The #1 crime which results in the biggest financial loss is BEC fraud. The #2 crime is pig butchering. Ronnie Tokazowski https://twitter.com/iHeartMalware walks us through this wild world. Ronnie works for Intelligence for Good https://www.intelligenceforgood.org.
Sponsors
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Sources
- https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/amp/living/video/woman-lost-450k-pig-butchering-romance-scam-100225596
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59614595
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/eight-nigerians-charged-conspiring-engage-internet-scams-and-money-laundering-cape-town
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViTQ7N7iUQ0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jfh3Ct9VI4&t=54
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfg2lptWzAo&t=645
- https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/covid-relief-scam-fraud-money-billions-1234784448/
Attribution
Darknet Diaries is created by Jack Rhysider.
Assembled by Tristan Ledger.
Episode artwork by odibagas.
Mixing by Proximity Sound.
Theme music created by Breakmaster Cylinder. Theme song available for listen and download at bandcamp. Or listen to it on Spotify.
Transcript
[START OF RECORDING]
JACK: A few years back, a listener wrote to me to tell me about a problem they were facing. Okay, check this out; they went to buy a house, right? When you go to buy a house, there’s a little dance that everyone does. Like, do you give them the money first or do they give you the deed first and the keys, or do you do a quick swap at the same time? What if it’s a phony check or the deed is made up? This is where escrow comes in. Both the seller and buyer hand their things to a third party, someone that both sides trust, and waits for everything to clear. If the check clears and the deed is valid, then escrow says, okay, the deal is done, and gives the money to the seller and the keys to the buyer. So, this guy, a listener of mine, says he bought a house and during this process, he gave $250,000 to the escrow company. But then someone scammed the escrow company. They posed as the seller and said, hey, could you just deposit the money into our bank account directly?