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Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Erin West: The Romance-Crypto Scam Taking Over - "Pig Butchering" Explained
00:46:26
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- [00:00]
Erin West
The tragedy of it is that people don't know that this is happening. It is the silent killer. And when I say killer, I do mean that people are committing suicide. Adult children are reaching out to me and saying, I had no idea my dad was in this. He lost the entire family fortune and then he killed himself. This is an epidemic.
- [00:27]
Natalie
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the show. Joining me this week is Erin West. She is a globally recognized speaker and educator specializing in transnational organized crime. And she's the founder of Operation Shamrock, which tackles the growing global problem of pig butchering scams. You might think you know what that is, but when I learned about it, I was very, very surprised and I can't wait to learn a little bit more, given the recent headlines. So, Aaron, thank you so much for joining me.
- [00:54]
Erin West
Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to your audience about this massive threat.
- [00:59]
Natalie
Well, you know, I just want to mention to the audience that I first.
- [01:01]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Heard you speak at the Eve Wealth.
- [01:03]
Natalie
Summit and I was fascinated by your fireside. I didn't even know that this was happening. I didn't know that it involved cryptocurrency, and I didn't understand how big of a human trafficking problem it was. So let's just break down. What is a pig butchering scam and how did you get involved in all this?
- [01:20]
Erin West
Well, I certainly understand that when you first hear about it, it really kind of blows your mind. And I felt the same way the first time I heard about it. A pig butchering scam is essentially a long con. It is a romance scam, slash investment scheme, crypto investment scheme. And I heard about this when I was working as a prosecutor. I was a prosecutor for 26 and a half years, attached to a high tech investigation team. And starting in March 22nd. March. Not March 22nd, but in March 2022, we started seeing victims who had lost every penny they had. That's the nature of this scheme. The way it works is someone will reach out to you in basically one of four ways. You'll get one of those texts that everybody is getting that says, hey, you left your shoes in my car, or what time are we meeting for golf on Sunday? And that begins the conversation. Or you might meet someone on a dating app or on LinkedIn or on the Meta platform and that conversation turns into a four month grooming process where you'll be led to believe that you are in the relationship that you always wanted. These scammers are really preying on a loneliness epidemic globally and they're preying on the fact that people want a human connection and they want to be seen and heard. And these scammers are providing just that for a long period of time. And at the same time they're doing that, they're showing you this elevated lifestyle, they are showing you that they do yoga, play golf, travel well, drive a Range Rover. And ultimately the discussion comes of, how are you able to afford this? And that's when the scammer will say, oh, well, I invest in cryptocurrency. I didn't know how to do it, but my uncle taught me and my uncle could teach you. And that's the second phase of the scam.
- [03:29]
Natalie
And so they essentially ask the victim for money and they have a link and you start. People start sending them their savings.
- [03:38]
Erin West
Yeah. So let me explain that in a way that'll make sense to your listeners, because the first time I heard that, I thought, I don't know why someone would do that. That doesn't make sense to me. So what happens is you've been sold a dream for four months, you've been texting hours a day with this person and you've been led to believe that you are going to have a future with them, you're going to marry them, you guys are buying a house. And so you've discussed how much money you have and where your money is located. Then you are shown an investment scheme and they start off small. And a key feature of this is you are controlling your own investment for yourself. You're not giving anyone any money. You're putting money into what you believe is an investment platform. And it looks just like JP Morgan or Coinbase or any other known financial platform. You put your money into this at their direction, and when you move your money into this platform, it's actually completely fake and your money's been stolen from you. But what you see is this beautiful dashboard that shows you that the 5,000 you put in is now 6,800, 7,800. By the end of the week, it's $10,000. And that's when you're led to believe, oh, my gosh. And quite honestly, we can't compete with the hormones of, I'm in this new, fantastic, loving relationship and I'm getting wealthy. And so that's when these scammers will lead you to, well, why don't you put some more money in? Why don't you take money out of your 401k? You can see that you're making enough money to pay the taxes on it and people are misled. And the game does not end until you've literally put every penny that you have in into this scheme.
- [05:28]
Podcast Host/Announcer
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- [07:12]
Natalie
This is so crazy. A couple of years ago I went to a conference and I don't want to dox the the the person that I'm speaking about cause he's very prominent in the bitcoin space but I'll never forget how heartbroken he felt. Came up to him, just a huge fan because this this guy, he's a globally known speaker and author and someone came up to him and had come to the conference just to meet him and thank him for putting him on one of these platforms so he thought he was having a conversation with this very well known bitcoiner. And in actuality, it was a total impersonator who had created one of these dashboards. He was sending his family's life savings to it. And it showed that the investments were going up, that it had gone up like some crazy, you know, three digit percentage in a given year. And he was there with his family, like spending basically the rest of their money. And came up to this person and was like, I just want to thank you. And he had no clue who he was. And that's when he went white in the face and realized that it was all a scam and he had lost literally his family's life savings. So it doesn't even have to be a romantic connection apparently.
- [08:21]
Erin West
Right.
- [08:21]
Natalie
I mean, men, women, like, who are the targets of these? Because it seems like it could be anyone.
- [08:27]
Erin West
Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that you have some familiarity with this because that's what's happening at scale. That story. I hear that story multiple times per day. That's how big it is. But you're right, I think a lot of people might like to believe that this is happening to elderly people or extremely vulnerable people. But the piece that we need to understand is that this is happening at scale to people. You know that you are one degree away from this and you don't know it because people are so humiliated that they don't want to share that information with you. But the fact is, and the statistics show it's happening to men and women, it's happening actually more frequently to people under 60 than people over 60. And then frequently we believe, well, they're getting more money from the over 60 year olds because they have more money. Well, actually that's not what the statistics show. Statistics show that more money is being lost from people under 60 in total. So the fact is, what we have here is a crisis level attack, a financial attack on the world. And the tragedy of it is that people don't know that this is happening. It is the silent killer. And when I say killer, I do mean that people are committing suicide. Adult children are reaching out to me and saying, I had no idea my dad was in this. He lost the entire family fortune and then he killed himself. This is an epidemic.
- [09:59]
Natalie
Yeah, well, so I think one of the most shocking things that you shared at the summit is that there are these farms essentially internationally, where people are sitting right next to each other who have been trafficked, who are talking to people, likely in the United States, trying to do this overnight, wherever they're Living likely in Asia.
- [10:22]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Right.
- [10:22]
Natalie
The last bus that we just saw was in Cambodia.
- [10:26]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Can you talk about the actual process of this?
- [10:28]
Natalie
Because I think that that was the part that was just so, just, just shocking.
- [10:33]
Erin West
It is shocking. And, and I think there are two jaw dropping pieces of this. The first one is this is being done on an industrialized scale. The scale of what is happening is really hard to convey what is happening on the ground. You can picture a college dormitory and you can picture a college campus. So when you think of that dormitory eight stories tall, housing plenty of students, well, imagine if they filled that dormitory with four bunk beds per room. And now you have eight people per room in this massive structure. But now let's say you have 16 structures just like that that are walled in with cement walls that are two stories tall with barbed wire on the top of them. There is a guard gate that enables access. That's the only access to this whole campus. And it's manned with men with AK47. That is one compound. And what we know is that this is happening in hundreds of compounds in Southeast Asia. And the number of. So that's the, that's jaw dropping piece number one is, oh my goodness, this is happening in college campus size facilities. And then the second one is, oh my goodness, the person on the other side of this phone that I've been kind of messing with, that person, person was trafficked in and is now enforced criminality being required to do this work. What's happening is we've got unemployment issues all over the world and that makes people vulnerable to an offer of employment that is multiple times what they could earn. I spoke to a man in Uganda who was making $100 a month in his Internet cafe. Fellow Ugandan comes in and says, I can get you $1,000 a month, but you got to go to Bangkok. But it's fine. You're going to be in a live work facility. You'll be a computer operator. And for a 23 year old Ugandan man, that's a, that's an excellent opportunity. I can do that for six months and make what it would take me five years to make in Uganda. And so that's what's happening. And then when they get there, they're in a walled in facility and they're told, okay, now you're a scammer. You work 16 hours a day in a line with all your fellow Ugandans, Bangladeshis, Indians, and if you don't do this, we will hit you with baseball bats.
- [13:07]
Natalie
I mean, I, I think a lot of this is going to be, it's going to be a slap in the face for Americans because sometimes you get the text and you, I mean, for me I just kind of like delete it. And I don't think a second thing. But there was someone on the other side, right, that may have been forced into this, that isn't some sophisticated scammer or hacker that's trying to get you, is actually basically forced into slave labor, it seems like.
- [13:31]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Right.
- [13:32]
Natalie
Do they actually get paid? Can they escape out of this system?
- [13:37]
Erin West
You're absolutely right that it is slave labor. And what happens is we've got, because this has been allowed to happen for now, going on over five years, we have hundreds of thousands of people that are in, in these slave labor situations and they are not allowed to leave. There's, there's videos that are available on telegram showing what happens when people try to leave and they are brought back and they're caned. And it's, and it's horrific. But really the, the few times that people have gotten out, it's been because an entity like China, a country like China has said you're going to need to release our people. And when that kind of pressure has been put on these compounds, there has been some release. But for the most part, if you're inside, you're staying inside. And unless you can buy your way out, often they'll be given an opportunity to pay for their way out. But it's usually a number that there's no way they could afford. And if they are getting paid inside, it is, it's a minimum, minimum amount of money that they need to use for their existence inside the compound.
- [14:49]
Natalie
Okay, so, so many questions about this. Who is running these compounds and why are they primarily located in Southeast Asia?
- [14:59]
Erin West
To understand this, it's, it's worth going back a few years and thinking about Chinese organized criminals. Chinese organized criminals are always looking for, for the next big game. And they thought that they could build casino towers and they did build casino towers in Cambodia. China was building a high speed road from China to the beaches in Cambodia. And they thought they could build the new Macau, they could build these massive structures and, and capitalize on the Chinese gambling market. But Covid hit and people weren't moving and they were left with these massive uninhabited towers. And they thought, well, let's move on to another scheme. Let's move on to pig butchering. It's, it's their term, they call it Sha zhu pan. And so they filled those massive towers with human trafficked victims. The entire operation is run by Chinese organized criminal syndicates. And the reason why it is flourished in Southeast Asia is because of the massive amount of wealth it generates. What we're seeing happen is we are having stolen from us a generation's worth of wealth. These are not small numbers. These are a million dollars per person, $500,000 per person. They're massive, massive numbers. And when you're taking in that kind of massive wealth, you have a lot of power and you have a lot of ability to pay off anybody who might be standing in your way. So with the political scene and embedded corruption that is inherent in, in a place like Cambodia, these bad actors, these known Chinese organized criminals, were able to buy their way into favor with the ruling elites. And that's why it's absolutely flourished in Cambodia and in other countries where you have the ability to buy your way into allowing bad things to happen.
- [16:57]
Natalie
So talk to me about what it takes to actually take down one of these operations, because we just saw a headline. I think the first time some of my viewers might have heard the term pig butchering scam was this recent DOJ headline saying that they were able to seize billions of dollars worth of bitcoin. Talk to us about what that takes and maybe your reaction to this recent story.
- [17:22]
Erin West
First, it's fantastic news. It's fantastic news because these bad actors, these known bad actors, have been able to act with impunity for years. And by this indictment, the Department of Justice is saying, we see you, we see what you're doing over there, we see how you're stealing from Americans. And in this indictment, it's groundbreaking in terms of the information that they were able to get about this Cambodian tycoon who's behind all this. They were able to establish that he personally was involved in so much of this. Now, frequently when you think of mob bosses, you think of them being a little bit isolated from the day to day, not changing. He was involved in the physical beatings of people. He was involved in the movement of money. He was intimately involved in running these, these running hundreds of billion dollar empire that was primarily built on scamming. But then that money in cleaning it was moved into legitimate businesses, making it more difficult for. We always say follow the money. But. But these Chinese money launderers are adept at making following the money extremely difficult to do. So the indictment itself is a major statement of the power of the United States and that this can be done. And when you think about the $15 billion forfeiture action by the United States, what that's saying is and the fact that that's the largest ever, and that is a very, very small piece of his empire, it shows exactly how much illicit money flew through this man's fingers. That's how big the enemy is. And that's why I can't stop. Won't stop talking about this, because I think this is, again, the silent killer. People don't realize what is happening because they're doing it household by household. Right. And, and hurt vulnerable people don't have the, the lobbying power to make sure the world understands what's happening on a global scale.
- [19:46]
Natalie
Well, with this civil forfeiture, is there any hope that at least some of the victims will get their money back? I feel like that should be the top priority with these funds.
- [19:55]
Erin West
I sure feel the same way. I'm, I'm right with you on that. And, and certainly that is a major part of the work that I will be doing over, over the pendency of this situation. The problem is trying to determine which victims would be entitled to this money, how we are going to, how we would be able to trace people to particularly the Prince group empire. So I think what makes sense in a situation like this, one of the, One of the mottos, one of the ways that I approach this entire scamdemic, is that we have to think of doing things in a way we have not done them before. We have never had a worldwide financial attack on us like this. So we need to think about what if we could. And exactly what you said. What if we could create a victim fund? What if we could figure out some ways to get mental health assistance to these victims, some groceries to these victims, some. Just some really basic things that these victims need. And so no, there's no easy, clear path for this, but there's no easy clear path for a lot of things that really matter. And so figuring out how to wrangle the existing legal system in a way that benefits this unprecedented class of victims is a top priority.
- [21:26]
Podcast Host/Announcer
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- [23:15]
Natalie
Well, and I'm sure it makes it 10 times harder when you're dealing with multiple nations, many jurisdictions, different nationalities. It just seems so crazy complicated. Is this what Operation Shamrock specifically focuses on? Like, can you talk a little bit more about your organization and how it helps with this. With this scam?
- [23:35]
Erin West
Yes. So I. I told you I was a prosecutor. I was a prosecutor for a good long time. And the last three years of my career I was deluged by a class of victim I had never seen before. There is something that is so difficult to put into words of the effect on a person to have an entire dream crushed of. I thought I met the man of my dreams. I thought we were going to build a house on the coast. And then on that same day to realize not only does that not exist, but that person was betraying me from the jump. They saw me, spotted me, betrayed me for months and then stole my entire financial footing. Which gives people a level of confidence in their life that no matter what they, if they can, if they can pay their rent, there's some sort of comfort to that. But what They've done is they've taken both of those things away on the same day. We've got a completely devastated class of people. And so my work at the DA's office was what do we do with a, what do we do with all of these victims? It would be very easy to say, well, the money's overseas, the bad guys are overseas, there's nothing we can do about this. But again, I operate from a what if we could perspective and what if we could take this first victim that came to us, a 30 year old male software engineer who thought he'd found his bride and lost his entire net worth. What if we could trace his cryptocurrency? And that was the benefit of being with a high tech task force, is we knew how to trace crypto, so we traced it. And this part may be interesting for your listeners because the way we traced it was. I mean, this is the beauty of the blockchain, is it's immutable, it's transparent. We could figure out that, that his funds were at Binance. And in 2022, Binance wasn't super law enforcement friendly. And, and so we didn't know what they would do. We don't have any jurisdiction over Binance. They're deliberately located outside the United States. But what if we could, what if we could reach out to Binance, find people inside that care and say, hey, let me tell you about this guy and what happened to him. And that's exactly what we did. And they said, we will honor a search warrant. We don't have to, but we will honor a search warrant from you, and when we receive it, we will return those funds. And so again, no legal basis for this. In California, we're working with an antiquated system that's not set up for cryptocurrency. But what if we could, what if we could wrangle this and figure out a way to get it done? And then we didn't know what a judge would think of this. We're explaining cryptocurrency to judges who may have any kind of opinion about cryptocurrency. But I work with a brilliant team who was able to articulate this in paper in a way that a judge could make sense. And I went in and argued my face off about why this mattered. And ultimately, by the end of 2022, we were able to get that man his money back and seven other victims who had lost their money. Wow.
- [26:48]
Natalie
And then we. CZ must have been helpful in this because he was running Binance at The time.
- [26:53]
Erin West
Right. He was. He was. And so I, I couldn't speak to what CZ actually knew. But I will tell you, his law enforcement team was amazing and continues to be amazing and super helpful. And we could not have done the work that we've done without, without the help of finance.
- [27:09]
Natalie
And quite frankly.
- [27:10]
Erin West
Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, quite frankly, it was a. It was a tactical decision at the time of. Binance has been amazingly helpful. Do I. Do I tell the public this or does that, then tell the bad guys? Oh, Binance will give our money back to the United States. So it was an interesting situation to be in, is to determine how to proceed from there.
- [27:32]
Natalie
Well, you bring up a fascinating point about this new technology. You can actually see and trace where the transactions are all going one to the next, to the next. So if you have really good forensic analysts, you can track that money in a way that you could never do in the traditional financial system. Don't you think that this is actually one of the highlights of moving to a monetary network that has this kind of verifiability and transparency about it?
- [28:01]
Erin West
I think it gives us an amazing opportunity to be better detectives. I think that what we've got is we've got a ledger. We've got a ledger that we can all have access to that we've agreed is accurate, and that cannot be changed. And so when you think of traditional financial investigation, where we are issuing subpoenas to banks, waiting for banks to get back to us, money's moving and we can't keep up with it here, we can monitor in real time exactly where that money's going. And so it does when used. When used. Well, when have. When we have the investigators with the appropriate training and tools. The blockchain is an amazing investigative tool.
- [28:46]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Yeah.
- [28:46]
Natalie
Because the banks, especially when you're talking about offshore and shell companies, they're like walled gardens. You can't see where the money's actually going. Okay, I have. I have more of like a devil's advocate question. Let's say someone is watching this or listening to it and they're like, oh, my gosh, you know, I would never fall for one of these. How can someone be so irresponsible that they would never have met this person and they're trusting them and thinking that they're in some kind of a relationship with basically a stranger, and maybe they don't have the type of sympathy for this type of situation. What do you say to them?
- [29:22]
Erin West
I would say that most people think that. I would say that you are in good company if you think that. But here's what I would say that is really happening. There are a lot of people, and you may think it wouldn't be you, but there are plenty of people. People that you know that will respond to. Let's just say it's the text of, I got one the other day. Come over to my house for ribs tonight. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I might like to come over to your house for ribs tonight because I don't feel like cooking. So. So the fact is people. There are a lot of people who will respond to that. And the next thing that happens when you respond is a picture of a very attractive. Frequently it's a woman, a very attractive young woman. And she says, hi, I'm Jessica. I hope I'm not bothering you. And I gotta tell you, if you think you wouldn't fall for that, maybe. But be open to the possibility that your brother did or your cousin did, because they did. They literally did. And my email box is full of them.
- [30:26]
Natalie
So do they target men more than women?
- [30:29]
Erin West
You know, it's funny, they do not, because there are plenty of women who are victims of this, and there are plenty of Evans and Ethan's out there in addition to the Jessicas. I think that perhaps the targeting is different. I think that the targeting of women is potentially more on social media platforms or dating sites. Because when they do this. When they do this photo drop in, it's primarily a woman. But what I will say to your skeptics out there is, I get it. I understand. When I was a prosecutor, the first time I heard about a romance scam, and I. I thought, I. I don't understand how this happens. So I started a podcast. My podcast is called Stolen with Aaron West. And on my podcast, I have people on there that this has happened to, and you can hear in their own words. And quite frankly, it was. It took that for me to understand it. My. One of the first victims I talked to is Karina. She is attractive, she's kind, she's mid-40s. She's a triathlete. She has a PhD. And it was difficult to understand how this could have happened to her until I read her. She calls it her manifesto, but it's her. Her. Her account of what happened. And you see as she goes through it, like, oh, I see why you made that decision. Oh, I could see why he justified that. Oh, okay. I might have gone that way too. It's. It's a very human experience that's happening to these people, they are getting attention and love that they did not think was possible. The skill level of the enemy is beyond what you could imagine. They are using people with PhDs in psychology to figure out how to lock in Americans and get them to do things that they would not ordinarily do.
- [32:26]
Natalie
Well into your earlier point, we do have this loneliness epidemic. People are sitting online, they start chatting with someone, and before you know it, things get deeper and darker, and suddenly you're sending money to some website. I'm curious, though, ways to prevent this. I mean, I've experienced being a public figure in this space, countless impersonators, and I report them and it's like, whack a mole. And another one comes up and they do, they ask people for money.
- [32:52]
Podcast Host/Announcer
It's so frustrating and scary.
- [32:54]
Natalie
And I, and I warn people, you know, look for the blue check mark, don't send money. I'm never going to ask you for money. But people are falling for it. And I'll get messages being like, hey, you stopped chatting with me. Or, you know, I lost my money sending it to who I thought was you. Like, why can't these social media platforms help?
- [33:14]
Erin West
Well, now you've hit one of my, one of my hot buttons because they should be doing so much more, and they are certainly fully capable of doing much more. You're not alone. The fact that you are a public figure in this space, you're going to be used in that way, and that makes you a victim. You may not have thought of it in that way, but the fact that your image, your likeness, your creature credibility, your integrity is being used in this way makes you a victim in that. You don't, you don't need people being angry with you. You don't need people, right, thinking that you've, you've stolen their money. And, and that's one piece of it. There are a lot of people just like you who've been used in this way. There are people that are military men whose photograph has been used for years. They're an attractive military man with a flag behind them. And people find them inherently trustworthy. You're inherently trustworthy because you're in this space doing this work. So what social media could, should, must do is honor the fact that this is not a small thing anymore. This is not the Nigerian prince. This is not a group of Africans in a hotel room doing this work. This is the work of a highly trained, sophisticated operation that is waging an economic war on us that we're not fighting back on. So when we think about what we're really asking is we're really asking platforms like Meta to say we will put some money into fixing a global problem. What we're asking them to do is acknowledge that this is bigger than revenue, that this is different, this is people, this is humans that are being devastated by this. And that we've never seen an assault, an economic assault like this in history. And so why aren't they doing anything? Because it's still a business decision. And what do we need to do? We need to keep doing, talking about this and keep raising the alarm. And the fact is, it's a lot of people like you who are a little bit isolated in terms of, like, you aren't talking to all the other faces that are being used in this way. If you were with all those faces, you at an event or wherever and you were able to harness the collective power, that might do a lot to motivating Meta to do better. But until they're regulated and forced to do so, I don't know that we see a change.
- [36:04]
Natalie
So what can people do to protect themselves and their loved ones? Are there signs to watch out for if you are on one of these platforms or maybe a dating site and someone messages you, is there like a trick to figuring out if you're being scammed?
- [36:19]
Erin West
So I think that we need to reframe our entire approach to the digital world. We are trusting people. We want to believe that people are who they say they are and they're doing what they say they're doing. And unfortunately, this has put us in a position where we can't do that anymore. And I mean, we didn't even go into AI deepfakes, document creation. Essentially, what we know is we cannot trust anything we see anymore. And so, and so that has to be our framework. That has to be what we talk about at Thanksgiving. That has to be what we talk about. As we've got our kids in the backseat for 30 minutes on the way to soccer, is, hey, anybody reach out to you online today? Tell me who you're talking to on Roblox. Tell me, tell me. You know, and same with our parents, same with our siblings, same with our cousins. This is happening to everybody. And we really need to create this, create a new way of thinking in that they are coming for us. Because they are, they are. Every day they are sitting over there working 24 7, 365, trying to figure out how to get to you, Natalie, and how to what, what trick they can use on you that will get you to respond. So we need to be operating from that. So, so we got to change our framework then. Secondly, we need to be wary of any incoming text that, or electronic communication that we did not ask for. And so I talk a lot about pig butchering, but the same applies for all of them. If you think it's your bank, independently verify, go go online to your bank, to the site that you know is your bank, all of that. These are the basic tricks that, that we all understand is good digital hygiene, but it's really understanding the severity, the gravity, the level of this particular scam, which is we're going to take all of your money. And so we just need to be super wary because the relationship is going to feel really nice. It's going to. That's the whole idea of pig butchering, is we're going to leave you willingly into this slaughter. We're going to, we're going to make it very pleasant.
- [38:25]
Natalie
Yeah, well, and to your point, I mean, so much of our data has been leaked online. So people can find phone numbers and email addresses and you, you could be reached out to.
- [38:34]
Podcast Host/Announcer
And then I would love for you.
- [38:35]
Natalie
To touch a little bit on how artificial intelligence, it can actually make this all probably feel more real because you could be like, hey, I'm going to try to verify, send me X, Y and Z, prove your identity. And they could just like make it up basically with, with fake visuals, right?
- [38:51]
Erin West
100%. That's what they can do. They can make. They'll send you a passport picture, they'll send you a picture of them in high school. They'll send you whatever it is that you want. They can create for you. But I think where it gets really bad is we used to be able to say, well, if they won't have a video call with you, then they're not real. Well, I had a man reach out to me who said, I know who my scammer is. And I'm like, oh, that's so great. Tell me who your scammer is. Well, it's Miss Malaysia 2016. And I was like, huh? And he goes, no, no, seriously, it is Aaron. I've talked to her. I've talked to her and she has that same mole. And I was like, let me talk to you about deepfakes. And I think that's the thing is we are trusting, kind people who want to believe our mind wants to fill in and believe it. And so the fact is they can create anything. They can literally create anything. And unfortunately, that puts us in a terrible position where we just, we, we can't be the trustworthy people we want trust, trusting people that we once were.
- [39:49]
Natalie
Well, to your point, I've seen some of these deep fake videos where they.
- [39:53]
Podcast Host/Announcer
They look exactly like the person.
- [39:54]
Natalie
I mean, they've tried it with celebrities and all of that. And, you know, our information's out there in the sense that especially with people like entertainers and politicians and public figures, there's enough data and reference points and examples of them speaking and talking and moving that it compiles into something very, very realistic.
- [40:14]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Right.
- [40:15]
Natalie
They can basically pretend to be you, which is, which is also really, again, scary and violating. So as we start to wrap up, I mean, just any parting words and final thoughts and how can people help your mission to actually track these down?
- [40:30]
Erin West
Yeah. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk a little bit about Operation Shamrock. I left. I retired from my position at the DA's office because I saw the magnitude of this problem. And so I started Operation Shamrock with the mission of educate, educate everyone all the time about this. Mobilize, show people what they can do in this situation and disrupt transnational organized crime. So you may be thinking as you're on this call, oh, that, that is, that is something that is happening overseas. There's nothing I can do about this. Well, let me give you some concrete steps. Number one, you can talk about this. I talk about this everywhere, all the time. But you don't have to do that. I talk to my Uber driver. I learned so much from Uber drivers. I. But, but, but you can talk about it at your book club. You can talk about it when you're in the car with your girlfriends. You can talk about it literally anywhere. And you just need to educate your loved people about the gravity and what's happening. That is a concrete thing you can do today if you're more motivated than that. Go to operationshamrock.org and sign up for Train the Trainer and we will show you how to teach about this. We'll give you a slide deck and you can educate your book club with real slides. You can go to your Rotary, you can go to your library, but those are two easy things. And if that doesn't even appeal to you, maybe you can talk about it a little bit on your social media or you can repost the things that I say about it to share with your network. The fact is, this does not stop until it becomes the next Nigerian prince. So the sooner we can make that happen, the better.
- [42:10]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Yeah.
- [42:11]
Natalie
Please share this interview far and wide with everyone. Just out of curiosity, have you actually Gone, let's say when one of these busts have happened to see these compounds yourself, I mean, have you been on the ground?
- [42:23]
Erin West
I have been on the ground and I think that, I think that's why I'm so passionate about this, is that I have been inside compounds the size of college campuses. I've been on compounds with 35 buildings. I've been inside the very rooms where people sit shoulder to shoulder sending those texts. I've been inside the torture rooms where they, where they do horrible things to motivate people to do this mind, mind work that no, no human wants to do to another human. So seeing it on the ground, I know that it's hard to visualize what I'm talking about. And that's why often I will, I always show pictures when I, when I speak because it's really hard to believe that that is happening. But I've been on the, I've been inside and then I've been on the other side of the river from what's happening in Myanmar with these massive cities of hundreds of buildings that that are, were built for the sole purpose of stealing all of our money. This is not an isolated small issue. This is a massive forest fire that's been allowed to fester for years unimpeded. So we've got to get on our guard.
- [43:45]
Natalie
I know this is a random question, but if some of these operations are happening in very remote areas, I would imagine that they're getting Internet from things like Starlink. Is there anything Elon Musk could do to help track these and then potentially bust them?
- [44:01]
Erin West
I love that you are thinking that because that's exactly what I've been thinking. And so the first time I saw pictures of KK park, that's the notorious first park constructed for this purpose. It's in Myanmar. And the picture I saw of it, there was a major communications tower on the Thai side of the river. And I thought the Thais are our allies. Why are they supplying KK park with the very communications that are needed to do this work? And so I started talking about it. I talked about it for three years and, and in February 2025 they finally took down that tower, but not until KK park was fully outfitted with Starlink all over it. And so then I started talking about Starlink and I wrote to the general counsel for SpaceX and asked them to please take this down. And Wired magazine did an article on that. And recently Senator Hassan from New Hampshire took this up as well. And the great news is that Starlink ultimately did in the last week or so Disable access to 2,600 receivers. Fantastic. Let's do that again and again. And let's go to all the other countries where this is happening. The beauty of this, just like the blockchain, is because of technology, we know where it's happening. We know the geolocation of the scam sites and we know the geolocation of these receivers. Let's turn off the ones that are being used for evil.
- [45:29]
Natalie
Wow, that's incredible to hear. Aaron. I could talk to you for hours. Thank you so so much for joining me and educating my audience. I will share all the links of your work and your organization in the show notes.
- [45:40]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Thank you so much for listening to this. Please share this message with everyone.
- [45:43]
Natalie
It's really important. You have no idea who it's happening to until it might be too late. So thank you so much, Erin. Hope to see you again soon.
- [45:50]
Erin West
Thank you so much.
- [45:51]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Coin Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show so you don't miss any new episodes.
- [45:57]
Natalie
And if you can, turn on those.
- [45:59]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Notifications and leave us a positive review. They really help the show grow organically with new listeners. We have a free weekly newsletter. You can sign up@thenewsblock.substack.com this show is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing should constitute as official investment advice and you should always do your own research. I'm always open to feedback and guest suggestions, so please feel free to reach out@infoalkingbitcoin.com I'll see you next time.