Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
The Bonnie and Clyde of Mortgage Fraud | American Greed
20 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What is the story behind Matt Cox and his mortgage fraud?
last time zach and i did a review of the dateline episode that was on me and now we're going to do a review of the american greed episode in this episode of american greed oh he had millions and millions and millions and millions and more millions come on stop i like it i mean i like it but i am that myself i gotta get out of here i gotta leave you know you want to come
The Bonnie and Clyde of mortgage. You asked her if she wanted to come? See that hairline? Yeah. See that hairline? Yes. It's bad. At that point, I really did. I thought, they'll never catch me. In Tampa, Florida, a young man named Matt Cox is making a killing in real estate. He has fast cars, lots of cash, and there's always a pretty woman at his side.
Part of his character was like this mystery man, like this mysterious, like, who is he? James Bond, kind of this. Allison Arnold is new to Tampa. She's recently divorced, struggling to raise a young son. Allison meets Matt Cox... With it, I know. It's horrible. Get on food stamps. But anyway, go ahead. He had a nice place. He had really nice furniture. He was just really well connected.
His friends were all young and successful. I thought the mortgage business was it. Matt Cox is a mortgage broker, real estate rehabber, and overall Renaissance man. He's a talented artist who paints elaborate murals in all his properties. And he's obsessed with stories about con men.
He loved going to the movie theater, and we would go and see movies like the one that I fell in love with that we saw was The Italian Job. To us. And he just loved that movie. I did love that movie. They got away with it. You know, he loved when people got away with it. Don't break my heart. You told me you were through. After this, I am, I swear to you. I love that scene.
Have you ever seen the Italian job?
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Chapter 2: How did Matt Cox's lifestyle attract attention?
God, it's been a long time. He calls his daughter and he's like, I'm in Venice. He says, I'm in Italy, I think. He says, I'm in Italy. And she's like, with your probation officer's permission, right? He's like, yeah, you know, I like the guy. It's just not going to work out. Yeah, we never really got along. Yeah, you know, I like the guy. Yeah, I do. I love that movie. I love Ocean's Eleven.
I, of course, love Catch Me If You Can. I was going to ask you about that one. Oh, Matchstick was great. What about Reservoir Dogs? Yeah, but that's not really a con. That's a bank job. Good point. Heroes in the movies. Matt Cox dreams of doing one big score and then going legit. Here's the plan. He'll assume fake identities, take out multiple mortgage loans on properties he doesn't own.
Did you want to do one big job and get out? Yeah, well, hold on. They're just not starting from the beginning. All I wanted to do was get a million dollars. And, you know, that's not true. But you said it. No, no, they cut this up. Oh. So at one point, it was like, I want to get a million dollars, and then they clip it, and I can disappear.
But I also keep in mind, I already had several million dollars. So it's like, I want to do this one thing, get a million dollars, and they just clip it up. Since we're on the topic of identity theft, have you ever gone online and searched your name and seen how many data brokers have your information available for sale?
These brokers sell your information to spammers, scammers, and anybody that's targeting you. In my day, I had to go out and either survey people, make phone calls, run ads to gather all this type of information, your name, date of
birth email address home address relatives information but all of that is available online through brokers that's why I use aura the sponsor of today's video or automatically shows me the brokers that have my information and have it available for sale and they automatically fill out an opt-out request for me
Cleaning up my information helps reduce the amount of spam that I get and protects me from hackers who could use that information to get access to my social media accounts, my bank accounts and other sensitive information. Recently, AT&T revealed that over 73 million customer records have been released on the dark web.
AT&T is recommending that those affected use stronger passwords, monitor their account activity and consider credit freezes or fraud alerts from credit bureaus. Well, Aura does all this for me. And best of all, I don't have to download several different apps just because a company couldn't keep my data secure. If my information was compromised in the AT&T data breach,
I wouldn't be worried because Aura is always on. It's always protecting me. I value my privacy and yours. All you have to do is go to aura.com slash matt to start your two-week free trial. Also, we're going to leave the link in the description box. I was telling Colby about you in this case. So here's the thing. My plan was get, you know, you get a, not, I didn't want $10 million.
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Chapter 3: What was Matt Cox's plan for his fraudulent activities?
And I'm like, I go, they skipped some. No, yeah, that's not true. But, you know, they're trying to take 10 hours, 10 or 20 hours worth of material and jam it into 45 minutes. You know, I've never seen this, so that's my issue. Right. Well, if there's more.
Open a legitimate business, sell paintings or buy some real estate and rent out apartments or something legit so I didn't have to do anything else. Allison goes to work at Matt Cox's mortgage company, not knowing what. So that wasn't your plan back then. No, no. This is. So they just took part. That part that I said is at the very end. Right. So they took five years later, six years later.
And at the very end, they're like, well, what was your plan? Like you've been on the run. You're this. I'm like, listen, I was just planning on getting like a million dollars, you know, you know, really a few million dollars. And then just go buy apartments, collect the rent, maybe do paintings, be an artist. Like, I don't know. You know, I'm just saying that. So they thought, okay, great.
We can clip that. And that gives us the motive. And then we'll run with that. Because they can't explain all of it. Correct. That's what I'm saying. And they started off in Tampa. That was never your point. No, no, no. In Tampa, it wasn't. It was definitely the development company. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, that's what they do. All right. Let's let them do their thing.
We're going to let them do their thing. That's not the only problem I have with this. In store for her. Just a few weeks later, Cox calls in a favor. When Allison was down on her luck, he helped her out. He rented an apartment for Allison and bought her new furniture.
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Chapter 4: How did Allison Arnold become involved in the mortgage fraud scheme?
Now it's payback time. He's like, Allison, I'm helping you and my investors are helping you so that we have your loyalty, so that you'll do anything for us. I don't know. That's a lie. Yeah, that conversation. How did they get her to say that? His partner in crime. He wants her to assume a fake identity and apply for a mortgage loan. Not once or twice, but seven times with seven different banks.
He's already stolen an identity for her. Right. So that part's true. Is it really? What? Well, I'm sure you didn't say, I need you to do... Oh, no, no. So it wasn't, let's do seven. No. That was what ended up happening. No, no, no, no. What's not true is like, I don't recall having that conversation. Like, you need to be loyal to me. You need to like... I don't recall that conversation.
This is a woman who is going through a divorce. She was desperate to try and get out of... She still has... Because she has no money. She's living with her husband. She's like, I'm living with a guy. I'm trying to get divorced. You know? I, I, I, I'm done. And, and so she's dating me. I'm like, she's dating me staying the night or staying over, having sex and leaving, going back to her husband.
Like I'm not good with that. And not, not only I'm not good with that, but you know, look, she sees that we're making money. She knows that I'm making money. She knows I'm doing fraudulent activities. Um, And she's like, look, I need to make some money. How can I help with what you're doing? Well, you really can't. Does that make sense?
So I've got a system here for you to enter into the system and take a piece when I don't need you. Like I've got a system that's working and we're making hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. The only thing that you could do is I could help you run a con that's maybe different from mine. My scam... was great. I buy a house. I buy a house cheap. I do minor renovations.
I record the value of the house five times as high as I bought it, right? Let's say I buy it for 40 or 50. I get it to appraise for 200. I have a synthetic identity come in and borrow money into the house, make a few payments, let it go into foreclosure. I don't need you for that. I already have the fake buyers. I already have the houses. There's nothing you can do now.
And the great thing about that scam was that once the house was foreclosed on, the bank doesn't realize they've been scammed. So I can do this forever. I don't need you or at least I can do it for as long as I need to pull out that money. And then I just stopped doing it because it's it is semi risky, right? Like who knows what could happen?
Now, I didn't believe that at the time, but I thought it was foolproof practically. But because every time I got caught, I got out of it. But I figure, look, at some point something might go wrong and I don't want to do this forever. I want to take this money, turn it into a development company. So she comes and says, look, how can I make some money helping you? I don't need your help.
So I said, look, here's what we could do. We could just set up a whole nother scam and get like a million dollars, right? And so we'll buy one house in a fake identity's name, refinance it seven times. We'll get about a million dollars. We'll split the million dollars. And then we'll let it go into foreclosure. But the FBI is going to show up. And they're going to look.
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Chapter 5: What motivates the actions of Matt Cox in his crimes?
Greed is the first thing that you think of. But there was more than greed. I think there was a big dose of ego involved in this crime for this particular individual. He's talking about when he went to buy the house, of course. So I'm going to loan you half the value of the house and I get the whole house if you default. Greed. I'm going to go ahead and work that.
Yeah, at like a 13% or 14% interest rate. It's fine. It's fine.
Chapter 6: How does Matt Cox manipulate his identity during his schemes?
That's what he's talking about. He's not talking about what you did. Look at that photo. I saw that. Secret Service Special Agent Andrea Peacock is on the tail of Matt Cox and Rebecca Hawk. I have a story about her. Two of the most wanted financial fugitives. But the Secret Service is never sure where they are or what names they're using.
It was impossible to predict what identity he would use next. has as many as 50 aliases. Joseph Marion Carter, Jr., Philip Daniel Morgan, Corbin Blair Thomas, Matthew Bevan Cox, Gerald Scott Kugno. How is one of your names an alias? Richard Paul Grohoke, Jr., James Franklin Paik. Those are reprints. She didn't actually ever get the original ID from you, did she? Yes, she did. We had all the IDs.
Not all of them. Like some stuff like Gary Sullivan and stuff. Like once that scam's done, I just ditch everything.
Chapter 7: What led to the eventual capture of Matt Cox?
But all of those were kind of active or I had them on me. Oh, so she did recover them. Yeah. Oh, okay. But you said you have a story about, you know, Andrea Peacock. Yes. Okay, so at one point, at some point in time, when they were talking to me, I don't remember if I was in jail or out, you know, they were asking me if I had any, I don't know, I was talking to a detective.
I think I was, anyway, I told them I know where Matt Cox is. No, you did not. I swear to you, I did. I've never heard this. I have never heard this. This is because, keep in mind that you were out. You were out and living in what, Tampa? What are you talking about? When I drove by? No, no. When you saw the article. Dubious. Dubious deals.
Chapter 8: How does Cox justify his actions to the Secret Service?
I was in Hillsborough County Jail. And so he reads this article. I was in Hillsborough County Jail and he passed the, I had a fixation with you before then. Because like, and just to explain, doing my crime, like I was the only one that like would put together schemes. So everybody else was like, oh man, that's brilliant, that's brilliant, that's brilliant, right?
And when I read that article on you, I'm like, that's brilliant. Yeah. Like this guy is brilliant. Automatic fixation. And my mind told me, it's like, oh my God, this is somebody who's probably equal or greater than me in figuring out. I swear to you, that's what, yes. The egos at this table. It's unreal. It's unbelievable. So anyway, and I believe I was out.
At some point, a detective called a phone that I had. And it's all a long story. I don't remember what it was situation. But he's like, um, cause he knew my name at that point. He knew me and I'm, I'm going to have a warrant. I really can't remember the scenario because part of me thinks I called them to find out about something.
And they're like, oh, you know, we're going to arrest you, blah, blah, blah. So then I said, well, you know, what if I have information about Matt Cox? Would you be interested? Dead ass silence. I'll never forget this. And this is only half of the story. Dead silence. What if I have information about Matt Cox? Would you be interested? Nothing.
Then he comes back and goes, of course we'd be interested. Like, I remember looking at the phone like, of course we'd be interested. Wish I had some. That's what I thought. So I said, well, we need to make a deal, right? But he, like, I don't think he believed me. So he said something arrogant and like, okay, fuck you too. It's kind of what happened. But my point behind that is this.
When, at one point when we were arrested, I think my Tara got out. That woman questioned Tara. Okay. And asked her about that. Like, Tara goes on and on. And she can only remember segments. This is when I talked to her. She can only remember segments. But one of the segments she remembered is she said, that woman said that you mentioned that you knew Matt Cox. This is way before we met.
Yeah, yeah. Because we meet in, Zach and I meet in federal prison. And Zach came to me and we were talking. He said, you know, I knew about you before this, right? And I was like, no. He said, I read an article on you. He steals. And I remember reading the article. I remember thinking, I would love to meet this guy. But the only place I would ever meet this guy. No, no, no. I said that in jail.
I'm driving on the highway randomly because we were going back and forth to Atlanta. And I passed something that says Coleman Federal. I told you this. It says Coleman Federal Prison or Complex. I said, I go, that's a federal prison. I said, you know what? That'd be the only place I'd be lucky enough to meet my guys. I said, but I'd have to go to federal prison for that to happen.
Yeah, that's what he said. No one would ever believe. I find that hard to believe, but that actually happened to me. I'm serious. It's a heart attack. You know what's funny? It's like, how do these two hard money lenders know each other? It's just coincidence. Sometimes it's coincidence. It's coincidence. But yes, she, that name, and Tara said she's a total bitch.
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