes—and multiple homicides, Marlene and her crew of dope-running-island-jumpers manage to import hundreds of tons of marijuana and cocaine along Miami’s intracoastal waterways.
This true crime epic is at once a gripping Blow-style thriller with memorable characters and breathtaking twists, and a Cocaine Cowboys first-hand look at the international drug trade of the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
I’VE COMPLETED A SYNOPSIS chronicling the epic tale of Mike’s mother and her band of cocaine cowboys. With Mike’s help, and the mountain of documentation we’ve collected through the Freedom of Information Act, I hope to work on a full length true crime, focusing primarily on Marlene Hudson. However, the 12,000 word Devils of Contraband synopsis is available now.
INSPIRED BY THE MOVIE HEAT, twenty-seven-year-old armored-truck guard, Hjalmar Towns, and his best friend, team-up with a merciless crew of career bank robbers to pull off a multi-million dollar score.
Without firing a shot they snatch over $3 million from the Cash Logistics Depot’s vaults and walk away clean. An inside job so perfect it baffles the FBI. Then, it all goes sideways.
There’s a senseless murder, multiple armored-truck robberies and the feds zero in on Hjalmar and the crew. Suddenly, a twisted, stranger-than-fiction tale of confidential informants and double-crossing co-conspirators emerges.
I’VE SPOKEN WITH HJALMAR about writing a memoir, but there’s nothing in the works. However, the 9,000 word Cash Logistics synopsis is available right now.
AMERICAN PAIN is a problem for the DEA, FBI and a slew of sheriff’s offices throughout South Florida.
The clinics’ doctors are scribbling out thousands of prescriptions a day, its pharmacies are filling hundreds of thousands of oxycodone a weeks and its owners are carting of boxes packed with tens of millions of cash year after year. There are doped up zombies and junkies aimlessly wandering the pain clinics parking lots, wreaking havoc with local business owners.
Despite the opioid epidemic washing over the United States and the volume that American Pain’s clinics are cranking out oxycodone, federal and state law enforcement can’t seem to shut them down; and the man holding it all together . . . is Derik Nolan
PAIN: The Rise and Fall of the Largest Pill Mill in the Nation, is Derik Nolan’s authorized true crime version of American Pain. The 10,000 word synopsis is available right now.
KAREY LEE WOOLSEY wants to be a rock star. There’s only one small problem; between playing gigs with Creed, Three Doors Down and Lenny Kravitz, he and his best bro, Daniel Sweep, are running what the DEA described as, “the largest marijuana smuggling ring in South Florida history.”
Behind the facade of the “War on Drugs” the American government makes an unscrupulous backroom deal with a ruthless Mexican drug cartel. Suddenly, their competitors are arrested or killed, wile the Sinaloa Cartel smuggles massive amounts of drugs into the United States unchecked by law enforcement.
With the help of Karey and Danny’s shadowy underworld contacts, they distribute tons of marijuana and make millions. Bales of bud are seized, double-crossing associates are cooperating and the DEA is closing in on them. Big-time drug dealers by day; hard partying rockers by night.
AMERICAN NARCO’S barbed-wire back story is the mind-blowing account of how Karey pulls off a Billboard top ten album, within the walls of the Federal Correctional Complex in Yazoo, Mississippi, right under the noses of the correctional officers and the warden.
BOTH THE 11,000 word true crime synopsis and the 2,500 word barbwire backstory are available right now.
DONOVAN DAVIS is the perfect mark, rich, naive and trusting to a fault. Completely unprepared for the savvy, slick talking, insideman and his roper. So unprepared is Donovan, he unwittingly falls into The Gap.
In a “long-con” reminiscent of The Sting, two bunko men modernize a classic rag-style “big-store” scam. Utilizing the complexity of the FOREX market, they ensnare Donovan in their swindle, while fleecing nearly one hundred victims out of close to $20 million.
As the scheme unravels and the government closes in–millions are wired offshore. Suddenly, the victims’ funds are seemingly lost in a massive Ponzi scheme and the insideman makes his exit. But it’s all an illusion; there’s an innocent man in prison and the funds…they exist.
THE GAP is the modern non-fiction equivalent of The Sting. I’m currently working on the backstory as it unfolds here in prison, but the 10,000 word synopsis is available now.
ON DECEMBER 12, 2011, an assassin fired four rounds into Jose Parra’s head. Moments later his wife and three children found him lying in a crimson pool on the floor. By all outward appearances Parra was a successful businessman; nothing indicated he operated an L.A. based wholesale distribution cell for the Sinaloa Cartel. A professional, coldblooded murder that, to this day, has not been solved.
Cristiano Silva is a “jailhouse lawyer” serving a hefty sentence in federal prison. In 2013, while litigating a fellow inmate’s case, Juan Garcia—a big-time drug trafficker—Chris learned that Garcia believed Parra was, not only an informant, but also responsible for his arrest. Eventually, Garcia admitted that he’d convinced the upper echelon of the cartel to have Parra murdered. The admission embroiled Chris into the ongoing homicide investigation. Worse still, while marshalling the evidence connected with Garcia’s case, Chris uncovered the fact that Parra was never an informant. In an astonishing twist, Garcia had had an innocent man executed.
Now, both the Los Angeles homicide unit and the FBI want to speak with Chris concerning the murder. Unfortunately, he is caught between the potential murderous reprisal of the cartel and an unscrupulous federal prosecutor who is thwarting the investigation.
THE SOURCE: The Twisted Tale of How an LA Kingpin Paid the Jalisco Price’s Barbed-Wire backstory is currently unraveling. Regardless, the 14,000 word synopsis is available on the site, right now, as well as the exhibits.
AS FRANK AMODEO met with President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss NATO operations in Afghanistan, no one knew that he’d already embezzled nearly $200 million from the federal government—money he intended to use to bankroll his plan to take over the world.
“Mr. Amodeo has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, exhibiting fixed delusional beliefs,” says Darlene Antonio, PhD. “His current profile indicates an active, florid psychotic process, which includes a loss of contact with reality.” Specifically, Amodeo expresses the belief that he will be “emperor of the world.” He has been working on plans to establish his “empire” since his teenage years, states Dr. Antonio. “He believes his plans for a one-world government are divinely ordained.”
From Amodeo’s global headquarters in the shadow of Florida’s Disney World, with a nearly inexhaustible supply of the Internal Revenue Service’s funds, Amodeo acquires multiple businesses, amassing a mega-conglomerate.
Driven by his delusions of world conquest, he negotiates the purchase of a squadron of American fighter jets and the controlling interest in a former Soviet ICBM factory. He begins working to build the largest private militia on the planet—over one million Africans strong. Simultaneously, Amodeo hires an international black-ops force to orchestrate a coup in the Congo, while plotting to take over several small eastern European countries.
The most disturbing part of it all is, had the U.S. government not thwarted his plans, he might have just pulled it off.
I BELIEVE IT’S INSANITY would make a great book. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful I will ever expand the story into a full-length true crime narrative. However, at this time the 16,000 word true crime synopsis as well as the 3,000 word barbwire backstory are complete and available.
PIERRE RAUSINI—in the 1990s—was a twenty-something-year-old Los Angeles-based drug trafficker. He and his associates drove luxury European supercars, lived in Beverly Hills penthouses, and dated Playboy models while dodging federal indictments. Then, two FBI officers with the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force entered the picture. Dirty agents willing to fix cases and identify informants.
Suddenly, two of Rausini’s associates—confidential informants working with federal law enforcement—were murdered. Everyone pointed to Rausini.
As his co-defendants prepared for trial, U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller sat down to debrief Rausini in Leavenworth Penitentiary, and another story emerged. A tale of FBI corruption and complicity in murder. You see, Pierre Rausini knew something that no one else knew . . . the truth. And, to this very day, Robert Mueller and the federal government have been covering it up.
DEVIL EXPOSED has no barbed-wire back story, however, events connected to the story are constantly evolving. As a result, there may be a barbed-wire back story in the near future.
THE 15,000 WORD TRUE CRIME synopsis Devil Exposed: A Twisted Tale of Drug Trafficking, Corruption & Murder in the City of Angels is a condensed version of the 35,000 word expose, Devil Exposed the Abridgment. Specifically, The Abridgement painstakingly documents the entire story, all of which is supported by over 120 exhibits conclusively proving Mueller’s extraordinary efforts to obstruct justice. These exhibits can be viewed on devilexposedexhibits.com.
Listen to the Narrated Story: Part 1 – Part 2
RAISED DIRT POOR in Central Florida, a modest, baby-faced nineteen-year-old, Jacob Diaz, is pulled into the treacherous world of international narcotics trafficking during one of the most violent periods of the Mexican Narco Wars.
As the body count grows, the young narco moves millions of dollars of the Sinalo Cartel’s cocaine and profits across the Mexican-American border. While playing cat and mouse with US Customs, Diaz quickly goes from living in the trailer parks outside of Orlando to the luxury homes of Acapulco,
Unbeknownst to Baby-Faced Diaz, as he lives it up flying around the Americas, driving expensive European sedans, and rubbing shoulders with Mexican celebrities as well the cartels’ upper echelon, the DEA is closing in.
AT THIS TIME THERE IS NO BARBED-WIRE backstory, however, the 16,000 word true crime synopsis, The Unlikely Narco, is available right now.
JOSEPH VITALE IS A HANDSOME, charismatic, high pressure broker who works in South Florida’s private equity market. An industry inundated with get rich quick schemers and sociopathic con men. Everyone is living a double life. Everyone “has a habit,” frequents strip clubs, and drives a Lamborghini or Ferrari.
Between Vitale’s single-minded ambition and unquenchable greed, it doesn’t take the slick talking, twenty-something broker long before he’s running a boiler room and raking in millions. Therein lies the rub. In short order vitale becomes entangled in multiple scams, two murders, and a federal indictment.
Incarcerated in the belly of the largest prison complex in the nation, Vitale uncovers the true murderer, and with that knowledge comes a chance to obtain the one thing he could never buy . . . peace of mind.
THERE MAY VERY WELL be a Barbed-Wire backstory in the near future. Regardless, the true crime synopsis is ready to go right now.
NESTLED BETWEEN THE SWAMPS of the Everglades and luxurious Palm Beach, sits the sleepy backwater town of Okeechobee. An area teeming with fishing holes, dairies, and (as it turned out) a massive methamphetamine distribution ring.
Jessie Bell, Aubrey, Jetta, Jamie, and Felisha—a crew of shit-kicking cowgirls—worked hand-in-hand with Steven “Wildman” Oakes, an overall wearing, drug kingpin to distribute meth. Drugs which originated in the “super-labs” of Mexico; smuggled into the U.S., transported in airboats through the Everglades, and trucked across Florida via Alligator Alley.
The all-female crew weren’t your typical twentysomethings, posting selfies on Instagram. No, these girls hunted at dawn and went mudding during the day; all the while, distributing millions of dollars of “dope” throughout South Florida.
Circumventing task force surveillance, outrunning federal law enforcement through the swamps in airboats, and evading capture by the U.S. Marshals; the girls’ drug fueled insanity culminated in what a federal prosecutor described as “the largest methamphetamine bust in Okeechobee history.”
COWGIRLS & KILOS would make a great true crime documentary, a narrative series or even a full-length film. Currently, I’m working on finding a production company to partner with. In the meantime, the 16,000 word true crime synopsis as well as the 300 word barbed-wire backstory are available on the website.