The Compliance Times

Today on the show, the Compliance Times, a deep dive into anti money laundering, one case at a time.

Davreen Dixon is sitting in the hot seat.

Welcome to podcast Hot Seat.

We are the friend who lets you know, hey, you got some broccoli stuck in your teeth?

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We make meh shows sound good and good shows sound better.

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Welcome to the church of constant improvement.

Here's your host, multi award winning hall of fame podcaster, Dave Jackson.

Hey, what do you get when you mix a little true crime with a little csi?

You get the Compliance Times, a deep dive into anti money laundering, one case at a time.

And.

And today we got Davreen Dixon.

Davreen, thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

Dave, one of the things we always ask people is, why did you start the podcast?

Well, you know, I have worked as a professional in the anti financial crimes compliance space for the past about a little over 11 years at this point.

And it's something.

Yeah, I discovered white collar crime when I, during one of my last year of law school and I realized that this is really what I wanted to get into.

Not white collar crime, but rather how to combat that from a financial institution standpoint.

So, so for the past 11 plus years, I've worked in this, you know, AFC industry, anti financial crimes.

And I really enjoyed it to the point where I wanted to kind of do something creative with it by creating a podcast that both educates people who are in the industry, you know, like myself in the AFC industry, and as well as to entertain folks out there who are true, true crime fans.

Because I know there's, that's a very popular category of podcasts.

So yeah, everybody, I always wonder, I'm like, apparently every wife hates her husband because every show I tune on it's like, well, she almost got, you know, we don't know where the body is.

And I'm like, wait a minute, gentlemen, you better start being nicer to your spouses.

Yeah, so true crime's a thing.

Well, you mentioned a little bit who it's for, but who is this specifically for?

Because that was the thing.

As I was listening to it, you kind of get into the weeds of, of this kind of work.

And I was like, okay, that's not me.

But I was like, maybe if I was somebody working in this field, I'd be like, this is the best thing ever.

So who's it for?

Well, really individuals that are that work in the anti financial crime space, whether they work in financial institutions like where I've spent most of my career, folks who essentially what they call anti money laundering, compliance analysts who focus on investigations as part of their role in their financial institution, to the extent law enforcement may find it helpful as well.

Law enforcement professionals who help solve financial crime cases, anybody that's in that anti financial crime space, regardless of whether they're working a financial institution, investigations, risk management, law enforcement, that's.

That's basically it.

Anyone who's, who's really into the space and is, has an interest and desire and responsibility of investigating financial crime.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I know you said you kind of always have the same three questions that you're kind of going through as you're telling the story.

You know, what happened in the case, so we know it was money laundering, but you know, the details of that.

And then this is the one.

How and when did we learn about what happened in the case?

Why is that important?

Well, I think the, the bottom line in, in that question is like, how did we discover how we, the audience, the, you know, the media, learned about this particular financial crime case that involved money laundering?

And just to kind of see how it unfolded from a legal standpoint, from a law standpoint, that sort of thing.

There we go.

Cause I was trying to figure out why.

I'm like, why, why would I care where it came from and how it came from, but the legal aspect.

Because there are times when the media gets in the way and starts leaking stuff they're not supposed to leak.

And then now you can't get a fair trial because, you know, okay, that makes the whole time I'm like, yeah.

And then, then the third one is, what can financial crimes compliance professionals like yourself do to prevent the issues raised in each case?

And I was like, okay.

So that was, I was like, okay.

That's when I was like, oh, this is who it's for.

And so this is the part where it's really boring.

Well, it's not boring, but it's always awkward as we sit here and listen to your show.

So I'm going to play a couple of clips and we're just going to stare at each other as we listen.

So get comfy.

But here's the intro.

Okay.

Empire.

So I'm going to stop right there.

Did he just say Empire?

Yes, Empire is the production company that I produced the episode.

So that is the product.

Little plug for them.

That makes sense.

Okay, and then here's the actual intro.

Remember the late Joan Rivers on the TV show Fashion Police.

I cannot believe it is August already.

My gosh, this summer has flown by fast.

And Orlando Bloom's fist in Ibiza.

So let's kick some ass in our five must see looks of the week.

But it's not funny when law enforcement becomes the fashion police.

You're listening to the Compliance Times podcast where we take a deep dive into anti money laundering one case at a time.

Learn more@thecompliancetimes.com now, here's your host, Davreen Dixon.

So as an intro goes, you kind of threw in some entertainment there, but the big thing is like, hey, here's what we're doing.

This is what we're looking at.

The only thing that sometimes you might want to add is like, what's the benefit?

Like, you know, we do this.

We, you know, you know, I help you plan, launch and grow your podcast so you can monetize or impact your world or like, what's in it for the audience kind of thing.

And this was just like, hey, we look at this stuff.

And I was like, okay.

But sometimes pointing out now, again, if your audience is people that work in the field, they've kind of already figured that out.

But the one thing I noticed even there at the very beginning, and it's an easy fix.

In fact, anything that I say tonight that you're like, here's something you could do different.

These are all super fixable.

And the one is, in fact, I am actually right now not close enough to my microphone because I'm sitting here doing a bunch of screens.

But usually I'm about three fingers away.

And you'll notice that I'm kind of talking sideways, just like instead of 12 o' clock, right into the microphone, I kind of talk to about 10 o' clock just because if you put your hand over your mouth and say, happy peanut butter, you will feel a whole lot of air coming out.

And part of the problem is you occasionally have.

Those are called plosives if we want to get our nerd on.

And there are a couple times when P's and B's and it just sounds like you're right up on the microphone, which is kind of cool because when you're right up on the microphone, you get that kind of.

But there are times when you're too close and if you don't have a windscreen or something on, these things can come in especially.

And I'm not the kind of guy that's like, oh.

But when you have them back to back multiple times, there just comes a Time when people are like, what's going on with this?

So here's just a quick example.

And international retail businesses and designers with a roughly 2,000 plus independent wholesale businesses like manufacturers, importers and distributors, which make up about 70 retailers and designers with a.

You had a couple P's in there with a.

With an F and a couple other.

And so I hear it, I heard that.

Yeah, no, again, not a huge deal.

And normally I'd be like, yeah, you know, but there was like one more where I was like, okay, yeah, this, this one I just have.

Your massive sting operation affectionately became known as Operation Fashion Police, according to various news reports.

Yeah, so like, when you said affection.

Affection, yes.

Was very.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could hear that.

Not, not something that's going to make people tune out immediately, but if there's enough of those, it kind of like, what's going on here?

So that again, but I did, like, I don't know if you or the guy from Empire is doing all the.

Because you had a lot of clips and a lot of fun.

Ooh, music going on and things to kind of, you know, a little mood lighting going on.

Yes.

The one thing that I was kind of like.

So I always look at kind of every segment as.

Does this deliver value to the audience?

And a lot of times.

And this is where you're going to answer this question.

There are a lot of details in here and I'm kind of like.

And this is where.

I don't know.

I was kind of like, do we.

Do we need this thing?

But, but this is one where I call this telling people how the sausage is made.

And a lot of times they don't care.

People don't care.

Okay, so you went in here about the roadmap peso exchange.

But first, to dive deep into this case, we're going to change up the roadmap a bit.

We'll cover the three main questions we address in each episode, but we'll cover the third question in a separate bonus episode.

That said, in this episode, we'll focus on first, what happened in the case and second, how and when we learned about what happened.

For our separate bonus episode, we'll look at the case through an AML compliance lens to determine what we as financial crimes compliance professionals can do to mitigate the risks of money laundering that are raised in this case study.

So be sure to check out the bonus episode after listening to this episode.

So that was my one question because I, as a non officer doing this, I was kind of dying to hear what can we Learn from this.

And the answer is, you got to listen to next week's episode.

And so my question is, do they need to listen to this week's episode to understand next week's episode?

Because to me, that was the payoff and I was somewhat disappointed.

I was like, okay, here comes question three.

Even though you told me at the beginning we're not doing number three today.

But.

Why not have three and one?

Why not just have a longer episode or cut out some of the stuff that we're talking about today?

Okay, no, that's a great question because that's something that I was sort of playing with.

And this particular episode is the only one that I had split between the true crime piece of it and the compliance insights.

Got it.

Just to see which one had better metrics, just to compare the metrics between that type of episode versus having a 30 minute episode that contained everything.

All three questions answered.

So that was a goal because I figured true crime fans wouldn't be interested as much.

Perhaps listening to the compliance insights.

That was, that was the idea potentially.

But, you know, that's got it.

Well, some of the stuff, because that's.

You had some really good production in here.

Just, again, it doesn't have to be crazy, but just anything that shows.

It's just not me in my spare bedroom.

Even though there's nothing wrong with people in their spare bedroom.

But there was a thing here where you did some cool stuff, just mixing up the eq.

Well, that's exactly what occurred.

Which is why the fashion district and LA more broadly have been described by law enforcement as the, quote unquote, epicenter of narco dollar money laundering.

The reason that people engage in most.

Criminal activity is for the profits.

So if you can find a way to stop the flow of the money, that's what really hurts the organization's most.

So these are just nice little brain breaks and EQ tricks just to kind of like, you know, just little icing on the cake that I was like, oh, that's kind of cool.

And so keep the clips, keep the clips.

Then if they're relevant, obviously to the.

If they're relevant.

Because there are some times when you would have a clip and you'd be like, this was one of the, this is one of the largest heists in history.

And I believed you.

And then there'd be a little music and then it'd be a TV guy that would go, this is one of the largest heists in history.

And I'm like, yeah, she just said that.

Just said that.

Okay.

I get it.

The one thing I thought this was like, so great.

And I was like, oh, that's a great example.

And then you followed it by one that I went, maybe it's not.

I'm not the guy again, but let me play you this.

I thought this was because you're trying to explain.

And it was interesting because the number kept getting bigger.

First you're like, it was 64.

I think it was 64 million, and then it was 90 million.

And then once they got done with all the stuff that had been seized, it was like $140 million worth of drugs and houses and stuff.

And I was like, holy cow.

Which also though then makes me think if I'm pushing for time, do I need to know about the 64 and the 90 million?

Can we just go to the end number and go, it was 140 million.

Okay, that's good.

But this was something that I was like, oh, this is good.

And.

Well, here, let me just play it.

Pounds after being stuffed with large bills in US currency.

Now, let's put this into context.

£40 is the size of a small child.

And I was like, that is brilliant.

£40.

£40 of coke.

Picture picking up.

Because everybody understands, you know, there are times when you're like, man, you're five years old and you're getting like, let's lay off the Twinkies there, you know, Sonny.

Because 40.

£40 is £40.

And I was like, that's a great example, because everybody can understand picking up a small child.

And then you followed it with this.

Okay, so this episode involves fashion.

So let's think about it in terms of fashion, too.

The 40 pound banker's boxes of cash confiscated by federal law enforcement is the same size as Katy Perry's chandelier dress she wore to the Spring 2019 Met Gala in New York.

Google it.

Spring 20.

Now you even said, google it.

Here's another way you could have handled it, though, because I don't know, I'm assuming it was big.

And you know, it's the Met gala, so they're always wearing crazy things to that.

Exactly.

But you could have said, I've got a picture of this on the website.

Go to.

So anytime you have a picture, especially if people are doing travel shows and they're like, oh, wait till you.

I was in this boat in a gondola in Italy and blah, blah, blah.

And it's hard to even describe, that's when you go like, oh, I have a picture of this.

It's on my website.

Because one of the things that's kind of great about podcasting, but kind of not is people can find your show in an app and never visit your website.

And you're like, no, I want you to go to the website and join my newsletter or whatever else I want to do.

And so when you have something like that.

Because I was kind of like, okay, I know who Katy Perry is, but I have no idea what her.

Whatever it was.

Yeah, I was like.

Or dress that Met Gala look like.

And so I was like, okay, so sometimes you have to be careful with even movies now.

It used to be you could kind of reference a movie and everybody saw the movie.

And that's just not the case anymore because, number one, movies aren't even in the movies.

For.

There was one called something 17, and it was about this guy that just keeps getting killed over and over and over.

It's this weird sci fi kind of thing.

And I was like, you know what?

That's not a superhero movie and it's not a remake.

I might.

It was literally in the theaters for a week and it was gone.

And now it's on Amazon if you want to stream it.

But so the days of where everybody saw that movie because it was so popular are kind of behind us.

Well, I guess I was hoping.

I mean, at the time, Katy Perry was quite popular.

And so, yeah, you know, I wanted to use like a, you know, major celebrity.

That's a good point, because this is from a couple of years ago.

20.

20, 20, actually.

Yeah, see, that's a good point.

That's actually.

And at the time, I bet everybody knew who that was.

You know what?

That's a really good point.

I just.

This part here, I just thought was just A nice summary.

U.S.

federal authority seized lots of cash deposit accounts, property and merchandise, the estimated value of which increased over time to about US$140 million.

So that just kind of wrapped everything up.

And I was like, okay, that was just a nice, like, after you kind of talked about all the stuff in the houses and all that stuff.

And that was one of my things, when you're getting into all the details of, like, at one point you were going into.

And it's kind of hard for me, it was at hard times to get the theater of the mind to kick in, because there were.

Even though there are only really three moving pieces.

There's the American company, there's the Mexican company that's getting the stuff, and then there's the cartel, who's paying everybody.

But there were times when I was like, Wait, who's doing the thing in a peso?

But my question was, because you explained how they did it, which obviously we need to understand that.

But there were times when you went into kind of tangents in a bit.

Like, I know there was one where something went wrong and the cartel lost a lot of money.

And you're like, hey, and the guy that was responsible for this money.

And I love the fact you're like, hey, if you love Breaking Bad, you know, this guy did not have a good day.

But, but I was curious as to like, do we need that?

Like, is that important?

Like, if there's somebody in your field, do they go, oh, I need to know what happened to that guy?

Or like there were just, sometimes there were details.

I'm like, I don't know if this, if are these details I need, if I'm the person that's investigating, like, do I need to know that they also had houses and they did this and they.

There were just a ton of details.

And I'm like, well, maybe that's something.

If I worked in this field, I'm going to start checking their real estate holdings or maybe I'm going to start checking this just to see, like, there's all this money coming in.

It's got to go somewhere.

Is that something that you guys do?

I think, I mean, definitely that's part of due diligence and part of the investigative process just to understand the different assets that are involved that could potentially have been used to facilitate money laundering or any financial crime for that matter.

But I think besides that, I was.

The idea was to maybe intrigue or engage like true crime fans who may be interested in that sort of detail, but and not necessarily people who work in the anti financial crime industry.

So, but that was, that was the goal at least to try to provide details so that, that both true crime fans and anti financial crime professionals could understand what happened.

But I take your point about maybe some of those details not necessarily, you know, being needed.

Are those audiences naturally overlapped, you think?

Like, are true crime people going to worry about the same things?

You know, an investigator is.

Depends on how big of a true crime fan they are.

Yeah, that's true, I think, frankly.

But maybe perhaps the average true crime fan may not care about that kind of detail.

Again, I think it's possible that anti financial crime professionals would be interested in that.

Just to see the different types of assets that the person has or the people have to understand how money was moved.

You know, illicit funds basically were moved, you know, throughout their whole organization and activities, if that makes sense.

Yeah, got it.

Let me play this clip.

Let's dive into a couple of the criminal cases to see how the black market peso exchange scheme or BMPE scheme played out and how law enforcement busted the perps.

You'll notice there's a.

There's a few plosives in there.

Again, so I mentioned earlier that nine people were arrested on September 10, 2014 during the operation Fashion Police raid on LA Fashion district businesses.

How did we find out about it?

Which is our second question we answer in each episode.

Media coverage, court documents and legal proceedings that followed the raid gave the public additional insight into the complex money laundering scheme orchestrated by international drug lords and their fashion district business accomplices.

Take for example, the criminal case filed against QT Fashion Inc.

Maria Ferre, Sociedad Enormous de Capital Variable and their respective employees.

And now as I listen to this and you're giving the names of the businesses, I understand why you're giving the names, because at first I was kind of like, do I need to know who it was?

But I guess if you're going to tell the story of this company, was giving to this company, it's nice to name them.

But also I could see people in your field that might even want to go deeper and like, wait, let me look up this company.

Let me look up the case.

You know, they might want to go even deeper.

So the one thing that, that kind of in terms of just storytelling, 101 that is kind of missing and maybe that's not story, maybe this is more reporting than it is storytelling.

But stories usually have some sort of stakes.

Like, oh, if this doesn't happen, then, you know, I just watched it, really.

I watch.

There's a show on TV called 91 1.

There's a couple of them, but with Angela Bassett.

And it's just ridiculous.

And I love it because every plot, this one was, they had a deadly virus that was getting out into a lab and they had to go in and stop it and were they going to get infected and blah, blah, blah.

So the whole time you're like, are they going to get infected?

Is Captain Nash going to die?

Are they going to get there in time?

They've only got a half hour.

So there are all these stakes and so there are stakes and just things like, why do I care about this story?

That like, I get it because on one hand, when people launder money, prices go up, you know, cartels get funded, you know, but there wasn't really anything like, did they I don't know.

There just wasn't anything that had me on the edge of my seat, like, ooh, I wonder if they're gonna catch him.

Or did they almost get away?

Or.

But then this happened.

And, you know, Detective, so and so did this.

And it's just something that kind of gets you going, like, hey, it turns out they got away with this for six years and laundered zillions of dollars.

But then it turns out that.

And I guess maybe that's what you do in part three, when you get into how we learned about it and shut them down.

Is that kind of the stuff you get into?

It's been a while since I listened to this, but my hope is that I had included the where are they now?

Section in.

In this part one, if you will.

And.

And that sort of is the.

To let the audience know that each of those companies are individuals that were named in the story.

Sort of like, what.

Where.

Where they are now, essentially.

And I don't know if that's what you're referring to in terms of.

No, just identifying these people.

And let me give you an example.

Yeah, Stakes are kind of fun, where a man flies to England, and in his suitcase, he always has a picture of his grandmother.

His grandmother raised him.

He was very close to her.

And he has a picture of his grandmother, and he gets to England, he gets his suitcase and opens it up, and the picture of his grandmother is missing.

And you're like, oh, well, that's sad.

But stakes is when you go.

And that was the only picture he had of his grandmother.

Now you're like, oh, now we really got to find that picture.

So stakes kind of add.

Like, what we're trying to do is get the audience to think, I wonder what's going to happen next?

Which is kind of hard in this case because we know what happens next.

They get caught and go to jail.

But if there's anything you can throw in there to kind of get them to go.

I wonder what's going to happen next.

Because if you watch.

It's kind of weird.

Podcasting has ruined me for watching movies because.

Or anything on Netflix, there's always.

There was a show with.

Called Dead to Me, and I feel bad.

Christina Applegate was really good.

And if you ever watch that series, just go and watch the last two minutes because they were amazing at cliffhangers to where you're like, you look at whoever you're watching it with or whatever, and you're like, all right, one more.

Right, one more.

And we're Going to bed.

And then you watch one more, and at the end, there's another.

Another cliffhanger.

You're like, all right, one more.

We're going to bed.

Honest.

We're going.

Yeah.

And so anytime you can tell a story in a way that's kind of, I wonder what's going to happen next.

It just keeps people tuned in.

So when I've been listening to a lot of true crime, but usually most of them were, we know the husband killed her, her body is missing, and it's just a matter of like, how are they going to catch him?

And about the time you think they're going to catch him, and then he did this, and then they thought, and blah, blah, blah.

And then they thought they found some evidence and they need to find it.

It's in the backyard.

And if they dig.

So there's a lot of like, but what's going to happen?

What's, what's.

Are they going to get him?

So they're all just trying to, you know, it's kind of a whodunit, which is different because we kind of know who.

Who done it.

The cartel.

So I'm not sure how you would work this in, but it's.

There's a framework from.

If you wanted to be.

And some people will puke even as I say this.

But NPR is really good at telling stories.

And they have a simple formula, a couple of them.

One is, I'm doing a story about X.

And what's interesting or surprising or notable or whatever about it is why.

So in this case, you're doing a story about Los Angeles and how just boatloads of money was going through the fashion district.

Then they also things.

Another framework they have.

And what's funny is if you listen to npr, they follow this one a lot.

They go, this happened, whatever it was, and then this and then this.

And you are not gonna effing believe it.

But then this happened.

They do that one a lot.

And then they throw in this.

And the reason that it's interesting to every single person is this.

And so that was the part I was kind of like.

And maybe it doesn't fit in this case.

Cause you're not trying to make something that resonates with every single person.

You're trying to reach true crime people and people that investigate this.

So maybe that one doesn't really fit.

And I, and, and, and that's, I think that's, that's something that I can take a closer look at to see, because when I research this stuff, it's really Based on court documents, whatever news media is out there.

You know, to my knowledge, there's no sort of, like, storytelling narrative out there that I could.

Could use as a framework that pertains to that particular true crime story.

Yeah, but I.

I think it would be.

So some of.

I think some of the storytelling may require me to.

Or potentially embellish a little bit, and I don't want to do that.

Right.

But to the extent I can do that without embellishing and.

And making, you know, false.

Providing false information about the story, then yeah, absolutely.

I think that makes sense to engage the reader to use.

And that's the part that's kind of.

Tricky listener in this case, because that's.

The stuff that the true crime person eats up.

Like it's, you know, Twinkies.

I don't know why I'm on a Twinkie kick tonight.

But anyway, where in theory, the investigator, because they're human, should like that as well.

But it's.

I could see that could sometimes be kind of the difficult part of the show is like, okay, I want to give the details for the investigator so they can figure it out, but I also want it to be entertaining.

And that could be kind of the tricky part.

So your intro was great, the production and just the different ways you faded things in.

I like the fact that occasionally, especially if you gave us a lot of facts and numbers and details, because that can be really tough.

I just did an episode about kind of stats in podcasting, and that's hard to do in audio because it doesn't trigger the theater.

The mind.

The mind is like, wait, how many commas is that?

Wait, Then it gets kind of.

So I like that when anytime you did something with a lot of details, you had a little bit of a.

Either a musical interlude or something to kind of just let the brain kind of sink into what I just absorbed and kind of give it a brain break before you come back in with some sort of.

And here's another thing that they did this and where are they now?

And things like that.

And so here we're picking this up.

This is now the end of the show, and we'll hear how you kind of sign off.

Well, we've answered two of the three main questions we cover in each episode.

So that wraps up episode three of the Compliance Times.

A deep dive into anti Money laundering.

One case at a time where we took a deep dive into Operation Fashion Police when a coalition of 1,000 federal and local law enforcement agents cracked down on LA Fashion District businesses suspected of laundering millions in drug money and ransom money for international drug lords via the black market peso exchange scheme.

Head over to the bonus episode for question three where we'll look at this case through an AML compliance lens to determine what we as financial crimes compliance professionals can do to mitigate the risks of money laundering that are raised in this case study.

Thanks for tuning in today and special thanks to the those of you who've reached out to us on our website or followed us on social media.

We love hearing from you.

We've got more in store.

So if you like what we're doing, let us know by subscribing to the show, leaving us a review on itunes and or by dropping us a note through our website at.

Again, that's.

And I'm going to say because you're giggling too, this is 2020, right?

Yes.

Maybe back then we threw in the whole HTTPs.

We don't do that anymore.

But that's fine.

Stay connected with us on Twitter @tctaml.

Again, that's tctaml.

I'm your host Davreen Dixon and until our next deep dive, continue fighting the good fight of anti money laundering compliance and I'll catch you in the next episode.

So okay, the end wrap up was and I, I noticed when you filled out the form for this show, you said one of the goals, if possible was to monetize.

Yes.

And so what are your how do you any thoughts on how you're going to monetize?

Well, I know the most common way is through sponsorship from folks either that are in the industry or if there's, you know, some sort of true crime organization that would, you know, be willing to sponsor the show, that sort of thing.

Beyond that, just, you know, donations through Patreon and other type similar websites, that kind of thing.

So I was going to ask perspective on that, you know.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if there's any kind of product that, you know, investigators use or anything because if you're like, you know, if I had a product specifically for, you know, officers or firemen or whoever, you know, there's got to be something that like this is made for the fire department.

If there's something made for people that do, maybe it's some cool computer software.

I don't know that that company's trying to get to people that do your job, reach out and you go, hey, I got it.

Like I don't have a million of them, but I got a big group of them over here.

And if you're trying to reach them, you Know, we can talk about that.

So that would be one.

Do you ever do any kind of consulting on this topic?

Not at the moment.

I do not.

That was, that was an angle that I feel that if once I get enough of these episodes out more consistently now that we're relaunching, that's something that I would be interested in doing.

Yeah.

Because that, that by far is the most profitable.

Any, any selling of your own stuff is number one, probably going to be the most successful and the most profitable.

Because I always say if I sell the book behind me, I make $12 profit.

But if I have an advertiser that is, you know, $5 per 1,000 downloads, I'd have to sell, I'd have to get like 2,400 downloads.

And I'm like, what's easier to do?

Get 2,400 downloads or sell one book?

And so when you have your own stuff, you know, it can be a lot more profitable that way.

I'm not that I'm anti ad, I'm just like, hey, here's some facts.

Which one's easier?

And a lot of times the ads aren't relevant to, you know, it's like, oh, here we go.

Another better help commercial.

Just needed, you know, I don't need a mattress.

Yeah.

So, but that's something you can do to just to think about because you're right.

There's, there's Patreon, there's donations, there's.

If there's any kind of products that those, that people in your field use, you might look into seeing if there's any kind of affiliate program, even if they, if they don't want to sponsor sometimes, especially if there's something you use in the field, you know, go to their website if they have one, see if there's usually to say like affiliate or partner.

And the beauty of that is you can kind of treat that like a sponsor and say, hey, I love mine when I use this with this thing, blah, blah, blah.

And then you just put a link on the website, links are in the show notes, you know, blah, blah, blah.

I had one where it was.

I was doing a weight loss show for a while and I found this app that I really liked and it was cheaper and better than MyFitnessPal, which everybody knew.

And I think I made a whopping $80 if somebody signed up for the app.

But I had a decent sized audience and enough people that were like, I'd say like, look, you can try for two weeks free.

And if they stuck around and I wasn't gonna retire on the money, but I was making a couple hundred bucks a month and I'm like, all right, well, that's better than a poke in the eye.

It's paying for my hosting and such.

So the other thing we always like to do is take a quick peek at your website.

So this is where the screen's going to get weird for a second.

Yep.

And so the thing I like about it, it's really, you've got a lot of like, it's not cluttered like you get here.

You've got the top.

I know exactly what this is about.

Right.

You would say right there.

A deep dive into anti money laundering.

The only thing I hate about this, and I don't really hate it, I hate the fact that deep dive has been confiscated by AI.

I don't know if you've ever noticed, if you go into ChatGPT or something, it's always like, oh, we're going to do a deep dive.

And I'm like, hey, that's not fair.

Davreen was doing this way before it was AI.

That's not fair.

That's pretty common.

Yeah, it's pretty phrase.

Yeah.

The other thing you might look into this is the bonus episode.

But you're.

Your show notes are, are great for the app.

So you've got, you know, a paragraph explaining what it was and why they should listen and how they're going to benefit.

And you've got links to everything that you mentioned.

The one thing I would fix that I was like, oops.

But again, this show's been on hiatus for a while.

Well, while you were gone, Google podcast has gone away.

So I would, I would remove that, maybe replace it with.

And really, it's weird.

Number three isn't super obvious.

It could be overcast or maybe pocket cast.

A lot of people will put Iheart not because it's number three, but because it looks cool.

Like, look at me, I'm on Iheart or Amazon sometimes.

But I would definitely lose Google podcasts just because when you click on that.

In fact, what happens when you click on that?

What happens when you click on that?

Yeah, it just says this is.

So you're kind of sending them down a, you know, a dead end street there.

So but if you wanted to, some of those stats you talked about, this is where you could put them because Google loves good words.

And so what happens is when you kind of expand on this a bit, that's going to help you get found in Google.

And then when they're like, oh, cool, there's a podcast.

I can click here and listen to it.

Then they sit there and listen to it.

So now your time on site goes up.

That's another stat that can also boost your SEO.

So that's something you can kind of do just to get people to find your show.

I love the fact that when you click on an episode that these are here and you make it really easy to follow the show, you might think about adding just another page over here.

Just with Apple and Spotify and Overcast and Pocket Cast.

Those are like the top four.

Okay.

Just so when people come here, you know, it's like, hey, let's do this.

The about me and the podcast.

I thought, I like the fact you combine these because again, you have a very extensive background and you, you know all sorts of case Western law school and you know, you're, you know, you are an official big shot smarty pants.

I don't know if you know that that should just put that on your business card.

But.

And then I love the fact that you have those three questions down here that are explaining this is kind of what you're getting the podcast.

So.

And then you've got a contact button.

So the only thing for me that's kind of missing would be a follow page.

Just because that's, that's kind of the holy grail of podcasting.

We want people to follow and if you want people to donate, we need a donate option here somehow.

But other than that, it's so many times I see things and they're just cluttered with tons of stuff and I'm like, this is kind of the opposite.

It's nice and neat and clean.

It's just, I just think to me, I'm like, yeah, we could use a little more in the show note area.

But other than that, in the Google podcast thing.

Yeah, I was like, yeah, but if you have, yeah, if you have Google and Spotify, you've got about 80% of the market at that point.

So.

But other than that.

And we were both giggling.

You don't have to say HTTPs anymore.

I forget what I said the other day and I said something like www.

And they're like, are you a boomer?

And I'm like, no, I'm too young.

Just barely missed the cutoff.

But I'm like, okay.

Because when you say www, I'm like, I know, it's old habit.

It's hard to aging ourselves or dating ourselves.

Yeah, that's it.

Any questions for me?

Wow.

I think, well, just to clarify, on the show notes piece, you Mentioned how to optimize that.

You said mentioning specific numbers and things.

Well, you'd had of like.

Let me go back to.

Because on the.

Let me go back to.

That was episode two, I think.

No, episode yes.

Three.

Deep dive into Operation Fashion Police.

So you have here, you know, Operation Fashion Police.

So that's good if people look into that.

But all the stuff about, you know, $120 million and, you know, all.

There was a lot of details.

And sometimes, especially if you're doing a list, which you kind of didn't do in this case, but sometimes, if you like, here are the seven things that happened in this thing, and you're like, number one was this.

And number two, when you get to like, number three, the brain's like, I can't remember all this stuff.

And so having those in the show notes can kind of a just help you get found a little more or just, you know, just anything that just expands on what people might be looking for or things you want them to remember.

I know there are a lot of AI tools.

A lot of times they'll.

They'll just spit out the key takeaways.

So, like, the key takeaways here were, you know, because all these businesses were openly saying, hey, come pay us in cash.

It was kind of just like a big sign that's like, hey, money launderers.

We're money launderer friendly.

Come over here and give us, you know, 3,000, you know, for, you know, 90 days straight, and we'll.

We'll deposit less than $10,000.

And, you know, here are all the things that the key takeaways.

And that's.

Where did you get any feedback?

Because you said you had the.

For me, kind of the payoff is the.

When you separated them, did your audience say anything like yay or nay on that?

You know, I was actually looking at.

And that was actually something I would love to get your.

Your thoughts on, because I was looking at.

I hadn't received any direct feedback on the split, right?

But I was looking on Apple podcasts and it showed.

There was, you know, an unusually large number of followers on there and.

But no specific feedback on, you know, the breakdown of episodes.

But I am.

Posted by Libsync so it seems like the bonus episode was most commonly listened to, which.

And I don't know if.

And I don't.

Honestly, I don't know why that would be unless there were a lot of folks in my industry who were listening to it before they were listening to the actual episode.

But it seemed as if And I can go back to confirm that it seemed that the.

The bonus episode had higher numbers in terms of listens than the Operation Fashion Police.

Was this the last episode before you took a break?

Yes.

That's gonna.

That's gonna kind of skew that number.

Because what happens is the latest episode is the.

You know, it's the latest episode.

So when somebody goes and they follow the show, the very first thing they have to click on is the latest episode.

So sometimes it will.

Yeah, it's always kind of weird because if you take a break and you're like, wow, I had, you know, 220 people listen to this episode, and then you put out a new one, you're like, why am I back to 42?

And it's because people have been banging on that latest episode for 2 years while you were gone or whatever.

So it can be kind of disheartening when you go back.

You're like, wait, what?

When the last one was this much, why isn't this one that much?

So that much.

That's a good point.

That's a good point.

I mean, and I did try to.

I think my way of trying to avoid that or just to let people know that, hey, this is a bonus episode if you want to listen to the.

The companion episode, essentially, you know, listen to the Operation Fashion Police episode three.

Yeah, well, you did.

You did a good job of explaining that up front, which is great.

So that if somebody's tuning in, like, I'm waiting for question number three to get answered, well, then they know.

Okay, skip this one and just go to the, you know, go over and get what you need for.

For that.

So.

So that makes sense, though, what you've explained.

But if.

If I think the only other question at the moment I can think of is just making sure that I'm interpreting these Apple podcast analytics correctly.

Yeah.

When I log in, you know what tells me that there are.

The number of followers are 691 as of earlier this week.

Nice.

And I'm very surprised by that because I'm like, I'm only like a handful of episodes and.

Or there are followers, I guess.

Followers, subscribers.

Same thing, right?

Same thing.

So is it possible that those are skewed by bots or.

Or anything that, you know, not as.

Much as other platforms.

Because with Apple, you have to kind of have an Apple account to kind of do that.

So.

Yeah.

So it shouldn't be as much.

You know what?

I need to double check on that because I know.

Okay, I'll have to go in and like, log out of my Apple account and see if I can follow somebody.

Because I'm sitting there thinking about it and I'm like, because usually when you follow something, then you can go in in Apple podcast and you can make your playlists and all the other fun stuff, but that needs a login.

And I know with Apple, in fact, they used to get a lot of kind of slack because you had to put in a credit card just to have an Apple account, just to submit your show.

And people are like, but it's free.

Why do I need my credit card?

And they're like, so that later if you want to buy an Apple product, well, gosh, you don't have to do that anymore.

And they've just made it that much easier to buy Apple stuff.

Exactly.

But no, I think those are legit people.

So.

Okay.

I just.

Okay, I had to ask because I was pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, well, the thing you want to go in is you can go on, or I think it's analytics, okay.

And click on an episode and this is where it hurts.

You can go in and click on an episode and it will show you how far people listen, which at times can be painful because they, first of all, they're going to drop off at the very beginning, especially if you have a lot of followers, because they've heard the intro before, they know what the show is, they know what it's about.

So they're just going to hit skip skip a couple times to get to the meat and potatoes and then it'll be cool and they'll be along and then they just start to, you know, whatever happened, they had to get out at the dentist or whatever and it just starts slowly going down.

But what's interesting is as much as we're, you know, everybody now is screaming about YouTube.

My best completion rate on one show, I took the same content, put it as video, as audio.

My best completion rate on YouTube was 34%.

My worst completion rate on Apple Podcast was 74.

So yeah, so I'm always like, nothing against YouTube, but I'm like.

Because it's a different audience.

But I was like, if you really want people to consume your stuff, people just seem to do it more on audio than video.

Right.

To take road trips and things, you know, or as an example, you know.

But you can go in and see.

It's funny because I do kind of a mid roll advertisement for the school of podcasting and I can see right where that is because everything's kind of going cool and then all of a Sudden, just this little.

This little dip.

And then it comes back up after the ad's over, and that's just people clicking.

Like, I don't need to hear Dave say the same thing again about the stupid school of podcasting.

So they skip it.

So, yeah.

But, yeah, you can also do that in Spotify.

You can see how far people listen.

Spotify is interesting because it'll give you demographics, so you can see what percentage is female and male.

Because you have to listen in Spotify and make playlists.

You have to have a Spotify account.

And when you create a Spotify account, you have to give them your age and such.

And so that's the only place you can get any kind of demographic data.

The other thing you might want look into is.

And we all go, oh, yeah, we should do that.

And then we never do.

But come up with some sort of audience survey.

Do you have any kind of newsletter or anything where you could contact people?

Not at the moment.

I was thinking about doing some sort of, like, a Google Forms thing that I can include perhaps on my website for people to fill out, encourage people to go there to fill it out.

Would that work?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I used Google Forms forever.

There's a great book called the Audience is A Little Guide to Building a Big Podcast by Tom Webster.

And Tom has been measuring audio audiences, going back to Howard Stern and radio for decades.

And this book, I told him, I was like, you should have named the book you, Baby is Ugly.

But he just kind of points out in a very fun, entertaining way that, like, hey, that doesn't make any sense when you do that.

And he has really creative ways of asking things.

Like, if there was one thing you would take out of the podcast, what would you take out?

And he goes, really?

What you're asking is, is it too long?

And he's like, because if they go, I wouldn't take out anything, then it's fine.

He goes, but I'd lose the question of the month.

Get that out of there.

But if you also say, if you were to add something to it, would you add anything?

There are just different ways to ask, like, is this too long or is it too short?

And it's just.

And he's a pretty funny guy, so it's pretty entertaining.

So if you're like, I don't know how to make an audience survey, that's.

That's a good one.

Yeah, it's a good read.

So, any other questions?

Wow.

Well, I guess.

What are your thoughts about splitting the episodes versus just having one 30 minute episode where, you know, I answer all three questions.

Yeah, I would, I would not split them.

That's me.

Because here's the thing, it's kind of interesting, especially when you have a case like this with so much to it making.

First of all, if it needs to be, normally it's 30 minutes, but with all this extra stuff, it's going to be 45.

I subscribe.

There's a radio guru named Valerie Geller and she has one of my favorite quotes.

She said, there is no such thing as too long, only too boring.

And I'm like, you know what?

Because I've listened to five minute podcasts that felt like an hour and I've listened to an hour long podcast that felt like five minutes because they were just, you know, they kept things moving and held your attention and things like that.

So when people go, how long should my podcast be?

I'm like, how long can you hold their attention?

And so, but I found sometimes when I do speakings, like I'll have a, a pre written speech and it's supposed to be 40 minutes and they're like, oh, it's 20.

And you're like, oh, I got to cut this in half.

It's actually you end up, I think with a better presentation because you have to figure out what am I really trying to say here.

So if you're trying to keep it around the same time frame, then you're like, maybe we don't need this detail and maybe we can lose this and I'll keep this.

That's kind of the only, I think advantage of having a self proclaimed limit to how long the show is, is you have to figure out, all right, what's not going to stay.

What's the stuff that's not horrible, but it doesn't add to the story and it doesn't move it forward.

It needs to go.

But for me, I was.

And like I say when I listen to it here, I'm like, she told you at the beginning that number three wasn't here, but I somehow that went over my head or something.

And I just know when you got to the end and you're like, go to number three.

I'm like, oh, but I'm right here.

Like, why not?

And I know it's so stupid because I could just click a button and go into number three.

But I was like, oh, let's keep going.

Well, I'm humbled by you saying that, especially given your experience, your experience level in podcasting.

I appreciate that.

That's kind of the CSI version you Know what I mean?

That's kind of the.

Like, how did they.

Now we're going to get into, you know, how they.

They defeated the bad guys.

You know, what.

What caught them and how they did this and that.

And that, to me, is the exciting part.

If you think about a fishing show, right?

If you.

I don't watch fishing on.

I don't fish that much, and I definitely don't watch it on TV.

But if you ever see anything on YouTube, they're not showing the parts where the guys are.

They might show them go, zzz.

And throw it out there, but they're not sitting there watching them reel it in.

They're watching it when it's, you know, they got a fish on the hook.

And so you kind of want to, like, figure out.

There's a great book on storytelling.

It's right behind me called Storyworthy by Matthew Dix.

And this guy is like Yoda for storytelling.

There's a competition in New York called the Moth, and I think he's won the Moth something ridiculous like, 57 times.

And then they have, like, the Moth grand slam where they take all the winners and put them against each other.

And he's won that like 10 or 11 times.

He's just, wow.

So he's the guy.

When I was talking about stakes, that's kind of where that comes from.

He's a master of.

And what he talks about is figuring out what kind of details to keep and what kind of details do we not need to move the story forward.

And even he made a point once.

He said, if you think about it, when you watch Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks, he's like, it's not like Tom Hanks comes on and goes, hey, before we start the movie, I want to remind you that the astronauts had about the technology that you have now in a typical calculator, or if he's doing, you know, save it, Private Ryan.

Hey, before we start the movie, I want to explain what the Germans are doing.

He's like, no.

He goes, because we don't need that backstory.

And a lot of times we want to include all that backstory where we just really need, like, here's what we need to understand the transition that led to this, that led to that, and that whole nine yards.

But.

But that's.

That's the part that's kind of challenged with your show, because part of it is reporting part of.

To where you do want to give all the facts, but you're trying to hold that true crime crowd in, which is just more Interested in the story and the mystery and who did it and what happens next.

So that's the part that's going to be kind of tricky to put together.

No.

Okay.

No, but I mean, these are helpful resources, especially about the storytelling piece of it, because that is important.

And I think that's what grabs, I mean, true crime fans for sure, but even people in the anti financial crime industry.

Matthew Dix makes me.

It's funny because I have the book, but I also have the audio version of this.

And as he says it, you're just like, oh.

And it sounds like you can just paint by numbers the world's best kind of story.

You're like, oh, I'll do this.

I'll identify the key characters and I'll add some stakes.

And then you go to do it.

And it's just so much harder than it sounds.

It just sounds like.

It just sounds like you're making a stew.

Oh, a little, little steaks, a little this, a little that.

And you're like, wait, that's.

Yeah, so it's.

But it's a really good book and it's great.

It's entertaining, for sure.

He has a story about how he was in a bad car wreck, flew through the windshield, ripped off his jaw and died.

He was on the street and he died.

And they obviously brought him back.

And everybody's like, you should talk.

That's like, that's your best story.

And he goes, actually, that story doesn't work.

And they're like, what?

And he goes, can you go to somebody and go, hey, remember that time when you went through a windshield and died?

And most people go, no, I've never done that.

He's like, exactly.

And so what he did was in the story, talks about how he was a manager at a McDonald's and he said, hey, can you call my job and let them know I'm not coming into work tonight because I've just been pulled back from the dead.

And so.

Oh my goodness.

So the.

Whoever the ambulance or whatever called the McDonald's and everybody's like, holy cow.

Matt's been in this horrible accident and all of his friends came and the tear jerking part is his parents, who are not going to win parents of the year, who are more worried about the car.

And so he's getting ready to go into surgery alone and his friends come in at the last minute and they're teenagers, so they're waving at him and the guys are making lewd jokes or whatever.

And he's like.

He goes, so nobody can resonate with dying and going through a windshield.

He goes, but everybody can resonate with feeling alone.

And sometimes your family isn't really your family.

And I was like, oh.

So it's just one of the things where he's kind of like I said, he just thinks about stuff in a way that I'm like.

And he just does it so naturally.

I'm like, I don't know if there's some weird gene he has or what, but he just makes it sound so easy.

But he's a good guy.

That's why I recommend that book more than any book I've read in a long time.

It's really, really good.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And if you want to check out her show again, it's the Compliance Times, a deep dive into anti money laundering.

One case at a time.

Go over to thecompliancetimes.com Everen thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Dave.

I appreciate your feedback and your time.

Thanks so much.

And you can find her again@thecompliancetimes.com I'll have links to everything out in the show notes.

And of course, the seat is now open for someone to come in and find out what they're doing.

Right.

So they can do more of that and find out those things that maybe need a little bit of polish.

Check us out podcast hot seat.com I'm Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting.com I help podcasters.

It's what I do.

And I can't wait to see what we're gonna do together.