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Romance scam victim faces 29 years in prison

Midjourney

Jean lives in the Midwest. She’s smart. She’s done well for herself. The kind of woman you’d think could spot a scam a mile away. Btw, that’s not her picture. It’s what I envision her looking like after talking to her.

But this fraud blindsided her, and four years later, it’s still haunting her.

It started with a man online

She was lonely. He was charming, attentive and said all the right things. Jean, like so many others, was pulled in by the connection. When he asked for help moving some money, she said yes, thinking she was doing a favor for someone she cared about.

Then came the big ask: Could she help him turn a pile of cash into Bitcoin?

It was urgent, complicated and she was the only one he could trust. Over time, Jean moved $300,000 in cash to Bitcoin for him. She didn’t know it, but she had just become a money mule in a massive scam.

The fallout was catastrophic

The Secret Service raided her home. She’s now under indictment for money laundering, facing 29 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines. She lost $200,000 of her own money to the scammer and has spent another $250,000 in legal fees just trying to stay out of prison.

This wasn’t just a scam

It was a full-blown takedown of her life. Here’s what you need to take away from Jean’s story:

Never send money or move money for someone you’ve never met in real life. Period. If you haven’t shared fries or made awkward eye contact in person, you definitely shouldn’t be sharing routing numbers.

If someone asks you to convert cash into Bitcoin, run. That’s a favorite trick of scammers. Once that crypto’s gone, it’s gone.

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🧠 OpenAI’s new models: The recently released o3 and o4-mini aren’t your typical chatbots. They’re trained to think deeply and come up with their own experiments. So, perfect for science, tech, engineering and math. The kicker? It might cost $20,000 a month!

$7 billion

What Universal’s new theme park in Florida cost to build. This one’s a little different, with fewer roller coasters and more immersive worlds using augmented reality. When it opens in May, you’ll be able to see Harry Potter and How to Train Your Dragon brought to life. The kicker? Entry is $139 (paywall link). Uh, Daniel Radcliffe better greet me at the gate.

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💔 Tinder swindler alert: A Portland woman lost over $40,000 after falling for a scammer she met on the app. They talked for a week before he asked for money, saying he had no family to help, sealing the con with a fake photo of himself in a hospital bed. Tinder’s basically a financial thriller with worse dialogue than a Lifetime movie.

☠️ Windows update gone wild: Microsoft confirmed this week that updates since March have been crashing some Windows 11 devices with a terrifying 0x18B SECURE_KERNEL_ERROR. For those not versed in digital Hogwarts spells, that’s a full stop blue screen of death. And yes, it kicks in right after the update + restart combo. Oof.

$2,100 to $2,300

The price tag of the long-rumored iPhone Fold. That’s well above most foldable phones like the $1,899 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6. And it’s almost triple the cost of a regular $799 iPhone 16. At those prices, it’s also going to fold your bank account, too. You have a couple of years to save up.

🧑‍⚖️ Zuck tried to settle with mucho bucks: Mark Zuckerberg thought he could pay his way out of a government antitrust trial over Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC wanted $30B; Zuckerberg offered $450M and good vibes. The FTC said: lol, no. Meta argues that TikTok is the real threat now, not Instagram.

💔 Melinda Gates dishing about the breakup with Bill: In her new memoir, she says the marriage lacked honesty and trust. Turns out his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein (yep, that one) didn’t help either. Want all the juicy deets? The book’s 30% off right now. The most shocking reveal? She stayed married through Windows Vista.

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🤔 Lyft’s up to something: This is crazy. A Toronto woman took a ride with her roommates and later got a text with a transcript of their private convo from inside the car. She called Lyft, and first they said it was a pilot program. Then Lyft blamed the driver. Now, it’s saying it might’ve been a pocket dial. Next update lets your driver live-tweet your breakup in real time.

🚀 Baby, you’re a satanist: People can be so weird. Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez and four other high-profile women just flew 66.5 miles above Earth in a Blue Origin rocket, crossing the Kármán line, officially entering space during the 11-minute joyride. Conspiracy theorists on X took to declaring the launch a satanic hoax filmed in a Hollywood pool, using green screens and scuba tanks, and that the mission patch is a satanic goat sigil if you squint, flip it and lose your mind.

$328,739.18

The amount raised for an 81-year-old waitress. She told a customer she couldn’t afford to stop working, so a kind stranger posted the story on TikTok. Now Betty’s trading in the diner shift for well-earned rest. Her reaction? “I think I better get a financial adviser!” You and me both, Betty.

🔐 Android got harder to crack: Google’s rolling out a feature that auto-restarts your locked phone if it hasn’t been used in three days. This puts your data into a fully encrypted state, making it tougher for hackers (or law enforcement) to break in with forensic tools. See if you have it: Go to Settings > Security & privacy > System & updates > Google Play system update. You’re welcome.

✈️ No check-in, no boarding pass, no problem: The airline industry is tossing out a 50-year-old ritual: checking in. Under a new plan from the UN’s aviation agency, travelers upload their passport to their phone, show up at the airport and … just walk in. Your face will handle the rest. It’s reportedly rolling out globally in 2–3 years. Somewhere, a procrastinator just cried tears of joy.

64 hours

That’s how long the workweek just got for some Samsung employees in South Korea. The legal limit is actually 52 hours, but the company got special government approval for staff in its chip-making division. Why? To stay ahead of competitors. Hopefully they’re getting overtime pay and unlimited coffee.

🧠 AI’s climbing career ladders: One venture capitalist just said the thing that makes headlines: AI isn’t just “augmenting” workers, it’s replacing them. Victor Lazarte of Benchmark (backers of Uber and Snap) said lawyers and recruiters are first on the chopping block. Somewhere out there, a robot is bingeing caffeine to cram for the LSAT.

🚘 Hertz data breach alert: Hackers probably have your driver’s license, credit cards and Social Security number after breaching one of Hertz’s vendors late last year. No word on how many people are affected. Watch your bank and credit card statements for little charges, say under $10. That’s how hackers test to see what numbers really work.

$34 million

How much funding a new project called Poolhouse got. The folks behind Topgolf are launching luxury social clubs centered around pool. Think food, drinks and tech like augmented reality. The first one should pop up in London in 2026. Can’t wait to pay $28 for fries while getting hustled by a guy in AirPods.

🚲 The Amish are riding e-bikes: In Ohio, the second-largest settlement is using them to zip past horse-drawn buggies and make life easier. But the community’s torn (paywall link). Horsepower? Out. Wattpower? In.