Scam Empire: the $275m scam call-centres flogging bogus investments

Two major call centre operations are running commercial-scale investment frauds worth at least $275m, affecting 32,934 victims across 33 different countries to date, according to a new report. 

The Scam Empire investigation is a collaborative effort by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Swedish Television and various media outlets, based on 1.9 terabytes of leaked data – including 20,000 screen recordings and over 20,000 hours of audio calls – shared by an anonymous source.

Here we take you through the findings, explaining why fraud victims can't wait any longer for tech companies to face stronger regulations and sharing simple tips to help you spot an investment scam. 

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The scam call centres

Two call centre operations were found to be running essentially the same scam, using similar training materials, scripts, and contracts with vendors. 

One is the 'A.K. Group' with at least three offices in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, which employed around 85 people as of April 2024. A second operation had offices in Israel, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Spain and Cyprus, employing at least 480 people as of August 2023.

The call centres pushed dozens of branded investment platforms, offering investments in cryptocurrency, stocks like Tesla, or other appealing financial products. 

Reporters for Scam Empire contacted 182 people listed as having 'invested' money, more than 90% of whom (166 people) said they had been the victims of a scam. Even more compelling is the 20,000 hours of recorded phone calls, giving 'every indication that both operations were designed to scam large numbers of people'.

Call centre staff reportedly used false identities, forged paperwork, and deceptive online advertising to entice investors. The report details staff swapping jokes and gloating about victims with each other on Telegram and Skype, as well as lavish parties and performance bonuses to celebrate their 'wins'. 

An investigator from Spain’s Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalonian police, said call centres can be more lucrative than trafficking drugs because the margins are higher and the risks of being caught are much lower. 

• Read more: how we exposed a global AI scam

Investment fraud tactics 

The Scam Empire report found that major tech companies profited from online adverts that pushed victims into these rogue investment schemes.

Which? has warned for years that fraudsters use social media and online advertising as hunting grounds. We exposed Google and Microsoft's Bing for letting scammers take out via paid-for adverts to peddle fake investments in 2021 and called out Facebook for letting the same scammers repeatedly take out advertising in 2022. 

More recently, official bank data revealed that more than half of bank transfer scams recorded in 2023 originated on Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, all of which are owned by parent company Meta. 

Remote access and screen sharing apps were also cited in the Scam Empire report, something we warned about in 2020. Although AnyDesk is a legitimate provider, OCCRP found that call centre scammers commonly used it to access vast amounts of personal information from their victims’ computers. 

AnyDesk said it is 'tirelessly working to prevent' the use of its software by scammers and worked closely with law enforcement to fight against scam call centres, including adding a warning for first-time connections from suspicious accounts, though it acknowledged 'a large portion of these attacks involve social engineering where a victim is coached around these automated countermeasures we put in place'. 

In response to the report's findings, Google said: 'We expressly prohibit scam ads on our platforms and take swift action to suspend the offending advertiser’s account when applicable.' Meta said: 'It is against our policies to run ads that promote or facilitate scams. We stand ready to review and take action if we find violations of our policies.'

• Find out more: millions scammed on Facebook, Google and Instagram despite fraud pledge

Following the money – why don't banks stop payments?

Victims were encouraged to make payments using cryptocurrencies or less strictly regulated digital payment providers and coached to bypass security checks from banking staff. 

The Guardian reported that Revolut, which received a UK banking licence last year, was the most mentioned (linked to 119 customers out of 403 listed in an internal Georgian call centre spreadsheet), followed by Kroo (involved with 50 victims). 

Last year, we expressed our concerns about how often Revolut is mentioned in fraud reports to Which?. Victims are often encouraged to move money to the digital e-money provider first before being transferred again to cryptocurrency exchanges and other accounts that are difficult to trace.

The most recent Which? survey of fraud victims found that nearly one in five people who inadvertently sent money to scammers used cryptocurrency exchanges.  

For British fraud victims this means they are far less likely to be eligible for reimbursement because existing protections for fraudulent transfers are limited to UK bank transfers, not money sent via other methods such as foreign bank accounts, cryptocurrency or money transfer apps (all heavily used by fraudsters). 

Tracing the money is nearly impossible. The Scam Empire report found that money trails are so convoluted that it is usually impossible to determine their final destination. 

Which? contacted both Revolut and Kroo about the findings. 

A Revolut spokesperson said: 'Across Revolut's UK customer base in 2023, we found that 60% of all reported scam cases originated on Meta owned platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, yet these firms have no role in warning customers of such scams, nor reimbursing victims. 

'What is urgently needed is for Meta and other social media companies to commit to supporting victims of fraud in the same way financial institutions do to stop fraud at the source. Revolut takes steps and works hard to keep customers safe. So should social media platforms.'

A Kroo spokesperson told us: 'While Kroo has less recorded scam victims compared to the first bank on the list, we take this number seriously and are constantly investing in our people and processes to support customers and reduce rates of financial crime.

'Unfortunately, digital banks are more likely to be targeted by scammers because of their online-only models and access to faster and more efficient payment systems, which is reflected by the number of digital banks featured in this table...No control we design will fully mitigate the risk of fraud, and we are working alongside other banks and law enforcement organisations to raise awareness of the problem.'

• Find out more: why victims who pay 'the wrong way' are left with nothing

Why we need the Online Safety Act now

Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: 'This important investigation lays bare the cruelty and sophistication of international scam gangs and serves as a reminder that people do not fall victim to fraud because they are careless, but because they are ruthlessly targeted by criminals.

'Fraudsters find it far too easy to exploit the many weak links in protections for UK consumers – from online banks and payment firms that facilitate payments without sufficient checks, to tech giants that allow scam adverts to flood platforms used by millions of us every day and telecoms networks which fail to prevent thousands of scam calls from abroad.

'The government and regulators must get a grip on the UK’s fraud epidemic by ensuring online and social media firms stop scams from appearing in the first place. The Chancellor has asked big tech firms to report back in March on what they are doing to stop scammers from operating on their sites.

'This investigation clearly shows that piecemeal intervention from tech firms is not enough to stop the flood of online fraud and greater regulation and enforcement is urgently needed. Under the current timetable for the Online Safety Act, firms in scope of the fraudulent advertising duties in the Act will not be held accountable for many of the scam ads on their sites until 2027. This is simply not good enough. The Online Safety Act needs to be implemented in full as possible or the government risks letting millions more fall victim to online fraud.'