Hello, and welcome to your weekly dose of the real world, where truth
is stranger than fiction and things are not always as they seem. This job
will take you on a mind bending adventure where the boundaries of reality crumble and
the true depths of human darkness are revealed. And when the line between sanity
and madness starts to fade. That's when sue Gin Park, a talented computer
programmer, gets in touch with me. They call me the Ghost. I'm
an independent dark operative on the dark Web, taking on the mysterious and outrageous
jobs that no one else will or can, and this is one of our
adventures. Take a listen and enjoy, all right, guys. So here
is the request as it was sent in to me. Subject urgent request for
investigation and rescue. Dear Ghost. I hope this message reaches you. My
name is Sue Jin Park, and I'm writing to you with a desperate plea
for help from South Korea. My brother James has gone missing under mysterious circumstances,
and I fear he has fallen victim to a sinister cult. James was
working on an investigative piece uncovering dark connections between the cult and influential figures.
One day he stumbled upon something significant, and since then he has vanished without
a trace. I strongly believe that the cult is behind his disappearance, and
I fear for his life. I have heard of your unparalleled skills and reputation
for dealing with the unknown and the supernatural. And then she specifically names another
woman that I have worked with in the past, and then the request continues.
I beg you please take on this case and help me find my brother.
Time is of the essence and I cannot bear the thought of losing him
forever. I will provide you with any information I've gathered during this investigation.
Whatever it takes, I am willing to do to bring back James safely.
Please, Ghost, I implore you to take on this mission and rescue my
brother from the clutches of this malevolent cult. Lives are at stake and the
world needs your unique abilities to unearth the truth. Thank you for considering my
request. I eagerly await your response, Sincerely, Sue Gin. Now,
after we discuss it, Frankie and I get ready to go to Sole,
South Korea to meet Sue Gin and so to tell you more about how she
got my connection. I'm going to get to that first. So, her
close friend that she mentioned in that request was someone who had encountered a life
threatening supernatural situation. And this friend, who is a renowned journalist, Actually,
she had been investigating a series of unexplained disappearances in this remote region and
she was on the brink of uncovering a disturbing truth when she found herself trapped
by evil forces and then she came to me for help. And so by
being friends with her now Sugin in sort of a similar situation, she has
been referred to me for this job in this situation. So anyway, Frankie
and I go, We get to South Korea, and then we find ourselves
in kind of a modern cafe ready to meet Sujin. And when she gets
there and she's looking pretty anxious, we get our introductions out of the way,
and then we just get to it. She started to explain that her
brother James had disappeared under those troubling circumstances, and the police they just missed
it as just a mere runaway case, actually saying, you know, adults
go missing on purpose all the time, because there are a lot of adults
that really do run away on purpose, and this is what they're sticking to.
But Sugin says she knows better, and she just knew that something here
wasn't right. She tells Frankie and I that her brother worked as a software
engineer at Dinah Tech, a prestigious tech company specializing in cutting edge AI systems
and software solutions for different industries. Their advanced tech in their aim is to
revolutionize data analysis, automation, and decision making processes for their clients. So
this is great cutting edge stuff. While he James was an intelligent and curious
guy who was known for his keen eye for detail, hence him getting his
dream job. Well, Sujin tells us that one day, as he worked
on the company's AI systems, something he regularly does, he began noticing peculiar
patterns in the behavior of some of the top executives and influential figures there.
Reports. You know that they were pulling numbers, they were watching and tracking
along with their own behaviors, they were watching the behaviors of other employees.
So of this led to a little bit of paranoia on James part because he
had no idea then, you know, were they looking into him as well.
Well. After his initial findings, James starts snooping around, you know,
now with intention. He's looking into his colleagues on purpose and a bit
more closely. The odd behavior started to stand out, and then he also
found meeting notes from these meetings that were held late at night in very discreet
locations. These meetings weren't on any formal company records, so what were they.
James also had mentioned a man named Crosswell. He was a leader within
the company and he was looked up to for sure, But lately, James
said that from what he could tell, it seemed like people were becoming more
enamored with the guy. But why would that be. It was creeping him
out, and sure it could just be his paranoia kicking in. But Sue
Jin, she just didn't think so. She thought he was on to something.
There was just too much. On top of everything she had told us
so far. There was also the myth of the yong Wang, the powerful
dragon king. This was a South Korean legend, but James had been talking
about it curiously and he was doing it casually, but he did mention that
there was some connection between Crosswell and the yang Wang. What could it be.
I mean, sue Gin had no idea. She was just telling us
what she knew. He would mumble some stuff, you know, sometimes,
she said, it was almost like he was going a little bit crazy.
But in his mumbling he would be talking about this dragon king. At the
same time he'd talk about Crosswell. And it was all of that craziness that
led her to call me on me. She wasn't comfortable pushing the authorities anymore,
of course, I mean they'd already rushed her off. I mean,
who knows they could even be in on this whole thing which she was considering.
Either way, there was something going on that was not good, and
she was convinced. And at this point, you know, we can see
that sue Gin is starting to get upset even though she's just talking about this.
So we close out our first meet and greet and we set up a
time to get with her later that day over at James's place, and together
we thought we could go through some things and talk about whatever it is we
find there. So hopefully in between these meetings she can you calm herself down
enough to be helpful. So it's about three o'clock later that afternoon that we
make it over to james apartment, all three of us, and as we
stepped into the place, you know, the air it's thick, you know,
with the stuffy stillness, and it's a room that had been untouched for
too long, and places get weird like that. It was kind of like
stepping into a time capsule of James's life just as he left it. Filled
with faded photos and dog eared books. The place was accurately James and intermingling
of ancient lore and cutting edge tech, the stuff he seemed to be into
lately. Frankie, you know, he has this uncanny knack for finding things
sometimes that you can't see right out in front of you. So he starts
going through this stack of papers while Sugen and I, you know, we
start going through James's personal office and here we find countless books on ai,
different notebooks filled with cryptic sketches, and peculiarly a drawing of the Young Wang
legend on his desk. That dragon king, it seemed to stare back at
us as we look down at it. I scanned the room and I notice
an encrypted hard drive that's just tucked away. So you know, all right,
he has a little flare for the melodramatic. As I cracked open the
device, it was clear that we had hit the jackpot. AI algorithms,
classified personnel files, numbers for what looked like, I don't know, offshore
accounts, That's what it looked like. It was a digital Pandora's box,
and we would need to dig deeper, but we would do that back at
the hotel. The last thing that we found that day, we also would
take back to the hotel with us, was a chilling draft document detailing a
plan a psychological warfare, a ticking time bomb of chaos. It looked like
maybe a race against time or maybe a fight for survival. Is this what
caused James to go missing and he was working on this, Well, that's
what we were going to find out. So back at the hotel, we
basically unpack everything that we went through over at James's house. Su Jin was
a bit overwhelmed at that point after we left his place, so we sent
her home and away again. And it's actually better for us this way because
she has a lot of preconceived thoughts and ideas, and we need to dive
into everything without that distracting us. We know that she's very scared for her
brother, but we also need to find out all of what's going on here.
It's not just about James that we can tell. We can already see
by the situation that it wasn't actually James they were after, but they may
have been after a person for something bigger, a bigger cause, James a
part of that cause, or maybe he was in the way. In order
to fully and really stop what's going on here, though, we do need
that whole story. Frank and I end up working all night while the rest
of the team travels to meet us some morning. When the rest of the
team starts to trickle in, they are more than curious about all the information
that we have now spread across the entire place. We get them in and
a bit unpacked. We get them some food and things like that, and
then we start to go over everything. The AI algorithms that we found did,
in fact give us a pretty scary landscape, possibly a very sophisticated web
of AI manipulation, something that is capable of distorting reality somehow for those it's
put upon. We did not quite figure out what James's piece and all of
it was, other than the fact that he was onto something he definitely was.
And although he wasn't diving into everything like some of the other people were,
you know, maybe as a follower, it may have been his involvement
just digging into it all that got him in trouble. That's what we're thinking.
James had stumbled upon this cult that su Jin mentioned. We find it's
called the Cult of the Eye of the Dragon King, and we find its
ultimate ambition to be collecting bodies people and then plunging them into chaos and disorder.
This we felt was James's race against time, the TikTok of the walls
closing in. That was the chaos, this chaos taking over. What he
had been looking at as of late were reports that some leaders in his company
were reviewing and collecting. These reports were documenting the progressively odd behavior that some
of the employees were exhibiting, and it would appear that these reports were basically
cause and effect reports, So they were trying to look at the results of
something that they were putting out there. You know, if they do this,
then this happens. If they do something, the odd behavior increases,
and the loyalty to whoever this crosswell is also seems to increase. Meanwhile,
we absolutely figured out that the mysterious disappearance of James, Sue Jin's brother was
no longer an isolated incident. Somehow his involvement, however minuscule, it had
put him on maybe the cult's radar or Croswell someone's radar. So what were
they really doing that he James was disrupting. It was pretty clear to us
that he had either uncovered something or was about to right, we know that
much. We checked in with Harley to see what else she found about this
myth of the Young Wang, and we get a hold of her and find
out what her research yielded, which was intriguing. And so then let me
break down for you where we're at after some more of our research into things
and that information from Harley. So it would appear that the ancient myth about
the sea dwelling dragon king, because that's what he was in the myth,
it's been adapted by this Eyes of the Dragon cult. Okay, but instead
of ruling the sea, they have focused on controlling people on land. And
here's the kicker, the symbol used by both the myth and the cult.
It's almost identical. That's the connection. Harley goes deep into the history and
discovers that the Eyes of the Dragon was a powerful and secretive organization back in
its heyday in the past, way back there. But somehow it's been resurrected
by certain individuals with a hidden agenda and changed a little bit right, and
it's now on land. And at this point we're thinking the person at the
head of all this is that Croswell. He's not just a leader at Dynattech,
he's also one of the top figures in this newly revived Eyes of the
Dragon cult. This all unfolds for us as we dig deeper. So not
only does he hold significant sway within major South Korean companies right because he is
doing well in the company he's in, he's respected, but he's also half
running this resurrected cult, or maybe he's the only one in charge either ways,
recruiting people, including his colleagues at Dynattack. That's how we figure James
stumbled upon all of this in the first place. Now here's where things take
a dark turn. We found and we were not excited about this at all.
We find that the cult is using sophisticated AI manipulation techniques to target and
recruit individuals, including those that work at Dynattack, right, and it looks
as though they identify vulnerable people with specific psychological profiles, and then they play
on their fears and desires in order to lure them in with promises of enlightenment
and power. The cult, like all cults, then starts to siphon significant
amounts of money from its followers. Of course, it does, exploiting their
vulnerabilities even further, but that's not even the worst part. Harley's investigation into
the reports that James was reviewing reveals that the cult ultimate goal is to take
over people's minds and control them. And you need to understand here that this
is more serious than another kind of cult, right. Yes, I'll cull
to want to sort of take over your thinking and control all your money,
right, But here it's an absolute takeover, meaning total mind control. And
yep, it's the mind control that you are thinking of right now, That
is what I mean. They're taking over. This is a lot more serious
than a brainwashing, which is already completely serious. And we'll get more into
this as I go along here, but just keep this in mind. This
is taking a cult sort of takeover of your mind. A lot further than
it normally would that we're used to hearing about. Here, you have a
situation where a cult is operating right under the nose of a powerful tech company,
using advanced AI technology that most people wouldn't even see or recognize to manipulate
and control people, all under the leadership of someone who's highly respected in the
business world and in his region. It's a dangerous combination that threatens not only
just individuals like James, but potentially if it got completely out of control,
the entire world. I mean that could happen if this was left unchecked.
With his great reputation and the power Croswell has just from his business alone,
I mean, this gives him a giant advantage over anyone else who would be
trying to do something like this. Pretty smart in the position that he's in.
You gotta admit, Frankie, Jagger and Rider work with our tech team
back at home to ensure that we get ourselves set up with all that we
can get over there in South Korea. We need our communication lines fully open
between each other, and we also need to be able to send all the
information that we gather up back to the warehouse to our own servers in real
time so that we don't lose anything here. This could be a very important
job. And while they do that, I dig into how we can gain
access into enemy territory, if you will, I do that with Scarlett and
Harley. We need access to and be able to be on the inside of
Dynatech's systems. Right now, we have let Sugin know that we will take
this job, as you've probably figured out with the team being there and everything,
but it's at this point where we need her help, but we also
kind of need her to stay out of the way. We're starting to get
things set up so that a couple of us or a few of us can
pose as private investigators that are hired by Sujin to help her locate her missing
brother James, and hopefully this will give us access closer into the company and
in closer proximity to some of these possible cult members without ever being really noticed.
And then, as an ad and we've done this before, Scarlett will
get herself hired to fill in for some of those people that are now missing.
As employees at Dynattech, she would be there to help fill in the
blanks and support we work with agencies all the time on this kind of thing,
so I don't need to get into all of that. It's a pretty
easy in Her mission then would be to gather intel from the inside, uncover
what she can observed behaviors, look for motives, things like that, and
she'll also get us linked up with the inside. So with her on their
systems, it's not going to be a problem for her to open up some
doors for us so that we can move about inside their systems without them even
noticing. And then Ryder and I will be the ones that we're set up
as the private detective, so we'll be going in investigating what happened to James
on Sujin's behalf. And this is normal because remember the police shut down their
investigation, so this would be the next step for someone to take. Anyway,
The day of the meeting gets there and Writer and I get prepared for
the delicate task of confronting Dynatech's leaders about James. We know we had to
tread lightly and carefully as Croswell's presence, you know, it seemed to sort
of loom over you, like a shadow, kind of over the whole entire
company. It felt like no matter where you were. You kind of had
to assume that he was somewhere out there just watching you. That's, you
know, the feeling that we got just from reading the reports and doing what
we were doing investigating. We hadn't even met him yet. Anyway. We
get to the conference room and we find ourselves facing a group of high ranking
execs. Their expressions were you know, guarded, and it was evident they
were not thrilled about our inquiry. I mean, no business really wants to
have any investigators doing anything inside their business, and the looks on their faces
were you know, they didn't want to be bothered with us, and they
really didn't care where James was. We get introduced by the executive admin that
set up the meeting. We all exchanged nods and we sit down, but
before we could begin, the door swings open and Crosswell enters the man himself,
completely unannounced. You could see that everyone was surprised, and just his
presence, well, along with his dramatic entrance, it instantly shifted the dynamics
of the room and we could feel the sense of power he carried with him
and put out there onto others. It was serious. I mean, this
guy didn't just walk into a room. He wanted to be the room and
be all of the attention in the room. He looked over at Rider and
I, then out to everyone at the table, and then back to us.
His expression was a mix of both curiosity and suspicion, clearly wondering why
two outsiders were meddling in the company's affairs. You have to remember that this
guy thinks he knows everything, and he thought he had handle on this situation,
and absolutely thought he had to handle on Sue Gin. Her hiring private
detectives would be a big surprise to him, and it would probably upset him.
So not only do we need to protect her later from whatever he plans
on doing about her for what she's done here, but we know that we've
already gone against his wishes just by being there. Rider and I exchange a
brief glance, silently acknowledging the fact that he now knows of our presence,
and he does not look happy. Of course. I mean, we knew
he'd find out about us eventually, but maybe not the exact moment we arrived.
I mean, this guy was really on it. After we're introduced to
crosswell, we start out calm but assertive, Rider initiates the conversation, explaining
the purpose of our meeting and that we have our concerns about the missing employees
overall, but that we're especially interested in James, who very clearly had told
his sister that he was not planning on going anywhere. He was perfectly content
in the life he had. The executives seemed hesitant to share any meaningful details,
offering only vague assurances that the other disappearances they were likely unrelated, and
that then some of them were mumbling between each other that well they heard that
James had planned to take some time off and lighten the load in his life
for a while, That's what they say. Ryder probed deeper, subtly,
pressing for more information. But as we navigated the conversation, it became increasingly
evident that Croswell was keenly observant of our every move. As the meeting progressed,
his demeanor shifted from curiosity to something a lot more calculated, more than
suspicion. He started asking pointed questions, testing our resolve and probing for any
hints of our true intentions. He didn't believe a word of what we were
saying. Ryder maintained her composure though skillfully deflecting Croswell's inquiries while keeping the conversation
on track. I helped dance around the sensitive topics, revealing only what we
absolutely had to without completely blowing our cover, while trying to move away from
things that we didn't want to touch. It was an awkward kind of meeting,
that was for sure. I mean, the atmosphere grew tense as Croswell's
presence seemed to just hang over all of us like this ominous cloud. It
was pretty evident that he held considerable influence within that company, and we knew
we had to tread lightly to avoid causing even more suspicion than he already had.
I mean, don't forget we looked into him also, and the guy
definitely did have major influence in power within the company, his community, and
beyond. Now. As the meeting came to a close, we thanked the
executives for their time, and then they escorted us out of the room.
Croswell lingered behind his gaze, just watching us as we left. It was
just the tip of the iceberg, but we knew that our digging had to
continue and we had to stay one step ahead. Of Croswell if we were
to uncover the truth and save James and anyone else from what was really going
on. Even though the meeting was a bit awkward, we did get some
information out of it, and it bought us some time because the whole time
that we were in there, Scarlett was doing her thing, which was getting
hired by Dynattech as a fill in basically for the employees you know that we're
missing. We knew that they were looking to fill someone for some supportive roles
and things, so she slipped in there no problem with even just the information
that we were getting on that first day, puzzle pieces began to fall into
place. After we were at it for about a week, things were really
starting to make sense. We discovered that the missing employees, including James,
had been systematically targeted and manipulated by the cult. We could confirm that it
was very clear from the data that we gathered and the reporting that they themselves
were collecting. It wasn't just a case of individuals choosing to disappear. They
were drawn into the cult webb, their minds and wills bent to the sinister
purpose of the eyes of the Dragon Cult. Even James, who was completely
against this whole thing. He was drawn in in the very same way.
The reports James had revealed patterns to us, patterns of behavior modification and loyalty
enhancement through AI manipulation. It for sure seemed as though the cult was using
advanced tech to control people's minds and their actions, forcing them to do the
cult's bidding without them even realizing it. We just really had to get in
there and figure out exactly how they were doing this. The reports James had
come across contained a trail of breadcrumbs revealing peculiar patterns that piqued our interest.
These patterns were like a code, a cryptic language, woven into the fabric
of the documents. As we examined them closely, we found their documented instances
of behavior modification and that loyalty enhancement. We found that at least within this
company, those that were a part of this cult were deploying sophisticated AI algorithms
to target specific individuals within Dyna Tech as part of a bigger motive, of
course, but that's at least what they had going on there. They were
very, very meticulously identifying vulnerable people with particular psychological profiles, and that was
phase one, you know, being identified. Then they would go on to
exploit those people's found fears and desires and weaknesses in order to lure them into
the cult's web. But what was even more disturbing was the way the AI
manipulation worked. And I mean we went over this a few times to even
believe it ourselves. We really had to make sure that we knew what we
were looking at. This wasn't like the traditional forms of brainwashing and I've said
that earlier, or mind control we've seen before or ever even heard of.
There were no blatant hypnotic suggestions, no overpowering commands. Instead, the cult's
AI technology worked on a subtler level, delicately nudging individuals thoughts and their actions.
It was as if the AI had a finger on the pulse of their
subconscious minds, gently shaping their decisions and their beliefs, making them loyal followers
without them even realizing it. You know how sometimes people talk about Facebook,
you know, brainwashing everyone, our kids. I mean, this was like
that on Crack. The level of manipulation posed an incredible danger as it eroded
the very essence of free will. People were being unwittingly coerced into serving the
cult's agenda, convinced that they were acting of their own volition. It was
a dangerous dance between technology and human psychology, and the cult was orchestrating it
masterful and mind you, guys, this wasn't a job that I just did.
Okay, So this had already started before all the big and huge hype
of AI that we're hearing, you know that's going on now, Stuff like
this has been going on for a while now. The reports here they hinted
at a complex network of algorithms, like I said, tailored to each target's
personality of life circumstances. It was like a customized psychological warfare, leaving individuals
vulnerable to the cult's whims And that's what we needed to figure out. How
were they executing this so precisely and so discreetly. We knew that dismantling the
cult's influence was required, and it also required an understanding of the intricacies of
their techniques. This was a realm of cutting edge technology, guys, and
delving into it required very precise expertise and focused resourcefulness on our end in order
to get this done. Rider Scarlet and I started out working to uncover the
secrets behind this AI manipulation. We needed to trace the digital footprints of the
algorithms, follow the trail of encrypted codes, and then decipher the methodologies that
we're being employed. But every step that we took it was met with layers
of firewalls and secrecy, and we had to be cautious on our end not
to alert the cult or crosswell to our investigations. We didn't want them to
see us in there. And I mean, think about it, guys,
the digital world is a lot different than breaking in somewhere else, you know,
like we see in movies sometimes or we hear about you from the old
days bank robberies. I mean, it's not like we're trying to crack the
code of a safe and then once we're in it's all great, you know,
we just grabbed the money and go. This is completely different. Any
wrong move within the digital world like this could set off any number of alarms
in any number of forms. There could be traps in different things, so
we have to be aware of every single move, every step of the way,
and also be trying to act on the other end so that we're not
setting off any of those alarms. We need to be aware of both sides
as we move in very delicate process. Takes a lot of concentration, and
it took a lot of time actually, But okay, as we continued our
pursuit, Rider looks deeper into their AI tech that we're finding through them.
Scarlett, she's still on the inside, gathering intel from sources within Dynatech,
looking for info and hidden labs and facilities. Where is the hub of the
AI manipulation, Where is all of that taking place. She's also watching and
observing employees, especially leadership, what they're up to and how they're acting.
But I mean, it was like trying to unravel a spider's web. It
was all very intricate, very sneaky. The more that we learned, the
more apparent it became that the cult's AI capabilities were very advanced. What we
realized is we were there in the nick of time because we were discovering that
Crosswell himself was starting to lose his own grip on reality. The more followers
that he gained and the more powerful his manipulation was through these AI algorithms,
and the more powerful they got, it seemed to feed this growing sense of
invincibility within him. Meaning this guy was starting to drink his own kool aid,
believe his own lies. He was convincing himself that he was, in
fact the modern day incarnation of the legendary Young Wang, the Dragon King,
and that he was destined to reshape the world. In his mind, things
were working perfectly. Digging into his personals, it was easy to see that
this guy saw himself as a savior. I mean, he full on believed
he was deity like at this point, a figure who would guide his devoted
disciples towards a new era of enlightenment. I mean, these are things that
we got straight out of his writings, Guys, and he was clearly losing
his mind, falling deeper into a complete state of delusion, his descent into
total madness. It was very clear to us the guy was very smart,
in fact, he was brilliant, but he was no longer thinking in that
way. All of his thoughts they were now clouded by these delusions that he
had of his own grandeur. He had already done some damage, and although
we couldn't completely undo all of that, we could try to help route things
back to a better place. And in the meantime, the good timing was
that he was becoming weaker, even though in his own mind he was becoming
stronger. That wasn't the case. Losing your grip on reality. It's never
you know, a great way to become a stronger person or a leader,
for sure. I mean, the guy was going mad. He was completely
obsessed with Yang Wang and the legend, and he believed that he himself had
found a way to harness the Dragon King's ancient powers. And somehow he found
this through the AI capabilities that he was working on. And now he had
turned that into a manipulation, trying to convince others of this same delusion by
controlling their minds. And you know, the sad thing here is that this
is already happening out there, guys. We just don't know it. And
I know you used Facebook as an example earlier, but if you think about
it, in all of the social media, people think, you know,
they're making friends they've never met, or they're hiding out at home in their
basement playing video games and talking with complete strangers, and just think different things
like that. I mean, some of it's okay, do some of it
going too far? We all have to decide for ourselves. But for some
of these people out there, they're actually finding themselves and creating little worlds in
their own minds based on their social interactions, and that is a type of
manipulation of the mind. We just don't think of it that way. But
in order to satisfy certain human needs, there are people out there willing to
be vulnerable enough to fall into that belief because at the end of the day,
like with Crosswell, it just makes them feel better. So in this
way, in Crosswell's mind, he thinks he's actually taking people that are wasting
their lives anyway, and he thinks he's helping them get out of all of
that, giving them purpose, which is to follow him into this spectacular world
that he's created, even though it doesn't even really exist. Crosswell had managed
to intertwine his perverse belief in the ancient legend with his advanced knowledge of artificial
intelligence. He was using AI to craft intricate hyper realistic virtual realities, luring
his victims into these disillusioned realms through the dark Web. The AI was programmed
to subtly suggest and basically implant ideas that gradually would manipulate the victim's thoughts convince
them of their participation in the grandeur of Yang Wang's mythical world. And I
know, right, I realize this sounds completely ridiculous, but any time that
you hear about someone getting recruited into a cult, it always sounds ridiculous.
And if you think it's scary that people can fall prey to a cult the
way that you've heard about it in the past, you should really be afraid
of this new tech because it could happen to you without you even knowing it.
What was actually happening though, here, was that these people were falling
deep into a psychological mess. Okay, they weren't going somewhere wonderful or bettering
their lives. Crosswell was like some kind of wicked puppet master. He was
pulling their mental strings and using AI to orchestrate their actions and beliefs. I
mean, physically they would look fine, but in their minds mentally, they
were lost in his made up and twisted vision of a digital utopia that he
created something in his mind that was perfect, perfect for him, but his
victims, because that's what they were victims. They had no choice. They
were being brought into this land of digital make believe and they didn't even have
a clue. The more these people interacted with Crosswell's AI, the more they
lost touch with their own reality and reality overall. The more he worked on
them, the further they would spiral into the illusion of the Dragon King's powers,
his delusion, and it was becoming apparent to us that he was completely
engulfed in his own delusion. The guy was completely satisfied with what he was
doing and in his mind, he was on his way to greatness. And
I know, talking about AI and manipulation in this way it can be really
confusing. I get it. So let me give you an example of how
this worked. I'm going to take the case of a man named song key
Une. This was one of the cases that we looked into. The heads
had reports on this guy. He had been worked so Crosswells. He first
reached out to this guy via an anonymous message on a fringe forum of the
dark Web. Now, if you consider this guy, this would have been
completely unexpected and out of nowhere. He would have no idea what was going
on. But in the way that it was done, it was successful in
baiting him. In the way that it was done, it promised this guy
a transcendent experience. Remember, for these victims, these targets, they already
Crosswells guys, they would already know they're victims vulnerabilities, They're victims secret desires,
what hurts them, what they longed for, what they yearn for.
This guy song key Yune, he was absolutely intrigued. He ends up clicking
on the embedded link and was immediately plunged into an immersed virtual reality meticulously crafted
by Crosswell's AI. And you know how it is, guys, we are
in that, you know, one click and getting immediately satisfied thing, right,
You want to be able to click and go, click and see,
read, listen, watch all that stuff. So it's something like that.
It's something that is amazing and enticing to you. You know, it shows
up right in front of you. You're not just going to turn away from
it. You probably can't even help it. You're going to click it.
Well, at least most people are, you know, and that might surprise
you, but most people, really, they're not going to turn away.
In the surreal dreamscape then presented to this guy, the AI would then begin
It's subtle psychological manipulation. This guy already had clicked. He was one step
in, so it really wasn't all that hard to get him to go another
step further, and then another step. It told Song that he had been
chosen, and then slowly, step by manipulative step, the guy was sucked
right into the world of the mythical dragon King Yong Wang. I know it
sounds crazy, but you do hear about this stuff. You can't deny it,
and just you know, you might hear about it in a different way,
like you know, people getting scammed out of money, old people,
companies misrepresenting who they are trying to get your money. Well, with AI,
things could get a lot more crazy around here, and with what we
saw in this case, it's just the beginning. Take Song, I mean,
his mundane life seemed insignificant compared to the grand jeur and purpose that was
being offered to him. We always, as humans, we'd prefer to see
the good side of something, something pulling us in the direction of something that
we want. Well, so did this guy. The AI was carefully programmed
to exploit his insecurities and his frustrations, making the virtual world they were presenting
to him and irresistible escape. Day after day, Song Key Une descended deeper
into the psychological maze of Croswell and the Dragon King. Any grip on reality
that he once had was weakening. In the real world, song key Une
would become increasingly distant and withdrawn, his existence, almost ghost like. Meanwhile,
his virtual self was losing himself to the illusion. Participating in false but
vividly real quests. This guy would believe he was on the path to becoming
a dummy god, while unbeknownst to him, he was just getting pulled into
this path, being another pawn in Croswell's game. This guy's mind ensnared into
the allure of this world that existed only within his manipulated consciousness. No one
else would have any idea would he'd even be talking about should he talk about
it? But of course he would be manipulated into not talking about it.
And I mean, that's just one example of what was going on here.
And once someone like song Kyune was in, he'd just be in and that
would be it, and he'd believe everything was great, even though for everyone.
Eventually they will have turned over every single item they own. They will
start working only to pay crosswell in any sort of real life that they were
actually building, it would dissolve and be gone. This is how cults work,
folks. But the difference here was the tactic, the way Crosswell went
about it. I mean, it was pretty genius, but it's also very
dangerous. And the dangerous thing is someone can do this again. But all
right, so how would we go about even beginning to dismantle this? And
then what is going on here? So at this point, we've been at
it for days, and we've collected an exorbitant amount of information that we've had
to go through. We're pretty sleep deprived, and we're pretty mentally drained,
because whenever you're dealing with this kind of thing, there's a lot of code
to go through and a lot of stuff that just sort of rucks you for
a minute. But we do get through it all. After we come together
and go over everything one more final time, we come to the conclusion that
a multifaceted approach will work best. We believe it will actually be crucial in
trying to tackle Crosswell's cult as well as trying to stop him from any further
AI manipulation. To give you guys an idea of our total brain drain,
we wanted to understand how exactly. The AI is targeting the individual securities right
of these people and then exploiting them. This took a lot of time and
we had to go through a lot of code to find the manipulative algorithms that
were being used. We found that the AI system that was specifically programmed for
this cult targets individuals and their online activities, their behavioral patterns, and I
mean, hey, we all have them, and they're all out there online.
Just something to think about. Well, anyway, by infiltrating various digital
patterns, the AI was collecting large amounts of data about a person's online interactions,
you know, their search history, even their private messages. Well,
anyway, it identifies patterns in this data so that it can pinpoint the users
insecurities. Right. For example, a person frequently searching for weight loss methods
could indicate an insecurity about their body image. Pretty easier to figure out,
isn't it. I mean there's a lot of stuff that I mean, anyone
can find out about any of us if they really get into what we look
at. Right. But so once the AI would identify these insecurities, it
starts to exploit them, right, of course, it does. It tailors
the content to the individual and what they need to see online, creating this
echo chamber that reinforces their fears and insecurities. So like in this example,
the AI might start showing articles about how body weight affects social acceptance or introduce
them to online communities that emphasize the importance of body image. In the case
of our investigation, the AI would eventually lead these individuals to the cult,
presenting it as a solution to their perceived problems. This sophisticated level of psychological
manipulation allowed the cult to ensnare numerous unsuspecting victims. It's a lot of work
to get this algorithithm out there and algorithms like this, but once it is,
once they are it's just as easy as all that You run it and
it goes very simple. And then there's the human front, right that would
be we would also have to deal with. I mean, after we're able
to stop all of the other stuff, we still have all the people to
deal with, all the cult members who had been brought into this illusion and
trying to get them drawn back into actual reality. I mean, it's not
going to be something that's easy to do, but it's absolutely essential to all
of this. I mean, we're there to find James, of course,
but even Sugin knows that we also need to uncover what's going on here and
stop what is happening. So this is bigger than just one person. This
part comes after everything, but I need to mention it here because it is
a part of it and we had to consider it in our approach. We'll
have to route these people after they're identified so they can work with therapists who
are experienced in advanced psychological tactics who can deprogram these people and try to reintegrate
them into the real world. And I don't know why I just thought of
this, but I guess it sort of reminds me of it. I mean,
do you guys remember the story of slender Man. That was definitely a
story where people were manipulated. And I realize these were young individuals in the
slender Man's story, but that's how things start, isn't it. That was
a situation where the victims they were even more vulnerable than what we're seeing here.
But it's the same exact thing, just add a little more sophistication to
it, all right, So now you know everything about what we were planning
on doing, but how do we go about executing all of this Well,
we prepaired our counter attack by taking quite a bit of time creating an algorithm
of our own, sort of to deconstruct what Crosswell had built, so that
as he would run his little program, so it would dissolve right before his
eyes if you were looking, which is good and not good. I mean,
it'd be fun to actually see the look on his face, you know,
as things start to fall apart. But we actually don't want him to
be there noticing what we're doing until we get far enough into it all that
he can't stop it. Based on his activities in the office and around this
whole cult issue, we picked the best time of day to intercept the algorithms
he was running on his employees as they started out their day. So,
using our own, very carefully designed algorithm, we sat out on the very
daunting task of taking this thing down, this cult of AI manipulation. Our
approach was kind of like peeling back the layers of an onion, only it
was layers of code and we would have to do it from inside DNA Tech.
We had to wait until the middle of the night, and we needed
to access Croswell's private server room, where Scarlet, while undercover, figured out
the hub of all of this was the guy was using his business office to
actually run this whole thing. That's how powerful he thinks he was. Okay,
she helps us get into all of that, no problem breaking into an
office in the middle of the night. Certainly not rocket science for us.
Not the same story for all that code though, that we had to work
through. Each line of code was kind of like this curving and winding path,
and around every corner was a lovely new surprise. We picked at this
thing every step of the way, so as something you would be set to
happen, we would counteract it. Then it was set to backtrack and basically
eat the stuff in front of it. So it was sort of a stop
and self destruct kind of thing. This algorithm that we had put together and
that we were injecting into what Crosswell was doing. And all of that sounds
great and fast and everything, but just don't forget all that had to happen
to get there. And then there was more because we had to be in
there watching this thing and working on it constantly for it to work. Because
like I said, you have to watch for any sort of alarms that might
go off, or any sort of code that might be sent back to destroy
what we're doing, if it's already in there and built in their program.
So anyway, we have to be with this thing every second of the way,
and in doing that, we inadvertently found ourselves becoming a part of the
very myth that we were trying to take a part here. And this was
not pretty. So not only were we tired and a little bit crazy from
all of this, there was more. Let me give you an example of
just part of what we had to deal with. So Jagger and Harley,
they're deep into some very difficult code and they begin to notice some disturbing parallels
between the AI's behavior and their own interactions. They're starting to notice it in
each other. The AI that they were working with specifically, had been programmed
to predict and adapt to human responses, okay, essentially mirroring them. While
this led to a chilling realization for Harley and Jagger, the more they interacted
with the AI, the more they were intertwining their own identities with the evil
cult creation. They were no longer just observers or manipulators of the AI.
They were becoming goal threads within it. The only reason anyone knew this was
even starting was because Harley made some kind of comment about Jagger's behavior. And
then it took a few of us kind of watching them and observing them to
realize what was going on and we had to stop it. That's how easy
this can happen. It's a stark reminder of the blurred lines between reality and
the made up reality of this psychological attack. Basically, so as we observed
them, Jagger and Harley, they started exhibiting peculiar behavior, Like Jagger started
acting mysterious and elusive for no reason. He was detached, like he would
zone out when Harley would say something, or he'd start mumbling things that no
one could understand. Harley, on the other hand, acted overly excited at
times while they were working, you know, her erratic outbursts and these bursts
of laughter that she was doing. We noticed that they were mirroring the AI's
abrupt fluctuations and data output, So it wasn't hard to start to see the
connection given what we were dealing with. So we had to pull them off
the project for a bit. And then because now you know, we're aware
of what's happening. We knew that each of us, you know, we
could only work on things for a certain amount of time before we had to
shift out. After Harley and Jagger were affected, they even experienced things while
they tried to sleep later, another scary reminder or scary eye opener as it
were, as to how deep this kind of manipulation can go. Even though
this was a digital job, it was just as dangerous as having a threat
standing right in front of you. Almost more scary actually, because it was
inside your mind. You really had to be aware at all times to even
work on this. We had a good handle on it though, or so
we thought. Really, just when we thought we had at all figured out
Croswell's AI flipped the script again. Its response was so fast, so swift
and insidious, that we barely had time to react. Somehow, they or
it figured out that it was being messed with, you know, that we
were in there. This could have been something that was built into it,
or it could have been someone watching all of this. We had no way
of knowing at that time, but either way, we were suddenly getting hit
with a barrage of illusions, things that were distorting our reality. Or our
view of it anyway, And this thing was good. As it started acting
up and we were all gathered around. It was quick and how it sucked
us all in, each of us, I mean we all went in together.
We think the system was more meant to react to a single user,
not really a set of users like our group. So we were all somehow
sucked into this thing all at one time, together at once. And we
would discuss this later. But what happened to all of us was the room
around us seemed to kind of shutter and ripple. The walls were bending like
waves in the ocean. The light got super bright and it started flickering radically,
casting all these weird shadows of and everything. It kind of reminded me
of you like a strobe light or screens in front of us. They were
showing these dreamscapes, and then those images started coming out of the screens and
taking over the room. I look over at Frankie. I mean, we
were all there in some kind of dream state. Well anyway, I looked
at him and he was staring out the window. So I look out and
I see images of souls skylines superimposed with a web of arcane symbols flickering again
in and out of existence, and then we each started seeing scenes from our
own darkest nightmares flashing before our eyes. And that's when things started getting really
messed up, because we all started falling into our own kind of nightmare,
a group in utopia, only then to have each one of us drop off,
one by one into our own version of hell. The AI was turning
our reality into a psychological predicament, and the risk was that it would stick.
It was like it took us all in together only to rip us apart,
pick us apart one at a time, and of course this was all
done on purpose to break us down, make us feel scared and vulnerable.
It felt like you were in a dream, you know, but unable to
wake up. It took every ounce of our collective will to resist the AI's
manipulation as we started to sink, keeping eye contact and trying our hardest to
hold onto what we knew. What was being put on us was fierce.
It was unlike anything from AI in this way that any of us had seen
before. But at the end of the day, we had to at least
try to remind ourselves that this was nothing more than a sophisticated mind game,
because that is exactly what this was when it really got down to it.
This was psychological warfare, and it wasn't pretty. Now more than ever,
we knew this thing had to be stopped. But first we needed out,
and first it was Frankie. Of course, the guy grimaces, he clenches
his teeth, and he does this and concentrates until the symbols of his nightmares
start to fade. He had to mentally replace them with pure determination. And
when he finally started to feel some relief, he turned to the rest of
us, and he was calling out for us to remember while he slowly severed
the final psychological chains that the AI had on him. And I could hear
him calling out to us in my own fog, and I could see him,
but barely, through my own illusion, and I saw Frankie. So
I take this deep breath, very slowly. I was consciously trying to actually
feel the layers that had been put upon me, the pressure and the anxiety
of it all. It was hard to deal with, and I tried my
hardest to listen to Frankie's words. Got a little bit hard to breathe.
My eyes were watering. I mean, I'm squinting towards the guy, but
I heard him call out, you know, to remember, and then somewhere
in my own mind, I remembered what we were really doing there, that
what I was seeing was not real. So I anchored myself completely into Frankie's
gaze, which I could start to see a little more clearly now that he
was straining even more to keep up. And after a little bit, I
could feel my mind starting to reclaim its territory. And then after I was
freed, because that's what it felt like, Frankie and I both then turned
towards everyone else and we worked to pull them out of their nightmares. It
was a thing for sure. When we finally were all out of the AI
induced nightmares, we were exhausted, but we still had work to do.
We still didn't know exactly what it hit us, but there was no time
to figure it out either, not right then. And with that little,
you know, last explosion that this thing put on all of us, we
had to know that we were very close to shutting down the core of this
thing. It was really reacting to us. So I start to take over,
and I mean my mind was set and I'm bopping at this thing like
that bopping of the Squirrel game. You know. I'm punching in defense commands,
one by one, just responding to every little thing that it was throwing
at me. And this went on until the screen went black, and then
this symbol, this thing shows up. It was the dragon symbol, the
Dragon King, the one that started this whole thing. There it was on
the black computer screen in front of me, glowing a deep red. The
team gathered closer around me, and then as we're looking at it, this
symbol starts to melt, you know, I mean it, We're looking at
it, and it appears to be melting right there on the screen. And
then it all just went to black. So was it all over? Well?
No, just as everything plunged into darkness and seemed to go quiet,
that silence was shattered by the heavy metal door behind us slamming open violently.
It was Crosswell. He burst into that room, his face all contorted with
rage. He starts yelling and moving around. But I'm looking at him and
I could see that behind it all, he was also worked up and completely
unsettled. Weed ruffled his feathers for sure, And I mean, you have
to hand it to the guy. I will say he's been completely organized and
actually very brilliant in what he had put together, even though it was a
completely horrible and wrong thing to do, very dangerous, and that's all fine
for him. But what he didn't count on was a room full of us
in all of his glory, that he thought he had the power over everything.
Somehow we were a surprise. It's Crosswell. He has two guys with
him as he enters that room. But you know, we're all standing there
and we're all getting our energy back. We're starting to feel pretty good again,
getting our strength back, and I mean we're getting energized. Just by
the fact that he broke into the room like that. It's sent our adrenaline
through the roof. We're all dressed in black, we have weapons on our
belts, and all kinds of things going on. Absolutely not what he expected,
and that surprise factor definitely worked on our side and in our favor.
Frankie had Crosswell backed against the wall in about two seconds, and as the
rest of us started to move in on the other guys, they just put
their hands up and they stopped their advance. They didn't know who we were,
but we had done enough damage that they knew that they had been caught
and this situation, as they knew it, it was over with the big
guy now pretty much contained, we were able to move a lot quicker and
without things in our way. I eventually make my way to Crosswell's office and
his desk. Now that I knew his system, I was able to bypass
his pretty flimsy personal firewalls, and I got into the dark underbelly of his
operation, a giant maze of planned out AI manipulation that included the basically campus
for Croswell's King Dragon Empire. We would eventually bring in the authorities as that
was needed on this one, and I'm not talking about the police, and
we don't do this on every job, but we brought in the likes of
the National Cyber Investigation Joint Task Force. It's an elite entity that specializes in
tackling cyber enabled operations like this. We also reached out to the International Cyber
Crime Coordination Cell. This is a global team renowned for their work in hunting
down Dark Web syndicates and a manipulation conspiracies. Because they're out there, this
group, their expertise was crucial in navigating the intricate network that Crosswell had spun
in its entirety, unearthing the layers, all of them, of the deceit
and manipulation that lay at the heart of his diabolical empire. In a case
like this, okay, this is a situation that may not really be all
that unique, Like so many of our jobs are. You know, they
happen, no one else is doing it, it's never going to happen again
or not for a very long time. But in this case, it's different,
right, This is we're on the edge of this. The world needs
to be ready and on the defense of things like this. So that is
one thing that made this case very different. In the end, and as
if we were wrapping up a movie, you know, the brothers found and
reunited with his sister, along with many other employees who had been taken to
be a part of King Dragon. The company was temporarily shut down and cleansed
by the authorities, and we sort of just disappeared into the background. There
are certain law enforcement agencies that we work with or partner with on some things
at times, and in those situations, once we hand it off, we
just go off silently. No questions asked from either side, if you know
what I mean. And so it was the city of Seoul, unbeknownst to
most of the people there had been turned into sort of a battlefield of the
mind games and psychological warfare. We were able to break the manipulation that was
going on here this time, but you also couldn't help but feel this grimy
mind or all around you of the constant vigilance that the world absolutely has to
have in this digital age. For us, it was back to the United
States and onto a new job. We would go. When we accomplished something
like us, you know, it is a victory, but our victories are
silent when you look at it. We just sort of retreat back into the
shadows and we're ready to come out again for the next job. You know.
Whenever we leave a job, though, it is a good feeling that
it was taken care of and done, even if we don't get all those
accolades that some people, you know, they absolutely need. This job,
we really did feel a little bit different about because this is something that's definitely
going to come back. Absolutely we are going to end up working a job
like this again in the future. And all we can do is either find
it out there somehow or have it find its way to us. And that's
what we do. And that's all for this story and this episode today,
but no, there are many more stories out there to share. Thank you
for listening to this job. I always appreciate you guys taking the time to
be here with me. So that's it and until next time, and I
will talk to you all soon.