Full transcript of “Scam: Inside Asia's criminal network”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 [Music] this is a story about corruption and greed yeah I mean it's a billion dollar industry a secretive vast sometimes deadly Enterprise where failure to meet targets can end in torture the level of torture that these people receive is worse than any horror movie that's ever been we're going to take you to the very heart of a criminal Network going under cover inside Southeast Asia's scam centers for the very first time we won't have any problems with
0:47 police it's okay an exclusive investigation into a gated world worth billions of dollars there are countless Financial victims worldwide but this isn't a story about them how did you feel duping people we're heading um a little bit south of MOT into an area that we know as Tai Chang um it's commonly known also as Mountain View um for us it's it's one of the worst compounds that exists in terms of um human rights violations abuses AB absolute torture of their
1:35 victim judana is on a mission he's in Thailand over the river is Myanmar where thousands of people are working in prison-like compounds known as scam centers their job to defraud people online but they're not all criminals some are trafficked tortured thrust into cyber slavery what we often hear about is this black room um or this dark room and uh it's essentially let's say a windowless dark room where the victims are taken in they're often chained with their um hands handcuffed above their heads hanging from uh a ceiling uh they are
2:21 then not given food um they're tasered they're unable to sleep how do you go about getting people out the reality is the majority of them have to pay exorbitant ransoms their families sell everything judah's the first hope for those fleeing recently he's been getting a lot of frantic calls many Trace back to a little known compound called Tai Chong you can see it just across the border I think it's a good idea if we just walk I want you to actually see and experience the gravity of what it is that we're talking about about because this compound has been built within the last like 18 months and you're talking
3:08 about as far as you can see this way all the way to the green roof building there and you can see land being cleared behind it which only means [Music] expansion two things I'm really struck by is just how vast it is but also it's there in plain sight so close to this tie border yeah you can almost Reach Out And Touch it right and yet it's Untouchable you can't get in and nobody can get out is this in fact the place the world should be watching absolutely this compound is without a doubt the worst it is essentially hell on
3:57 Earth the scam compound are often run by Chinese Mafia supported by militias in Myanmar those who don't generate enough money for their bosses can be brutally punished the UN estimates hundreds of thousands of people are working inside these fraud factories across southeast Asia the types of scams that are being run inside the scam centers are often focused on dating and relationships they use many platforms but behind most of them it's gaining some kind of trust with with somebody in another country by pretending to be someone you're not and by gaining that trust encourage them to
4:43 join some kind of investment or cryptocurrency investment and to build on that investment and to build on that trust until eventually you've exploited them from all of their money the notorious KK Park is one of many compounds that was able to grow and prosper along a lawless Border in a country wrestling with Civil [Music] War these three men have just left three guys is just leave kk4 so I take them take them leave and send to immigration but imig Sammy is a volunteer trying to stop human
5:28 trafficking 2 years ago if you want to leave KK Kang you have to pay about uh 30,000 to 50,000 us to leave how much did it cost them 2,500 us do not not not really high but to really understand the current Dynamics you have to cross from Thailand into Myanmar where conflict rages and cyber scans Thrive we've been granted rare access to yti New City in Coco a sprawling Frontier of compounds and casinos but
6:15 the city management wants to show us this is a normal town with nothing to [Music] hide this feels like a little China every everywhere you look there are signs in Mandarin a lot of the people on the streets and in the shops are Chinese too it's almost like a vast Outpost and yet it's one we know that Beijing in part is wrestling with along its border with myamar in the North China has cracked down on the scamming industry but it's money from the chines underworld that still drives it yti says that's not what's going on here suspicion though is High phones are
7:04 checked and we're escorted everywhere y's chairman wants to talk you say you're just the property developer but you do profit from these compounds do you think that it's your responsibility to crack down more
7:52 forcefully do you accept that scamming has gone on in yti City in compounds and that some people have been trafficked here [Music] there's been so much pressure on making
8:38 sure that the human trafficking side has been snuffed out and that there's no longer the sense of abuses or hiring underage children the the role in which yatti and and schoko has played seems to be benefiting the anti-human trafficking movement there is a public effort to combat forced labor here but y's founder Seri Jang was only recently sanctioned by the UK government accused of links to scam centers and human trafficking one rescuer also told us this building is currently home to a significant scam operation the bars there to prevent
9:25 people from jumping they clearly want to show the world world that they're more open now that working conditions here are better the problem is we can't get into the compounds to see what the reality of life is like inside we know that fraud factories exist across the region but we need to work harder to get a closeup look so we've been tracking one key area in Cambodia near the border with Vietnam it's called bevet and it's home to some shocking stories scammers rarely talk on camera but this man who we're calling pum dry
10:12 has agreed to lift the lid on a murky World he's taii but until recently he was a romance scammer in bavette targeting lonely people to invest stealing their hearts and then their money fore
11:06 [Music] in Cambodia illegal gambling love scams and crypt fraud are booming it can be lucrative but with rampant growth comes brutal targets pji became a scammer by Falling victim himself to a romance scam lured by a Thai recruiter who's now under investigation he was passed around compounds until one fateful day he was accused of
11:58 stealing fore we want to find the compound pum dry nearly died in but it won't be easy they're highly secure places hard
12:43 to get in even harder to get out here around 40 Vietnamese people flee the Golden Phoenix Casino hoping they can swim back to Vietnam Ben who's from the UK says he also worked there until I was in there I had no idea I've been in Cambodia a long time now up until the point where where I was in the compound I never heard of a compound before I never heard of a scam Factory um it was like a whole whole different world just just appeared in front of me I had an alocation with another staff member
13:29 um and then I I got punished so uh called into the office handcuffed to a chair and uh security team was called in and I was I was uh electrocuted with with tasers for maybe five minutes we decide the only way we'll expose what's really happening in these heavily guarded compounds is by pretending we want to work in them we're on our way to a building where we know 2 years ago nearly 250 people were rescued we've been told that a scam operation is still going on there so we're going to go and see what we can find
14:16 out we walk in posing as people looking for jobs online work online online online online online there's a heavy security presence steady stream of workers passed through a metal detector will we be okay the police Rescuers have told us about scammers fleeing here but we can't get any further without an [Music] appointment scam centers are almost impenetrable constantly changing names and locations but we want to keep going
15:02 we've heard bevet is the new Hub it's on the border with Vietnam a fortress-like city we're going to try to infiltrate it feels kind of Otherworldly being here everywhere we look there are gambling adverts and these huge casinos and then behind them these mysterious buildings and seemingly very little else down a dusty road we find the building where pum dry says he worked was detained and
15:57 fled foree [Music] doctors eventually helped him escape and return to
16:44 Thailand after 2 days we have a lead we've been reaching out to recruiters today and we've just had a call from one who says they're willing to meet to discuss possible works of we're going to see what they have to say they are surprisingly unguarded and unfiltered the scam Pig butchering tricking victims to Fork out more and more money before going in for the kill it's big business some scammers sign up willingly on the promise of big salaries and bonuses what kind of work
17:29 maybe maybe mod and the and the is still and the Sal here uh more 800 uh all the same like as to people to investment with the kill the romance SC who who is the best country to Har bangadesh and take money from that because uh they like nobody gets arrested but the police won't stop anybody uh the police yeah no I I never see the police coming F because I I I think like maybe the monitor of theal
18:14 maybe take and all [Music] the that night they arranged for us to do a job interview we're met at a casino and driven to a compound we're then asked to sit down with a man they call the boss the head of HR and two other employees they admit what they do is illegal from the off you you have to know what job we have here yeah can you explain that [Music] we are doing the US M oh
19:02 us more you see if you get the B Cent you get the more commission oh yeah and how long how many days a week uh s days a week 24 how much does the person that earns the most SC do you teach do you train here or no training yeah have training here this your master if you come to work your master he is the guy with experience to kill the client put like billion of what kind of script do you follow what how to win the man how to c in the first day in the second day in the third day or
19:51 he like why did you tell the DI the the you asking uh what problem is why you with the girl the man can tell you the in the thinking you you already [Music] grow after a lengthy chat the team agrees to show us the [Music] accommodation next we're exposed to something we thought we'd never y the highly secretive scam [Music]
20:38 rooms some vom people most are Chinese people all like [Music] this we see scammers with lots of phones conducting multiple conversations with victims online [Music] it's hard to know if other workers got a guided tour but it revealed more than we ever expected it was very strange seeing that world up close I was surprised at just how organized and structured it felt you had these rows and rows of people all focused on ultimately deing people
21:24 around the world now across the border in Thailand the cost of the industry is crushing Cher says his brother Chia died falling from this compound in Cambodia he believes he was pushed [Music]
22:24 there is a vast range of scam centers and scammers some greed driven some desperate some deeply [Music] Sinister prosecutions though are rare China has started to chase some of the worst offenders Cambodia claims it has two but the industry still booms in plain sight with new compounds constantly emerging what started as a regional crime is now a global trafficking crisis with millions of [Music]
23:14 victims we reached out to those responsible for the compounds featured in this documentary we also contacted the Cambodian government none of them responded to our requests for comment [Music]
