Interpol Declares Investment Scams “Serious and Imminent Threat”

• Interpol issues an “Orange Notice”, signalling that investment scammers pose a “serious and imminent threat to public safety.”
• The international crime agency says tens of thousands of workers are being ‘hired’ or enslaved to prepare for a scam offensive.
• A network of trafficked and exploited workers criss-crosses Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America.

Jürgen Stock, Interpol’s Secretary General, has issued a chilling warning that “anyone in the world” could fall victim to a new scam. It targets a new group of unsuspecting investors and creates ‘slaves’ of the staff it ‘recruits’ to carry out the fraud. There are losers everywhere in the new set-up, but more importantly, it aims to scam investors who may have previously considered themselves too good to be caught out.

The fraudsters are scaling up their operations and have taken to ‘employing’ highly educated and digital-savvy staff. Part of the plan is to have a better chance of building a rapport with the intended target – those investors across the globe who have until now been able to see a scam coming.

The fake online job offers posted by scammers to hire their high-quality staff don’t mention illegal activity and target IT workers and digital sales executives. Candidates undergo a rigorous selection process, but once they have travelled to start their new ‘job’, they live in prison-like compounds and are forced to carry out scams or launder money.

Why are some of the world’s brightest minds crossing the line into illegal activity – well, it’s not a pretty picture. Some of the scam compounds in Asia are hotbeds of beatings, sexual exploitation, torture, rape and even, in some cases, alleged organ harvesting.

Senior Interpol official Isaac Espinoza also said:

“These criminal groups are now targeting people who are actually highly qualified, people who have university degrees, who are trained in IT and who are tech-savvy.”

In short, the stakes are being raised, and a new type of fraud victim is being targeted. The methods used to acquire and exploit the calibre of staff needed to pull off the scam are unsavoury enough. But if they end up being profitable, these remote prison compounds could represent a seismic shift in how the fraud ‘industry’ works.

There’s not much need to move away from the tried and tested approach during the scam. Start by offering exceptional returns, make initial profits high enough to encourage further investment, and then disappear. The methods will likely be the same, but the quality of the operation is about to go up a level.

People Also Read:

• Annual UK Fraud Audit Reveals Scam Hot-Spots
• Former Schwab, Wells Fargo, and Morgan Stanley Advisor is Sentenced to Seven Years
• FX Fraudster On The Run After £70m Ponzi Scheme Collapses

Crowdsourcing information about scam brokers can help others avoid falling into the traps set by disreputable brokers, and you can share your experiences here. If you would like to know more about this particular topic or have been scammed by a fraudulent broker, you can also contact us at [email protected]

About the author: Justin Freeman

Justin is an active trader with more than 20-years’ industry experience of working for big banks and hedge funds. He has an inside knowledge of how the financial markets work, thanks to roles including trader on a $750m Event-Arbitrage desk and CRO and COO of hedge funds running a variety of strategies. From stat-arb and trend-following CTA to fixed-income relative value. Firm’s he has worked at include big banks like Citi, and prominent hedge funds including D. E. Shaw and Millennium Capital Management.

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