Producer's blog: Behind the scenes of a sting

By Steve Eckert
Dateline Producer
 
Steve Eckert produced "Follow The Money," a hidden-camera investigation in which Dateline NBC's Chris Hansen went on the trail of an email scammer. Here, Eckert shares how he and Hansen managed to confront the scammers face to face.

Day after day, I pretended to be "Shireen," the Connecticut woman who let us take over her email.  Our goal was to turn the tables on the scammers and lure them into a face-to-face meeting.
 
There were plenty of false starts – and frustrating delays.  Sometimes the scammers wanted quick, easy scores.  Send us extra money, they'd say, for yet another bank fee.   But we held out.  No money upfront, I would write, until we could arrange a meeting where Chris Hansen could confront them in person.
 
We tried to meet once in London, but the scammers backed out at the last minute.
 
But we didn't give up.  And, finally, the scammers agreed to a rare meeting here in the U.S.  The emails to set up the meeting said a special diplomat would be delivering a multi-million dollar fortune.
 
Our hidden camera crew had the meeting covered from every angle - from the moment the so-called "diplomat" walked into the lobby of the hotel and rode the elevator up to our room.
 
Then it was up to Chris to lure him in – and confront him about the scam.

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