Scams (Full Episode) | Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller

let me know when you're ready let me tell you something money is [Applause] [Music] who is the best person to swim your average middle-class unsophisticated loser they're all americans 95 one month you're stupid let me say that again very gullible a sorry god will provide god providing [Applause] jamaica israel two capitals of a multi-billion dollar industry meet the voice on the other end of that unrecognized number that won't stop calling you hello [Music] this area is all the tourist area right yes last year we've had over four million visitors to the island montego bay is the best tourist destination you can find in the world are you trying to tell me on tourism oh yes you can come here oh yes come at any time jamaica for most of the 1.5 million americans who visit every year it mostly looks like this [Music] tourists like these stay at all-inclusive resorts like this one and do this which leads to this [Music] [Music] tourism is the backbone of jamaica's legal economy and the resorts of montego bay are the crown jewel [Music] but step outside the walls of your hotel and it's a different story montego bay is built in a such a strange way where you have a mix of the very rich bordering communities with extreme poverty mark titus is a journalist and former cop he knows the areas of montego bay that don't make it into the tourist brochures welcome to jamaica day three of the state of emergency two weeks before i arrived the governor here declared a state of emergency crime has increased a lot frankly spurred by gang warfare mostly organized crime the area surrounding montego bay the tourist paradise now has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world welcome to the sun very good with an uptick in crime in saint james what's causing much of this violence isn't drugs or politics it's a new hustle what are the gangs fighting for they are fighting for loot from lotus garden lottery scams you're probably familiar with some version you get a call saying you won a lottery that you don't even remember entering you have won yourself 7.5 million dollars in a 2019 mercedes-benz s-class ah that's pretty exciting all you need to do to collect whatever they're promising your millions your new car your new house is to send a processing fee the price is fake of course but the fee you've been content to pay generates 300 million dollars a year for jamaican scammers guys suddenly who didn't have anything yesterday to the iraq rich scamming now rivals the drug trade as a lucrative and violent source of revenue for jamaican gangs [Music] i wanted to understand what's referred to here as the game meet the players see how it's played word of wisdom enjoy jamaica the best of jamaica but be careful we grew under a culture of informa for dead that mean an informer giving information must die [Music] mark warned me that it would be difficult to get people to talk about the game but the rise of scamming can be measured in another popular aspect of jamaican culture [Music] in a neighborhood called steertown i met with this man local dance hall artist exclusive the latest entry in a growing musical subgenre dancehall tracks celebrate the danger easy money and fast lifestyle associated with scamming culture let's talk about what's the general theme of the song [Music] might not go well but there's a lot of scamming in it i mean the word scamming comes up a lot in the song and it's the most no it's a song that gets you hyped i decide not to push it it's enough to know that the man whose breakout hits became a scamming anthem doesn't want to talk about scamming [Music] but that same night i meet a man who says he knows someone who can help [Music] which is how i wind up in a car with a man i'll just call vee v knows a lot about scamming but he's skittish as hell okay make absolutely sure we don't film his face or anything that identifies him he'll probably say that i am in farmer in form of it dead in farmers get gone shot kill them as it turns out v wants to take me for a little history lesson of scamming in jamaica this complex all around us these are all call centers for all of us for american european companies it all starts here in call centers [Music] call centers were set up on the island to take advantage of the fact that jamaicans speak english and receive lower wages but a few local entrepreneurs saw another opportunity the lists of names and phone numbers used for telemarketing political donations market research and debt collection can also be used for scamming these lead lists as they're called are the backbone of the game they're valuable and here in jamaica they're bought and sold underground so these are some of the places where they're getting the contact lists yes after earning v's trust he tells me he can introduce me to someone who has even more knowledge about scamming he leads me to an abandoned house far from the beaches and tourists this is how i meet tweetie hi clegeman i'm marianna hi tweety nice to meet you hi juliana nice nails i'm greeted with weed and even stronger rums this is what i'm drinking fire tweety and her friend juliana not their real names agreed to talk to me about the game so what would happen if they found out who you were that you were doing this world of faith in jamaica we don't play friends still first you want our family own family set you up jamaica is not a plea pin by day tweety works at one of the many resorts on the island she wouldn't tell us which one but says she makes in a month what tourists pay for a one-night stay they ain't paying you nothing ain't giving you right going to work it's like slavery you have to do something else on the side so everywhere you go is a scamming so what is it that you do on the side though mcallister dominarily said as it turns out the hospitality industry is great preparation for scamming all day long tweety is interacting with mostly american clients so i basically know how to talk to you or to get into your head then after hours in her free time tweety opens up her lead list names and numbers and addresses in the united states americans because you have the us big money puppy big money public big money right no disrespect but white people love free things no disrespect taken tweety doesn't want to show me her lead lists they're closely guarded here in jamaica but after a little more rum and smoke she and her friend juliana loosen up and show me her wrap hello good morning your crash prize will wear off 3.5 million or even a car or whatever you know another person you'd probably say oh really i don't believe it you're totally lying you're probably thinking how does anyone fall for this but there is a definite profile of a victim that tweety has identified some people photographers not even not hesitated because they're just so lonely and miserable husband divorced husband his dead wife is gone whatever the case may be so most of them lonely are they all older people all older people one elderly lady i took everything that she so called her right and she only had a one thing that was her wedding ring that roseman died and you know left for her she went and she sold her ring to send you the money yeah to send me the money people say it's wrong and it's not to me it's not wrong you send us money once you didn't receive anything you send us money twice he still hasn't received anything are you crazy these people are stupid sorry but they're stupid brash unrepentant cold that's how tweety sounds when talking about stealing from lonely old people but her posture quickly changes when she tells me how she first got into scamming my grandpa was sick and the surgery cost 400 000 jamaican dollars and he died all he needed was a surgery and it couldn't happen because of money this is way less than the money that i'm making right now you know grow up in our church and waiting on god to provide i'm god in providing i'm god for my family i'm god i provide i put food on that table i did all of that and if god don't approve of me making something out of myself then oh god [Music] with the state of emergency driving most scammers further underground i was grateful for the chance to meet tweety but the crazy thing about my job is that one minute you find yourself trying to understand the scammer and the next you're with the people charged with hunting them down all right everybody here the target is described as totally built ground complexion will be searching and seizing all electronic devices laptops cell phones magic jacks banking documents warrants we don't need awards the target location falls within the state of emergency he should be on high alert just in case the target chooses to shoot his way out [Music] lottery scams have led to violence in jamaica and caused untold damage abroad in almost every corner of america you can find new stories of those targeted it's a crime that preys on the most vulnerable and the victims often lose their entire life it's no secret that these cameras go after older americans it was a great american dream to win some money where you could retire their methods can be ruthless the results tragic after being asked for yet another 1500 more dollars to claim his prize poland put a gun to his head and killed himself [Music] as a result of awful stories like these the u.s government has partnered with this task force so once you enter the community it's already sort of a risk right right people start making phone calls informing their cronies the police are on way so we have to get there as quickly as possible okay we're here over here don't get out of the cart wow he's got his gun pointed right out the door [Music] oh they just broke into the house through this side door right here come come come here hello hello hello hello sir sir sir sir sir relax hello yeah man sit down sit down sit down come on camera come here we're going to conduct a search of your premises we are searching for lots of scamming paraphernalia credit cards credit card burners those type of things [Music] you think this is real gold come on a rolex this is also a rolex you see this a lot well yeah for large scammers yes yes a brand new car this is evidence that this young man tried to destroy when the police tried to head off was it submerging underwater you threw it in the shower wow so it actually has somebody's name and you can see this whole conversation that they had and it says welcome miss ella your account balance is 17 500 000 you are subjected to pay the authorization fee totaling 120 000 as soon as possible and they're promising that they will receive over 17 million dollars lots of scammers believe in a lot of phobia you could probably call it black magic what we see here is a lot of cans that they use to practice orbia this one is actually called the million dollar spray million dollar spray right and if you spray it you can make less with million dollars they believe they believe so wow some of these are incredible look at this one famous double fast luck spray this one is called bring back customers the state of emergency led to an uptick of arrests like these some of the bigger players have even been extradited to face justice in the united states all in all it's a tense time to be a scammer in jamaica which isn't making it any easier for me to meet more of them but then i was invited to meet a local boss a man who runs a crew of scammers we arranged to meet at a hillside hideout only a few miles from jamaica's rum soaked resorts [Music] it's like a bunch of guys with masks waiting for us can't tell if they're armed or not but we should probably go hi okay all good this is the microphone as we approach the meeting spot it's clear the boss isn't taking any chances so we keep going this way [Music] [Music] hi yo hi mariana what would you like me to call you call me victor victor okay can i ask you what the g is for i say it's a freemason sign but i think it for being a gangster so you're proud of that of course can i put a mic on you victor okay thank you so these guys we're surrounded by one two three at least three that i can see three guys they are my bodyguards light up they're holding me down what guns are used to protect ak's ar-15s tommy guns automatic blocks my gun is a glock 40 it's my baby so what do you do victor you know what i do i'm in the game you call this can we call it the money game how long have you been in the money game for more than 12 years we just left high school we didn't have no jobs at the time and we were getting so much trouble so we decided to want to try something new do you remember the first time you did it oh sure on the phones i met a guy i think his name was mike first time he sent me like a 500 i couldn't believe it the first day of my life in this game the amount of money i see since those early days victor has risen to become what he describes as a mid-level boss how has the state of emergency affected you guys oh my team of the scatter man otherwise you would come and see about 20 guys right here right now really i have more than 200 people under my organization 200 people working for probably more no way of course behind all the swagger is a young man who says he grew up on the rough side of montego bay with very few options the most reason why we do this is just for survival we have such a huge history of being broke and stuff like that things taken from us so you know i mean sometimes we just look at it as taking some back in other words reparations the idea that scamming white people is payback for a brutal history of slavery and colonialism it's a justification that i heard from tweedy as well it's also the title of perhaps the biggest scammer anthem of them all [Music] have you ever had to hurt anyone because of scaring i never really have to take anyone's life this coming but i really roughed up and hurt people and stuff like that i'm just finding a way to make some money otherwise i'll be going out there trying to rob somebody i wasn't even thinking about doing it today but i'm thinking a very nice person so we're thinking of taking our cameras [Applause] you were thinking of taking our cameras of course i don't know how to feel about this it's okay marianna you're a very cool kid i like you thank you victor do you think there's more money being made through by scamming than in the drug business here of course scammers make more money than job leaders are like small time source if they see us at the party they got to go corner they're jealous of us we bought harder than these guys all the girls flex to us not them we have the hardest girls man over the next several days i meet with a handful of other scammers and they're all full of surprises so first question is why these masks me personally i'm a fan of donald you're a fan of donald trump i think he's an honest person whereas most u.s president still lies i think he's showing the true nature of america the trump twins are actually college-educated brothers another woman i meet had turned to scamming when she couldn't make enough money as a hair stylist to raise her four kids there's no shame in it it's wrong but there's no shame in it what fascinates me most are the day-to-day details of their work every day every day you call 284 people every day at its heart scamming is a sales job only a tiny percentage of calls are going to generate cash of those people that you call how many of them sometimes i get like two or one if i'm lucky i got three so volume is key okay so it's an excel sheet and the excel sheet is called client so there's a nancy clarissa ronda paula alice just saying the first names first just first names this is crazy so wait we're at 4500 and i'm still scrolling much like sales it helps to know how to close the deal too this man who says he's made millions scamming has a special trip after telling his marks that they've won a mercedes the key for the car you you actually send the key like a fake mercedes yeah the best scammers are relentless but they're also intuitive quickly assessing what the voice on the other line really wants most of the times compensation something free money everybody wants money everybody everybody wants to drive a flashy car guns they like to have more people always need more with little more than a burner phone and some gumption scammers can reach across oceans and wreak havoc on the lives of ordinary people welcome to the dark side of globalization [Music] half a world away i was about to get a glimpse of an even more lucrative type of scamming [Music] while scamming in jamaica brings in hundreds of millions of dollars a year scamming in israel is reported to bring in billions i want to know how it works what's happening you can see him okay everyone ready he's driving up guys i arranged to meet with a man who was described to me as a big player in the scamming industry i'm told he's made a fortune running various investment companies all of which specialize in financial fraud i was also told to be very careful hi hello thank you so much for meeting us i'm mariana where should it go you have a phone i do about to have it okay i don't want to be trucked so you're going to turn it off just do it to me i'll take care of it okay i've interviewed hundreds of people through the years moshik was the first to ever take away my phone i asked him to give me the scammer store of tel aviv we're in the ramadan area known as the diamond district in buildings like this and all these skyscrapers you see they have hundreds and hundreds of people that go to work each day selling fake investments to people around the world in a lot of these buildings that look completely legitimate there's actually all this from any of the companies there are just fake scams with a name that makes them look real no one knows what's going on behind closed door is it an open secret you seem to know do people in tel aviv and israel know no they don't want to attract attention they don't want reporters calling them it's a massive massive fraud they want to be under the radar [Music] how many of these companies fraudulent scamming companies do you think they are israel yeah no way holy sh while the lottery scam in jamaica is the go-to con in israel it's all about the investment scam the depth of this fraud was first uncovered by simona weinglas an investigative journalist who was tipped off by a source working at a scam investment company he told me that there wasn't just one company like this but there were hundreds and they were stealing billions of dollars it sounded crazy it turned out to be true just like in jamaica simona says the investment scams in israel often start with call centers and lead lists employees at these seemingly legitimate companies cold call potential clients and get them to invest in an exciting trading opportunity you start to trade you'll see your account going up and up the retention agent will keep talking to you and getting you to put more and more money in and then eventually when they sense that you're not going to put any more money in they just disappear with the money josh you work for a company getting clients and lying to clients and scamming clients yes i found one of these agents who was willing to talk to me if we agreed not to reveal his identity we'll call him josh where do you find the clients how do you so somebody's searching a certain thing through google like somebody is just looking about finance we know that this person is interested in finance so we catch them they catch them with ads and websites like this that look like legitimate and professional trading platforms and often promise easy trading and profits you convince these people to invest with you and then after they give you the money that you want you sort of disappear we actually don't disappear we work with them for a while we really show them the growth so they can put more and more and more at any point is that money actually invested in anything or is that money no so it's all a lot yeah the money was never in your account to begin with there never was an account this company was probably not where they said it was josh works in one popular version of an investment scam which is often sold as a binary option not all binary options trading is fraudulent and the scam version itself runs the spectrum from misleading investors to the outright theft that josh and simona describe but binary options fraud became so pervasive that both the security and exchange commission and the fbi were forced to issue warnings to investors and over the past year alone the u.s justice department has charged at least 15 binary option agents around the globe israeli scammers have allegedly stolen billions do you ever feel guilty about what you do yes i i hug me sleep my soul is like telling me fighting against what i'm doing on my actions on one occasion josh claims he was so wracked by guilt at how much money he'd already stolen from a canadian client that he actually called the authorities to prevent the client from transferring any more money and did anyone find out that you did that no what would have happened to you if they did uh i would have not been sitting here right now either i will be killed or something like that you'd be killed yes is it that serious it is very dangerous he says his soul is crushed by guilt and that he works under the threat of violence and yet he keeps scamming because he keeps 10 to 15 of any money he brings in it's a huge amount of money how many of these companies do you think exist here in israel now the industry has gone underground they're not as open i hear from people that these call centers are still everywhere jobs for multilinguals in israel let's see what shows up looking for hardworking fluent english speakers enthusiastic and assertive who are looking to make a lot of money a younger dynamic atmosphere with snacks for the snacks alone i'm going to send an email to this one so apart from people like you who's benefiting from this i know there are a lot of mafias involved in this from georgia russia israel of course hi this is maria flores yes maria flores i emailed about a job position if i wanted to go to one of these companies and film undercover inside and say that i'm applying for a job what should i say while you're applying something maybe so i've got my little button camera right here i've got the mic pack all right let's roll on it while applying for jobs at what i suspect might be a scam investment company i've turned to josh for advice on how to get my foot in the door you can say that i know how to do sales and probably you can get it not in the actual trading no there's agents who don't know anything single word about trading you just know how to sell i worked in translations as an interpreter i also worked at a carpet rugs company where i was dealing with very rich clients [Music] should i be concerned about my security if they find out on filming under recovery yes what do you think they could do there are no limits what what about worst damage you think you can you can get off i mean if i i could be hurt or killed exactly so that's it that's the answer for your questions have we thought this through guys this for better or worse is where my curiosity gets the better of me what could these places possibly look like from the inside there's only one way to find out so maria flores i was born in 87 i'm moving to tel aviv with my boyfriend which is jacob he's israeli i'm applying for a sales job at this company you're my friend and you're helping me with hebrew yeah sounds good yeah my wing woman for this operation is an amazing local producer whose name and identity we've agreed not to disclose so i've got my little button camera right here i've got the mic pack this gets really hot so i don't want to turn it on early yep definitely nervous just can't wait for this to be over so you're constantly thinking that maybe they're going to realize that you're filming even though they probably aren't all right let's roll on it you see it yeah okay so it's recording now wish me luck guys [Music] oh my god [Music] this is it okay so we're here it sounds like there's a party going on in there right yeah there's music in it hi how are you i'm here to meet you i am oh you're waiting for me hi how are you nice to meet you this is the man i had corresponded with over email this is a nice office [Music] we can't know for sure that this is a scam company but our sources told us to be on the lookout for certain clues like a blind emphasis on sales and assurances that no knowledge of finance is required obviously sales oh definitely that's where you come from right you come from sales yeah my only fear is that i don't know anything about the forex market most of my guys here didn't have any qualifications or financial industry really okay so it's not that hard so what are you looking for what kind of characteristics would you want to make a lot of money that's very important great so all i need is to want money okay then the manager arrives hi nice to meet you too and get straight to the point you're working for a platform okay people here are making up to 150 000 per month wait how much how much money can i make here you want it in your store it can be up to thirty thousand dollars a month okay not bad for an entry-level job again it's hard to say for certain that this is a scam company but for an investment firm they sure have a funny approach to customer service it's important for me to tell you right now because i don't want you to have a wrong idea about this place you don't care if the client is making money or losing money you just want them to trade okay this is how the system is making money okay i will tell you from now on there are two things that you're going let's say to lie about them okay first of all your location uh and your personal name sales people at scam companies are ordered to sell under fake names they're also told to lie about the company's location the scammers say they're new york london zurich but never ever israel if you don't know who you're dealing with or where they're located it's very hard to get your money back he kept looking at my boobs can you believe it i was thinking are they looking at my boobs or the camera or my necklaces or what's happening okay guys okay the good news is that i was hired i can start as early as next week nice i mean super shady i'm so happy it's over as we drive through tel aviv i realize the city skyline provides the perfect white collar camouflage so much of the business world looks and sounds the same the offices the branding the button downs and yet some not small number of these normal looking people are on their way to normal looking cubicles where they'll spend their days stealing money from innocent people around the world and for what so they can buy a big ass yacht [Music] on my last day in tel aviv i caught up with moshiko to try and understand how he justifies the lifestyle he's chosen [Music] i thought people wire me half a million dollars and in three months i might send them back to 30 000 and they think they've had a bad experience with financial markets there's no part of you that feels bad about this you're taking away the last 200 000 from joe the mechanic who's worked all his life for this month joe the mechanic thinks it's responsible to send 200 000 to a website that he hasn't checked out joe the mechanic needs to be responsible for his decisions so moshiko you seem like a very smart person who's obviously has no problem making money why do why do it this way well can you make a million dollars in a week from home come on you live one life why should i spend my whole life working making 50 000 a year when i can sit here and i can enjoy my life how much money do you think you've made from this most i made in one day was three hundred thousand dollars ten plus years i have probably brought in 75 to 100 million dollars mushiko says that scamming is here to stay it's an inconvenient truth about the globalized worlds just like pc barnum said what's uh there's a sucker born every minute you know who else said that to us the jamaican scammer the exact same line that's absolutely true [Music] hello hey adam uh-huh brace yourself are you embraced you've won 19.42 million us dollars how'd you feel okay how is that possible adam do you eat out yeah are you vegetarian uh-huh oh my god adam you ran your credit card at a whole food store have you had whole foods recently yeah all the time adam you've won you won what are you gonna do with 19.42 million dollars hey adam if you're watching i want you to know that this call is a scam out of the sucker adam you're not a sucker but the guys on the other line are hoping really hoping that you are i would be shocked to i don't never want anything man are you so lucky they make a living in a way that's obviously wrong but imagine waking up every morning and seeing a bunch of tourists spending more money in a week than you make in a year and then going home to a place outside resort walls that were erected to keep you out historically i don't think about the scales now imagine all this is wrapped in a history of slavery and exploitation a legacy that is very much alive and well there's been no compensation for colonialism in the 400 years of survivor it's reverse imperialism reverse imperialism yeah we're taking resources that are readily available most youth are unemployed if you have a phony of a chance if you have a phone you have a chance it's the most powerful rationalization i've heard phone scamming as a last resort a literal lifeline [Music] even so most scammers i met seemed to struggle with what they do jungle out here [Music] i know tweety [Music] does almost there and almost here good spider web [Music] just down here yeah you good this is really cool yeah so you're in jamaica you have black magic everywhere we believe in wash-offs so we are washing off the crust is the bad look so this is to ward off the evil spirits right we call them black people you guys say ghost right ghost yeah and you mix that with water okay [Music] well it's getting worse wow it's raining it's raining a lot i'm gonna join you since i'm totally wet already anyway there's no point in me pretending here i've spent a lot of time with people like tweedy telling stories of those who make a living on the wrong side of the law all too often the people who inhabit these worlds are painted as ruthless criminals immoral villains bad people but in my experience they are a lot more like us than we want to admit some people are very hard some people have it easy it's all life is new beginning everything is a scam everybody takes their piece who's making money off of these industries everyone you fund entire countries what will make you stop doing this if i'm a billionaire i'll be done [Music] no it's too much fun how do you think this is going to end for you that's that's it it's life [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 1,811,463

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, trafficked with mariana van zeller, mariana van zeller, national geographic channel, black market, trafficked with mariana van zeller full episode steroids, mariana van zeller full episodes, nat geo 101

Id: ivWUZf2-M_U

Length: 47min 22sec (2842 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022