How Investments Scams Work | Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller
[Music] While scamming in Jamaica brings in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, scamming in Israel is reported to bring in billions. I want to know how it works. What's happening? You can see him.
Okay, everyone ready? He's driving up, guys. So, I arranged to meet with a man who was described to me as a big player in the scamming industry. I'm told he's made a fortune running various investment companies, all of which specialize in financial fraud. I was also told to be very careful.
Hi. Hello! Thank you so much for meeting us. I'm Marianna Moshiko. You have a phone? I do. About to help you.
Okay, I don't want to be tracked, so you’re going to turn it off. Just do it for me; I'll take care of it.
Okay. I've interviewed hundreds of people through the years. Moshiko was the first to ever take away my phone. I asked him to give me the scammer story of Tel Aviv.
We're in the Limogun, an area known as the diamond district. Buildings like this and all these skyscrapers you see, they have hundreds and hundreds of people that go to work each day selling fake investments to people around the world. In a lot of these buildings that look completely legitimate, there's actually all this... Many of the companies there are just fake scams with a name that makes them look real.
No one knows what's going on behind closed doors. Is it an open secret? You seem to know. Do people in Tel Aviv and Israel...?
No! No, they don't want to attract attention. They don't want reporters calling them. It's a massive, massive fraud. They want to be under the radar.
How many of these companies, fraudulent scamming companies, do you think they are in Israel?
Yeah, no way! Holy... While the lottery scam in Jamaica is the go-to con, in Israel, it's all about the investment scam.
The depth of this fraud was first uncovered by Simona Wineglass, an investigative journalist who was tipped off by a source working at a scam investment company. He told me that there wasn't just one company like this, but there were hundreds, and they were stealing billions of dollars. It sounded crazy; it turned out to be true.
Just like in Jamaica, Simona says the investment scams in Israel often start with call centers and lead lists. Employees at these seemingly legitimate companies cold call potential clients and get them to invest in an exciting trading opportunity.
You start to trade; you'll see your account going up and up. The retention agent will keep talking to you and getting you to put more and more money in, and then eventually, when they sense that you're not going to put any more money in, they just disappear with the money. [Music] You.