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  • Geebo 8:00 am on April 4, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Human trafficking, , ,   

    Victim Loses Millions in Crypto Scam 

    By Greg Collier

    A sophisticated cryptocurrency investment scam is rapidly spreading across the United States, with the FBI’s Baltimore field office sounding the alarm. The fraud, often run by organized criminal networks based in Southeast Asia, targets individuals through online messaging platforms, eventually convincing them to hand over large sums of money. For some, the loss is total. For others, it is life-changing.

    Federal agents say the operation unfolds gradually. The perpetrators first build a relationship, often posing as friendly strangers or potential romantic partners, before introducing the idea of cryptocurrency investments. Once a connection is made, the con begins. Victims are often guided to legitimate websites like Coinbase to build confidence before being steered toward fake platforms controlled by the scammers.

    Investigators warn the scheme is particularly cruel. In many cases, the victim is allowed to withdraw a small amount of their funds at first, reinforcing the illusion of profitability. The platforms display false gains, sometimes showing returns of more than fifty or even eighty percent. Encouraged, victims invest more, believing they are building wealth. Then, one day, everything vanishes.

    A Maryland woman came forward to news station, WJZ, to describe how she lost millions. She emphasized that the betrayal of trust was more painful than the financial loss. Her experience began with an unsolicited message on social media. Over time, the scammer gained her confidence and directed her to invest in what appeared to be a legitimate crypto portfolio. Red flags were present, she admitted, but by the time she questioned things, she had already invested so heavily she felt trapped.

    The FBI has linked this method to what is known in criminal circles as “pig butchering.” The term refers to the psychological manipulation of victims, fattening them up with false profits and promises before a total financial betrayal. Most victims are middle-aged or older, but authorities emphasize that no demographic is immune.

    Those who fall prey to the scam are often contacted again by the same fraudsters, who pose as recovery specialists offering to retrieve the stolen cryptocurrency for a fee. This second wave of deception deepens the damage. Victims, desperate and emotionally vulnerable, are manipulated yet again. Federal agents caution that the fake websites used in these schemes are highly convincing, often indistinguishable from real ones.

    Agents working on the case urge potential victims to be skeptical of unsolicited messages, especially those that steer conversations toward investment opportunities. These scammers frequently avoid phone conversations and instead rely on encrypted apps like WhatsApp to conceal their activities.

    Officials say it is vital to report suspicious activity as soon as possible. While recovery of lost funds is rare, fast action gives law enforcement the best chance to track criminal operations and possibly assist in asset recovery.

    Authorities are also investigating reports that many of the scam operators themselves may be victims of human trafficking. Some work under threat in warehouses across Southeast Asia, forced to target Americans as part of large-scale criminal enterprises.

    The FBI’s message is clear. Do not engage with unknown individuals offering investment opportunities. Do not send money to people you have not met in person. If you suspect fraud, report it immediately to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.

     
  • Geebo 8:00 am on March 20, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Human trafficking, , scam centers, scam hubs, ,   

    Trapped in Scams: The Hidden Human Cost 

    Trapped in Scams: The Hidden Human Cost

    By Greg Collier

    The human cost of scams extends far beyond those who lose money. While the victims on the receiving end of fraudulent schemes suffer financial and emotional devastation, there is another group of people caught in a different kind of nightmare, those trapped in scam operations themselves. Along the Thai-Myanmar border, tens of thousands of individuals remain ensnared in massive fraud compounds, forced to participate in deception while living under conditions no one deserves.

    For weeks, a multinational crackdown has attempted to dismantle these scam hubs, yet the operations persist. Despite efforts from law enforcement agencies, up to 100,000 people are still working within these fraudulent enterprises, many of them victims of trafficking. Criminal networks exploit economic desperation, luring individuals with the promise of legitimate work only to imprison them in a cycle of coercion and abuse. While some initially traveled willingly, hoping for employment, they later discovered they had walked into a trap, unable to leave, and forced to deceive strangers for profit under the threat of violence.

    Governments across Southeast Asia and beyond have responded with repatriation efforts, hoping to return these individuals to safety. Thailand has taken a leading role in extracting thousands from these compounds, coordinating with other nations to rescue and return those who have been held against their will. However, the challenge remains immense. The sheer scale of the scam operations means that, despite thousands being freed, countless others remain behind, with their fate being uncertain.

    There is an undeniable economic and technological sophistication to these operations, but it is their human toll that must remain at the forefront. These are not just numbers on a page or statistics in a report. These are real people, living under conditions of fear and exploitation. Many are held in guarded compounds, subjected to threats and violence, with no means of escape. Even after being freed, many struggle to return home, having their savings stolen and their trust shattered.

    The international response has been significant, but it is only the beginning. A deeper commitment to shutting down these scam centers is necessary, not just to protect those who are defrauded, but to free those who have been forced into fraud themselves. These individuals are victims, too. They’re victims of a global economy where desperation can be weaponized, and human lives treated as expendable.

    The fight against scams must be waged on multiple fronts. Yes, there must be vigilance against fraudulent messages and phone calls. Yes, there must be legal consequences for those who organize and profit from these schemes. But there must also be compassion for those who have been coerced into participating. No one should be forced into a life of deception under the threat of violence, no matter where they are in the world. Their suffering is real, and they deserve more than to be forgotten.

     
  • Geebo 9:00 am on December 12, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Human trafficking,   

    Gift Cards: A Trojan Horse for Human Trafficking 

    By Greg Collier

    The holiday season, a time of joy and giving, is being marred by a sinister global threat: human trafficking. This insidious crime, often hidden in plain sight, is exploiting vulnerable individuals on a massive scale.

    One particularly insidious manifestation of this global crisis is the widespread tampering of gift cards. Organized crime syndicates, often with ties to international criminal networks, are infiltrating retail stores worldwide to replace legitimate gift cards with tampered versions. These tampered cards, once activated, drain funds to the criminals’ accounts, leaving unsuspecting consumers with worthless plastic.

    This deceptive practice is just one facet of the vast and complex network of human trafficking. Victims are lured with false promises of better opportunities, only to find themselves trapped in forced labor, sexual exploitation, or other forms of modern-day slavery. The scale of this global crisis is staggering, with millions of people victimized each year.

    To safeguard themselves from this growing threat, experts recommend the following precautions. Before purchasing a gift card, examine it closely for any signs of tampering, such as tears, cuts, or misaligned packaging. If possible, check the balance of the card immediately after purchase to ensure it hasn’t been compromised.

    Digital gift cards, which can be sent directly to the recipient’s email, are less susceptible to physical tampering. Finally, if you notice any suspicious activity in a store, such as individuals hoarding gift cards or acting strangely, report it to store management or local law enforcement.

    By inspecting gift cards for signs of tampering, reporting suspicious activity, and supporting organizations working to eradicate human trafficking, we can play a crucial role in disrupting these criminal networks and protecting vulnerable populations.

     
  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 6, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Human trafficking, , , ,   

    Victim Kidnapped and Forced to Scam Others 

    By Greg Collier

    Victims of a cryptocurrency scam known as “pig butchering” are coming forward to share their experiences, aiming to protect others from falling into the same trap. While many focus on the financial losses suffered by victims, the human toll runs even deeper, with some individuals forced into scamming others.

    The term “pig butchering” describes how scammers gradually build trust with their targets, encouraging small investments that appear to yield quick returns. As confidence grows, victims are convinced to invest larger amounts—often their life savings—before the scammers vanish, leaving their victims devastated.

    One especially tragic aspect of this scheme involves individuals who are not only victims of fraud but also of human trafficking. One woman, believing she had secured a legitimate job abroad, was instead kidnapped and forced to work for the very scammers behind these cons. After arriving at what she thought was a job location, her passport was confiscated, her phone disabled, and she was imprisoned in a compound where she was coerced into scamming others.

    She described being trapped for months, made to impersonate different personas to convince others to invest in fake cryptocurrency schemes. Her captors monitored every move, ensuring she remained compliant. The conditions were harsh, and she was forced to work long hours, manipulating people into handing over their savings. Despite the physical and emotional strain, she was left with no choice but to continue under constant threat.

    While the financial losses from these scams are staggering, there are unseen victims like this woman, whose stories rarely make headlines. The scale of the operation is global, with money often funneled to foreign countries, making it difficult for law enforcement to recover the stolen funds or dismantle the operations behind them.

    This darker side of the crypto scam world highlights how far-reaching and damaging these schemes have become. Beyond the financial devastation experienced by victims, human trafficking and forced participation in scams add another layer of exploitation to an already harmful crime.

     
  • Geebo 9:00 am on January 21, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Human trafficking, , National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, ,   

    Human Trafficking Scam threatens victims 

    Human Trafficking Scam threatens victims

    By Greg Collier

    Human trafficking is something that affects all communities around the country, regardless of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Many more people have become aware of the human trafficking problem over the past few years. So, it should come as no surprise that scammers are using the scourge of trafficking in their scams.

    Police in Wichita, Kansas, have been reporting about a new phone scam that uses human trafficking to try to extort money out of local residents. The scammers are calling their victims and claiming that the victims are being investigated by the National Exploited and Missing Children’s Unit for child trafficking crimes. The scam victims are then asked for $5000, or they’ll be arrested and taken to court.

    There are many layers to this scam about how someone can tell it’s a scam. The first is that there is no such organization as the National Exploited and Missing Children’s Unit. However, there is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. As much great work as the NCMEC does when it comes to missing children, they are not an arm of any law enforcement agency. They do assist law enforcement in their investigations by passing on tips that they receive, but they do not arrest people.

    Secondly, if someone is being investigated for a major crime let alone one that involved children, no law enforcement agency is going to announce that to the person being investigated, especially over the phone.

    Lastly, no law enforcement agency will demand money over the phone and threaten arrest if it’s not paid. If someone does need to pay some kind of legal fine, they’ll be notified through the mail. Even then, it doesn’t hurt to call the courthouse who issued the fine to make sure the fine is on the up and up.

    If you receive one of these phone calls threatening you with arrest, hang up and contact your local police department.

    If you’d like to learn more about how human trafficking really happens in America, please read our previous posts discussing the matter.

     
  • Geebo 9:00 am on March 9, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Human trafficking, , ,   

    Why is Craigslist failing? 

    Why is Craigslist failing?

    By Greg Collier

    Since Craigslist is a privately owned company, they do not have to disclose their finances. However, the AIM Group recently asserted that Craigslist has lost close to 50% of their revenue in just two years. The AIM Group is a sort of watchdog organization that keeps tabs on the online marketplace space. They once famously referred to Craigslist as a cesspool of crime.

    Using what the AIM Group calls their proprietary methodology, Craigslist’s revenue dropped from $1 billion in 2018 to $565 million in 2020. Again, that’s an almost 50% drop in just two years. Part of the drop can absolutely be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the decline started long before lockdown. Part of the drop can also be attributed to the number of competitors that have recently started occupying the marketplace space. Other niche sites like Airbnb have also taken a chunk out of Craigslist’s userbase. However, we think it’s because of poor business decisions Craigslist has been making for the past 20 years.

    For a large majority of Craigslist’s history, it was long rumored that they received the majority of their traffic from their erotic services section. Due to mounting legal pressure over human trafficking concerns, erotic/adult services was shuttered in 2010. Craigslist’s revenues took a slight dip in 2011 but continued to climb until 2018. So, what happened in 2018 to cause such a downward spiral? That’s when Craigslist shuttered their personals section over fears of the anti-sex trafficking laws FOSTA/SESTA. After Craigslist closed their erotic services section, traffickers would instead just post their ads selling women and girls to the personals section. By closing the personals after FOSTA/SESTA was signed into law, Craigslist virtually admitted that their platform had a sex trafficking problem.

    Craigslist’s problem is that in their 26 years, they’ve refused to moderate any section of their site to keep out criminals and scammers. Craigslist only seems to moderate content on their platform when threatened with legal action. Except moderation costs money and Craigslist has a reputation of maximizing profits above all else, even at the expense of the safety of their userbase. Geebo.com and several other platforms moderate their content and still manage to be profitable. The only security measures Craigslist has is a list of safety tips and unless they change their tune, they will continue to decline.

     
  • Geebo 9:00 am on December 30, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Human trafficking, , , ,   

    New scam threatens you with human trafficking arrest 

    New scam threatens you with human trafficking arrest

    Police impersonation scams are nothing new. They can range from something innocuous like owing a traffic ticket to something major like your Social Security number being involved with a major crime. All of these impersonation scams rely on one thing, and that’s a fear of being arrested. Scammers will use that fear to try to pressure you into either making a payment to them or giving them your personal information. A new scam not only tries to take advantage of that fear of arrest but also uses the fear of potential public embarrassment.

    Police in Colorado Springs, Colorado are warning residents about an impersonation scam that’s affecting their area. Scammers are posing as police detectives and calling their victims to tell them that the victim’s phone number was found in a human trafficking ring. While the report we’ve seen doesn’t specify, we imagine that the scam’s victims are being told that their phone number was found to have been used soliciting the services of a human trafficking ring.

    Usually, in a scam like this, victims are told that payment can make a situation like this go away. The payment is almost always made in some form of untraceable funds like gift cards, wire transfer, or cryptocurrency. However, in the case of the Colorado Springs scam, the scammers are directing victims to a website and enter their personal information. The victims are also being told that if they don’t go to the website, a warrant will be issued for their arrest. It seems like these scammers aren’t after a quick payout but are after identity theft for a bigger score.

    More often than not, if your phone number were to pop up during a police investigation, investigators would be sent to talk to you personally. However, if you were to receive one of these phone calls, it’s recommended that you take down the caller’s name and badge number then contact the department’s non-emergency number to verify if what the caller says is true or not.

     
  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 14, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Human trafficking, , , ,   

    Delivery text message scam not linked to human trafficking 

    Delivery text message scam not linked to human trafficking

    Recently, we posted a story about how a text messaging scam was fooling victims into giving up their personal and financial information. If you’ll recall, the scam entailed receiving a text message that claimed to be from a delivery service like UPS or FedEx. The text message will say that you have an undelivered package and it will provide a link for you to click on to supposedly set your delivery preferences. Here’s a sample of what the message could look like.

    What happens once you click on the link is you’ll be taken to a page that is designed to look like a page from Amazon. The fake Amazon page will then ask you to fill out a customer service survey in order to claim a prize. After you win the prize, you’ll be asked to pay for shipping by providing your financial information. From there, the scammers can do pretty much what they want with your financial information. In some instances, victims have been signed up for subscription services related to their ‘prize’ that ended up costing them $100 a month.

    For some reason on social media, this texting scam started to be passed around as being part of a human trafficking ring. Multiple anti-human trafficking agencies have gone on record to say this is simply not true.

    Unfortunately, the reality is when recruiting victims for human trafficking, it isn’t so elaborate. More often than not, traffickers will prey on the more vulnerable members of our society such as the homeless and those struggling with addiction or untreated mental health issues. If the traffickers are looking to recruit children, they’ll often take to social media to look for children who are having problems at home or school and are looking for a way to escape their lives. Random unsolicited text messages are not one of the tools in the trafficker’s arsenal.

     
  • Geebo 8:00 am on March 9, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Human trafficking, huntsville, Huntsville International Airport, ,   

    Modeling scam victim almost lured into trafficking 

    Modeling scam victim almost lured into trafficking

    Whenever we discuss the modeling scam we usually talk about how it could lead the victim into spending a lot of money that they don’t need to. For example, a number of online and radio ads for modeling jobs are actually just sales pitches for overpriced classes or photo packages. However, there is a much darker side to the modeling scam that can have grave consequences for the victims involved and that is human trafficking. Traffickers often pose as modeling or talent agents in order to find victims and a recent story shows what lengths they will go to find their victims.

    In Huntsville, Alabama it’s believed a 21-year-old woman almost fell victim to human traffickers posing as a modeling agency. If it wasn’t for her mother losing her car in the airport parking lot the woman might have never been seen again. When an airport employee saw the woman frantically looking for her car the employee stopped to help the woman. As they got to talking the woman said she had just dropped off her daughter at the terminal and that her daughter was leaving for a modeling offer in Phoenix. The mother told the employee that the agency even bought her daughter the ticket to fly to Phoenix. Thankfully, the airport employee had been trained on how to recognize human trafficking.

    Thankfully, they were able to find the woman before she boarded the plane. The employee was able to convince the woman that the modeling offer may not be on the up and up and arranged to have a police officer escort her at her destination. The employee then called the ‘agency’ to tell them that the woman would be escorted by police. It was shortly thereafter when the woman received texts from the fake modeling agency saying her flight had been canceled. Both Homeland Security and the TSA have said that the phony agency has been linked to other instances of human trafficking.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8TNT4fHJ3g%5D

    If you or a family member has ambitions of getting into modeling, have realistic expectations of what can be achieved in such a field crowded with treachery at every turn. Always do as much research as you can into any offer or opportunity you might find. Not everyone can be a model but these scammers, predators, and traffickers target victims who believe they have a shot in the modeling or entertainment industry and take advantage of their dreams. The Federal Trade Commission website has some tips on how not to get scammed by modeling ads.

     
  • Geebo 8:00 am on October 16, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Human trafficking, , ,   

    Potential modeling scam poses threat 

    Potential modeling scam poses threat

    The modeling scam isn’t one we discuss often but it can have potentially devastating effects. The damage can range anywhere from simply being swindled out of a substantial amount of money to becoming the victim of an online predator. Modeling can artists like to prey upon the insecurities of their victims and promise them lives of luxury and fame even though the odds of becoming a legitimately successful model are about the same as someone becoming a successful professional athlete. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped victims from being scammed and the swindlers are always looking for new ways to find more victims.

    For example, recently in the Myrtle Beach area of South Carolina, a number of women were sent text messages asking them if they wanted to be models for Victoria’s Secret. The texter was reportedly posing as a former model and asked the women for photos, personal information, and possibly a meeting. Authorities in the area believe this could potentially be a plot to recruit victims for human trafficking. Usually, human traffickers rely on social media to try to recruit victims instead of text messaging. However, the women that were texted in Myrtle Beach are all public figures in their profession and their numbers could have been obtained in any number of ways.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8TNT4fHJ3g%5D

    If you are thinking about getting into the modeling industry, have realistic expectations and do your research on the pitfalls it entails. What may sound like a great job could be any number of ways you can put yourself in danger. While you may be able to find one or two legitimate modeling jobs online, for the most part, legitimate modeling jobs are done through modeling agencies. The Federal Trade Commission has a website on how to tell if a modeling job is legitimate or if you’re dealing with shady charlatans.

     
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