Inside the Shadowy World of Professional Scambaiting | Bloomberg Investigates

The Growing Threat of Scams and the Rise of Scambaiting

• Anyone can fall for a scam, regardless of their background, education level, or who they are, and the world is facing an unprecedented crisis of cyber-related criminal activity targeting people from all societies (5s).
• Scammers employ masterful psychological techniques to build relationships with their victims, eventually leading to financial loss that can never be recovered (29s).
• In the US alone, people lost over $5 billion in crypto-related fraud last year, with most of the losses occurring through crypto (53s).
• Working with scambaiters can help identify scam operations, allowing law enforcement to take action, such as kicking in doors with a SWAT team (1m2s).

Scambaiting Tactics and the Evolution of the Fight

• A scambaiter uses a chatbot with generic phrases to keep telemarketers on the phone, thinking they are talking to a real person (1m54s).
• Modern-day scambaiting involves baiting scammers to waste their time and gather information, similar to fishing, with the goal of dismantling fraud operations (2m25s).
• Scambaiters use various tactics, such as voice changes and fake stories, to convince scammers they are falling for their scam and waste their time (2m36s).
• The "gauntlet" or "maze" is a tactic used to trap scammers, where they are asked to sign up for a fake crypto exchange, solve math problems, and call a 1-800 number, wasting their time (2m59s).
• This tactic has been successful, with one scambaiter wasting around 94 days of scammers' time without them even realizing it (3m44s).
• Kitboga, a popular scambaiter, has hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, more than government campaign videos, and has shifted from just wasting time to collecting valuable information for law enforcement (3m58s).
• The shift in scambaiting has led to a real battle to dismantle fraud operations, with scambaiters collecting information and working with law enforcement to take action (4m18s).

Jim Browning: The Godfather of Scambaiting

• A vigilante known as Jim Browning, or the "godfather of scambaiting," is leading the charge against scammers, using his computer skills to disrupt multimillion-dollar scams (4m52s).
• Browning uses a fake name for his YouTube presence due to the nature of his work, which involves disrupting scams and putting scammers at risk (5m13s).
• Scams often involve scammers asking victims to connect to their computer under the guise of fixing a problem, when in reality they are trying to gain access to the victim's online bank account (5m58s).
• Browning has a background as a software engineer, which allows him to reverse the connection and gain access to the scammer's computer, webcam, and CCTV (6m24s).
• Browning can hear what the victim hears and see the scammer's calling system, allowing him to gather information that can be used to help law enforcement (6m40s).
• The victims of scams are often in different countries than the scammers, making it difficult for law enforcement to track them down, but vigilantes like Browning can operate outside of these boundaries (7m2s).
• Browning has worked with law enforcement agencies around the world, providing them with information that has helped in their investigations (7m29s).

Inside a Scam Operation: From Dubai to Global Reach

• Browning confronts scammers directly, asking them why they engage in fraudulent activities, and believes that the answer is always greed (7m37s).
• A scammer known as Beard moved to Dubai in search of a better life, but ended up getting a job at a scamming operation after struggling to find employment (8m7s).
• Beard's job involved chatting with people and scamming them, and he was required to live in a building in the desert with limited freedom (8m52s).
• The scamming operation was set up in a remote location, with computers and mobile phones provided for the scammers to use (9m5s).
• A person was hired to work in a scam operation where they had to text victims, be nice to them, and gain their trust for 13 hours a day, pretending to be a Ukrainian girl, with the goal of convincing them to invest in a fake cryptocurrency (9m13s).
• The person was given a set of photos to send to the victims to make them believe they were actually talking to the girl, but it was later revealed that the girl in the photos actually exists, and there were more people like her being used in the scam (9m47s).
• When a victim wanted to see the person's face, they would take the phone to the model and have her talk to the victim, following a script (10m17s).
• The scam operation is run by organized criminals, known gangsters who have been sanctioned by the United States, and they have chosen locations where they can operate without government interference (10m51s).
• These criminal syndicates have expanded their operations to regions such as Africa and the UAE, where they can take advantage of cheap labor and lax regulations (11m22s).
• The person who worked in the scam operation eventually realized it was morally wrong and decided to leave, contacting a person who called himself Beard, who helped them escape the situation (12m0s).
• The scam operation is run like a corporation, with different departments, promotions, and a hierarchical structure, and it employs thousands of workers from third-world countries who are desperate for a job (13m9s).
• The recruiters target people from countries such as India and North Africa, avoiding native UAE residents, and take advantage of these workers' desperation, paying them a few hundred dollars a month, which is more than they would earn in their home countries (13m45s).
• Scammers working in professional scamming operations can earn varying amounts of money based on their performance, with $600 for simply talking to potential victims, $7 to $800 for getting a single victim to invest, and $1,000 for getting three victims, with the potential to make up to $100 million in a single month (14m23s).
• As scammers become more successful, they get promoted, leading to the operation growing in size and scope (14m39s).

Exposing the Rahaba Residence Scam Operation

• A scammer known as Beard was tricked into running commands that gave remote access to his computer, revealing the location of the scamming operation at the Rahaba Residence (15m3s).
• The scamming operation used a mobile communications van to handle the large amount of traffic generated by their activities (15m55s).
• The majority of the workers in the operation were not Chinese, but the people running the crypto scams were gangs from China (15m42s).
• The scamming operation used a platform called Yomigt, where victims would create an account, buy cryptocurrency, and the bosses would take control of the account from their computer (16m2s).
• Yomigt's manager claimed that the platform allowed users to make money by buying low and selling high, but this was actually a scam (16m21s).
• The scam would make it appear as though the user was making lots of money, but this was just a tactic to get them to invest more (16m31s).

The Story of Jenny Ying: A Victim's Perspective

• A person who was targeted by the scammers, Jenny Ying, initially contacted the victim via WhatsApp before handing them over to Janice, who went by the hashtag #JaniceTheReceptionist (17m19s).
• Janice convinced the victim to invest $200 Hong Kong in a training exercise, promising to return $290 Hong Kong at the end of the exercise (17m41s).
• The victim completed the exercise and received the promised $290 Hong Kong, but then made the mistake of investing $38,000 Hong Kong in a more expensive package (18m16s).
• The victim transferred the money to the scammer's bank account and was given access to a trading system, but the tickets sent to do the trades were complicated and difficult to read (18m32s).
• A scam victim lost 6.6 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately 800,000 US dollars) in a three-week period after being convinced to make multiple transactions, with the scammers claiming the money would be safe and would accumulate, allowing for withdrawal without issue (19m8s).
• The scammers employed masterful psychological techniques to manipulate the victim, taking advantage of the victim's trusting nature and desire to believe the best in people (20m15s).
• The victim experienced severe financial and emotional consequences, including losing their flat, feeling embarrassed and depressed, and being forced to sell assets to make ends meet (20m39s).
• The victim's attempts to recover the lost money were unsuccessful, with the police investigation yielding little progress and the victim being left with the reality that the money is likely gone (21m37s).
• The victim eventually reached out to investigators, including Ken Gamble and IFW, who helped track down the scammers by embedding a trace into a form and obtaining an IP address in Dubai (22m53s).
• The scammers used fake personas, including Janice the receptionist, Donald the teacher, and Duke who claimed to be the CFO, to build trust with the victim and convince them to make transactions (22m31s).
• The victim was shocked to discover that the scammers were not based in Hong Kong, as they had claimed, but were instead located in Dubai (23m4s).

International Collaboration and Investigation

• A collaboration was formed with Jim, who was monitoring the same scam syndicate that defrauded a client in Hong Kong, after sharing an IP address with him (23m39s).
• The scam was tracked to Dubai, and Jim had internal vision of the operation, which led to sending people on the ground for covert surveillance and building a picture of the operation (24m13s).
• An informant went inside the building, and footage was obtained, allowing them to establish exactly what the scammers were doing (24m25s).
• IFW Global liaised with local police in Dubai, providing an extensive briefing on the large syndicate operating there, but the police's initial enthusiasm eventually led to inaction (24m45s).
• The operation was exposed through undercover filming, showing people pretending to be glamorous models to steal money from people worldwide (25m18s).
• The footage was obtained through an insider risking their life, and it shows the scale of the scam, with thousands of victims worldwide (25m39s).
• The police eventually made raids on the offices, with footage showing thousands of people coming out of the buildings, and hopefully, the top people will be put behind bars (26m28s).

The Ethics and Effectiveness of Scambaiting

• Scambaiters publish videos revealing how specific operations work and then shut them down, but their main concern is not only working with law enforcement but also getting views (26m49s).
• Scambaiters can pick and choose who they attack, and some use humiliation to get views, which can be worrisome (27m8s).
• Experts believe that simply giving people tips about red flags is not enough, and it's essential to keep talking about the issue and make it more difficult for scammers to operate (27m31s).

The Future of Fighting Scams: Technology, Collaboration, and Proactive Measures

• A software was developed to prevent scammers from connecting to devices, marking it as the world's first of its kind (27m46s).
• Many businesses can take a closer look at what they enable on their platforms to help combat scams (27m51s).
• More resources can be allocated to address scams, which involve multiple facets of an organization (27m59s).
• Scambaiters require a network to effectively defeat scams, and collaboration can lead to more significant accomplishments (28m7s).
• Future plans involve forming a group to make a more substantial impact against scammers (28m13s).
• The goal is to identify the individuals behind scams and make a significant impact, which is expected to be disliked by scammers (28m23s).