Transcript
Speaker: So now that we've caused quite a stirring, quite a commotion in the scammer's own town, calling his friends, we find him on social media. We know everything about him at this point. And he's begging to know what's going on Why are these two foreigners in my town looking for me? So we're back at our hotel and we agree to take his call.
Speaker: And that's when Aaron laid it out. Yeah, this, I think, you know, we've been building toward this, the confrontation with him. And so ah at first on on the call, I pretend to be the mother of Brayden.
Speaker: And I'm outraged that, why did you do this to my son? And he's pretending like he doesn't know anything about this and his phone was stolen. And then he goes into a whole new posture of, well, let me help you. I'll help you find this person. And after listening to him lie for a few minutes, i was done. I was frustrated. And i I said, no, let me tell you who we really are.
Speaker: We are investigators from the United States. We came all the way here to find a scammer like you. We know everything about you. We've been to your village. We know your friends, your family. We know where you live. We know what you do. We know we know that you follow other blackmailers. And and so, um and here's what we're going to do. We're turning this this over to law enforcement. And he got nervous.
Speaker: What happens when we stop asking why scammers are getting away with it and start asking what if we could actually catch them? Today's episode is one of the most powerful conversations we've had on ScamRangers.
Speaker: Aaron West and Paul Raphael traveled to Nigeria and did something extraordinary. They went boots on the ground, followed the intelligence, met with scammers face to face, and ultimately tracked down and confronted a criminal targeting young people in the United States. But what struck me the most about the story is that they didn't do it alone. Behind this mission was an an entire community. Investigators, law enforcement, technology companies, scam fighters, and people willing to share intelligence and help connect the dots.
Speaker: And together, they created something much bigger than one investigation. They created a blueprint. Aaron always starts with the question, what if we could? Well, this time, they showed us that we can. And when Paul asked the scammers themselves, what would make them stop? Their answer was remarkably simple.
Speaker: More arrests. So maybe it's time to get out from behind our desks, work together, follow the intelligence and start creating real deterrence. Government agencies, technology companies, law enforcement, take notice. The blueprint is here.
Speaker: to scam rangers a podcast about the human side of fraud and the people who are on a mission to protect us. I'm your host Ayelet Bigger Levine and I'm passionate about driving awareness and solving this problem.
Speaker: Today, Scam Rangers are two legends in the scam fighting field. I'm so excited to have Paul Raphael and Aaron West on the podcast today. I'm sure you all know them, but just in case, in the event that someone doesn't, I would love for you to introduce yourself. So Aaron, could you go first and then Paul?
Speaker: Sure. Thank you so much for having me, Ayelet. I feel like I have been along for for the length of your podcast, so it's nice to be back talking about something else. I'm a former prosecutor. I was a prosecutor for 26 years in Santa Clara County, and toward the end of my career as a prosecutor, I was inundated with victims of scams. And it became clear to me that we've got a worldwide crisis, and so I retired from my role as a prosecutor to fight scams full-time with the nonprofit I created, Operation Shamrock.
Speaker: Thank you. and i will say aaron was ah you were on episode number two of scam rangers and then a few episodes here we go ah following with you know really bringing us up to speed on your work at upper even before operation chairmer yeah you know what were what you're seeing mostly focused on pig butcher and cryptocurrency investment scams and now today we're going to talk about different scans of course but yeah thank you you know thank you for joining us but really thank you for everything that you do in the industry i think you've been such a strong advocate for scam victims, but also for law enforcement to know more and to be able to really investigate and collaborate. And you've been such a great inspiration, I think, for the whole scam fighting community. So thank you for that. So, Paul, over to you. Hey, happy to be here. My name is Paul Raphael. I am a cybercrime investigator. i have focused on financial crimes, cybercrimes in about a 10-year career in and the corporate world.
Speaker: Then about three years ago, I switched over um ah and focused on a whole new area, a new and emerging scam called financial sextortion. It is the most dangerous scam, and it is one of the fastest growing scams targeting youth.
Speaker: Today, I'm focusing ah on combating this crime from multiple angles. And Paul, ah you've also been a guest on Scam Rangers. So if you go back to the episode with Paul Raphael, you'll hear a lot about extortion. And Paul breaks down the scam, the anatomy of a scam, how it happens. And we'll dive ah briefly into that as well today.
Speaker: But we're here to talk about your recent mission. Both of you taking a journey to confront criminals in Nigeria. So we'll get to that later. I really want to hear all about it, how it came to be, um what was the idea behind it. So I'll start from there and then we'll get to the journey and what you've learned. Maybe briefly, Paul, if you can just give us a one minute overview of this crime of sextortion in your own words.
Speaker: So about four or five years ago, groups of scammers had identified a new way to get a whole lot of money very quickly. um They had ramped up their romance scams and decided to target them towards teenagers. And instead of flattery, the the con here was blackmail and trickery. Criminals have found out what they can do is, you know, target a teenager on social media, flatter them with flirtatious messages, send them a nude photo and then request for one in return. And as soon as that happens, that's when the blackmail begins. These criminals say, I'm going to make you go viral. I've screenshotted your friends. I'm going to send this photo to your family. I'm going to publish it on your school website. All these terrible threats, unless you pay me $500 right
Speaker: dollars right now so That's the long and short of how the scam works. It is the most dangerous scam. It has resulted in at least 61 suicides of teenagers that we know of um and over 100,000 victims reported in the United States just in the past few years alone. And we know that reporting is just a fraction of the real incidents because I think one of the biggest problems and why there are cases of suicides, unfortunately, is the shame that is involved in this scam. So I'm sure that the order of magnitude of this problem is much even sharper than scams tackling adults. um So, Erin, let's start with you. You reached out to Paul and say, hey, let's go. So how did that happen? what was the basis of that? Tell me how that started.
Speaker: Well, I love this story because I think it speaks to um took a couple of different forces for good in this ecosystem. And so one of them was I had been out filming myself in Cambodia and Myanmar showing showing the gravity of this. And a company called SomeSub reached out and said, we'd like to sponsor you. We'd like to see you do more of this. And so SomeSub sponsored a trip to Cambodia for me, and then they wanted to do more. And so the second, so great tech force for good. And then the second great force for good was Paul and I were at Fraud Fight Club. And i think some of, you know,
Speaker: We always talk about like listening to speakers and networking, but really it's getting in the same room with like minded people. And so I applaud the work that Ronald and PJ are doing with Fraud Fight Club because that brought Paul and me to be sitting at a table and me to just throw out. Do you want to go to Nigeria?
Speaker: To Paul. ah And let's be honest, Paul and I didn't know each other very well. I mean, we know each other in this community and seems like a decent guy. and so but I know he's the expert and there's no one I'd rather go get on the ground and in Nigeria with. And to my surprise and delight, he was like, yeah, I'm game. Let's go.
Speaker: Which is amazing. And Paul, I actually remember your face probably, ah you know, the day of at Front Fight Club. And you said something to me like, apparently I'm going to Nigeria with Aaron West. And i I kind of packed that aside and then this happened. So it's amazing that it came full circle and so quickly. So it's great that there's a company that's willing to to you know support this and sponsor it.
Speaker: So, Paul, you have actually done a documentary before on ah on a different topic. on romance scams. But this is the first time you're actually going, you know, boots on the ground to try and and and confront scammers. So I would love to ask you how you prepared for for this encounter in terms of what you really wanted to do in terms of, you know, how to find them. Okay, we're going to Nigeria. What now?
Speaker: Right. Yeah. I mean, we are so used to kind of working on these cyber crimes in a comfortable desk in the comfort of our own home. um Nothing can prepare you for traveling 6000 miles, meeting multiple scammers face to face and just seeing directly from them how they live, the tactics they use, why they scam, hearing it directly from them. Yeah, nothing could have prepared me for for what happened next. and And so my question is also tactical. Okay, so what are we going to do? Who are we going to meet? How are we going to prepare? i think you created a profile and very quickly that profile has been attacked. So tell me about that part. Yeah, so our objective was to become the first Americans to be able to see if we can get ourselves blackmailed, find our scammer,
Speaker: go to where they live and then confront them with the terrible reality of the crimes that they're doing and the impact it's having on youth worldwide. And so we started with the the idea of can we get ourselves blackmailed? Can we get sex dorted? So ah spun up a couple of Instagram profiles as the ideal target. These criminals largely target young men and boys. So we had the profile of Brayden, 19 years old into sports and games and all the things that someone his age would be into. And then he started to follow certain pages on Instagram. And that's where the scammers found our profile. Multiple suspicious attempts, multiple suspicious friend requests, messages in the span of a week timeframe. And even when we got to Nigeria, like the messages still kept coming. We still kept getting targeted by the scam. So, Aaron, I have a question for you on this. You've been observing the patterns of cryptocurrency investment scams, of pig burying scams, looking at the conversations between victims and how it started. And, and you know, it could be a dating site. It could be, you know different platforms. What was your observation looking at Paul's work in terms of setting up the profiles, how quickly criminals had reached out, the way they reached out? What are the resemblance and what are the differences, in your opinion, from
Speaker: you know what happened here? How did that hit you? Yeah, I was so glad to be working with a true expert in this space. Paul has ah has really, his mission has been to expose, understand, and combat this really horrible crime. So when he started talking to me about how this worked, there were definite similarities that were obvious and there were others that were quite different. One of the interesting differences is how quickly these sextortion scams escalate. In a way that I'm used to pig butchering scams that are a long con that go on for months and months. And ultimately, we get to the idea of moving money for cryptocurrency. And it's such a pleasant experience. That's the thing about pig butchering is people feel loved and understood and cared for.
Speaker: Paul's is all scary and threats. Paul's is you're going to meet someone. They're going to quickly romance you and really prey on what a 17, 18, 19 year old boy might ah might appeal to him. and then within hours, nudes are exchanged. And then it goes to a really horrible, scary place where a child is being threatened. And so that's the key difference is it's it's quick and it's horrifying
Speaker: So Paul, tell us how that happened. So you posed as this, ah or you had a profile of Brandon and the sports loving kid. So what happened with the scammer? And maybe tell us a little more about why Nigeria as well. Yeah. So, um you know, with our profile, we we had started to receive numerous suspicious friend requests and, you know, doing some reverse image searches on these profile pictures, we would see, OK, these are clearly images that are stolen from, let's say, an adult. Film star or an only fans model, but they were appearing to be kind of legitimate profiles like ah multiple pictures of the same person, social media profiles that have existed for many years. And so they're they're really convincing.
Speaker: And essentially what happens is they they start messaging their targets and it starts like a normal conversation. Then it quickly turns flirtatious. The criminals will often send a nude image first and then request one to be returned.
Speaker: And the moment that happens, that's when the blackmail bea begins. So as a Aaron mentioned, it's ah a cycle. It goes very quickly and the criminals have um operationalized this so much so that there is a script that that the criminals use. Just copy and paste these messages hundreds of times a day.
Speaker: The question that I wanted to ask you when you were talking about this and then I wanted to ask about the location, but the use of AI is like popping into my hand and my head because you said real profiles, only only fan models, nude images. Now with the ability to really quickly create images with AI, did you see any use of that?
Speaker: How do you envision the use of that impacting the scam? Yeah, we're seeing two two methods the criminals are using. First, they are being able to provide a proof of life that they are actually who they say they are. And what that means is they can take the attractive young women they're posing as and use AI to put them in different scenes or scenarios or holding up different signs with their hands um as, you know, proof that they are who is it they say they are, really tricking their victims. The second way that we're seeing is these criminals are using AI to nudify their victims. So they're bypassing the entire, um you know, grooming stage and in some cases just nudifying their victim and using that as blackmail material, you know, pay them or else they say they'll send that image out to to people. Yeah. So why Nigeria? what's What's unique about Nigeria with this scam? So there were several signals in my research that pointed back to a West African cybercrime syndicate known as the Yahoo Boys. These are the same criminals who were sending the Nigerian prince email scam from 20 years ago.
Speaker: um And today, you know, they're still active. They are still highly networked. They have elements of organized and disorganized crime. But there's a lot of them. And essentially, right, when when they found out how profitable and how quickly the scam moved, essentially the scam format went viral amongst their Yahoo boy groups. And that's why we saw such a huge surge of this crime the past few years.
Speaker: And we'll get to the different types of scams. I thought that was really interesting when I heard your conversation on the stolen podcast that you host, Aaron. You talked about the transitioning between different types of scams. so we'll get there.
Speaker: But let's get on the journey to Nigeria. let's Let's get going. So, Erin, one of the things that struck me about when hearing the story is the collaboration with law enforcement in Nigeria. So how did you even start? How did you get to, ah you can't just land and land in Nigeria and find the scammers, right? So there has to be some organization behind that. So tell me a little bit about that. So when I one of the things I noticed when I started working in the scam area was that local and state law enforcement were not coordinated on how they were handling what had become a scamdemic. We were all getting hit by the same crime and nobody was talking to each other. So together with some other pioneers of this industry, we built something called the Crypto Coalition. And from there, we started inviting active law enforcement from all over the world to be part of this. And we had colleagues from Nigeria reach out. And it was the first time, i think, for a lot of us in law enforcement that we had a colleague in Nigeria. that Nigeria wasn't a where cases go to die. It was, wow, they we've found some people who are interested in prosecuting some cases. And we've had some great successes in our coalition at getting people convicted and serving time in Nigeria. So when I went over there, I relied on those sources. And I met with ah two detectives and I met with a team at the Ministry of Justice and was really delighted to see the interest in doing something about this type of crime.
Speaker: But they don't want to sugarcoat it. There's a lot of hoops. There's a lot of, you know, difficulties in Nigeria in getting the kind of justice that we equate with justice. There are still um a lot of difficulties with that, but it was a start and it was a start we never had before. And so being able to meet these colleagues in person and really reinforce a relationship means that there is room to move forward.
Speaker: Amazing. So you landed in Nigeria. You met with them. And tell me what happened next. Sure. So I got there um a day and a half ahead of Paul. I went to the capital city. I met with law enforcement. I took a look at a compound that I knew was being used or had been used for pig butchering, which scares me. I really wanted to know is transnational organized crime setting up in Nigeria yeah as well and found that unfortunately it sure is. But then ah Paul was coming in and I met with Paul in Lagos and together we met with ah a guide. We had what's known as a fixer, someone on the ground in Nigeria who understands ah transportation and video production.
Speaker: and can introduce us to the Yahoo Boys and to a practitioner of what we would think of as witchcraft. And that person, Priye, was our guide on the ground. And so from there, it was off to the races with me and Paul. And day one, we were thrown right into literally the fire of the voodoo practitioner.
Speaker: So I'll get to that in in a second. i actually really wanted to understand why the Yahoo boys would meet you. What is their interest and how was that? Tell me the first encounter. We'll get to well definitely get to the voodoo, but I think it's it's really interesting to me to first understand why were these people willing? How did you get to them? Is Priya able to just make all the connections to find the people and then tell me about the encounter with them? So yes, Priya is a wizard and can just make stuff happen. But no, more importantly, you know, these are criminals, but it's also a subculture. Yahoo is about doing scams, but also flaunting their wealth. When two foreigners with cameras show up and want to speak with Yahoo boys, they start to see the fame. They start to see, oh, you know, this is, you know, going to make me famous. This is, um, so this is why I think they're willing to to actually speak with us. That's really interesting. So kind of like I know there's a rap culture also around it, right? And so they're they're kind of willing to share their screen names, if you will, and they're whatever makes them famous in the Yahoo Boy communities, sharing the scripts and everything. So that's kind of building that. So the goal for them, if I understand correctly, is building the fame and credibility in these groups to get, how to call it, prestige in these in these communities. that Does that make sense? is that correct? Exactly. Fame and fortune. Whatever criminal wants. So they met with you. So I think there were two instances, right? Six on one day and three on another day. So tell me, tell me about that a little bit. They were two different experiences. The first one, um we met with a professor who studies this work and he was able to connect us to students at his university that were also Yahoo boys. And that was fascinating because I think You can't see this on the audio, but my mouth just opened wide. Yeah. Yeah. And surprise. Wow. Students in the university that are also. Yeah. Wow. OK. Yeah. And that's the thing is it is a part of the culture. It is definitely an understood um piece of the culture. And everybody wants their shot at fame and fortune. And so the conversation with the people in the um with the college students seemed less what was definitely it was. Let me say it this way. When we met the next day with the three Yahoo boys that PreA had brought to us, that was a ah much more serious and and sinister meeting. You could as soon as I walked into the room, I felt I knew i was in the room with criminals. They um they had their faces covered. They had their sunglasses on. They had hats on. They looked scary. They looked like bandits. And in fact, that's exactly what they were. And so it was it was an incredible opportunity. And I just want to say one thing. I think um we received it somebody reached out and said, oh, well, look at you giving notoriety. mean, you're showing off guns. allowing them the opportunity to to get publicity from what you're doing. And I think that at the end of the day, what we took from that meeting was much greater than any minimal publicity that they might be getting in the United States. No doubt. No doubt in that at all. um So tell me about the first meeting, though, with the college students. And I'm i'm fascinated by that. So that was facilitated by a professor. Did they show their faces?
Speaker: They did with the understanding that we would blur them for the and the documentary. But yeah, is that i think I think that was part of what made that a little bit more comfortable was that you were talking to barefaced people who were talking about what they were doing. But not in a dodgy place like the other meeting either, right? The location was more...
Speaker: Right. It was a professor's office. It was it all felt very I don't want to say normal because there's nothing normal about it. But it it felt like a standard interview of of people who maybe steal cars or something. It felt it felt like that. The other felt much more like we are talking to people who really make people's lives miserable and who have done some really shady stuff. OK, so let's get to that in a second. So, Paul, tell me about the meeting with the professor's students. What did you learn from that meeting? The first one. I think some of my takeaways between the the meetings were were similar, right? um We learned how the criminals were operating, how they network amongst themselves in order to kind of live off the land. They they have someone who can sell them ah social media accounts. They have someone who can sell them or provide them with the scripts of the scam to use. They have a different person who can, you know, run the financials, the cash app, the Venmo, the PayPal, whatever the victim has, they have it. And so we learned about kind of this whole economy that supports these scams. It's not just the scammers, but the pickers, the the accounts, the formats, um all of this goes into it.
Speaker: So that's really interesting. It sounds very, very similar to the supply chain of account takeover fraud that's been out for years, right? You had the people who ah create the spam emails, the people who sell the accounts, the people who sell the malware, the people sell... ah it's It's a well-known orchestrated supply chain that's been around for years on the criminal section. and So they took it and they it's... ah I think much easier technically to do it on these types of scams. So unfortunately, you can scale much quicker, but they really replicated that structure when it comes to these types of scams as well, I'm hearing. Yeah, absolutely. um and And kind of the worst thing about it is almost all of these platforms that they rely on, whether it be payment platforms or social media platforms or dating platforms, almost all of these is are American companies.
Speaker: So our own platforms are being used against us by these cyber adversaries. And how do they pay each other? is like Do they communicate on the dark web? Or is it out like just regular communication across, you know WhatsApp or Telegram or signal between themselves to get paid to promote their services, quote unquote? How does that economy work?
Speaker: Any you? We're hearing a lot about WhatsApp, Telegram, the group chats that these scammers coordinate in. Wow. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's a lot of lore about the dark web, but the fact is all of this is being done very much in our faces right now on Telegram. It's all visible. If you go to any channels, you can find people who are willing to broker deals. If you need to change crypto to cash, if you need access to a WhatsApp account, if you need access to an aged meta account, it's all being done in our faces.
Speaker: Before we get back to the conversation, i wanted to share something we believe deeply at Rangers AI. The future of fraud prevention isn't just about detecting suspicious transactions. It's about giving people the confidence to make safer decisions before money moves.
Speaker: Every day, customers receive texts, emails, phone calls, and messages that look legitimate. By the time the trans transaction reaches the bank, the customer may already have been manipulated.
Speaker: And that's why we built ScamRanger. ScamRanger helps people evaluate digital communications in real time, understand the warning signs of scams, and know what to do next. It empowers customers to make important decisions while giving financial institutions another layer of insight and protection. Because the strongest defense against scams isn't just better technology. It's building scam resilience one decision at a time.
Speaker: Now let's get back into the conversation.
Speaker: Okay, so that was day one. And then day two, how did you get so your fix or organize the meeting with the others with you, but let's keep the back thread of this story. You created a profile of ah or a few profiles and one of them or or many of them were extorted and you're in the midst of a scam while in Nigeria. So was the was the scammer in that group or or not? Did you do you know?
Speaker: No. so So when our scammer eventually demanded money from us, you know, we had the help of Kitboga, famous YouTuber, scam baiter, who has some great content out there. And so he helped us out with this tool that can help us get the location of a scammer.
Speaker: and what it told us was that our scammer was based in lagos nigeria just based on the ip address now that's a very broad and general location there's millions of people in the region and we didn't have an exact location of our scammer when we departed for nigeria we kind of you know said let's wing it let's go and let's see if we can find them along the way and eventually we did Tell me more.
Speaker: That was a good fifth hanger. So maybe Erin, you take this one because you had. um Well, bounce back and forth because that's kind of how it happened. I yell it. It was it was very much in the moment of, OK, well, we got this from Kit Boga. And, you know, and then Paul would be like, oh, well, we're just getting hit up again. okay let's start talking to this person. And what we were able to do is pull out pieces of this and then go to experts and say, OK, Gary Warner, what can you do with this piece? okay, Alex Ring, what can you do with this piece? How about you, Scott Simons? What can you do? And by putting all of that together, we were able to, and there was one great part where Paul's like, I wish we had a whiteboard. And then he's like, we do have a whiteboard. And he pulls out a dry erase marker. I need to get him a fresh one because that one was running out of juice. And we mapped it all over the mirror in his room because it was that much data. And we were we were kind of going after two different targets. And we kept getting mixed up between the two targets. But it was like, OK, now Alex gave us another social media handle. We didn't know. Let's put that in there. OK, you know, Gary got back to us with this. Priya found this. And it was by moving through this, we were able to ultimately get a true name and a location for this scammer that we ultimately went to his village. Okay. So tell me about that. You go to the village. Two Americans. You can't hide that.
Speaker: So you will go to the village with Priet, right? i'm I'm assuming he was ah guiding. How did he feel? what did it Was he worried? Like up until now, he was under in control. Yeah, we had a ah we had a police officer in uniform with a machine gun traveling with us. So he was not scared about that. But Paul, go ahead. Talk about ah the ride out there and and what that was like. Yeah, so finally, you know, through this open source Intel magic that that Aaron mentioned, we finally have social media profiles, we have a location, we have a GPS coordinate for us to arrive at.
Speaker: And this drive is about two and a half hours outside of Legos. At first, the drive was great, normal highway, it was perfect. And then Once we got to the villages and the remote areas, there were no roads.
Speaker: the The drive was like a drive i've I've never been on before, right? Potholes three feet deep. And we arrive in this village and you're right, like it's two foreigners with a special forces officer, you know, arriving in this remote village. And certainly we've created quite a stir. You know, people see us, people are talking about us. And we arrive at this building, which Priye goes to scope out and the building is empty. Nobody's inside. at that That was supposed to be the location of the criminal? Right. That's where we showed up at. Nobody's there. Priye gets on the phone because we have the phone number, the WhatsApp number of the scammer, and he pretends to to be a friend. He wants to meet up. He asks, where are you? um you know Are you home right now? Scammer says he's not home.
Speaker: He refuses to meet up. He gets a little suspicious at some point. He asks, who are you? Why are you looking for me? um And that's when we need to think about plan B. Well, we were armed for Plan B because we had a second location for the scammer, but we also had the top seven phone numbers that the scammer calls. Another piece of intelligence that you were able to obtain with help, right? Yep. And so um and we were and it was so great that we had a local that could speak in slang with other locals. And so Priya speaking to these other and we had a we had a handle that was, you know, we're looking for big dollar and that that's a scammer. Right. people People who are not scammers are not named big dollar. And so we at prie started calling his friends and that really ruffled the feathers of our scammer. And that's when the tables turned. And that's when he started wanting to talk to us.
Speaker: So by now we have caused quite a stir in the town. the scammer is like begging to call us back and understand why we are looking for him. Why are you looking for me? At this point, we are already back at our hotel two and a half miles away. And we set up the meeting. We set up the call. It was the best adventure and traveling with Paul was just dreamy. He's so cheerful. He's so easy. He's a delight. And i was just singing your praises, Paul. Okay, so you scheduled a call with a criminal. Yes, we do. So now that we've caused quite a stirring, quite a commotion in the scammer's own town, calling his friends, we find him on social media. We know everything about him at this point. And he's begging to know what's going on. Why are these two foreigners in my town looking for me? So we're back at our hotel and we agree to take his call.
Speaker: And that's when Aaron laid it out. Yeah, this I think, you know, we'd been building toward this, the confrontation with him. And so ah at first on on the call, I pretend to be the mother of Brayden.
Speaker: And I'm outraged that why did you do this to my son? And he's pretending like he doesn't know anything about this. And his phone was stolen. And then he goes into a whole new posture of, well, let me help you. I'll help you find this person. And after listening to him live for a few minutes, I was done. I was frustrated. And I i said, no, let me tell you who we really are. we are investigators from the United States. We came all the way here to find a scammer like you. We know everything about you. We've been to your village. We know your friends, your family. We know where you live. We know what you do. We know we know that you follow other blackmailers. And and so um and here's what we're going to do. We're turning this this over to law enforcement. And he got nervous. He got very nervous. And and Paul was able to like watch him do social media things in real time. Tell Paul, tell him about that.
Speaker: Yeah. As this confrontation was happening, his social media profiles go private. He changes his username. So the accounts that we really suspected were his were absolutely confirmed to be his once that happened. Without a doubt, we got our guy.
Speaker: I have the chills right now, guys. So, in fact, you guys created the blueprint of what needs to be happening in an order of magnitude by a collective of agencies in order to go after. And we see that when they are confronted, they get scared. And if there are implications, we can stop this crime.
Speaker: So how is this? Who's going to take this blueprint now? And how are we, what are we going to do with that blueprint? and And I'm not expecting you as to also solve that problem, of course, although I know you have some ideas, but that's amazing. Congratulations to both of you. I think this is really game changing work for the industry.
Speaker: And I'm sure you're going to put together the blueprint and and give it to the right. But but I really hope that the right authorities take this blueprint and act on it and and execute in wide scale, because I think this is ah really a change in. So I remember I interviewed Jim Browning and he told me about um reaching out to law enforcement and giving them address and location and up and they didn't do anything. And until he did something that he published it in themselves, then they had to go and do it. So there needs to be motivation behind this grand scale action. But now we have a blueprint on what needs to be done and how to connect the dots and who in the industry can help and how intelligence comes together. So that's really amazing.
Speaker: Ayelet, I think you're calling out what is exactly what we tried to prove. You know, I have always run from a place of what if we could. And the point was two people without guns, without badges, with a network of friends were able to make a very serious impact. here And you were absolutely right to call out what could be done at scale.
Speaker: And what I found in the years that I've been fighting the pig butchering epidemic is that, goodness, this is a long road and goodness, this requires a lot of collective pressure. And, you know, I've been told repeatedly, like things won't change until it gets hot enough. And what we've seen is collective pressure has made some really positive changes in the world of this pandemic. And in this case, it could be done again. And so i I thank you for the opportunity to talk about it, because that's exactly what needs to happen.
Speaker: One thing I was surprised to hear from all of the scammers when we asked, how do we reduce this crime? The resounding answer was more arrests, um right? They don't know anybody who's been arrested for doing this. And there's no deterrence because they think they can keep doing it. So from their own words and their own thoughts, right? If we start ramping up arrests and they think they could get arrested for doing this, that'll be a deterrent.
Speaker: There you go. There you go. It's right there in front of us. So, you I would say drop the mic moment right now. Thank you, Paul, for that.
Speaker: But we're not going to drop the mic. We're going to keep going because becauses we still have two topics to cover. One is the ceremony, because I think the ceremony, the voodoo ceremony that you went to to me when I heard about it on on your podcast, Darren, it's more than a crazy ritual. It's deep core belief in... something that is at least foreign to me.
Speaker: And what are the implications of that? So I'd love to cover that. And then I want to talk a little bit about all the platforms and infrastructure that were used in the process. So let's start with the voodoo ceremony. So on day one, you actually witnessed a voodoo ceremony. We know that criminals, the Yowboys, Nigeria, there is you know dark magic out there So there are babalows that will perform ceremonies for for certain realities to influence and and cast spells or whatever. What does this have to do with scamming and Yahoo boys? And tell me a little bit about the ceremony you entered.
Speaker: right These scammers believe in um what they call Yahoo Plus, which is right this black magic ritual where they believe when that cat that spell is cast, they can get more money from their scams. um They use it essentially to build a relationship between them and their victims, a spiritual kind of dark magic ah relationship.
Speaker: And the scam that we observed, ah there was a scammer who does romance scams, um interested in getting more money from his victim, a man in Wisconsin. So I'll let Aaron kind of tell you how we arrived and what we saw on the ground when we went to go see this ritual.
Speaker: We were not given a lot of information and we were we got in a van. There was somebody in the back seat of the van, but we were with our guide, so we trusted him. We were taken to the edge of constructed buildings and we were led down a hill into an area that was made up of buildings constructed by corrugated metal.
Speaker: and cardboard all on stilts. It had been raining for the past few days. It was really muddy. There were boards in the mud for you to walk across to a avoid getting in the mud. There were tires we had to walk over to stay out of the mud. There so there were little streams of water that had to be crossed. And and then the When it wasn't mud, it was it was inches of trash. It was definitely a very primitive living environment. And we were the only we stood out and people were yelling a term at us that we weren't familiar with before. But it's Oimbo, which is foreigner.
Speaker: and ah And, you know, to be honest, that was the scariest part of the event was people wanting to know what exactly we were doing there. And when we got into this location where the ah where the Babalao works and got up onto this onto this house on stilts, we could hear people amassing outside. And we kind of I kept looking to my guide being like, are we OK? Are we OK? And then the bottle went outside and was like, look, I'm trying to work here. And they would say, you know, well, who are these people and why are they doing what are they doing here? And he'd say, i'm trying to work. And ultimately, there was a there was tension about had we gone too far, had we crossed into a place that was going to be dangerous for us? And that was day one. Yeah, it was day one
Speaker: So what the did the Babalau think about you being there? i I am assuming this was coordinated, but still. Right. And he was compensated for us being there. And so he was motivated to make sure that this happened for. so he was he was inviting you.
Speaker: it was compensated, but he it was inviting you still to a real ritual where a real criminal was trying to induce his fortune. Absolutely, yes. This was no tourism event where we're going to show you how we used to dance in old times in Hawaii. This was very much a active, very strongly held belief system that we got the rare opportunity to witness.
Speaker: And you're right to call out what this is. This is an example of A civilization that believes in the power of black magic to do this type of work and that uses that belief system in this scamming industry. It just speaks to how tightly held and ingrained this Yahoo scam business is enmeshed in their community. And they also pay the babalau for the services, obviously. So they're willing to really invest in their ability to earn more. And, you know, i don't I think a lot of cultures go to spiritual leaders to enhance their fortune. I don't think this is, you know, although this is foreign to me, but I don't think it's foreign as a concept of you know, going to a spiritual leader and hoping for better outcomes and getting that. But I think here, just listening to your podcast, you talked about animal sacrifices and even Yao Plus Plus, which may have involved some form of human limb sacrifices that you heard about. So did you learn about how, you know, what they believe around that? Why do that? what Why is hurting other people or other animals bringing to the outcomes that they want? Did you dive into that? Yeah, I would say that it's, ah you know, I think from the beginning of time that that has been part of ritualistic practice that we're sacrificing something that is valuable to us in exchange. And so my Bible, it's right there in the Bible. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, it's not a typical, but it is so different to what we understand. And then also because it is such a negative practice, it's not like you're trying to build your automotive sales business. You're trying to actively convert someone's assets to yours. You're trying to steal their money. Yeah, you're trying to commit a crime and you just want to make it more successful. Yeah. And I understand the ceremony was extremely long. You expected half an hour. was two and a half hours. What happened during those two and a half hours that it took so long? it Was it just chanting there or something? There was a lot of chanting.
Speaker: The first emotion or kind of feeling I can recall is just how hot it was inside that metal box, essentially. During this time, right the scammer brought out two printed photos, one of who he was trying to impersonate, this woman named Lucy, um and the other, the photo of his victim.
Speaker: So the Babalao, he writes the two names, Lucy on one totem pole, ah the victim name on a different one. He binds them together with yarn. He dips it in palm oil. He crushes up herbs. He chants through all of this. Aaron and I have to occasionally chant with a response back in ourselves, Oshe. And then at one point,
Speaker: One of the things I noticed too, which was ah concerning, i know I looked over by Aaron on the floor and there was a machete on the ground the whole time. So, I mean, right, I'm just glad we were amongst friends in this situation. um and And so he he takes one of the knives that he has. he um opens up a bag that that's been placed on the floor, um and he takes out a goose. And this is no small animal. This is ah a big-sized bird.
Speaker: And then he takes some cash in their local currency. He covers the goose's head and eyes with this cash. He places the goose on top of the two totem poles to kind of bridge those spirits together. And he chops off the goose's head, allowing the blood to pour out over these totem poles to fuse them. And if that wasn't enough, then he did the same thing with the chicken right after that. So we're in this small, tight room. There's two dead animals. There's blood. There's a mess from all the other herbs and spices that have gone into this ritual. And then we bring it out to the front and he he burns it all together. Aaron, go ahead. I'm sure I missed some steps. No, you're dead on. That was ah that was a really good explanation. There was all elements in practice. We had air, fire, water, death.
Speaker: It was just a lot, a lot. All I'm thinking about while you're telling telling me this story is how incredibly brave you guys are. So I just wanted to ah call that out. it It really requires a lot of you know planning, investigation and and grit, but the braveness and the courage that you guys ah brought into this. ah So I think just again to the authorities and and the agencies that need to take action, let's not waste this this effort and let's let's build upon it.
Speaker: I asked you earlier about the infrastructure that criminals use to communicate. It's all out in the open. But also I wanted to ask about the platforms that they use and how they also move between different scam types. Like they try one thing and then they move to another. But what are the platforms that have been involved in this? I know that when you you have a breakdown of the anatomy of this extortion scam, but let's just repeat this. have Has anything changed and fused by AI? Like, what are you seeing?
Speaker: Yeah, so we asked the scammers, you know, what platforms help you commit the most crimes? Right off the bat, the top three across the board, it was Instagram, it was Facebook, and it was WhatsApp. These are all three meta products. We also heard quite a lot of Telegram. We heard about some dating apps. um And of course, we heard, ah surprisingly, our criminals did not reference that they were using Snapchat. Interesting. And in fact, when we were getting blackmailed in one attempt, that criminal did try to bring us over to Snapchat.
Speaker: We ended up clicking report on their account and their threatening messages, and they were actually banned within 60 seconds. Wow. So that was impressive. to Snapchat.
Speaker: Yeah, kudos to Snapchat for that. um Additionally, we're hearing about the criminals using a lot of these American payment systems, things like Cash App, PayPal, Venmo were or platforms they mentioned. They also told us about crypto and they told us about gift cards, Steam, Razor, G2A, all different methods for them to extract money out of this generation. So I know you've been talking to a lot of these platforms for a while, giving advice and recommendations. Has anything changed from your journey to Nigeria? Anything that you you think we should double click into?
Speaker: Yeah, we're seeing a a big uptick on TikTok of sextortion schemes. We're seeing a reduction on Snapchat. Kudos to their good work. And we're seeing about the same on meta platforms. So no substantial improvement when from where we were a year or two ago. So I think that the biggest takeaway is really taking that blueprint that Snapchat created on the impact of reporting and on the fast response to, you know, reporting these types of threats. And you can just see that when once one platform does a good job, but the criminals will just go where they can to continue on in scamming people. Right. And the key is make it harder for them. um They will move on to a different scam that doesn't involve child sexual exploitation, blackmail, and suicide. Yeah.
Speaker: And we definitely don't want to be the ones owning the platform where they are. So because there will be implications and we're starting to see you know legal cases against these these platforms. So hopefully they'll all take action.
Speaker: Absolutely. And Snapchat proved that it can be done. Yeah.
Speaker: Aaron and Paul, thank you so much for joining the podcast and for sharing our your story. And i can't wait to see when the documentary comes out. Thank you so, so much again. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having
