Brian Greenberg Oct 17

The DOJ just seized $15B from a “pig butchering” 🐷 scam so large it reads like fiction. But the worst part isn’t the money — it’s that much of it ran on forced labor. People are trafficked into compounds, running fake romances to scam others online. What’s striking is the scale: well-educated professionals lost life savings to criminals who themselves were victims. It’s a grim feedback loop of exploitation, loneliness, and tech-enabled deceit.

⚠️ $15B seized from crypto scam
💔 Forced labor behind the fraud
🔐 Victims on both sides of the screen
🌍 FBI: “Human suffering” at global scale

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/feds-seize-15-billion-from-alleged-forced-labor-scam-built-on-human-suffering/
#Cybercrime #HumanTrafficking #OnlineSafety #Fraud #security #privacy #cloud #infosec #cybersecurity #RomanceScam #PigButchering

Feds seize $15 billion from alleged forced labor scam built on “human suffering”

Scams like this one net billions from well-educated victims.

Ars Technica
Show threadKevin Karhan Oct 17

@brian_greenberg Lemme guess: This happened in #Burma aka. #Myanmar?

Cuz they seem.to have such #ScamCallCenters in spitting distance to #Thailand and #Laos.

Show thread⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯Oct 19
@kkarhan @brian_greenberg cambodia
Show threadKevin Karhan Oct 19
@cryptadamist @brian_greenberg Okay, I just assumed *yet another in #Myanmar because there had been several raids of these close to the Thai border this year alone...
Show thread⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯Oct 19
@kkarhan @brian_greenberg myanmar doesn't have the financial infrastructure to support these kinds of capital flows so most of the action is in cambodia, though there is increasingly more and more action migrating to myanmar
Show threadKevin Karhan 

@cryptadamist @brian_greenberg granted, we're talking about #OrganizedCrime and setting up the financials is way cheaper than getting essentially #FiberInternet into a #warzone which they certainly need just because even a small #ScamCallcenter with like 100 "employees" will easily saturate a single Gigabit connection...

  • Keeping the enslaved people alive and not die from illness is a bigger challenge...

Mind you that Civil War sees #FGC9 in frontline use!

Oct 19 at 6:53pmWeb
Show thread⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯Oct 19

@kkarhan @brian_greenberg right, which is why you're seeing the migration to myanmar as the PRC and thai govt etc. slowly bully the triads out of at least a few of their cambodian perches.

but it's not necessarily as easy as you might think to set up financial infrastructure in myanmar, at least if you want that infrastructure to have a fedwire account and be able to move us dollars.

Show threadKevin Karhan Oct 19

@cryptadamist @brian_greenberg Granted, they do utilize #MoneyMules and #ShellCompanies as well as #CryptoExchanges to obtain said value.

  • And since their operational cost is relatively low, they can afford wasting 25%-50% in laundering if that meant they'd have clean profits elsewhere...

Obviously #Thailand (which acts as transit/gateway and starting point for #investigators looking for people #missing that turn out to be coerced if not flat-out abducted into these #ForcedLabour setups) isn't happy about an increasing number of (foreign) #diplomats and #investigators wanting to find where their nationals are, as obviously the Thai government isn't at fault.

  • It's just that #Bangkok is the closest international hub and thus place where those lured in with "attractive job openings" touch down based off ticket purchases and thus they enter the country there.

Not that any nation wants to have cases of abductions and missing foreign nationals within their borders (North Korea doesn't count!) but I guess we can all imagine that this seriously puts a dent in Thailand's reputation re: #tourism and #safety none of the politicans want to see...

Show thread⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯Oct 19

@kkarhan @brian_greenberg

https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/113953038196774972

⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯ (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image don't fuck with #thailand. https://apnews.com/article/thailand-myanmar-scam-electricity-cut-0cfdfb57aa2e05e5835b1af3b4ac8e1a #PigButchering #fraud #scams #crypto #cryptocurrency #myanmar #SEAsia #Laos #triads #organizedcrime #corruption #crime #moneylaundering

Universeodon Social Media
Show threadKevin Karhan Oct 19

@cryptadamist @brian_greenberg Eeyupp...

Certainly heard of that cuz they don't want to be involved in that shitshow.

As you can imagine the Royal Thai Police obviously won't support #HumanTrafficking and #ModernSlavery as #Thailand relies on being in a positive light for #tourism as well as not wanting to constantly deal with diplomats asking for their citizens beyond the few idiots that decided to start a bar fight or try to leave an establishment without paying their tab and rightfully ending up in custody.