Scammers Targeted His Mom; He Started a Company to Fight Back
Scammers told his mom that they’d kidnapped his sister. Cybersecurity tech expert Patrick Coughlin and his brother took action by co-founding Savi Security.
Episode 64: Beth thought she was answering a call from her daughter. A familiar voice said, “They’ve got me.” What followed was a terrifying, meticulously targeted kidnapping scam — one that used real family details and possibly a cloned voice to nearly convince her to hand over her savings.
Her son, Patrick, a cybersecurity tech expert, turned his shock into action: writing Dark Side of the Boom and co-founding Savi Security. In this conversation, he and Erin outline how AI is supercharging fraud, and what it will take to fight back.
“Everything about that call was fake. But those emotions, those moments, were so real and traumatic for her.” — Patrick Coughlin, Savi Security
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Four Things Patrick Wants You to Remember
#1 The anatomy of a modern scam call. Patrick walks through, moment by moment, how scammers targeted his mother. They used a spoofed caller ID showing her daughter’s name, a voice she believed was her daughter’s, and a threat staged at a Walmart parking lot she knew well. The level of personalization — next-of-kin details, addresses, likely locations — reflects a sophistication once reserved for nation-state and enterprise attacks, now aimed at individual families.
2. AI didn’t create these scams, but it’s supercharging them. Grandparent scams predate artificial intelligence, but voice cloning, automation, and precision targeting have transformed their scale and credibility. He cites research showing that criminal crypto wallets integrated with AI tools processed nine times the volume and generated four times the revenue of their non-AI-enabled counterparts.
3. The infrastructure problem. Telecom networks are built to connect calls, not verify them. Payment rails designed for consumer convenience make it just as easy for scammers to move stolen money across borders in an instant. Meanwhile, law enforcement is drastically under-resourced: He says only about 10% of local police departments have any cyber unit, and the FBI's cyber-capable agents are vastly outnumbered by the volume of daily fraud complaints.
4. Fighting back requires products built for everyday people — not just tech insiders. Patrick argues that consumer cybersecurity has long catered to a narrow demographic. His company, Savi Security, focuses on broader accessibility with products built specifically with people like his mother in mind. Those include Scamwise, a free web-based scam-checking tool, and an app with an in-call feature that gives users a real-time second opinion during a live phone call.
“You’re talking about the greatest transfer of wealth ever happening on an annual basis to criminal regimes with nefarious and malicious intent.” — Patrick Coughlin
Who Is Patrick Coughlin?
Patrick Coughlin spent more than 20 years building teams, products, and companies that protect governments and Fortune 500 enterprises from the most sophisticated cyber threats. He leads Savi Security, where his team built Scamwise, a free tool that gives anyone an instant assessment of a suspicious message. His book, Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijacked the AI Revolution (Fast Company Press, June 2026), exposes the networks behind the global scam epidemic, the psychological tactics they’ve weaponized, and what families and communities can do to fight back.
Episode Chapters
02:33 – A Background in Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity
03:35 – Scammers Target His Mom in a Kidnapping Scam
09:03 – The "Five Families of Fraud," By Region
14:13 – How Scam Money Moves — Payment Rails and Crypto
15:26 – Why Telecoms Can't Verify Calls
17:09 – Chasing Ghosts: Challenges for Law Enforcement
19:33 – Regulations vs. Relationship-Building Across Borders
22:29 – Rethinking Cybersecurity Options for Everyday Families
28:03 – Why We Don't Talk About Scams the Right Way
33:14 – Social Media's Business Incentives
41:15 – Looking Ahead: The "Deepfake Decade"
44:53 – Final Thoughts: What Real Progress Would Look Like
Subscribe to Stolen for straight truth, survivor-centered storytelling, and bold conversations about the scamdemic and the people fighting back. Find Stolen on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and other major podcast platforms.
Sponsors of Stolen
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's models reveal patterns that distinguish the criminal from the legitimate.
Scamnetic is a leader in AI-powered scam detection and prevention, protecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from digital scams. With solutions like KnowScam, IDeveryone, and PayVerify, Scamnetic delivers real-time scam insights, identity verification, and intervention. Restoring trust, reducing losses, and empowering organizations to safeguard customers in an increasingly complex digital world.
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