
The Skype sex scam – a fortune built on shame - throwaway-hn123
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37735369
======
jstanley
> I chose not to go down the route of scamming because I consider it
> incompatible with our Moroccan and Islamic values

Or... with basic human decency, whether you're Moroccan and Islamic or not.

~~~
Veen
I spent six weeks in Marrakech over the summer. The attitude among the locals
is basically this: it you're a Muslim, you're "one of them" so you don't get
scammed. If you're not a Muslim, you're fair game for everyone from small boys
on the street to shop owners to obvious thugs to sex scams.

This is especially the case if you're a non-Muslim woman. I can't count the
number of times men made crude comments to my gf. On several occasions
shopkeepers sexually assaulted her with me standing right there!

I've been to some shitty places in my time, but none of them have been quite
so horrible as Marrakech. Having said that, I also spent a couple of weeks in
Fez and that was lovely — completely different atmosphere and attitude.

Edit: Just to be clear, I don't think this attitude is necessarily a Muslim
thing. I think it's more to do with poverty and tourism. I live in Eastern
Europe at the moment and there are plenty of scams here too, although not at
the same level.

~~~
Dr0Dre
Moroccan here and I found the first paragraph of your comment appaling. So you
spent 6 weeks in a foreign country and that makes you now somehow a "subject
matter expert in how moroccan think".

> "The attitude among the locals is basically this: it you're a Muslim, you're
> "one of them" so you don't get scammed. If you're not a Muslim, you're fair
> game for everyone from small boys on the street to shop owners to obvious
> thugs to sex scams."

Thank you for letting us know about your insight. I'm not saying you didn't
experience this, I'm saying that you are making a dangerous generalization
about all people of morocco/muslims. This scams by the way target wealthy
people from the gulf, this has nothing to do with you being the "infidel" and
being fair game. There are good and bad people everywhere. Your comment hints
that moroccan only care about other muslims and would scam others because it
doesn't matter. Well I can tell you it matters, we are human beings. Islam as
any other Abrahamic religion, does not give you a free card cheating/scaming
people just because they are not muslims.

~~~
Veen
I understand how what I said might offend you, but I clearly said It was more
related to poverty and tourism than Islam and that my experience of Fez was
completely different, so I wasn't generalizing about Muslims or Morrocans.

But I stand by what I said: Marrakech, particularly the Medina is occupied by
scam artists, thieves, thugs, and scum of every stripe. Perhaps this is based
on an unusual and unrepresentative experience, but after six weeks of being
harassed, conned, and abused I'm unlikely to return to find out different.

Your contention that they treat everyone this way, regardless Of race,
religion, or nationality, isn't comforting.

~~~
Dr0Dre
>I clearly said It was more related to poverty and tourism than Islam

No you didn't.

>But I stand by what I said: Marrakech, particularly the Medina is occupied by
scam artists, thieves, thugs, and scum of every stripe. Perhaps this is based
on an unusual and unrepresentative experience, but after six weeks of being
harassed, conned, and abused I'm unlikely to return to find out different.

And that is fine with me, it's a tourist city and you would find similar
cities around the world. I personally tend to avoid Marrakesh and Casablanca.

> Your contention that they treat everyone this way, regardless Of race,
> religion, or nationality, isn't comforting.

I still don't think you understood what I was saying. You are generalizing and
tend to jump to conclusions quickly. I said scammers generally don't care
about your religion, they only care about the money. Which happens surprise
suprise everywhere in the world.

------
jacquesm
I've dealt with a ring like this when ww.com was still active, a bunch of
Romanian women had begun targeting the men on there. In the end I set myself
up as a potential victim to see how they went about their business and sure
enough, a couple of hours of chatting later the requests for nudity started to
roll in.

The girls were all real, I figured out some of their moves and got rid of all
of them, it took a while to puzzle out the extent of the whole thing. Likely
they made 1000's if not 10's of 1000's of euros before we got wind of it
because the victims were extremely reluctant to contact one of the moderators
or the authorities.

The simplest advice I can give to anybody that is being propositioned by some
girl online is to simply _not_ get undressed in front of your webcam.

It's sad that technology that I had a hand in creating is abused like this,
and it _really_ pissed me off that my website was a direct tool for blackmail.

But at least that particular ring got shut down, however it is likely they
moved on to other ways of reaching their victims.

------
jimmaswell
Spam bots have added me on Skype before and I've occasionally tested out how
they respond to certain things. Usually nothing interesting but if you mention
calling the police they say this (copied from a log):

"hahaha! call em! and tell them you are reporting a felony... YOUR HAIRSTYLE!!
You might wanna get that looked at!"

All the bots I tried it on did that same thing, so apparently they're all from
the same software, and maybe even the same organization.

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throw95323
>Intelligent, articulate, and technologically adept, it is hard to avoid the
conclusion that in a place with more opportunities a young man of Omar's
talents could find a legitimate way to earn his $500 a day.

Pretty ridiculous statement there. Not many places on earth can a person earn
that for simply being smart.

~~~
arbuge
Presumably that's why it says "in a place with more opportunities"....

~~~
Freestyler_3
It could be a fictional place, they have plenty of opportunities.

I mean, this simple scam does not show much of a person. 1\. You can use
facebook 2\. You know a weak spot in men that everyone knows about, and in
countries that are more developed laws prevent companies to abuse men. 3\. You
know how to match when you type with a video recording that you are showing a
person/victim.

Edit: on a social engineering level this doesn't score that high.

And I'm not going to list the negatives that this shows right now.

~~~
throw95323
Right, the main differentiator with a person who does this stuff is
willingness to do this stuff.

Let's not glamorize it.

------
sickbeard
> The next day she sends me a message: "Hi, how are you? I saw your profile
> and I liked you." So I looked at her profile and, I mean, she was really hot

If that's all it took, Samir is an idiot.

~~~
neves
Sure, so let's scam him. Idiots exist so we can explore them. The world is a
place for the smart guys. We just have to hope there isn't someone smarter
than us out there.

~~~
alphydan
Our AI overlords are going to have a laugh scamming us

... creating a 20 year long world of relationships, work and virtual reality
is all it took to fool sickbeard. He really deserved it.

------
smnplk
If a random girl asks you to show her your penis, first make sure you are
doing it in person and she does not have any devices on her. How can people in
this century not know that your stream (no pun intended) can be recorded.

~~~
Kenji
Frankly, any photo or video on digital media is just a tiny little step away
from being irreversibly published to the internet. People should never make
photos or videos of that kind if they don't want it to be public.

~~~
pooper
> Frankly, any photo or video on digital media is just a tiny little step away
> from being irreversibly published to the internet. People should never make
> photos or videos of that kind if they don't want it to be public.

Alternatively, a photo of me in my nude being public should not mean that I am
unfit for public office. Nobody would ban Jennifer Lawrence or Kate Upton if
they wanted to be a teacher. Why should we fire our school teachers for
sending nudes? Why should we refuse to hire people who have made sex tapes
from teaching?

All this "think of the children" hysteria is pretty stupid.

~~~
curun1r
There's a reason why they're targeting people of specific religious
backgrounds. Religion has the ability to take garden variety embarrassment and
passing judgments and turn them into suicidal embarrassment and public
stonings, scarlet letters and the like. Obviously, the scammers doing this
kind of crap are horrible excuses for human beings, but the organized
religions of the world deserve some of the credit for creating such fucked up
environments where scams of this sort can work so effectively.

~~~
pessimizer
They're also targeting prominent political conservatives like Ron Sandack,
loudmouth State Rep. from Illinois. If you're one of the likely members of the
lynch mob who would attack someone who has fallen for this scam, you're a
likely target for this scam.

------
mcjon77
Two thoughts about this story:

1) Am I the only person who doesn't accept random facebook friend requests,
ESPECIALLY from beautiful women? If I don't know you, I just assume that you
are trying to scam me by becoming my facebook friend. Then again, there must
be SOME people who just randomly friend strangers that they have no connection
with (or half of the stories in MTV's "Catfish" would have never happened).

2) People really shouldn't freak out too much about there family seeing
nudes/sexual pics of them. My mother actually has unintentionally seen
sexually explicit photos of me, and it wasn't nearly as big of a deal as I
thought it would be. I let her use one of my USB drives, but forgot that there
were pictures of myself and ex-girlfriends involved in some more intimate
activities.

The result was that my conservative religious mommy realized her then 34yo son
was not her "baby" anymore and she called the photos vulgar and pornographic,
but beyond that, the world didn't end. I was embarrassed for about 30 seconds,
then realized that the only thing that has really changed is she has visual
proof that I am sexually active. Well, I am LIVING PROOF that she was sexually
active AT LEAST ONCE, so what is the big deal?

The only REALLY uncomfortable part was when the nurse in her came out, and she
started grilling me on contraception and whether I was getting regularly
tested for STDs. Then she started pleading with me to tell her if she had any
grandchildren out there (she doesn't). That turned into the "you really need
to settle down and give me some grand-babies" discussion. I offered to buy her
a puppy instead, but she said that wasn't the same.

I guess the whole point of my post is that (at least in the West) photos like
this might be a little embarrassing, but if your family and friends love you,
they will STILL love you even after seeing a video of you doing something that
EVERYBODY does, only in private.

------
LargeCompanies
I guess those who are

1\. new to the internet 2\. Do not know many long time internet users

Are good targets for these scammers. There all over the place in dating
apps... either the dating app's own inside scammers or the worst kind like
this one.

Maybe there should be a quiz before you are allowed on the internet that's
schools you on if a hot young chick is crazy eager for you but you never met
and she's lives far away well then....ummmm.....

------
SticksAndBreaks
Well, i guess the day is not far away where a NN dreaming your face into a
homemade porn move, could automate this sort of scam. But if everyone is
scamable- noone is.

Problem solved, next low point of the species.

------
MichaelGG
>And what if my mum sees this?

First, why is she watching unsolicited "porn" if it's so bad? Second, what
kind of parent watches a sex video of their kid? Should be obvious what's
happening pretty quickly and then Alt-F4. And then why would a relative share
the video?

I get there's a different cultural standard and not everyone can just shrug
and say "ya well I don't know why you're watching videos of me".

It just seems like a serious deficiency if relatives are watching and sharing
private media.

~~~
mrits
If I had a video of a relative like that come into my inbox my first reaction
would be to close it right away and act like it never happened.

~~~
markbnj
Almost certainly, but I might also let the person know, discretely and in
careful language, depending on how close our relationship is.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I've been in a similar position; a relative overshared something on Facebook.
(You know those facebook "Like" buttons on Pornhub? Yeah, turns out they
work.)

We quickly and discreetly contacted the relative, and let them know what
they'd done, and they removed the evidence from Facebook.

------
anilgulecha
I think this is posted with the recent Black mirror episode as context. Scary.

~~~
pluma
True, but it's not a new thing and the BM story was far more elaborate than
"guy does naughty thing, gets blackmailed".

------
pessimizer
[http://abc7chicago.com/politics/i-team-ex-state-rep-
sandack-...](http://abc7chicago.com/politics/i-team-ex-state-rep-sandack-
resigned-after-sextortion-with-woman-in-philippines/1514604/)

>Newly obtained police documents suggest that a cybersex blackmail scheme was
behind Rep. Ron Sandack's (R-Downers Grove) resignation from the General
Assembly.

> According to Downers Grove police reports, in early July Rep. Sandack was
> engaged in a video conversation via Skype with a woman "in her early 20's
> with long black hair." The woman, whom Sandack told police he didn't know,
> had originally contacted him on Facebook.

> Rep. Sandack, 52, and the woman had several text exchanges on Facebook that
> "could be characterized as friendly conversation, like two people getting to
> know basic information about each other" investigators say.

> A short time later, the Downers Grove father of two connected via Skype
> video-where internet users see and speak to each other on their computer
> screens. Although the nature of the conversation between Sandack and the
> woman is blacked out in the Downers Grove police report, similar blackmail
> schemes have resulted in disrobing and sex talk between the participants.

> In Sandack's case, the woman on the other end of the Skype hook-up told him
> that she had made a video of their encounter and would distribute it to all
> of his Facebook friends...unless he paid her a sum of money...which he did.
> This scheme is fairly widespread in the U.S. and well known to federal law
> enforcement officials. Authorities have screenshots of Mr. Sandack's
> communication with the woman.

------
BillyParadise
Another BBC article - this time the scammers are from the Philippines.
[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27249926](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-27249926)

~~~
triplesec
This is a series of reports from BBC2's Newsnight weeknightly current affairs
analysis show. Been a flagship show for decades, and has as times been very
good.

------
ikeboy
$500 a day, and it takes an hour per victim, and they're asking for thousands?

Then "they all pay" can't be true. Either it takes longer, or the payment rate
is lower. The numbers don't add up.

~~~
qb45
... or he just doesn't work his ass for 40 hours per week ;)

~~~
ikeboy
If you're making thousands per victim and it takes an hour, yes, you'd work as
much as you can manage.

~~~
verroq
I'd imagine looking for victims is the hard part.

------
personjerry
Is this illegal? I guess it's a form of blackmail (thus illegal) right?

~~~
tinco
Yes. And there's a good chance that now that it's in international media and
the scope is so large the king will catch wind of it and the repercussions for
these guys will not be good.

In Nigeria you might get away with stuff like this. But Morocco is besides an
Islamic country also one with ambitions, good ties to Europe and increasingly
modern infrastructure (as evidenced by their Internet racket). If I were them
and I read this news article, I'd be putting my Japanese motorbike and German
car on the boat and cross gibraltar. I bet it's not too hard to become a
Spanish citizen if you have money.

~~~
ryuker16
Nobody cares.... He'll even scammer in the USA are pretty brazen.

------
scandox
There are much more sophisticated versions of this where the girls are real
and they embroil men in months long relationships and gather much
more...ahem...extensive material. They also seek out high value targets, not
necessarily millionaires but people in a high middle-income bracket.

The case that I am personally aware of the scammers were based in Ukraine and
despite the person being quite cool headed about it, it did cost him severely.

------
aikah
I remember a french teen got scammed like this online, the scammer threatened
to release nude videos of him if he didn't pay, the young man committed
suicide because of the shame.

------
mcherm
There is a similar scam in the US, but it collects differently. After tricking
the mark into interacting with the "beautiful girl", the scammer contacts the
mark claiming to be her father (or sometimes a different role) and saying that
the girl is under 18, and to pay a ransom or be reported to the police for sex
crimes. This scam is so common that it is a "sticky thread" for Reddit's
/r/legaladvice .

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Freestyler_3
The 1 mysterious view was the youtube moderator Im guessing.

------
tristor
I just recently left Morocco after spending some weeks there with a group of
travellers. The high incidence of catfishing on Tinder was a bit surprising to
us. I wonder if it's a related branch of the sextortion trade.

------
albertgao
very hard to fool a Chinese, there are tons of professional liars. The last
time when someone using a pretty pic and ask for video chat and much more. I
told him it is a fake video, and he is not good at it, then he shut down xD

