If you own a cell phone, there’s a good chance you’ve received The Text: a random recruiter sending a friendly message with an awesome job opportunity to pursue. a lot of money for just a little work. If it seems too good to be true that’s because it is. It’s a job scam.
If you feel like you’re being inundated with these spam messages right now, you’re not imagining things. There has been a huge increase in these scams since 2020 and that’s because they work. Getting scammed can be very embarrassing, but know that if it has happened to you, you are not alone. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission received nearly 250,000 reports of text message scams. And the Americans lost about $500 million on them.
In the last episode of Explain it to meVox’s weekly podcast, we analyze the origins of these scams.
According to Matt Burgess, information security writer for Wired, that text in your inbox likely came from a group known as the “Smishing Triad.”
“They are one of several groups of scammers known as smishing syndicates. These groups use SMS text messages to trick people into providing their address, banking information, and other personal information. They are estimated to send 100,000 messages per day,” Burgess told Vox. “They develop their own software and sell it to other cybercriminals who can use that software to then scam people further. The number of messages they send per day is enormous, and the number of people they are trying to target is colossal.”
Those of us who receive the text messages are not the only victims of these crime syndicates. The people who send them are often victims of human trafficking, lured to Southeast Asian countries under the pretext of getting a well-paid job, only to be trapped and forced to scam.
This is something Erin West has seen firsthand. West was a prosecutor in California for more than two decades, and after seeing so many people lose their money through scams, he decided to do something about it. She founded an organization called Operation Shamrock, which teaches people about scams. Since its inception, it has investigated scams originating from Cambodia, Myanmar and throughout Southeast Asia. The industry “has literally turned Cambodia into a scam state,” West said. “Where once their industry was tourism and clothing, now fraud represents 60 percent of their GDP.”
It is an industry built on what is essentially slave labor. West tells us what’s on the other end of the phone in Explain it to me. Below is an excerpt from our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you would like to submit a question, please email Askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.
He has spoken to some of the victims who were forced to work at these fraudulent facilities. How was your experience?
I met a man from Uganda called Small Q. Small Q worked in an internet cafe in Uganda. He is 23 years old. A fellow Ugandan came in and said, “I know you’re making $100 a month working here. I can get you $1,000 a month at an in-house job center in Bangkok. You’ll be doing data entry.” Small Q went through the interview process. He did two interviews. He took a typing test. He was thrilled to find out that he had landed this job where he would literally earn 10 times what he earned at home. He told his brother: “I could try it or I could die poor in Uganda.”
When he arrived in Bangkok, they took his phone, took his passport, drove him around for hours and hours, and finally found himself in a huge, gated, walled community with large dormitories. The men with AK-47s at the door told him: “You’re a scammer now. This is your job.”
Wow, it seems like people who end up being scammers are actually victims of a job scam.
That’s exactly right. Inside these rooms where scams occur, people are afraid. That’s the horrible part of this that people don’t understand. On the other side of that text is probably someone who was trafficked to be there. Financial victims don’t realize that the people on the other end of the phone are also tremendous victims.
You’ve been to several of these complexes. How do they look? How do they feel?
“Financial victims don’t realize that the people on the other end of the phone are also tremendous victims.”
They are huge buildings, 10 stories high. They often have bars on the windows to prevent people from jumping out, surrounded by a huge concrete walled area. There are dozens and dozens along the Moy River in Myanmar. There are hundreds in Cambodia. There are dozens in Laos. The magnitude of this is incomprehensible.
Who runs these compounds?
Chinese organized criminals are no strangers to the gaming industry. Combined with a highway China was building in Cambodia, Chinese organized criminals thought, “We should fill this area with casino towers.” And so they did. But Covid arrived. And that’s why, when their casino towers became empty, they had to pivot. So they decided they were going to do this. That’s when they started the issue of human trafficking.
When people like Small Q arrive, what will happen next?
You are living your life in the waking hours of the country you are heading to. Little Q’s day would then be appearing before a long table of people like him, forced to work on desktop computers and 10 phones.
There are different roles within this facility. When you first arrive, you are one of the people trying to locate new clients. Once you’ve been there for a while, you rise to become a charlatan. At the end of the day, you present to your boss what your character will be doing that day.
It sounds so strangely corporate.
I’m glad you caught the corporate nature of this. There is very much a corporate incentive strategy for what is happening there. So if Small Q were successful and scammed money from someone, it would be a huge win. Sometimes there are fireworks for the massive scores. Delights such as a karaoke room with attractive women, liquor and cigarettes can be offered. It’s the carrot and stick approach.
What happens if these people don’t meet their quotas? What is the suit?
It’s horrible. Small Q is not the only person I am in contact with.
I am in contact with another Ugandan who I will refer to as Sam. If you don’t meet your quota, you are not allowed to eat. They hit him with an electric prod. There are sexual consequences for women. There’s something called the dark room, where there’s a metal bar that’s attached to the wall, where they handcuff you to the wall and beat you, and then they put you in a room where they hang you by your arms for three days. We are talking about war crimes level torture that is happening to people.
And all that because you didn’t scam enough because you didn’t meet the quota?
How do you get out of one of these fraudulent jobs? It seems like you can’t just quit.
You don’t really go out. This is how they have managed to accumulate hundreds of thousands of people within these walls. They are told they can pay a ransom, which could range from $3,000 to $10,000 or $20,000. If they can get that money, there are ways to negotiate their escape.
In the end, Small Q was able to get home by stealing a phone from one of the bosses. He was able to contact Mrs. Betty Bigombe, High Commissioner to Uganda. She was able to help him and 23 other people get home. But the mental cost is enormous.