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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Staff Ordered to Stop Work; U.S. Spy Plane Surveillance Flights Surge Near Border; Ex- Scammer Says He Helped Find Culprits Behind $850K Brad Pitt Scam. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired February 10, 2025 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Turmoil today for America's chief financial watchdog. The acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Russell Vought, has told workers to, quote, stand down from performing any work tasks. Big picture, there's currently no federal regulators safeguarding Americans' money from unfair banking practices.

And right now, it's unclear when the agency's work will resume and if it will resume. Officials said Sunday that the headquarters here in Washington are closed this week. Joining us now is the former director of the CFPB, Rohit Chopra.

He was removed from his post by President Trump earlier this month. And Rohit, thank you so much for being with us. As you watch what the Trump administration is doing here, why do you think they're doing it?

ROHIT CHOPRA, FORMER DIRECTOR, CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU: Well, I don't know. I mean, we need to protect people from some of the biggest powerful corporations in America. And over the past few years, we took action so they would forfeit billions of dollars from people that they cheated, companies like Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and more.

And the truth is, people are really worried about high credit card interest rates, how they're going to pay their mortgage. We don't want to see their pocket picked. And by telling people the investigations are over, no more oversight, it just feels like a free pass to some of these big corporations to do whatever they please.

KEILAR: There are partisan differences historically. And CFPB is pretty new. But there are differences of what CFPB's role should be, opinions on the agency.

Why is this different than just that?

CHOPRA: Well, you know, I would say that there isn't so much partisan difference. When you look at the actual work, medical bills, junk fees, protecting our personal data, it really enjoys broad support. The only place it's controversial is in Washington, and especially with the lobbyists representing Wall Street and these big companies. So, you know, here's what's different. This is in some ways a defund the police movement that they're pushing when it comes to big corporations. The CFPB is one of the only agencies that is overseeing these very large financial institutions.

And increasingly, big tech giants are wanting to control the flow of money and payments. And they too have been potentially wanting to interfere with the agency's operations as well.

[15:35:00]

KEILAR: So as an example, let's talk about Elon Musk. He tweeted, rip CFPB complete with a tombstone emoji before the DOGE team took control of the CFPB X account, deleted it before Russell Vought even took over at the Bureau. What are his conflicts specifically here? How could he personally profit from this?

CHOPRA: Well, a lot of people are talking about how some of these big tech CEOs and others, if they have the ability to spy and snoop on other competitors, trade secrets, to know new products that are coming out. If they're looking to gather more and more data on us, that could really pose a big conflict. A lot of these tech companies, Facebook, wanted to create its own currency. Google actually sued the CFPB to stop us from looking at their Google Pay business.

So there clearly is a lot at stake here. And these big tech companies seem to not want the CFPB to be looking under the hood.

KEILAR: As you see this, is this legal, the way they're doing this?

CHOPRA: I don't really know what is going on over there. And I don't understand what is motivating it. The CFPB is one of those agencies that is doing exactly what people want.

It was formed to help stop a repeat of the mortgage crisis that we saw in 2008. So I hope that people will see this is an agency that is really about serving people without a political agenda.

KEILAR: We were talking about some of the real life examples of work that the CFPB does that affects people, whether it's junk fees. We were talking about this in the break beforehand. When it comes to military families or veterans, you've targeted pawn lenders, auto lenders with predatory practices, those looking for personal data that they should not be getting.

Talk about some of the real world implications for just general consumers out there for this.

CHOPRA: Well, we saw how there were active duty military families and so many others who lost their home to an illegal foreclosure. There's been companies that have illegally repossessed service members' cars while they were at basic training. So we're really proud of all the work to prosecute those crimes.

And what's really worrisome is more and more companies want to feast on the data about all of us. We know that foreign adversaries of ours are trying to mine data about military families and those involved in intelligence services. The CFPB has been aggressive on trying to make sure that data brokers and other companies who assemble data about us, that there's some accountability and they need that accountability and oversight. Otherwise it's open season on our most sensitive data.

KEILAR: Rohit Chopra, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Pretty soon pennies could be harder to come by. President Trump says he is ordering the U.S. Mint to stop production. He says it will help save costs. And he may be right. Right now it takes more than three cents to produce a single penny.

But there's a catch here. There might be a hiccup to his plan. Without the penny, more nickels may have to go into circulation and they're actually more expensive than pennies. Those five cent nickels cost over 13 cents, almost 14 cents to make each one.

The U.S. Mint says that during the 2024 fiscal year, they pumped out 3.2 billion pennies and just 202 million nickels. To meet demand from retailers, the Mint would probably need to print an additional 850,000 nickels, which would then wipe out the savings of eliminating the penny and actually wind up costing the United States $78 million more.

Still, some argue it may be time to put the penny out to pasture. The National Association of Convenience Stores says that eliminating pennies could actually speed up transaction times. As an example, Canada actually stopped using their pennies back in 2013.

If President Trump wants to do the same, that would take an act of Congress. We'll have to wait and see if ditching the penny is going to be a priority on Capitol Hill.

Still plenty more news to come on NEWS CENTRAL. Coming up, hunting for intel on Mexican drug cartels. Find out how the United States military is stepping up the use of spy planes along the southern border. We'll be right back.

[15:40:00]

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KEILAR: Sources tell CNN there has been a surge of U.S. spy plane surveillance near the southern border here in the last two weeks. A sign that the Trump administration is willing to shift finite resources, typically dedicated to overseas threats like Russia or China to the U.S. Mexico border and focus on drug cartels.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis is here with details on this. Katie, what are you learning about this increased surveillance at the border?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Brianna, let's talk about the scope of this plus up here. In the past, U.S. military might fly maybe one surveillance flight along the southwestern border, maybe one a month. What we have seen is at least 18 flights that we know of in just a 10-day period, starting at the end of January, all across the southwest United States in U.S. airspace, and then in international airspace looping around the Baja Peninsula.

[15:45:04]

And as you mentioned, these are planes that are usually used by Pentagon leaders to do things like hunt Russian and Chinese submarines or to check out what's going on in the war in Ukraine. These are finite resources that the Defense Department has.

And so this plus up really gives you a sense of the degree to which the Trump administration is willing to shift finite national security resources away from overseas threats and towards the national emergency that President Trump has declared on the southern border.

KEILAR: I mean, if you're talking about once a month to 18 and 10 days, if they continue at that pace, you're looking at them increasing this by a factor of like 50 or 60. So what are your sources telling you about what they are digging for here?

LILLIS: Yes. So there's three different kinds of planes that they're using here. And taken together, they can do things like take pictures. They can collect what's known as imagery. They can collect signals intelligence to include potentially communications between cartel members on the ground.

Even though these planes are all flying in U.S. and international airspace, they're all capable of effectively seeing sideways. They can collect information from deep inside Mexico.

So the big question here is what does the Trump administration want to do with the information that it's gathering here? Is this about building a body of evidence that you might use to place a foreign terrorist designation on a cartel member, for example, or at the far end of spectrum? Is this about potentially developing targets inside Mexico for the United States military to strike directly as we've seen President Trump indicate that he has some interest in doing?

KEILAR: Really interesting. All right, Katie Bo, we know that you will continue to work this story. Thank you for the reporting.

A man says he tracked down the scammers that used these fake AI generated images of Brad Pitt to con a woman out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. How he caught them next.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: So this shocking story of a French woman being swindled out of $850,000 by fraudsters, posing as Brad Pitt, made international headlines. The scammers used these fake AI images to convince the woman she was dating the megastar.

And now a reformed scammer is revealing how he says he tracked down the people behind the hoax. He spoke with CNN's Saskia Vandoorn about how he now uses his skills for good.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

A.I.-GENERATED FAKE BRAD PITT: I shared everything with you.

SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN SENIOR FIELD PRODUCER (voice-over): This AI generated fake Brad Pitt swindled a 53-year old French woman named Anne out of $850,000 in a scam that would become a viral sensation.

Meet the man who says he found the scammers behind the elaborate hoax.

MARWAN OUARAB, FOUNDER, FINDMYSCAMMER: I learned all my skills in the dark side.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Marwan Ouarab is a now reformed scammer who not only helps victims get their money back but helps track down the bad guys.

To catch our scammers, he emailed them a booby trapped link.

OUARAB (through translated text): By clicking on it, he revealed to us his exact GPS coordinates.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Marwan says it was not one but three people behind the fake account.

OUARAB (through translated text): This is the house.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Prosecutors have since opened an investigation and are using the information Marwan collected to bring Anne's scammers to justice. But tracking down online criminals comes at a cost.

VANDOORNE: Have you ever received threats?

OUARAB (through translated text): Yes, we've already received threats. I've already moved house, so it's part of daily life.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Marwan started his company FindMyScammer, four years after he was convicted of fraud and handed a suspended prison sentence. Since then, he says he has been inundated with cries for help. On a normal day, he receives up to 150 requests.

According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, over $1 trillion was lost to scams globally in 2024. And yet, 70 percent of victims didn't report the crime.

OUARAB (through translated text): It's the girl who was in contact with me, the so-called Zara.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Zara is a fake persona who stole both Luca's heart and $70,000. He's another scam victim who has been helped by Marwan and wishes to remain anonymous.

"LUCA", SCAM VICTIM (through translated text): I don't want to do an interview with the face uncovered because I saw what Anne went through in the case of the fake Brad Pitt, the cyber bullying she suffered. And I don't want to go through that too.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Scammers rely on this shame, so victims don't come forward.

Anne tried to take her own life after being ridiculed online.

"LUCA" (through translated text): The whole world makes you feel like you are stupid. I don't want that. Marwan conducted his investigation so we were able to find out that this girl, in the end, she was not in London as she said she was. She was in Dubai, and after that, he was able to get in touch with the authorities in Dubai.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): He says she was then arrested.

After Marwan helps track down his clients' scammers, he also helps them go over their banks obligations to reclaim their stolen funds.

"LUCA" (through translated text): I was able to recover some money.

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Marwan says if someone you haven't met in real life asks you for money, even if you've been talking to them for months or years, then that's a big red flag.

OUARAB (through translated text): I've been a crook myself before. I very much regret it. I think that this is also the path of redemption that I have chosen.

[15:55:03]

VANDOORNE (voice-over): Saskya Vandoorne, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: A really eye-opening piece. Our thanks to Saskya for that report.

Coming up, you know the saying, it's so ugly it's cute. Look at this guy, you think so? We'll discuss in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Well, it's possibly a scientific first. Some hope it's the last because researchers are like, so cute. Yes, researchers in the Canary Islands have captured this guy. What they say are the first images of an adult black sea devil anglerfish alive near the ocean surface.

[16:00:02]

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's also known as a "Black Demon." And this intimidating fish is usually found thousands of feet below the surface where light isn't even visible. Scientists who spotted the Black Demon posted images on Instagram saying they didn't know why it was in such shallow waters. Could be because of illness and upstream. It could have been fleeing a predator.

You'd hate to see the predator. I have another theory.

KEILAR: What's that?

SANCHEZ: It's actually a resident of Philadelphia and it was coming out to celebrate the Super Bowl.

KEILAR: No, do you know who is though? Jake Tapper. "THE LEAD" starts right now.

END