Magic touch: Stamford native reveals the truth behind scams in 'The Real Hustle'

Date: February 3, 2008

Section: Features

Ryan Oakes once fell for the Jamaican Switch. He was waiting for a friend near the Port Authority in New York City when he was approached by a nicely dressed man with a Jamaican accent who asked for help.

"He came up with a believable story, asked me to watch his valuables while he went to get more money," says the magician, part of a trio of experts who pull off similar cons in "The Real Hustle," a part reality, part educational show airing on truTV, formerly Court TV. "In the meantime, another gentleman distracted me, and in the end, there was a switch, they took my money and I was left with a wad of newspaper." Oakes, who grew up in Stamford, still marvels at how easily he was taken. "I thought, 'What just happened?' Here I am a magician and I didn't catch the switch. Their timing was impeccable."

"It was definitely a lesson."

It's the same kind of lesson the show, which premiered two weeks ago, tries to get across to viewers. By showing via hidden camera how easily con experts can fool unsuspecting marks, viewers can learn how to avoid being victimized, says Oakes, billed as the group's sleight-of-hand and psychology expert. (He majored in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.) "It's about keeping it honest. Nothing we do is a new idea."

Oakes is joined by Apollo Robbins, an expert pickpocket, personal security consultant and the group's leader, and Dani Marco, an actress with experience in improvisational theater. In each episode, the three show how easy it is to steal money, possessions and identity information. In each of the show's eight episodes, they pull off three or four scams. They pose as security guards and get away with commuters' possessions, dupe innocent bystanders into revealing Social Security numbers and PINs; collect information from a person's trash and rent an apartment with that information;swipe briefcases and laptops; steal credit card and ATM information using hidden card readers; trick consumers with too-good-to-be-true deals.

Luckily for the victims, it is only a show.

"The ideas for the cons are taken from articles, news-of-the-weird sources," explains Oakes. "We are not reinventing the wheel here. What we did was add cameras that follow us around, so we had to think about where to do the scam, where to place the cameras, where to set up the mark, how to approach them." The trio sets up a con with a clear idea of how it should play out, but getting what he calls "the emotional hook," whether it is greed, machismo, pity, even sympathy, is essential for a con to be successful.

"It is like magic in that we create an illusion," says Oakes, who received his first magic set when he was 5, and by his own admission, "took to magic more than most kids."

By 11, he had earned the Kleinman Incentive Award for Promise in the Field of Magic during the Society of American Magicians annual convention in Stamford, where he also was the youngest to ever win its Adult Stage Magic Competition. The following year, he won Abbott's Junior National Stage Magic Competition in Michigan and landed his first paying job, a church picnic in New Canaan. "It was awful, I'm sure. It's all on a video somewhere in my parents' house in Stamford."

That job led to another and soon Oakes had what he calls a "burgeoning career in the birthday-party circuit." It would keep him busy through high school while he developed his craft and showmanship. "It went from Johnny's 5th birthday party to mom's 40th, then to her husband's corporate event." Today, Oakes performs regularly in private events, stage shows and for corporate clients. He entertains during trade shows and sales meetings using magic as a marketing or promotional tool. "Magic was something he was always doing," says his mother, Pat Oakes, director of admissions at New Canaan Country School. "Performing slowed during college but he kept up the magic and eventually made a business out of it. It grew into a vocation (from) an avocation."

And now he's on TV.

"Of course, for a parent to see, what is most important and exciting, is he is doing something he loves and enjoys so much," adds Pat Oakes, who admits she focuses on her son during each episode of "The Real Hustle" but the message of the show is not lost on her. "This is an opportunity to help the public," she says.

For Oakes, the cons also helped those who were tricked on the show. "We've heard the precautionary tales, read about these things," he says. "The scams can be very involved. What victims don't have is awareness. "We don't actually spell out how to prevent it from happening but it's implied (that) by learning this, you can avoid from falling into this situation."