How often do you get texts from strangers saying “hi, how are you?” out of the blue? Most people with a cell phone or a social media account have received something like this at least once. It’s the opening line of a very common scam, and so many of us have seen these texts, because there are hundreds of thousands of people working in factory-like systems, across multiple countries sending them. But those texters aren't the heartless criminals you think they are, and many of them are victims of a scam themselves.
In this episode, we're looking at the scammers behind those texts. It’s the story of young workers who have been lured by what they believed would be lucrative, white collar jobs, only to be enslaved by criminal organizations, brutalized and forced to run online scams that net billions in stolen funds each year.