Could the fraudster trying to scam you also be the victim of a scam himself?
The United Nations reports that hundreds of thousands of people are being held prisoner at call centers that perpetuate fraud, tricking people into making fake investments or otherwise handing over money.
Massive scam call centers, believed to house more than 200,000 people in all, have been set up in Myanmar and Cambodia, according to CNN. To get the labor power needed to run their fraud centers, organized crime groups trick people with fake job ads that offer well-paid and perfectly legal work.
Often, the scammers promise jobs in IT or similar fields to lure their victims from India or even the U.S. to countries like Thailand. When their marks arrive, the fraudsters confiscate their passports passports and ship them off to remote Cambodian or Myanma call centers that resemble prisons, complete with round-the-clock armed security. From that point on, the victims are coerced into scamming other victims.
One of the most popular call center scams, called "pig butchering," snares victims with "long-lost" contacts who encourage them to invest (and re-invest) in cryptocurrency through fraudulent online platforms that show massive returns on each investment. But it's all a lie, and one day the platform and the contact simply vanish. The FBI estimates that in 2023, scammers used pig butchering to steal more than $2.9 billion.
