dramatic tense music
Were there guidebooks on how to scam people?
[group] Yes!
[man] First, 10,000.
[Henri VO] $8 million.
[woman VO] My entire savings ended up going
into this account.
You fatten up the platform kind of like a pig.
The scammers started using forced labor.
[Natashya VO] Once you're inside,
there's nothing that you can do to get out.
And that's when the nightmare starts.
Yup.
How many people here were there last June in Melilla?
[David VO] On June 24th, about 2,000 migrants tried to cross
the border from Morocco into Melilla.
They pay the poor country like Morocco.
"Shoot them, kill them, but don't let them come out."
[David] I think we should circle the block.
The European Union has managed to entirely avoid
accountability.
There's ample evidence to suggest they died and were
forcibly disappeared at the hands of authorities.
It's for the national authorities to investigate.
dramatic theme music
[shouting]
Hoorah!
[blasts]
[garbled snippets of chatter]
tense ethereal music
[Henri VO] Two years ago, I started becoming interested in
cryptocurrency,
and I started doing some research on the Internet.
Discord was used,
and all kinds of platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp,
and people would communicate with each other.
Then, I got this...
really innocent-looking WhatsApp message
from Milia Lee from Los Angeles,
and she said she was a Korean businesswoman.
[electronic chiming]
I got a DM on Instagram,
and it was from a fairly good-looking Chinese man.
We chatted a little bit.
Some minutes later, he was like,
"Do you mind if I get your phone number?"
And then that just sort of started a series of, like,
nonstop texting for a full two months.
[man VO] Her name was Jessica.
She was very friendly.
She was very compassionate.
I was able to share what I'm...
going through.
November 24th is when she finally introduced me to
cryptocurrency.
[Natashya VO] More and more Americans are falling victim to
cryptocurrency scams,
with the FBI recording more than $2.5 billion stolen in 2022 --
a 183 percent increase on 2021.
Fueling this rise is one scam from Asia,
where criminal groups target victims through social media,
messaging apps, and online dating,
building personal relationships before proposing lucrative
investment opportunities.
I was introduced to this platform called Genesis Bit,
which was a binary options trading platform.
The first trading session,
I made about 1200 dollars with a portfolio of about 4,000,
which was incredible return on investment for anything.
From time to time, I did some withdrawals,
because I wanted to see if the whole process worked.
Then, I put in more money -- I think up to about $8 million.
[man] First, 10,000...
20,000...
all the way up to close to 500,000 already.
My entire savings ended up going into this account.
[Natashya VO] Only when it's too late is the scam revealed.
I put in a request to withdraw, like,
$12 million.
Um...
and this was rejected.
[woman VO] I was told by the customer service that I needed
to pay a tax.
It didn't make any sense to me.
I'm like, "Okay, something is clearly wrong,"
so then I-- I woke up from this dream.
[man VO] December 3rd is when I lost $1.2 million.
I tried to call her up.
I panic.
She wasn't picking up.
I was very suicidal.
I mean, that 1.2 million is 30 years of our lives.
I knew right then and there that this is a scam.
tense music
[electronic chiming]
[Natashya VO] These scams often start with a harmless text,
seemingly received by accident.
But behind the innocent-looking profiles is a
multi-billion-dollar criminal operation run by Chinese gangs
in places like Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos.
They've exploited the weak law enforcement in these countries
to set up industrial-scale scam centers,
where thousands of workers engage in what's known as
Shaz Hu Pán,
or "pig butchering."
Jason Tower is a transnational crime and security expert
for the United States Institute of Peace.
The reason it's called "pig butchering" is once you've got
the victim putting money into the platform,
it's kind of like a pig, and once you sort of see the pig has
reached its ideal weight, you go ahead and slaughter it,
and that's the moment where the perpetrator will basically
disappear with all of the funds.
Who are these scammers?
Where are they coming from?
The scammers themselves initially were from China,
but the crackdown in China has become quite severe.
This is highly labor intensive because it requires people going
onto social media to identify victims,
so the scammers actually started using forced labor;
they started kidnapping, they started,
you know, buying and selling labor,
so, increasingly, the people who are the ones that are the
perpetrators are also victims themselves.
[Natashya VO] There are now dozens of massive scam compounds
across Southeast Asia, where tens of thousands of trafficking
victims from the Philippines, Indonesia,
Vietnam, and elsewhere work under constant threat of torture
and violence.
-[taser buzzing] -[man shrieking]
[woman sobbing]
tense music
The shocking scale of these scam centers was first exposed here
in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, by a group of investigative
journalists at the Cambodia-based news agency
Voice of Democracy.
Danielle Keeton-Olsen contributed to that reporting.
Are there any signs that will tell me if this building
is suspicious?
I mean, the compounds themselves are somewhat
innocuous, but there's a lot of indicators.
Number one is a casino close by or attached to it.
If you see bars on the window or barbed wire,
a parking lot entrance with guards at the front who won't
let you in, these are usually some good signs that this is a
scam company.
So how do the workers end up here?
Sometimes it's a job post on Facebook,
or a job placement agency recruiting in Cambodia,
and sometimes they even have interviews.
But once they agree, they'll, you know, like,
very quickly be brought by some means into Cambodia
and then put into one of these companies,
and their passport would be taken at the door.
And that's when the nightmare starts?
Yup.
[Natashya VO] Cambodia has faced international pressure
to act.
Late last year, authorities raided compounds across the
country, finding thousands of foreigners inside.
[siren]
Despite this, scam centers continue to operate with
impunity in Cambodia and beyond.
moody synth music
[Natashya] We're in Mae Sot, a town in Northern Thailand right
by the border of Myanmar.
After the crackdown in Cambodia late last year,
the scam centers have expanded to other countries in Southeast
Asia, including Myanmar.
Here in Mae Sot is where many of the victims,
when they're rescued, cross back into Thailand.
[chicks chirping]
[Natashya VO] Emmanuel Sinoy is a Filipino baptist minister
who volunteers to help foreign nationals freed from scam
centers across the border in Myanmar.
For them to get out from there,
it's just like getting out of slavery or...
or jail.
They are still afraid,
and so what we are doing is to make them calm,
telling them that "You are going to be safe here,
you are going to be okay,"
in spite of what they have been through.
Have there been any risks for you doing this work?
It is risky, but...
we have to just...
doing it being careful.
[Natashya VO] While we were filming with Emmanuel,
he received a call confirming that a group of trafficking
victims were being released from Myanmar.
[Natashya] Okay. Let's go.
suspenseful music
We've been told that six Filipinos were released from a
scam center in Myanmar.
They're currently on their way to the river to try and cross it
to get here to Thailand.
So they go to a quieter part of the river?
[Natashya] But the moment they cross the river
and get to Mae Sot, they're safe?
Until then, anything can happen.
[Natashya VO] Upon leaving the compound,
the victims were driven to the border and made to covertly
cross the river, which is heavily guarded by military
personnel from both sides.
Once they made it to the Thai side,
a driver picked them up and dropped them off near a hotel in
the city center, where we met them.
tense music
[Natashya VO] Later that evening,
the group explained how they were tricked into working at the
scam compound.
Was there a job interview or nothing?
[man] Yes, you just need to send a video introducing
yourself.
And then they say, "Congratulations,
-you've been accepted?" -[group] Yes, yeah.
[Natashya VO] Were there guidebooks on how to scam
people?
[group VO] Yes.
[woman VO] "Get to know each other.
Ask the hobbies."
What day do you then ask for money?
[man] If you don't have more than 100 conversations --
good conversations -- with your client,
they'll go, "You need to run under the heat of the sun."
[Natashya VO] After six months,
the group reached out to Philippine embassy officials,
asking for assistance to be released.
When the bosses at the facility found out,
they were detained in a room and abused,
and told they could not leave until their families came up
with ransom money for each of them.
[man] Every night, the boss came --
"Do you have money already?
Do you have money already?"
-- and if you cannot answer him, they were gonna hit you more
than 10 times.
They hit us a metal.
-[woman VO] A metal. -[man VO] A solid metal.
[Natashya VO] A rod.
dark ambient music
[woman] When I saw the Chinese guys laughing
and they are hitting, we all just cried.
[Natashya VO] The group not only has to carry these physical
and psychological scars from their forced labor,
but the emotional burden from the scams they participated in.
Can you show us the persona that you were imitating?
[woman] This is my model.
[Natashya] By "model," do you mean you just took her photos
-online? -[woman] Yeah.
Why did you choose her?
[woman] Because she is very rich.
She have a lot of picture from Los Angeles,
she's always on the business trip.
Who were you targeting?
Where were they from?
[woman] Canada, Australia, and US.
-So Western men. -[woman] Yeah.
How old?
[woman] Like, we have a age of 40 to 40 and up.
-40 and above? -[woman] Yeah.
[Natashya] Did you feel guilty using this person to fool all
-these men? -[woman] Yeah, yeah.
[Natashya VO] How much worse can this get?
The criminal syndicates and the expansion of this activity is
way beyond the pace of the response by law enforcement.
The syndicates themselves are constantly looking for spaces
around the globe where they can exploit either weak,
poor, or nonexistent governance, and that's why this really is a
problem that requires a global solution.
I think we live in a digital age,
and especially after the pandemic,
we've all gotten really used to trusting people
that we've never met in person.
[man VO] Maybe they are a victim themselves as much
as I am.
We know that there's a higher boss out there,
and these are just pawns working to scam.
[garbled snippets of chatter]
tense theme music
ominous music
[Mustafa] This is the last photo I have from my brother,
Adam, when he was in Morocco.
When was the last time that you heard from him?
[Mustafa] 17 May, 2022.
[David] So a little more than a month before he went missing.
Yes.
[David VO] In 2020, Adam Bakhit fled the war in Sudan
and headed for Europe to meet his brother Mustafa.
But along the way, Adam went missing.
[David] This last message that you sent to him,
-what does that say? -[Mustafa] "Welcome, hello."
I tried to just get know that his phone is working or not.
[David] And it didn't deliver.
Yes.
-dramatic tense music -[shouting and commotion]
[David VO] On June 24th of last year,
Adam and about 2,000 others, mostly from Sudan,
tried to cross the border from Morocco into Melilla,
one of two cities in Morocco that officially belong to Spain.
Police pinned them into an enclosed area,
shot them with rubber bullets and tear gas,
and beat them.
Migrants who set foot in Melilla have the right to seek asylum in
the EU without having to leave Africa,
so Europe goes to extreme lengths to keep them out,
and it enlists Morocco to help.
The Moroccan government says that 23 people died
on June 24th, but the actual number is unknown.
Close to 80 people went missing that day.
They are not on official lists of the dead or imprisoned.
They simply disappeared.
We went to Morocco to investigate what happened
to them.
Did they just go missing?
Or did the Moroccan government, acting on behalf of Europe,
make them go missing?
[woman] You ready?
-[David] Yeah. -[woman] Let's do it.
[David VO] Morocco is a dangerous place for journalists.
To report this story without getting arrested,
we had to pose as tourists and shoot on our phones.
Right now, I'm standing in Morocco,
but right on the other side of that fence is Europe.
That is Melilla; it's a city that technically officially
belongs to the government of Spain.
It's one of two very small land borders that divide
not just Morocco from Spain, but Morocco--
[David] Okay.
Okay.
[David VO] All this security is designed to keep migrants --
specifically Black migrants --
from even getting close to the border.
[David VO] It's also part of an effort to keep scrutiny off of
what happened on June 24th.
[David VO] Many of the migrants who tried to cross the border
that day are still stuck in Morocco.
We arranged to meet a group of them in Casablanca.
[David] The places where migrants congregate are very
heavily surveilled by the police.
They raid them and they arrest them,
they chase them away, they take their possessions.
We're going late at night because we're hoping that the
police presence is a little bit less heavy.
I think we should circle the block.
[David VO] Because of the dangers they face from police,
we agreed to hide their identities.
How many people here were there last June in Melilla?
[David] Did it fracture his skull?
Do any people here know somebody who disappeared
that day?
[David VO] We went with one survivor to a secure location
away from police.
So you made it into Melilla;
you made it onto Spanish territory.
And when the bus left you on the side of the road,
what happened to the person who had died?
[David VO] After the massacre, buses drove injured migrants to
remote places hundreds of miles away.
We know of at least two people who died during the journey.
This practice of putting migrants on buses is part of the
larger strategy of deterrence.
The difference is that in this instance,
many of those people were severely -- or even mortally --
wounded.
So this policy, in this case, becomes essentially a mechanism
for forcibly disappearing people.
[ringing]
So we managed to get a phone number for a driver who works
for one of the bus companies that does these transfers
of migrants.
[David VO] Our translator called him and asked what he
knew about that day.
[David VO] The Moroccan government did not respond to
our questions.
The Spanish government said it had no jurisdiction over events
that took place in Morocco.
Both governments conducted investigations that concluded
there was no wrongdoing by authorities,
but neither investigation addressed the disappeared,
even though the evidence suggests these fit the legal
definition of "enforced disappearances"
carried out by the state.
Family members of the missing have been left to find their
loved ones on their own.
For that, they've mostly relied on the work of one man:
a human rights volunteer named Omar Naji.
Both Spanish and Moroccan authorities could just say,
"There was violence and people died but it was justified,
and here are the people who died."
Why disappear them?
[David VO] That one person is Adam Bakhit,
Mustafa's brother.
Of all the people who died that day,
he's the only one who's been identified.
[David VO] Nine months after Adam went missing,
Mustafa came to Morocco to identify his body.
He buried his brother in the local cemetery,
not far from the border.
[Mustafa VO] We've been searching
and we've been waiting.
We're thinking he's alive.
After nine months, we find out he's passed away.
They kept him in the freezer for nine months.
[David VO] Adam was found, but he is the exception.
Mustafa only got a visa to Morocco because he lives
in the UK.
Most people don't have that option because Morocco denies
visas to anyone coming from Sudan.
In addition to the photo of his brother,
Mustafa saw photos of 24 other people.
That means there are 24 bodies still in the morgue that the
government is making it nearly impossible to identify.
For now, they count among the missing,
and they're still just a fraction of the total number.
Some of the family telling me, "Our sons is passed away in the
same day.
They is not there."
So where has the body gone?
This is the question here.
Why do you think the Moroccan government made it so difficult
for you and other people to find their loved ones?
Who has killed them?
Moroccan government.
If you made crime, you need to hide something.
But the reasons the Moroccan government,
they stop them -- they're not gonna let them cross the border
-- because EU, they pay them.
They pay the poor country like Morocco.
"Shoot them, kill them, do everything,
but don't let them come out."
So do you think Europe --
and the EU --
is responsible for what happened to your brother?
That's correct.
dark moody music
[David VO] In a carefully-designed outsourcing
model, the EU has directed at least 19 billion euros to
countries outside its borders for managing migration,
and that's just an estimate.
The EU makes it nearly impossible to know the full
amount, or how exactly the money gets spent.
[David] The European Union has managed to entirely avoid
accountability for anything that happened that day.
That's in spite of the fact that Europe provides the funding that
countries like Morocco use to prevent -- often violently --
migrants from reaching European territory.
[David VO] Just 10 days after the massacre,
the EU official in charge of migration actually praised
Morocco for its work.
Morocco is a key strategic partner of the European Union to
manage migration and to fight smuggling.
We spent several months trying to get interviews with various
different people at the EU, and after being either told no or
ignored for a long time, we finally got a spokesperson to
agree to a five- to ten-minute interview.
Does the European Commission admit any responsibility for
what happened on the Melilla border on the 24th of June?
Violence and loss of lives at the EU's external borders
is unacceptable,
and member states have the responsibility to protect EU's
borders in line with fundamental rights.
Now, when it comes to this specific tragic incident,
this is for the national authorities to investigate.
Did an incident such as this one cause some degree of
self-reflection on the part of the European Union,
or any degree of questioning or...
investigating whether that partnership is operating
as it should?
When we see loss of lives at the EU's external borders,
when we see increases in terms of people desperately risking
their lives, dying at the hands of smugglers,
of criminal networks--
They did not die at the hands of smugglers in this case,
there is ample evidence to suggest they died at the--
died and were forcibly disappeared at the hands of
authorities...
security forces of the countries in question.
I cannot tell you about the specific incidence because I'm
not law enforcement and this is for the national authorities
to investigate.
dark ominous music
[David VO] In the coming years, the EU plans to invest even more
into outsourcing its border controls,
even as the strategy does little to deter people displaced by war
and poverty.
[blast]
In Sudan, two decades of conflict led this year to an
outright civil war, which has already displaced a million more
people.
Are you...
trying to find a different way to get to Europe?
Are you gonna try again?
sparse dark music