Scam Factories: Where the Perpetrator Is the Victim

When we in the payments industry think about scam and fraud prevention, we often have in mind account holders, social media participants, or app adopters who lose money in imposter scams. Frequently, however, there is another victim of this crime: the front-line perpetrator.

Such perpetrators may make contact with what appears to be a wayward text message or a social media poke. They text in the persona of a middle European countess or an astute crypto investor and new best friend. In fact, however, these front-line contacts could themselves be victims of human trafficking, tricked or kidnapped and coerced into working as one cog in a massive criminal enterprise.

Vice Media and the nonprofit news site Pro Publica have documented that tens of thousands of people are imprisoned for this purpose at scam factories in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights described foreign citizens who are trafficked to Cambodia and then "detailed in large compounds and forced to work, often conducting online scam operations targeting foreign nationals outside the country."

The dollars lost through these scams are enormous: $75 billion by one estimate. The human costs to those scammed and the downstream repercussions are even greater. Even more horrible: what's happening to human beings who may be half a world away. A report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime states "we cannot allow this immoral crime to be met with indifference and impunity."

Despite the distance, you can still do something. You can join the fight by learning how such crime might play out in payments activity and what financial institutions can do to identify it. You can see how innovation could be used to prevent trafficking. You can support nonprofit organizations that aim to end crimes against humans. You can teach everyone you know-often and redundantly-how to identify a smishing attack.

Keep safe, everyone.