by Alex Belanger

Today, we have the world at our fingertips. Unfortunately, this convenience also leaves us vulnerable to a world of cybercrime in the form of scams and identity fraud. But what if we told you that the issue goes much deeper than the surface?

            When you picture an internet scammer, it’s easy to imagine a sly criminal on the other end of the phone hoping to profit from your misfortune. In reality, there is a high likelihood that the “scammer” who is reaching out to you is a victim of human trafficking.

INTERPOL, the international criminal police organization, has observed a growing crime phenomenon that involves large-scale human trafficking. Victims are lured into online scam centers through fake job listings and then forced to commit cybercrimes including identity theft, phishing, and scamming.

CNN’s Kathleen Magramo has reported that Southeast Asia is experiencing a large increase in the amount of human trafficking, with the UN estimating 120,000 people are kept in compounds across Myanmar and another 100,000 in compounds across Cambodia. These trafficking rings are raking in profits of nearly $3 trillion annually, which is more than triple the annual revenues of Apple, Microsoft, and Google combined (Bianchi). The crisis has grown so large that INTERPOL has issued an orange notice on the matter, meaning a “global warning of serious and imminent threat to public safety.”

            Many factors have had a large impact on the exponential growth of this crisis. INTERPOL has stated that the most notable factor at play is the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a major role in two unique ways. The pandemic forced many businesses and personal activities to be held online, thus increasing the targets for scamming. It also created large job instability as employees lost their jobs and became desperate for work. As people became more desperate, they also became more likely to fall victim to the force, fraud, and coercion methods typically used by human traffickers.

According to INTERPOL, human trafficking victims were brought in from as far as South America, East Africa, and Western Europe to be held in scam compounds in Southeast Asia. The victims held in these scam compounds are kept in horrible living conditions and are subject to forced labor, beatings, sexual exploitation, torture, rape, and even organ harvesting. INTERPOL is continuing to carry out work in Southeast Asia to bust these scam compounds and slow the growth of the crisis.

Doing our part in this crisis

            At the Freedom Café, we encourage everyone to be a conscious consumer of the products they buy to prevent human trafficking. Similarly, it is important to be conscious of your online interactions and what to look out for. Not only will this help keep you from falling victim to cybercrime, but it will help slow the financial growth of the human trafficking scam compounds and mitigate the demand for this illegal activity.

Beare these common scam tactics

            Before showcasing how a scam may be presented to you, it is useful to know how scams are conducted and how they are successful. According to the FTC, scams rely heavily on your emotions, specifically fear (Hebert). This is normally in the form of owing money, having a virus on your computer, being in trouble with the government, or one of your accounts being compromised. Sometimes, scams may also use excitement in the form of promising riches from winning a sweepstake or eventually repaying you tenfold for an initial investment. In conjunction with conjuring an emotional response, the scam will employ a time limit to react, typically within a day, if not sooner. Many scams begin to fall apart when the cybercrime victim begins to investigate the logic of the situation, so it’s important to the scammers that the victim acts quickly. By stepping back and taking time to understand the circumstances and identify holes in the logic or the targeting of your emotions, scams can become much easier to spot.

            Some of the most typical scams involve scammers masquerading as a representative of a large company or organization, such as Microsoft, Google, Meta, or the government. They claim that you owe them money for a purchase you have made through their services and tell you that if they do not receive payment from you within the day, there will be consequences. When receiving an email, text, or call that mirrors a situation like this, asking yourself these questions could protect you from being scammed:

·      Who are you talking to?

·      What company do they represent?

·      What are their contact details?

·      What other information is there, and does it represent the company accurately?

For example, if you received an email, make sure the sender’s email domain matches that of the company that they claim to represent (such as representative@microsoft.com). If a link is provided, hover your mouse over the link to see where it redirects to and ensure that it is the link to the official website. If you are not sure, open a browser and manually search the official website.

Another important consideration is what the scammer is asking of you. A company will never ask for your private information over an email, text, or phone call. If they are asking you to pay them in the form of cryptocurrency, wires, payment apps, or gift cards, this is a sign that they want to use payment methods that are harder to track back to them.

            As technology becomes more advanced, so do the scams. Recently, new scams have been showing up in various forms. A common scam now is for shipment updates. If a scammer has information that you are expecting a package, they may send you a text message with a link about an update on the order. If the link does not go to the official website of the company that you are expecting a package from, it is a scam.

Another new form of scam is through phone calls, where the scammers change their caller IDs, so they may appear to be a local phone number. If you are not expecting a call from an unknown phone number, it is best not to answer the phone number and allow them to leave a message. As QR codes become more standard as a form of web redirection, they have also become a new avenue for scams. Scammers may place QR codes around that redirect to malicious websites. Viewing the preview of the QR code link before launching the browser on your device can help prevent accidentally visiting a malicious site.

To stay up to date with new scam tactics as they appear, we encourage you to explore the many online resources that continue to update their anti-scam resources, such as AARP and the FTC.

Taking action

            The increase in cybercrime taking place in the Southeast Asia region has unveiled a much deeper crisis of human trafficking. The crisis has taken a large toll on the livelihoods of many throughout the world in the forms of both human trafficking crime and cybercrime. By taking proactive measures, educating ourselves, and helping to educate others, we aim to dampen the growth of the illegal human trafficking scam compounds and prevent the creation of further victims on both sides of the screen.

Works Cited

Bianchi, Tiago. “Google Revenue Comparison Apple Microsoft 2023.” Statista, 5 Feb. 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/234529/comparison-of-apple-and-google-revenues/.

Hebert, Amy, et al. “How to Avoid a Scam.” Consumer Advice, 5 Mar. 2024, consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-avoid-scam.

“Interpol Issues Global Warning on Human Trafficking-Fueled Fraud.” INTERPOL, 7 June 2023, www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2023/INTERPOL-issues-global-warning-on-human-trafficking-fueled-fraud#:~:text=The%20online%20scam%20centres%20represent%20a%20double-edged%20crime,and%20even%20alleged%20organ%20harvesting%20in%20some%20cases.

Magramo, Kathleen. “Gangs Netting up to $3 Trillion a Year as Southeast Asia Human Trafficking Becomes a Global Crisis, Interpol Says.” CNN, Cable News Network, 28 Mar. 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/03/28/asia/southeast-asia-interpol-scam-human-trafficking-crime-intl-hnk/index.html.