Transcript
As soon as you have invested a little money in something like this, you are also invested yourself and want to reap the fruits of it. So far, experts doubt that this plan will work and believe that it requires a greater and above all an international effort to break down such scam networks. The look to Cambodia shows how big the extent of scamming can be. Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Human Firewall Podcast. My name is Christian and opposite me is Gundi. Today we have a cyber security case in your luggage that shows how big the machinery behind the individual fraud can actually be. I don't want to tease too much, but we're showing something really oversized about cybercrime. It's about scam calls, fake sms, dubious emails. By now we've almost all come into contact somewhere. Often attackers use social engineering and are exposed to money or sensitive information with their fraud attempts. In this case, let's go a little bit to the bottom of who is behind it and how is it actually organized? Exactly. You already hinted a little bit that there is no single person behind it, but actually very large and very well organized groups. And to take a closer look at that, today we are looking at Cambodia in one of several so-called scam complexes in this country. We look at how professionally, how modernly and how cleverly such scam centers work. And what is particularly terrible is that the people who work there are often victims of crime themselves. And even more so than the victims who click afterwards. But we'll go into that in detail. There is a BBC report that came out recently that is relatively exciting. I can only recommend it. They report about a young man whose story I would like to tell here briefly. The young man's name is Wilson and he is originally from Uganda. And he just got an offer for a digital marketing job in Malaysia. He is very happy about it. The job is well paid and actually exactly what he was looking for. And he takes on this job and goes on a trip to Malaysia. He is also received. However, not quite as expected, because afterwards he will not be in Malaysia, but in Cambodia again. And relatively quickly he realizes that this is not the job that was actually promised to him. Wilson ended up in a scam complex. Maybe you know it as a casino complex sometimes, if you call it that online. And his job from now on is to scam around the world for 15 to 16 hours a day. And so to earn money for this complex or for the operators of this complex. Similar to Wilson, thousands of other people worked and lived in one of these complexes in Cambodia. They were held there, you have to say. Der Weltspiegel has already talked about the conditions in such scam institutions in 2024. And the procedure there is actually always very similar. Innocent people are lured in with promises for jobs. Often these are people from countries where the labor market is very problematic. For them this can be almost a life-saving offer. A well-paid job abroad. And they are then brought to criminal institutions such as call centers or such a scamming complex. There they are held against their will. So they are not allowed to leave. Often abused and held in conditions similar to that of slaves. You can't say 100% whether or how far people knew what they were getting into. But there are many reports of people who were able to escape it. And what they all have in common is that they were often lured there under false promises. It's terrible. But let's take a look at what such a scam complex looks like from the inside. Right. And you just said they are big. Thousands of people. One who has been cleared up a bit in the media and who we want to devote ourselves to right now, because it has been better documented, is in the city of Osmach. This is on the border to Thailand in northwest Cambodia. The Thai military discovered and cleared it up in December last year. So it was clearly used for scamming. This is well documented for various reasons. We will soon go into what was actually found there. That the Thai military discovered the place sounds a bit strange at first. But it actually has to do with the tense situation between the two countries. You may have to catch up a bit. Before the ceasefire came at the end of December, border conflicts between Thailand and Cambodia broke out for weeks. And that's just a very complicated border dispute that has been going on for hundreds of years. And during this fight, the Thai military discovered this big scam complex, cleared it up, so to speak, and then led journalists there to show, look at this. They also justify their military actions, of course. So you have to illuminate both sides a bit. But it's shocking when you see it that way. And you just said slave-like conditions. What you assume is that most of the people who are there are forced to do what they have to do under gun violence. Yes. If we look at such a scam complex, just so that you understand the size, this area is around 80 hectares. So that you can imagine, there are about 112 football fields. So just a huge area. And this complex consists of several building parts. And there are a lot of different rooms in there. So on the one hand there are workrooms. You can just imagine a lot of workstations, which are very close together. Then, of course, bedrooms with bunk beds. And also rooms where documents were stored. So lists with supposed victims, their contact details. Scripts that show how the scammers proceeded. For example, when they turned themselves in as police officers or members of authorities. And also documents with records of details about the punishment of the employees. So it's very cruel how people are treated there. And that's another interesting part. There were also rooms where fake police offices were reconstructed. From different countries. For example, Singapore, China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Australia. And you can see how far they have searched for their victims. And how skillfully they have pretended to be an authority. For example, there was also a room with the reconstruction of a Vietnamese bank branch, including a service switch and a waiting area. So they did a lot to carry out realistic scams. I wouldn't have come up with the idea that there could be such a thing. At that point, greetings. I was at the BSI. Someone reported this case. Unfortunately, I forgot the name, otherwise I would give a shout-out now. But he told how victims were called on these supposed police stations, which were then really replicas of the police stations. And that means you didn't have a wallpaper, but in the background of this video call that you made, people really moved. And then the victims were kept in the call. I think there was one variant that they were told. You have to check whether there were any money laundering manipulations of their account. And while they were in the call and were constantly being convinced that it was of course an authentic police station, because you could see the operation there, the life there, at some point they were asked to hand it over for protection, so that you could check the account once and then the money was gone. But it also shows that people don't make an effort to get people in. That's why I said at the beginning that this extent is so incredibly large, that they have building complexes with thousands of people, who then need their own administration somewhere. And who have studios, if you want to call them that, of real-life police or bank institutions. And these rooms were used very, very successfully. There was a kind of pre-fabricated conversation management environment, which was then seen, which was well worked out, which the actors should adhere to. So they had to say something certain. Reasons for contact were, for example, fraud charges. I have already mentioned the suspicion of money laundering in this context. And because of these fake scenarios, you should intimidate the victim. So if you're a normal person and you talk to, I don't know what, the police about such accusations, which are very serious, then of course that also has a psychological effect. And then people did things that maybe weren't the most sensible. And the Singaporean, I hope that's the right word, police published a statement on becoming aware of these cases, in which she really gave tips on how to recognize a call from a fake police station. We have to look at where we are in the world right now. That the police now have to explain how to recognize potential fake police in a video call. And government representatives would never ask people to transfer money, to issue logins and so on. That's back to the old topic. I think most people know that banks wouldn't do that or government representatives wouldn't do that. Only the situation is so highly emotional. And that's where it can happen. And that's exactly what's being created there, so to speak. And it's good that the police did that, because it helps to prepare people for it, if you say it explicitly beforehand. It's like when we think about our context, when the CEO says, I would never write you a WhatsApp message to ask for a gift certificate or something. That helps. By the way, we also have a good episode here with young Heinrich. Small teaser on the side. Yes, but back to the topic. Because in addition to these police fraud scams, they have of course also taken other steps. And a very, very popular one are so-called romance or investment scams. And what is done there? In the first step, fake profiles are often created with the help of AI or also with the help of stolen images, mostly by women, who then make contact with the victim. These are usually either single business people or often pensioners. And the first contact then often seems like a coincidence, like an alleged coincidence. Oh, I accidentally sent a message to the wrong number. And then you somehow stay in touch. And it's really amazing how much time is put into it. A long back and forth, often over weeks, in which trust is first built up. But at some point there is always the moment when the attackers ask for money. Either because they act as if they are in some threatening situation, desperate and need help. Or, but what also often happens, that they pretend they have found the ideal investment. And the new contact should definitely invest money in it. And that is also very, very dangerous. Because as soon as you have invested a little money in something like that, you are also invested yourself and want to reap the benefits. And as a result, it is easier to convince people to put more and more money in it. And that's how people lose their savings. That's a bit like pick butchering, that you loan people more and more money from their pockets step by step. What is psychologically perfidious about these romance scams is that there is a high probability that the victims, men even more than women, will hide it. Yes, of course. Because it is extremely embarrassing. And you can't tell anyone. That means I can use the same method over and over again. Because the information is not somewhere. There are relatively well-known examples from golf and tennis, where people are contacted who have posted something online about one of the sports. And then a well-known player randomly meets the people, I don't know, meets them, and then you start to invest in crypto. Exactly. And then you have these debt gains all the time. And when you are at a certain level of profit, where you say, now I would like to have paid it out, you invest more and more, because you also win more and more. And if you say at a certain level, I would like to pay it out, then usually there is still one, you really want it now. And then you need a short amount to get rid of the money. And then you also pay that, so that you don't have anything afterwards. Exactly. And it's actually always cryptocurrency, because it can hardly be recovered. You probably won't get that back. Exactly. But the question is now, who is behind it? We have somehow already indicated that these are not individuals. It is also difficult to get involved in this scale. Who does it? Who is behind it? There is an estimate from the United States Institute of Peace, which says that in Cambodia, $12.5 billion is probably exploited every year by online scams. That would, to put that into perspective, correspond to about half of the country's gross domestic product. Yes. So you have to keep an eye on the dimension. Now, a step further, who is actually behind it? And this is where the authorities of criminal organizations, such as Chinese mafia gangs, which have established themselves somewhere in the country through drug trafficking, but also rich tycoons or corrupt elites, who simply want to get an advantage. And that's just a way to make an incredible amount of money on the back of the people there and, of course, the people who become victims. The corresponding perpetrators have influence and fly close contacts to local actors in business and politics. And they can use that to their advantage. And to be honest, you don't see an end to it right now. Exactly. These are people with a lot of power, with a lot of influence. That's why it's all the more difficult to put a bar on them. Yes. The Cambodian government, however, now wants to try and take more action against it with the ambitious goal of dismantling these scam companies within a month. Because they fear that these businesses will have a negative impact on their own economy and also on tourism in the country. So far, experts doubt that this plan will work. And believe that it requires a greater and above all an international effort to dismantle such scam networks. Simply because they are so well organized. That also makes sense. Yes, exactly. They are internationally active. It probably also requires an international effort. And in fact, Amnesty International was able to present a report last year. It showed how rarely the Cambodian government has referred to human rights violations in such scam institutions in the past. So the doubts may be justified. It remains to be seen whether something will improve in the near future. That means, the look to Cambodia actually shows, and that's where we hit the nail on the head, how large the extent of scamming can be. Social engineering is used very, very highly professionally and in a deceptively real way. With rebuilt bank branches, police stations, etc. And also increasingly with the use of AI. And what we have to look at is an industry. And a very human rights-injuring industry. This means that the damage goes into billions worldwide. But of course you also have the human damage that occurs on site. That means there are many losers and few winners in this whole game. And from my perception, there is a great book by Julia Shaw, which I can't remember the name of right now, but it's about the psychology of evil. Which also describes a little bit that many people who commit crimes themselves are not actually evil per se, but just believe that they have to do it. Or, and this is a new addition to the book, in this case they are forced to do it. That means the perpetrators are actually behind the perpetrators. Exactly, they are not the ones who write the message, who in the end benefit from it, but those who are still behind it. Exactly. And that means the more sensitive we are to protect ourselves from it and talk about this scam and not fall for it, the worse the business case gets. Yes, exactly. When we hear that, it's so bad, it's really stressful. Then the question is, what can we actually do to change that? And I think the simplest and easiest step is to give out these messages, to help people not to fall for it, so that these casinos won't be worth it at some point. Yes, that's a good closing word. It was a bit of a heavier topic today. We hope you still enjoyed it and you can start with the knowledge and are well armed against such scams in the future. If you liked it, please recommend the episode, leave us five stars and subscribe to our podcast. Thank you very much for listening and see you next time. Thank you, bye. Bye. Bye.
