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WHEN something sounds too good to be true, it almost always isn’t good or true. That’s how things work in the world of tele-scams and fraud. It starts with a job ad promising aspirants a healthy income, even a career. ‘No experience required! One-day training! Rapid career growth!’ It’s no wonder that countless people then apply and often get the job. Now, a lot of these are more or less legitimate call centres catering to global demand, but increasingly, those responding to such ads find themselves being recruited by fraudsters whose aim is to carry out online scams and tele-scams of varying scales.
The modus operandi is similar across the world: office space, or sometimes an entire residence, is leased or rented and the landlord is usually paid fully (often at higher rates than what the market offers) and in advance, prompting him to ask few questions about the nature of the business. Then you get recruits, and your little scam farm can start operations. The scams are of various levels of complexity: in Pakistan, you may get a call or message saying that you’ve been selected for a payout from BISP, or that the State Bank has blocked your accounts. If you take the bait, you’ll either be asked to make a payment or be asked to provide your financial information in what is a classic phishing scam. Sometimes there’s a link to click on that would then compromise your personal data. You may even get a call from a purported police officer saying he has your son in custody and can release him for a small consideration to be paid through any number of online apps. You may get a WhatsApp message from a friend who is suddenly in need of funds, having suffered a medical emergency or having lost his documents while travelling. These are the basic scams.
The scams are of various levels of complexity.
Recently, a much more sophisticated operation was unearthed in Faisalabad, where a raid on a house unearthed a scam factory specialising, we are told, in online Ponzi schemes that defrauded several Pakistanis. At least 149 people were arrested, including Pakistanis, several dozen Chinese, eight Nigerians, a few Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, two Myanmar nationals and a Zimbabwean. Given that this looks like the United Nations of scamsters, we can assume that they were also targeting foreign nationals — most likely in the US, because that’s where the money is. Armaghan Qureishi, the alleged drug dealer and prime suspect in the murder of Mustafa Amir, also ran phishing scams through an illegal call centre from his house in Karachi’s DHA, where his accomplices would call US nationals while posing as government officials in order to obtain their financial information, such as credit card numbers. Similar scammers often pose as tech support or customer service providers for legitimate companies such as Apple, Amazon or Microsoft, but the end goal is to obtain critical information and payouts. There are standard scripts to be used and accents to be faked, right down to personal details about the life of the person they are pretending to be.
This is also the modus operandi of scammers in India, which has emerged as a major player in this industry despite repeated crackdowns. The scale is staggering: in 2022, the FBI reportedly estimated that over $10 billion was looted from US citizens by Indian scammers alone. While several such scammers have indeed been arrested in India and also indicted by the US Department of Justice, the scamsters just change locations and tactics and carry on. Some have shifted their targets to Dubai. According to an exposé by Khaleej Times, Indian scammers in Noida and Jaipur use call spoofing software to fake UAE numbers and even provide addr-e-sses of their offices in Dubai. Some-ti-mes the offices are real, but these are pop-up scam shops which can be emptied out at a mom-ent’s notice. When irate victims show--ed up at the given address, they found only an empty room and a mop, which is sadly appropriate given how their savings were cleaned out.
But Southeast Asia is where you find the most terrifying operations; these are not scam farms or scam factories, but massive industrial complexes.
These fortified compounds are usually found in the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, and those making the calls are not as much employees as they are bonded labour and slaves. Lured from across Asia and even Africa with attractive job offers, they are abducted on arrival by organised crime gangs who confiscate their passports — much like what happens with sex-trafficking victims — and are imprisoned in these complexes and tortured if they do not achieve their quotas, which can be up to $100,000 a month. Again, while raids are carried out, the connections these criminals have, and the transnational nature of their crimes, makes uprooting this menace a nearly impossible task.
The writer is a journalist.
Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2025
