Online scam centers in Southeast Asia have perfected “pig butchering”, a romance-meets-investment fraud, to lure victims into bogus investment schemes
Alastair McCready / VICE : Tweets: @softwarnet , @caseynewton , @geraldrflynn , @ryan_knutson , @bitfinexed , and @almccready1 Tweets: Charles R. Smith / @softwarnet : 10 The PRC uses paid agents known as “Wumao” or the 50 cent Army to post from fake accounts. These accounts are also used for criminal activities such as bitcoin scams designed to empty the bank accounts of victims. https://www.vice.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Super sad story about someone who answered one of those wrong-number “Are you Linda from the pet store?” texts and lost $2.5 million. Average victim loses $173K! https://twitter.com/... Gerry Flynn / @geraldrflynn : 2. Much in the same vein, @AlMcCready1 dives deep into the mechanics, scope and scale of these scams for @VICEWorldNews - interestingly includes estimated number of scammers enslaved, the profits of the operations and the int'l orgs working to stop them. https://www.vice.com/... Ryan Knutson / @ryan_knutson : Well, looks like this may be the answer. And it's more depressing than I expected https://www.vice.com/... @bitfinexed : From Industrial-Scale Scam Centers, Trafficking Victims Are Being Forced to Steal Billions. Good job Tether. “We would try to lead them, teach them how to open an account on USDT [Tether crypto coin] and top up this account with money,” he said. " https://www.vice.com/... Alastair McCready / @almccready1 : I've spent the past month piecing together the global harm caused by the rise of #pigbutchering scam centres in #Cambodia. From human trafficking victims, to people like Cindy Tsai, a terminally ill woman scammed out of millions of dollars. https://www.vice.com/... https://twitter.com/...