[Remy Ma] How far would you go to come up
within a system built to hold you down?
These are the true stories of real people
who had good intentions
but got caught up by bad decisions.
It's a wild ride
from all the way up to all the way down
and back around again.
I'm Remy Ma,
and I'm proof that even a wrong turn
can still lead to redemption.
This is "My True Crime Story."
I didn‘t have any fear.
Once you give me that power, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hit‘s over.
I‘m going into the stores,
I‘m swiping millions of dollars of electronics
\h\h\h\hand I had access to endless credit cards.
It was like, limitless.
[Remy] This is a cautionary tal about how a young girl
from Brooklyn, New York, \h\h\h\hwho started out
just trying to take care \h\h\h\hof her parents,
\hLike my mom is the best person in the world to me.
[Remy] But became the swipe \h\h\h\h\hqueen of New York.
She‘s like the credit \h\hcard fraud queen,
Shawana King.
\h\h\h\hI had no idea that she was so young.
\hI always made sure I looked like money,
smelled like money.
\h\h\hWhen you put yourself in a position to get money,
you can get it.
[Remy] This was a full-blown \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\henterprise
\h\hand Shawana King was on the come up.
\h\h\h\h\h\h\hIn my head, I knew I was that [bleep].
I knew I was the bomb.
[Remy] But in the world \h\h\h\h\h\h\hof fraud,
there‘s no such thing \has without a trace.
[Shawana] Security comes up to \h\h\h\h\hme and they‘re like,
"can you come to the back?"
\h\hI‘m like, "yes, is there a problem?"
And they like, "yeah, \hthere is a problem."
[Remy] Is the swipe queen \h\h\h\h\h\h\hof New York
in her multimillion-dollar scam
really about to go down \h\hin flames like this?
Well, you have more proof?
Oh, of course I have--
[Remy] This is definitely not
how Shawana saw this \h\hall going down.
Today, Brooklyn may be known as
the hipster capital \h\h\hof the world,
\h\hbut back in the 90s when Shawana King was growing up,
Crooklyn was on the map \h\h\hfor other reasons.
At the time, Brooklyn‘s Finest told the stories to the world
through joints and rhymes,
and if you don‘t know, \h\h\h\hnow you know.
\hSeventy-seven neighborhoods, two million different stories.
\hThe one thing all BK natives have in common
is crazy resilience \h\hand O.D. pride.
Shawana King and her family \h\h\h\h\hwere no different.
[Shawana] So growing up,
\h\hI was with my mom from Monday to Friday
‘cause I went to school \hwhere my mother lived
and I lived with my dad \h\h\h\hon the weekends.
Growing up, my mom was a \h\h\h\h\hworking woman.
You know, she didn‘t have \h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe best job
and things got difficult \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hfor her.
She never showed it \h\hbut I sensed it.
You know, she was always \h\h\h\h\h\h\hvery down.
But my mom and my dad, \hthey were opposites.
At my dad‘s house
it was fun. [chuckles]
\h\h\h\h\h\hEveryone was loud so it‘s just more excitement.
\h\h\h\h\h\hYou could do whatever you want to do.
I had my sister there.
[Yakia] Shawana has a different mom from me
and her mother and my father \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hhad like this
little jealousy streak \h\h\hwith each other
‘cause my father used \h\hto always spoil us
[Remy] And Shawana had \h\h\hher dad, Leslie,
wrapped around her finger.
She was my first born, is like,
we just had a special bond.
She was like a perfect baby.
Everything about her \h\h\hwas just wow.
And me being like 16, \h\h17 when I had her,
we just grew up with each other.
I tried to give her whatever she wanted
[Remy] And like most kids,
\h\h\hShawana was all up in grown folks business.
I watched everything like a hawk when it came to my dad.
[Remy] She was especially \hwatching his brown coat.
[Leslie] Before I even knew \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthat she
knew that I was telling drugs, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hshe knew.
Basically,
that‘s the only way \h\hof making money
to take care of your family.
[Remy] So one day, when Shawana saw her father in the coat
\h\h\h\hand the police officer lurking just around the corner,
she made a connection.
\h\h\hI‘m seeing the police, so I want to protect my dad.
\h\h\hSo I ran over and I‘m hugging him
and I‘m like, "Daddy, \h\h\h\hgive me candy.
\h\h\hYou have candy. I know you have candy
in your pocket daddy, \h\h\h\hgive me candy.
So I go into the pocket
\h\h\h\h\h\hand I took the drugs and I put the drugs in my pocket
and I just ran back upstairs.
\h[Remy] It‘s crazy what kids figure out at such a young age.
After they left the police and everything, I‘m like,
"where the stuff at?"
\hShe like, "oh, daddy, I took it out... Here."
"I didn‘t want you to get arrested."
I‘m like, wow.
I could‘ve done a lot of time
\hif they would‘ve caught me with it.
You know, so she saved me.
\h[Remy] At seven years old, Shawana the savior was born.
And by the time Shawana \h\h\hhit seventh grade,
\h\h\h\hshe realized there was some perks
to her dad‘s hustlin‘ status .
So my dad would give me \h\h500 dollars a week.
[Remy] Wait, what?
When you‘re a kid and \hyou don‘t experience
anything else.
That was normal to me.
Everyone knew me.
\h\h\h"Oh, Shawana, she‘s fly. She has all the new sneakers."
I‘d be buying everyone lunch. You know, if you‘re my friend.
\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hHere you go. I get more money next week.
Whatever it was to my friends \h\h\h\h\hto make them happy,
I would give it to them.
And I‘m like, the queen \h\hwhen I go to school.
And when my dad gave me money,
\h\h\h\h\h\hI would save it and I‘d go to my mom, like,
"mom, I wanna give it \h\hto you as a gift."
And I just wanted \hto help my mom.
I love that feeling, \h\h\h\h\hhonestly.
\h\h[Remy] But everything came to a screeching halt real quick
\h\h\h\h\h\hwhen her dad left the game for good.
[Leslie] My friend got life \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hplus 20.
That made me kind of change \h\hmy life ‘cause I‘m like,
I don‘t wanna do 20 or 30 years.
\hFive years would‘ve killed me just to be away from my family.
And so I just never \hsold drugs again.
‘Cause I was like, it‘s over.
So the money got lower.
That was an extremely hard pill to swallow.
[Remy] And Shawana‘s friend, \h\h\hChyna, peeped it all.
To take away all those items. \hand like the luxury things,
I think that scared her so much
because she already \h\h\hhad an image.
And where we come from,
\h\heven though a majority of people are struggling,
there‘s a lot of people \h\h\h\h\h\hthat‘s not.
\h\hAnd you don‘t wanna be the one that‘s struggling,
you get made fun of,
You get treated like \hyou ain‘t nobody.
I think that changed her.
[Remy] But that change was only the beginning of what‘s to come
[Shawana] I started to catch \h\h\h\hfeelings for Dennis.
\h\h\hHe was a senior and I was a freshman.
[Chyna] Dennis was handsome.
He was flashy.
He was like "that guy" \h\h\h\h\hin our hood.
He was the man and her father \h\h\h\h\h\hwas like, the man.
\h\h\hSo I think she kind of saw similarities in the two.
[Remy] That sounds like trouble
[Chyna] They were like \h\h\h\h\hinseparable.
She was madly in love.
[Remy] And Dennis had money, \h\hbut she knew Den‘s money
wasn‘t drug money,
so where did it come from?
I‘m wondering what he does. \h\hHe has four cell phones.
So I started just observing him and watching everything he did.
\hAnd I noticed that he did everything over the computer
and he always was getting \h\h\h\h\hpackages coming.
\h\h\h[Remy] Packages? What kind of packages?
And then I realized
he‘s doing something \hwith credit cards.
\hI said, "listen, I know how you making your money.
\h\h\h\h\hYou‘re using stolen credit cards."
And he‘s like, "uh, not really."
\h\h\h\h\h"What I‘m doing is buying accounts online
and I‘m using people‘s accounts to purchase stuff.
And they are sending it to me \h\h\hand I am reselling it."
[Remy] And that 17-year-old min started working overtime
to up his game.
A lightbulb went off in my head.
\h\h\h\h\h\h"I have a plan. We can make a lot of money.
We can make millions of dollars like, seriously."
[Remy] The hustle blood \h\h\h\h\h\h\hruns deep,
but there‘s more to the story \h\h\h\h\hthan just the money.
[Shawana] Like, my mom is my guardian angel.
And I just wanted to help my mom because
\h\h\h\h\h\hI knew she struggled even though she didn‘t show it.
[Remy] It was time \hto get started.
[Shawana] Dennis is like a \h\h\h\h\h\hcomputer geek.
He can go on the computer \h\hand find out anything.
So he goes on the dark web \h\hand we learned a lot.
[Remy] On the dark web
\h\h\hyou can find anything you‘re not supposed to have.
Drugs, guns, counterfeit money,
hacked streaming accounts.
But Shawana was looking \h\h\hfor credit cards.
\h\h\h\hAnd that‘s how we met this guy named Ray from China.
[Remy] Yo, this immediately \h\h\h\hsounds even shadier-
if that‘s possible.
[Shawana] So I do not know who Ray is, never met him,
but he just gave us so much information.
The plan I worked out with Ray \hwas I‘ll send you the money,
you send me credit card tracks.
\h\h[Remy] A track is all your credit card information stored
on that magnetic strip.
\h[Shawana] So I started buying tracks from Ray.
And I‘m like, you know what?
This is actually a business.
I just felt confident.
Like, when you put yourself in a position to get money,
you can get it.
All you have to do is position \h\h\h\h\hyourself to get it.
My father positioned himself \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto get it.
Dennis positioned himself \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto get it.
Now I‘m about to position \h\h\hmyself to get money.
[Remy] And with that,
\h\h\hthe swipe queen of New York was born,
I didn‘t have any fear,
I know how to take control. \h\h\hIt was like limitless.
[Remy] But that intricate house of cards she was building-
\h[Shawana] I didn‘t know if he was gonna set us up,
\h\h\hget us robbed or call the police-
[Remy] -was one plastic card \h\h\haway from collapsing.
[Remy] Twelve-grade Shawana Kin has an idea to transform
her boyfriend‘s low key \h\h\h\hInternet hustle
\h\h\h\hinto a full fledged credit card fraud operation.
\h\hAll it took was a dark web connect from China named Ray.
[Shawana] We‘re buying \h\hcredit card tracks
and Ray was charging me \h\habout 125 per track.
[Remy] And we all know it‘s eas as hell to use your info online
but to use it in a store,
\hthat information had to be attached to a physical card.
Now, all they needed was any card with a magnetic strip.
\h\h[Shawana] So we‘d go to our local drugstores
and we‘d steal gift cards.
[Remy] Step two.
[Shawana] We bought a machine.
And what this machine does-- \h\h\h-[Remy] Whoa, hold up.
We‘re not gonna tell you how to \h\hactually commit the crime,
just know, Den and Shawana \h\h\hwere doing the most.
And they were up and running.
Things started to flow.
\h\h\h\hNow I‘m understanding what it is that I have to do.
[Remy] OK, but can you \htrust this dude Ray?
[Shawana] So now we‘re on our \h\hway to test out our cards.
[Remy] Here we go.
[Shawana] And I‘m nervous \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\has hell.
I wanted to buy two Xboxes.
I was scared,
but at the same time \h\h\hI was so eager
\h\h\h\h\hto find out if it was gonna work.
If it says approved,
\hthen I know exactly what my future holds.
[machine beeps]
And the receipt comes out-
[register beeps]
and it said approved.
We both looked at each other \h\h\h\h\h\hand we were like
\h\h\h\h\hat bliss, like, it was just like, "what?"
We was lost for words.
[whispers] I was like-
we ‘bout to make some money.
[chuckles]
[Remy] Crazy money. It was on.
\h\h\h\h\hAnd Shawana‘s mind was already thinking bigger.
[Shawana] We knew everyone \h\h\hwanted electronics.
So our plan was to resell electronics on Craigslist
at a discount price.
So basically if I bought a laptop that was 2,800,
I would resell it for 2,200.
[Remy] There‘s a reason boostin has been around so long.
\h\h\hShawana and Den started pocketing thousands in profits.
[Shawana] It‘s so crazy \h\h\h‘cause it‘s like,
\h\h\hI was actually in people‘s wallets
without taking anything \h\h\h\h\h\h\hfrom them.
[Remy] Um, let‘s be clear. You were taking something.
Money can make you like, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hruthless.
You know, money is power.
And money can make you do things that you never want to do.
\h\h\h\hYou know, I look back at certain stuff and I‘m like,
\h\h"damn, I can‘t believe I‘ve done that," you know?
[Remy] But her newfound cash \h\hflow provided the funds
for Shawana to help the person \h\h\hthat needed it the most.
Her mom.
[Shawana] My mom worked in a hospital as a patient escort
and she probably was making minimum wages at that time.
\hShe wanted to make sure I was well taken care of,
but things always got \h\hdifficult for her.
[Remy] Of course they did, \h\h\hbecause we all know
\h\h\h\h\hminimum wage is not a living wage.
Back in 97, someone earning \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hminimum wage
\hlike Shawana‘s mom made 20% below the federal poverty line.
The line for qualifying \h\h\h\h\h\hfor welfare,
working full time. That‘s backwards.
And that gap hasn‘t shifted.
The working poor been \h\h\h\h\hstruggling,
still struggling.
But that wasn‘t the only thing \h\h\h\hgoing on at her mom‘s.
[Shawana] She was also in a \h\hreally bad relationship.
Certain things that happened \h\h\h\hin the relationship,
she didn‘t want me to notice.
\h\h\h\h\h\hShe was abused and it was just horrible.
I was extremely young \h\h\hand I felt like,
how am I gonna help my mom?
I wanna say stuff like, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h"Mommy-"
[sniffs]
I seen a lot, you know.
\h\h[Remy] And that little seven-year-old savior mode
was still in full effect.
[Shawana] I got her an apartment
and I paid all of the bills.
\hI wanted to fix things that made her stressed,
depressed, especially when it came to money.
I seen the happiness in her.
So I felt good because, \h\h\h\hlike, my mom is
the best person in the world \h\h\h\h\h\hto me, you know.
\h\h\hOnce I started to lift the heaviness of her chest,
I felt like this can‘t stop.
I‘ve got to continue to go hard
\h\h\hbecause I have someone to support.
[Remy] More mouths to feed mean it was time to up the ante.
You know, we started off \h\hhaving four laptops,
five laptops.
But, you know, it got to the \h\hpoint where we had about
30 and 40 laptops.
\h[Remy] That‘s probably gonna take some time on Craigslist.
\h[Shawana] So we had to search for someone to actually purchase
that large inventory.
[Remy] And as luck \h\hwould have it,
a connect felt right \h\h\hin their laps.
\h\h[Shawana] We find this guy and he owns electronics stores
\h\h\hand since we have such a large inventory,
he wanted to buy everything.
And I was nervous as [bleep].
Because I want this money, \h\h\h\hbut I didn‘t know
if he was going to set us up,
\h\hget us robbed or take all the laptops
or call the police.
I didn‘t know what the hell \h\h\h\h\hwas gonna happen.
[Remy] If this dude was legit
it meant going from making \h\ha few thousand dollars
to hundreds of thousands.
[Shawana] My heart is racing, \h\h\h\hmy heart is pounding,
I‘m sweating,
I‘m watching what‘s going on \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\haround me.
So Dennis gives me the bag \h\h\h\h\h\hand I open it.
I was like, "how much is this?"
He was like, "68,000.‘
[whispers] And I‘m like, wow.
That‘s a lot of [bleep] money,
[Remy] That is a lot of \h\h\h\h\h[bleep] money.
So, y‘all know there‘s definitely some drama
coming with it.
\h\hI‘m like, "yes, is there a problem?"
And they‘re like, "yeah, \h\hthere is a problem."
[Remy] Shawana King and her boyfriend, Dennis,
were flying high because they found a legit hookup
to unload large quantities of their not-so-legit goods.
But to get down on this new level,
they were going to have to up their game.
I'm like, "listen, we got to switch it up
and this is how we're going to change it.
We're not using those gift cards anymore.
We're gonna have Ray send us real cards.
[Remy] Gift cards have limits,
but a real card with a matching I.D.-
limitless.
[Shawana] So when we did get those cards in the mail,
it was like, it was the best feeling.
So my confidence was all the way up there
because now I don't care if they look at the card,
it says my name and I got an I.D. to match it.
Now, I'm confident that what I'm doing is about to take off.
[Remy] And that new puff in her chest
had her playing the role to the fullest.
[Shawana] Anytime I went into the stores
I always made sure I looked like money,
smelled like money.
In my head, I knew I was that [bleep].
I knew I was the bomb.
[Remy] She was so gassed.
[Shawana] I don't know what it is.
It's just when I'm dealing with a sales person,
I know how to take control.
I try to think ahead.
You know, I always try to be ten steps ahead of the store,
ten steps ahead of my game, period.
[Remy] Just like that brown coat.
[Shawana] I remember one day, oh, my God,
it was crazy.
I went into this electronics store.
And the cashier was like,
just giving me a real crazy vibe.
Even though I was dressed the part,
she just wasn't really feeling it.
[Remy] Well, it is hard to pass game on another sister.
[Shawana] So she takes the card as she swipes it.
And it goes through.
When it goes through, she's even more mad.
She's like, "just give me one second,"
so she runs off with the card.
Security comes up to me and they like,
"can you come to the back?"
I'm like, "yes, is there a problem?"
And they like, "yeah, there is a problem."
"You purchased this laptop with a stolen credit card."
[Remy] Looks like they smell something other than money.
[Shawana] I was shaking on the inside, but not on the outside.
I did not want that guy to feel that I was nervous.
[Remy] And that Brooklyn fast talking street corner flex
she grew up watching,
kicked in big time.
I felt like I was going to control that situation.
You know, so I'm going back and forth with the security
and I'm kind of yelling at him.
I'm like, "do you want to see my I.D.?
"If you wanna see my ID, you could've just asked me
for my I.D."
What's the issue?
[Shawana] So he's looking at it.
He give me back my I.D.,
but he's still holding this card for some reason.
I can't seem to comprehend why I'm back here.
So that's when I remembered something.
Oh, of course, I have more proof.
Let me show it.
I said, "listen, you see this paper?
" It says congratulations. It says my name.
"It says that I was approved for 50,000 dollars
for a credit card and this is the card I'm using."
[Remy] Wait a minute.
This girl had a fake congratulations letter
standing by in her purse.
And he looks at the letter.
And he gives it back to me and he gives me back my card.
And he said, "Ma'am, I apologize."
"I'm so sorry."
[Remy] I mean, what's there left to say?
Don't hate the player.
I'ma let Shawana's girl, Aisha Hall, break it down.
I think that sometimes the intellectual side
and the creative side and the genius side
of what's being done is lost
because it's in the form of a criminal act.
But you can't take away from the fact that
you have to be extremely, extremely smart
to be able to do some of the things that Shawana was doing.
[Remy] Right.
And when you feel like you're unstoppable,
well, it's hard to stop.
[Shawana] As time progressed,
I started spending my money on big things, you know,
so now I needed more money
and my wants got bigger and my needs got bigger
and everything just got bigger.
I can buy all the clothes I want, jewelry,
I can buy shoes, I can buy anything I pretty much want
'cause I had endless credit cards.
It was like limitless.
I didn't have any fear.
Money is just coming in
and everything just seems so great.
[Remy] Shawana was way beyond just trying
to take care of her family.
[Chyna] I remember when she got a Birkin.
I thought that was like, insane.
That's like, more expensive than a car.
♪ I probably don't need it, but damn, I need it ♪♪
And I remember thinking like, "Shawana, what happened?"
So I think she started out saying, like, you know,
"I'm tired of seeing my mother struggle.
I want to help her."
And then it was all about pocketbooks
and jewelry and Rolexes and cars and clubs.
She got so caught up.
[Remy] And no one benefiting asked questions.
Right, baby sis Yakia?
I never cared how she was getting it.
I was just so infatuated with the things
that was coming my way.
I was like, "oh, this is nice."
Like, I got a new bag. I got some shoes.
She was always giving to us.
[Remy] But the thing about stolen credit cards is -
you gotta keep changing them
once the person realizes their card was stolen.
So Shawana and Den had to keep paying Ray
for more card shipments.
Their whole game depended on him.
So there was one particular day
we were waiting for a shipment to come in
and this shipment didn't come in on that Tuesday.
Wednesday came, Thursday came.
So now I'm getting a bit worried.
I just felt like, it was something in my gut.
It was just butterflies. It just felt so weird.
So I go to the computer and it says
that my package is in customs
and had been in there for three days
so I write Ray to find out what's up.
Ray said, "be careful." That's all he said.
[Remy] Be careful- of what?
Nineteen-year-old Shawana King's entire scheme
rests on her credit card shipments from China,
and when one of her packages gets delayed at Customs,
Shawana can sense something is off.
Ray said, "Be careful." That's all he said.
And I'm like, "what do you mean, be careful?"
"Please elaborate, what the hell does that mean?"
And Ray didn't respond.
[Remy] Um, how much clearer can "be careful" be?
I told Den, I said,
"yo, there's something about this package.
Like, I don't know what it is."
And for some reason, that whole week
felt crazy to me.
I just felt like I was being watched
or I felt like something was going on.
What really was going on was the feds was on us.
Ray was getting hot in China, so they started to watch him
and when they were watching him,
they were watching everyone that he was shipping, too.
So any package that he shipped out,
they opened it, they sealed it back
and they shipped it to us.
[Remy] Yo, the feds be on some sneaky [bleep].
That's how they set the trap.
Be careful.
[Shawana] Within a week, Dennis called me and he's like,
"Yo, yo-"
And I'm like, "What?" He's like,
"Yo, I think I'm being followed."
I'm like, "You're being followed by whom?"
He said, "I don't know but it's like some Secret Service
or something going on."
And I'm like, screaming into the phone,
"what do you mean, you being followed?"
"OK, I'm getting in the car now."
[tires screeching]
As I'm driving, I'm like shaking,
I barely could hold the steering wheel straight.
My mind is just racing, is just like all over the place.
I don't know how I can save my man at this time,
so I need to figure this out.
[Remy] And when she caught up to him,
it was wilder than she even thought.
I'm like, "yo, there's a bunch of [bleep] cars following you."
I'm trying my best to think of something,
I'm like, how is he gonna get away?
Let me think, let me think, let me think.
[Remy] And then a crazy ass plan clicked.
It involved their boy, B.
[Shawana] So I say, "yo listen, go to your mom's job
and have B meet you there and let me go in front of you
so I can get to the warehouse before you.
So you're gonna jump in my car
and B is gonna jump in your car, when you get into the warehouse,
make sure you do that.
So as I'm in the warehouse,
his friend is in the warehouse as well waiting.
I'm stressed the hell out because he's about to
potentially get arrested.
And I didn't know if this plan was even gonna work.
[Remy] But that definitely wasn't gonna stop her.
[Shawana] You know, about three minutes later,
Den pulls up in the warehouse.
I was trying to make it seem like he was Dennis.
Denny's jumped in my car, his friend jumps in his car.
[Remy] Once the switch was made,
their boy B pulled out in Den's car
and the feds fell for it.
[Aisha] And the police continued to follow this car
thinking that it was Den and Shawana and Den
were going the complete opposite direction.
I mean, that was a sick maneuver.
I was like, [bleep].
[Remy] Straight out of a movie.
And they got away.
But Shawana knew it wasn't over. Everything was different.
[Shawana] I knew that if they were following Den,
if he was in trouble, I was in trouble too.
[Remy] And so was everyone else in her family.
Look, if her money dried up,
the rug was getting pulled on everybody
just like when she was a kid.
So the two decided to lay low at her mom's house.
So two weeks passes, three weeks passes,
and then is just like-
yo, nobody's coming for us.
Like, we're good.
But I felt like there was more to come.
[Remy] And there was.
[shouting]
Shawana King and her boyfriend, Dennis,
had hoped they outsmarted the feds and were in the clear.
But as Shawana feared, it wasn't over.
It was just the beginning.
[Shawana] Den and I are sleeping,
and I'm in my room,
my mom is there and I hear, "boom, boom, boom, boom."
And I'm like, "what the hell is that?"
So my mother say,
"who the hell is knocking on my door like that?"
My mom opens the door--
[indistinguishable shouting]
Freeze! Who's in the house with you?
Who's in the house with you?
This way, this way.
Let's go!
[Shawana] I hear them say, "who's in the house with you?"
You would have thought they was coming there
for murder or something.
[police shouting] Who's in the house?
[woman] Don't shoot! Don't shoot!
[Shawana] I'm like shaking.
I'm like, what the hell?
Just seeing my mom's face,
my mom looks so destroyed.
She just looked so hurt, I felt horrible.
[Remy] Because it was her first ofense, Shawana
was released on bail later that night,
but Den had prior, so he was stuck for a minute.
So I come home and I'm destroyed.
Den is not there. We don't have no money.
I don't know what to do.
[Yakia] She was just lost like a deer in the headlights.
I never saw her like that before.
Like I never saw her, like, not know a way.
[Remy] With the trial pending, the two of them were put
under federal supervision,
which means they couldn't leave the state of New York.
Shawana found a decent 9:00 to 5:00.
And when Den was released, he did, too.
And they were good for a minute .
Until the reality of an hourly wage lifestyle really set in.
I wanted to make fast money
and I wasn't taught another way to make money.
I was only 19, 20 years old, and that's all I knew.
♪ Money, money, money all the time ♪
♪ what I'm thinking about ♪♪
And that's not surprising because the same obstacles
her parents faced to not only survive,
but for the chance to move up and out was still true
two decades later,
not much in her community had gotten better.
In fact, where you grow up plays a significant role
on your future earnings.
Census data can pinpoint specific hindering factors
down to the block you were raised on.
In Brooklyn, the kids who grew up in the 80s and 90s,
only 6% moved from the bottom 20% to the top 20%.
That left 94% of folks
that more or less remain status quo
from generation to generation.
So it's no wonder Shawana did
just like everyone else on her block.
I seen hustlers go to jail, come out and do it again
and make more money, you know,
so I figured in my head, OK,
maybe that's just a part of the game.
You know, you [bleep] and you have to
do it the smarter way. That's just a part of life.
[Remy] So Shawana and Dennis did what they do,
they read up and got back in the game.
And didn't give a damn about the consequences.
So we cut Ray out completely.
[Remy] Sorry, Ray, but out goes the middleman.
We bought all of the machines.
And we started having people work for us, you know,
so he got two friends, I got two friends.
[Remy] And they went from a mom and pop shop
to a full on franchise.
Shawana was CEO.
I was good at strategizing
and figuring out ways that we can make more money.
I did feel like a boss--
[Remy] And she was. But for her family,
the slip back was hard to watch.
I'm like, listen, you got to chill, right?
You get caught again, you gonna do some real time
'cause you on probation
and you on federal probation.
[Remy] But Shawana wasn't trying to hear none of that.
There was money to be made.
So, you know, things are rolling.
Money is coming in. We are good.
[Remy] To continue their business growth
operations needed to expand,
so they hit the road.
[Shawana] We were in the state of Pennsylvania
and Den's friend, Young B, was with us,
he got two laptops.
We drive off.
We hear sirens and we look back like, oh, my God.
[Remy] Neither one of them was supposed to leave the state.
So no amount of fast talking was going to fix this.
Everything in my world, I felt it was coming down,
was coming to an end.
[Remy] Swipe queen Shawana King
\h\hthought she could still make moves under the radar,
\h\h\hbut the cops may see it just a little bit differently.
They asked me for my I.D.
They noticed that I‘m on \h\hfederal supervision,
Den is on federal supervision.
[Remy] And without hesitation,
they‘re both thrown in jail \h\h\hto await their trial.
Shawana pled guilty to credit card fraud
and was sentenced \hto a combination
of five years in prison.
Dennis ultimately got six.
[Shawana] That day just felt so bad,
not even because of my situation,
just because of how I was making the people around me feel.
My family.
[Leslie] I was scared for her \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hgoing to jail
\h\h\h‘cause I didn‘t know how she was gonna take it.
\h\h\hI didn‘t know if it was gonna kill her
or teach her a lesson.
She had to humble herself.
We all gotta humble ourselves.
[Remy] She was 19.
It was time to grow up and star looking at the bigger picture.
[Shawana] I started to think \h\h\h\h\habout the victims
and think about the people who are possibly hurting,
the people I stole from.
They were hardworking people.
I started to disconnect \h\hmyself from Dennis.
\h\h\h\h\hI love him but our whole relationship,
was just based on money,
[Remy] She may have moved on \hfrom her partner in crime,
\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hbut in prison, she found another right hand.
[Aisha] My lawyer mentioned \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hher name.
He said there‘s another case \h\h\h\h\hthat I heard about
\hwith this girl, she‘s like the credit card fraud queen
Shawana King.
\h\h\h\hI had no idea that she was so young.
[Remy] Aisha immediately took \hthe new kid under her wing.
\h[Aisha] We would walk around the prison and I would really
talk to her about what you wanna do when you get out of here?
You‘re not going to go \hget a 9:00 to 5:00.
\h\h\h\hThat‘s not your thing. You know, you‘re a boss chick.
\hSo let‘s start planning out what it is that you wanna do.
[Remy] Aisha was right \h\h\h\habout Shawana.
Shawana already proved she was \h\ha successful entrepreneur.
\h\h\h\hShe just needed to get on the right side of the law.
And the timing was right
because despite the lack \hof capital from banks
for all African-Americans, \h\h\hthere was good news.
Between 2007 and 2018,
\h\h\h\h\h\hblack women were starting a businesses faster
than any other racial group.
In that time, black women \h\h\h\h\hfirms grew 164%.
There was black girl magic \h\hhappening everywhere,
and the possibilities \h\hgave Shawana life.
So when Shawana was finally \h\h\hreleased from prison,
she already had big plans.
I wanted to help the girls \hcoming home from prison.
And because I know how hard \hit was for me coming home.
\h\h[Remy] So she and Aisha teamed up to form a company
called Real Credit Pro.
What‘s up y‘all? It‘s your girl, Aisha Hall.
And it‘s your girl, Shawana. Oh, let me take off my shades.
So people get their credit up and get mad Hollywood.
Whatever, whatever, whatever.
\h\h\h\hSo we are actually able to help people fix their credit
and get access to a large \h\h\h\hlump sum of money
to start their business.
And it gives them a better shot at living a good life
and living a law abiding life.
[Remy] Trust me, with a felony \h\h\h\h\h\h\hon your record,
it can be damn near impossible \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto get a loan
for the rest of your life.
\h\hSo salutes to these ladies for reaching back to lift up.
\h\h\h\hJust to see her entering this entrepreneurship lifestyle
and just like thriving in it, \h\h\hit‘s like so refreshing
\h\hto see her tap back into her, her old self.
Shawana is still popular \hShawana is still fly.
Just the difference is now
is that she‘s doing it \h\h\h\hthe right way.
[Shawana] Maybe this was \h\h\h\h\h\hmy calling.
My calling was to help people
Had I not gone to prison,
it would just all be \habout me, me, me.
Now it‘s like I live my life
on helping other people be happy and be successful.
[Yakia] I always saw more \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin her,
\hbut I ain‘t never know if she, like, thought that for herself.
I‘m really proud of her.
[whispers] I‘m proud.
[Remy] But perhaps Shawana‘s \h\h\h\hbest accomplishment,
\his starting a family with her new fiancee.
[Shawana] I have a beautiful \h\h\h\h\h\h\htwo year old.
Her name is Zori,
and she is such an amazing soul.
\h\hSo now I know how to teach my daughter.
I‘m so happy because she came at the time
that I learned my lesson,
I would never put myself \h\h\h\h\hin a situation
\h\h\h\h\h\hand take myself away from anyone in my family again.
Look at my twin, y‘all.
My twin, she squishes me, right?
[chuckles] No, she squishes me.
[laughs]
[Remy] So use Shawana‘s story \h\has a life lesson learned.
\h\hBe careful what you chase because in the blink of an eye
anyone can get caught up
and you don‘t want that, trust.