Australians considered “easy prey” for crypto scam call centers

• Call centers avoid targeting Americans because they didn’t want the FBI after them
• Australians are targeted because the AFP is less likely to go after the scammers

A former call center worker in Ukraine said Australians were targeted in crypto scam calls because they were perceived as “easy prey.”

As a new migrant to Ukraine, Mark – not his real name – initially joined a crypto scam company because of the salary he’d receive. He eventually left the organization, but admits that Australians were the number one target for the scam calls during his time at the company.

In an interview with ABC News, he said: “I was told Australians have good money, a good salary.”

“Ever since I’ve been in the industry, they’ve never targeted Americans because they believe the American government reacts to certain things like that, and you’re going to be busted in the next couple of months.”

During a nine-hour workday, the call center worker said they targeted Australia, New Zealand, and countries in Asia in the morning before moving on to Europe in the afternoon. Speaking to around 20 Australians, Mark explained that he often got half to invest their money in the fraudulent crypto scam.

Harder to catch

Private investigator Ken Gamble, who runs scam recovery company IFW Global, said that most of the call centers worldwide have America on the don’t call list. This is because of the “fear of having the FBI come after them.”

Gamble added that there’s “no such fear in Australia, because traditionally, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) have never gone after these scammers.”

According to Gamble, the perception of Australians being labelled as easy prey is making it hard to tackle the spread of scams. Data from the Australian government’s ScamWatch found there were around 8,600 reports of scams, including crypto scams, in 2023. Around $206 million was lost to these fraudulent activities.

Pieter Boele is one such Australian who’s become a victim. Enjoying retirement in Sydney, the 82-year-old received an email portraying a journalist endorsing a crypto trading platform.

Unfortunately, Boele didn’t realize the article was fake until it was too late. Losing nearly $700,000, Boele said: “It’s my fault that I went into it this far without realizing this is dangerous.”

Despite the hurdles in tackling the crypto scams, the AFP is working at disrupting these criminal organizations. Several ways it’s doing this is through its Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre (known as JPC3) and its recently launched Operation Firestorm.

However, according to Gamble, even though the JPC3 is doing a great job, it doesn’t have the “capacity to handle the amount of fraud that’s coming into Australia still on a daily basis.”