October 15, 2024 • 42 mins
A text message out of nowhere, from a number you don’t know, from someone thinking you’re someone else. These messages might represent the digital bait in a global phishing operation called “pig butchering.” These scams may start with a text message. They could begin with a conversation on a dating app. But the scammers on the other side know how to reel people in and take them to the financial slaughterhouse. Erin West is a Deputy District Attorney for Santa Clara County, California, and a central figure in the fight to combat “pig butchering.” She spoke with Designated host, Yaya Jata Fanusie, to help understand how “pig butchering” scams work and the steps we can take to keep from becoming a victim.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's podcast is supported by Winston and Strong ll Winston
and Strong, a trusted legal advisor and advocate for clients
across virtually every industry designated, is proudly supported by a Hummingbird.
Hummingbird is a modern compliance platform designed to make financial
crime investigations smarter, faster, and more effective because today's financial
(00:23):
criminals are sophisticated, savvy, and agile, meaning the tools used
to fight them should be two. Learn more at Hummingbird
dot Co. I'm Yaya Jatafanussi and this is designated on
(00:44):
the Illicit Edge Network. I spent years as an analyst
at the CIA, where I mostly worked on counter terrorism,
but since leaving government service, I've been tracking how illicit
finance is evolving, and some of the biggest threats of
today aren't from terrorist organizations. These thrts are more subtle
and sophisticated operations targeting each of us using a cell phone.
(01:06):
Have you ever gotten one of those text messages out
of nowhere from a number you don't know? On the
other side of that text message is a vast criminal
industry supported by human trafficking, and these messages are digital
baits in a global fishing operation designed to hook unsuspecting
victims into giving up all the money they have to
criminals half a world away. Every year, tens of billions
(01:28):
of dollars are siphoned out of US bank accounts through
these intricate schemes, which are really just long cons. So
these schemes can start with a text, an email, a
message on a dating app. The scammers know how to
real people in and deliver them to the financial slaughter house. Fittingly,
this type of scam is called pig butchering. My guest
(01:50):
today is Aaron West. She's a Deputy District Attorney for
Santa Clara County, California, and she's a key warrior in
the battle against these global scam operations. She's traveled the
world in an attempt to tackle these threats, and she
spoke with me to help us understand how the scammers
operate and how you can stay safe and keep from
(02:10):
becoming their next victim. It's time to get designated with
Aarin West. What's your origin story?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
My origin story? So, I grew up in Sunnyvale, California,
heart of Silicon Valley. I went to high school at
the same high school as Steve Wozniak, so big early
adopters of Apple and high tech. And I went to
college and law school at USC in southern California, and
(02:40):
then returned to the Bay Area, where I grew up
to practice law. And I've been a prosecutor in Santa
Clara County for the past twenty six years.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Well, tell us about your journey to becoming a prosecutor.
Why did you choose that direction?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So all along I in college, I wanted to be
an international journalist. I wanted to be an investigative reporter.
And then I took a media law class my junior
year and I thought, oh, this is really interesting. And
then I enjoyed law. Well, I enjoyed reporting, but I
(03:22):
also saw that it was kind of a difficult road
where you have to work in a lot of small
towns and move around a lot, and I thought, I'm
not sure that's for me. So I went to law school,
and then I realized that that was exactly the right
place for me. That I really was able to combine
my interest in investigating things. I mean, putting together a
(03:43):
case is very much like investigating something and then presenting it.
There's a lot of similarities in being a journalist and
being a courtroom lawyer, and so I worked in private
practice immediately after god situation. But I saw my friends.
I had a number of friends that went to work
(04:04):
in prosecutors' offices, and I saw them being able to
handle their cases on their own and to be in
courtrooms doing important work, and always being on the right
side of what they were doing, and that was really
appealing to me.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So what do you mean on the right side?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, I think what happens when you work in a
civil law firm is you, especially as a very junior employee,
you are on whatever side the law firm is on,
and that may not always be the side that you
would pick if you had a choice, but you are
a paid employee who is you are a paid advocate.
(04:46):
When you work at the district attorney's office, you are
on the side of justice, whatever that looks like. And
if you have a case, and this happened to me
where you're presenting a sexual assault case and mid case
you start to have doubts about what you're presenting and
that really you don't think this should get in front
(05:08):
of a jury. You have the opportunity to dismiss that
case and so there's a lot of there's a lot
of satisfaction in knowing that you're on the right side
of justice, whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And so in your early career, what sort of cases
did you work on.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I loved my initial time in the office. I was
on the misdemeanor team. There were a bunch of us
who all came in at the same time. We were
all learning how to try cases. And we did standard
misdemeanor cases. We did DUIs, we did bar fights, we
did possession of you know, narcotic materials. So it was
(05:50):
it was a great opportunity to learn how to interact
with law enforcement, interact with lab experts, interact with with
judges and defense attorneys. And it was a great opportunity
to learn in a lower stakes environment. And I really
(06:10):
enjoyed that. I really enjoyed the camaraderie of my team,
and I learned a tremendous amount and got to try
a lot of cases and a short amount of time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And then did you move on to more serious crimes,
more serious cases?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah. The progression in our office is that you go
from misdemeanors to general felonies, and then from there you
kind of split off into a more specialized place, whether
it's gangs or sexual assault. And so I spent a
good part of my career in the sexual assault team.
I was on the team, had a baby, came off,
(06:47):
came back on the team, had a baby, came off,
came back on the team. For me, when I was
thinking about coming back every time and thinking about where
I wanted to be, I was always very much drawn
to the sexual assault team because I believed that there
was a lot of opportunity to be a positive piece
(07:09):
of the criminal justice system to a victim that was
in likely the worst place in their lives, that they
found themselves in a really awful place, And it meant
a lot to me to be a part of trying
to make things right, knowing that no matter what happens
(07:31):
in the courtroom, that doesn't fix what happened to that victim,
but being able to be a positive piece, at least
in my interactions with that victim of the justice system
was really important to me.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
How did work in these types of crimes impact you
or affect you.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
It's very fulfilling work, but it's very difficult work, and
you are hearing things from victims that you have not
even imagined in your worst nightmares, and to hear that
that happened to a child and then they had to
go to school that day like that, that stings. And
(08:12):
the more you take on those stories, it really impact.
It impacted me in terms of becoming angry and becoming
jaded and questioning people I saw in public and why
is this person with that person and what's happening there?
And so our office is pretty good about rotating people
(08:35):
off assignments so that they don't find themselves in those places.
But particularly for me, and particularly at that time of life,
and having done it for nine years, at that time
of life, I had two young boys, and it hits
home when you have children, the ages of children that
(08:58):
are in these cases, and so for me, there was
a natural time to take a break from that.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And then so what did that lead you to?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Part of what makes me drawn to this work is
that I do like to be helpful to victims. So
I did. I am the hate crimes prosecutor, so throughout
my career I've issued all the hate crimes cases for
Santa Clara County. But I also was drawn to the
(09:27):
idea that perhaps there is a place in the office
that was less victim intensive, and so I thought maybe
high tech crime would be a good place for me
to go, probably fewer victims there. At that point. It
was a lot of identity theft. It was it was
things getting stolen from big tech firms. And I was like,
this sounds not so victim intensive, this sounds like a
(09:49):
good break. But what I found, yahya, is that we
were on the cusp of a change in how people
were getting demise and that what happened was an explosion
of victims who were getting their entire life savings stolen
(10:09):
from them. And it started with simswapping. Yeah, and then
and then now that's where I find myself.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well, so you give us the backdrop of the time.
So around when is this when simswapping becomes a thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So I started in twenty sixteen, I was assigned to
a really fantastic team in our office called the React
Task Force. It's a high tech task force. It's especially
funded by the California legislature elite group of detectives who
do high tech crime, and so in by twenty eighteen,
(10:44):
we started seeing simswappers. And simswappers were a young group
of hackers who figured out ways to socially engineer the
calls coming to your phone into a device that they held.
And what they could do then is when they're holding
(11:05):
the device that is your recovery device for things like Gmail,
and they do forgot password, they go to Yayafenussi at
gmail dot com. They could then do forgot password and
the password comes to the device that the bad guys
are holding, so they're able to get into your Gmail
account and then from there figure out where you're holding
(11:26):
your crypto, and then we're able to take over your
crypto account and drain all of your money. So in
twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, the React team did a series
of investigations and prosecutions of simswappers. And these were people
(11:46):
who were able to really I mean, it was the
first time we'd ever seen a situation where you could
socially engineer your way into a million dollars, more than
a million dollars because people who were holding crypto at
that time were hold holding a lot of crypto and
we saw some major losses that to the elevations that
we had never seen before.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
How would they find these million dollar victims of crypto holders?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
They were a smart group of young people that weren't working,
had no other jobs, and so they were able to
spend the day researching who were the crypto holders. And
to do that, you know, it wasn't difficult back in
twenty eighteen to just get on Twitter and see who
was like hashtag crypto, this hashtag crypto that it was.
(12:35):
We always joke like the first rule of fight club
is you don't talk about fight club. But the first
rule of crypto in twenty eighteen was you make sure
everybody knows that you are in an early investor. And
so it wasn't difficult to find out who who was
holding crypto and then from there it's not difficult to
buy their social Security number, or their email address or
(12:57):
their phone number, and that's what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So I see how crypto millionaires would be likely targets.
But what about regular people who don't know much about crypto?
How have they been caught up in scams?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, that's exactly the piece of it is that they
don't know much about crypto. So this new scam called
pig butchering that is crushing victims worldwide praise on the
fact that they don't know much about crypto. So the
way this scam works is the bad guys reach out
to our victims on social media or on the text
(13:36):
that says, hey, I haven't seen you in a while,
is this still your number? Anna? And then they begin
these long conversations with victims where they develop a relationship.
And as they're developing this relationship, they are showing them
an elevated lifestyle. They're providing them with pictures of them traveling,
(14:00):
wearing expensive clothes, having nice things. And so our victims,
as they're getting drawn into this really what they believe
to be a very special relationship, they are absolutely having
no trouble believing that the person they're in this relationship
is pretty well set financially. And then the person the
(14:23):
scammer will say, well, you know how I got this money.
It's because I invest in cryptocurrency. And you know, I
didn't know much about it either, but my uncle does,
and my uncle could teach you. So they're praying on
a couple of things here. One the trust that's been
developed that our victim believes, Oh, I'm in love with
this person. They wouldn't lead me wrong if they say
(14:44):
they got this money from crypto. They got this money
from crypto and the idea that I might be missing
out if I don't take this opportunity, and so they're
praying on their lack of their lack of knowledge about
crypto and their fear missing out, and so that's how
it works. They then get lured into just making a
(15:04):
small investment to see how it works, and they find
that when they make that small investment at the direction
of the scammer, their money. What's really happening is the
scammer's taken their money, and their money's gone. But the
scammer is showing our victims a dashboard and a fake
portal on the Internet that leads the victims to believe
(15:27):
that their money is safely in an account that is increasing,
dramatically increasing in value, so that our victim's five thousand
dollars investment goes to sixty eight hundred seventy five hundred,
and it's ten thousand dollars by the end of the week.
And that looks great to victims, and they have no
trouble believing that they're going to become wealthy, and then
they get lured into investing more and more and more.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Winston and Strawn is an international law firm that for
more than one hundred and seventy years, has served as
a trusted advisor and advocate for clients virtually every industry.
Winston and Strawn's law practice, made up of more than
nine hundred and fifty attorneys across fifteen global offices, is
built on the talent, creativity, and determination of its lawyers
(16:12):
and an unwavering commitment to its clients. Winston and Strawn
boasts an exceptional financial crimes compliance practice comprised of attorneys
who have decades of experience assisting clients with Bank Secrecy
Act and anti money laundering compliance, counseling state and federal
enforcement matters, and related investigations. Learn more about the firm's
(16:32):
capabilities at Winston dot com. Hummingbird is a compliance platform
that's reimagining what's possible from financial crime investigations. Teams using
Hummingbird work more efficiently and effectively without compromising on quality.
Investigators quickly get to the heart of each case with
information at their fingertips and compliance grade automation and AI
(16:56):
to boost productivity. Designed for essential work and anti money laundering,
anti fraud, customer due diligence, and more, Hummingbird allows you
to customize the platform to your policies, giving you exactly
what you need to get the job done. Hummingbird is
determined to fight financial crime by empowering those on the
front lines, because financial crime never stops evolving, and neither
(17:18):
should the tools you use to stop it. Learn more
at hummingbird dot co. That's hummingbird dot co. Can you
tell us the story of a victim that stood out
for you and how they were impacted by this scam?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
For a lot of people, it's hard to understand how
this could happen, how you could fall in love with
someone that you've never met before. And so I think
we need to be honest about that in understanding that
there is some education of people that needs to be
done to understand that this is happening to regular people.
(17:56):
It's happening to people you know, It's happening to people
that you go to school with. So I met this
woman named Karina. She was a victim of this crime,
and she seemed like me in that like she was,
she was educated, and she felt like someone that would
be in my social circle. And she told me that
(18:19):
she had been a victim of this crime. She had
been lured into it. The person that she met online
was claimed to be living in Europe. And then I
always wondered, like, how is it that they lure you
into not seeing them in person? And then she talked
about how this person had told her. Evan had told
(18:41):
her that his parents their relationship flourished when he was overseas,
and that they had written letters to each other and
it was so romantic, and that that's how he wanted
it to be between the two of them, and he
was going to when they finally meet in person, provide
her with a book of the things that they had
written to each other. And you could see this victim
(19:01):
wrote wrote a thirty page story about what happened to her,
and you could see that like as you hit each
one of these these cross you know, crosses in the
in the road, like, oh, okay, I can see why
you did that. Oh I can see why that story
made sense. Oh I can see how you got there.
And so in talking to her, I was able to
better understand the whole story of how it works. So
(19:23):
her story resonates with me.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
In her case, so she was getting to know him
and writing these letters and then what what did he do?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And then you know, it's interesting too. Her story is
interesting because a lot of times we think that a
we think that this is happening to senior citizens, and
it's not. It's happening to people of all ages. She's
in her early forties, and we think that it's happening
to people you know that we we think we're so
much smarter and we wouldn't fall for that. And this
woman has a PhD. So so so what happened to
(19:56):
her is as she as she moved along. Oh and
because she has a PhD, she has a lot of
student loans and so this was not a get rich
quick scheme for her. This was a oh well maybe
I could This could help me pay off my student loans.
And so that sticks with me too because it shows
that we have a lot of ideas as a society
(20:19):
about who these crimes are happening to. And in fact,
what happened with this woman is it just drove her
deeper into debt and really her moved her back so
much further in her financial stability.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So what happened so she was making investments.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So she was lured into the same investments that are
standard in pigwichering. So she had some money put away,
and so she was lured into the idea that she
could pay off her student loans. So she made a
small investment. That investment grew dramatically in value. She that
she got tricked, and so the way she got tricked
(21:04):
was the part of the way that they get tricked
is part of this relationship business where the scammer says, oh,
let's go in on this together. I'll put in this
much money and you put in this much money. And
what happened with Karina was she there wasn't a meeting
(21:26):
of the minds as to what she had agreed to,
and the next thing she knows, he says, well, we
agreed that we were going to do one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and so I'm going to lose all
my money if you don't come up with your half
of this. And so then she felt like she had
to beg borrow from everybody to so that he wouldn't
(21:47):
lose his half that he had invested, that she had
to come up with her half of one hundred and
fifty thousand, and so it was really a desperate, terrible situation,
and she really, i mean really was taken advantage of
had money stolen from.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Her, and does the money go into an account? How
does how does how did she lose the money? Right?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So, the way this scam works is victims are directed
to take their US dollars and then open up a
cryptocurrency account. That cryptocurrency account will be at a name
that they've heard of before, like coinbase or crypto dot com.
Our victim will put their money into that account at
the direction of the scammer that it will be their account.
(22:32):
They have control over that account. The scammer will say, okay,
now let's take your US dollars and let's change them
into cryptocurrency. So they will direct our victims who are
not savvy with cryptocurrency, how to trade their US dollars
for USDT or tether. It's a stable coin. It's it's
a coin that's based on the US dollars, so it
(22:52):
makes sense to victims and it doesn't vary volatility. There's
no volatility, so that the scammer's not going to lose
money on this. Once the scammer teaches our victim how
to change their US dollars into USDT tether, they then
direct our victims okay, now put it into this investment platform.
That's where you make the money. So that's when it
(23:14):
leaves the hands of the victim. They're given a crypto address,
they put it into that address, and from there they've
actually lost the money. The money is moving down the
blockchain in the hands of the scammers, but our victims
don't know that. They are looking at a portal that's
been artificially created by the scammers that shows your five
thousand is going up in value, going up in value,
(23:37):
going up in value, and when they see that, they think, oh,
my gosh, this works. This is a legit thing. And
now he's making me put one hundred and fifty thousand
in but I didn't that I don't have, but I'm
going to scrape together and figure it out because I
know it's going to go up in value anyway. It's
all going to be fine at the end of the day.
But really they've scraped together all this money and that
(23:58):
money's gone too. So the money is gone. And then
when they try to take money out of this account
that looks like it's got so much value, that's when
they're hit with, oh, well, you have to pay taxes
and they'll say I don't, okay, take it out of
the gains, and the scammer will say no, it has
to be new money. And that's when people lose their
(24:19):
minds because now they're taking out loans to pay these
taxes because they think it's going to be a quick turnaround,
and in fact now they've encouraged So with her, she
lost everything, She barred from everybody, she took loans, and
she still had her student loans to pay off, so
she was really drowning by the time she got out
(24:40):
of this.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
So this is devastating. Who's behind these scams.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
What's important to know about pig butchering is that it
is being run on an industrial scale like we've never
seen before. This is way bigger than Nigerian scams. This
is way bigger than call centers in India. This is
an industrialized, sophisticated operation being run by Chinese organized crime.
(25:09):
It's being run by syndicates, and it's being run out
of compounds and hotel towers in Southeast Asia, primarily in
Me and mar Cambodia and Lao. And what we know
is the amount of money that's being generated as a
result of these scams. Is forty percent of the GDP
(25:30):
of those three nations. It's that big, it's massive, and
that kind of money carries a lot of influence. There's
a lot of corruption in these countries that enables these
scam factories to continue really unimpeded.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So if we know that this is happening, you know
why aren't these networks shut down?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, part of it is the embedded corruption in these countries.
So in the last two weeks, there was a there
was oh Facts sanctioned a Cambodian tycoon, scamster with close
ties to the Cambodian government. This was the first time
we've seen US government really take action in against these
(26:20):
pig butchering scam compounds and businesses, and so they sanctioned
Leejung Fat and a number of his businesses, And hopefully
that will show that that will show everyone that the
United States is taking notice of what's happening over there
(26:42):
and that they are beginning, we are beginning to use
tools that we have at our disposal to do something
about it. So what I would say is sanctions against
this one tycoon are a great start, and I love
that and I'm glad to see it. But we need
a lot more of that if we are going to
(27:03):
have any kind of impact.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And I mean the scale of this means that there's
you know, there's a whole lot of people power to
make it happen. I mean, how are they getting the
people to send these texts and to lure people in.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, when you think about the nature of this scam,
it requires four to five hours a day of texting
and that requires a massive amount of people power. So
in order to do that, the compounds the scam factories
(27:41):
do like they do everything, they do it well, and
they do it smartly, and they do it in an
organized way. So they put they post job boards and
say that they need people to come work in these
They show pictures of these live work environments, and they
sell people on coming to work in a live work
facility where you'll make great money and you'll do a
(28:03):
white collar job. You'll do graphic design or data entry,
just office type job. And with unemployment at twenty percent,
that is alluring to a lot of people. So what
we've seen is that victims are applying for these jobs.
They are going through an interview process, they are believing
(28:24):
that this is a legitimate job. They're flown to Bangkok
at the expense of the company, and when they arrive,
their passports are taken, they're put on buses and they
are moved into these scam compounds where now they are
human trafficking victims and they're forced to do this dirty
work seventeen hours a day. These places are guarded by
(28:45):
men with AK forty sevens. They've got bars on their windows,
they can't escape, and they don't have access to the
outside world. They are forced to do really inhumane work
of taking advantage of fellow humans.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And as there's a crackdown on this, it seems like,
you know, you can maybe sort of whack a mole,
get a few here and there. But aren't these folks adapting?
Can't they use technology and to get better.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, that's what's really frightening about this whole thing is
that because there really has been no pressure on these
compounds for over four years, now that they're flourishing. They
are they're entrenched, they have infrastructure, and they know how
to do this work. And what's even worse is the
(29:39):
rise of technology. We've had victims come out of these
scam compounds who tell us that the technology inside these
compounds is two years ahead of where we are in
the rest of the world. They know how to do
deep fakes. They can make you sitting there look like
a young Asian woman, they can make me look like
(30:00):
a European man, and they can do they can do
video calls that they were never able to do before.
Originally we would say, well, if they are not doing
video calls, then that should be a red flag to victims. Well,
now they can do video calls. And then think of
what happens when they start to really leverage AI and
they don't need people running those conversations four to five
(30:23):
hours a day. What if they could be using AI
to have those conversations. They can really scale up what
they're getting done and the impact is massive.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
This term pig between though, where does it come from?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
So it is a Chinese term. It's the Chinese term
is sha zupan, and it literally explains the concept of
what's happening here. The idea is that these scammers are
going to fatten up their victims with love bombing and
with attention and selling a dream, and then ultimately they
(31:02):
are going to butcher them and take all their money.
And so I liken it to butchering a victim from
snout to tail. They're not going to leave anything on
the bone, because that is how pig butchering works. Is
this crime is different from others in that it doesn't
end until they've taken every penny from the victim. They've
(31:24):
invested all this time getting to know victims and finding
out where they keep their money. They've had intimate conversations
about how much money they have, where it's kept, whether
they have college funds for kids, and so the game
doesn't end until they've taken all of it. And that's
why this is so drastically devastating to people, because we're
(31:49):
in a place where they've lost everything.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
So people are losing everything. It is devastating how much
money is involved here.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, by the time I see victims, and especially coming
from our I do in Santa Clara County, people have
routinely lost over a million dollars one point two million,
one point five million. But regardless of what that number is.
We had a thirty year old software engineer lose three
hundred thousand. It's everything they have. We had a twenty
(32:24):
eight year old victim who lost fifty thousand, it's everything
he had. That's the unique piece of this, and that's
why it's uniformly devastating. Regardless of the dollar value.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
How much around the world do we think is being stolen?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Tens of billions of dollars? We know the statistics from
the best data we have comes from the FBI, their
Internet Crimes Portal that tells us that last year just
over five billion dollars was lost in these kind of schemes.
I know anecdotally from the reports that come into my
(33:03):
email box a lot of that is not reported. Victims
are embarrassed, they're saddened, they're humiliated, and they don't want
to report this. So even if it's twice that, even
if it's ten billion, more likely it's five times or
ten times that. Between twenty five and fifty billion dollars
from the United States alone last year alone went household
(33:29):
by household into the hands of these bad actors. It's
a massive wealth transfer. It's a transfer of a generation's
worth of wealth into the hands of bad actors. And
on a national security scale, this is a major threat.
We are giving known criminals with mal intentions a generation's
(33:52):
worth of money.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
You're involved in something called Operation Shamrock could you explain
what that is?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, Shamrock was an idea I had that this crime
is not going to end from the one sanction from
o FAC or from one arrest by a DOJ. It's
not going to end if match dot com starts getting
(34:23):
rid of more people on their platform, and it's not going
to end if from banking just coming up with better controls.
It really needs all of us. It's all hands on
deck because the problem is that massive and that important
in terms of where this money is going. So Shamrock says,
let's bring everybody into the same room and let's start
thinking of a solution together. What we're doing alone is
(34:46):
not organized and is not making a dent. Together we
might be able to have an impact. So just six
months ago, I launched this initiative and I held a
kickoff where I brought the universe of pig butchering together.
From there, we've divided into working groups, and in these
working groups we're actually getting stuff done. Law Enforcement group
(35:10):
we just we Today is the last day of a
two week sprint where every day at noon Eastern we've
had a webinar to teach basics of cryptocurrency investigations and
We've brought in all kinds of experts. We have experts
among us from people who are doing this work, but
we also have experts outside finance came and taught us
how to read their reports. Today there is someone from
(35:33):
a crypto Kiosk company that is explaining how that works
and what we need to know about how to how
to protect protect our victims from that. So that's what's happening,
and that's just our law enforcement group, our banking group.
We've educated over two hundred banks in the past three weeks,
(35:57):
and we want to get in more at the teller
level to really explain what this looks like when it
comes in their door. Our foreign policy group definitely had
a hand in those sanctions. We're trying to raise awareness worldwide,
but we're also pulling levers that are making difference.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I'm sure that there are people watching this or listening
who may realize that they may be a victim of
pig butchering. If you could say something to that person,
what would you say.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
The first thing I would tell that person is they're
not alone. And I'm sure they feel very alone and
they are very angry at themselves right now. But I
would suggest for them is to give themselves some grace
that you are among tens of thousands of people who
have been stolen from and taken advantage of. So what
(36:50):
I would then say is, once you've caught your breath,
you really need to report immediately. The name of the
game is speed in how even a fighting chance of
recovering any of your assets. So, as difficult as it is,
I need you to walk yourself into your local police
department and tell them what happened. And then I need
you to report to IC three. And the reason we
(37:13):
report to IC three dot gov is because we need
to make sure that our government understands the scale and
scope of this problem. That when we don't report, they
don't understand how big this problem is. We need to
get those numbers in front of them so they understand
the massive, massive situation we find ourselves under. And then
I would suggest that they really get themselves some emotional support,
(37:36):
that this is not easy. What happened to you, This
is horrible, and you don't need to go it alone.
Reach out to AARP, reach out to other victims groups
who would love to assist you in finding a peer
support group.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I'm glad you flagged the IC three, the website, the
Internet Crime Complaint Center, I think it's called, but maybe
a A final thought is what about advice for those
for all of us to not become victims? What are
the things that we should be doing so we don't
fall victim to this.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
First thing we need to do is we need to
talk about this all the time. You're going to go
see someone today, and I don't care if you're picking
someone up from school and you talk to the mom
next to you, or you are at the bank and
you bring it up with your teller. I bring it
up in every uber I'm in. We've got to talk
about this so that this isn't the first time you've
heard of it. When you get that text or someone
(38:33):
reaching out that you can already say like, oh, I
know what this is. We need to think about any
incoming electronic communication that we did not solicit as a
scammer until proven otherwise. We need to assume that everybody's
a scammer, and unfortunately that's where we find ourselves so once.
So we need to know about what's happening out there.
(38:54):
We need to be always on the alert, and we
need to be talking to friends know this typology because
the way this works is the scamera will reach out
and then they will move the conversation to WhatsApp. They're
going to put it in an encrypted situation where other
people don't have access to that conversation. So we need
to be checking in on our friends, and we need
(39:15):
to be knowing who they're talking to, and we need
to know, you know, how did you meet that person,
and how are you like what platform do you guys
use to communicate. We need to lead with empathy with
these conversations because this we're fighting an enemy that knows
how to psychologically manipulate, So we've got to put our
best tools in our pocket. And a lot a lot
(39:36):
of that leads straight back to just being an empathetic listener.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Erin, is there anything that you'd like to say about
this to the audience, to the government, what else would
you like to say?
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, we're really underestimating this as a world, how big
this problem is. And I've had the benefit of being
able to go over to Asia twice to talk to
people on the ground over there and to really understand
it and to see the pictures, the satellite pictures that
show how quickly they are. These compounds are taking root
(40:12):
and growing. So the problem is massive. It's getting bigger,
not smaller. The statistics show it's getting bigger. We know
the increase was thirty eight percent in this type of
crime twenty two to twenty three, and we can expect
that same type of increase from twenty three to twenty four.
We've got a massive problem on our hands, and so
(40:33):
if this has happened to you, you need to notify
Congress and let them know. I had the wonderful opportunity
to speak before Congress and really to educate about how
bad this is. We need to keep raising the temperature
until people understand that we are way behind the eight
ball and we need to organize and get a strategy together.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Aarin, thank you so much for the great work you're doing.
You're a true financial crime fighter. We really appreciate it.
Please keep up the good work and we will support
all the good that you're doing. Thank you, Thank you
so much.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
It was pleasure to be designated.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Aaron West points out that these pig butchering scammers target
all of us people from all walks of life. But
what's most troubling about these scams is how they prey
on something that is universal, our desire for companionship. On
the other hand, in a world full of disagreement and division,
the fight against exploitation by these scammers can actually become
(41:29):
a force to unite us. Undoubtedly, it will take a
unified effort to beat back these networks and protect the
people we love from getting butchered. Not long after I
recorded this interview, Aaron West announced that she is soon
going to retire from government after twenty six years of
public service, but she's not giving up the fight. She
plans to continue to be an advocate for victims and
(41:52):
to help law enforcement prosecute these criminals. We'll need people
like her, and we need each and every one of
us to stay vigilant. I'm Yaya Jatta Fanussi and this
is designated on the Illicit Edge Network.
Today's podcast is supported by Winston and Strong ll Winston
and Strong, a trusted legal advisor and advocate for clients
across virtually every industry designated, is proudly supported by a Hummingbird.
Hummingbird is a modern compliance platform designed to make financial
crime investigations smarter, faster, and more effective because today's financial
(00:23):
criminals are sophisticated, savvy, and agile, meaning the tools used
to fight them should be two. Learn more at Hummingbird
dot Co. I'm Yaya Jatafanussi and this is designated on
(00:44):
the Illicit Edge Network. I spent years as an analyst
at the CIA, where I mostly worked on counter terrorism,
but since leaving government service, I've been tracking how illicit
finance is evolving, and some of the biggest threats of
today aren't from terrorist organizations. These thrts are more subtle
and sophisticated operations targeting each of us using a cell phone.
(01:06):
Have you ever gotten one of those text messages out
of nowhere from a number you don't know? On the
other side of that text message is a vast criminal
industry supported by human trafficking, and these messages are digital
baits in a global fishing operation designed to hook unsuspecting
victims into giving up all the money they have to
criminals half a world away. Every year, tens of billions
(01:28):
of dollars are siphoned out of US bank accounts through
these intricate schemes, which are really just long cons. So
these schemes can start with a text, an email, a
message on a dating app. The scammers know how to
real people in and deliver them to the financial slaughter house. Fittingly,
this type of scam is called pig butchering. My guest
(01:50):
today is Aaron West. She's a Deputy District Attorney for
Santa Clara County, California, and she's a key warrior in
the battle against these global scam operations. She's traveled the
world in an attempt to tackle these threats, and she
spoke with me to help us understand how the scammers
operate and how you can stay safe and keep from
(02:10):
becoming their next victim. It's time to get designated with
Aarin West. What's your origin story?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
My origin story? So, I grew up in Sunnyvale, California,
heart of Silicon Valley. I went to high school at
the same high school as Steve Wozniak, so big early
adopters of Apple and high tech. And I went to
college and law school at USC in southern California, and
(02:40):
then returned to the Bay Area, where I grew up
to practice law. And I've been a prosecutor in Santa
Clara County for the past twenty six years.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Well, tell us about your journey to becoming a prosecutor.
Why did you choose that direction?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So all along I in college, I wanted to be
an international journalist. I wanted to be an investigative reporter.
And then I took a media law class my junior
year and I thought, oh, this is really interesting. And
then I enjoyed law. Well, I enjoyed reporting, but I
(03:22):
also saw that it was kind of a difficult road
where you have to work in a lot of small
towns and move around a lot, and I thought, I'm
not sure that's for me. So I went to law school,
and then I realized that that was exactly the right
place for me. That I really was able to combine
my interest in investigating things. I mean, putting together a
(03:43):
case is very much like investigating something and then presenting it.
There's a lot of similarities in being a journalist and
being a courtroom lawyer, and so I worked in private
practice immediately after god situation. But I saw my friends.
I had a number of friends that went to work
(04:04):
in prosecutors' offices, and I saw them being able to
handle their cases on their own and to be in
courtrooms doing important work, and always being on the right
side of what they were doing, and that was really
appealing to me.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So what do you mean on the right side?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, I think what happens when you work in a
civil law firm is you, especially as a very junior employee,
you are on whatever side the law firm is on,
and that may not always be the side that you
would pick if you had a choice, but you are
a paid employee who is you are a paid advocate.
(04:46):
When you work at the district attorney's office, you are
on the side of justice, whatever that looks like. And
if you have a case, and this happened to me
where you're presenting a sexual assault case and mid case
you start to have doubts about what you're presenting and
that really you don't think this should get in front
(05:08):
of a jury. You have the opportunity to dismiss that
case and so there's a lot of there's a lot
of satisfaction in knowing that you're on the right side
of justice, whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And so in your early career, what sort of cases
did you work on.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I loved my initial time in the office. I was
on the misdemeanor team. There were a bunch of us
who all came in at the same time. We were
all learning how to try cases. And we did standard
misdemeanor cases. We did DUIs, we did bar fights, we
did possession of you know, narcotic materials. So it was
(05:50):
it was a great opportunity to learn how to interact
with law enforcement, interact with lab experts, interact with with
judges and defense attorneys. And it was a great opportunity
to learn in a lower stakes environment. And I really
(06:10):
enjoyed that. I really enjoyed the camaraderie of my team,
and I learned a tremendous amount and got to try
a lot of cases and a short amount of time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And then did you move on to more serious crimes,
more serious cases?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah. The progression in our office is that you go
from misdemeanors to general felonies, and then from there you
kind of split off into a more specialized place, whether
it's gangs or sexual assault. And so I spent a
good part of my career in the sexual assault team.
I was on the team, had a baby, came off,
(06:47):
came back on the team, had a baby, came off,
came back on the team. For me, when I was
thinking about coming back every time and thinking about where
I wanted to be, I was always very much drawn
to the sexual assault team because I believed that there
was a lot of opportunity to be a positive piece
(07:09):
of the criminal justice system to a victim that was
in likely the worst place in their lives, that they
found themselves in a really awful place, And it meant
a lot to me to be a part of trying
to make things right, knowing that no matter what happens
(07:31):
in the courtroom, that doesn't fix what happened to that victim,
but being able to be a positive piece, at least
in my interactions with that victim of the justice system
was really important to me.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
How did work in these types of crimes impact you
or affect you.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
It's very fulfilling work, but it's very difficult work, and
you are hearing things from victims that you have not
even imagined in your worst nightmares, and to hear that
that happened to a child and then they had to
go to school that day like that, that stings. And
(08:12):
the more you take on those stories, it really impact.
It impacted me in terms of becoming angry and becoming
jaded and questioning people I saw in public and why
is this person with that person and what's happening there?
And so our office is pretty good about rotating people
(08:35):
off assignments so that they don't find themselves in those places.
But particularly for me, and particularly at that time of life,
and having done it for nine years, at that time
of life, I had two young boys, and it hits
home when you have children, the ages of children that
(08:58):
are in these cases, and so for me, there was
a natural time to take a break from that.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And then so what did that lead you to?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Part of what makes me drawn to this work is
that I do like to be helpful to victims. So
I did. I am the hate crimes prosecutor, so throughout
my career I've issued all the hate crimes cases for
Santa Clara County. But I also was drawn to the
(09:27):
idea that perhaps there is a place in the office
that was less victim intensive, and so I thought maybe
high tech crime would be a good place for me
to go, probably fewer victims there. At that point. It
was a lot of identity theft. It was it was
things getting stolen from big tech firms. And I was like,
this sounds not so victim intensive, this sounds like a
(09:49):
good break. But what I found, yahya, is that we
were on the cusp of a change in how people
were getting demise and that what happened was an explosion
of victims who were getting their entire life savings stolen
(10:09):
from them. And it started with simswapping. Yeah, and then
and then now that's where I find myself.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well, so you give us the backdrop of the time.
So around when is this when simswapping becomes a thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So I started in twenty sixteen, I was assigned to
a really fantastic team in our office called the React
Task Force. It's a high tech task force. It's especially
funded by the California legislature elite group of detectives who
do high tech crime, and so in by twenty eighteen,
(10:44):
we started seeing simswappers. And simswappers were a young group
of hackers who figured out ways to socially engineer the
calls coming to your phone into a device that they held.
And what they could do then is when they're holding
(11:05):
the device that is your recovery device for things like Gmail,
and they do forgot password, they go to Yayafenussi at
gmail dot com. They could then do forgot password and
the password comes to the device that the bad guys
are holding, so they're able to get into your Gmail
account and then from there figure out where you're holding
(11:26):
your crypto, and then we're able to take over your
crypto account and drain all of your money. So in
twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, the React team did a series
of investigations and prosecutions of simswappers. And these were people
(11:46):
who were able to really I mean, it was the
first time we'd ever seen a situation where you could
socially engineer your way into a million dollars, more than
a million dollars because people who were holding crypto at
that time were hold holding a lot of crypto and
we saw some major losses that to the elevations that
we had never seen before.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
How would they find these million dollar victims of crypto holders?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
They were a smart group of young people that weren't working,
had no other jobs, and so they were able to
spend the day researching who were the crypto holders. And
to do that, you know, it wasn't difficult back in
twenty eighteen to just get on Twitter and see who
was like hashtag crypto, this hashtag crypto that it was.
(12:35):
We always joke like the first rule of fight club
is you don't talk about fight club. But the first
rule of crypto in twenty eighteen was you make sure
everybody knows that you are in an early investor. And
so it wasn't difficult to find out who who was
holding crypto and then from there it's not difficult to
buy their social Security number, or their email address or
(12:57):
their phone number, and that's what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So I see how crypto millionaires would be likely targets.
But what about regular people who don't know much about crypto?
How have they been caught up in scams?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, that's exactly the piece of it is that they
don't know much about crypto. So this new scam called
pig butchering that is crushing victims worldwide praise on the
fact that they don't know much about crypto. So the
way this scam works is the bad guys reach out
to our victims on social media or on the text
(13:36):
that says, hey, I haven't seen you in a while,
is this still your number? Anna? And then they begin
these long conversations with victims where they develop a relationship.
And as they're developing this relationship, they are showing them
an elevated lifestyle. They're providing them with pictures of them traveling,
(14:00):
wearing expensive clothes, having nice things. And so our victims,
as they're getting drawn into this really what they believe
to be a very special relationship, they are absolutely having
no trouble believing that the person they're in this relationship
is pretty well set financially. And then the person the
(14:23):
scammer will say, well, you know how I got this money.
It's because I invest in cryptocurrency. And you know, I
didn't know much about it either, but my uncle does,
and my uncle could teach you. So they're praying on
a couple of things here. One the trust that's been
developed that our victim believes, Oh, I'm in love with
this person. They wouldn't lead me wrong if they say
(14:44):
they got this money from crypto. They got this money
from crypto and the idea that I might be missing
out if I don't take this opportunity, and so they're
praying on their lack of their lack of knowledge about
crypto and their fear missing out, and so that's how
it works. They then get lured into just making a
(15:04):
small investment to see how it works, and they find
that when they make that small investment at the direction
of the scammer, their money. What's really happening is the
scammer's taken their money, and their money's gone. But the
scammer is showing our victims a dashboard and a fake
portal on the Internet that leads the victims to believe
(15:27):
that their money is safely in an account that is increasing,
dramatically increasing in value, so that our victim's five thousand
dollars investment goes to sixty eight hundred seventy five hundred,
and it's ten thousand dollars by the end of the week.
And that looks great to victims, and they have no
trouble believing that they're going to become wealthy, and then
they get lured into investing more and more and more.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Winston and Strawn is an international law firm that for
more than one hundred and seventy years, has served as
a trusted advisor and advocate for clients virtually every industry.
Winston and Strawn's law practice, made up of more than
nine hundred and fifty attorneys across fifteen global offices, is
built on the talent, creativity, and determination of its lawyers
(16:12):
and an unwavering commitment to its clients. Winston and Strawn
boasts an exceptional financial crimes compliance practice comprised of attorneys
who have decades of experience assisting clients with Bank Secrecy
Act and anti money laundering compliance, counseling state and federal
enforcement matters, and related investigations. Learn more about the firm's
(16:32):
capabilities at Winston dot com. Hummingbird is a compliance platform
that's reimagining what's possible from financial crime investigations. Teams using
Hummingbird work more efficiently and effectively without compromising on quality.
Investigators quickly get to the heart of each case with
information at their fingertips and compliance grade automation and AI
(16:56):
to boost productivity. Designed for essential work and anti money laundering,
anti fraud, customer due diligence, and more, Hummingbird allows you
to customize the platform to your policies, giving you exactly
what you need to get the job done. Hummingbird is
determined to fight financial crime by empowering those on the
front lines, because financial crime never stops evolving, and neither
(17:18):
should the tools you use to stop it. Learn more
at hummingbird dot co. That's hummingbird dot co. Can you
tell us the story of a victim that stood out
for you and how they were impacted by this scam?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
For a lot of people, it's hard to understand how
this could happen, how you could fall in love with
someone that you've never met before. And so I think
we need to be honest about that in understanding that
there is some education of people that needs to be
done to understand that this is happening to regular people.
(17:56):
It's happening to people you know, It's happening to people
that you go to school with. So I met this
woman named Karina. She was a victim of this crime,
and she seemed like me in that like she was,
she was educated, and she felt like someone that would
be in my social circle. And she told me that
(18:19):
she had been a victim of this crime. She had
been lured into it. The person that she met online
was claimed to be living in Europe. And then I
always wondered, like, how is it that they lure you
into not seeing them in person? And then she talked
about how this person had told her. Evan had told
(18:41):
her that his parents their relationship flourished when he was overseas,
and that they had written letters to each other and
it was so romantic, and that that's how he wanted
it to be between the two of them, and he
was going to when they finally meet in person, provide
her with a book of the things that they had
written to each other. And you could see this victim
(19:01):
wrote wrote a thirty page story about what happened to her,
and you could see that like as you hit each
one of these these cross you know, crosses in the
in the road, like, oh, okay, I can see why
you did that. Oh I can see why that story
made sense. Oh I can see how you got there.
And so in talking to her, I was able to
better understand the whole story of how it works. So
(19:23):
her story resonates with me.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
In her case, so she was getting to know him
and writing these letters and then what what did he do?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And then you know, it's interesting too. Her story is
interesting because a lot of times we think that a
we think that this is happening to senior citizens, and
it's not. It's happening to people of all ages. She's
in her early forties, and we think that it's happening
to people you know that we we think we're so
much smarter and we wouldn't fall for that. And this
woman has a PhD. So so so what happened to
(19:56):
her is as she as she moved along. Oh and
because she has a PhD, she has a lot of
student loans and so this was not a get rich
quick scheme for her. This was a oh well maybe
I could This could help me pay off my student loans.
And so that sticks with me too because it shows
that we have a lot of ideas as a society
(20:19):
about who these crimes are happening to. And in fact,
what happened with this woman is it just drove her
deeper into debt and really her moved her back so
much further in her financial stability.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So what happened so she was making investments.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So she was lured into the same investments that are
standard in pigwichering. So she had some money put away,
and so she was lured into the idea that she
could pay off her student loans. So she made a
small investment. That investment grew dramatically in value. She that
she got tricked, and so the way she got tricked
(21:04):
was the part of the way that they get tricked
is part of this relationship business where the scammer says, oh,
let's go in on this together. I'll put in this
much money and you put in this much money. And
what happened with Karina was she there wasn't a meeting
(21:26):
of the minds as to what she had agreed to,
and the next thing she knows, he says, well, we
agreed that we were going to do one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and so I'm going to lose all
my money if you don't come up with your half
of this. And so then she felt like she had
to beg borrow from everybody to so that he wouldn't
(21:47):
lose his half that he had invested, that she had
to come up with her half of one hundred and
fifty thousand, and so it was really a desperate, terrible situation,
and she really, i mean really was taken advantage of
had money stolen from.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Her, and does the money go into an account? How
does how does how did she lose the money? Right?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So, the way this scam works is victims are directed
to take their US dollars and then open up a
cryptocurrency account. That cryptocurrency account will be at a name
that they've heard of before, like coinbase or crypto dot com.
Our victim will put their money into that account at
the direction of the scammer that it will be their account.
(22:32):
They have control over that account. The scammer will say, okay,
now let's take your US dollars and let's change them
into cryptocurrency. So they will direct our victims who are
not savvy with cryptocurrency, how to trade their US dollars
for USDT or tether. It's a stable coin. It's it's
a coin that's based on the US dollars, so it
(22:52):
makes sense to victims and it doesn't vary volatility. There's
no volatility, so that the scammer's not going to lose
money on this. Once the scammer teaches our victim how
to change their US dollars into USDT tether, they then
direct our victims okay, now put it into this investment platform.
That's where you make the money. So that's when it
(23:14):
leaves the hands of the victim. They're given a crypto address,
they put it into that address, and from there they've
actually lost the money. The money is moving down the
blockchain in the hands of the scammers, but our victims
don't know that. They are looking at a portal that's
been artificially created by the scammers that shows your five
thousand is going up in value, going up in value,
(23:37):
going up in value, and when they see that, they think, oh,
my gosh, this works. This is a legit thing. And
now he's making me put one hundred and fifty thousand
in but I didn't that I don't have, but I'm
going to scrape together and figure it out because I
know it's going to go up in value anyway. It's
all going to be fine at the end of the day.
But really they've scraped together all this money and that
(23:58):
money's gone too. So the money is gone. And then
when they try to take money out of this account
that looks like it's got so much value, that's when
they're hit with, oh, well, you have to pay taxes
and they'll say I don't, okay, take it out of
the gains, and the scammer will say no, it has
to be new money. And that's when people lose their
(24:19):
minds because now they're taking out loans to pay these
taxes because they think it's going to be a quick turnaround,
and in fact now they've encouraged So with her, she
lost everything, She barred from everybody, she took loans, and
she still had her student loans to pay off, so
she was really drowning by the time she got out
(24:40):
of this.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
So this is devastating. Who's behind these scams.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
What's important to know about pig butchering is that it
is being run on an industrial scale like we've never
seen before. This is way bigger than Nigerian scams. This
is way bigger than call centers in India. This is
an industrialized, sophisticated operation being run by Chinese organized crime.
(25:09):
It's being run by syndicates, and it's being run out
of compounds and hotel towers in Southeast Asia, primarily in
Me and mar Cambodia and Lao. And what we know
is the amount of money that's being generated as a
result of these scams. Is forty percent of the GDP
(25:30):
of those three nations. It's that big, it's massive, and
that kind of money carries a lot of influence. There's
a lot of corruption in these countries that enables these
scam factories to continue really unimpeded.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So if we know that this is happening, you know
why aren't these networks shut down?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, part of it is the embedded corruption in these countries.
So in the last two weeks, there was a there
was oh Facts sanctioned a Cambodian tycoon, scamster with close
ties to the Cambodian government. This was the first time
we've seen US government really take action in against these
(26:20):
pig butchering scam compounds and businesses, and so they sanctioned
Leejung Fat and a number of his businesses, And hopefully
that will show that that will show everyone that the
United States is taking notice of what's happening over there
(26:42):
and that they are beginning, we are beginning to use
tools that we have at our disposal to do something
about it. So what I would say is sanctions against
this one tycoon are a great start, and I love
that and I'm glad to see it. But we need
a lot more of that if we are going to
(27:03):
have any kind of impact.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And I mean the scale of this means that there's
you know, there's a whole lot of people power to
make it happen. I mean, how are they getting the
people to send these texts and to lure people in.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, when you think about the nature of this scam,
it requires four to five hours a day of texting
and that requires a massive amount of people power. So
in order to do that, the compounds the scam factories
(27:41):
do like they do everything, they do it well, and
they do it smartly, and they do it in an
organized way. So they put they post job boards and
say that they need people to come work in these
They show pictures of these live work environments, and they
sell people on coming to work in a live work
facility where you'll make great money and you'll do a
(28:03):
white collar job. You'll do graphic design or data entry,
just office type job. And with unemployment at twenty percent,
that is alluring to a lot of people. So what
we've seen is that victims are applying for these jobs.
They are going through an interview process, they are believing
(28:24):
that this is a legitimate job. They're flown to Bangkok
at the expense of the company, and when they arrive,
their passports are taken, they're put on buses and they
are moved into these scam compounds where now they are
human trafficking victims and they're forced to do this dirty
work seventeen hours a day. These places are guarded by
(28:45):
men with AK forty sevens. They've got bars on their windows,
they can't escape, and they don't have access to the
outside world. They are forced to do really inhumane work
of taking advantage of fellow humans.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And as there's a crackdown on this, it seems like,
you know, you can maybe sort of whack a mole,
get a few here and there. But aren't these folks adapting?
Can't they use technology and to get better.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, that's what's really frightening about this whole thing is
that because there really has been no pressure on these
compounds for over four years, now that they're flourishing. They
are they're entrenched, they have infrastructure, and they know how
to do this work. And what's even worse is the
(29:39):
rise of technology. We've had victims come out of these
scam compounds who tell us that the technology inside these
compounds is two years ahead of where we are in
the rest of the world. They know how to do
deep fakes. They can make you sitting there look like
a young Asian woman, they can make me look like
(30:00):
a European man, and they can do they can do
video calls that they were never able to do before.
Originally we would say, well, if they are not doing
video calls, then that should be a red flag to victims. Well,
now they can do video calls. And then think of
what happens when they start to really leverage AI and
they don't need people running those conversations four to five
(30:23):
hours a day. What if they could be using AI
to have those conversations. They can really scale up what
they're getting done and the impact is massive.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
This term pig between though, where does it come from?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
So it is a Chinese term. It's the Chinese term
is sha zupan, and it literally explains the concept of
what's happening here. The idea is that these scammers are
going to fatten up their victims with love bombing and
with attention and selling a dream, and then ultimately they
(31:02):
are going to butcher them and take all their money.
And so I liken it to butchering a victim from
snout to tail. They're not going to leave anything on
the bone, because that is how pig butchering works. Is
this crime is different from others in that it doesn't
end until they've taken every penny from the victim. They've
(31:24):
invested all this time getting to know victims and finding
out where they keep their money. They've had intimate conversations
about how much money they have, where it's kept, whether
they have college funds for kids, and so the game
doesn't end until they've taken all of it. And that's
why this is so drastically devastating to people, because we're
(31:49):
in a place where they've lost everything.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
So people are losing everything. It is devastating how much
money is involved here.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, by the time I see victims, and especially coming
from our I do in Santa Clara County, people have
routinely lost over a million dollars one point two million,
one point five million. But regardless of what that number is.
We had a thirty year old software engineer lose three
hundred thousand. It's everything they have. We had a twenty
(32:24):
eight year old victim who lost fifty thousand, it's everything
he had. That's the unique piece of this, and that's
why it's uniformly devastating. Regardless of the dollar value.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
How much around the world do we think is being stolen?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Tens of billions of dollars? We know the statistics from
the best data we have comes from the FBI, their
Internet Crimes Portal that tells us that last year just
over five billion dollars was lost in these kind of schemes.
I know anecdotally from the reports that come into my
(33:03):
email box a lot of that is not reported. Victims
are embarrassed, they're saddened, they're humiliated, and they don't want
to report this. So even if it's twice that, even
if it's ten billion, more likely it's five times or
ten times that. Between twenty five and fifty billion dollars
from the United States alone last year alone went household
(33:29):
by household into the hands of these bad actors. It's
a massive wealth transfer. It's a transfer of a generation's
worth of wealth into the hands of bad actors. And
on a national security scale, this is a major threat.
We are giving known criminals with mal intentions a generation's
(33:52):
worth of money.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
You're involved in something called Operation Shamrock could you explain
what that is?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, Shamrock was an idea I had that this crime
is not going to end from the one sanction from
o FAC or from one arrest by a DOJ. It's
not going to end if match dot com starts getting
(34:23):
rid of more people on their platform, and it's not going
to end if from banking just coming up with better controls.
It really needs all of us. It's all hands on
deck because the problem is that massive and that important
in terms of where this money is going. So Shamrock says,
let's bring everybody into the same room and let's start
thinking of a solution together. What we're doing alone is
(34:46):
not organized and is not making a dent. Together we
might be able to have an impact. So just six
months ago, I launched this initiative and I held a
kickoff where I brought the universe of pig butchering together.
From there, we've divided into working groups, and in these
working groups we're actually getting stuff done. Law Enforcement group
(35:10):
we just we Today is the last day of a
two week sprint where every day at noon Eastern we've
had a webinar to teach basics of cryptocurrency investigations and
We've brought in all kinds of experts. We have experts
among us from people who are doing this work, but
we also have experts outside finance came and taught us
how to read their reports. Today there is someone from
(35:33):
a crypto Kiosk company that is explaining how that works
and what we need to know about how to how
to protect protect our victims from that. So that's what's happening,
and that's just our law enforcement group, our banking group.
We've educated over two hundred banks in the past three weeks,
(35:57):
and we want to get in more at the teller
level to really explain what this looks like when it
comes in their door. Our foreign policy group definitely had
a hand in those sanctions. We're trying to raise awareness worldwide,
but we're also pulling levers that are making difference.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I'm sure that there are people watching this or listening
who may realize that they may be a victim of
pig butchering. If you could say something to that person,
what would you say.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
The first thing I would tell that person is they're
not alone. And I'm sure they feel very alone and
they are very angry at themselves right now. But I
would suggest for them is to give themselves some grace
that you are among tens of thousands of people who
have been stolen from and taken advantage of. So what
(36:50):
I would then say is, once you've caught your breath,
you really need to report immediately. The name of the
game is speed in how even a fighting chance of
recovering any of your assets. So, as difficult as it is,
I need you to walk yourself into your local police
department and tell them what happened. And then I need
you to report to IC three. And the reason we
(37:13):
report to IC three dot gov is because we need
to make sure that our government understands the scale and
scope of this problem. That when we don't report, they
don't understand how big this problem is. We need to
get those numbers in front of them so they understand
the massive, massive situation we find ourselves under. And then
I would suggest that they really get themselves some emotional support,
(37:36):
that this is not easy. What happened to you, This
is horrible, and you don't need to go it alone.
Reach out to AARP, reach out to other victims groups
who would love to assist you in finding a peer
support group.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I'm glad you flagged the IC three, the website, the
Internet Crime Complaint Center, I think it's called, but maybe
a A final thought is what about advice for those
for all of us to not become victims? What are
the things that we should be doing so we don't
fall victim to this.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
First thing we need to do is we need to
talk about this all the time. You're going to go
see someone today, and I don't care if you're picking
someone up from school and you talk to the mom
next to you, or you are at the bank and
you bring it up with your teller. I bring it
up in every uber I'm in. We've got to talk
about this so that this isn't the first time you've
heard of it. When you get that text or someone
(38:33):
reaching out that you can already say like, oh, I
know what this is. We need to think about any
incoming electronic communication that we did not solicit as a
scammer until proven otherwise. We need to assume that everybody's
a scammer, and unfortunately that's where we find ourselves so once.
So we need to know about what's happening out there.
(38:54):
We need to be always on the alert, and we
need to be talking to friends know this typology because
the way this works is the scamera will reach out
and then they will move the conversation to WhatsApp. They're
going to put it in an encrypted situation where other
people don't have access to that conversation. So we need
to be checking in on our friends, and we need
(39:15):
to be knowing who they're talking to, and we need
to know, you know, how did you meet that person,
and how are you like what platform do you guys
use to communicate. We need to lead with empathy with
these conversations because this we're fighting an enemy that knows
how to psychologically manipulate, So we've got to put our
best tools in our pocket. And a lot a lot
(39:36):
of that leads straight back to just being an empathetic listener.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Erin, is there anything that you'd like to say about
this to the audience, to the government, what else would
you like to say?
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, we're really underestimating this as a world, how big
this problem is. And I've had the benefit of being
able to go over to Asia twice to talk to
people on the ground over there and to really understand
it and to see the pictures, the satellite pictures that
show how quickly they are. These compounds are taking root
(40:12):
and growing. So the problem is massive. It's getting bigger,
not smaller. The statistics show it's getting bigger. We know
the increase was thirty eight percent in this type of
crime twenty two to twenty three, and we can expect
that same type of increase from twenty three to twenty four.
We've got a massive problem on our hands, and so
(40:33):
if this has happened to you, you need to notify
Congress and let them know. I had the wonderful opportunity
to speak before Congress and really to educate about how
bad this is. We need to keep raising the temperature
until people understand that we are way behind the eight
ball and we need to organize and get a strategy together.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Aarin, thank you so much for the great work you're doing.
You're a true financial crime fighter. We really appreciate it.
Please keep up the good work and we will support
all the good that you're doing. Thank you, Thank you
so much.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
It was pleasure to be designated.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Aaron West points out that these pig butchering scammers target
all of us people from all walks of life. But
what's most troubling about these scams is how they prey
on something that is universal, our desire for companionship. On
the other hand, in a world full of disagreement and division,
the fight against exploitation by these scammers can actually become
(41:29):
a force to unite us. Undoubtedly, it will take a
unified effort to beat back these networks and protect the
people we love from getting butchered. Not long after I
recorded this interview, Aaron West announced that she is soon
going to retire from government after twenty six years of
public service, but she's not giving up the fight. She
plans to continue to be an advocate for victims and
(41:52):
to help law enforcement prosecute these criminals. We'll need people
like her, and we need each and every one of
us to stay vigilant. I'm Yaya Jatta Fanussi and this
is designated on the Illicit Edge Network.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.