11x02 - Pig butchering scams

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".

I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us.

It's been a busy week.

From the U.S. vetoing a ceasefire

in Gaza yet again,

to the revelation

that Joe Biden's dog

bit secret service agents

at least 24 different times.

But we're gonna start

in West Virginia,

which has spent

the past several weeks

debating a bill to impose

criminal penalties

for exposing children to "obscene"

literature in schools and libraries.

The debate has featured spectacular

testimony from concerned citizens,

reading out material

that they objected to.

"Are you gonna eat her p*ssy?"

"Yeah, I'm going to eat her p*ssy."

"Hey, yeah. Do you even know

how to eat p*ssy?

Papa Gaines

never sat you down, said,

'Son, one day, you're going

to have to eat the p*ssy?'"

"No. But he did teach me

how to eat a butthole."

I admit, I don't remember that scene

from "The Giving Tree".

But it's been a while. In retrospect,

it does make sense for the tree

to sit the boy down

and explain how to rock the box.

It's an important lesson.

While that hearing was ridiculous,

the law itself is serious.

Violating it could carry

a felony charge,

with a penalty of $25,000

and a sentence of up to five years.

Many have called it

a "book ban",

although the bill's backers

push back on that,

with one of the speakers

who supported it saying,

"We are not banning or burning,

we are protecting."

Although I'll tell you what

you're definitely not protecting,

that is my ears from hearing

"eat the p*ssy" four times

out of this woman's mouth.

But while West Virginia

may not be burning books,

obscenity bills

and similar moral panics

are spreading around the country,

in places like Missouri,

where a candidate

for office released this video.

I will do this to the grooming books

when I become secretary of state.

These books come

from a Missouri public library.

When I'm in office,

they will burn.

So, there is a lot not to like there,

including that her flamethrower

is apparently fueled by liberal tears.

Which, what? I'm not saying

the GOP's messaging is in disarray,

but are liberal tears

the thing you love to drink

because your enemies' sadness

tastes so sweet?

Or is it the deadly fuel for your very

cool shark-themed flamethrower?

'Cause you gotta pick

a f*cking lane there.

For now,

let's turn to Alabama,

which has been reeling after a

major decision from its highest court.

This morning,

a first-of-its-kind decision

by the Alabama Supreme Court

that could put at risk

families' access

to fertility treatments

in the post-Roe.

The court determining frozen embryos

qualify as people under its state law,

ruling, "unborn children

are 'children' without exception

based on developmental stage."

Yeah. They ruled frozen embryos

are the same as people,

which is wrong

for a bunch of reasons,

mainly, if you freeze an embryo,

it's fine.

If you freeze a person,

you have some explaining to do.

Now, that ruling could have

massive implications

for anyone who needs IVF

to conceive,

and that is a lot of people.

Around 2% of babies born in the U.S.

are from IVF.

Already, multiple fertility clinics

have paused treatment

in the wake of this decision,

which, as anyone who's ever

undergone IVF will tell you,

isn't something you can just do.

IVF cycles take weeks of careful

monitoring and expensive treatments.

You can't just hit pause

and wait out a court case.

This is a seismic decision,

and the reason the court

was hearing this case to begin with

was pretty wild.

The case in question involved a patient

who managed to access

the freezer storing frozen embryos

at an Alabama fertility clinic.

The patient picked up

multiple embryos

and mistakenly

dropped and destroyed them.

The court ruled that the clinic

could be sued for wrongful death.

And while that accident

is genuinely horrible,

someone wandering into a lab

and dropping frozen embryos

just isn't m*rder.

If anything, it sounds like the script

for a pretty tasteless Mr. Bean sequel,

but that is it.

The reason clinics

are pausing treatment right now

is that nobody quite knows

what it could mean for an embryo

to be legally equivalent

to a person going forward.

What happens if an embryo

is stored improperly?

What if they're,

as inevitably happens,

left over or destroyed

in the implantation process?

What about genetic testing, which

can reduce the risk of miscarriage,

but does carry a slight

risk of damaging embryos?

Would that now be considered

a wrongful death?

It is chaos, and experts say

that courts in other states

could try

and issue similar rulings.

But none of this

should be that surprising.

This ruling is a natural outgrowth

of the concept of "fetal personhood",

long pushed by hardline

anti-abortion groups,

which Republicans have

spent decades courting.

And some politicians suddenly

seem alarmed to have to deal

with the consequences of a movement

that they have actively empowered.

Nikki Haley spent the week

trying to reconcile her position

that "When you're talking about an

embryo, you're talking about a life,"

with what that actually means

in legal terms.

Meanwhile, watch as Alabama Senator

Tommy Tuberville

seemed to realize the problems

with his position in real time.

Do you have a reaction

to the Alabama Supreme Court

ruling on the fact

that embryos are children?

Yeah, I was all for it.

We need to have more kids,

to have an opportunity to do that.

And I thought that this was

the right thing to do.

But IVF is used to have

more children,

and now IVF services are paused

at some of the clinics in Alabama.

Aren't you concerned

that this could impact

people who are trying to have kids?

That's for another conversation.

Senator, what do you say

to the women right now in Alabama

who no longer have access

to IVF and will not

as a result of this ruling?

What do you say to them?

That's a hard one.

It really is. It's really hard.

You want people

to have that opportunity.

And that's what I was telling her,

we need more kids.

Guess what, Tommy?

I got great news!

Since your political philosophy

seems to begin and end

with "we need more kids",

you'll be thrilled to know

that thanks to a judge in Alabama,

there's now whole freezers

full of them!

Go play with all those

frosty kids, Senator!

Or maybe that's not what you had

in mind when you think of children,

which is exactly

the f*cking point here.

Republicans are in a tough spot

right now,

trying to hold onto hardline

anti-abortion forces,

while not alienating

the majority of Americans.

And maybe the best current example

of this is Donald Tr*mp.

He issued a statement this week

that he strongly supports

the availability of IVF

for couples who are trying

to have a precious baby,

something he referred

to as "the ultimate joy in life",

all caps, exclamation mark.

And it's incredible how even

objectively wholesome sentences

take on an air of creepiness

when passed through the chaotic

Tr*mp punctuation filter.

Meanwhile, he's also been privately

floating a federal ban on abortion

at the 16-week mark,

reportedly saying,

"Know what I like about 16?

It's even. It's four months".

And I will say,

starting any sentence with,

"You know what I like about 16,"

should be off limits for anyone who has

this many photos with Jeffrey Epstein.

But while Tr*mp might think 16 weeks

is the reasonable option,

which it isn't,

anti-abortion forces

are hoping to use a second Tr*mp term

to go much, much further.

One tool they're apparently eager

to use is the Comstock Act,

an 1873 law

that criminalizes the shipping

of any materials used in an abortion,

including abortion pills,

with one of Tr*mp's lawyers

saying,

"We don't need a federal ban when

we have Comstock on the books".

It was one of the key pretexts

in last year's mifepristone ruling,

and Lindsey Graham actually

cited Comstock when defending it.

The idea of mailing the drug,

sending the drug through the mail,

runs into a statute

called the Comstock Act.

It's a very old statute

on the books.

Do you believe

that the Supreme Court should use that

as a way

to ban this abortion pill?

I think it's a law on the books.

I guess it's not that surprising

that Graham's endorsement of a law

boils down to "it's on the books",

given that "it's old and it's there"

sums up Lindsey Graham at this point.

He seems determined

to stay in the Senate

- until he can complete his "Animorphs"

- style transformation into Beaker.

And he's getting close.

He's only a couple of steps away.

But he is right, the Comstock Act

is technically there.

Meaning a Tr*mp administration,

or the judges he appoints,

could try using it to restrict abortion

without going through Congress.

Which is both alarming,

and something many pro-life figures

are anxious to keep quiet for now.

That Tr*mp lawyer that I mentioned

even said of him

"I hope he doesn't know

about the existence of Comstock,

because I just don't want him

to sh**t off his mouth.

I think the pro-life groups

should keep their mouths shut

as much as possible

until the election."

But whenever they don't want

to talk about something,

it's probably worth

you knowing about it.

So, for the record, the Comstock Act

is named after Anthony Comstock,

a 19th-century anti-sex crusader

and postal inspector

who was, and I quote,

a "chronic masturbator",

who believed

it was physically harmful,

so launched a crusade

to stamp out the transmission and

transportation of all obscene material.

Imagine jerking off so much you make it

a matter of national security.

The Comstock Act

forbade sending by mail

"every obscene, lewd,

lascivious, indecent,

filthy or vile article, matter,

thing, device, or substance,"

as well as "every article

or thing designed, adapted,

or intended

for producing abortion."

That is the clause abortion opponents

have been using on mifepristone,

and they hope to expand it

to cover the shipping of literally

anything an abortion requires.

So, the Comstock Act is a wild

law, pushed for by a deeply weird,

dangerously horny man,

that may soon be determining

all our reproductive freedoms.

It's worth noting that Comstock

was also a leader in the New York

Society for the Suppression of Vice,

whose seal, fun fact,

depicted someone burning books.

Which, to be fair,

conservatives don't do anymore.

As we all know,

they use flamethrowers now.

That is the thing that ties everything

I've just talked about here together,

there are politicians

currently desperately trying

to distance themselves from extreme

policies that they have enabled.

You can say "We're not trying

to ban or burn books",

but that's what's happening.

You can say

"We just want more kids",

but you're making life

incredibly hard for people,

including those

who desperately want them.

Burning books and ending IVF

are the natural endpoints

of the extreme policies

they've held hands with,

and if they are not at least willing

to own those consequences,

then they can, in the words

of what I believe to be

this country's greatest

Eat a butthole.

Well said. Well said, indeed.

And now, this!

More Explicit Readings From

Concerned Citizens at Public Meetings.

"The boy just talked soft to her

about how good she looked

at things like that

and she grabbed his penis with

her hands and starting moving it."

"It felt so good, so f*cking good,

I don't know how people

do anything but have sex

if they are adults

and don't have school or parents."

"Ildy was on top of Valencia,

making love to her.

While Billy was making love to her,

Billy made a noise like a rusty hinge.

He had just emptied

his seminal vesicles into Valencia."

"Now before this,

I had sucked my share of dicks

and had gotten plenty of blowjobs,

handjobs, every kind of job.

But the only butt sex

I'd had was with this junior

who was in love with my cock

and he just hopped aboard."

"And I pull and I suck

until he grows hard

and he makes sounds

that means he likes it,

and I keep going and going.

And when he says

'I'm going to cum,' I don't pull away.

The jet of him is warm and salty

and tastes like thickened sweat."

"You can eat a girl out

and blow some air inside of her

or you can f*ck her too hard."

"My only challenge is Brian,

who is my jerkoff friend,

who likes to jerk me off."

"Son, I don't have time for that.

I've got like 20 pussies over here

that I need to eat." "Is that right?"

"I'm on p*ssy deadline."

"I didn't have a hard-on anymore.

That might some weird to say.

It's also f*cking complicated

and tragic and life sucks."

Just want to mention,

I've never said the F-word ever

in my life before until just now, so.

Moving on.

Our main story tonight

concerns the internet.

It can be a magical place,

but also one where things

aren't always what they seem,

as this woman learned

the hard way.

Queen Shaydonna Haynesworth

thought she bought this,

the Instagram ad displaying a tree

that fits in a living room,

not the palm of her hand.

This is the rainbow

Christmas tree?

Like, seriously?

Who is responsible for this?

It must've been pretty disappointing

to order a full-size tree

and get whatever that is.

She must've felt like HBO did

when they ordered a comedy show

and got this instead.

Unfortunately,

not every mistake is that benign.

It is not news that there are

scammers on the internet,

but you may have noticed

that one scam in particular

is currently everywhere.

A common way

that it starts is with a weird text

from a number

you don't recognize,

like "Cheryl, can we move lunch

to 5:00?" when you're not Cheryl.

Or "Dave, what time is our flight?"

when you're not Dave

and you don't have a flight booked.

Even as we worked on this piece,

multiple members of our staff and their

friends were getting these messages,

from "Hello, is this the manager Jesse

from the flower shop?"

to this one, reading

"Is this Dr. John? I'm Emily,

is my horse recovering well?"

I'm so glad that wasn't sent to me,

'cause it would have worked.

You're calling me Dr. John?

I'm instantly on board.

And you're assuming I'm around

a horse for medical reasons?

That's exactly

what I've been saying!

I'm allowed to touch it like that.

I'm a doctor!

And I know most people

ignore messages like those.

But some write back,

get sucked into a conversation,

and eventually,

through a process that we'll get into,

can end up

losing a lot of money.

It's a scam with a striking name that

newscasters can't seem to get over.

It's called

a pig butchering scam.

And it might sound

like a gruesome name,

but that's because the amount

of money victims are losing is painful.

The scammers have a terrible term

for what Wendy went through.

They call it pig butchering.

The New Mexico Securities Division

calls them "pig butchering scams".

I know, but don't worry, there are no

pigs, or any other animals involved.

Yes, don't worry, there are no pigs

harmed in this pig butchering scam.

Although, if the words do make

you squeamish, it's worth noting

that there is a process through

which pigs are harmed every day.

It's actually how we get bacon,

pork, and other products.

It's called pig butchering,

and it's exactly what it sounds like.

But the name

makes a little more sense

once you understand

how the scam actually works.

In the world of cyber

and counterterrorism threats,

Special Agent Hassani

has seen it all.

But in 2021, he began seeing

a new scam: pig butchering.

But it just refers

to raising little piglets,

fattening them up,

and butchering them.

And they're fattening up their victim

with illusions of grandeur,

of wealth, of love,

before bleeding them dry.

That is rough. Because imagine

being a victim of this scam,

turning on the news,

and suddenly learning

that the shorthand for people

in your situation is "the pigs".

Although, I will say, it could have

been worse. Pigs are awesome!

They're one of the most intelligent

animals on the planet.

They're smarter than dogs, most

three-year-olds, and Tom Sandoval.

To use a phrase that the police

never seem to appreciate,

it's actually an honor

to be compared to a pig!

And if you are thinking,

"This seems like the kind of scam

that's been around for decades."

That is partially true. But the way

this one works is fairly new.

And in the short time that it's been

around, it's been massively successful.

Just this month, it was at the center

of a huge local news story in Kansas,

where it brought down

a financial institution.

I was surprised.

I was shocked. I was disappointed.

Kansas State Bank commissioner

David Herndon

is talking about the massive

cryptocurrency scam

at the Heartland Tri-State Bank

in Elkhart.

In a cryptocurrency scheme

that the FBI has now referred to

as pig butchering.

In this case, Herndon says,

the victim was Shan Hanes,

the bank's own CEO.

And he's now facing charges

of embezzling nearly $50 million,

a loss that caused the bank

to fail last August.

That's true. According to prosecutors,

a bank CEO got pig-butchered,

sent his scammer the bank's holdings,

and the bank went under.

Which is alarming for several reasons,

among them, is that how banks work?

'Cause it really feels like there

should be at least one step between

"CEO gets tricked"

and "Whoops! The bank's empty."

It's estimated that, as of 2022,

this scam was taking people

for more than $3 billion a year

in the U.S. alone.

And that's almost certainly

a massive undercount,

as it only includes people

who reported their losses to the FBI.

So, given all of that, tonight,

let's talk about pig butchering.

Why it's easier to fall

for than you might think,

who's behind it, and what

we can do to protect ourselves

and our liked ones from getting

scammed in the future.

And let's start with where this began.

And to do that, unfortunately,

we do need to go back to the place

that no one wants to go:

the beginning of Covid.

You remember Covid.

It's the Stephen Miller of diseases,

in that we were all very worried

about it a few years ago

and have since moved on even though

it's still extremely dangerous.

But that is when

pig butchering took off.

Basically, at the start of Covid,

many of us were isolated and lonely,

desperately looking

for human contact online,

which made us ripe targets.

At the same time,

organized crime groups in China,

running casinos in southeast Asia,

were in crisis,

as, thanks to the pandemic,

gamblers weren't showing up.

So, "they turned those casinos into

bases for online scam operations".

And from there,

their workers identified people

and preyed

on their vulnerabilities.

And let me walk you

through the basic steps here.

The first is to make contact

and lure your target in.

Listen to this woman

explain how her scammer,

who called himself "Jimmy",

contacted her at a moment

when she was dealing

with cancer, the pandemic,

and the end of her marriage.

First message,

it came as a very innocent message.

I said, "Wrong number".

He came back.

And I said yes. He had moved here

just before Covid,

and then Covid hit,

and so he's not able to go home.

comfort.

Jimmy would message me

every day.

I do remember receiving

these emojis with hearts.

It's quite flattering

for a middle-aged woman

to meet a young man

who finds you attractive.

Yeah, of course, that's flattering.

Because scammers

are telling their targets

what they want to hear

most in that moment.

We might not all fall for a GIF

of a heart-pumping emoji,

but if someone sent me

"nerd with glasses" plus "football"

plus "learning" plus "sad statistics"

equals "fire emoji," me personally?

Why, I would nut!

One way of making contact

is through those "wrong number" texts.

But experts that we've talked

to estimate that they only make up

about a quarter of the initial

contacts for this scam.

The rest can come

through sites like LinkedIn,

dating apps, Instagram,

or Facebook,

places specifically designed for you

to meet people that you don't know,

either for love, a hook up,

or, in the case of LinkedIn,

to find out what kind of person

is still on f*cking LinkedIn.

And scammers often research

their target using social media,

where there is a lot of information

about people,

so they can pretend

to have something in common.

Take this woman,

who met someone on a dating app,

only to discover that they shared

an unexpected connection.

He started asking questions about

my family and my past experiences.

It was a connection

that felt even stronger, she says,

when he told her he came

from the same town in China

from where Hutchinson

was adopted.

We bonded over that.

I bet they did!

And I've got to say,

it says something about men

on dating apps

that they connected so well

simply because he did things

like ask her questions about herself

and listen to her responses.

I don't want to say

the bar for men is low,

but that story started with him

asking her questions about her life

and ends with her giving him

all of her money.

But regardless of how they start,

sooner or later,

we move on to step two:

turning the conversation toward money.

But even then,

there's a smart twist.

Because you won't be suddenly asked

to wire money to a Nigerian prince

with an obviously fake email like

"real-pr1nce",

spelled with a one instead of an I,

"at-scum-dot-farts".

With pig butchering,

there's no direct ask for money at all.

Instead, an opportunity

gets presented to you.

Watch as this man explains the moment

when a guy that he met on a dating site

started to reel him in.

He spent at least a month daily

talking to me

and cultivating my friendship.

Initially, the only talk about money

was how much his new online friend

had made in crypto.

After all, Scott thought he knew

how to protect himself from scams.

"You can invest with me

and I'll make you all this money,"

and I was like, "I'm not giving

you money, that's not happening."

So, that's when he started

"No, you don't give it to me.

You establish your own

account and I'll guide you."

Right. That's the clever hook here.

You're not sending the scammer money,

they're helping you set up

and control your own account.

Everything seems more legitimate

when there's an app involved.

You don't think so? When is

the last time you took an Uber?

Get in a nondescript car

with someone I've never met?

I would never do that!

But wait, what's this?

I can do it from my phone?

In that case, here's my address,

now you know where I live and

that I won't be home for the evening.

My name's John, I don't know

your last name but that doesn't matter

'cause I'm also not committing

your face to memory.

Everything's safe,

there's an app involved!

And the fact the investment

is often in crypto

can be persuasive

for multiple reasons.

First, who really knows

how crypto works?

I know your friend's weird husband

claims that he does,

but he sucks to talk to, so sadly,

it must remain a mystery.

But people have made money on crypto,

so it's not unreasonable

to think you might meet one of them

and they could give you some tips.

On top of which,

you may not be super familiar

with how a trading platform operates

or even what one looks like.

And scammers have created

incredibly plausible-looking platforms.

We got this footage of one,

which seems to have all the detail

and functionality of a real one,

and I'll be honest,

I could be fooled by that.

Also, some scammers

use legitimate apps

that allow anyone

to build a trading exchange.

The problem is, there are tools

that scammers can use

to simulate fake results on those apps,

while taking your money.

Watch this journalist explain how

this gave one victim false confidence.

In MetaTrader, it looks just like

any kind of normal trading interface

that one would use.

It's available in the Google Play Store.

It's available on the Apple App Store.

It's an app

that has a lot of good ratings,

and that was one

of the things that made Cy think

that this whole operation

was legitimate.

He believed that his investment

was making money.

If you're trading

on a legitimate trading interface,

right, you see the profits

and losses over time.

And this is exactly what he saw.

If your friend told you

to download an app,

and you saw it in the App Store

with good reviews,

you might assume

everything on it was legitimate,

even before you saw

MetaTrader's logo,

which looks like three men in suits

jerking each other off under a table,

a metaphor for cryptocurrency

if I have ever seen one.

Some scammers

even set up additional features

like two-factor authentication

or customer service lines.

This woman tried her best

to do due diligence

on the site that she was sent,

and came away

convinced that it was real.

There was a legal secretary

involved in another state,

vouching association with a law firm

where it was sending money to.

She's real. I could verify her, so it

was very complex and well-rehearsed.

Right. She spoke with a legal secretary

and a law firm before sending money.

And that is more vetting than

I've done for my kids' daycare.

I love them, they're precious to me,

but they're also loud, sticky,

and one of them is just getting

stronger and stronger every day,

so if you have a building with walls

and a phone number that I can call,

I trust you,

take them for the afternoon.

And at this point in the process,

things might look pretty good

for the people getting scammed.

You've sent a bit of money

to a legitimatelooking site,

through an account

that you control.

And your new friend's trading tips

seem to be working,

so maybe you send

a little bit more.

And pretty soon, you might

have a fair amount of money

tied up on this trading platform.

But when you eventually

go to withdraw it,

that is where we hit the

final step of this process.

Remember that woman

you saw earlier,

whose online friend claimed that he was

from the town where she was born?

Well, she'd convinced her

dad to invest as well,

they'd seemingly made a bunch

of money, and then this happened.

By December, their accounts showed

a combined balance of $1.2 million,

and Hutchinson decided

it was time to cash out.

That's when the site told her,

before she could withdraw her money,

she'd have to pay a hefty tax bill

of roughly $380,000.

That's when I was like

"Something's not right".

It wasn't. The cryptocurrency

investments weren't real.

All her and her father's funds

had gone into the scammer's pockets.

In all, $390,000 stolen.

I messed up my life.

I messed up my dad's life.

She told me

that it was all a scam.

Hutchinson's father, Melvin.

And all I could do was just hug her

and tell her, it's okay.

It's okay. And it was hard.

It was hard,

'cause we lost everything.

Yeah, their money

had already gone,

and that tax bill was just an attempt

to squeeze them one last time.

And theirs

isn't the only brutal story here.

This woman lost $350,000.

This guy lost 300,000.

And that woman

who fell for "Jimmy"

sent him two and a half

million dollars,

as she was dealing

with terminal cancer.

It is traumatic

and it's humiliating

and it took courage

for those people to come forward.

That is partly

why experts think

the $3 billion figure

that we have is way too low,

because most people

who've been scammed like this

simply don't report their losses

out of embarrassment.

And at this point,

you're probably furious

with the people on the other end

of all of these messages,

and want to see them taken down,

or, at the very least, f*cked with.

And that does happen a lot.

People post screengrabs messing

with scammers all the time,

like in this exchange, where someone

replies to "wrong number"

with "My name is Inigo Montoya",

and, "You don't by any chance have six

fingers on your right hand, do you?"

Or this one, where a scammer writes

"I'm Sarah, nice to meet you",

with a picture, and gets the reply

"Weewoo weewoo. Boner alert".

And look, I'll be honest,

that doesn't seem

like the right sound to me.

That's not what I would've gone

with "a-woo-ga, a-woo-ga, boner alert".

But reasonable people can disagree,

all bodies are different,

there's no one right sound

for a boner alert.

But here is the thing,

as cathartic as that might be,

the person on the other end

of that phone

might not be

the one you should be mad at.

'Cause remember when I said that

this was being done in former casinos

by organized crime syndicates?

It turns out,

they're not great bosses.

This compound is where

an Indian man named Rakesh

says he was forced to work

for more than 11 months without pay

for a Chinese criminal g*ng.

Rakesh, who doesn't want

to be identified,

says he first flew to Thailand

for what he thought was an IT job.

Instead, he says he was tricked

into crossing the border to Myanmar

where a Chinese gangster

told him to work, or else.

- He threatened to k*ll you.

- Yeah. He warned me like that.

And the job?

Spend 16 hours a day

on social media targeting Americans

with a fake profile.

That is awful.

No one should be forced to spend

16 hours a day on social media.

You should do it either

because you love it,

or because you are 15 years old and

the algorithm has addicted you to it.

Completely normal reasons.

A lot of these organizations

are using people

who've been human trafficked,

after being lured to the compounds

under false pretenses.

They are actually victims

of a scam themselves.

Basically, they might see job ads

for skilled positions as translators,

or IT specialists,

in another country.

They then go through

a whole application process,

with some going through "up to four

seemingly legitimate online interviews"

and fly to their new job.

At which point,

they suddenly learn

their new bosses have their documents

and they now can't leave.

Back in 2022, ProPublica estimated

that tens of thousands of people

had been tricked in this way.

A more recent UN report estimated

that hundreds of thousands of people

have been forcibly engaged

in this scheme.

They also say "most victims

are confined to the scam compound,

and their screens

are always monitored

by the members

of the organized crime group."

And once they are in,

they are provided fake profiles

to try and hook people in with.

Here is who Rakesh

found himself being all day.

I got a Russian girl.

With using a Russian girl fake profile,

I need to scam the people.

Posing as a Salt Lake City-based

investor named Klara Semonov,

Rakesh flirted online

with potential targets.

70 to 80% fall for fake love.

Yeah, Rakesh was Klara Semonov

from Salt Lake City.

So, before we go any further,

anyone who thinks that they are

dating Klara, I'm afraid you are not.

The relationship is over.

It's not you, but it's also not her.

It's Rakesh.

But also, it isn't him.

It's Rakesh's boss,

who won't let him leave.

The whole operation

is highly organized

and set up to get around the usual ways

that you might detect a scam.

Some organizations generate

their own photos for the profiles,

so that they can't be

reverse-image searched.

And employees are given manuals,

like these that guide them

through every step of the process.

They're told to target people

who look wealthy and successful.

One advises on the first day,

talk about things

like your name, age,

occupation, and hobbies.

Then, the next day, talk about

your emotional experience,

with a message

divided into two paragraphs.

And then, on the third day, talk

about your entrepreneurial experience.

They're even given tips on how

to break down people's defenses.

We reviewed

several of these manuals

and they carefully explain

how to build trust

and exploit weaknesses

"Be funny,

make clients fall in love with you

so deeply

that they forget everything".

The chilling thing is,

that's kind of true.

If you're funny enough, you can make

people forget a lot of things,

whether it's common-sense

internet safeguards,

lessons from previous relationships,

or that they've been accidentally

learning about financial fraud

and human trafficking

for the last 20 minutes.

We're having fun, aren't we?

And if you're thinking

"Why don't authorities just

shut these compounds down?"

Sometimes they're in on it.

Here is one man who was trafficked

to a scam center in Cambodia,

explaining what happened

when he did the obvious thing.

On his second day in captivity,

Lu emailed the Chinese embassy.

He was advised to call

the Sihanoukville police.

But the police never came.

The property management

came instead.

They knew that I'd called the police.

Five days.

Lu says the managers then sold him

to another scamming company.

He said

"Because I called the police,

they had to take care of the police

with at least $4,000,

and I had to pay for that, too."

The authorities

weren't gonna help him.

Which actually makes sense

when you learn

that, according to UN estimates,

pig butchering in Cambodia

brings in an amount equivalent

to half the country's GDP.

Which is worrisome,

because as everyone knows,

when something generates that much

money, you don't shut it down,

you spin it off and pray

the magic works a second time.

Come on!

And conditions in these compounds

can be brutal.

That man you saw earlier, Rakesh,

took photos of abuse like this one,

of a coworker who'd been beaten.

And Lu, who managed to get out,

now works to free others,

and the stories of what he's seen

are, fair warning, hard to watch.

I saw a man get beaten up very badly.

He had injuries all over his body.

Lu contends it was this man,

who was reportedly

found hanging just hours later.

I'm certain it was him.

His phone is full of messages

from Chinese citizens

desperate to be freed

from scam companies.

There's videos of abuse.

Lu says he receives them directly

from victims inside the scam industry,

or finds them posted

in social media group chats.

And he's got handcuffs.

They're shocking.

That is horrifying.

And when you know all of this,

it kind of starts to change

who exactly you are mad at here.

Because suddenly, the individuals

on the other end of the phone

don't seem quite so fun

to send a message

of "Weewoo weewoo, boner alert" to.

Not that that isn't an excellent text.

Who doesn't love a boner alert?

But there's a time and a place,

and this might not be it.

Also, from now on, whenever you get

a sexy text from a new stranger,

good luck not thinking

"Is this a man who was just beaten

in a work camp in Myanmar?"

And that, if anything,

is the John Oliver effect.

You are welcome.

I can't say that every scammer

is someone who was kidnapped,

tortured, and forced to do it.

But even if not everyone who's

doing this is trapped or coerced,

the very fact that many are,

is still a huge problem.

So, what can we do here?

Well, when it comes to those

imprisoned in these compounds,

that's gonna take collaboration

between international law enforcement.

Unless you are the head of Interpol,

which, I'm guessing, you are not,

there's not much you,

personally, can do.

Now, in this country,

I'd argue that platforms like these

should be doing way more

to prevent the creation

of fake accounts to target people

because it's happening

on their watch.

But perhaps the most effective way

to stop this from happening,

is to make it less lucrative

by having fewer people fall for it.

And that is where awareness

of this scam is key.

This is one of those rare cases

where raising awareness

is, in itself, genuinely useful.

'Cause hopefully you've seen tonight,

this could happen to someone you know.

This hasn't just sucked in old people,

or those who aren't tech-savvy.

It managed to reel

in a bank CEO.

Everyone has an image

of the type of person

who is susceptible to getting scammed

in their heads,

but unless that image is a mirror,

ya might be wrong.

So, as a general rule,

when a stranger on a dating app

says "I love you" or "crypto" within

a month of talking to you, worry.

Honestly, even if they

don't turn out to be scammers,

those are pretty good red flags

to be looking for, personality-wise.

And it's worth telling your friends

and family about pig butchering, too.

It doesn't have to be a big lecture

or anything,

you can just send them

a link to this show.

And if they say

"I hate that guy",

say, "Yeah, me too, he's the worst,

just skip past the jokes".

And if they say, "I'll watch it,

but he looks like a LEGO accountant.

Wait, no. He looks like ChatGPT's

answer to 'show me a virgin.

' Wait, no. He looks like Harry Potter

if he just stayed under the stairs."

Leave them on read. You don't have

to completely sell me out.

Maybe drop a thumbs-up emoji,

but please, leave it at that.

If you know someone who's been

scammed like this, try to be kind.

It is human

to want companionship.

And it's actually a nice quality

to be trusting of people.

It sucks that the internet,

which should be

a way to alleviate loneliness,

can be turned

into a tool to exploit it.

But maybe,

if we all look out for one another,

we can ensure that the worst mistake

anyone ever makes on the internet

is inadvertently buying an excellent

Christmas tree for gay mice.

Because honestly,

it's really not that bad a purchase.

Believe me,

I know what I'm talking about.

And now, this!

And Now:

Local News Loses It Over Major

League Baseball's New Pants.

Major League Baseball

introduced new uniforms this year,

but there's a problem.

The pants are made of thinner fabric,

making them almost see through, Chris.

- Wait, what?

You've got my attention.

Luckily, the tucked-in shirts

Look at him, his hands!

- You can see the little tags.

- We saw it.

What's it?

- Steve! Okay.

Does he look happy wearing them?

No.

He looks happy wearing them.

Do you see the problem though?

I don't think girls are saying

there's a problem there.

The players, I think,

probably have an issue with it.

Now if I've got patterns on my boxer

briefs everyone's gonna see that?

I don't know. Suddenly,

I'm very interested in baseball.

Bianca is on her elbows on the desk

trying to get closer.

Can we zoom into these photos

a little bit more?

- I can't tell 'cause I have bad eyes

- You can see the shirt tucked in.

Maybe these uniforms

will get more women

that aren't watching baseball

already to watch baseball.

- You've got Derica's interest.

- That's what I said.

- It's a good recruiting device.

- Yes, it is.

- I see nothing wrong with the pants.

- I think they're fine.

I was inspecting to see a problem.

Who put this order

of these stories in here?

Thanks so much for watching.

We'll see you next week, good night!