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The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘You get sucked in': crypto scam victims on how they lost up to £162,000
A 'sprat to catch a mackerel' is how one victim describes being reeled in by the skameri working from call centres hundreds of miles away in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. It is the local term for scammers and a huge data leak reveals the inner workings of a fraud network that has tricked Britons out of £9m. Like in any call centre, the script is always the same. For the victim it starts by clicking on a (fake) social media ad or news alert. The promotion tips a great crypto investment but it's a trick, leading only to fraudsters impersonating a real business. Eager investors hand over a relatively small sum at first, say £250, and before they know it – thanks to clever software displaying a seemingly live trading screen – they are getting rich. But the profit is fiction, serving as bait: victims lose the big money trying to cash out. The windfall is 'just one step away', blocked by the need for one more payment – a broker's fee, or a tax bill. It only ends when the victim is broke. The 1m audio files from the Georgia leak include the stories of thousands of victims. To uncover some of them we grouped calls by phone number, reviewing calls of 60 seconds or longer, and listened to how the scam unfolded. In some cases we spoke to those targeted about the impact it had on their lives. 135 calls, 45 hours Losses: £100,000 Lucy was looking for an investment after retiring early for health reasons and was interested in the exciting world of crypto. Unfortunately this led the former retail worker to the scammers' door. The brand they were promoting (AdmiralsFX) was a clone and over more than six months she lost nearly £100,000. To make transferring money easier they told her to open an account with Chase UK (the British retail arm of US bank JP Morgan) as her current bank, Lloyds, was old-fashioned and didn't 'get' crypto. Initially it seemed to pay off as the investments she could see on her screen were rocketing in value. It was only when she tried to cash out that the stalling began. One ruse was that her cash would be released if the account balance was topped up to over six figures. So she took out loans totalling £25,000 (with the direct lender Bamboo and the online bank Zopa). Of course the payday never arrived and, unable to afford the repayments on the high interest loans she and her husband cashed in their pensions to repay them. They are now living on a single state pension. 'Talking about it now it just sounds so stupid, but there you go. It was a very dark time for me and I have tried to overcome how it made me feel,' she says. 'Now I think, 'Why on Earth did I go through with this if I didn't understand it?' But while I was on the phone I felt that I did. They were very, very clever.' Having convinced her to install a screen-sharing app when she was moving money they were in the background telling her what to do. 'It is like being indoctrinated.' When Lucy was unable to raise any more money, the scammer became menacing, sending a picture of her home. 'They threatened my house when I refused to pay any more,' she says. 'They said that they could take a charge out on my house.' The irony, she says, is that she already had an equity-release mortgage. However the threat 'was a very big wake-up call'. 'You get sucked in. It's a sprat to catch a mackerel.' 331 calls, 135 hours Losses: £162,000 One of the biggest financial casualties of the scam, the pensioner thought his crypto investments had turned him into a multimillionaire. In fact he'd lost it all. After clicking on an article in his Google News feed, Derek was contacted by a firm called Golden Currencies. But it was also a clone. But he was drawn in as his investments soared in value, with fraudsters telling him they were worth $10m (£8m). 'I had my doubts lots of times and when the guy told me 'you are a millionaire now' I said I will know it when I see the money.' Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen $ But Derek never did. Like other victims, every time he tried to cash out there was a problem that could only be resolved by putting in more. With such a big prize just out of reach he was pulled in deeper and deeper. He borrowed money from his brother and son, and even took out bank loans totalling £20,000 from Zopa and Shawbrook to secure the release of his small fortune. Looking back, he says the key to the scam is that you become 'so enthralled and influenced' by the person at the end of the phone. 'Every time you challenged the financial rep, he'd say something that made you think you'd been daft asking a question.' When the reality dawned Derek reported his losses to the numerous payment firms he had used as well as the authorities. So far he has been reimbursed £17,000 by the money transfer service Wise. This was only enough to repay the loans – he could not afford to keep up the repayments. While his refund claim is with the Financial Ombudsman he is trying to chip away at his other debts, with his adult son now living with him rent-free. 290 calls, 55 hours Losses: £24,000 Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Like many Britons Ken takes the word of Martin Lewis as gospel so when he came across a (fake) column by the personal finance guru tipping a currency trading site he took the plunge. He clicked on a link and handed over his details. 'I got a phone call not long after,' he says. The vulnerable pensioner was easy prey. The previous year he had been hospitalised for six months and nearly died after becoming ill with a rare autoimmune condition. He was slowly recuperating but the scammers were relentless, calling nearly 300 times. His initial stake was £250 but by the end he had lost nearly 100 times that amount. Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen $ His experience highlights the scammers' mercenary tactics. At one point a family member answers a call and explains he is unwell. His father is 'on drugs and not taking things in', he explains, but instead of giving up the caller urges them to pay the £2,000 that is the only thing standing in the way of Ken's £167,000 payout. In a cruel twist another caller poses as a 'recovery expert' able to get Ken's money back. The fraudulent brokerage (AdmiralsFX) he has been dealing has been shut down by Interpol … if Ken hands over £2,000, he can 'walk out of this with £72,000', he promises. 'We didn't have a lot but it is gone now,' says Ken who is on universal credit and also receives disability benefit. 'I'm still feeling a bit 'Why did you do it, you stupid idiot?'.' The pensioner reported the fraud to his banks (HSBC and Revolut) and expects about a third of his money to be refunded. 222 calls, 55 hours Losses: £50,000 Sheltered housing affords vulnerable people some protection – but it did not shield Theresa from the scammers. Living a frugal life on the outskirts of London – where her day seemed to revolve around trips to either the supermarket or the clinic for treatment – the retired NHS doctor decided to invest some of her savings in Golden Currencies. The results seemed instantly staggering. Theresa's agent told her that she had made £150,000 investing in crypto – but when she wanted to withdraw her winnings the scam kicked in. A fake demand from HMRC required a £29,000 tax payment before the profits could be released – which Theresa felt uneasy about. 'I called HMRC and they said this sounds like a scam,' a suspicious Theresa told her 'financial adviser'. 'They said don't pay it.' 'HMRC doesn't know crypto,' the agent shot back, before insisting that her colleague at the call centre had similarly been an investor, had paid the taxes and then successfully received his stellar profits. 'Don't phone HMRC again. If he had believed them, he wouldn't have got his money.' Theresa caved in, paid the fake tax bill to the scammers and then paid a second fake capital gains tax bill. The transfers wiped out her savings, forced her to borrow from family and left her nursing losses of about £50,000. 'I haven't got £3,000,' she told the scam centre about one urgent demand. 'I need to pay my rent.' The calls ended in July of last year. Public records suggest Theresa died in September. * All names have been changed
The Guardian
05-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Deepfakes, cash and crypto: how call centre scammers duped 6,000 people
Ben Fogle was not a happy man. 'Not sure I need to highlight this,' the broadcaster posted on Instagram during the spring of 2024, 'but the deepfake of me from [ITV's] This Morning … circulating on Facebook [and] advertising crypto is a scam.' Fogle's warning showed a fictional news article, linking to a digitally doctored video, but not everybody noticed. One of those taken in was Mark*, a franchise manager in his 30s from East Anglia, who in one click lurched towards losing his life savings. 'I watched the video [of] Ben Fogle, like trading,' Mark said, recalling how the clip had promoted a cryptocurrency website called AdmiralsFX. 'So I just bang some details in [and] then I was contacted [by a call centre]. It was a £250 buy-in … I was like, 'Oh, well, it's worth a go for that'.' Within a month, he had handed over £27,000 – the equivalent of a year's salary – and sounded less relaxed. On a call with the person he believed was his investment adviser, he pleaded: 'I've lost all my money, mate … What have you done with it?' Mark was far from alone and the sheer scale of this heist can now be revealed for the first time, thanks to a massive leak of data shared with the Guardian and international media partners by Swedish television channel SVT and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Analysis of the files suggests at least 6,179 people were duped by an industrial-scale boiler room fraud operating inside three plush-looking offices in Tbilisi, the capital city of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Calling themselves the skameri – Georgian for scammers – a group of 85 call handlers and support staff made it their daily mission from May 2022 to relieve ordinary people of $35m (£27m) of their savings. They routed the cash through what appears to be a sophisticated money-laundering network and yet, somehow, almost nobody seems to have noticed this sizeable venture, which appears to be still operating. With hindsight, the warnings were everywhere. AdmiralsFX, the investment platform Mark had started using, had already prompted a notification by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority stating it had been created by fraudsters 'to scam people'. A related brand, also being promoted from Georgia and called Golden Currencies, had been given the same official treatment. Other celebrities whose images were used – including the money expert Martin Lewis and the radio DJ Zoe Ball – had issued their own warnings. For many that proved futile. Victims of the Georgian scam still frequently cited the deepfakes as the reason they pressed ahead. WARNING. THIS IS A SCAM BY CRIMINALS TRYING TO STEAL MONEY. PLS is frightening, it's the first deep fake video scam I've seen with me in it. Govt & regulators must step up to stop big tech publishing such dangerous fakes. People'll lose money and it'll ruin lives. The sums taken by the Tbilisi agents are significant, but there are even bigger networks. The leak contains some details of a second group, with call centres in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Spain, apparently run from Israel, which made an estimated $240m over three years. However, the Georgian data offers a significant additional insight: the scammers recorded their conversations with victims, storing more than 1m calls. The files lift the lid on how these schemes actually work. Scammers pay affiliate marketers to place the fake ads on well-known social media sites. For each successful 'lead' – a victim making an initial deposit after handing over their contact details – the marketer is rewarded with anything from $500 up to $1,750. Those from wealthy nations, in particular the UK and Canada, attract the highest fees. The 'leads' included a 74-year-old former NHS doctor, Theresa*, who was living in sheltered housing on the outskirts of London when she lost about £50,000. She seems to have spent her last days borrowing from relatives to pay her tormenters. There was also Ken*, a 64-year-old with a neurological disorder. As he lay sick and heavily medicated, the scammers tried to extract money from his accounts via his son. Lucy*, a 61-year-old woman, was left wrestling with 'dark' thoughts after transferring £100,000 and emptying her pension pot. There were also successful small business people, whose commercial savvy seemed to offer limited protection. The highest individual loss discovered in the leak came from a former employee of the London Stock Exchange called Derek*. He parted with £162,000. There were thousands more. The data includes training manuals, payroll and accounting spreadsheets, countless messages between staff and affiliate marketers, plus instructions on how to move money while circumventing bank security protocols. The Georgia network appeared particularly attracted to targeting the UK, which accounted for 45% of the attempted phone calls and losses of nearly a third (£9m) of the takings. The second largest group of victims were from Canada and the operation cast its net wide, employing German, Spanish and Arabic speakers. But if all these people were only being asked for a few hundred pounds, how did it get so bad? 'Get up, push your clients, and get the money flowing … Otherwise, I'll have to escalate things.' Meri Shotadze had a talent for dishing out aggressive orders to her elite team of Tbilisi-based 'retention' agents, charged with persuading victims to increase their initial deposits. It was demanding work – in February 2024, her group of seven had a $420,000 'sales' target. Leaked records and social media posts show the agents were paid well for their efforts, while they socialised hard at company events. Bonuses of Rolex watches would motivate agents to strain for even higher returns, while lavish parties with cabaret dancers and a giant gold cake encouraged loyalty and affection to their thrusting boss. 'You know, I'm counting on you this month,' Shotadze texted one of her star performers, who operated under the pseudonym of Mary Roberts, as she feared her team was falling behind target. Mary simply responded with a big red heart. The elite agents had been passed their clients from newer recruits, who dealt with the initial nominal deposits gleaned from the social media ads. This allowed them to hone their skills before promising their marks a more experienced broker would 'help' make their fortunes. Many victims dropped away at this point. But, for others, this is where the nightmare began. Internal records from the Georgian operation suggest that, out of about 2,000 victims persuaded to part with the largest sums, 652 were from the UK. Key to the deception was specially built software displaying a seemingly live trading screen featuring financial market tickers, charts and news about Elon Musk. Victims were told they were using AI technology to trade in crypto currencies. They could click on their own account balances, which inevitably showed stellar profits. 'On the platform, it all looks real, you know? I was making good money,' Mark said. 'I'd invested $250 and made big profits,' recalled former London Stock Exchange worker Derek, 'and then I was asked for $5,000 to move up to the Golden Currencies bronze service.' Derek spent more time on the phone to the skameri than any of the UK victims: he was contacted more than 300 times and clocked up more than 135 hours of conversations as he saw his profits soaring to a staggering $10m. Theresa believed she was up about £150,000 and Mark thought he was in line for about £80,000. He was planning to quit his job, buy a van and become self-employed. But the profits were not only fake – they were a trap. When each of them asked to withdraw their winnings, the demands for large payments started: brokerage fees, money transfer commissions, tax demands from HMRC, anti-money laundering costs. All of them were fake. Thousands of pounds were required before the winnings could be accessed. Each time one bill was settled, another appeared. And there was limited time to pay before the profits risked being frozen, they were told. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Victims paid because of the bond the agents had crafted with their targets. On his long commutes home, Mark openly shared details about his relationship with his girlfriend – while his agent, 'Liliana', talked about her children. Theresa sat alone in her sheltered housing seemingly desperate for conversation with her adviser, Mary; the pair would chat and then bicker like a pair of siblings. Many victims handed scammers control of their phones or computers remotely, via an application called AnyDesk, as they struggled to operate the technology. Even when doubts emerged, they were quickly batted off. 'Every time I help you it works out. Why are you so sceptical?' Mary asked Theresa. 'You are my best friend.' So Theresa kept paying, believing her huge profits would soon be released. In reality, her losses were soaring. 'I can just about pay my rent,' Theresa confided. 'I'm very worried.' Banks have defences to shield customers against this type of crime. But the scammers had a way around: pushing victims towards using newer, largely online operations – 'challenger banks'. These names featured surprisingly heavily in the leak considering their market share. Revolut, which received a UK banking licence last year, seems to have been the most used. It was involved with 154 victims out of 1,000 who had their bank listed in spreadsheets from the Georgian operation. Among British victims, Revolut was again the most used (119 victims), followed by another nascent UK digital lender, Kroo (50). Blue chip banking group JP Morgan's online brand, Chase, also appears in the top 10, with 14 victims using it. But extracting money from victims is an art, not a science. Often the controls did work. Mark said he had tried to send £12,000 from Revolut and HSBC, only for both those banks to block the transfers. His adviser then pointed him towards setting up a new account, which worked. 'It's much easier to do it with Chase,' Mark was told. Revolut, Kroo and Chase all say they take fraud incredibly seriously and invest heavily to prevent it, while Facebook owner Meta added it had started a programme allowing banks to report these scams to help combat fraud. The data also shows their anti-fraud efforts often being undermined by their own customers who, under the instruction of their agents, would lie to compliance staff. 'Tell them you are buying clothes and say you are in the store,' Mary told Theresa, as she attempted to pay fees to release her profits. Theresa then used her new Chase account to transfer £10,000 to an account in the name of a company claiming to be a small clothing business, set up in Birmingham two and a half years earlier. She later transferred £16,000 to a six-month-old 'phone' company owned by the same person. Checks suggest these businesses were shell companies, and seemingly part of a money-laundering service provided by an unknown third party. In at least one case, a victim even allowed money from another victim to pass through his own account. The money trail disappears in places, but the leak contains information about who may have been controlling the Georgian operation. The assertive team leader, Shotadze, is the registered owner and director of a Georgian telemarketing company called AK Group, a business whose name and branding is all over the leaked documents. Some of these files link the company to the Tbilisi call centre offices. The AK Group name features prominently at staff parties and on call centre messaging groups. The initials are the same as those of an individual who Shotadze appears to refer to as her 'boss' – a Tbilisi resident called Akaki Kevkhishvili. In February 2024, she messaged one of her agents, saying: 'Kaki is our boss, sometimes he gets angry with us, sometimes he likes us.' She is pictured in the leak wearing luxury items, including a $17,000 Rolex watch, while Kevkhishvili is pictured driving high-end cars and being chauffeured in a Range Rover. Photos found online show the pair posing together at a lavish AK Group party in 2023. Neither responded to requests for comment. The Instagram and WhatsApp accounts of a man calling himself Akaki Kevkhishvili feature the logo of a lion wearing a crown. The same logo appears on a private Telegram account, labelled simply A.K, which the data suggests played an active role at the company. A.K told one employee: 'Don't fuck up transactions in such a banal fashion, please. And turn off your emotions totally, it obstructs you.' But the charm and polish of the skameri can slip. When another victim confronted her, Mary gloated: 'Just go ahead and kill yourself … Yeah I can scam whoever I want ...You're so stupid,' she went on, 'you will never find my real passport.' In fact, Mary's real identity, and that of her sister, who also worked as a scammer, have emerged from the leak. Georgia's prosecutor's office says it is now looking into this network, while UK parliamentarians push for a more urgent legislative response. But Tbilisi is a seven-hour flight from London and a long reach for British law enforcement. 'I reported this to Action Fraud but I was told the police couldn't do anything,' said Derek. Mark feels resigned to his own loss and is now attempting to do for others what Fogle tried to do for him – saying he is speaking up to 'help the younger generations to not fall in a similar trap'. * Names have been changed If you've spotted a fake advert or news article that promotes fraudulent crypto schemes on platforms like Facebook and Google, please share a link with us in the form below and tell us where and when you saw it. You can even take a screen grab in case it disappears. 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