Lewis: Your computer has a virus.
You owe money to the IRS.
Your grandchild is in trouble halfway across the world and needs cash.
Nearly everyone has gotten a scam call like this
and we keep getting them because they work.
Some people panic and send money or give the caller access to their computer,
compromising their identities and financial information in the process.
On this episode of Inside the FBI, you learn about how these scams operate,
how the FBI partners with law enforcement all over the world to disrupt
and prosecute them and how you can protect yourself.
I'm Steve Lewis and this is inside the FBI.
You're very important to us.
Please stay on the line and you'll be transferred to the next available agent.
Thank you for calling support.
You are speaking to [unintelligble].
How may I help you?
Yeah, I got a screen showing this number.
Okay. Can you tell me what exactly the screen say, or how did you called us?
The screen states., yes, the hacking risk or something.
Okay. And when did you get this alert on the computer?
Half hour ago.
Lewis: This seems like any other customer service call, right?
Someone has a technical problem, so they call tech support to get it fixed.
But that's not all what's happening here.
Hackers actually put that alert on the man's computer specifically to get him to call them.
Scammer: The alert that you read it to me, it seems it's a hacking
and it's a network compromising issue.
You know what I mean?
So do not take a chance with that.
You have heard the news is there are a lot of attacks
that are going on and we are getting a lot of calls in a day
like we get approximately 30 to 40 calls in a day
where people are attacked with ransomware attacks.
That happened recently.
You may have heard about that.
Yeah.
So these things are really growing.
So I just want you not to take any chances
and not be skeptical about it.
Victim: Yeah, let me think about it.
And I give you a call back.
Scammer: But, sir, at that point of time, the computer might end up
you might lose any of your financial data, but there's still the time.
You will think the computer might not work, your network might be damaged.
You're banking or emailing-Facebook.
Anything can damage. That's what I'm saying.
I don't understand you.
So let me think about it. I call you back.
I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, bye.
Lewis: What you just heard is a recording of an actual scam call
that the FBI got as part of an investigation.
The saleswoman operating from a fraudulent call center in India tries
to convince this unsuspecting man that his computer has a virus.
She would have taken the money from him to fix the non-existing problem
or worse, hack his computer, potentially drain his bank account.
Luckily, despite the hard sell,
the man thought better of it and hung up.
Unfortunately, many people in this situation
don't realize they're being scammed until it's too late.
Imagine how the recipient of that call
must have felt—scared and confused.
He was probably interrupted from his daily routine and told
he had to take immediate action or face dire consequences.
This happens all the time.
An unsuspecting victim gets a call that seems legitimate.
They panic and wire cash or send the caller
a gift card or even cryptocurrency.
By the time they realize
they've been fooled, their money's traveled halfway across the world.
Law enforcement often can't get it back
as Rachel Yurkovich, who works at the FBI's
Internet Crime Complaint Center, explains about these scams.
Yurkovich: The call centers have it down now to where they can convey this urgency.
You're account has been hacked.
Your personal information has been hacked.
If you don't do something now, all your money's going to be gone.
They're great at scaring people into thinking that they have to do something
now. Lewis: The Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, tracks
Internet enabled scams, and the statistics they've collected are shocking.
Yurkovich: So last year, we had about $347
million reported to the IC3 and tech support losses.
This year, we are already at 90% of that just in the first five months of 2022.
So we're going to see losses far surpassed what we've seen
the last couple of years.
And we estimate
we only get about 10 to 15% of what is actually happening out there.
Now, I do attribute some of this increase, I think, to the word getting out.
People are becoming more aware. They're reporting it more.
However, we do know that we are just getting
a small sliver of what's actually happening.
Lewis: And these scams have evolved over time.
When the FBI first started seeing these scams about ten years ago,
victims would send cash or checks in the mail.
Yurkovich: Payment methods now have evolved also, not just checks and cash through the mail.
They're using wire transfers, ACH transfers,
prepaid cards, cryptocurrency.
Any method of payment now that you can come up with, they're using it.
Lewis: These new payment methods has presented new challenges
for law enforcement trying to find and stop these scammers.
But we are using partnerships, including with law enforcement all over the world
in other investigative approaches to stop these criminals.
While public awareness and education are key.
The scammers can't take your money if you hang up on them.
The FBI and our partners are working diligently to investigate
and break up these groups of criminals.
You may have heard the term follow the money,
and that's exactly what we do in these cases,
even as it often takes elaborate journeys to keep it out of the reach of U.S.
law enforcement.
Nearly all groups that commit
this type of crime also engage in money laundering.
Money laundering simply means moving money around
to make it appear legitimate or clean.
This often helps move ill gotten money out of the reach of law enforcement.
To do this, criminals use elaborate networks of money, mules,
people who illegally transfer money from one bank account to another.
Reynolds: Most of the scams, particularly the ones that target our elderly
citizens, involve the extensive usage of what we call money mules.
And money mules is just another way of saying money laundering facilitators.
And these folks can either be victims of a different type of scam or folks
who are willing and complicit in, you know, assisting with money movement.
And so while we know that there are extensive money
mule networks operating within the United States.
Similarly, there are the same networks operating internationally.
Lewis: That was Matt Reynolds, a supervisory special
agent in the FBI’s Economic Crimes Unit.
His team oversees FBI investigations into these types of scams.
Reynolds emphasizes that these scammers go to great lengths
to appear legitimate, and that includes even having U.S.
bank accounts to receive money.
Following the money, wherever it goes in the world, is a big part
of the FBI’s work to find and disrupt these large groups of scammers.
Another key piece is stopping these criminals at the source
by preventing future calls and future pop-up alerts.
That means taking a trip more than 7,000 miles from Matt Reynolds’
office in Washington, D.C., to the FBI’s office in New Delhi, India.
Daud: My name is Suhel Daud.
I am the legal attaché here at the FBI office in New Delhi.
A legal attaché is a fancy term for an FBI office abroad.
So, the FBI has 56 offices in the U.S., but we also have
60-plus offices—a lot of people don’t know this—all over the world.
These are fairly small offices.
Offices are headed by a legal attaché,
and we have assistant legal attachés in the office.
Lewis: In these international offices, our agents don’t have jurisdiction
to investigate and arrest suspected criminals like they do here in the U.S.
Instead, their role is to share information and partner with the host
country’s government on cases that have some connection to the U.S.
Daud: The role of the legal attaché, or the legat, is to coordinate
between the FBI and the host government’s
law enforcement and security services for exchange of information.
So, to further FBI investigations or to assist the local government
with their investigation, which might have a nexus
to U.S.—either victims, subjects, or data.
So, just move cases forward from both sides.
Lewis: Working closely with the host country’s
law enforcement is exactly what the FBI does to stop
tech support and other call center scammers at the source.
The vast majority of tech support
and other phone-based scams that target Americans originate in India.
Daud explains… Daud: India is a population of 1.3 billion people.
There is a large number of English-speaking
individuals here, young population in this country.
The internet is quite accessible, and the population is very entrepreneurial.
So, when if you add all this, and you add to that the legitimate call
center business that India provides to the West,
all of this makes up for a good recipe for the individuals
working in call centers or other citizens in India using this to dupe U.S.
citizens.
Lewis: When a fraudulent call center scams people in the U.S.,
the FBI gets that information and can pass it along to the Indian authorities.
Daud: Our job here is to identify the call centers, identify
the location of these call centers, and then interact
with the Indian law enforcement to cause some sort of disruption,
and then eventually, assist the Indian government, Indian
law enforcement with the prosecution of these cases.
So that's kind of how we’re going about dealing with call center fraud in India.
Lewis: Rather than extradite the scammers to the U.S.,
which could take years, the FBI works closely to support the Indian government
in seeing the case through within the Indian justice system.
Daud: What we have to keep in mind is that the victims are in the U.S.
So, the police agencies here, which are busting these call centers,
they would need victim statements, they would need documents from the U.S.,
and that's where we come in to help prosecute the case because in the end.
It's of the interests of the U.S.
government to assist the Indian law enforcement
in disrupting these call centers.
Lewis: This partnership between the FBI and the Indian authorities has paid off
in terms of disrupting and prosecuting those who run fraudulent call centers.
In 2018, Microsoft agreed to partner with law enforcement in taking down a call
center that pretended to be Microsoft in order to scam unsuspecting victims.
Daud: On one night, we took down 16 call centers.
So, that was an example of FBI working with our local law
enforcement partners and a private company to form a team.
And Microsoft was able to provide experts to the local law enforcement
to actually go through the evidence, point out where the evidence
is, and really, just triaging the terabytes of data that was collected.
Lewis: Additionally, the Indian authorities recently
asked for help from the FBI in locating a fraudulent call center
operator who fled after posting bail.
The Legat New Delhi team gathered intelligence
and passed this along to the police, who found the suspect.
Assistant Legal Attache Lovjit Curran continues the story.
Curran: They invited us down to their police station
where I personally interviewed the subject and found out kind of how they...
how he operated the call center,
what his role was, the different roles within the call center.
This is just intimate knowledge that we didn't have,
we don't regularly receive because they're always changing their methodology.
They’re trying to stay one step ahead of law enforcement, so they’re constantly changing.
Lewis: That’s why intelligence gathering, not just arresting
and prosecuting subjects, is crucial in stopping these scammers.
They are constantly evolving.
The FBI has to do the same, and that’s exactly
what Daud and his team in the New Delhi office are doing.
Daud: So, we have to stay ahead of it and we have to educate
everyone regarding when you get a phone call
regarding tech support or someone impersonating a government employee.
You have to be very careful in how you deal with it.
And before you give out any sort of financial information or you give anyone
any money, you need to verify and be vigilant.
Lewis: So, now that you’ve learned a bit about these scams
and how we’re combatting them,
how can you protect yourself and your family from them?
Most importantly, know that legitimate companies
will never call you and offer tech support out of the blue.
If you get a call like this, hang up.
Here are some additional tips from Rachel Yurkovich and Matt Reynolds.
Yurkovich: Mostly, the biggest thing we ever say is just to slow down and think.
Like I said earlier, the scammers are really good
at creating the sense of urgency and panic within people.
And if most people would just stop to think about what they were doing
or what was occurring, they would realize that
what is happening isn't normal, shouldn't be happening.
Also, we always say to keep your virus scan software up to date on your computers
that will help eliminate pop ups that will help eliminate
malicious software being installed on your computer.
That’s the two biggest things, is if people just stop and think,
take a breath, go ask somebody else, “You know, hey, this is happening.
What do you think is happening?
What do you think this is about?”
Many times, a scammer will tell people, “Don't tell anybody this is happening.
You know, you can't let anybody know.” That's a big clue.
Lewis:
Another thing to keep in mind is never let someone claiming
to be tech support have remote access to your computer or other device.
Reynolds explains that often these fake call centers will get
a victim on the phone
and send them a link to download malicious software on their computer.
Once that scammer’s in your computer, they have access
to all of your personal information and files.
It can even drain your bank accounts.
Reynolds: And so, that’s where it becomes
really a big dollar-loss game where not only are victims paying a couple
hundred bucks to, you know, for non-existent tech support services.
But at times, their financial accounts are being depleted at a moment’s notice.
And so, that’s what is really concerning because of that that, you know, remote
access, that’s being granted to the bad actors.
Lewis: Reynolds adds that if you or someone you know is victimized
by one of these scams, don’t be afraid or ashamed to come forward and report it.
You can report fraud to your local police department and the FBI at ic3.gov.
The FBI believes that these crimes often go underreported.
Reynolds: We know that there is a bit of a barrier to reporting
because of the fact that many victims are just quite honestly embarrassed or they,
you know, are, you know, feel shame from having been defrauded in this way.
And they would rather conceal their victimization
than speak up and bring it to the attention of law enforcement.
And so that’s why the FBI and some of our other, you know,
federal partners try to put out as much messaging as we can, so as to say,
hey, you know, this is very, very common.
And we wanna know about it.
And please know that you're not the only one out there.
And so that's why we are, you know, trying to ramp up our outreach campaigns.
Lewis: If you’d like to know more about scams and how to protect
yourself, visit fbi.gov/scams.
You can learn more about money mules, including how to avoid becoming
an unwitting participant, at fbi.gov/moneymules.
If you want to report an Internet-enabled scam, visit ic3.gov.
Reporting helps the FBI track and combat these crimes.
This has been another production of Inside the FBI.
You can follow us on your favorite podcast player, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
You can also subscribe to email alerts about new episodes at fbi.gov/podcasts.
I’m Steve Lewis from the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs. Thanks for tuning in.