"He was writing from hell, 8,000 miles away. A summer shower had left a rainbow over my Brooklyn neighborhood, and my two children were playing in a kiddie pool on the roof of our apartment building. Now the sun was setting, while I-in typical 21st-century parenting fashion, forgive me-compulsively scrolled through every app on my phone. The message had no subject line and came from an address on the encrypted email service Proton Mail: "vaultwhistle@proton.me." I opened it."
""Hello. I'm currently working inside a major crypto romance scam operation based in the Golden Triangle," it began. "I am a computer engineer being forced to work here under a contract." "I've collected internal evidence of how the scam works-step by step," the message continued. "I am still inside the compound, so I cannot risk direct exposure. But I want to help shut this down.""
An encrypted message arrived from someone calling himself Red Bull who claimed to be a computer engineer forced to work inside a crypto romance scam compound in the Golden Triangle. The source said he had gathered internal evidence describing step-by-step operations while remaining inside the compound and unable to expose himself directly. Crypto romance scams, known as "pig butchering," use promises of romance and lucrative investments to convince victims to hand over life savings. The scam industry employs hundreds of thousands of trafficked forced laborers in compounds across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, operated by Chinese organized crime, generating tens of billions of dollars annually.
Read at WIRED
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