Scams, billions lost, and how Meta is turning a blind eye
Hard Reset | Ariella Steinhorn interviews Operation Shamrock’s Erin West about the scam industry — and the recent Reuters report that exposed how Meta profits from allowing scam ads on its platforms, even predicting that 10% of its 2024 revenue — $16 billion — would come from ads for scams and banned goods.
Read Operation Shamrock’s summary of the Reuters report.
American tech companies are enabling the scam industry while collecting billions in profit. It’s not just Meta. Technology leaders have some of the world’s most advanced technology, yet make little effort to stop scams run through their own companies, support government regulations to protect victims, or defend national security.
Ariella and Erin talk about how transnational organized crime groups traffic thousands of people into modern slavery and force them to steal hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
The scale of pig butchering scams that cost Americans up to $49 billion a year
How Meta profits from the scam ads while sponsoring scam-fighting events to put its name in the right light from a marketing perspective
The law-enforcement activity in Myanmar that looks good on camera but likely isn’t changing anything within the actual scam industry
How scam organizations recruit and traffic victims to their scam compounds, where they’re forced to scam people out of money
Technology leaders who have some of the world’s most advanced technology, yet make little effort to stop scams run through their own companies — or support government regulations to protect victims
Steps we need to take to protect not just individuals from having their money stolen, but the threats to national security that come from Chinese organized crime using scam profits being used to buy influence other countries
“In a place like Cambodia, where you can buy access to the ruling elite, China has leverage to say, ‘We want access to that port, get rid of Americans, and put our warships there.’” — Erin West
Full article: "Pig butchering" scams, billions of dollars lost–and how Meta is turning a blind eye
