A man who targeted Canadians in a cryptocurrency investment scam is speaking out after escaping the Cambodian facility where he was forced to commit the scam.
In an exclusive interview with CBC marketA Malaysian man claims he became a victim of human trafficking after responding to a post in a Facebook group advertising a customer service job at a casino in Cambodia.
John, who agreed to not use his real name for CBC's safety, spent four months virtually imprisoned with others at a facility in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. During his stay, he was forced to strike up conversations with strangers online, gain their trust and convince them to make questionable investments.
“If you don't obey [the rules]we get beaten or given electric shocks,” he said.
John says it all began when he was laid off from his job at a casino in Cambodia during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and forced to return to Thailand, where he was previously based. After being without work for four months, he was desperate. He was relieved when he saw an online advertisement for a casino in another Cambodian city and discovered his new employer would fly him there, all expenses paid.
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Shortly after arriving in Sihanoukville, John was locked in a room on the fourth floor of a building, his passport was confiscated, and during his time in Cambodia he was forced to commit a cryptocurrency scam targeting Canadians and other English-speaking Westerners, aiming to steal their savings.
“we [were] “You eat, you work, you sleep, you shower – you're always on the fourth floor,” John said, warning people to be careful about taking jobs that are too easy to get.
“Once you enter a den of fraud, your life may be over.”
Canada's most expensive types of scams
According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, reported fraud and cybercrime losses will total $530 million in 2022, up 40% from $380 million the previous year. Investment scams, particularly those involving cryptocurrency, are the most costly in Canada, exceeding $300 million in 2023, surpassing romance scams, phishing and other scams.
The frauds John was involved in were often “Pig slaughter scam” Scammers lure victims into online relationships and friendships, gain their trust, and then convince them to invest in cryptocurrency.
The pig is “fattened” while the victim pumps more money into the cryptocurrency and watches it grow on the fake investment platform. The pig is “slaughtered” once the scammers disappear with the money.
That's what happened to an Edmonton dad who read about the big profits that could be made by investing in cryptocurrency and wanted to learn how.
Peter, who agreed to change his name with CBC to protect his professional reputation, said he saw an ad on Facebook in April 2022 offering cryptocurrency investment coaching through a company called Cryptos Circus. Peter had recently inherited some money and thought that if he could invest it, he might be able to buy a cabin to share with his family or even help his mother, who had recently moved into a care home.
Peter decided to inquire and was paired with a broker named Daniel Lawrence who coached him on how and when to buy cryptocurrencies to make a profit.
“He said, 'Let me help you take care of your family. You will get this money, you will live a good life and you will be able to help your mother,'” Peter said.
He initially invested $250, and as it began to grow, Lawrence encouraged him to put in more, another $25,000 in deposits that grew to $26,500, and then over the next five months, $80,000 grew to more than $100,000.
The fact that Peter was able to withdraw his earnings from the account allayed any suspicions that the website he was monitoring his earnings on (Cryptos-circus.com) was in fact fake.
Victims involve their families in the fraud
The investment continued bit by bit over the next six months, and Peter spoke to Lawrence every day. Peter considered Lawrence a friend and they even talked about going on motorcycle trips together.
Lawrence then advised Peter about a special investment that could turn $250,000 into $1 million in just two months. Peter wanted to participate but didn't have the money, so he asked his mother if she could lend him her house as collateral for a $250,000 line of credit.
“I showed my mom pictures of all the deals we'd done and the profits I'd made,” he said. “She was happy to let me invest it, and we took out a loan against her house and invested.”
When Peter sent the money to Lawrence, the money didn't show up in his Cryptos Circus account. Panicked, he called his broker, who told him Peter must have entered the wrong account number — an irreparable error in cryptocurrency trading.
But Peter claims he didn't enter the details by mistake. Growing suspicious, he tried to withdraw his existing balance, but the account was locked and Danielle was no longer replying to his messages. That's when he realized he'd been scammed. In total, he lost more than $400,000 and had to sell his mother's house.
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The name “Daniel Lawrence” was likely a pseudonym.
“There's probably nothing worse than telling your family you've lost everything,” Peter says, “and I think including my mother in the investments was the biggest blow to them.”
Peter is working three jobs to recover financially and says some family members no longer speak to him.
“I was considered a criminal in my family. [by] “Some of them hurt me so badly I was devastated,” he said.
Cheaters are threatened with violence
John, who took part in the kind of fraud Peter described, said his boss was ruthless.
“They don't care about the victim's feelings. They don't care about anything,” he said.
John said he was expected to lure 15 new potential victims a day, and that if workers did not receive enough money from them, their bosses would threaten them. He said he tried to make the scam sophisticated, but that messing up a lead would face serious consequences.
“One of the Vietnamese [workers] “He had been beaten badly and I could see he had blood all over his body,” John said.[He] Using another employee's computer [to a victim]”This website is a scam, don't invest in it,” they said, trying to inform victims that it was a fake investment.”
John says his ability to speak three languages gave him preferential treatment over others at the facility, making him more valuable. But he was determined to get out as quickly as possible. He tried to call for help using an online messaging app on his phone, but his boss caught him and sold him to another fraud company for $11,000.
While working at his new company, John tried again to seek help through a fake Twitter account (now X). This time, he contacted International Justice Mission (IJM), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that works to free people from human trafficking.
Jake Sims, IJM's Cambodian director at the time, heard John's cries for help, intervened and worked with authorities to rescue him.
“After I met Jake, I truly felt like, oh thank God, I'm saved,” John said.
According to the United NationsIn Cambodia alone, at least 100,000 victims are forced to work in these facilities.
Traffickers are well-educated and media-savvy.
Sims said John would have been an ideal target for traffickers.
“The typical profile is someone who maybe speaks a few languages, has a college education, and is probably pretty tech-savvy and social media-savvy,” Sims said. “They're unemployed, they're looking for a pretty risky employment opportunity, and they're desperate.”
Sims said these fraud rings are able to thrive because multiple parties, including social media platforms and financial institutions, are letting their guard down.
“These parties will also need to play a major role in the solution,” he said.
Some social media companies, such as LinkedIn, have adopted methods to ensure that users are not adopting fake identities, but verification is optional. Most companies allow users to create multiple accounts using fake identities, and those accounts will only be deleted if they are flagged as impersonating someone else.
John from Thailand and Peter from Edmonton say they fell for the scam after responding to an ad they saw on Facebook. Peter said he reported Cryptos Circus to Facebook but never heard back.
Meta, Facebook's parent company, told CBC it couldn't find the CryptoCircus ad that caught Peter's eye because it's no longer running it. Meta has deleted all records of past ads except those that were run in EU jurisdictions, where it is required to keep records for a year.
The company did not comment on why it was removing past advertising records, but said in a statement that it “encourages people to use our reporting tools to report content they believe violates our Community Standards” so it can review the content and “take appropriate action.”
Scam funds are rarely recovered
Meanwhile, scammers are still luring Canadians: The $500 million in identified fraud losses in 2022 is just reported figures, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, which estimates the actual losses could be 10 to 20 times higher.
Detective Dana Gehring of the Edmonton police major crimes unit wants to encourage more Canadians to report cybercrimes because it can help track down perpetrators and recover money, which he says happens very rarely.
Social psychologist Andre Wang explains how “motivated reasoning” influences our behavior in romantic relationships and shares tips for avoiding online romance scammers.
Police, along with specialized private investigators, are tracking the flow of cryptocurrencies between exchanges and, in some cases, are able to recover funds before crime bosses can withdraw them from the cryptocurrency market.
Peter is relieved to know he will get some of his money back and says he has forgiven himself for what happened, but he is still hurting over the loss of his mother's home and his family.
“I just hope that in the future, my family will eventually forgive me too,” he said.
With files from Tiana Grundig and Winston Shet
