How Scammers/Intel stole my Gmail Account
Were they motivated by Money, Intel, Intimidation, Israel, or Blackmail?
This article was written for Ray McGovern.
Ray inspired the MICIMATT video (below) and relatively recently discovered that that my video he embedded on his site was broken, as were all my videos, forcing me to setup a new YouTube Channel and redo all my old links. He asked me to writeup the following account so that he could post it to Twitter.
What they stole:
In the fall of 2024, my Google account was taken over in a phishing attack that I fell for. This resulted in me losing access to my:
Gmail,
Google Voice account, and
many of my third-party accounts which used my gmail address to login.
It also resulted in my Google Docs and YouTube videos being taken offline when my stolen account was later disabled due to inactivity.
How it Happened
A series of “con men/intelligence scammers” called me around 5 pm, pretending to be from “Google Trust and Safety”, telling me that someone filed a notice of death for which they wanted to verify that I was actually dead before closing my Gmail account.
I fell for their scheme and gave them private information I shouldn’t have because I thought that the 6 digit 30-second confirmation codes they wanted “to confirm my identity” were only good within the same time window as other password information.
I didn’t realize that Google has a “Recover My Account” tool that acts like a wizard to recover an account can also be used by attackers to steal one. I was able to reverse the transfer of my account once, but they were eventually able to succeed in taking my account, using about 4 different callers over about 24-hours.
Reason I was Targeted: “Anti-Semitism”
The strange thing is that the last caller, who portrayed himself as a manager at Google “Trust and Safety”, explained to me that there were 3 reasons why my account was targeted -- the third reason of which he termed “anti-semitism”. I thought that the “anti-semitism” explanation was strange because while I had heard of anti-semites like the KKK using violence and intimidation against Jews, I never heard of anti-semites filing fraudulent death certificates (and besides, I’m not Jewish).
It was only later that I began to suspect that I was being labelled as an “anti-semite.” I suspect I may have been targeted by pro-Israeli intelligence/scammers because I published articles debunking some of the Israeli Oct 7 Atrocity propaganda, the most notable was a Change.org petition I created calling on the New York Times to retract a story that has been widely debunked in the independent press.
Responses
Separately, 50 Journalism professors have called for an independent review of the Times’s article. My petition called on the Times to:
answer a series of questions or
retract the article.
After I posted the petition, I got a number of phone calls from someone who saw the petition and said he was thankful I posted it. This man said he was Muslim named Ibrahim from Toronto, but he may have been part of an intel process for all I know.
Israel WMR: Weaponized Mass Rape
The Times has not responded to critics, other than to say they stand by their article, and neither have the Israel surrogates that appear on the mainstreams shows. I suspect the Times knows that their article is indefensible and the results of an external review would be devastating — worse than Iraq WMD. [prove me wrong!1]
I regard the New York Times’ “Screams without Words” article as the equivalent of the Times’ articles on Iraq WMD, only this time it will take longer for Israel’s WMR (Weaponized Mass Rape) story to be unmasked for being the leading (and fraudulent) justification for Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Fallout of the Phishing Attack
The fallout for the phishing attack is that I had to:
get a new email account and
try to recover every account that used my original gmail account as a login, as well as
a new phone number, and
a new bank account number.
The attackers tried to steal $500 from my bank account, but I acted quickly enough to get the charge reversed.
One thing I did differently this time is I setup a Yubikey hardware device as the 2-factor device for some of the more important accounts. It is easier to get a backup Yubikey than a backup cell phone. More importantly, I learned to not talk to unsolicited callers, but to ask for a reference code I can use when I call the phone number listed on the company’s website.
Using Blackmail to achieve Impunity
The other aspect of the phishing attack is that it enabled the attacker to gain full access to all my emails and contacts, dating back over a decade. The attacker may only have been motivated by money, but this type of attack could also serve an intelligence function for an ideologically minded attacker, looking to analyze your contacts and identify people you care about that they could blackmail you about. I’ve heard Richard Goldstone retracted his UN report under blackmail pressure (about his daughter?), which fits a pattern of blackmail against many of those in a position to hold Israel accountable in some way. (see above video)
The Jewish “Karen” strategy
Another way impunity is pursued is by adopting a Jewish “Karen” strategy2 which is based on the recent online Karen archetype and weaponizes claims of anti-semitism against anyone who criticizes the state of Israel.
I would welcome those who want to defend the claims made by the New York Times article do so by answering the questions I laid out in my petition.
The “Karen” archetype is shorthand for a woman (or man termed “Ken” or “Kevin”) who weaponizes her privilege by complaining to the authorities for minor or even non-existent reasons. In the case of the “Jewish Karen” archetype, it involves invoking the Holocaust or Jewishness in order to shutdown a discussion that they can’t win on the merits. This tactic of wielding the crimes of WWI shares similarities with Godwin’s law invocation of Hitler.
The “Central Park Karen” story:
There is more to the story of the “Central Park Karen” (Megan Kelly)
What is the personality profile of a Karen? (Dr. Grande)
Anti-social, Narcissistic