I've handled some of new York's biggest white collar crimes,

including defending those accused

of insider trading and political corruption.

- [Narrator] Today, Vinoo is going

to review financial crimes and TV and movies

to determine what Hollywood gets right and wrong.

[upbeat sleuth music] [coffee pouring]

[fan whirring]

[TV dial clicking] [electric humming]

As you're watching these clips,

bear in mind that anyone can be a victim

of financial crime, not some little old lady

but also the college-educated person who thinks he

or she knows what he's doing when it comes to money.

[TV static buzzing] [upbeat sleuth music]

First step, "Catch Me If You Can."

- [Frank] Most trusted name in the sky.

- [Vinoo] In this scene, young Leo playing Frank Abagnale

is forging checks.

- [Frank] I have to earn my wings real soon.

Please get in touch with Joanna Carlton from the 10th grade.

Tell her I'm sorry that I could

not take her to the junior prom.

Love, your son, Frank.

[bright pleasant instrumental music]

- So a lot of fun facts here about Frank Abagnale.

In 1967, he was able to pass the Louisiana bar exam

without ever having gone to law school.

There's so much about this guy.

Ultimately, he became an FBI informant,

and now he runs a consulting company.

[pleasant instrumental music] [water sloshing]

In this scene, he is creating a fake check,

and he does that by using the actual logo

by putting it in a tub and pasting it

onto this piece of paper.

Today, you could do all of this in 15 minutes.

Didn't have to go through the whole rigamarole

that he went through back during the movie

back in those days.

So it's a lot easier today, but of course,

very few people use checks, and therefore, [laughs]

it makes it these checks are scrutinized more

when they're actually put into a bank.

[pleasant instrumental music] [muffled chatter]

- Hello, how are ya? - Fine, thanks.

- So bank tellers or people that work

at check cashing places are trained

to look out for imperfections in a check.

Check fraud is actually monitored by the banks.

So check kiting is the crime.

They'll see a check, they'll see something off,

and they will actually call the authorities

from there while they're processing these checks.

[TV static buzzing] [intense sleuth music]

Next up, "Terminator 2."

In this scene, you see a young John Connor

using an Atari laptop machine to steal money from an ATM.

[electric trilling and clicking]

- [Boy] Will you hurry up? This is taking too long.

- [John] Go baby, go baby, go baby.

All right, pin number.

- Computers, ATMs, they've gotten more sophisticated.

They're a lot more protection,

so some of these things will shut down

and not allow you an opportunity to use

and get multiple numbers wrong.

So in essence, is this accurate from today's standards?

Not really.

This was something that, back then years ago,

that you could do which was try

to randomize numbers to figure out the pin.

But today it's unlikely that something like this would work.

- Where'd you learn this stuff from anyway?

- From my mom, my real mom, I mean.

Withdraw 3-0-0 bucks. Come on baby.

Come on, come on, come on, yes!

- [Boy] Hey, it worked.

- All right. Easy money.

- So young John Connor has an accomplice with him.

So that kid who's with him telling him

to hurry up clearly is somebody that, in New York,

would be called acting in concert with him,

where at the federal level,

it would be called a co-conspirator

'cause they worked together

to get an illegal means accomplished,

in this case, stealing money.

- Come on, let's go spend some money.

- So in 1991 when James Cameron released this movie,

it would've been a lot more difficult

to capture John Connor.

But in 2020, it's gonna be pretty easy

for the cops and the bags to chase somebody

because they'll have cameras inside

and cameras outside, and they can go

after these people retracing their your steps.

[TV static buzzing] [intense sleuth music]

Next up, "Mr. Robot.

In this scene, the main character has found a way

to transfer money from a Chinese hacker group

back into the accounts of the people

who originally had their money stolen.

- I don't get it. What's going on?

- All of the money Whiterose and her cronies

has been stealing for decades just went back to the people.

- So in the scene, you see the main character,

in essence, acting like a Robin Hood

and taking money from the thieves or the rich

and giving it back to the poor,

or in this case, the ones who were defrauded.

It's a great concept morally, and in reality,

something like this could happen.

But you can't do what she's trying to do

or no individual can do what she's trying to do

because it does involve fraud over the wires,

and the US government likes

to charge everyone with wire fraud.

[bright futuristic music]

- How?

- We found a way to evenly disperse

and anonymously into everyone's E-coin wallets.

[muffled chatter]

- Everyone got this much?

- Yep, and due to E Corp's insistence

that E-coin remain independent from the US dollar,

it is completely impossible for them

to reverse the transactions.

- So you're actually viewing the scene,

in essence, hacking, right?

Which is ultimately just stealing.

Now it is a crime.

Ultimately, if this actually ever happened,

the US government be in a tough position

because do they punish the person

who is actually making people whole?

It's a tough one. I'm not sure which way they would go.

- This is illegal. This is stealing.

- After what the Dark Army did to you?

Fuck, after what they did to everyone,

you really wanna start defending them?

- This isn't what justice is supposed to look like.

We have laws for a reason.

- And they were so powerful,

they wrote the laws to benefit themselves.

They got away with everything because they banked on us.

- So let me add this.

In terms of how easy this for the United States government

to prosecute someone who's involved in Bitcoin fraud,

it's not, you know why?

'Cause US government doesn't understand this space.

They are really operating in the dark

and making guesses and trying to use their knowledge

of traditional wire fraud and try to apply it here.

But it doesn't really work,

so you can expect to see a lot of change in the laws

and the government try to catch up over the next few years.

[TV static buzzing] [intense sleuth music]

Next up, "Wolf of Wall Street."

[muffled chatter]

- In this scene, you're gonna be watching DiCaprio

teach his underlings how to run a pump

and dump scheme involving penny stocks.

- First, we pitch 'em Disney, AT&T, IBM,

blue chip stocks exclusively, companies these people know.

Once we've suckered them in, we unload the dog shit,

the pink sheets, the penny stocks,

where we make the money, 50% commission, baby.

- In the scene, Belfort is teaching his underlings

how to do a classic pump and dump scheme

by ultimately selling penny stocks.

These brokers are gonna get 50% commission.

This was very profitable

until the [laughs] FBI shut this down.

In a pump and dump scheme, a brokerage house

would buy large quantities of some very cheap stock,

of penny stock, and hold it, a bunch of it, for themselves

and then designate somebody to move the stocks.

And what they do is that they pitch this to clients

by paying the brokers a high commission

to motivate them to move it.

Once the demand peaks,

the [indistinct] dumpers dump their stock [laughs]

on the open market at the high price and make it killing.

This causes a free fall in the stock prices as they sell.

It's technically not illegal

to sell an over-the-counter stock like they were doing,

and even the commission amount is not illegal,

but no one's gonna buy something

if they know the broker's got a 50% commission.

That's a huge red flag.

So what's illegal is not being honest

and open about the actual price and the fact

that there is a nominee there to dump the stock

once it hits a certain price.

- You finally found a broker

on Wall Street that you can trust.

- [Man On Phone] Sorry, I appreciate the call.

I really have to give this some thought

and talk to my wife about it.

Can I call you back?

- They don't know, right? They gotta think about it.

They got talk to the fuckin' wives

or the fucking tooth fairy.

Point is, doesn't matter what the fuck they say.

The only real objection that they have

is that hey don't trust you guys.

- So when Leonardo DiCaprio says,

"You finally found a broker on Wall Street

who you can trust and consistently make you money,"

but you watch him and you see what he's doing,

and he's mocking the person on the other line,

this is actually what happened.

The movie is very real.

Jordan ended up pleading guilty to stock fraud manipulation,

and his whole company was shut down.

So what you're seeing here is really how these people

in these rooms, these boiler rooms,

and that was another movie, similar concept,

in these boiler rooms behave.

[TV static buzzing] [intense sleuth music]

Next up, "Identity Theft."

In this scene, Melissa McCarthy, a con artist,

albeit a funny one, is making a cold call

to steal someone's identity.

- [Melissa] From the fraud protection department

of Identivold Credit Monitoring Service.

We're calling today because, unfortunately, it appears

that someone has attempted to steal your identity.

- Are you kidding me?

- This is a type of identity theft.

There's many different types. This is one.

And in the movie, it's funny because it's Melissa McCarthy,

but this is actually realistic.

Stuff like this happens.

Stuff like this happens when people call elderly people,

call immigrants, or send them emails like this.

And then they answer their emails

and end up giving up their personal information,

including social security numbers,

that leads to people opening up credit cards in their names

and losing lots and lots of money.

- Are you kidding me? - Gosh, I wish I were.

We did catch this in time, however,

but I do suggest you taking advantage

of our free total protection plan,

which safeguards your credit rating against theft and fraud.

- Yes please., if it's free. Absolutely.

- [Melissa] Just terrific. I went for this plan myself.

- So one of the things that Melissa McCarthy does