Forget what you think you know about scam call centers. They can be based anywhere, and they can target victims anywhere. Though many of the techniques used by scam call centers are associated with Indian and Chinese organized crime, the baddies have the skill and the motivation to locate scam compounds anywhere they can obtain a network connection and believe they will remain out of the reach of law enforcement. Now the landlocked African country of Zambia has joined the list of countries hosting scam compounds with links to Chinese criminal gangs. 22 Chinese nationals were amongst 77 arrested last week by elite Zambian police forces at a scam compound in the capital city of Lusaka (pictured).
Per Mwenge Mulenga, Public Relations Officer of Zambia’s Drug Enforcement Commission:
It was revealed that the organization employed unsuspecting Zambian youths aged between 20 and 25, mostly school leavers, under the impression that they shall work as call center agents, tasking them with engaging in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users across various platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, chatrooms, and others, using scripted dialogues.
17 Zambian nationals were subsequently released from police custody. All of the Chinese, plus one man from Cameroon, were amongst those held for further questioning.
The masterminds sought to evade detection by using simboxes and many SIM cards to rotate their comms connections.
During the operation, simboxing machines were discovered on-site, facilitating the bypassing of local service providers’ networks… over 13,000 SIM cards, both domestic and international, was seized, underscoring the extent of the operation’s reach. Counting of these SIM cards is still in process but so far our team has counted over 1,742 Vodafone SIM cards, over 7,778 MTN SIM cards, and 4,016 Airtel SIM cards including 11 simboxes.
Police also seized computers, two guns and ammunition and two motor vehicles. One of the vehicles belonged to a Chinese national associated with the scam call center.
The scams targeted victims in Peru, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates as well as other African countries. Peru has featured in other police operations designed to prevent the human trafficking of staff to work in scam call centers. The UAE has been proactive in implementing anti-scam controls, and Singapore is a world-leader in protecting its inhabitants from scams. However, there are limits to what can be done to block scams at the receiving end of an international call or message.
For all the fuss made about tackling scams by scanning SMS messages or preventing the spoofing of CLIs , the need for a much broader philosophy for tackling comms scams is made apparent by the extent to which scammers are transitioning to OTT comms services like WhatsApp. The lesson is clear but unpalatable: scams need to be tackled at source, through proactive policing. Even the vigorous cross-border pursuit of scammers by China’s police is not enough, as evident from the number of Chinese nationals arrested in this Zambian raid.
It is hardly surprising that the inhabitants of a poor country may be tempted to take on work that is illegal, especially when the victims of the crime are located far away, in a much richer country. The scammers who read from scripts may not appreciate what they are doing, or they may not care. A recent ‘global’ anti-scam summit organized by the UK government only succeeded in attracting representatives of rich countries who are typically on the receiving end of these crimes.
Scams will not be curbed unless dedicated police find and arrest both the people who work in scam compounds, and then seek to build a case that links the front-line scammers to the bosses who mastermind these operations. That means rich countries that rarely apply enough resources to policing scams in their own countries must rethink their approach and be willing to finance police overseas as well. Otherwise, it is understandable that local police and politicians will usually have other priorities revolving around the protection of the citizens in their own country.
The video of Mwenge Mulenga’s announcement, including footage of the police raid, can be watched below.
