Text messages scams for jobs, recruitment, employment: The criminal world behind them.

If you own a cell phone, there's a good chance you've found The Text: a random recruiter sending a friendly message with an incredible job opportunity a lot Money for just a little work. If it seems too good to be true, that's because it is. It is an employment scam.

If you feel like you're being inundated with these spam texts right now, then it's not your imagination. There was a huge increase in these Scams since 2020, and that's because they work. Being cheated on can feel really embarrassing, but you should know that you are not alone if it happened to you. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission received nearly 250,000 reports of text message scams. And Americans lost about $500 million to them.

In the latest episode of Explain it to meVox's weekly call-in podcast, we discuss the origins of these scams.

According to Matt Burgess, an information security writer at Wired, that text in your inbox probably comes from a group called the Smishing Triad.

“They are one of several fraud groups known as smishing syndicates. These groups use SMS to trick people into giving up their address, banking details and other personal information. It is estimated that they send 100,000 messages per day,” Burgess told Vox. “They develop their own software and sell it to other cybercriminals who can potentially use that software to further defraud people. The amount of messages they send per day is huge, and the amount of people they want to target is huge.”

Those of us receiving the text messages are not the only victims of these crime syndicates. The people they send are often victims of human trafficking to which they are lured Countries in Southeast Asia under the guise of getting a well-paying job, only to get trapped and forced into fraud.

Erin West saw this firsthand. West served as a prosecutor in California for over two decades, and after seeing so many people being scammed out of their money, she decided to do something about it. She founded an organization called Operation Shamrock that educates people about scams. Since its inception, it has investigated scams from Cambodia, Myanmar and throughout Southeast Asia. The industry “has literally turned Cambodia into a scam state,” West said. “While their industry used to be tourism and clothing, fraud now accounts for 60 percent of their GDP.”

It is an industry essentially built on the basis of slave labor. West tells us what's happening on the other side of the phone Explain it to me. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode here Apple Podcasts, Spotifyor wherever you get podcasts. If you would like to ask a question, email askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

They spoke to some of the victims who were forced to work in these fraud facilities. How was your experience?

I met a Ugandan man named Small Q. Small Q worked in an internet cafe in Uganda. He is 23 years old. A fellow Ugandan came in and said to him, “I know you make $100 a month here. I can get you $1,000 a month at a residential facility in Bangkok. You will do the data entry.” Small Q went through the interview process. He conducted two interviews. He took a writing test. He was happy to hear that he had gotten this job that would literally make him ten times what he made at home. He said to his brother, “I could try, otherwise I might die poor in Uganda.”

When he arrived in Bangkok, they took his phone and passport, drove him for hours, and eventually he found himself in a gated, walled community with large dormitories. The men with AK-47s at the gate told him, “You're a fraud now. That's your job.”

Wow, so it sounds like the people who end up being the scammers are actually employment scam victims themselves.

That's exactly right. In these spaces where the scams take place, people are afraid. That's the terrible thing that people don't understand. On the other side of this text there is probably someone who has been a victim of human trafficking. The financial victims don't realize that the people on the other end of the phone are also huge victims.

They have been to several of these facilities. What do they look like? How do they feel?

These are huge, ten-story buildings. They often have bars on the windows to prevent people from jumping out and are surrounded by a solid area of ​​concrete walls. There are dozens upon dozens along the Moy River in Myanmar. There are hundreds in Cambodia. There are dozens in Laos. The extent is unimaginable.

Who operates these facilities?

Chinese organized criminals are no strangers to the gambling industry. Coupled with a road that China was building in Cambodia, Chinese organized criminals thought, “We should fill this area with casino towers.” And that's what they did. But Covid struck. And when their casino towers became empty, they had to pivot. So they decided to do this. That’s when they started looking at the human trafficking angle.

What happens next when people like Small Q arrive?

You live your life in the waking hours of the country you target. Little Q's day would then consist of reporting to a long table of people like him, forced to work on desktop computers and ten phones.

There are different roles within this facility. When you come here for the first time, you are one of those people trying to get new customers. Once you've been there for a while, you become a chatterbox. At the end of the day, they present to their boss what their character will be doing that day.

It sounds so strangely corporate.

I am pleased that you have recognized the entrepreneurial nature of this matter. For what's happening there, it's essentially a business incentive strategy. So if Small Q were successful and blackmailed someone for money, that would be a big win. Sometimes there are fireworks for the big points. There are treats like a karaoke room with attractive women, as well as alcohol and cigarettes. It's the carrot and stick approach.

What happens if these people don't meet their quotas? What is the stick?

It's terrible. Small Q isn't the only person I'm in contact with.

I am in contact with another Ugandan who I will call Sam. If he doesn't fulfill his quota, he won't be allowed to eat. He was beaten with an electric baton. There are sexual consequences for women. There is such a thing as the dark room with a metal bar attached to the wall where you are handcuffed to the wall and beaten. You are then taken to a room where you are hung by your arms for three days. We're talking about war crime-level torture happening to people.

And all because you didn't cheat enough, because you didn't meet the quota?

How do you get out of one of these scam jobs? It sounds like you can't just stop.

You really can't get out. In this way they managed to house hundreds of thousands of people within these walls. They were told that they could pay a ransom, and the ransom could range from $3,000 to $10,000 to $20,000. If they are able to get the money, there are ways to broker their escape.

Ultimately, Small Q managed to get home by stealing a phone from one of the bosses. He was able to contact Ms Betty Bigombe, the High Commissioner to Uganda. She was able to help him and 23 others get home. But the mental toll is enormous.