August 19, 2025 • 50 mins
Pig butchering scams - we have talked about them before, and it is worth talking about again. Join us as we talk with our guest, Erin West, a globally recognized speaker, and educator specializing organized crime, with a focus on the criminal investigation and prosecution of cryptocurrency-related cases.
Erin will provide more insight about the growing global crisis these scams represent. Tune in to learn more about pig butchering scams and what we can do to prevent them.
Let’s Talk About Scams is broadcast live Tuesdays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Let’s Talk About Scams TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Let’s Talk About Scams Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional / legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references; however, R.O.S.E. Resources / Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/let-s-talk-about-scams--6483699/support.
Erin will provide more insight about the growing global crisis these scams represent. Tune in to learn more about pig butchering scams and what we can do to prevent them.
Let’s Talk About Scams is broadcast live Tuesdays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Let’s Talk About Scams TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Let’s Talk About Scams Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional / legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references; however, R.O.S.E. Resources / Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/let-s-talk-about-scams--6483699/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
(00:23):
of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas
in The information contained in this podcast is intended for
informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual
professional legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from
vetted sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard
(00:45):
the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim
to a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must
listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and
their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday, eight am Pacific
time on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,
(01:05):
and her guests. We'll provide valuable insights and practical tips
on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And
now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
All Right, Welcome back everyone, and yes it's me Joyce.
I know I haven't been here for probably about I
think six weeks. I was on vacation for a little
bit and then had some major surgery. But I'm recovering
and I'm back and I understand Brian took good care
of you guys while I was gone, and you will
(01:40):
see him back next month for an episode. So you
can find more resources at our website, Roseadvocacy dot org.
You can sign up for our newsletters. We send one
out via email and one via snail mail every month.
I just go to the homepage and scroll down to them.
You'll see where the sign ups are. You'll see our
(02:02):
social media links Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and all
of our radio show episodes and shorts are hosted on
our YouTube page. Or we also have a Let's Talk
about Scams dot com website where they're all hosted as well.
(02:24):
So today I'm so excited we're going to we have
a guest, Aaron West, that we're going to talk about
cryptocurrency and pig butchering. So Aaron's the founder of Operation Shamrock,
a global nonprofit uniting law enforcement industry and everyday citizens
to disrupt the world's fastest growing form of trans national
(02:47):
organized crime, pig butchering scams. After twenty six years as
a prosecutor, including eight on the REACT High Tech Task Force,
where she became known for her relentless pursuit of crypto criminals,
Erin now leads across border fight to expose the scam economy,
mobilize action, and protect both victims and the trafficked workers
(03:11):
forced to run these schemes. She's also host of Stolen,
a podcast that brings listeners inside the darkest corners of
the scandemic, where love is weaponized, billions are laundered, and
real people pay the price. A sought after speaker and educator,
Aaron continues to equip and inspire audiences around the world
(03:33):
to use their skills, platforms, and tools to fight back.
So let's welcome Erin to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Hey Erin, Hello, thank you so much for inviting me today.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah. Yeah, so, why don't you just give us I
read your bio, but just tell us a little bit
about what you do and then we're going to get
right into this.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I was a prosecutor for twenty six and a half
years and the last eight years of my career I
did tech crimes, and the last three I was just
inundated with people who were victims of scams, things that
started out as what they thought was an innocent interaction
on a phone that led to a romance that ultimately
(04:15):
led to them losing all of their money in a
new scam called pig butchering. And I'm delighted to be
here to educate about it.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Nice Nice and I had heard about pig butchering a
couple of years ago. In fact, I talked to a
gentleman I believe he was up in the state of
Washington who actually went through and told me his experience
about meeting somebody online and they had a friendship. It
wasn't necessarily a love interest, but she started talking to
(04:45):
him about this investment and all of these things, and
he said, I'm normally the type of person that I
won't invest or give my money unless I research and
I know what's going on. He goes, and I had
no idea what cryptocurrency was, so I started researching it,
and he said, and lo and behold, pig butchering scams
came up and there was a checklist, and I read
(05:07):
through the checklist, and there were she hit every single
thing on the checklist right. And so that's one of
the things we tell people is do your research right.
If you don't know about like cryptocurrency, do your research,
find out you know what it is, what it's about,
and there's a good chance you're going to see stuff
out there about scams. So and I know, I personally
(05:30):
don't really know much about cryptocurrency. I always equate it
to it seems to be like it's some form of money,
but it's like in the air, you can't touch it right,
and it's like it just I don't know. I'm not
comfortable with it. So tell us more about the crypto. Yeah,
you've raised a couple of really interesting issues. I think
(05:52):
the first thing is that we don't need to be
afraid of crypto. We I think a lot of people
would like to make it feel like it's so hard
to understand, it's so complicated. But quite honestly, if you
can understand delta sky miles, if you can understand a
stack of poker chips.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You can understand cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's essentially we all agree for the moment that this
stack of poker chips is worth one hundred dollars per
poker chip, and you can pade those poker chips for
jewelry at this place or now even Christie's says you
can buy real estate with that cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Oh okay.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
More and more, we're going to see cryptocurrency adopted as
a way to transact other in other ways.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And we're also seeing that.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Really mainstream banking is adopting this in a way that
you can move easily convert money back and forth from
cryptocurrency to US dollars through your bank account combined with
a currency investment account.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So we don't want to be conc we don't want to.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Allow ourselves to be misled about cryptocurrency. That's a good point, right,
And so the reason the scammers have chosen to use
cryptocurrency for really good reason and for exactly what you said,
that we don't know much about it, and so they
can tell us all kinds of things about it, and
we generally with.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
No idea, right yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Another thing that you said that I found interesting too
was the idea that essentially that because it's hard to understand,
we should be researching it. And so what I will
tell you about this particular scam is that this is
(07:49):
a mental manipulation like.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I have ever seen before in my life.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
What and I know that doctor Dove is a frequent guest,
so I know you are familiar with her her really
well organized thoughts about how manipulative these scams are.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Seems like it's a romance scam on steroids.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
And so these scammers are building on two different things. One,
they're building this really trusted relationship that for a lot
of people who come out of it, they say, this
was the this was the most I've never felt so
cared for.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I've never felt so seen, heard, understood, loved.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
And Doctor do will tell you that is definitely part
of the technique, right, Yeah, it's highly manipulative.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, it just plays on your emotions. Right. They they're
now like with romance scams, I know a lot of times,
you know, they find people on Facebook. I think that's
kind of like the number one platform that they find people.
And especially like if you have a widow or widower
(09:00):
as you're you know, your status, that's kind of a
red flag, but that's exactly what they're looking for or
if you've talked about, right, your your loved one passing
and and all that stuff, and they're just exploiting that
loneliness and that that need to for love and to
(09:20):
have a partner again. Right, And but this pig butchering
is just it's not. My understanding is it's they're not
necessarily professing their love that they're going to come back
to wherever you're at, or come to wherever you're at
and marry you and and all of that. It's they're
striking up a friendship to get you to trust them.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I would say that more frequently it's a love relationship.
And I think that sometimes people don't want to be
honest about that because I think people engage in this
quite frequently when they're already married.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And and what you have hit upon.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Is something that is super relevant to this, and that's
the loneliness crisis.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
We've got a crisis.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
The World Health Organization has acknowledged this that essentially people
it's something like one in five people report being lonely
once a week or.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Some high number.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Like we've got a really big crisis where people didn't
come out of COVID well, and some people still haven't
gone back into the job where.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
They were before. So we've got we've got.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
A significant number of people who just would really welcome
some companionship. And so when that text shows up on there,
this is so funny.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I just looked at my phone to.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Give you an example, and as I look at my phone,
I'm getting one of those job scams. Somebody has reviewed
my So that's yesterday. That's how pervasive it is. So
what I would say is that is that when you
get something on your phone on Facebook, somebody wanting to
be your friend. For all a lot of people, that's
(11:01):
a welcome distraction from the rest of their life.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
And then what you talked about is exactly right.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
That they build a whether it's a friendship or a
romantic relationship, but they do it over time.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
This is a long con.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
They don't start talking about cryptocurrency on day three or
day thirteen.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
What they really do is they build up this trust.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
That absolute trust. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah, And by the time they get to talking about cryptocurrency,
you are in a situation where, wow, you think you
have found the person that meets all your needs. And
along the way that person has been showing you an
elevated lifestyle they've been showing you that they travel to
Hawaii and that they drive a range Rover, and you
(11:46):
have every reason to believe when they say that they
made their money in cryptocurrency, that that's how they.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Did it right, right, And there are a lot of
people out there that have made a lot of money
truthfully in crystal currency. And let me ask you this question.
So I hear a lot from people, and I read
stories about retired people, older adults going into a gas
(12:16):
station or a shopping mall and just feeding cash into
a cryptocurrency ATM machine. What was the whole purpose of
bringing those cryptocurrency ATM machines out? Because I'm trying to
figure out I'm thinking that if somebody is legitimately investing
in cryptocurrency, they don't need to go to a cryptocurrency
(12:39):
ATM machine.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Now, the purpose of those machines is to steal your
mom's money. That's the purpose of those machines. And you're
absolutely right that if I'm legitimately investing in cryptocurrency, I
am going through a license, not a license, but a
regular crypto exchange that we'reamiliar with the name of it,
(13:01):
like crypto dot com or coinbase and I'm not paying
the exorbitant fees that are associated with a CRYPTOATM.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
There's just no.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Reason why I would be taking out cash and putting
it and doing the lengthy process of putting it in
one hundred dollars by one hundred dollars into a machine
when I can electronically move all of that, right.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I mean, I was thinking about that recently and it
was like, I can't figure out a legitimate reason why
a legitimate investor in cryptocurrency would have a need to
go to a cryptocurrency ATM. It just didn't make sense.
But yet they're all over the place they are, and.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
You know they when you talk to people who run
those machines, they will give you some stories about how
they're for unbanked people, but the fact is that's not
where they're located. They're not located in that population. They're
frequently located. I have a friend who works with me
at Operation Shamrock, who works in a wealthy community in
(14:07):
New Hampshire with something like fifteen thousand residents, and she
says there are thirty five crypto ATMs there. You know,
nobody's unbanked in this retirement community in New Hampshire and
what they are is retired, wealthy people who make great
targets for this. And so what we're seeing, Joyce that's
(14:31):
really impressive is we're seeing states stand up to this,
and we're seeing regulation of these machines and even outlining
of these machines and certain municipalities. So I'm grateful that
there are can do people who are ready to stand
up and say not in my town, we're just not
going to do that.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And so.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
It's always good to see people standing up for the vulnerable,
and and that makes me happy.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I don't know where this story came out of,
someplace in the United States where and it was on
social media. This gentleman had walked into a gas station
and he saw the owner literally taking the cryptocurrency machine out,
and he started talking to him and he's like, why
are you He's like, because I see all these older,
(15:25):
elderly ladies coming in and just feeding this machine full
of cash, and I know they're getting scammed. And he
goes and I don't want to be any part of this.
And I thought, good, good for you, you know, for
for doing that. But I also had heard that with
them at the federal level, that they've got a Cryptocurrency
(15:49):
Committee whatever it is that's that's starting to really look
into this, and they're supposed to be looking at putting
more safeguards out there. Do you do you work with
any of them on that or have you have you
heard any anything?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Well, I'm not totally familiar with that, but what I
am familiar with is the AARP has done a really
amazing job of drafting legislation and helping to shepherd it
through in different states, and they've worked with some of
the law enforcement members from the Crypto Coalition that I
(16:25):
work with that to get to get state different different
states to create regulations that make it more difficult for
these scammers to do business.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Good good, So are the in your work? Have you
found our I mean we all I think we pretty
much all know scammers are on Facebook, right, there's so
many fake accounts out there. We've actually reported a lot
of them and we get the cursory response back. We
haven't seen where this has caused any problems, so we're
(16:57):
not going to take it down. And it's like, if
you would just look at this and you could do
some reverse image searches, you could do things that are
at your fingertips to figure out that this is not
the true person's profile, right. And I don't know if
they're getting any better at cracking down on that or not,
(17:18):
but I know we haven't seen in profiles that we've
reported that they've been willing to take them down.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
This is really one of my hot buttons because I
get angry at you know, it's very easy to say, oh,
this is all happening overseas and we can't do anything
about it, but.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
The foul right here in the United States.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Yeah, the fact is we've got American companies that aren't
enabling these bad actors to access our friends and family.
And these companies have the best tech in the world.
They absolutely could identify just like you're saying, do a
reverse image search, start looking at where in the world
(18:00):
these people are logging on from.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
The addresses right right, And there's just a.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Million different ways that these bad actors could be identified
and removed from their platform.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And the fact is they're not doing it.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
They're not doing it in a proactive way, and when
we are reporting it to them, we are met with
exactly the response that you got. If this doesn't violate
our community standards and Unfortunately, that's where we find ourselves,
and it's really not acceptable when we're not talking about
a small problem. We are talking about having a generation's
(18:35):
worth of wealth stolen from us.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Absolutely, and.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
There's an obligation to be a better world citizen than that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
No, absolutely, I mean, you know, we give when we
do our program out in the community. You know, it's
our vision is retirement should be the best years of
your life. It needs to be protected at all costs.
And it's like you spend your life life, raising your family, working,
saving your money, you pay your house off, and you're like,
(19:06):
I've got this nest egg and this is how I
want to live out my retirement. I talk to a
financial planner and you know, if they go that route,
and I'm good. You know, I've got enough money to
live till I'm one hundred or ninety five or you know,
whatever it is. But then you get the scammer that
comes along praise on their emotions because we are that
(19:30):
generation is very trusting. I grew up in that generation.
We're very trusting. Right, I even today find myself is
going find myself going, oh I trust it a little
bit too much on that one, right, And It's hard.
It's a hard habit to break, you know. Hopefully Chicago
doesn't come after me for going after with their title
of their song, but it is, you know, because it's
(19:52):
a good feeling to have that you can trust people.
And now all of a sudden, everyone's telling you you
can't trust anybody.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And isn't that terrible? And is that where we want
to be? Is that where we want to live?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
It's it's horrendous that that's where we find ourselves. But
that is exactly That's the message I give everyone when
when I'm asked, like, what can I do about this? Well,
the fact is you cannot trust any electronic communication that
you did not solicit, period as everybody's a scammer until
you find out otherwise. And I'm raising two young men,
(20:25):
and I'll tell you, like, that's that's my message to
them is do not trust anything that's on there and
make them prove themselves. Don't click through, go to that
website yourself and log in and find out absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
And the piece that you bring up that really resonates
with me is that people have worked their lives to
enjoy these years and what we're watching happen in real
time is that more and more of those retire ease
are getting stripped of everything they have.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
It's just awful and it's just not.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Recoverable at that point.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
And people are going back to work that thought they
were long done, and it's people are losing their homes.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Like this isn't a small amount of money.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
We're not talking about the romance scams of yesteryear, where
perhaps you thought, you know, you were sending money for
a sick child or a business situation, and you lost
maybe fifty to seventy five thousand dollars. We're talking about
people losing every penny they have. Have a million dollars, yes,
(21:41):
and that's routine in California where I come from. Like
the numbers are crazy, and then again like it doesn't
matter what the number is, because it's it's what the
number is to that person, and that person has lost everything.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Right right, I mean, somebody could lose one hundred thousand,
and it means one thing to one peron, and it
means something totally different to another. One person might be like, Okay,
well I can absorb that. Another person might be like,
that's my life savings. I now got to lie on
the government for my housing, my food, my basic needs.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
So then let's talk about that, right, But now we're
creating obligations on the government to take care of retirees
that were previously set up well exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
And this is preventable. Rights, it's preventable. And that's why
when when I look at Facebook and they're not taking
those those profiles down, it's like you're going to wait
until someone's reported that they've lost their life savings and
then you're going to react to it. And I think
(22:46):
we've we've become a society of reacting and it's like
with us, it rose, it's like, no, this is preventable,
and it's preventable through education and getting people to understand
you know that this is going on, and you can't
trust people and you need to be your advocate, right
(23:07):
and have your trusted person and all of that stuff,
because in the end, unfortunately it's you're either going to
give the money away or you're not right. It's the
scammers can have all this different technology out there, and yeah,
you know they could kind of overtake here if they
figure out your account log in that they could and
(23:27):
you've reused it over everything, you know, they could get
into your bank account and stuff. But I think a
lot of the scams are coming from the social engineering
and how they're manipulating people's emotions.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
You're right, and you talked about something significant before when
you talked about a trusting generation. So the scammers have
studied us. They've had people with PhD studying us. They
know what works. They've been at this for years, unimpeded,
with no friction, and so they know that people respond
to authority, they respond to immediacy, and what really works
(24:06):
for people of that generation is to mislead them that
there is that their money is at risk in some way,
or that their money has been tied to child pornography,
or that there's a warrant for their arrest, or they
haven't paid something that they need to pay.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
They didn't show up for jury duty, right. I just
agree that. I just read that recently. This lady lost
I want to say it was like twenty thousand dollars
or something, and it was because she was like, well,
I didn't know, maybe maybe I did miss jury duty, right,
And so it was that she perceived that they were
the authority and that they knew what was going on,
(24:47):
and that this was urgent, she needed to pay it
or else she risks going to jail and right, and
it just puts your whole mindset into an emotional state
and you're not thinking rationally. And this is one thing
that we tell people is like, I think we can
all think back to some point in our life where
we have made a decision based on emotions, and then
(25:10):
whether it's a couple hours later, a day later, whatever,
you've thought about it and gone, oh, if I had
been thinking rationally, I never would have made that decision.
But like you said, scammers know that they've studied this
and they're very very good at what they're doing. They
(25:30):
really are, which leads me to say, well, why aren't
we very good at stopping this? Right, They've put a
ton of energy into how to take our money, and
I feel like I don't feel like I know that
there aren't enough people on the other side saying well,
we're going to put energy into figuring out how to
(25:52):
make sure you can't access our people, and that if
you do access our people, they are educated about the
fact that you are looking for them, right and trying
to steal their mind off, right, that they're going to
stop it So it's just going to take time, I think,
and getting out there and talking to more people and
educating them. And it's just one of those topics, at
(26:14):
least in my opinion, that I've found, you know, in
talking to people to get them to set up the program.
Right is a lot of people don't want to think
about scams. Right, it's not the fun thing. It's not
having an entertainer come perform, or having the ice cream
truck come or having somebody come play bingo or you
know these games. It's a topic that nobody wants to
(26:38):
think about. But it's to the point now where it
has to be thought about. I know, we follow the
IC three reports that the FBI puts out, and California
is always in the top three. You know, Arizona is
always in the top ten. You know, California and Florida,
I think are always in the top three. The other state,
(26:58):
I think kind of varies. But we've been Arizona's been
four and six in losses, and if we look at
the losses, and this is what's reported right right, which
is a small percentage, But if we look at what
Arizona's in sixty plus lost in twenty twenty compared to
what they lost in twenty twenty four six hundred percent increase.
(27:20):
I can imagine it is at least that much for
California for sure.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I don't have that specific number, but what I do
know is just the increase in crypto fraud losses are
up forty percent over last year, and those, again, like those.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Are what is reported.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
And so when I see the six hundred percent number
that you're giving me, even the forty percent number that
I'm saying, is that where else is there that dramatic
of an increase in a crime typology and nobody's on
top of it, and that's just unacceptable. We don't we
(28:01):
don't have a plan, and we are getting kicked in
the face and on repeat. And so I have grave
concerns not only about the amount of financial loss, but
I have grave concerns about what this does to our society.
You brought up the idea of we're trusting people, and
(28:23):
I think that's a really a nice attribute it and
we are we are getting to a point where we
can't be that trusting, trusting group. And you know, I'll
give you an example, like I needed someone to cut
the trees in my backyard, and I went on vacation
(28:44):
and he said, I'll cut them all you're gone, and
when you come back, you pay me. And we're trusting
each other that if he cuts those trees, I'm going
to pay him, and I'm trusting him that I hired
him to do it and that he's going to do it.
And that's a stupid example, but the point is that
if we lose, if every single thing we do has
to be verified and es road, and we lose just
(29:08):
some of the the kindness and ease of doing transactions
with people, and right here we ourselves.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's a good attribute to be able to see the
good in people, right and to trust people. And now,
like you said, it's like, okay, well you might on
the outside act like you trust, but on the inside,
it's like you've got to have that skepticism, right, And
we call it a healthy skepticism, right, because, yes, being
(29:39):
a victim of a scam and losing money hurts financially,
but the emotional and the psychological toll it takes. And
and unfortunately, you know, we see suicide happen with the
older adults because of this exploitation and these scams. So
in your bio. You had mentioned that you worked I
(30:03):
want to make sure I get it right the growing
form of transnational organized crimes. So are you working with
or let me preface that, do you see that a
lot of these pig butchering scams are coming from other
countries or you seeing a lot of it starting to
(30:24):
creep up in the United States as well.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
So what we know is that the United States and
other countries are under attack, and they are under attacked
by Chinese organized crime. Chinese organized crime has set up
scam centers all over Southeast Asia and now in other
parts of the world, where they are boiler rooms. There
(30:51):
are mills of people who are living six people to
a dormitory room, and their job is to steal our
money sixteen hours a day.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
And if they don't steal the money, they are beaten.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
And so I'll often talk to victims and they'll say, oh,
I should have known this, I should have known.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Well, no, you shouldn't.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
There's no way that you are you you're going to
win a battle of psychological manipulation against someone who does
this for a living.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Seven days a week.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Yeah, And so that's our situation, and it's growing. And
so when I say transnational organized crime. I mean that
there are organized crime syndicates that are running this in
a very sophisticated, industrialized way against the rest of the world.
And they're doing it by using human trafficked workers, many
of whom are from Africa to do this work. And
(31:48):
they like the Africans because they speak English and they
can be easily talked into leaving their African country believing
that they are going to make more money in a
data entry center in Bangkok, and then when they get there,
they find out that they have been tripped, they've been deceived,
(32:10):
and now they are under lock and key. They are
put into a scam facility that's guarded by men with
AK forty seven's and this is their job and they
cannot leave.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Wow. Wow, I mean that's just you know, you have
the whole the whole thing of scamming people, right, which
is just totally awful, But now you have the added
layer of the people that are doing it are trafficked.
They're They're not there by choice.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
No, And I think that's a surprise to a lot
of people. I often hear people be like, oh, I
was messing with this guy, and I was like, yeah,
that guy.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Is being human trafficked. And I was talking to my dentist,
and my.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Dentist was saying that, you know, recently, she keeps getting
these these job scam things. And she responded and she
was like, please stop sending me these. And the person
responded and said thank you for at least responding so
that I don't get beaten. And she was she was
talking to me as she's cleaning my teeth. She's like,
(33:14):
what is what is this guy talking about? And I
was like, oh, well, they have quotas. They have quotas
of they have to engage in conversations with people, and
you you responded to a text and that that's a
win in their column. So wow, it's a it's a
very dire situation. And it's kind of when I started
(33:36):
learning about pig butchering and I started learning about Oh
my goodness, you know people are losing money. Oh my goodness,
it's all their money, and wow, they're taking out loans
to pay the quote unquote taxes. And then oh my goodness,
this is being run at an industrial level, and wow,
(33:56):
are you kidding me? The people that are behind it
are human tracks. You can't write a movie like this.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It's insanity, right right, it's what's that phrase? You can't
make this stuff up?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
You really can't.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, it's just so with a lot of it happening
in China, you know, or run by by the Chinese
in the Asian countries and stuff. Have you seen during
prosecuting and things like that, that if you're dealing with
(34:33):
someone that's been the scammer in the United States versus
someone you know, whether it's the organized crime or it's
it's a handful of people over in another country, it
makes a difference if you're able to recover any of
the money that was stolen.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah, I think it's important to.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Set this stage for what victims can expect because the
fact of the matter is nobody is being prosecuted for this.
That's the crazy part There there have been very few
arrests and almost zero convictions involving these kind of cases.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
But what there has been is some financial recovery. So
what I would say.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
To victims is that when I talk to victims, I
always say, Okay, well there are two there are two
pieces here.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
One is anybody going to get arrested? Probably not?
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Number Two, is there a way to recover your money.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I think the kindest thing we can do for.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Victims is to be honest with them and to level
set expectations from the outset. And I think what is
what is happening in the United States is they are
reporting to the FBI and they are not hearing anything back,
and they are going to local law enforcement. And look,
the law enforcement is saying either we don't do crypto,
(36:03):
or we'll get to it or something.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
But they don't have answers, and they need answers. And so.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
One of the proudest things that I did as a
prosecutor was in working with my task force, we figured
out a way to recover stolen funds for victis. Now,
cryptocurrency is confusing to people, but quite honestly, can be
a blessing. The beauty of cryptocurrency is it's as if
(36:33):
we all can read from the same book and say, okay,
Joyce oh. On July twenty eighth, Joyce sent Aaron twenty
five dollars, Like, we can all look at that same
ledger and maybe it doesn't say Joyce.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Maybe it has like.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
A string of letters and numbers, and maybe mine also
has a string of letters and numbers, which you.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Can tie those back to the account.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Owner, Yes you can, okay, and so we can all
see it.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
And so what the team did at the REACT Task
Force in Santa Clara County was figure out how to
trace your stolen money.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And we traced it to an overseas.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Crypto exchange and by that I mean it was Binance,
and they do not operate in the United States because
they didn't want to be subject to United States rules, okay.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
And so for a lot of people that would have
been an easy dead end.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
But we operated from a what if we could point
of view, and so we reached out to finance and said,
here's what's happening.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Can you help us with this?
Speaker 4 (37:36):
And they said, well, we will accept a search warrant
signed by a judge, okay. So then we had to
figure out how to wrangle that through an antiquated legal
system that is not ready for cryptocurrency seizures.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
But we did that and then by the end of
twenty twenty two, we.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Were able to get money back to eight victims, and
by the end of twenty twenty three, we were able
to get money back to twenty three more victims.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
So it can be done.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
And I work with a coalition of twenty four hundred
law enforcement agents now, and we routinely are able to
make seizures.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Even if we are routinely making seizures, the number of
victims out there is so massive that it's still like
winning a lottery to be able to get any of
your money back.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And if you get some back, is it like pennies
on the dollar, because, like you said, there's so many
people that have been victimized.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Yeah, and you know, the bad guys are really good
at what they do. We talked about how adept they
are at mind games, and they're really good at money laundering,
and they.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Have money all over. Yeah, they're moving your money super quickly.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
And so that's where we find ourselves is in a
situation where by the time a victim gets up the
nerve to report it to someone who knows how to
do this work, frequently the money is already gone.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah. And you know, that's something we heard a few
years ago from one of the assistant US attorneys in
Arizona was that they were seeing that that a lot
of older people were being money mules and they didn't know.
(39:27):
They thought they were just doing someone a favor. They
were being nice for whatever excuse the person gave them
as to why they couldn't, you know, transfer the money.
And it was all done in the guys to if
they can keep the money going from account to account
to account. By the time law enforcement catches up with it,
(39:47):
it's already out of the country and depending on where
it goes in what other country, A lot of it
depends on is that country going to be willing to
work with the United States? Right, Some countries are just
like no, you know, for whatever reason, you know, they
have enough, they don't have the manpower because they've got
all this other crime of their own that they're working on,
(40:07):
or they just choose not to. But yeah, that's you
know that. It's why I just am so much into
the whole prevention side of it, right, because even if
they were to get half of their money back, right,
it's great that you can get some or you know,
some of the money back and stuff like that, But
the emotional toll that someone has to go through between
(40:31):
getting realizing they've been scammed and getting their money back,
I mean, how do they recover from that? I mean,
that's enough.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, I was going to say I was a prosecutor
for twenty six years.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
I did murder cases, I did sexual assault, I did
people who had been kidnapped and left for dead.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
I right, like really horrific things.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
But quite honestly, I have never seen victims as destroyed
as these financial crime victim and that is because they've
lost their entire financial footing, their confidence, their security.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
But they also at that same.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
Time, they are losing this person that became a really
trusted ally, whether a friend, a loved one, someone they
thought they were going to marry, whatever it was, this
person was significant to them. And then to realize, oh
my god, that person was behind this thing from the
get go. It's more than some people can handle. And
(41:32):
I routinely saw people getting mental health treatment, even checking
themselves in doing self harm and ultimately suicide.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I would I.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Hear from adult children whose parent has committed suicide.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Saying I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
What happened until I started going through his computer and
I realized what had happened to him.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah, and you know the whole reason why I started
Rose four years ago. Actually, what is the date today.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
The August nineteenth.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
We're coming up here on the twenty third, will be
exactly four years that congratulation and in business. Was I
had a loved one that was in a romance scam? Yeah,
she had lost her spouse, and I totally believe that's
how they I believe that's how they found her was
through Facebook, right, And it was in talking to her
(42:29):
family members. They had no idea what was going on
because she wasn't talking to them about this new love interest. Right.
It wasn't until she started asking for help with basic
needs stuff that all of a sudden the family was going, Okay,
this doesn't make sense. You have enough, right, And then
(42:51):
they started looking into things just as you said, right.
And it wasn't like they went to her and explained
it to her and she was like, oh, oh okay,
I'm never going to do that again. Had her in
that absolute trust. It took a couple interventions because they
the victim is in that absolute trust and it is
(43:13):
so hard to break. I've gotten calls from people that
are like, we've had the police out to talk to
whether it was mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa, whoever it was,
We've talked to them. We can't get them to see
you know. And the first thing is like, you know,
I'm sorry, it's they're in that absolute trust and you know,
(43:36):
I'll try to give you some ideas to do. I'll
be more than happy to talk to them with you present, right,
because I don't know, maybe somebody totally unbiased, not involved
in any of it. Maybe you know, it'll it'll break
the cycle. Who knows, you know, you just don't know.
But it is so difficult, it is so short.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Yeah, a victim. One of the things we do at
Operation Shamrock is we listen to We have two calls
a week where we listen directly to victims about what
they've experienced for the purpose of understanding where things went
wrong in the criminal justice system, in the banking system
and social media.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
And so, yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
It's good for all of us because I think one
of the key issues is that victims are not being heard.
They don't feel like anybody cares, they don't feel like
anybody's listening to them, nobody's trying to fix this, and
so I think it's works well for them. For me,
it's an amazing opportunity to get real time, ground floor
information about what's happening in our country.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Absolutely everybody's case is different, right, everybody's experience is different.
You're exactly right.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
And what's interesting is, you know, we always think we've
heard it all, and then a victim will come on
and will be like, ooh, that's a different twist on it.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Oh didn't know that, didn't You hadn't seen that happen before.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
And the way the reason I brought it up is
there was a victim who was telling us, well, his parent,
his father was still in it, and he was talking
to us about it, and he was saying, it feels
like an addiction, Like it feels like we can have
a conversation with him and we can tell him and
he'll be like, Okay, you're right, you're right, I'm going
to get out. And then and before you know what,
(45:22):
he sent another twenty thousand dollars. And so there's something
worth studying at the psychological level of how to break
this cycle in a functional way that doesn't destroy families,
because that's a whole other piece of this. It is
like an unspoken piece that is ruining our.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Pick.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
Butchering is destroying and creating chaos in a million different ways,
and one of the ways is just the destruction of families.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Family.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Yeah, I spoke to another adult son and he was like,
I'm yelling at my dad and I'm telling him this
as a scam.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
And I was like, oh, that's probably out the right technique.
Speaker 4 (46:01):
But there's just a lot of destruction on a on
a million different like how genius? How genius is this
whole thing that we're going to attack the United States
in a way that destroys their confidence and law enforcement
and government, that ruins families that I mean, it's really
(46:24):
super well plagued. I've got to hand it to him.
This is expertly designed and there's no work. They've done
their homework.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yeah, And like you said, that's where those of us
that are in this fight right to try to prevent
this and get the education out there. I think. I
think there's a lot more people that need to start
listening to us, as far as the people that make
decisions and make laws and stuff like that, right, It's yeah, they.
Speaker 4 (46:53):
Need to realize the gravity of what's happening here, that
this isn't a small issue, and this isn't this isn't
an old cat lady making stupid decisions. These are very
intelligent people who are being misled about an investment opportunity
and they've been provided a context where it makes sense
(47:13):
their income. They're in communication with someone who appears to
have made a lot of money in this. They're already
having fomo because they know other people have made a
lot of money in this, and they're presented with an
investment platform that looks genuine.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Right, and the person that's giving them all this information
seems very knowledgeable. Right, it's all making. It's a perfect storm.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
It is the perfect storm.
Speaker 4 (47:39):
And then you throw all the emotions in it, and
the endorphins and the and you and you put together
the feeling of new love, and you put it together
with the feeling of oh, I'm also getting wealthy, Like
you can't compete with those kind of emotions.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, it's tough, but I was just looking at the clock.
We've got to wrap up or we're going to be
getting little notes here. It's time to stop.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Well, conversation is easy, yeah, yeah, but I would love
to have you back to continue this conversation because this
definitely is not a one and done.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I think people have to hear about these things on
a regular basis in order to make prevention a habit, right.
I was just equating it this morning, like when you
first learn how to drive, and you're a new driver
for a number of years, you see a police car
and you automatically want to slam the brakes on, right,
that's not a panic. Well, as you become a more
experienced driver, when all of a sudden you see that
(48:37):
police car and you know you're speeding, you kind of
just let your foot off the brake right, a little bit, right,
And so I kind of equate that too. You need
to hear it's gotten to the point you need to
hear about scams prevention measures, just so when you are contacted,
scam comes in the back of your mind, right, yep,
(48:58):
about this, you know, yeah, you know so anyways, but
thank you so much, and I did want to let
everybody know that they can find your podcast called Stolen.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
It's Stolen with Aaron West, Stolen with.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Aaron West, and then your website for Operation Shamrock if
they want to find out more information about the pig
butchering and what you guys are doing is Operationshamrock dot org.
That's it, Okay, awesome, and yes, let's definitely have another
conversation because I think we just started to hit the
surface on this and maybe I'll have to talk to
(49:35):
the producer. If we can do three people and we
can get doctor Dove in here, would love that. That
would be great. That would be awesome. So thank you
very much, Aaron. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yep, all right, thank you everybody for joining us today.
I hope you listened in the whole time. This was
full of great information about pig butchering scams and what
they're like and how they work. And Aaron's going to
be back so we can continue this conversation. Don't forget
go to Roseadvocacy dot org. You can find a lot
(50:07):
of resources. There's also Operation Shamrock dot org to find
a lot of resources on the pig butchering and hit
subscribe so you don't ever miss an episode of Let's
Talk About Scams until next week.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. Juni in
every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio
at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge.
So you have the power to make scam protection your
healthy habit and until then, feel free to reach out
to Joyce and Let's talk about scams
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
(00:23):
of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas
in The information contained in this podcast is intended for
informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual
professional legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from
vetted sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard
(00:45):
the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim
to a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must
listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and
their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday, eight am Pacific
time on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,
(01:05):
and her guests. We'll provide valuable insights and practical tips
on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And
now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
All Right, Welcome back everyone, and yes it's me Joyce.
I know I haven't been here for probably about I
think six weeks. I was on vacation for a little
bit and then had some major surgery. But I'm recovering
and I'm back and I understand Brian took good care
of you guys while I was gone, and you will
(01:40):
see him back next month for an episode. So you
can find more resources at our website, Roseadvocacy dot org.
You can sign up for our newsletters. We send one
out via email and one via snail mail every month.
I just go to the homepage and scroll down to them.
You'll see where the sign ups are. You'll see our
(02:02):
social media links Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and all
of our radio show episodes and shorts are hosted on
our YouTube page. Or we also have a Let's Talk
about Scams dot com website where they're all hosted as well.
(02:24):
So today I'm so excited we're going to we have
a guest, Aaron West, that we're going to talk about
cryptocurrency and pig butchering. So Aaron's the founder of Operation Shamrock,
a global nonprofit uniting law enforcement industry and everyday citizens
to disrupt the world's fastest growing form of trans national
(02:47):
organized crime, pig butchering scams. After twenty six years as
a prosecutor, including eight on the REACT High Tech Task Force,
where she became known for her relentless pursuit of crypto criminals,
Erin now leads across border fight to expose the scam economy,
mobilize action, and protect both victims and the trafficked workers
(03:11):
forced to run these schemes. She's also host of Stolen,
a podcast that brings listeners inside the darkest corners of
the scandemic, where love is weaponized, billions are laundered, and
real people pay the price. A sought after speaker and educator,
Aaron continues to equip and inspire audiences around the world
(03:33):
to use their skills, platforms, and tools to fight back.
So let's welcome Erin to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Hey Erin, Hello, thank you so much for inviting me today.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah. Yeah, so, why don't you just give us I
read your bio, but just tell us a little bit
about what you do and then we're going to get
right into this.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I was a prosecutor for twenty six and a half
years and the last eight years of my career I
did tech crimes, and the last three I was just
inundated with people who were victims of scams, things that
started out as what they thought was an innocent interaction
on a phone that led to a romance that ultimately
(04:15):
led to them losing all of their money in a
new scam called pig butchering. And I'm delighted to be
here to educate about it.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Nice Nice and I had heard about pig butchering a
couple of years ago. In fact, I talked to a
gentleman I believe he was up in the state of
Washington who actually went through and told me his experience
about meeting somebody online and they had a friendship. It
wasn't necessarily a love interest, but she started talking to
(04:45):
him about this investment and all of these things, and
he said, I'm normally the type of person that I
won't invest or give my money unless I research and
I know what's going on. He goes, and I had
no idea what cryptocurrency was, so I started researching it,
and he said, and lo and behold, pig butchering scams
came up and there was a checklist, and I read
(05:07):
through the checklist, and there were she hit every single
thing on the checklist right. And so that's one of
the things we tell people is do your research right.
If you don't know about like cryptocurrency, do your research,
find out you know what it is, what it's about,
and there's a good chance you're going to see stuff
out there about scams. So and I know, I personally
(05:30):
don't really know much about cryptocurrency. I always equate it
to it seems to be like it's some form of money,
but it's like in the air, you can't touch it right,
and it's like it just I don't know. I'm not
comfortable with it. So tell us more about the crypto. Yeah,
you've raised a couple of really interesting issues. I think
(05:52):
the first thing is that we don't need to be
afraid of crypto. We I think a lot of people
would like to make it feel like it's so hard
to understand, it's so complicated. But quite honestly, if you
can understand delta sky miles, if you can understand a
stack of poker chips.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You can understand cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's essentially we all agree for the moment that this
stack of poker chips is worth one hundred dollars per
poker chip, and you can pade those poker chips for
jewelry at this place or now even Christie's says you
can buy real estate with that cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Oh okay.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
More and more, we're going to see cryptocurrency adopted as
a way to transact other in other ways.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And we're also seeing that.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Really mainstream banking is adopting this in a way that
you can move easily convert money back and forth from
cryptocurrency to US dollars through your bank account combined with
a currency investment account.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So we don't want to be conc we don't want to.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Allow ourselves to be misled about cryptocurrency. That's a good point, right,
And so the reason the scammers have chosen to use
cryptocurrency for really good reason and for exactly what you said,
that we don't know much about it, and so they
can tell us all kinds of things about it, and
we generally with.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
No idea, right yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Another thing that you said that I found interesting too
was the idea that essentially that because it's hard to understand,
we should be researching it. And so what I will
tell you about this particular scam is that this is
(07:49):
a mental manipulation like.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I have ever seen before in my life.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
What and I know that doctor Dove is a frequent guest,
so I know you are familiar with her her really
well organized thoughts about how manipulative these scams are.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Seems like it's a romance scam on steroids.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
And so these scammers are building on two different things. One,
they're building this really trusted relationship that for a lot
of people who come out of it, they say, this
was the this was the most I've never felt so
cared for.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I've never felt so seen, heard, understood, loved.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
And Doctor do will tell you that is definitely part
of the technique, right, Yeah, it's highly manipulative.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, it just plays on your emotions. Right. They they're
now like with romance scams, I know a lot of times,
you know, they find people on Facebook. I think that's
kind of like the number one platform that they find people.
And especially like if you have a widow or widower
(09:00):
as you're you know, your status, that's kind of a
red flag, but that's exactly what they're looking for or
if you've talked about, right, your your loved one passing
and and all that stuff, and they're just exploiting that
loneliness and that that need to for love and to
(09:20):
have a partner again. Right, And but this pig butchering
is just it's not. My understanding is it's they're not
necessarily professing their love that they're going to come back
to wherever you're at, or come to wherever you're at
and marry you and and all of that. It's they're
striking up a friendship to get you to trust them.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I would say that more frequently it's a love relationship.
And I think that sometimes people don't want to be
honest about that because I think people engage in this
quite frequently when they're already married.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And and what you have hit upon.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Is something that is super relevant to this, and that's
the loneliness crisis.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
We've got a crisis.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
The World Health Organization has acknowledged this that essentially people
it's something like one in five people report being lonely
once a week or.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Some high number.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Like we've got a really big crisis where people didn't
come out of COVID well, and some people still haven't
gone back into the job where.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
They were before. So we've got we've got.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
A significant number of people who just would really welcome
some companionship. And so when that text shows up on there,
this is so funny.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I just looked at my phone to.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Give you an example, and as I look at my phone,
I'm getting one of those job scams. Somebody has reviewed
my So that's yesterday. That's how pervasive it is. So
what I would say is that is that when you
get something on your phone on Facebook, somebody wanting to
be your friend. For all a lot of people, that's
(11:01):
a welcome distraction from the rest of their life.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
And then what you talked about is exactly right.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
That they build a whether it's a friendship or a
romantic relationship, but they do it over time.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
This is a long con.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
They don't start talking about cryptocurrency on day three or
day thirteen.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
What they really do is they build up this trust.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
That absolute trust. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah, And by the time they get to talking about cryptocurrency,
you are in a situation where, wow, you think you
have found the person that meets all your needs. And
along the way that person has been showing you an
elevated lifestyle they've been showing you that they travel to
Hawaii and that they drive a range Rover, and you
(11:46):
have every reason to believe when they say that they
made their money in cryptocurrency, that that's how they.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Did it right, right, And there are a lot of
people out there that have made a lot of money
truthfully in crystal currency. And let me ask you this question.
So I hear a lot from people, and I read
stories about retired people, older adults going into a gas
(12:16):
station or a shopping mall and just feeding cash into
a cryptocurrency ATM machine. What was the whole purpose of
bringing those cryptocurrency ATM machines out? Because I'm trying to
figure out I'm thinking that if somebody is legitimately investing
in cryptocurrency, they don't need to go to a cryptocurrency
(12:39):
ATM machine.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Now, the purpose of those machines is to steal your
mom's money. That's the purpose of those machines. And you're
absolutely right that if I'm legitimately investing in cryptocurrency, I
am going through a license, not a license, but a
regular crypto exchange that we'reamiliar with the name of it,
(13:01):
like crypto dot com or coinbase and I'm not paying
the exorbitant fees that are associated with a CRYPTOATM.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
There's just no.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Reason why I would be taking out cash and putting
it and doing the lengthy process of putting it in
one hundred dollars by one hundred dollars into a machine
when I can electronically move all of that, right.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I mean, I was thinking about that recently and it
was like, I can't figure out a legitimate reason why
a legitimate investor in cryptocurrency would have a need to
go to a cryptocurrency ATM. It just didn't make sense.
But yet they're all over the place they are, and.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
You know they when you talk to people who run
those machines, they will give you some stories about how
they're for unbanked people, but the fact is that's not
where they're located. They're not located in that population. They're
frequently located. I have a friend who works with me
at Operation Shamrock, who works in a wealthy community in
(14:07):
New Hampshire with something like fifteen thousand residents, and she
says there are thirty five crypto ATMs there. You know,
nobody's unbanked in this retirement community in New Hampshire and
what they are is retired, wealthy people who make great
targets for this. And so what we're seeing, Joyce that's
(14:31):
really impressive is we're seeing states stand up to this,
and we're seeing regulation of these machines and even outlining
of these machines and certain municipalities. So I'm grateful that
there are can do people who are ready to stand
up and say not in my town, we're just not
going to do that.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And so.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
It's always good to see people standing up for the vulnerable,
and and that makes me happy.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I don't know where this story came out of,
someplace in the United States where and it was on
social media. This gentleman had walked into a gas station
and he saw the owner literally taking the cryptocurrency machine out,
and he started talking to him and he's like, why
are you He's like, because I see all these older,
(15:25):
elderly ladies coming in and just feeding this machine full
of cash, and I know they're getting scammed. And he
goes and I don't want to be any part of this.
And I thought, good, good for you, you know, for
for doing that. But I also had heard that with
them at the federal level, that they've got a Cryptocurrency
(15:49):
Committee whatever it is that's that's starting to really look
into this, and they're supposed to be looking at putting
more safeguards out there. Do you do you work with
any of them on that or have you have you
heard any anything?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Well, I'm not totally familiar with that, but what I
am familiar with is the AARP has done a really
amazing job of drafting legislation and helping to shepherd it
through in different states, and they've worked with some of
the law enforcement members from the Crypto Coalition that I
(16:25):
work with that to get to get state different different
states to create regulations that make it more difficult for
these scammers to do business.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Good good, So are the in your work? Have you
found our I mean we all I think we pretty
much all know scammers are on Facebook, right, there's so
many fake accounts out there. We've actually reported a lot
of them and we get the cursory response back. We
haven't seen where this has caused any problems, so we're
(16:57):
not going to take it down. And it's like, if
you would just look at this and you could do
some reverse image searches, you could do things that are
at your fingertips to figure out that this is not
the true person's profile, right. And I don't know if
they're getting any better at cracking down on that or not,
(17:18):
but I know we haven't seen in profiles that we've
reported that they've been willing to take them down.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
This is really one of my hot buttons because I
get angry at you know, it's very easy to say, oh,
this is all happening overseas and we can't do anything
about it, but.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
The foul right here in the United States.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Yeah, the fact is we've got American companies that aren't
enabling these bad actors to access our friends and family.
And these companies have the best tech in the world.
They absolutely could identify just like you're saying, do a
reverse image search, start looking at where in the world
(18:00):
these people are logging on from.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
The addresses right right, And there's just a.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Million different ways that these bad actors could be identified
and removed from their platform.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And the fact is they're not doing it.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
They're not doing it in a proactive way, and when
we are reporting it to them, we are met with
exactly the response that you got. If this doesn't violate
our community standards and Unfortunately, that's where we find ourselves,
and it's really not acceptable when we're not talking about
a small problem. We are talking about having a generation's
(18:35):
worth of wealth stolen from us.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Absolutely, and.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
There's an obligation to be a better world citizen than that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
No, absolutely, I mean, you know, we give when we
do our program out in the community. You know, it's
our vision is retirement should be the best years of
your life. It needs to be protected at all costs.
And it's like you spend your life life, raising your family, working,
saving your money, you pay your house off, and you're like,
(19:06):
I've got this nest egg and this is how I
want to live out my retirement. I talk to a
financial planner and you know, if they go that route,
and I'm good. You know, I've got enough money to
live till I'm one hundred or ninety five or you know,
whatever it is. But then you get the scammer that
comes along praise on their emotions because we are that
(19:30):
generation is very trusting. I grew up in that generation.
We're very trusting. Right, I even today find myself is
going find myself going, oh I trust it a little
bit too much on that one, right, And It's hard.
It's a hard habit to break, you know. Hopefully Chicago
doesn't come after me for going after with their title
of their song, but it is, you know, because it's
(19:52):
a good feeling to have that you can trust people.
And now all of a sudden, everyone's telling you you
can't trust anybody.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And isn't that terrible? And is that where we want
to be? Is that where we want to live?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
It's it's horrendous that that's where we find ourselves. But
that is exactly That's the message I give everyone when
when I'm asked, like, what can I do about this? Well,
the fact is you cannot trust any electronic communication that
you did not solicit, period as everybody's a scammer until
you find out otherwise. And I'm raising two young men,
(20:25):
and I'll tell you, like, that's that's my message to
them is do not trust anything that's on there and
make them prove themselves. Don't click through, go to that
website yourself and log in and find out absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
And the piece that you bring up that really resonates
with me is that people have worked their lives to
enjoy these years and what we're watching happen in real
time is that more and more of those retire ease
are getting stripped of everything they have.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
It's just awful and it's just not.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Recoverable at that point.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
And people are going back to work that thought they
were long done, and it's people are losing their homes.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Like this isn't a small amount of money.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
We're not talking about the romance scams of yesteryear, where
perhaps you thought, you know, you were sending money for
a sick child or a business situation, and you lost
maybe fifty to seventy five thousand dollars. We're talking about
people losing every penny they have. Have a million dollars, yes,
(21:41):
and that's routine in California where I come from. Like
the numbers are crazy, and then again like it doesn't
matter what the number is, because it's it's what the
number is to that person, and that person has lost everything.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Right right, I mean, somebody could lose one hundred thousand,
and it means one thing to one peron, and it
means something totally different to another. One person might be like, Okay,
well I can absorb that. Another person might be like,
that's my life savings. I now got to lie on
the government for my housing, my food, my basic needs.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
So then let's talk about that, right, But now we're
creating obligations on the government to take care of retirees
that were previously set up well exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
And this is preventable. Rights, it's preventable. And that's why
when when I look at Facebook and they're not taking
those those profiles down, it's like you're going to wait
until someone's reported that they've lost their life savings and
then you're going to react to it. And I think
(22:46):
we've we've become a society of reacting and it's like
with us, it rose, it's like, no, this is preventable,
and it's preventable through education and getting people to understand
you know that this is going on, and you can't
trust people and you need to be your advocate, right
(23:07):
and have your trusted person and all of that stuff,
because in the end, unfortunately it's you're either going to
give the money away or you're not right. It's the
scammers can have all this different technology out there, and yeah,
you know they could kind of overtake here if they
figure out your account log in that they could and
(23:27):
you've reused it over everything, you know, they could get
into your bank account and stuff. But I think a
lot of the scams are coming from the social engineering
and how they're manipulating people's emotions.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
You're right, and you talked about something significant before when
you talked about a trusting generation. So the scammers have
studied us. They've had people with PhD studying us. They
know what works. They've been at this for years, unimpeded,
with no friction, and so they know that people respond
to authority, they respond to immediacy, and what really works
(24:06):
for people of that generation is to mislead them that
there is that their money is at risk in some way,
or that their money has been tied to child pornography,
or that there's a warrant for their arrest, or they
haven't paid something that they need to pay.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
They didn't show up for jury duty, right. I just
agree that. I just read that recently. This lady lost
I want to say it was like twenty thousand dollars
or something, and it was because she was like, well,
I didn't know, maybe maybe I did miss jury duty, right,
And so it was that she perceived that they were
the authority and that they knew what was going on,
(24:47):
and that this was urgent, she needed to pay it
or else she risks going to jail and right, and
it just puts your whole mindset into an emotional state
and you're not thinking rationally. And this is one thing
that we tell people is like, I think we can
all think back to some point in our life where
we have made a decision based on emotions, and then
(25:10):
whether it's a couple hours later, a day later, whatever,
you've thought about it and gone, oh, if I had
been thinking rationally, I never would have made that decision.
But like you said, scammers know that they've studied this
and they're very very good at what they're doing. They
(25:30):
really are, which leads me to say, well, why aren't
we very good at stopping this? Right, They've put a
ton of energy into how to take our money, and
I feel like I don't feel like I know that
there aren't enough people on the other side saying well,
we're going to put energy into figuring out how to
(25:52):
make sure you can't access our people, and that if
you do access our people, they are educated about the
fact that you are looking for them, right and trying
to steal their mind off, right, that they're going to
stop it So it's just going to take time, I think,
and getting out there and talking to more people and
educating them. And it's just one of those topics, at
(26:14):
least in my opinion, that I've found, you know, in
talking to people to get them to set up the program.
Right is a lot of people don't want to think
about scams. Right, it's not the fun thing. It's not
having an entertainer come perform, or having the ice cream
truck come or having somebody come play bingo or you
know these games. It's a topic that nobody wants to
(26:38):
think about. But it's to the point now where it
has to be thought about. I know, we follow the
IC three reports that the FBI puts out, and California
is always in the top three. You know, Arizona is
always in the top ten. You know, California and Florida,
I think are always in the top three. The other state,
(26:58):
I think kind of varies. But we've been Arizona's been
four and six in losses, and if we look at
the losses, and this is what's reported right right, which
is a small percentage, But if we look at what
Arizona's in sixty plus lost in twenty twenty compared to
what they lost in twenty twenty four six hundred percent increase.
(27:20):
I can imagine it is at least that much for
California for sure.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I don't have that specific number, but what I do
know is just the increase in crypto fraud losses are
up forty percent over last year, and those, again, like those.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Are what is reported.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
And so when I see the six hundred percent number
that you're giving me, even the forty percent number that
I'm saying, is that where else is there that dramatic
of an increase in a crime typology and nobody's on
top of it, and that's just unacceptable. We don't we
(28:01):
don't have a plan, and we are getting kicked in
the face and on repeat. And so I have grave
concerns not only about the amount of financial loss, but
I have grave concerns about what this does to our society.
You brought up the idea of we're trusting people, and
(28:23):
I think that's a really a nice attribute it and
we are we are getting to a point where we
can't be that trusting, trusting group. And you know, I'll
give you an example, like I needed someone to cut
the trees in my backyard, and I went on vacation
(28:44):
and he said, I'll cut them all you're gone, and
when you come back, you pay me. And we're trusting
each other that if he cuts those trees, I'm going
to pay him, and I'm trusting him that I hired
him to do it and that he's going to do it.
And that's a stupid example, but the point is that
if we lose, if every single thing we do has
to be verified and es road, and we lose just
(29:08):
some of the the kindness and ease of doing transactions
with people, and right here we ourselves.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's a good attribute to be able to see the
good in people, right and to trust people. And now,
like you said, it's like, okay, well you might on
the outside act like you trust, but on the inside,
it's like you've got to have that skepticism, right, And
we call it a healthy skepticism, right, because, yes, being
(29:39):
a victim of a scam and losing money hurts financially,
but the emotional and the psychological toll it takes. And
and unfortunately, you know, we see suicide happen with the
older adults because of this exploitation and these scams. So
in your bio. You had mentioned that you worked I
(30:03):
want to make sure I get it right the growing
form of transnational organized crimes. So are you working with
or let me preface that, do you see that a
lot of these pig butchering scams are coming from other
countries or you seeing a lot of it starting to
(30:24):
creep up in the United States as well.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
So what we know is that the United States and
other countries are under attack, and they are under attacked
by Chinese organized crime. Chinese organized crime has set up
scam centers all over Southeast Asia and now in other
parts of the world, where they are boiler rooms. There
(30:51):
are mills of people who are living six people to
a dormitory room, and their job is to steal our
money sixteen hours a day.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
And if they don't steal the money, they are beaten.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
And so I'll often talk to victims and they'll say, oh,
I should have known this, I should have known.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Well, no, you shouldn't.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
There's no way that you are you you're going to
win a battle of psychological manipulation against someone who does
this for a living.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Seven days a week.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Yeah, And so that's our situation, and it's growing. And
so when I say transnational organized crime. I mean that
there are organized crime syndicates that are running this in
a very sophisticated, industrialized way against the rest of the world.
And they're doing it by using human trafficked workers, many
of whom are from Africa to do this work. And
(31:48):
they like the Africans because they speak English and they
can be easily talked into leaving their African country believing
that they are going to make more money in a
data entry center in Bangkok, and then when they get there,
they find out that they have been tripped, they've been deceived,
(32:10):
and now they are under lock and key. They are
put into a scam facility that's guarded by men with
AK forty seven's and this is their job and they
cannot leave.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Wow. Wow, I mean that's just you know, you have
the whole the whole thing of scamming people, right, which
is just totally awful, But now you have the added
layer of the people that are doing it are trafficked.
They're They're not there by choice.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
No, And I think that's a surprise to a lot
of people. I often hear people be like, oh, I
was messing with this guy, and I was like, yeah,
that guy.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Is being human trafficked. And I was talking to my dentist,
and my.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Dentist was saying that, you know, recently, she keeps getting
these these job scam things. And she responded and she
was like, please stop sending me these. And the person
responded and said thank you for at least responding so
that I don't get beaten. And she was she was
talking to me as she's cleaning my teeth. She's like,
(33:14):
what is what is this guy talking about? And I
was like, oh, well, they have quotas. They have quotas
of they have to engage in conversations with people, and
you you responded to a text and that that's a
win in their column. So wow, it's a it's a
very dire situation. And it's kind of when I started
(33:36):
learning about pig butchering and I started learning about Oh
my goodness, you know people are losing money. Oh my goodness,
it's all their money, and wow, they're taking out loans
to pay the quote unquote taxes. And then oh my goodness,
this is being run at an industrial level, and wow,
(33:56):
are you kidding me? The people that are behind it
are human tracks. You can't write a movie like this.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It's insanity, right right, it's what's that phrase? You can't
make this stuff up?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
You really can't.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, it's just so with a lot of it happening
in China, you know, or run by by the Chinese
in the Asian countries and stuff. Have you seen during
prosecuting and things like that, that if you're dealing with
(34:33):
someone that's been the scammer in the United States versus
someone you know, whether it's the organized crime or it's
it's a handful of people over in another country, it
makes a difference if you're able to recover any of
the money that was stolen.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah, I think it's important to.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Set this stage for what victims can expect because the
fact of the matter is nobody is being prosecuted for this.
That's the crazy part There there have been very few
arrests and almost zero convictions involving these kind of cases.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
But what there has been is some financial recovery. So
what I would say.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
To victims is that when I talk to victims, I
always say, Okay, well there are two there are two
pieces here.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
One is anybody going to get arrested? Probably not?
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Number Two, is there a way to recover your money.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
I think the kindest thing we can do for.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Victims is to be honest with them and to level
set expectations from the outset. And I think what is
what is happening in the United States is they are
reporting to the FBI and they are not hearing anything back,
and they are going to local law enforcement. And look,
the law enforcement is saying either we don't do crypto,
(36:03):
or we'll get to it or something.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
But they don't have answers, and they need answers. And so.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
One of the proudest things that I did as a
prosecutor was in working with my task force, we figured
out a way to recover stolen funds for victis. Now,
cryptocurrency is confusing to people, but quite honestly, can be
a blessing. The beauty of cryptocurrency is it's as if
(36:33):
we all can read from the same book and say, okay,
Joyce oh. On July twenty eighth, Joyce sent Aaron twenty
five dollars, Like, we can all look at that same
ledger and maybe it doesn't say Joyce.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Maybe it has like.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
A string of letters and numbers, and maybe mine also
has a string of letters and numbers, which you.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Can tie those back to the account.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Owner, Yes you can, okay, and so we can all
see it.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
And so what the team did at the REACT Task
Force in Santa Clara County was figure out how to
trace your stolen money.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And we traced it to an overseas.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Crypto exchange and by that I mean it was Binance,
and they do not operate in the United States because
they didn't want to be subject to United States rules, okay.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
And so for a lot of people that would have
been an easy dead end.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
But we operated from a what if we could point
of view, and so we reached out to finance and said,
here's what's happening.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Can you help us with this?
Speaker 4 (37:36):
And they said, well, we will accept a search warrant
signed by a judge, okay. So then we had to
figure out how to wrangle that through an antiquated legal
system that is not ready for cryptocurrency seizures.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
But we did that and then by the end of
twenty twenty two, we.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Were able to get money back to eight victims, and
by the end of twenty twenty three, we were able
to get money back to twenty three more victims.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
So it can be done.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
And I work with a coalition of twenty four hundred
law enforcement agents now, and we routinely are able to
make seizures.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Even if we are routinely making seizures, the number of
victims out there is so massive that it's still like
winning a lottery to be able to get any of
your money back.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And if you get some back, is it like pennies
on the dollar, because, like you said, there's so many
people that have been victimized.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Yeah, and you know, the bad guys are really good
at what they do. We talked about how adept they
are at mind games, and they're really good at money laundering,
and they.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Have money all over. Yeah, they're moving your money super quickly.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
And so that's where we find ourselves is in a
situation where by the time a victim gets up the
nerve to report it to someone who knows how to
do this work, frequently the money is already gone.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah. And you know, that's something we heard a few
years ago from one of the assistant US attorneys in
Arizona was that they were seeing that that a lot
of older people were being money mules and they didn't know.
(39:27):
They thought they were just doing someone a favor. They
were being nice for whatever excuse the person gave them
as to why they couldn't, you know, transfer the money.
And it was all done in the guys to if
they can keep the money going from account to account
to account. By the time law enforcement catches up with it,
(39:47):
it's already out of the country and depending on where
it goes in what other country, A lot of it
depends on is that country going to be willing to
work with the United States? Right, Some countries are just
like no, you know, for whatever reason, you know, they
have enough, they don't have the manpower because they've got
all this other crime of their own that they're working on,
(40:07):
or they just choose not to. But yeah, that's you
know that. It's why I just am so much into
the whole prevention side of it, right, because even if
they were to get half of their money back, right,
it's great that you can get some or you know,
some of the money back and stuff like that, But
the emotional toll that someone has to go through between
(40:31):
getting realizing they've been scammed and getting their money back,
I mean, how do they recover from that? I mean,
that's enough.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, I was going to say I was a prosecutor
for twenty six years.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
I did murder cases, I did sexual assault, I did
people who had been kidnapped and left for dead.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
I right, like really horrific things.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
But quite honestly, I have never seen victims as destroyed
as these financial crime victim and that is because they've
lost their entire financial footing, their confidence, their security.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
But they also at that same.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
Time, they are losing this person that became a really
trusted ally, whether a friend, a loved one, someone they
thought they were going to marry, whatever it was, this
person was significant to them. And then to realize, oh
my god, that person was behind this thing from the
get go. It's more than some people can handle. And
(41:32):
I routinely saw people getting mental health treatment, even checking
themselves in doing self harm and ultimately suicide.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
I would I.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Hear from adult children whose parent has committed suicide.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Saying I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
What happened until I started going through his computer and
I realized what had happened to him.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah, and you know the whole reason why I started
Rose four years ago. Actually, what is the date today.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
The August nineteenth.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
We're coming up here on the twenty third, will be
exactly four years that congratulation and in business. Was I
had a loved one that was in a romance scam? Yeah,
she had lost her spouse, and I totally believe that's
how they I believe that's how they found her was
through Facebook, right, And it was in talking to her
(42:29):
family members. They had no idea what was going on
because she wasn't talking to them about this new love interest. Right.
It wasn't until she started asking for help with basic
needs stuff that all of a sudden the family was going, Okay,
this doesn't make sense. You have enough, right, And then
(42:51):
they started looking into things just as you said, right.
And it wasn't like they went to her and explained
it to her and she was like, oh, oh okay,
I'm never going to do that again. Had her in
that absolute trust. It took a couple interventions because they
the victim is in that absolute trust and it is
(43:13):
so hard to break. I've gotten calls from people that
are like, we've had the police out to talk to
whether it was mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa, whoever it was,
We've talked to them. We can't get them to see
you know. And the first thing is like, you know,
I'm sorry, it's they're in that absolute trust and you know,
(43:36):
I'll try to give you some ideas to do. I'll
be more than happy to talk to them with you present, right,
because I don't know, maybe somebody totally unbiased, not involved
in any of it. Maybe you know, it'll it'll break
the cycle. Who knows, you know, you just don't know.
But it is so difficult, it is so short.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Yeah, a victim. One of the things we do at
Operation Shamrock is we listen to We have two calls
a week where we listen directly to victims about what
they've experienced for the purpose of understanding where things went
wrong in the criminal justice system, in the banking system
and social media.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
And so, yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
It's good for all of us because I think one
of the key issues is that victims are not being heard.
They don't feel like anybody cares, they don't feel like
anybody's listening to them, nobody's trying to fix this, and
so I think it's works well for them. For me,
it's an amazing opportunity to get real time, ground floor
information about what's happening in our country.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Absolutely everybody's case is different, right, everybody's experience is different.
You're exactly right.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
And what's interesting is, you know, we always think we've
heard it all, and then a victim will come on
and will be like, ooh, that's a different twist on it.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Oh didn't know that, didn't You hadn't seen that happen before.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
And the way the reason I brought it up is
there was a victim who was telling us, well, his parent,
his father was still in it, and he was talking
to us about it, and he was saying, it feels
like an addiction, Like it feels like we can have
a conversation with him and we can tell him and
he'll be like, Okay, you're right, you're right, I'm going
to get out. And then and before you know what,
(45:22):
he sent another twenty thousand dollars. And so there's something
worth studying at the psychological level of how to break
this cycle in a functional way that doesn't destroy families,
because that's a whole other piece of this. It is
like an unspoken piece that is ruining our.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Pick.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
Butchering is destroying and creating chaos in a million different ways,
and one of the ways is just the destruction of families.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Family.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Yeah, I spoke to another adult son and he was like,
I'm yelling at my dad and I'm telling him this
as a scam.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
And I was like, oh, that's probably out the right technique.
Speaker 4 (46:01):
But there's just a lot of destruction on a on
a million different like how genius? How genius is this
whole thing that we're going to attack the United States
in a way that destroys their confidence and law enforcement
and government, that ruins families that I mean, it's really
(46:24):
super well plagued. I've got to hand it to him.
This is expertly designed and there's no work. They've done
their homework.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yeah, And like you said, that's where those of us
that are in this fight right to try to prevent
this and get the education out there. I think. I
think there's a lot more people that need to start
listening to us, as far as the people that make
decisions and make laws and stuff like that, right, It's yeah, they.
Speaker 4 (46:53):
Need to realize the gravity of what's happening here, that
this isn't a small issue, and this isn't this isn't
an old cat lady making stupid decisions. These are very
intelligent people who are being misled about an investment opportunity
and they've been provided a context where it makes sense
(47:13):
their income. They're in communication with someone who appears to
have made a lot of money in this. They're already
having fomo because they know other people have made a
lot of money in this, and they're presented with an
investment platform that looks genuine.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Right, and the person that's giving them all this information
seems very knowledgeable. Right, it's all making. It's a perfect storm.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
It is the perfect storm.
Speaker 4 (47:39):
And then you throw all the emotions in it, and
the endorphins and the and you and you put together
the feeling of new love, and you put it together
with the feeling of oh, I'm also getting wealthy, Like
you can't compete with those kind of emotions.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, it's tough, but I was just looking at the clock.
We've got to wrap up or we're going to be
getting little notes here. It's time to stop.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Well, conversation is easy, yeah, yeah, but I would love
to have you back to continue this conversation because this
definitely is not a one and done.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
I think people have to hear about these things on
a regular basis in order to make prevention a habit, right.
I was just equating it this morning, like when you
first learn how to drive, and you're a new driver
for a number of years, you see a police car
and you automatically want to slam the brakes on, right,
that's not a panic. Well, as you become a more
experienced driver, when all of a sudden you see that
(48:37):
police car and you know you're speeding, you kind of
just let your foot off the brake right, a little bit, right,
And so I kind of equate that too. You need
to hear it's gotten to the point you need to
hear about scams prevention measures, just so when you are contacted,
scam comes in the back of your mind, right, yep,
(48:58):
about this, you know, yeah, you know so anyways, but
thank you so much, and I did want to let
everybody know that they can find your podcast called Stolen.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
It's Stolen with Aaron West, Stolen with.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Aaron West, and then your website for Operation Shamrock if
they want to find out more information about the pig
butchering and what you guys are doing is Operationshamrock dot org.
That's it, Okay, awesome, and yes, let's definitely have another
conversation because I think we just started to hit the
surface on this and maybe I'll have to talk to
(49:35):
the producer. If we can do three people and we
can get doctor Dove in here, would love that. That
would be great. That would be awesome. So thank you
very much, Aaron. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yep, all right, thank you everybody for joining us today.
I hope you listened in the whole time. This was
full of great information about pig butchering scams and what
they're like and how they work. And Aaron's going to
be back so we can continue this conversation. Don't forget
go to Roseadvocacy dot org. You can find a lot
(50:07):
of resources. There's also Operation Shamrock dot org to find
a lot of resources on the pig butchering and hit
subscribe so you don't ever miss an episode of Let's
Talk About Scams until next week.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. Juni in
every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio
at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge.
So you have the power to make scam protection your
healthy habit and until then, feel free to reach out
to Joyce and Let's talk about scams
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