Yeti or not, it’s a scam.
Dave Bittner: Hello, everyone; and welcome to N2K CyberWire's Hacking Humans Podcast, where each week we look behind the social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines and taking a heavy toll on organizations around the world. I'm Dave Bittner, and joining me is Joe Carrigan. Hey there, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: Hi, Dave.
Dave Bittner: And our N2K colleague and host of the T-Minus Space Daily podcast, Maria Varmazis. Maria.
Maria Varmazis: Hi, Dave. And hi, Joe.
Dave Bittner: We've got some good stories to share this week. And, first of all, let me just say welcome back to both of you.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Sorry, Dave.
Maria Varmazis: Wait. You were out too?
Dave Bittner: Yes.
Joe Carrigan: I was, yes.
Dave Bittner: Kind of a --
Joe Carrigan: I was planning on being there.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: But then, yeah. Something.
Dave Bittner: Joe has this thing called a career. Unlike you and me, Maria, his career does not focus around recording podcasts.
Joe Carrigan: I try to make -- I try to make sure it does, block this time out so I can be here.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Very important.
Maria Varmazis: How dare you.
Dave Bittner: Some of the time that works out. But, every now and then, you know, Joe, Joe's an important person. He's dealing with issues of national security and --
Joe Carrigan: Oh, I don't know if all that's true.
Dave Bittner: President, sometimes the President calls him into the Oval Office and says, Joe, I'm going to miss you.
Joe Carrigan: Dave, come on, man. Trying to keep my employment with the Trump administration on the down low.
Maria Varmazis: You're canceled, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: I do not work for the Trump administration.
Dave Bittner: No, no. All right. Let's do some follow up here. First of all, before we dig into listener follow up or anything like that, Joe, you have a new Facebook profile.
Joe Carrigan: I do, I do. This was taken just a couple of days ago at my -- at my daughter's house at the chicken coop. And I grabbed one of the chickens, and I picked her up. And I was holding her, and my wife -- or my daughter was there. And she goes, I'm going to take a picture of you in portrait mode, and you can make this your new profile pic. So I struck a pose.
Dave Bittner: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: You sure did.
Joe Carrigan: Looking very stately, I think.
Dave Bittner: Wistfully off to the distance.
Maria Varmazis: My goodness.
Joe Carrigan: Held the -- held the chicken and held the pose, and my daughter snapped a picture of me that's actually not -- not -- one that I finally look and go, man, I look like a big fat guy in this picture. So, yeah. The chicken is -- is comfortable. She was very nice. It's -- actually, once I held her and once I got her comfortable, she didn't want me to put her down. She was loving it. It's nice.
Dave Bittner: What kind of chicken is that?
Joe Carrigan: This is a Wyandotte. They're not -- they're not laying yet. They're all Wyandottes.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: But the -- you know, the roosters, the two roosters are still in the garage. They're getting bigger. And soon they'll be ready to go out here with the ladies to protect them from would-be predators.
Dave Bittner: Right. Now, have there been any signs of would-be predators sniffing around?
Joe Carrigan: Well, the -- the insider threat is still around. Okay. You know, this is the dog that killed the last batch of chickens.
Dave Bittner: Oh, I see. Sure.
Joe Carrigan: She took a charge at one of the chickens while I was in the coop and, like, just smashed her face into the hardware cloth we have inside of the coop and, you know, looked really stupid after doing that.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Like, I can't believe I did that.
Dave Bittner: Oh, man.
Maria Varmazis: That must have hurt. My goodness. That stuff's not, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: My daughter is saying that the dogs are always around there peeing on the ground. So she thinks that's going to keep, like, foxes and coyotes away. I hope it does. I don't know that it does. It certainly does not keep groundhogs away. I will tell you that right now. They've got a groundhog right --
Maria Varmazis: Nothing, nothing keeps groundhogs away.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Groundhogs fear no man or dog, no man nor beast.
Maria Varmazis: True, true. Well, it's a very regal picture of you, Joe, honestly. Like, and the perspective is really nice with the hardware cloth, like, given that really nice vanishing point perspective. It's very cool. I never thought I'd say someone holding a chicken would be really cool. It's a cool photo of you.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Two people made similar comments on the photo. One of them said, I thought you were a free range Joe because I'm actually inside the coop.
Maria Varmazis: You are.
Joe Carrigan: And another hashtag free Joe.
Dave Bittner: That's right. Right. This is what happens when Joe's got a disagreement with Lisa. He goes and -- he goes -- and it's a euphemism in the Carrigan house.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Joe spends a little time out in the chicken coop.
Joe Carrigan: Not the dog house, the chicken coop.
Maria Varmazis: Not the dog house. Right.
Dave Bittner: Go cool down and enjoy some eggs.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So the dog house is the big house that we live in, you know, because the dogs have a nice, comfortable bed to lay on.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: And they share it with me when I go to bed. It's nice.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. All right. We've got some other follow up here, Joe. What do we got?
Joe Carrigan: So a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember who it was that had this story. But one of us had the story about the Arizona woman who was indicted for helping North Koreans fake that they were in the United States, and then these guys funneled $17 million to North Korea.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And she has been sentenced for her role in this to eight and a half years in prison.
Dave Bittner: Wow.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So that's -- there's some closure on that story.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. All right. Well.
Joe Carrigan: She's 50. She'll be 58 and a half when she gets out.
Dave Bittner: Okay?
Joe Carrigan: Possibly 59.
Dave Bittner: Some justice done.
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Dave Bittner: All right. Well, of course we would like to hear from you, our listeners. If there's something you'd like us to consider for the show, you can email us. It is HackingHumans@n2k.com. So I'm going to kick things off with our stories this week. And this, there's no link to this because this is a personal story.
Joe Carrigan: Okay.
Dave Bittner: And, friends, I went down a rabbit hole.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Dave Bittner: I was chasing the wild hair. I'm doing what I do on Facebook, which is what, Joe? What I do on Facebook?
Joe Carrigan: Doom scroll, Dave.
Dave Bittner: What else?
Joe Carrigan: Oh. And you also report the ads you see.
Dave Bittner: Okay. One more thing. You'll get there, you'll get there.
Joe Carrigan: You comment on my pictures. You were first one to comment on this new picture, by the way.
Dave Bittner: I was minding my own business, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: You're mind your own -- minding your business. Sorry. Minding my own business walking down the street.
Dave Bittner: Right. Just scrolling through Facebook, minding my own business. And something comes by on my Facebook feed, and it is a sponsored post from an individual. And it is someone with a way to get yourself a free or nearly free YETI cooler. Okay. Now, we're familiar -- for folks who may not be familiar with YETI Coolers or cups or --
Maria Varmazis: The cult of YETI.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. It's a brand of insulated products.
Joe Carrigan: And they're very well-insulated.
Dave Bittner: Yes.
Joe Carrigan: But they're not cheap
Dave Bittner: No.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. For some reason in America we really like our insulated cups, like Stanley's, YETIs. You name it. There's all these different brands. We love them. I don't get why, but they're a thing.
Dave Bittner: Right. And they make backpacks. They make coolers. And they -- it is a premium brand, so they are not cheap; and so they're also desirable. It's a well-known brand. People like them, all that good stuff. So this particular ad that scrolled by that caught my eye, it reads like this. It says -- this is from someone who claims to be Ava Davis. It says, My father dedicated seven of his -- seven years of his life to Dick's Sporting Goods store. And, when he turned 50, they fired him, threw him out like a rag. So I want to share something that only employees and their families know. There's a loophole in the store's website where you can get a YETI Hopper for almost free. You just need to answer a few questions, leave a review, and the backpack is yours. They don't advertise this because they want only employees to use the offer. I have nothing to lose anymore, so I'll post the link in the comments. Answer the questions and get your YETI backpack. If you want, you can share it with your friends too. Maybe it's not completely right, but please try to understand me. It's unfair for the company to act like this. Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Rage bait.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Wow. Okay.
Dave Bittner: I mean, we all want to put one over on the man, right.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Stick it to them.
Maria Varmazis: Nothing left to lose. Here's a YETI cooler. Yeah. That follows.
Dave Bittner: I've got nothing left to lose. I'm sharing a discount code on a YETI cooler.
Joe Carrigan: That'll show them.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. That's right.
Maria Varmazis: Stick it to them. Stick it to the YETI.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: That's the last thing I want to stick anything to.
Dave Bittner: Ava led a simple life. But, when the time came, she stuck it to the YETI and to Dick's Sporting Goods. So this set off my radar just a little bit. And I thought to myself, okay. First of all, why is this a sponsored post, right? Why would someone be paying money to put this in front of me if it's just an individual sharing their good fortune of having this discount code on this YETI cooler? So I click through on this profile, and I see that this person has zero friends and zero followers.
Joe Carrigan: Is it a new profile?
Dave Bittner: Don't know, but they list their profession as a digital creator. There are a few family photos, and then all the rest is pictures of YETI products. Okay.
Maria Varmazis: That tracks. Okay. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. So I do myself a little search on Facebook for free YETI cooler, right? So I come across this -- the pre mentioned Ava Davis is one. I come across Emily Johnson. Emily Johnson, also zero likes, zero followers. And, in her profile, my father dedicated seven years of his life to Dick's Sporting Goods store. When he turned 50, they fired him, threw him out like a rag. So the --
Maria Varmazis: Like a rag.
Dave Bittner: Like a rag.
Maria Varmazis: Like a rag.
Joe Carrigan: Everybody gets thrown out of Dick's like a rag, I guess.
Maria Varmazis: Like a rag.
Dave Bittner: Found another one. This is Charity Allen. She has different -- slightly different angle here. Do not, repeat, do not purchase a YETI Camino because my husband works at YETI and told me most people don't know that, if they answer a short survey, they can get a cooler bag. I've already checked it out and received my bag. I have attached a picture. I'll leave a link in the comments. He sent it. You can fill out the survey.
Joe Carrigan: Are they the same pictures?
Dave Bittner: No. This is a different product.
Joe Carrigan: Oh, okay.
Dave Bittner: Different YETI product.
Joe Carrigan: Okay.
Dave Bittner: So here's -- so, before I dig into my unpacking of this, let me ask both of you in turn. What do you think's going on here?
Joe Carrigan: What do I think the end game is here?
Dave Bittner: Yeah. What -- so let's just base level and all agree this is a scam.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: Yes.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: It is a scan, 100 percent a scam.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: How do they scam you? How do they get you?
Dave Bittner: What do you think this scam is? What do you think's going on here? What -- why are they doing this?
Joe Carrigan: I think you enter a bunch of information on a survey site, which is just a way that they can then monetize that by selling the data. And then you also -- they may also contact you and say, Hey. We're getting ready to send you a YETI cooler, but I need, like, you to send me, like, the $25 fee or something like that. Or because it's not saying that it's free, it's saying that it's really reduced price, now a YETI, I know my cup, my 20-ounce tumbler was like $40.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Right. So, if they're selling this cooler for, like -- which they typically go for like $200 -- that's where they start -- if they're going to give that to you for $25 --
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- and you think you're getting a good deal, maybe that's the scam. They're just going to make 25 bucks off you.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Maria.
Maria Varmazis: I mean, I had two thoughts on this. One was that maybe it could be a way to astroturf reviews if it was asking for a review, but it's not. I did not click the link. You'll be very proud of me. I did not click it.
Dave Bittner: Oh, Maria.
Maria Varmazis: I know. But I did look at the URL. I'm just looking at it. I'm not clicking it. And it's one of those very spammy looking quiz websites that could -- I -- where they usually have a gajillion ads on it. And I'm sure the ads are all very malicious and do all sorts of nasty stuff. That's why I'm not clicking it. So, yeah. It's -- it's, to me, it just smells like an astroturfing, basically. So -- but it's -- it is interesting. The Facebook profiles that you mentioned, the addresses they all show are all for, like, major metropolitan areas like New York City specifically or Austin, Texas or Toronto. Like they're -- they're -- they're being very generic. And I don't think they're even really trying to hide this. It seems very low effort.
Joe Carrigan: Right. So can I tell you something that has -- I have found that is almost, almost identical. The scam is almost -- I don't know if it's an identical scam, but it's almost an identical thing that's happening.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Dave and I, Maria, we're both now amateur radio operators at -- at the general level, which means we have a lot more operating privileges than I have had for the past 10 years. Dave was my inspiration for going out and getting my general license, by the way.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, congrats. That's coll.
Joe Carrigan: I'm going to go do that.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So I don't have -- right. I don't have -- I don't have anything that I can use to communicate to use my general privileges, right? So I don't have an HF transceiver. All I have are, like, two little VHF-UHF transceivers that I can already use as a technician.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: So I need to go out and get a -- a new high frequency transceiver. And I'm cheap, so the first place I go to look for it is Facebook marketplace. And I just type in HF transceiver. And I do local, and all it is, is ad after ad after ad after ad, pages of it for the -- I'm going to say this wrong -- Zegu, Zeque, Z-I-E-Q -- >> Dave Bittner. Yeah. Zieq, yeah. I would have had it if you hadn't said it. Right. It's a Chinese radio.
Dave Bittner: Right?
Joe Carrigan: It's an SDR, software defined radio. And it's the model number X6200. If you look this up online -- and you can find them online. Is a real radio.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And I hear a lot of people talking about how good they are, you know, despite the fact that they cost around like $400.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: They're selling all over this site for $96. Every single ad is for $96.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Like, it's all scams.
Maria Varmazis: Oddly specific. Yes.
Joe Carrigan: Oddly specific. Right.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And I did the same thing you did. I went down the same rabbit hole. I started clicking on the ads and seeing who was posting it, and it was somebody that just joined Facebook --
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: -- which is why I asked that question.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. So, Maria, you are on the right track here. I did the same thing that you did. I started looking at all the URLs for these, and they're all spammy URLs. None of them actually go to YETI, right? So, like -- like the one I'm looking at right now is promo dash official dot pro, you know. And so they go to these survey sites, these coupon sites. I don't know if the people who are running this get some kind of payoff for every person who clicks through. That's possible. Certainly for everyone who signs up to get the YETI bag. Now, let's keep in mind, nothing is truly free. So the $10 you're paying or whatever, you're giving them some kind of payment information. So you're putting that at risk. The other thing I noticed in here is, when you go through the comments on a lot of these, you'll see other people saying, I was skeptical. But I did it, and it works. I got my bag last week.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: And, if you click through on those people, they're the same people. There --
Joe Carrigan: It's the same network of people.
Dave Bittner: Right. Same people, zero followers, zero friends, zero integrity.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: So -- but, to a casual viewer, you could see how this would be attractive because it is a good deal on something. And they're pressing all sorts of emotional buttons, right? Like, I -- listen. Hey, everybody. Here's a secret.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: I have an insider bit of information that not everyone has that I'm going to share with you. And then you -- so you look at that, and you think, Oh, I'm going to get this thing for cheap. And then you look through the comments and you say, Well, gosh. Other people are saying that they've gotten this. So it must be legit. And I'm willing to bet it ain't.
Joe Carrigan: No.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Because insider deals are famously blasted publicly on Facebook all the time, right?
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Definitely. This is where the exclusive information goes. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: And, yet -- and, yet, people fall for it all the time. And YETI.
Dave Bittner: YETI. See what I did there.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. I do.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: It's very frustrating to me the degree to which Facebook does not tamp down on these things --
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: -- because --
Maria Varmazis: These -- these are not even trying. That's the thing that's amazing. You can tell instantly these profiles are scammy because they -- as you said, no pro -- no followers, no friends, one or two photos that I'm sure were stolen from a legitimate profile. And I -- for fun, I looked at some of them. They actually have a street address thing as their actual address. Did you click through any of these? Because one of them goes directly to the Museum of Jurassic History in Los Angeles.
Dave Bittner: Ah.
Maria Varmazis: Looks like there's no effort being put here. This is, like, such an obvious scam.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: And, yet, when I was -- I think I mentioned this to you all a few months ago when I had to rejoin Facebook. Maybe I only mentioned this to my husband. I can't remember who I told. I didn't want to make a brand new profile. I didn't want to make a legitimate profile, rather. I wanted to make a brand new profile that was just fake because I wasn't going to use it to contact friends or anything. I was just trying to read my town's news, and that was it. And Facebook wouldn't let me. It's like, No, you're clearly -- you're clearly fake. We know that you're a real person. You need to use your real name. It's like, you know, I just wanted to be anonymous just to read an article. I can't believe that they're forcing me to use real info. And, yet, these scammers are clearly better at it than I was.
Joe Carrigan: Right, right.
Maria Varmazis: I need to put my address as the Museum of Jurassic History in Los Angeles. Jeez. What the hell.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah. All right. So I put it all out there, just as a little bit of warning to our -- to our listeners. You know, spread the word for these sorts of scams. To Joe's point, there are dozens of these, probably hundreds of these. If there's something that you're interested in, somebody's running this kind of scan about that type of thing.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Dave Bittner: They're just -- there's no escaping them. But -- so, for me, the initial red flag was the fact that this was a sponsored post coming from an individual. And then there's so many other red flags of this being a scam, just if you dig in the tiniest little bit. So beware. If you -- and, if you're curious, if you want to check these out, just go on Facebook and do a search for YETI cooler --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: -- for YETI cooler, and you'll find they'll just pop up all over the place.
Joe Carrigan: Or HF transceiver.
Dave Bittner: There you go. All right. That's my story this week. Maria, you're up next. What do you got for us?
Maria Varmazis: Well, I've got one that's a bit geopolitical. And, admittedly, my angle for this is that I live next to one of the cities with the largest Cambodian diaspora in the United States. I live next to the city of Lowell. So there's a large Cambodian population and always has been, as long as I've been alive. And there has been an armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia that has flared up in recent -- the recent weeks, if not months. And there's a reason I'm talking about this on this show. So, just for context for people who don't know about this conflict or aren't up to date, the armed conflict that has sort of reignited between these two nations has currently left about 33 people dead and forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes, and this is happening along a contested border between these two countries. As of the time of this recording, the two nations are in a cease fire, with Thailand saying Cambodia is not honoring the cease fire. And Cambodia says this is not true, so that's the current state of things. The BBC is saying that, well, this flare-up in the conflict that has been lethal now and then for decades started in 2008 when Cambodia tried to lay claim to an 11th century temple in the disputed border area that aggravated things further with Thailand. But there was an article that I just saw on the register that says a lot of what's actually really fueling what's going on right now in this escalation is actually related to Cambodia's scam compound industry, which we have talked about many times on the show about people being basically enslaved in these scam compounds and, you know, calling people in these, like, phone banks, not just all over Asia but really all over the world. So a reminder about some of the stats on this, Cambodia is home to cyber scam slave camps, where at least over 100,000 traffic victims are forced to run romance and investment frauds, which we cover a lot on this show. And many of these scam centers actually operate very close to this contested border region. So, in the recent months, Thai officials have been threatening to cut off electricity and internet to parts of Cambodia to disrupt these operations specifically. But Cambodia says this cutoff is actually an aid of Thailand's border ambitions. Nothing altruistic there about stopping the scams. So add into this mix China because it's a huge, huge global player, especially in this region.
Joe Carrigan: I was just about to say that --
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- because, like, I did a story a couple weeks ago about China --
Maria Varmazis: Yes.
Joe Carrigan: -- working with Thailand to do exactly that: cut off the power and the internet service.
Maria Varmazis: Yes. I remember. Yep. I was just thinking of that. When I was reading this story, I was thinking that one of us covered it. I couldn't remember if it was you, Joe. But, yes. Exactly. So, as I think you mentioned at the time, Thai operations are getting support officially from the Chinese government to cut off these scams in Cambodia that are being run in Cambodia. But flip side: Chinese organized crime is running a lot of those scam centers in Cambodia --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: -- and are actually also trafficking kidnapped Chinese citizens. So it's very messy all around. So there was this really interesting quote from an analyst named Angela Suryasenee, who is a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. And she said, While not a direct trigger, Thailand's parallel efforts to counter transnational cyber scam activities operating near the border may have contributed to the broader strategic environment in which this conflict escalated. These efforts may have contributed to a broader climate of mistrust and friction between the two governments, which that makes a lot of sense to me, honestly, especially I -- I didn't know about the actual financials of this. Or maybe I'd forgotten because my brain is Swiss cheese. But, according to one estimate, the scam centers, the slave sent -- scam slave centers. I don't want to even euphemize these. I don't want to use euphemisms for what is slavery.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Truly.
Joe Carrigan: Right. It is slavery. Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. These call centers are generating an estimated $12.5 billion annually, which is half of Cambodia's GDP. And the main opposition leader for Cambodia's government, their opposition in exile, says that apparently the Cambodian government is also pocketing a lot of these profits, although allegations are ongoing. So your mileage may vary on that one. But I just -- this story from the Register I thought was really important and something that felt natural for us to just talk about, given how many times we cover these scams on the show and just really was sad and that these scams that are enslaving people, causing so much heartbreak and turmoil around the world, not to mention the financial losses, I mean, that they're actually contributing to armed conflict where people are being killed also, I mean, it's just -- it's -- it can be really easy to forget the stakes. But this is real life and death, and it's just like, wow. I don't know. I just, I don't know. I just -- I just wanted to make sure I brought it up on the show.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. I mean, it's serious stuff. And I think, to your point, you don't often think about, you know, where everything flows, right?
Joe Carrigan: Right. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: You know.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. What the source of these things are.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. You know, you get a call on your phone that's somebody scamming you. It might be somebody down the street, but it might be somebody on the other side of the world who's trapped in a call center and has no choice.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Exactly. Yep.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: It's horrific. And then something, a little footnote to this, since we were just talking about Facebook, social media like Facebook is certainly involved in all this, as well, as we've frequently covered, because many of the victims who've been trafficked in these call centers were initially found on social media platforms. So there is a whole flow. You can just sort of watch the whole flow from social media platforms all the way through an armed conflict where people are dying. It's like wild if you really think about that sort of domino effect. But it might sound hyperbolic to say that. But I think, in this case, it's not. It's true. So, yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Well, and I think just to reiterate this scenario because we've talked about this here before, and I want to say it was probably before, Maria, you were joining us on a regular basis, the -- how people get lured to these places with promises of good jobs.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Yep.
Dave Bittner: Good, well-paying jobs. And then they get there, and there is no job. And they're kept there. You know, they're -- they're -- they've crossed a border. Their passport is taken away, and they're kept there under the threat of violence.
Maria Varmazis: Or, yeah. Or directly, like, beaten if they try to leave --
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: -- or families threatened, the whole thing.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: So horrific.
Joe Carrigan: They have guns in these places to keep you in line.
Maria Varmazis: Yes, they do. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: So I think, you know, the good news is that we are seeing crackdowns on a lot of this stuff. I don't know to what degree, like, the Cambodian government is merely paying lip service to this. As -- as you said, Maria, there's a lot of opportunity for grift and that sort of thing when you have --
Maria Varmazis: Half their GDP.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Right. Yeah. A huge business like this where there's so much money blowing around, there's probably lots of people who are highly incentivized to keep it running, which I imagine it takes to even build it in the first place.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: So, yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Horrific. Yeah, yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. All right. Well, we will have a link to that story in the show notes. I tell you what. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsor. We will be right back. And we are back. Joe, you are up. What do you got for us?
Joe Carrigan: Well, my story comes from Chamomile -- I hope I'm saying that right -- Shumba. And pretty sure I got that one, Chamomile Shumba from Coin Desk. And this comes via the finance.yahoo.com page.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So it's the Yahoo! Finance page. There is a grand jury in Denver, Colorado that has indicted Eli Regalado and his wife Kaitlyn. Now, it's important to note that they are preachers at the Victoria Grace Church. And the indictment alleges that, between 2022 and 2023, these two allegedly solicited nearly $3.4 million from investors looking to buy their index coin cryptocurrency from Kingdom Wealth Exchange. Okay. So already -- go ahead.
Maria Varmazis: Sorry. There's a lot -- there are a lot of names and -- what?
Joe Carrigan: Right. So already we're in -- we're into confusion here, right? I don't know if this index coin is INDX coin. I don't know if that's, like, a thing that -- that cryptocurrency crypto bros do, right? They they'll make an index coin.
Maria Varmazis: Kingdom Wealth Exchange?
Joe Carrigan: Right. Kingdom Wealth Exchange. That's their --
Maria Varmazis: He's like Christian --
Joe Carrigan: Yes. That's exactly what it sounds like.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, no. Okay.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: They have been charged with 40 counts of theft, fraud, deceit for allegedly operating this multi-million-dollar cryptocurrency scam that mostly targeted churches.
Maria Varmazis: Horrible. Oh, my God.
Joe Carrigan: So index point, I guess. I guess this is their own cryptocurrency or their own crypto token or something. But it says the index -- the article talks about the index coin white paper because every cryptocurrency begins with a white paper, right? In fact, bitcoin started with a white paper. But it states that this coin was, quote, engineered to grow as the cryptocurrency market explodes by benchmarking the coin to the world's top 100 cryptocurrencies, allowing users to capitalize on growth while mitigating risk.
Dave Bittner: Ah-ha. Yeah. And you have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
Joe Carrigan: Right. Yep.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Maria Varmazis: Nothing scammy about this at all. All right. Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So we're building this crypto -- this crypto coin, this index coin. And we're -- what's -- what's interesting is that they're benchmarking it, right, benchmarking the world's top 100 cryptocurrencies. Sounds like they're trying to, like, peg it to something.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Like, there are cryptocurrencies out there like stablecoin. Stablecoin will always be worth $1. And it takes some effort to do that, and I'm not entirely sure how they do it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: But so -- I mean, when you start saying that we're going to be pegging this value to something else, unless you're going to go out and buy something, like you're going to do a cryptocurrency mutual fund kind of thing but you're going to have it as your own coin, then the index coin could very well have almost no value. And, in fact, that's kind of what the indictment says.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: The couple targeted Christians from their church as well as other churches to buy their cryptocurrency. They were promising, of course, big returns, like you said, Dave. The indictment also says that these two spent $1.3 million of the proceeds of -- on the token sales on personal expenditures like home renovations.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Right. Eli and Kaitlyn deceived prospective and current investors and did not disclose to them that they lacked the liquidity. So that's actual money, right --
Dave Bittner: Right. To back up this magical coin.
Joe Carrigan: Right. So, I mean, I guess, if you're going to -- I don't know. Maybe if you actually have real money behind something, or you -- you actually go out and buy real cryptocurrency with it, then you have something. But the in -- the indictment does say that this was not pegged to the value or to the average of the top 100 cryptocurrencies but, instead, backed essentially by no assets whatsoever and had no real value.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: So a year ago the Commissioner of the Colorado security -- securities organization, the Colorado securities commissioner, his name is Tung Chen, initially filed charges against the pair. And, in March, the pastor appeared in a video. In a message, he stated the charges are true, and he also said at the time that the venture was something he believed God told him to do. And here, here we get to my favorite quote --
Maria Varmazis: Oh, no.
Joe Carrigan: And it's from the video that Eli posted in March. The Lord told us to walk away from our parking company. He took us into this cryptocurrency. Well, that cryptocurrency turned out to be a scam. And I said to the Lord, you told me to do this.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, my -- just -- ah!
Joe Carrigan: So I guess God's ultimately the scammer here.
Maria Varmazis: It goes all the way to the top, Joe.
Dave Bittner: Right, right.
Joe Carrigan: These are not words I would like to be accountable for one day.
Maria Varmazis: Taken wildly out of context, Joe, you are in some serious trouble.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So my -- my point here is that this is one of the things we talk about a lot on -- on this show, and that is that your religious community, your faith-based community comes with some already built-in trust.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: Right? And these people exploited that like crazy --
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- and made off with -- with 3.X number of million dollars from these other churches and other Christian investors.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: This is not -- I'm sure this is not unique. I know this is not unique to Christians. There's -- we'll put a link in the show notes. There was one that happened last year. Actually, this was another -- another Christian pastor in Florida that was indicted for a multi-million-dollar crypto -- cryptocurrency scam. And that's -- that post is from the Department of Justice, so he was indicted federally. This is one of those things that sets me off, and I've mentioned this before. It's one of the things that I have built into me, into my level of distrust about other people. And that is, whenever somebody approaches me and tries to demonstrate their membership in some spiritual community with me, I am instantly suspicious of that. Instantly.
Dave Bittner: What -- so let me interrupt you here because -- let me ask you this question. I'll put it in front of both of you. But I'll start with you, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: Okay.
Dave Bittner: What is your reaction when someone in good faith says to you, in describing another person, that person is a good Christian?
Joe Carrigan: I --
Maria Varmazis: -- saying it.
Joe Carrigan: The first thing I remember to myself is, hey. Every single person is -- is not perfect, right?
Dave Bittner: Right. Okay. That's fair.
Joe Carrigan: So the fact -- the fact -- and I say that. You've got -- I think that to myself. Normally what I just do is, oh, that's good to know. But I don't -- I don't give it any credence.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: I really don't because that's -- that could be -- well, I don't know if that's why. I don't -- I don't know. You know, I've seen this go both ways. I've seen people -- you know, I was in a church community once where a guy just up and left his wife.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And there was no explanation as to why that happened. And everybody was like, Isn't that awful? And I'm like, there's more to this story here than we know.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: All we have is the information that he's gone, and we can't get his story. He's not talking to anybody.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: We don't know what it is. I mean, he -- yeah. You're right. He could be a complete -- you know, a complete heel here. But I don't know. So, you know, when -- when those kind of things come, I'm initially skeptical of that, when people tell me that that guy's a good Christian. I'm like, oh, okay. Good. Good that you think that.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. What do you think, Maria?
Maria Varmazis: Oh, there's -- it's -- I don't really do anything with that information because it really depends on who the person is who's saying that to me.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: The -- I grew up in a Christian community, but that that was not really a phrase that people used in Greek orthodoxy. It's just not really a thing that's said.
Dave Bittner: Right, right.
Maria Varmazis: So it's sort of like, okay. Are you talking about good Christianity the way I understand it or you understand it? What does that mean? Does it mean you're dogmatic, and you follow the -- you know, a certain dogma; or is it -- does it mean something else? So it's just not enough information. So I just kind of don't do anything with that. I go, okay.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: I will -- I will wait to find out what that actually means when I get more info.
Dave Bittner: I guess what -- what -- where I come at it from is that I think it's code -- it's coded language, right?
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: So it's part of it being an in group.
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Dave Bittner: And I think the person who says that in good faith is saying that this is someone who I believe upholds what I believe to be Christian values. And I think, for some people, that would be the teachings of Jesus Christ. For some people, that would be the values of The Church, you know, capital T, capital C, right.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: But -- but the flip side of that, and I think this case brings this to bear, is that someone can take advantage of that trust.
Joe Carrigan: Absolutely.
Maria Varmazis: Always. Yes.
Dave Bittner: And so we have someone, like you said, Joe, these folks are -- these are pastors. So they're probably good communicators. They know what resonates with the people in these churches. And, if they were coming at this in bad faith, as is alleged here, they would know how to short-circuit that coded language, you know, to stand in front of a group and say, hey, look. We're all good Christians here, right?
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Right. And that has power, and it has meaning and can help short-circuit somebody's rational mind when it comes to getting somebody to turn over their hard-earned money.
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. We're all good Christians here, but money is money. So please be careful with your money.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right, right. And, again, I think the core of this is just whether or not somebody's coming at this in good faith. You know, there's -- and that's the unknown. To Joe's point, it can mean so many different things.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: You just never know. And I think part of the problem is one person may say that, say a phrase like that, says, I think this person is a good Christian. And you or me or Joe or Maria might hear that phrase and interpret it in a completely different way --
Joe Carrigan: Correct.
Dave Bittner: -- than the person who said it.
Joe Carrigan: It's very subjective to the listener, isn't it.
Maria Varmazis: It very much is. Yeah. It -- as I said, for me, that is a -- it invites more questions. In my mind, I just go, okay because it can be very revealing about the person who said it. And, also, why are you telling me this? What are -- what are you -- like, what are you hoping for me to reveal by saying that to me? So it's a -- yeah. It's an interest -- it's a very interesting question.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. It is. All right. Well, prayer beware.
Joe Carrigan: Don't -- look. If you're in a church and they start pitching a cryptocurrency, probably time to find a new church.
Maria Varmazis: Don't do it! Just don't do it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. That's true. That's true.
Maria Varmazis: I feel like TLDR of that story.
Dave Bittner: Listen. Instead of -- instead of passing the collection plate around, we're going to put up this QR code.
Joe Carrigan: Right? And then you're going to buy some cryptocurrency.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, I know some churches do that, though. You know they do.
Joe Carrigan: The one I go to actually has Venmo. You can donate via Venmo.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. I was going to say careful there, Dave.
Dave Bittner: Been a long time since I've been in a proper church, I guess. So I'm horribly outdated. So apologies to anyone I've offended. All right. We will have a link to this story in the show notes. Joe, Maria, it is time to move on to our Catch of the Day. [ SOUNDBITE OF REELING IN FISHING LINE ]
Joe Carrigan: Dave, our Catch of the Day comes from me.
Dave Bittner: Oh, no.
Maria Varmazis: Bom, bom, bom.
Joe Carrigan: All right, Dave. I'm going to -- I'm going to let you read the -- read the Catch of the Day, and then we're going to get into the story behind it.
Dave Bittner: Okay. Well, this comes from the folks at XFINITY.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Formerly -- company formerly known as Comcast.
Joe Carrigan: XFINITY is the product that Comcast produces.
Dave Bittner: Okay. Very good.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: It says, Reminder. Service interrupted exclamation point. Your automatic payment was declined by your bank. As a reminder, here's a quick summary of your service suspension. Last day of service, Friday, the 25th of July 2025. Please make a payment soon to avoid any downgrade quality service. If you don't make a payment within one days, we will temporarily turned off your service. There's a button that says, Update my account and then another button that says, Manage your alerts and pay your bill online. Learn more.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Pretty bad fish, right?
Dave Bittner: Well, I actually -- I was surprised as I was making my way through it that -- of the grammar errors in something this concise.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Right. You want to know the worst part about this email?
Dave Bittner: Go on.
Joe Carrigan: It worked.
Maria Varmazis: Well.
Joe Carrigan: Because -- because I actually do -- this was -- this -- notice the last day of service is Friday, July 25. Yeah. Right. So I actually was like -- I looked at it, and I'm like, I click on the link, and it goes -- takes me to Verizon Wireless. And I start thinking to myself, I do -- or not Verizon Wireless. I'm sorry. That was wrong. It's XFINITY Wireless Services.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And it takes me there. And I'm like, I do have that one phone number that was my -- been my phone number for the past 25 years or so or 20 -- I guess 22 years. But I can't find the phone that's associated. Do I care if this service is suspended? Right? Also, there's the issue that they've been charging me too much for this service. They should be charging me a lot less. And, I mean, maybe I just let it lapse. And I decide, nah. I better make sure nothing's going on. So I go ahead and I enter my -- I open my password manager. My password manager, not integrated with my web browser, by the way.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So it lets me go ahead and enter the password that was in the Password Manager, which, actually, because I'm doing this at a different location, was not in sync with the actual password. So I did not surrender my actual password I found out.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Maria Varmazis: Lucky, lucky. Okay.
Dave Bittner: So you got lucky.
Joe Carrigan: I got lucky.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: I got very lucky.
Dave Bittner: All right.
Joe Carrigan: And then, as soon as I entered the -- I entered the email. It says, Give us your password. And you can see here I put in Billy -- Billy Joe Jim Bob at youlose.com because I went back to do this again --
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: -- to take pictures of it. And the next screen is just XFINITY. Enter your credit card. And I'm like, wait a minute. Then -- then I check the link.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: And I'm like --
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Why'd they get me? Why'd they get me? Because they caught me when I was -- had my defenses down. They just so happened to hit me at the right time. They happened to hit me with a -- with -- with a bill that I know is due around now, and they happen to -- to hit me with a service that I use. And I was not paying attention. I let my guard down on this one.
Dave Bittner: What did the link end up being?
Joe Carrigan: The link is just a -- actually, I -- did I leave it in here? May not have left it in here.
Dave Bittner: I don't see it. It was a bunch of gibberish.
Joe Carrigan: It was -- yeah. It was a Brazilian website. It ended in.br.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: And that's when I was like, Wait a minute. Oh, no. So quickly, quickly I ran to the Comcast website, the actual Comcast website and changed my password, just in case something had happened. And I went back and tested this website and said, you know, if I can put in Billy Joe Jim Bob, and then I put in not my password. Sure enough, I just get the same credit card information page.
Dave Bittner: I see.
Joe Carrigan: So the only thing that tipped me off was it -- when I got to the credit card input page, there was nothing else on the page. The visual -- the visual nature of it tipped me off. And I was -- I was very upset with myself and embarrassed with myself. But, if we can have stories about people who come on here and they talk about how they were romance scammed out of millions of dollars, I should be able to come on here and tell -- tell my story about when I get hit by a obviously bad phishing email.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: It happened -- as we talk about it on the show all the time, I mean, nobody's immune from this stuff. I mean, glad that you caught it -- glad that you caught it before it got any worse. But, you know, they got lucky. And that's often how it goes.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Because, I mean, internet's kind of important. So not having internet would make me go, Oh, blankety blank. So, yeah. Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: It's the mobile service, right? Don't phish.
Maria Varmazis: Please no phishing. It'll work. It'll definitely work. I would click that link.
Joe Carrigan: I'm going to get -- I'm going to get just tons of phishing emails to my Yahoo! email address.
Dave Bittner: I'm thinking that, you know, like, if we wanted to have a listener contest or something, we should make it so -- we should have the Social Engineer Joe out of his eggs contest.
Maria Varmazis: When he freely gives them to you. Is this really different?
Dave Bittner: Who would be the first person who could convince Joe to part with some of his eggs once his hens start laying in a situation where Joe was not aware that he was being scammed out of eggs, right? Wouldn't that be fun?
Joe Carrigan: That would be fun.
Dave Bittner: For everyone but Joe.
Joe Carrigan: For everyone but me. I don't like the idea.
Dave Bittner: Can you imagine how paranoid Joe would be if we put that into -- into action? Like, no one in his family would get to eat an egg.
Joe Carrigan: Right. Certainly not my son.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Can I have an egg, Joe? Can you send one to me?
Joe Carrigan: My rick-rolling milk-dropping son.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Oh, hilarious.
Joe Carrigan: The story behind that, Maria, is Dave came over to my house one day. And my son had just gotten back from the store and goes to shakes Dave -- Dave's hand and drops a gallon of milk on the floor, which just shatters and spills milk everywhere.
Dave Bittner: Oh, yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, God. Well.
Joe Carrigan: That's all my son remembers about that interaction.
Maria Varmazis: Well.
Dave Bittner: That's true. I can remember that. There was a lot of milk.
Joe Carrigan: There was.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. I was like, that is a lot of milk. Okay.
Dave Bittner: Anybody who's dropped a gallon of milk lives -- you don't forget it.
Joe Carrigan: No.
Maria Varmazis: No.
Dave Bittner: We've probably all done it at one time.
Joe Carrigan: I have done it too. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. All right. I tell you what. We're going to wrap things up there. Of course, we would love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to consider for our Catch of the Day, please do email us. It's HackingHumans@n2k.com. And that is Hacking Humans brought to you by N2K CyberWire. We'd love to hear from you. We're conducting our annual audience survey to learn more about our listeners. We're collecting your insights through the end of this summer. There's a link in the show notes. Please do check it out. This episode is produced by Liz Stokes. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tr Hester. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. I'm Dave Bittner.
Joe Carrigan: I'm Joe Carrigan,
Maria Varmazis: And I'm Maria Varmazis.
Dave Bittner: Thanks for listening.
