[ Voice ]There's been an attempt to steal around $500 from your account
[ VO ]Trust no one, particularly the strangers calling you.
[ Voice ]This is Sberbank security service. I’m a junior specialist. My name’s Nikolay.
[ VO ]If they ask you for card details, hang up.
[ Voice ]This is social security administration, and I’m…
[ VO ]If they introduce themselves as a bank and offer a new loan, hang up.
[ Voice ]This is Cheat investigation share right up my speaking with
[ VO ]The person on the other end claims to be an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Prosecutor’s
Office and asks you to help with an investigation and transfer your money to a third-party account. Hang up.
[ Voice ]Hello, sir! My name is Janie Williams, from Microsoft Windows, OK?
[ Voice ]Social Security Administration, this is officer David Brown How can I help you?
IN YEAR 2020, CYBER- AND PHONE SCAMMERS STOLE 50 BILLION ROUBLES FROM RUSSIAN CITIZENS
[ Voice ]I’m calling about your application to change your financial phone number, made 7 minutes ago,
[ VO ]This film is about the people who appeared to be too gullible and the people
who steal money from those incautious. And a little about a retribution.
IN YEAR 2020, CYBER- AND PHONE SCAMMERS STOLE 50 BILLION ROUBLES FROM RUSSIAN CITIZENS
[ Voice ]This is the remained recall from Amazon. Thank you for
reviewing prime account and you have been charged 79.799
CYBERCRIME
[ VO ]Kolkata is a huge megalopolis in North-East India. It’s not only colonial architecture and yellow
“ambassador” cabs that it is famous for. It’s been recently referred to as the capital of the Internet fraud.
[ VO ]A whole district, known as ‘Sector 5’ has become home to hundreds
of scammers. Their victims live thousands of kilometers away from
India – in Great Britain, the USA and Canada. That’s why there is light on all nights long in many windows of Sector 5 buildings.
[ VO ]Shifts start here when a day dawns on another continent.
[ Nagarjuna ] This is Sector 5,
Salt Lake City
[ Nagarjuna ]OK, let's get going
[ Nagarjuna ]We've just made a U-turn from here, and I'm holding a camera
[ Nagarjuna ]Everyone is looking around, very suspicious, very scared... It's
really hard to film here because everybody is scared to show
their faces, because everyone knows they are doing illegal things.
NAGARJUNA REDDI INDIAN JOURNALIST
[ VO ]Nagarjuna is a local journalist who researches on the topic of the Internet fraud. He’s trying to find out
how this illegal business works. In Kolkata, he managed to meet some former employees of scam call centers.
[ Nagarjuna ]It's a scam call center There is a bank ATM
here... a security guard, who is just watching
[ Employee ]So, at that time, I heard from a friend that there was a vacancy
at the call center. I decided to work there to earn some money
[ Employee ]Let me explain how fraudulent call centers work in Kolkata
[ Employee ]Their number here is soaring and there's no end in sight.
FRAUDULENT CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEE, SECTOR 5, KOLKATA, INDIA
[ Employee ]It's the main way many young people make a living - it's easy money 80-85% of
young people do this in some way Some start call centers. Others work for existing
ones, saying they're Windows, Amazon, or internet tech support The scams take
various forms The most dangerous thing is victims don't get that it's a scam
[ VO ]This is what a scam often looks like. You receive a voice massage or an e-mail saying “You are
entitled to a Microsoft payment” or “Someone is making purchases using your Amazon account.”
[ Voice ]Hi! This is the remind re-call from Amazon.
[ VO ]A surprised customer calls back to learn that he is about to be charged
for a new online subscription. The victim is indignant. The scammers
are certainly understanding and cancel the service. Moreover, they
offer to refund a few hundreds of dollars for the unused service.
[ Employee ]They ask the victim to open the bank account page. Manipulating the figures the
client sees on the screen with remote access, the scammers make sure the client
sees 3000 dollars allegedly transferred to his bank account instead of 300. Though,
of course, no one has transferred any money to anyone. If only the client had
refreshed the page, it would have all returned to its original state. And then the
scammer will ask to send back the money allegedly transferred. And he will say:
“Sir, please, send the money back. Or I’ll lose my job.” And they offer different
ways of sending the money back: gift certificates, eh, Western Union and so on.
[ Employee ]So actually, if...
[ Employee ]Well, on average, when I make 100 calls,
a maximum of two percent will be successful
[ Employee ]Thirty percent of these 100 calls will be mishandled
[ VO ]In Russia scammers make direct calls themselves, as a rule. It’s not long until you receive such
a call. Almost everyone gets to know an alleged “Security Service of the bank” sooner or later.
[ Voice ]There is an attempt to transfer $75 from your personal bank
account, to someone called Oleg Kuzmin - Do you confirm the operation?
[ Artyom ] No, I don't!
[ Stanislav ] Our Cybersecurity service has created what we believe is a very powerful department,
which is called 'Front Monitoring', where we monitor non-standard operations.
[ STANISLAV KUZNETSOV, BOARD DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, SBERBANK ]When people, who have been scammed by these
conversations, transfer some money, we mark the
transaction as suspicious, stop it, and contact our client
[ CYBERSECURITY CALL CENTRE OPERATOR, SBERBANK ]Diana Aleksandrovna? Yes, speaking...
[ Operator ]Good day, my name's Anastasia, with Sberbank We're verifying
your account transactions Have you done any online transactions today?
[ Diana ]I'm sick and tired of you! I've been getting calls all morning, from the bank and the
prosecutor's office Why are you bothering me? I've already given you all the information I can
[ Diana ]I'm fed up with these calls [ Operator ]Did you give them
the card number, the 3 digits on the back, and expiration date?
[ Diana ]Of course! It was required for the investigation.
[ Diana ]Aleksey Ivanovich told me they needed all the data.
[ Diana ]I gave them both of my card's details, and 3 cards in other banks.
[ Operator ]Diana Aleksandrovna, you talked to a scammer. Your card has now been suspended. A bank employee never asks for card
verification information, such as the card number, the three digits on the back of the card, and the expiration date. Such
data is requested only by scammers to make transactions on the
Internet. Also, Diana Aleksandrovna, you need to go to the offices
of your other banks or call their contact centers and have
your cards blocked. The money on your Sberbank account is safe.
[ Stanislav ]Today, a criminal call center engaged in social fraud...
employs between 5-7... even up to 30-40 people, who call their clients non-stop
[ Stanislav ]We believe every 100th call reaches its
objective, and the client starts talking... to this criminal
STANISLAV KUZNETSOV BOARD DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, SBERBANK
[ Stanislav ]And the person is then dragged into a conversation, aimed at convincing them they
have a problem If there's a problem, there's a fast way to fix it Some present
themselves... as the police, some the bank's security service, some as a loan officer,
and some as a social security employee In this situation, people tend to lose control
[ Maria ]I want to talk to a lawyer... Specifically, her!
[ VO ]Maria Evgenyevna lost vigilance along with her savings of
more than 1 mln roubles. More importantly, the scammers managed to
convince her to take a loan of another 2 mln roubles and use her only small flat in the outskirts of Moscow as a security deposit.
[ MARIA VITACHEK VICTIM OF FRAUD ]I woke up, picked up the phone and said:
'Who is it?' He later said he was Sergey He told me he was part of a group...
from some kind of bank fraud enforcement task force
[ Maria ]Why did I listen? You know, everyone gets a different story
[ Maria ]Some say the bank has already lost your savings! But my savings
needed to be transferred to a safe, secure account He was from
the team combatting these scammers, and I needed to go to my bank
[ Maria ]He said he'd meet me there and tell me where to transfer the
money And so I went... The bank clerk I was talking to didn't want
to give me that much She said straight away: 'Why are you
withdrawing all your money at once?' Very important... urgent, I said
[ VO ]The fraudsters were scamming Maria Evgenyevna out of money for days. In doing so, they
insisted that the woman shouldn’t tell anyone about the calls and she believed them.
[ VO ]The scammers are shrewd psychologists and manipulators. Moreover, modern remote fraud
is basically a craft with specific stages and mechanisms and even training manuals.
[ Aleksandr ]Today on the web, there are about half a dozen active groups that are engaged in such activities.
ALEKSANDR VURASKO INFORMATION SECURITY EXPERT, INFOSECURITY
[ Aleksandr ]Here is an example of one such community which has around two thousand members. Here, people
talk to each other, discuss pressing problems, discuss the details of how and who should
be scammed. They ask technical questions. There are manuals, i.e. prepared scripts on how
to interact with victims. A person may not know how to communicate with a potential victim,
but they will be given such information. A completely untrained person, who has no idea
using the ready-made tools. And the most interesting thing is, as you can see, there's no
cost or skill involved in committing them. But investigating such frauds is quite difficult.
[ VO ]These are the most precious tools of an internet scammer: a script of an
interaction with a victim with the most common conversation scenarios.
[ Voice ]Is it easy to find work in such call centers?
[ FRAUDULENT CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEE, SECTOR 5, KOLKATA, INDIA ]Yes, it is. They are on every
corner, on every street. There is always someone who can recommend you. And in every office
of this kind, they can teach you how to scam people. It can take ten days to prepare.
[ Employee ]Well, in a month at the most, they will explain how to behave, how to talk, how to deceive.
[ Employee ]It was easy for me to scam someone out of money the first time. It was my first experience.
[ Voice ]How did you feel?
[ Employee ] Good! It's my job. After that, I got my salary
[ Voice ]Didn’t you feel ashamed?
[ Employee ]No... No...
[ FRAUDULENT CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEE, SECTOR 5, KOLKATA, INDIA ]Absolutely
not! This is my job. I have to do it. After that, I received my paycheck.
[ Andrey ]Now we're going to bait a scammer
[ Andrey ]I’m now creating an ad at a ‘lost and found’ website that I lost my documents and a phone near Mitino metro station.
[ ANDREY HOST 'CLIPS ABOUT SCAMS' YOUTUBE CHANNEL ] So, we’ll wait and see if any ‘finders’ call us.
[ Voice ]What is their scamming scheme, in general? What will they do? They’ll call you and then what?
[ Andrey ]They’ll say that they found it. They may meet with you, but they won’t bring cash, because maybe you’d
bring police along and claim that you didn’t lose it, but it was stolen, and you’d accuse them. So, they
encourage you to find a payment terminal, put your money on a given account. And then, after you put your
money there, someone would bring your stuff and give it to you. Obviously, that’s not going to happen.
[ Andrey ]Hello? [ Voice ]Did you lose your documents?
[ Andrey ]Yes, I did! I posted an ad literally a minute ago. Yes, I did lose them.
[ Voice ]What if I come and you bring the cops? - Me? With the police? No!
[ Andrey ]Here's another call!
[ Andrey ]Hello? [ Voice ]Go to hell!
[ Andrey ]Anything you'd like to add? Go on, I'm listening
[ Voice ]Shut up! - I will not!
[ Voice ]You'd better change your stupid voice. It's too well known
[ Andrey ]What do you mean?
[ Voice ] Damn you! - Will you ever quit insulting me?
[ Andrey ]See? I got 2 calls at once. One recognised me and bailed
[ Voice ] Really? What did he say? - It's all messed up
[ Voice ] Did he recognise your voice? - I guess. What else?
[ VO ]These are the popularity’s downsides. The criminals recognise the scammer hunter by voice. Thanks to hundreds
of thousands of views on his YouTube channel. The videos, however, aren’t too creative. Andrey discovers
a new kind of scamming, leaves his contact number, and then acts as if he’s a usual victim — all for just
a few seconds of fury and desperation of the scammers when they realise that it was them who got scammed.
[ Voice ] You'll find out all about scammers. Think about it!
[ Voice ] I'll run your phone number against the database, and show you!
[ Andrey ]You'd rather s**t yourself
[ Voice ] If your number is billed to you, listen carefully to me: you're done!
[ Voice ] Why are these videos so popular?
[ Andrey ]Well, I think it’s because of my charisma. I look like a
loser, and when people watch my videos, they think it
can’t get more realistic. That’s what gets people so
engaged. They watch it, and all the way through, they feel that
a scammer realises their ‘catch’ is about to slip off
the hook. And later, when in the end I put all my cards on
the table, the scammer gets tricked, and they are mad
about it — that is probably the viewers’ most favourite part.
[ Voice ] And when they realise that they’ve been tricked, what do they say?
[ Andrey ]I don’t think I can say that on television. But they weren’t mild about it. When I play a
role of a guy whose car was stolen or something, I get into a character so much that when
they start to yell, I sometimes get really scared, because I can’t jump out of character
so fast. Sometimes, I might even get all sweaty because of their aggression and pressure.
[ VO ]But the popularity of Andrey and his channel pale in comparison to YouTubers who
turned playing pranks on scammers into a special kind of web art. Some YouTubers
get millions of subscribers and tremendous number of views due to them wasting
hours of scammers’ time until they get hysterical. Some sort of an Internet revenge.
[ Voice ]Why did you do this!?
[ Voice ]Let me go ahead and show you the next card, Steve!
[ Voice ]Are you mad?
[ Voice ]Are you mad? Why are you deleting cards?
[ Voice ]Hello! Steve?
[ Voice ] Is that you? - Are you mad?
[ Voice ] WHY are you deleting cards!? - Let me scratch after the next one. Hold on!
[ Voice ]Why are you deleting!?
[ ARTYOM VOROBEY MAKER OF THE DOCUMENTARY ]We want to verify each
other's ID Is there a way to prove that you're a Sberbank employee?
[ Voice ]Mr. Vorobey, I don’t have to prove you anything. As for now — tell me, are you going through
the verification process, or should we document it as a refusal to cooperate with the bank?
[ Artyom ]I'm just wondering: your scripts haven't been updated for 6
months! You're saying the same thing I heard last September
[ Artyom ]Honestly, tell me the percentage of people you get on the phone,
who actually reach the 'verification step', as you call it?
[ Artyom ]1 out of 100? 10 out of 100? What percentage, approximately?
[ Voice ]Artyom, what are you talking about? Don't you have
a personal life? You could've used this time better...
[ Artyom ]You won't believe it, but it's for my work… Talking to
you is for my work No doubt, unwillingly... you're in a
documentary about internet scammers I can't tell you
the date it will air yet, but I think you'll recognise yourself
[ Voice ]Well, Mr. Vorobey, in that case, tell me, what kind of work is that?
[ Aleksandr ]It can’t be done without an efficient set of
tools. Otherwise, it’s quite time-consuming. That
means a scammer would have to find ways to withdraw
money. They must have bank cards and accounts in
payment systems registered to dummy figures. They
must create fake social media accounts. Not everyone
can do it. This business took a path of development
which is called CAAS — Cybercrime as a service.
[ Nagarjuna ]This floor where lights are on...
they're working the night shift
[ Nagarjuna ]It's a call center targeting US and UK citizens
[ Nagarjuna ]So right there are two floors of this office
[ Nagarjuna ]You can see the lights are on... Business is ongoing, people are working inside
[ VO ]Nagarjun’s attempt at investigating the work of scammers’ call centers
in Kolkata ended with the journalist being brought to a police station.
[ Nagarjuna ]When we were strolling down the road, we met someone, a guy... He works in a scam call center.
NAGARJUNA REDDI INDIAN JOURNALIST
[ Nagarjuna ]He got furious after I asked him this question: do you
know anything about scam call centers, or do you work
in one? He became furious. Then, he dialed a number
on his phone I think he had a friend in the local police.
[ Nagarjuna ]He said: 'Do you know who I am? Let me show you! I'm calling the police'
[ Nagarjuna ]They took me to the police station
[ VO ]After that incident, the journalist felt that he’d better drop his investigation and leave Kolkata.
[ Voice ]Anyway, why do people continue to work at fraudulent call centers?
[ FRAUDULENT CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEE, SECTOR 5, KOLKATA, INDIA ]Because there aren't many ways
to make money here People who sweat at honest jobs, make 10-12,000 rupees a month, while
the scammers make 100, 200, 300 thousand for the same
period Here, young teenagers roll the streets in expensive cars
FRAUDULENT CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEE, SECTOR 5, KOLKATA, INDIA
[ Voice ]Do you remember your 1st call? [ Employee ]Yes, of course
[ Voice ]Tell me about it [ Employee ]The first man... He was an old man
[ Employee ]We fooled him, of course
[ Employee ]Like a... We took 15,000 pounds... No! 1,500 or
maybe 2000 pounds We scammed him He was an old man
and I feel bad for him, but... It's my job, so I
need to do it, otherwise my salary will go on hold.
[ Employee ]I feel bad for him, but... I had no other choice I'm not ashamed of doing this job,
because once the British people did the same in India Maybe, it's karma for them
[ Employee ]They're experiencing karma now And they have to pay back. What you do in this world,
you have to pay back That's their karma I'm not at all ashamed of doing this job
[ ALEKSANDR VURASKO INFORMATION SECURITY EXPERT, INFOSECURITY ]People who do this don't think of
their victims as real people They don't see them as real people. They think they're dinosaurs
[ Maria ]He claimed the government needed it... for helping society... The money
would be returned, of course, with a letter of gratitude and even an award.
MARIA VITACHEK VICTIM OF FRAUD
[ Maria ]I said I didn't need anything. I just wanted this
tiring fuss to be over! But they kept saying, it was the
'last day' and they needed a little more time to catch
them. Then we'd all meet and celebrate. That's how it went.
[ VO ]Maria Evgenyevna’s case is not over yet. She is getting legal counsel. First
of all, lawyers are trying to challenge an exorbitant loan against her flat.
[ Anastasia ]We hope a criminal case will be initiated for
[ ANASTASIA SHTERN LAWYER ] fraud against that microfinancing organisation that issues
such loans, because unfortunately, there are a lot of people like Maria Evgenyevna
out there: not one, or two, or three. All of them are old pensioners who make a large
portion of population. And we still hope that law enforcement will react to this,
initiate a criminal case and at least begin to investigate people who issue such loans.
[ Anastasia ]And that she will get her property back, along with at least some compensation for
emotional distress damages. Our main goal is to save her flat, and then do our best
to get her a compensation for emotional damages inflicted by those criminal actions.
[ Maria ]It is stated that the monthly payment is 80 thousand roubles. But
within brackets, it says 180 thousand. An extra ‘1’, can you imagine?
[ VO ]But so far, the lawyers’ efforts have been to no avail. The pensioner has got a great unsustainable debt. Obviously,
her money is still gone, but now they can take away her flat.
[ Voice ]...Sberbank tech services, senior specialist Sergey Fyodorov speaking...
... a report from the Central Bank re article No. 159 Pt. 2 of Russia's Criminal Code...
...we're seeing a $30 transaction on your account right now...