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Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nol.
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. I suggest we begin with a callback Matt Nol. Not too long ago, we explored a harrowing story about me Admar, especially the troubled scam industry there, and we exercise some empathy. We asked a question a lot of people don't ask, which is when you get
those crazy phone calls, who's on the other line? You know, who's on the other end of the phone.
Oh yeah. And we talked about specifically the geography of me and Mar and how many borders it shares with other countries where you can just travel across a river and now you're in me and Mar that is going through all kinds of political turmoil, a very dangerous place to be.
Yeah, what you might call a civil and social and governmental unrest. It's some areas being you know, completely lawless.
And we also we also know, just as you do, fellow conspiracy realist, that stories continue long after a headline fades from your favorite subreddit or your favorite paper of notes. So we kept digging, and tonight we are following up on a deeper dive into the active criminal enterprises of online scams, not just in Meammar, but around the globe.
We are joined with the Edward R. Moureau Award winning investigative journalist Denise chand Denise, your newest project, Scam Factory, explores the real world phenomena of scam compounds, their providence, their consequences, the unclean human tool involved. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you all, and we'll.
Be right back with Denise after a word from our sponsors. We have been listening to Scam Factory, which has, let's say, fully humanized the experiences of people who go through the factory, people who are affected by loved ones going through the factory. It is blowing our minds just as listeners. Can you tell us how you came into this project?
Yeah, I mean I'm like everybody else who gets a bunch of these sort of scam texts, right, They're on my phone all the time. And when I discovered that the people on the other side of these scam text were trapped in these compounds, thousands of them, stuck there, forced to scam people fourteen sixteen hours a day, was mind blowing and it totally flipped the script of who I thought was a scammer and them actually being a victim.
And I think what is most compelling about Scam Factory is that we were able to find a way to tell this story that Matt, like you said, is human driven. The story takes you inside these scam factories, they take you behind the scene with these scammers. But really, at
the heart of it, it is a family story. It is a story about a man, a Filipine man who gets tricked into going to memar and his older sister, who goes through crazy links, gets wrapped up in the scam operations, makes complicated decisions in order to get her brother out.
A very very complex character. If we're going to call them characters, this is someone Charlie is not exactly well. Charlie in particular, just an absolutely. I don't know, compelling kind of case of someone being pulled in multiple directions and sort of driven by different allegiances and ultimately I don't want to spoil anything, but it's very much put to the test.
And I think that that's what's really exciting about the series is that because we get six episodes and we get to really deep dive with each of these characters, you get to really grapple alongside with these characters around this moral question of would I harm people I don't know in order to save my myself or to say, the people that I love.
It's a trolley problem in a way, you know, ethically fraught and denise. One thing I love that you're pointing out here is there's an exploration for the people on the other side of the cold phone call. They themselves have become scammed into scamming, if it's fair to say. And with this, before we really dive in, we have to acknowledge your award winning work on previous projects so cal connected. I was there podcasts like fed Up and over my Dead Body and.
Don't forget until it happened to us.
All right?
Always remember that one. Also, can you tell us how you initially discovered this story, like what drew you to it?
Thank you for pointing out my previous work. Yeah, so my previous background was in investigative documentaries. I've actually done a lot of stories primarily domestically focused. So having the opportunity to do an international story, to bring a story that's overseas two US audiences, was always on my bucket list. So this is why Scam Factory is very special and unique milestone for me personally. But how I found this story,
it was unexpected. Actually, you know, once I heard that these people, once I've learned the truth about who was behind these scam texts, I immediately wanted to talk to people who had escaped from these compounds. And at the time, we had heard about two people who had just been rescued a couple days prior and made it back to Bangkok, and so we scheduled an interview to talk to them, and those two individuals turned out to be Max and
Jing Wow. And as we're sitting there talking to Max and Jane, we noticed that Max it keeps looking at a woman sitting on the side, and we don't realize until the recorder is off that that person is actually Charlie, his older sister. And it wasn't until after that when we began to have conversations with Charlie that we realized, oh, Charlie not only helped bring Max out, but she actually played an even bigger role without giving any spoilers, that
made her really the center of this entire story. So that is how we ended up finding finding the story, finding these siblings. And as we just kept pulling that thread, it was, it just kept graveling and it became a wilder and wilder tail as.
You'll learn what luck I mean, I know there's more to it than luck, but for your first you know source that you discover to be at the center of what is not just a kind of a teachable moment for this kind of thing and sort of an explanation of what is on the other side, but just an absolute twisting, turning story of intrigue and just you know, kind of the humanity of it adds it's incredible that was you found those folks so quickly and all at the same time.
Yeah, I will add that, you know, it wasn't the Max and Jay weren't definitely they were the first sources that we spoke to coming out as Highland, but we had talked to other sources stuff until that point. But the thing about Wondering is that we're always trying to
find the most unique way into the story. And once we heard about Charlie and Max's journey, the sibling story, we were like, Okay, this is going to be a compelling way in for listeners to universally understand what these individuals are going through.
So let's jump to the first episode of the series. When we're thinking about Charlie and Max. As you know sister brother Charlie, the older sister who feels very protective over Max. How does Max get introduced to the concept of whatever it is that he thinks he's going to go and do to make some money, Like what does that value offer to him? And then how does he get sucked in? And how does Charlie help him get there?
So Max hears about this job offer through a couple of his friends who have been I think originally they were going to work in Cambodia and he hears about this opportunity. He thinks, oh my gosh, my friends are out there, they seem to be doing fine. I want to work this job that one falls through. He gets another offer to go to Bangkok, and this is the one that we hear in the series, and he's talking to a lot of his friends. They all seem like, oh,
this is a great job. Yeah, come come, come, come come, and they're selling him on everything. You know, They're selling him on amenities like room and board. Everything is paid for, you get food, you get all these The supermarkets are there. Everything is there, so you don't even have to leave the compounds, so you're all good. You can just stay there. And obviously, like we say in this series, Max is at home driving his family car. It's not it's not making a ton of money. So when he hears he's
making maybe two hundred and fifty dollars a month. And so when he hears a job opportunity to go abroad and make one thousand dollars a month, that could be game changing for him. And so that's what initially appeals to him. It's like, yes, I'm going to go abroad for a year and work and be away from my family. But hey, on the other side, I'll be able to give them a way better standard of living if I can get this this income. So that's Initially what brings him in, Well, what does.
He think he's going to do with that job? Like, what is the actual job itself?
He thinks that he is going over there to do It's like an online casino gig, and so he thinks he's going over there to do It's almost like the loaders on online casinos, where you do customer service with people who are gambling, and so he thinks that's what the job is going to be. It's customer service, it's back end, and that's it.
In totally legit and super above board, definitely not involved with any sort of triad. The sarcasm goes so real quick, Denise, Let's let's walk through this experience. So we are Max, right, we are working a pretty not amazing job, we're making ends meet, and we receive an offer to travel abroad. We sign a contract telling us we will work back end an online casino gig. Where do we find the plot twist? What happens to Max when he agrees to take up this job offer.
So Max is a sign a contract. But one of the things I want to emphasize is, like, one of the things that is really sinister about the entire thing is that. You'll hear it in the first scene where they go to a mall and these criminal syndicate bosses will come, the recruiters will come, and they'll have lunch with you. They'll they'll make it seem as legitimate as possible, that this is all good. They'll answer every single question that you have, they'll try to sell you on it.
You're almost flattered by it, right because you're coming from a place where maybe you aren't given that kind of respect, and you're being treated like you're potentially an asset for this new operation, and there's got to be a certain sense of like pride that they're giving either maybe you are lacking in your normal life.
Yeah, and it feels like, you know, you'll hear it in the series where Max goes to this restaurant and it's a fancy restaurant, a restaurant they normally wouldn't go to, and everything is paid for. In the back of their mind, it feels really legitimate, like, oh, Okay, these people have money, this company has money, this is gonna be great. So and Charlie is at that lunch. Charlie is convinced herself. She feels like she's done all the vetting that she
could do. She has asked all the questions. She feels like it's legitimate, so she lets Max go. So yeah, After their luncheon, Max is convinced. Max is very excited. Charlie actually also has the opportunity to get the opportunity a free flight to go and check out the compound herself. I mean, all of this seems above board on her end. She goes over to the campus. She sees, Oh, okay, everything looks legitimate, like all the amenities are exactly as
they said. She takes a look at the dorms, She takes a look at the office, She looks at people's screens, sees, oh, they are doing online gambling. She comes back, tells Max, we're good to go. I think you're okay, And so Max goes and he's very excited. He flies over to Bangkok and very quickly realizes something isn't right because Bangkok should only be about forty five minutes away from the airport, and as he's driving, it becomes longer and longer and longer,
and something starts to dawn on him. But it is not right.
Yeah, I don't want to spoil it too much, but imagine being like just being shuffled into a vehicle, right, you think you're going forty five minutes, then it turns into five hours, and then they're like, hey, get out, we're going to stay at this hotel for a few hours. And were here it kill it.
I mean, all that kind of too speaks to the nature of a scam and this idea of keeping people hanging on kind of hoping for the next thing or the positive thing that was promised. You'd make a really good comparison in the first episode that I think a lot of people can understand about the way car salesman op. I actually just bought a car, so it's home for me.
But it's the idea that they kind of keep you captive in a way and make you all these promises and answer all your questions and make everything seem legitimate, and then when you're kind of out of it or exhausted, that's when they kind of pull the bait and switch
or whatever. You know. I mean, not all car salesmen are like that, but can you maybe speak a little bit to the mechanics of a scam, Maybe not the specific scam, but just how that promise and that whole relationship kind of plays into how things can really quickly spin out of control.
I think what's interesting is the whole tactic, especially with folks like Max and Jane who get tricked into going to MEMR. They are constantly reassured even in the car, like as they're texting the recruiter, Oh, no, it's fine, this is exactly what's happening. Don't worry. And they'll try and ask questions, be like, hey, where where are we going? And the driver will say no English, no English. So it's sort of it's a stressful and yet confusing period.
But also you have no choice but to trust the only person, the only contact you have, oftentimes it's the recruiter, And so the recruiter is telling you, oh, it's good, it's good, it's good, and so you really, what are you going to do? You can't just like open the door and just like roll out of the car. Right.
It's a very scary situation, and they purposely kind of put people in that in that scenario so they can't escape, and they all they can do is hope that they're telling the truth, and obviously they're not telling the truth about where they're going.
Well, and even beyond that, like physical safety aspect, there is also that promise of future payment, future deliverables, and you're like, oh, if I jump out now, or if I get out now, or if I ask to be dropped off, then I won't get this opportunity. And that's part of the kind of mind games that are being played with you by this recruiter as well.
Yeah, yeah, I mean even once they get into the compound, it's like the goals post keeps moving, you know. It's it's they'll say, oh, just work one year, and then maybe once you get to the one year, who knows if they're lying or not. They could keep you for longer or just meet this quota. And then once you meet this quota, uh, and and you hit a certain number, the quota might change. The quota might suddenly be like okay, the bosses might suddenly say, hey, yeah, we said you
could work until this amount of money. However, because of how you lived, you now owe x amount and so therefore what you're trying to get at is now a higher price. So these are just things that they do to make sure you're stuck there and with.
That will take a quick break and be right back.
And we're back.
Can we describe, just for everyone tuning in a bit of the working conditions. So we're putting ourselves in Max's place. Right in the story, we have our sibling Charlie, who is very increasingly concerned. Right, we're Max, what are our average like day to day working conditions looking like? How is our life there?
So inside these compounds, it's kind of bizarre because, and I will be honest, when I first heard about these places, it felt unreal that these places would exist. They are almost like micro cities. There are places where there's high rise buildings full of dorms, offices, and there's casinos, there's hotels, there's streets full of restaurants, there are karaoke bars, so
it feels like a mini city. Obviously, as a low level worker, somebody like Max or Jane in the story, you're not allowed to necessarily go to some of these places. Those areas of pleasure are oftentimes for the bosses. So for workers like Max, really you are confined to either the dorms or the office and you just basically go from one place to the next, and there are guards everywhere at all the entrants. Oftentimes there are armed guards.
You're heavily monitored when you're working in the office. You have to turn in your phones before you start work, and so the bosses are looking through what you're sending to people. So Max had to be very very careful about what he was sending out. There are cameras everywhere inside these inside the offices, just watching people, making sure
you're working. I've also heard from sources of guards just walking up and down the aisles as people are sitting at their desk, just to make sure they are working. Everything that they type on their computer is also monitored by the bosses, so if you go off script, for instance, the bosses will know, and so every single move you make is watched. And then there's this immense pressure to meet scam quotas. So Max and Jane told me that their daily quota was about two thousand dollars a day.
Their team quota was twenty five thousand dollars a day, and that's a team of thirteen people. So you divide that by thirteen, it's two thousand dollars a day.
So you can only imagine that US dollars.
US dollars, so you can only imagine the amount of money that's coming into these places, and if they don't meet a certain quota, If they don't hit quota, there's punishment. There's punishment like starvation, there's punishment like physical beatings, tortures over time, things like that.
So wow, it just sounds so impossible that it could be real, especially to get in to that situation the way that Max well, and we don't spoil too much, but all of the people that we follow in the story end up in that position. I've heard of many different types of scams. The one that is described that they are performing is it was weird and different to me that I just didn't I couldn't comprehend how they would end up making money as scammers in this way
until you spell it out. I'd love to just describe that a little bit. I don't know if it's specifically called hotel hub or deal smashers or those things, but it's this concept of roping somebody in through hotel reviews and a complicated system of then that person putting money back into the system to get money out. Can you just describe some of that.
Yeah, I think I was also a little confused about like the negative balance aspect of it. And how that works. That would be super awesome if you could walk us through it, because it's fascinating.
Yeah, it was. I mean, I'll be honest, I was confusing when I first heard when I first heard of this scam as well, because they also use interesting terms. They call them customers and clients. They use terminology that's really interesting, and I actually think part of that is to make the workers feel like they're conducting legitimate business in a way. It's psychological, right, the way that you frame.
It's weaponized language, right.
Yeah, So, Brillian, I think all of this is it's all part of if you get any of these recruitment texts, I think there's a lot of I've been getting a lot of like, hey, are you looking for part time job? I'm from a recruiting agency. And so the scam that we talked about in this series specifically is a hotel booking scam. So they pretend that they are from almost like a hotel rating company that is asking people to
just for part time gig. Hey review a few hotels for me, and we will give you some commission, will throw us a couple dollars your way. Super easy work, Sit on your couch, just rate some hotels. At some point, the hook comes when they are asked to start to write reviews for these hotels. And in order to write reviews, you have to make some sort of hotel booking. And in order to make the hotel booking, you put in your money first, and then you'll be able to get
your money back out afterwards. In doing so, by putting your money in upfront, you are allowing yourself to make an even bigger commission. It is kind of confusing, but I think what the scam does a really good job of is that the scammer is trying to reassure you, Hey, this complicated thing, don't worry. I'm going to simplify it for you. All you got to do is just throw the money in and like, don't even worry about how this all works.
All you got to know, I'll help you out. I'll actually like, I'm your advocate here, You're.
With you exactly, it's you and me as a team, right exactly.
All you got to do just put in the money. I can just reassure you that you'll get even more money back. And so at this point, I mean that's the heart of the scam, where you like start to develop a relationship with your scammer or your recruiter, you think that they're looking out for you, and so you start to believe, Okay, so far they have helped me make a lot of money, so I have no reason to not trust them at this moment in time, even
though I don't fully understand how this all works. And so they'll put money in and know, like you were asking, the negative balance comes up again where it's like, oh, you know what, for some reason, it's a negative balance, but don't worry. Just put more money in and you'll get an even bigger reward at the end. And so it's sort of like this cyclical thing. It doesn't fully make sense, but I do think the heart of it
is that there's a level of trust. You trust that this person you're talking to knows exactly what they're doing. They understand the platform better than you. So the report they're looking out for you for sure.
Well it makes me think about the gig economy that we all exist in now, where everybody is looking for a second or third thing they can do on the side to make just enough money to live right, to be able to afford life. In twenty twenty five. And this concept of picking up something on the side and then just you know, doing reviews, doing rating, maybe even delivering something. That kind of thing just is so regular, that is just life.
Now.
I can see how people would get sucked in really easily.
And the fact that it's remote, right, I feel like everybody in these days are looking for they're looking for remote work to do something quick and easy, make a couple of bucks. And it's not like you're going to make a huge salary from this, but hey, a couple of hundred bucks helping something, yeah.
Yeah, Well, and I guess maybe the irony too, is that the person that's running that scam and that is creating that rapport with the customer or whatever the per that's being scammed, they themselves, the person running it, have a relationship that is similarly toxic and like Stockholm syndrome with their captors, right, and where they're incentivized and they are able to somehow mentally in order to just deal with the trauma of all of this, normalize all of
this in order to kind of keep from going nuts. I mean, that's just it's mind blowing the idea that you know you are having to do this to a person. You speak to multiple people who have executed these games, and they feel remorse, But in the moment, you're like doing what you're told, and you're also maybe even a little bit trying to do a good job, and maybe you're also kind of good at it. It's fascinating. Yeah, that's what psychology of it all.
It's really twisted to be put in that sort of position where you want.
To succeed and hit target because of the environment you're in, but at the same time you're very clear what you're doing and you're manipulating the person on the other end, and.
When the killing day comes, when you are actually scamming them. Yeah, the rug pull where you realize where they realize, oh, I'm not getting that money back. They feel it a lot, and you know, Max is just you hear it in the series, a lot of these characters really have a tough time grappling with that.
They're cleaning out elderly people's savings and things like that as well. I mean, this is very it's the most kind of predatory.
Also under threat. Right. The people perceived by the end mark, right, are themselves being scammed through the establishment of manipulation and rapport a cycle, as you said, Denise, of scam all the way down. One of the questions that a lot of folks are going to be asking when they hear our conversation now is well, hey, what if I am one of these people built into traveling to me and mar right, and I realize stuff is not on the up and up and I want to get out.
What do I do?
Is it possible for me to get out from under the thumb of this scam industry? What happens in that case?
It's very scary to be in a place like Memmr where it is lawless and it's not easy to have access to law enforcement.
Communications are monitored as well. I mean you are and there's like guards, there's this whole shoot to kill. It's almost like trying to stage a prison break or something at a certain point.
Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. It's very hard to reach out. I will say, if you are in a situation like that, try your best to reach out to your embassy in the area. Yes, I think that is the number one place where they could possibly do something, to go through
perhaps the appropriate channels. In the series, we talked to Colonel Mattalog who is the police attache in Thailand, and he is from the Philippines embassy, and so that was a really critical resource for Filipinos, the Philippine Embassy in Bangkok. So depending on what country you are from, I would say that is the first place to reach out to.
Not the hero of our story in anyways, your story.
I don't want to I don't want to spoil too much, but the concept that these each, each individual person is a foreign worker working in me and Mar for a company, right, and then mean More has this thing and I don't
know if this is right or not. I was just doing some digging after listening to one of the episodes, but I found a thing called the Me and Mar Center for Responsible Business Complaints and Grievance, which is really interesting and I don't know if it's actually directly related to the story here, but it is a system set up to where foreign companies operating in Meanmar are monitored to some extent, not really but to some extent, right, and then you're able to lodge a complaint as an
employee of one of these foreign companies and say, hey, my human rights are being violated in one way or another. Here is how I need help. How is that real? How does that function?
Like?
What is a complaint desk?
Yes? If it sounds bizarre, right that the place it does, a place that's completely flawless and wild, would have some sort of complaint desk.
It's like HRR, better business.
Yeah, exactly, it's it's insane. And I remember feeling that exact same way when I heard about it. I'm like, wait, are you guys playing my leg here like they're you could just feel like, hi, sorry, I have a complaint. So yeah, So these compounds are actually run by a group called the Border Guard Forces, and the Border Guard Forces basically control the land that these compounds are on.
And so what that means is these Chinese syndicates that are opening these start these compounds, they're not the actual owners of the place. They're leasing the land from the group like Border Guard Forces. And so the Border Guard Forces, from our reporting, there's really not a level of loyalty necessarily to their Chinese tenants. It's more so, hey, we're letting you use this land. Don't give us any trouble. And so I think a desk like this complaint desk
that exists in these compounds is their way of making sure. Hey, we're we're doing our job. Like you know, if anybody has any human rights complaints, they can come to this plaint desk and just file it. That said, in the series, when you know Colonel advises people to go to this complaint desk, he is very clear that it's not a foresure that just because you go to this complaint desk you will get out. There is a lot of negotiation, back and back channeling that is done in order to
get these people out. However, step one is to at least just flag to the complaint desk. Hey, my embassy knows that I am here, and they know that I want to get out and there's a violation on my human rights. I don't want to work here. I want to get out.
Are there any have you encountered any fears of reprisal for people reaching out to that complaint desk?
Gosh, there have to be at least the threat of it, right, And don't the employers get a day in court to answer for their supposed crimes as well? Like they kind of show up, don't they? Isn't that part of it?
Yeah, Colonel is very clear when people go to the complaint desk, don't leave. The complaint desk area is a physical area. It's right, right, It's almost it's like when you're playing tag, there's like a safe zone base. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the safe base. So it's essentially like that. It's like, don't leave, don't don't let them convince you to go back to the dorms. Because there have been situations where the bosses are so convincing they go, hey, no, just
go back. We can talk about it back in the dorms, and they get brutally beaten and their chances of even getting out again are very limited.
Well, sometimes they go to the desk after having already been brutally beaten with signs of that kind of violence, and yet there's still situations where they might be enticed to go back. It just speaks to the absolute, you know, Jedi level mind games that these folks are playing.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Hey, what do you say we take a quick break here, a word from our sponsors, and then get right back into this conversation about scam Factory, and we've returned at this point.
A lot of us listening now will wonder why this practice continues, indeed, why this practice seems to have not been in any way addressed nor in any actionable way controlled to preserve the safety of these people who get scammed in to scamming. So we have to ask why why is no one stopping this?
It's not even reported that widely. I hadn't heard about it until we did a strange news segment about it on the show. And this is very much Ben's wheelhouse with international affairs and such. But I just don't feel like it gets much traction in the American media, you know, outside of your incredible series. It seems like a really off the beaten path kind of story that a lot of folks are absolutely clueless about.
I think what often happens here in the US when we report on these stories, it's usually from the standpoint of the victim, right, the victim who gets the text and ends up getting scammed. And so, you know, the goal of telling the story from the perspective of the scammers is, to Michael, was to really show how connected
we all are. Right, this is a story, Yes, it's a human trafficking story that's happening all the way in memr and it feels very very far away, and yet these same people are very much so connected to us over here, just simply through a text message. So that human rights story that's happening over there is very much something that we should all pay attention over here in the US. But to your point then that what is happening? What like, is anybody doing anything about this situation? You know,
these contents have existed for quite some time now. I could started somewhere during the pandemic when it started to really pick up. But it's been kind of exciting is a weird word to use, but you know, I will I will say that there's been a lot of renewed attention on these scam compounds. I don't know if you've heard recently. Earlier this year, there was news of a
Chinese actor who had been tricked. He thought he was going for a casting call in Bangkok and he ended up being in one of these compounds in Memar, and that made huge news. And in addition to that, there was also another Hong Kong pop star. His name is Easan Chan. He was scheduled to have a concert in Bangkok and he canceled it because he was scared that fans were going to be abducted and taken into Meammar to these scam compounds, and so both of those events
really just shine new light on the topic. And as a result of that, there's been a lot of pressure on the leaders of China and Thailand to do something about it. And so in the last month in February, we're seeing a lot of motion, like a lot of activity. We saw Thailand shut off power in some of the towns in Memmr for where these compounds are held. Just
last week. Okay, so I don't know when this is going to air, but last week of February, the compounds, a couple of compounds released about seven thousand people wow out and so right now as we're speaking, they're all hanging out in Memmar waiting to be repatriated back to their perspective countries. And so that's huge. Seven thousand people is a lot, and so it's going to be exciting to see what other new developments are coming out, how many are more are being released, and so on and
so forth. And actually KK Park, which is one of the scam factories that we feature in our series, they released I don't have an exact number, but they released quite a number of people part of that seven thousand.
That's anyone who is a regular listener of this show. That's one of the ones we highlighted KK Park in our previous episode on this whole situation.
I think I was taking it back by that because it literally is like a very professional seeming office park, you know, but specifically designed for this very you know, nefarious purpose.
And folks, real quick, the Chinese actor we're referencing there is Wong Shinging. I think, so this is getting more and more international attention. Thousands of people.
Yeah, well, let's get a sense of scale here. This is from reporting from The Guardian as of just a couple of days ago. They're estimating around one hundred and twenty thousand people across me mmr are in this situation, living in a compound like this, forced to work in this type of this type of job in that situation. There's another one hundred thousand and estimated in Cambodia who are having to do this. And you know, that's just
two countries where this type of stuff is happening. And so you imagine seven thousand people is so many human beings that are saved, but then there's so much work left to do.
Yeah, and there are just you'll hear news like this, but then you'll hear, oh there's a new scam compound being built in Dubai. Oh there are new compounds being built in Africa, in South America. So it's it's like whack a mole, right, you can't the hydra, Yeah, yeah, you can't kill them off.
Yeah, I mean, I just I don't know. I get so many scam calls, it's kind of ridiculous, and it seems like it's gotten just worse and worse, and the types of scams just seem to keep shifting, Like I get this one all the time. Now that's saying that they need more information for this loan that I applied for, and it's their underwriting department and I get it.
Spoiler, folks, Noel did not actually apply.
It did not. But it's indifferent voices, they leave messages, it comes from all kinds of area codes, and it's coming from this very uniform seeming script. So that's just one that I've been inundated with. And I just wonder if you have any thoughts about the are things like that coming from these types of compounds as well? Is
that a red flag? The idea that it's the scripted thing with different voices, maybe with spoofed numbers, or how do they reach us, you know, with this kind of stuff, and how do you see the evolution of these types of scams even as governments take action and close some of these places down.
I don't know for sure if all of the calls are from these scam centers. I wouldn't be surprised right now, from what I've heard of from my sources is that there's a big focus on AI anybody like AI talent because you know, as you can imagine, if you can use AI to talk to people, not rely on people trans late to chat with people, like, it's only going
to become more and more realistic, and that's really scary. Yes, So that, like, I wouldn't surprise me that they're doing things like that, But that only means we should all just be more vigilant of any strange calls, any texts from strangers.
Yeah, to anybody that wants to video chat with you.
Do you have any tips and any tips you might pass on to folks who in this climate just things to listen out for without just being completely paranoid and distrustful of everything, you know, I mean yeah, I don't know if if if you in the course of your reporting kind of learned some things to look for and maybe some suggestions you might give to listeners, you know, trying to be be vigilant.
As we're saying, also, Denise, thank you for hopping on this video chat with us. Jeez, but that's a that's a great question. So we're we're hearing these very scary things. We're also learning to exercise empathy for the people who got scammed into scamming in your work. As Noel was asking, do we arrive at some basic like day one tips for the vigilance you describe.
I am the first to admit that now I am so paranoid of any of any text I got my way the other day. Just last night, my boyfriend got a texted was like, Hey, I'm your neighbor, like can you turn down the music? My name is Debbie. And we're like, we don't have a neighbor named Debbie. Why is this their new way to scam people? Now it turns out it was a wrong number, but I was like, oh no, oh.
My gosh, what's going on with Debbie?
Well, so, you know, like I'm constantly worried about this kind of stuff. But I would say, you know, I'll give the advice that I give to my mom because that is what I often times do. One is I would tell her, do not talk to anybody who's tried to sneak into your talk to you on Facebook, on WhatsApp, like any strangers, Like, just don't talk to them. If somebody is reaching out to you that pretends that they're from some sort of legitimate company, really try to verify.
What they will often do is if you look closely at the website they give you, check for the legitimate website, like google it on your own, just to make sure it's the real site. Look at email addresses. Sometimes they'll change like one single letter just to make themselves seem like they're from the company, but they're really not.
Make sure that you are L is the real U R L exactly?
Yes, yes, I do RU there you go, they sneak in, But yeah, I think that that's That's one thing. And then if in doubt, I would also seek out second third opinions just to like make sure, so like a double verify, Like my momost and me all these texts and emails these days and I'll be like, don't respond. That's a scam. That's a scam. That's a scam.
Yeah.
And actually the biggest thing is if you're in conversation with any of these people, if anybody asked you to set up a crypto account, that is a big red flag.
You know, don't give my Amazon gift cards another one anything like that. That's like untraceable, and yes, yes.
That's it. Don't don't set up a crypto account to do that with strangers.
Just just while we're here, I want to talk about a character named Jella that we meet inside the series, and she is somebody who was She was doing the hotel reviews scam or you know, one of the one of the other scams for a while, but she wasn't very good at it because she just couldn't convince people to you know, sink all their money into stuff. So
she got transferred to another office. I don't know if it was the same company or a different company, just in the same compound, but she was doing a essentially a honey pot scam, but just with a whole room full of people doing the same scam where they're trying to get people to video chat and do lude things on video.
For blackmail extortion.
It's just incredible to think that there are rooms of human beings forced to do that type of work. And then we hear stories, especially of younger people, they get caught up in something like that. Who you know a younger person that thinks they've got oh wow, here is potentially a crusher or you know a relationship that I could build and it just turns into something that can
destroy your entire life. You highlight the possibility of self harm in some of these situations with another university student who gets caught up in one of these things. It's just I don't even really have a question here, Denise. It's just it's so important for all of us to know that this stuff exists to arm our minds against it at least a lot little bit.
Yeah, I think to your point about Jella, it's like Jella ends up doing a number of different scams and without giving everything away, she is reaching out to people when she does the sextortion scam, it's she's on dating platforms like she's on that kind of problem. Then she does she gets moved to another department where they're doing pig butchering scams on Amazon's shop like it's just you can't avoid it. They are coming everywhere to try and develop relationships with people. YIX be careful.
Yes, as you said earlier, the vigilance is key, and we're exploring this sort of stuff together. Obviously. You know, the weird thing about the age of ubiquitous social media, the fact that anyone around the world can contact anyone else. We would have logically assumed it brought people together, but it seems to have made people a bit more lonely. So we have to ask ourselves about the human drive to connect, right and how that human that fundamental human
drive can be weaponized against people. You know, sometimes we end these kind of conversations with the with our little takeaway being like call your mom, you know, call your dad, check in on the older folks in your life, especially people who are not, as we would say, native to this world. And one thing that we really want to emphasize with your work in Scam Factory is that, as you point out, this is a continuing story. This does not this does not end with, you know, a nice
bow wrapped to top the gift. Is there is there a way out for people currently experiencing this on either side of the phone. We talked about contacting and embassy. We talked about a couple of day one kind of things we can do to protect our loved ones. Where do you see this industry of scam factories going in the future. Is there any kind of stop gap?
Is there?
Is it accelerating what's going on?
I hope that there's going to be a stop gap, but I hope that there will be change. It's hard to It's really hard to predict, right, because these compounds are growing so fast. I remember over the course of my reporting, I reported on this for about two years. Even when I would look at satellite image of Kkparks specifically, every month, there'd be new buildings being built, like they're just constantly growing and things aren't changing.
Just the amount of money that goes in there. Right, you said twenty five thousand dollars a day quota for one office, and we're imagining there's a ton of offices, right.
Yeah, yeah, I mean some companies are making The stat I had was four hundred thousand dollars a day for just one single company. So the amount of money that's coming through it could be billions of dollars, and so when you think about how much money is going into these compounds, you can imagine there's like a lot of incentive to like make sure it keeps going. So there's a lot of you know, when you're building things at this scale, it requires a lot of people to allow
it to happen. And so there's also that which is what makes it sometimes a bit hard to well, not a bit, it makes it very hard to stop and to hold people accountable.
Can we talk about how I think Charlie. There's a moment where Charlie wants to go see her brother, and in order to do that, she negotiates with the character we're calling dev in the story. But then she ends up meeting people who want to go. They are aware that it's a scam factory style thing, they know exactly what it is, and they want to go there to make money, and they're like, Yeah, that's great, that sounds great,
I'll go. I guess that blows my mind because it does seem like, at least within the story of Scam Factory, that there are human beings who are aware of the situation in the compounds and still want to go because there's a belief that perhaps they can make money for a few years and then get out.
Yeah, there definitely is that. And actually, when I spoke to Colonel there are actually people who at trapped there but end up staying because they think, you know what, at the end of the day, I may not be doing something that is above water, is above word, but I am making more money than I would make at home.
So I would rather stay here and at least be able to send money back, and I have all the amenities I need, which is really crazy that they these places become almost a better place to exist in work, then they would be back home.
Wow.
Yeah, it's a devil you know, situation sometimes, right, the idea that we may we may address or engage with with a morally fraud kind of enterprise and in doing so perhaps justify for ourselves a greater good. Right, I am helping my family, I am pursuing an opportunity and always just for a limited time that perhaps is the most It's that's yeah, it's.
Super insidious, and I think that's they weaponize this notion of family. They use family to recruit, they use family to extort, and they use family to control, Like they're using family to do all of the above to keep workers doing exactly what they want them to do.
Thank you so much, Denise for hanging out with us and telling us just about the show you've made. For this episode, Wow, this is this is?
Are you kidding? Thank you for bringing this story further into the world, because it's something that is so easy to ignore. Right It's common parlance here in the West for people to say, oh, you'll never guess what kind of scam text I got, and it's very easy to forget that they're real people on the other side of that line. Scam Factory is available now. Spoilers, folks, It's really good. We're not blowing spoke on this one. The reporting, Denise you have done got us to I can't speak
for my palace, Matt and noll At. A couple times in the show, I was wondering, Holy shit, is Denise going to be okay reporting this? You know what I mean? Did you ever feel that you yourself were going to get targeted for bringing this to the world. I hope the answer is no.
I mean no, It's in the back of my mind.
You know. In the early stages there were reporters who didn't want to work with me on this because of safety concerns, and so that is also one of the reasons why we don't use we use pseudonyms on the series, because you know, these are people who have escaped from criminal syndicates and so they're very afraid, and so that is something that we had to take a lot of Karen and really making sure that we do what we can to protect their identity because it's very very brave
of them to come share their story. But also on top of that, it's taxing, right, this is a traumatic experience that they have gone through, and so as a reporter or the other thing that is very front of mine for me is really making sure that we are doing trauma informed reporting and making sure that they are they they have, they're in control as they're sharing their stories with us. So I would thank my sources for speaking and sharing their stories.
I have a potentially dumb question, what is the syndicate? Like we talked about it, but is it multiple criminal organizations? Is are there a couple that are just controlling a lot of this stuff or they like I'm imagining all these different front companies right that are operating in some way.
Who's the stakeholder cough cough.
So from my understanding, it's not like there's one family crime or criminal organization on the top of everything. It's all like the you know, this isn't Batman. So I don't know how many how many people are in charge at the top. I think there are a lot of entrepreneurs.
I recall it that entrepreneurs.
Who see this as an opportunity to make money. And I've even heard of like this is really crazy, but I've heard of things like a startup kit that have been being distributed as to like how you can set up your own scamming like scamming company. And so because of that, it's it's kind of scary in that you can see it as entrepreneurship. And so therefore you can't really pinpoint who is at the top of all of this.
But there has been reporting of of some individuals who've been funding some of these things.
And then yeah, and we can't thank you enough for your time bringing this story to the world.
You have to be so busy.
And we are are grateful that you're even hanging out with us here. We usually, you know, just for the record, tell Stoners about Bigfoot. So can I get away with that one if we're going to keep it in. So this is this, Thanks Andrew. This is something more people need to know about, Denise. Is there a place where people can learn more about your work, not just with this project scam Factory, but with your other endeavors and projects.
Thank you for asking, Ben. I was just thinking this morning that I should really get my website so that people can see my work. But yeah, for the time being, you can probably you can follow me on social media Denise k Chan and on LinkedIn probably the best way to see my work, and eventually, hopefully by the time this is up, you can find me on my website. Thank you so much for having me.
Of course, thank you, and there you have it, fellow conspiracy realist. We have followed up on our earlier episode about KK Park and the troubled order of Meam mark guys. Honestly, scam Factory. It's really good, It really really is.
It's just beautifully researched and reported, obviously, and also the sound design is top notch and very immersive without you know, kind of getting in the way. Really can't wait to hear more. I think there's one more episode to drop as we sit and record this today.
Yeah, yeah, and some of us have listened and it uh wow, just you should listen. I'll put it that way. I don't want to spoil anything. It is such a crazy story. And have you said something at the top, know all about Charlie, that character Charlie just following the journey all the way to the end.
Yeah, this is something that really hit me. You guys, Denise Chan and her team are looking at the human consequences that we explored briefly, but they're looking at it in depth. You know, there's always someone else on the other side of the phone, and we know that it can be so tempting and easy to clown folks who are scammers, but we have to ask where that person is coming from and whether they want to be there.
Yeah, And it's a scam all the way down and all the way up, everybody scamming everybody in the chain when it comes to this, and guys, it made me just think about I don't know, some stuff I kind of don't want to say on the mic, just about jobs in general, taxes and oh boy, getting scammed. Just heay, No, we just need you to work a little bit longer you'll retire one day. No, no, no, we promise. Yeah,
you'll retire. You'll go on that cruise. You'll be sixty, maybe eighty, but go on a cruise for sure.
Yeah. Just keep just keep digging, and pay no attention to the gun at the back of your head.
Y yeah.
Yeah, and remember you're only renting the shovel anyway, not keeping it too dark. We want to hear your thoughts, folks. Please check out Scam Factory, and please, please please remember that this show only happens with your support. You are the most important part of our exploration. As such, we would love to hear from you. The rumors are true. You can find us on email. You can find us on a telephonic device of your choice. You can also sip the social means.
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