The Most Dangerous Crypto Scam in the World

The Most Dangerous Crypto Scam in the World

right two years ago I started becoming
interested in cryptocurrency and I
started doing some research on the
internet Discord was used and all kinds
of platforms like telegram WhatsApp and
people would communicate with each other
then I got this really innocent looking
what
message from Malia Lee from Los Angeles
and she said she was a Korean
businesswoman I got a DM on Instagram
and it was from a fairly goodlooking uh
Chinese man we were chatted a little bit
some minutes later he was like do you
mind if I get your phone number and then
that just start of started series of
like non-stop texting for a full two
months
her name was Jessica she was very
friendly she was very compassionate I
was able to share what I’m going through
November 24th when she finally
introduced me to
cryptocurrency more and more Americans
are falling victim to cryptocurrency
scams with the FBI recording more than
$2.5 billion stolen in
2022 a 183% increase on
2021 fueling this rice is one scam from
Asia where criminal groups Target
victims through social media messaging
apps and online dating building personal
relationships before proposing lucrative
investment opportunities I was
introduced to this platform called
Genesis bit which was a binary options
trading platform the first trading
session I made about $1,200 with a
portfolio of about 4,000 which was
incredible return on investment for
anything from time to time I did some
withdrawals because I wanted to see if
the whole process worked then I put in
more money um I think up to about $8
million first 10,000 20,000 all the way
up to close to 500,000 already my entire
savings ended up going into this
account only when it’s too late is the
scam revealed I put in a request to
withdraw like $12
million um and this was rejected I was
told by the customer service that I
needed to pay a tax it didn’t make any
sense to me I’m like okay something is
clearly wrong so then I I woke up from
this dream December 3rd is when I lost
$1.2
million I tried to call her up I
panick she wasn’t picking up
I was very
suicidal I mean that 1.2 million is 30
years of Our
Lives I knew right then and there that
this is a
[Music]
scam these scams often start with a
harmless text seemingly received by
accident but behind the innocent looking
profiles is a multi-billion dollar
criminal operation run by Chinese gangs
in places like Cambodia Myanmar and Lao
they’ve exploited weak law enforcement
in these countries to set up industrial
scale scam centers where thousands of
workers engage in what’s known as shazu
pan or Pig butchering Jason Tower is a
transnational crime and security expert
for the United States Institute of Peace
the reason it’s called Pig butchering is
once you’ve got the victim putting money
into the platform it’s kind of like a
pig and once you sort of see the pig is
uh reached its ideal wait you go ahead
and Slaughter it and that’s the moment
where the perpetrator will basically
disappear with all of the funds who are
these scammers where are they coming
from the scammers um themselves
initially um were from China but the
Crackdown in China has become quite
severe This is highly labor intensive
because it requires people going onto
social media to identify victims so the
scammers actually started using Force
labor they started kidnapping they
started um you know buying and selling
labor so uh increasingly the people who
are the ones that are the perpetrators
are also victims
themselves there are now dozens of
massive scam compounds across southeast
Asia where tens of thousands of
trafficking victims from the Philippines
Indonesia Vietnam and elsewhere work
under constant threat of torture and
violence
[Music]
the shocking scale of these scam centers
was first exposed here in sanville
Cambodia by a group of investigative
journalists at the Cambodia based news
agency voice of democracy Danielle Kon
Olen contributed to that
reporting are there any signs that will
tell me if this building is suspicious I
mean the compounds themselves are
somewhat inoc is but there’s a lot of
indicators uh number one is a casino
close by or attached to it if you see
bars on the window or barbed wire
parking lot entrance with guards at the
front who won’t let you in these are
usually some good signs that this is a
scam company so how do the workers end
up here sometimes it’s a job post on
Facebook or a job placement agency
recruiting in Cambodia and sometimes
they even have interviews but once they
agree they’ll you know like very quickly
be brought by some means into Cambodia
and then put into one of these companies
and their passport would be taken at the
door and that’s when the nightmare
starts yep Cambodia has faced
International pressure to act late last
year authorities raided compounds across
the country finding thousands of
foreigners
inside despite this scam centers
continue to operate with impunity in
Cambodia and
[Music]
Beyond we’re in Mad a town in northern
Thailand right by the border of Myanmar
after the Crackdown in Cambodia late
last year the scam centers have expanded
to other countries in Southeast Asia
including Myanmar here in Mad is where
many of the victims when they’re rescued
cross back into
Thailand Emmanuel sooi is a Filipino
Baptist Minister who volunteers to help
foreign Nationals freed from scam
centers across the border in
Myanmar for them to get out from there
it’s just like getting out of slavery or
or uh jail they are still afraid and so
uh what we are doing is to make them
calm telling them that uh you’re going
to be safe here uh you you’re going to
be okay in spite of what they have been
through have there been any risks for
you doing this work
it is uh risky but uh uh we have to just
uh doing it being being
careful while we were filming with
Emmanuel he received a call confirming
that a group of trafficking victims were
being released from
mianmar yeah they are on the way now
okay let’s go
we’ve been told that six Filipinos were
released from a scam Center in Myanmar
they’re currently on their way to the
river to try and cross it to get here to
Thailand that’s where the Filipinos are
being
healed like they are going to pass
through the town of Mei so they go to a
quieter part of the river yes but the
moment they cross the river and get to
mot they’re safe yes yes until then
Anything Can Happen
yes upon leaving the compound the
victims were driven to the border and
made to covertly cross the river which
is heavily guarded by military personnel
from both sides once they made it to the
tie side a driver picked them up and
dropped them off near a hotel in the
city center where we met
them m
Nam
[Music]
later that evening the group explained
how they were tricked into working at
the scam
compound job
advertisement Facebook Facebook they’re
looking for um encoder um the basic
salary will be 40,000 to 60,000 pesos
with
commission was there a job interview or
nothing yes you just need to send a
video of introducing
yourself and then they say
congratulations you’ve been accepted
when we came here they give you a
contract to sign were there guide books
on how to scam people yes get to know
each other as the Hobbies yeah what day
do you then ask for money we are not
allowed to uh invise him to investment
we need the client to um engage if you
don’t have more than 100 conversations
good conversations with your client
they’ll go you need to run under the
heat of the
sun after 6 months the group reached out
to Philippine Embassy officials asking
for assistance to be released when the
bosses at the facility found out they
were detained in a room and abused and
told they could not leave until their
families came up with Ransom money for
each of them you need to pay a 7,000
usdd or they’re going to hit you and
that’s what happened to us yeah lck in
the dorm like no food no food 5 days no
sleep they use cable tires to to tie us
in the bank
beds every night the the boss came do
you have money already do you have money
already and if you cannot um answer him
they going to hit you more than 10
times they hit us a metal a metal a
solid metal a rod
[Music]
ano Nila y
achievement Big
Boss when I saw the Chinese guys
laughing and they are hting we all just
cry the group not only has to carry
these physical and psychological scars
for from their forced labor but the
emotional burden from the scams they
participated in can you show us the
Persona that you were
imitating this is my model by model do
you mean you just took her photos online
yeah why did you choose her because
she’s very rich she have a lot of
teacher from Los Angeles she’s always in
the business R who were you targeting
where were they from Canada Australia us
so Western men how old like we have a
age of 40 to 40 and up 40 and above did
you feel guilty using this person to
fool all these men I feel so guilty when
I’m
[Music]
Charing whatever happen don’t
how much worse can this get the criminal
syndicates and the expansion of this
activity is Way Beyond the pace of the
response by law enforcement the
syndicates themselves are constantly
looking for spaces around the globe
where they can exploit either weak poor
or non-existent governance and that’s
why this really is a problem that
requires a global solution I think we
live in in a digital age and especially
after the pandemic we’ve all gotten
really used to trusting people that
we’ve never met in person maybe they are
a victim themselves as much as I am we
know that there’s a higher boss out
there and these are just pawns working
to scan

Natashya Gutierrez travels to Southeast Asia to explore a dark new form of online scamming, known as “pig butchering”, that is involuntarily perpetuated by victims of human trafficking forced to steal for the Chinese mafia who run these manipulative scams; David Noriega investigates the deaths and disappearances of Moroccan migrants as they attempt to cross the Spanish border at Melilla and examines how outsourced European immigration policies may ultimately be responsible for these tragedies.

This segment is from the show ‘VICE’ which originally aired in Jun 2023.

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