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Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us.
It's been a busy week.

From the U.S. vetoing a ceasefire
in Gaza yet again,

to the revelation
that Joe Biden's dog

bit secret service agents
at least 24 different times.

But we're gonna start
in West Virginia,

which has spent
the past several weeks

debating a bill to impose
criminal penalties

for exposing children to "obscene"
literature in schools and libraries.

The debate has featured spectacular
testimony from concerned citizens,

reading out material
that they objected to.

"Are you gonna eat her pussy?"
"Yeah, I'm going to eat her pussy."

"Hey, yeah. Do you even know
how to eat pussy?

Papa Gaines
never sat you down, said,

'Son, one day, you're going
to have to eat the pussy?'"

"No. But he did teach me
how to eat a butthole."

Look

I admit, I don't remember that scene
from "The Giving Tree".

But it's been a while. In retrospect,
it does make sense for the tree

to sit the boy down
and explain how to rock the box.

It's an important lesson.

While that hearing was ridiculous,
the law itself is serious.

Violating it could carry
a felony charge,

with a penalty of $25,000
and a sentence of up to five years.

Many have called it
a "book ban",

although the bill's backers
push back on that,

with one of the speakers
who supported it saying,

"We are not banning or burning,
we are protecting."

Although I'll tell you what
you're definitely not protecting,

that is my ears from hearing
"eat the pussy" four times

out of this woman's mouth.

But while West Virginia
may not be burning books,

obscenity bills
and similar moral panics

are spreading around the country,
in places like Missouri,

where a candidate
for office released this video.

I will do this to the grooming books
when I become secretary of state.

These books come
from a Missouri public library.

When I'm in office,
they will burn.

So, there is a lot not to like there,

including that her flamethrower
is apparently fueled by liberal tears.

Which, what? I'm not saying
the GOP's messaging is in disarray,

but are liberal tears
the thing you love to drink

because your enemies' sadness
tastes so sweet?

Or is it the deadly fuel for your very
cool shark-themed flamethrower?

'Cause you gotta pick
a fucking lane there.

For now,
let's turn to Alabama,

which has been reeling after a
major decision from its highest court.

This morning,

a first-of-its-kind decision
by the Alabama Supreme Court

that could put at risk
families' access

to fertility treatments
in the post-Roe.

The court determining frozen embryos
qualify as people under its state law,

ruling, "unborn children

are 'children' without exception
based on developmental stage."

Yeah. They ruled frozen embryos
are the same as people,

which is wrong
for a bunch of reasons,

mainly, if you freeze an embryo,
it's fine.

If you freeze a person,
you have some explaining to do.

Now, that ruling could have
massive implications

for anyone who needs IVF
to conceive,

and that is a lot of people.

Around 2% of babies born in the U.S.
are from IVF.

Already, multiple fertility clinics

have paused treatment
in the wake of this decision,

which, as anyone who's ever
undergone IVF will tell you,

isn't something you can just do.

IVF cycles take weeks of careful
monitoring and expensive treatments.

You can't just hit pause
and wait out a court case.

This is a seismic decision,
and the reason the court

was hearing this case to begin with
was pretty wild.

The case in question involved a patient
who managed to access

the freezer storing frozen embryos
at an Alabama fertility clinic.

The patient picked up
multiple embryos

and mistakenly
dropped and destroyed them.

The court ruled that the clinic
could be sued for wrongful death.

And while that accident
is genuinely horrible,

someone wandering into a lab
and dropping frozen embryos

just isn't murder.

If anything, it sounds like the script
for a pretty tasteless Mr. Bean sequel,

but that is it.

The reason clinics
are pausing treatment right now

is that nobody quite knows
what it could mean for an embryo

to be legally equivalent
to a person going forward.

What happens if an embryo
is stored improperly?

What if they're,
as inevitably happens,

left over or destroyed
in the implantation process?

What about genetic testing, which
can reduce the risk of miscarriage,

but does carry a slight
risk of damaging embryos?

Would that now be considered
a wrongful death?

It is chaos, and experts say
that courts in other states

could try
and issue similar rulings.

But none of this
should be that surprising.

This ruling is a natural outgrowth
of the concept of "fetal personhood",

long pushed by hardline
anti-abortion groups,

which Republicans have
spent decades courting.

And some politicians suddenly
seem alarmed to have to deal

with the consequences of a movement
that they have actively empowered.

Nikki Haley spent the week
trying to reconcile her position

that "When you're talking about an
embryo, you're talking about a life,"

with what that actually means
in legal terms.

Meanwhile, watch as Alabama Senator
Tommy Tuberville

seemed to realize the problems
with his position in real time.

Do you have a reaction
to the Alabama Supreme Court

ruling on the fact
that embryos are children?

Yeah, I was all for it.

We need to have more kids,
to have an opportunity to do that.

And I thought that this was
the right thing to do.

But IVF is used to have
more children,

and now IVF services are paused
at some of the clinics in Alabama.

Aren't you concerned

that this could impact
people who are trying to have kids?

That's for another conversation.

Senator, what do you say
to the women right now in Alabama

who no longer have access
to IVF and will not

as a result of this ruling?

What do you say to them?

That's a hard one.
It really is. It's really hard.

You want people
to have that opportunity.

And that's what I was telling her,
we need more kids.

Guess what, Tommy?
I got great news!

Since your political philosophy

seems to begin and end
with "we need more kids",

you'll be thrilled to know
that thanks to a judge in Alabama,

there's now whole freezers
full of them!

Go play with all those
frosty kids, Senator!

Or maybe that's not what you had
in mind when you think of children,

which is exactly
the fucking point here.

Republicans are in a tough spot
right now,

trying to hold onto hardline
anti-abortion forces,

while not alienating
the majority of Americans.

And maybe the best current example
of this is Donald Trump.

He issued a statement this week

that he strongly supports
the availability of IVF

for couples who are trying
to have a precious baby,

something he referred
to as "the ultimate joy in life",

all caps, exclamation mark.

And it's incredible how even
objectively wholesome sentences

take on an air of creepiness

when passed through the chaotic
Trump punctuation filter.

Meanwhile, he's also been privately
floating a federal ban on abortion

at the 16-week mark,
reportedly saying,

"Know what I like about 16?
It's even. It's four months".

And I will say,
starting any sentence with,

"You know what I like about 16,"

should be off limits for anyone who has
this many photos with Jeffrey Epstein.

But while Trump might think 16 weeks
is the reasonable option,

which it isn't,
anti-abortion forces

are hoping to use a second Trump term
to go much, much further.

One tool they're apparently eager
to use is the Comstock Act,

an 1873 law
that criminalizes the shipping

of any materials used in an abortion,
including abortion pills,

with one of Trump's lawyers
saying,

"We don't need a federal ban when
we have Comstock on the books".

It was one of the key pretexts
in last year's mifepristone ruling,

and Lindsey Graham actually
cited Comstock when defending it.

The idea of mailing the drug,
sending the drug through the mail,

runs into a statute
called the Comstock Act.

It's a very old statute
on the books.

Do you believe
that the Supreme Court should use that

as a way
to ban this abortion pill?

I think it's a law on the books.

I guess it's not that surprising

that Graham's endorsement of a law
boils down to "it's on the books",

given that "it's old and it's there"
sums up Lindsey Graham at this point.

He seems determined
to stay in the Senate

- until he can complete his "Animorphs"
- style transformation into Beaker.

And he's getting close.
He's only a couple of steps away.

But he is right, the Comstock Act
is technically there.

Meaning a Trump administration,
or the judges he appoints,

could try using it to restrict abortion
without going through Congress.

Which is both alarming,

and something many pro-life figures
are anxious to keep quiet for now.

That Trump lawyer that I mentioned
even said of him

"I hope he doesn't know
about the existence of Comstock,

because I just don't want him
to shoot off his mouth.

I think the pro-life groups
should keep their mouths shut

as much as possible
until the election."

But whenever they don't want
to talk about something,

it's probably worth
you knowing about it.

So, for the record, the Comstock Act
is named after Anthony Comstock,

a 19th-century anti-sex crusader
and postal inspector

who was, and I quote,
a "chronic masturbator",

who believed
it was physically harmful,

so launched a crusade

to stamp out the transmission and
transportation of all obscene material.

Imagine jerking off so much you make it
a matter of national security.

The Comstock Act
forbade sending by mail

"every obscene, lewd,
lascivious, indecent,

filthy or vile article, matter,
thing, device, or substance,"

as well as "every article
or thing designed, adapted,

or intended
for producing abortion."

That is the clause abortion opponents
have been using on mifepristone,

and they hope to expand it

to cover the shipping of literally
anything an abortion requires.

So, the Comstock Act is a wild
law, pushed for by a deeply weird,

dangerously horny man,

that may soon be determining
all our reproductive freedoms.

It's worth noting that Comstock

was also a leader in the New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice,

whose seal, fun fact,
depicted someone burning books.

Which, to be fair,
conservatives don't do anymore.

As we all know,
they use flamethrowers now.

That is the thing that ties everything
I've just talked about here together,

there are politicians
currently desperately trying

to distance themselves from extreme
policies that they have enabled.

You can say "We're not trying
to ban or burn books",

but that's what's happening.

You can say
"We just want more kids",

but you're making life
incredibly hard for people,

including those
who desperately want them.

Burning books and ending IVF
are the natural endpoints

of the extreme policies
they've held hands with,

and if they are not at least willing
to own those consequences,

then they can, in the words
of what I believe to be

this country's greatest
public speaker

Eat a butthole.

Well said. Well said, indeed.

And now, this!

And Now

More Explicit Readings From
Concerned Citizens at Public Meetings.

"The boy just talked soft to her
about how good she looked

at things like that

and she grabbed his penis with
her hands and starting moving it."

"It felt so good, so fucking good,

I don't know how people
do anything but have sex

if they are adults
and don't have school or parents."

"Ildy was on top of Valencia,
making love to her.

While Billy was making love to her,
Billy made a noise like a rusty hinge.

He had just emptied
his seminal vesicles into Valencia."

"Now before this,
I had sucked my share of dicks

and had gotten plenty of blowjobs,
handjobs, every kind of job.

But the only butt sex
I'd had was with this junior

who was in love with my cock
and he just hopped aboard."

"And I pull and I suck
until he grows hard

and he makes sounds
that means he likes it,

and I keep going and going.

And when he says
'I'm going to cum,' I don't pull away.

The jet of him is warm and salty
and tastes like thickened sweat."

"You can eat a girl out
and blow some air inside of her

or you can fuck her too hard."

"My only challenge is Brian,
who is my jerkoff friend,

who likes to jerk me off."

"Son, I don't have time for that.

I've got like 20 pussies over here
that I need to eat." "Is that right?"

"I'm on pussy deadline."

"I didn't have a hard-on anymore.
That might some weird to say.

It's also fucking complicated
and tragic and life sucks."

Just want to mention,

I've never said the F-word ever
in my life before until just now, so.

Moving on.

Our main story tonight
concerns the internet.

It can be a magical place,

but also one where things
aren't always what they seem,

as this woman learned
the hard way.

Queen Shaydonna Haynesworth
thought she bought this,

the Instagram ad displaying a tree
that fits in a living room,

not the palm of her hand.

This is the rainbow
Christmas tree?

Like, seriously?

Like, who

Who is responsible for this?

It must've been pretty disappointing

to order a full-size tree
and get whatever that is.

She must've felt like HBO did
when they ordered a comedy show

and got this instead.

Unfortunately,
not every mistake is that benign.

It is not news that there are
scammers on the internet,

but you may have noticed
that one scam in particular

is currently everywhere.

A common way
that it starts is with a weird text

from a number
you don't recognize,

like "Cheryl, can we move lunch
to 5:00?" when you're not Cheryl.

Or "Dave, what time is our flight?"

when you're not Dave
and you don't have a flight booked.

Even as we worked on this piece,

multiple members of our staff and their
friends were getting these messages,

from "Hello, is this the manager Jesse
from the flower shop?"

to this one, reading

"Is this Dr. John? I'm Emily,
is my horse recovering well?"

I'm so glad that wasn't sent to me,
'cause it would have worked.

You're calling me Dr. John?
I'm instantly on board.

And you're assuming I'm around
a horse for medical reasons?

That's exactly
what I've been saying!

I'm allowed to touch it like that.
I'm a doctor!

And I know most people
ignore messages like those.

But some write back,
get sucked into a conversation,

and eventually,
through a process that we'll get into,

can end up
losing a lot of money.

It's a scam with a striking name that
newscasters can't seem to get over.

It's called
a pig butchering scam.

And it might sound
like a gruesome name,

but that's because the amount
of money victims are losing is painful.

The scammers have a terrible term
for what Wendy went through.

They call it pig butchering.

The New Mexico Securities Division
calls them "pig butchering scams".

I know, but don't worry, there are no
pigs, or any other animals involved.

Yes, don't worry, there are no pigs
harmed in this pig butchering scam.

Although, if the words do make
you squeamish, it's worth noting

that there is a process through
which pigs are harmed every day.

It's actually how we get bacon,
pork, and other products.

It's called pig butchering,
and it's exactly what it sounds like.

But the name
makes a little more sense

once you understand
how the scam actually works.

In the world of cyber
and counterterrorism threats,

Special Agent Hassani
has seen it all.

But in 2021, he began seeing
a new scam: pig butchering.

But it just refers
to raising little piglets,

fattening them up,
and butchering them.

And they're fattening up their victim
with illusions of grandeur,

of wealth, of love,
before bleeding them dry.

That is rough. Because imagine
being a victim of this scam,

turning on the news,
and suddenly learning

that the shorthand for people
in your situation is "the pigs".

Although, I will say, it could have
been worse. Pigs are awesome!

They're one of the most intelligent
animals on the planet.

They're smarter than dogs, most
three-year-olds, and Tom Sandoval.

To use a phrase that the police
never seem to appreciate,

it's actually an honor
to be compared to a pig!

And if you are thinking,

"This seems like the kind of scam
that's been around for decades."

That is partially true. But the way
this one works is fairly new.

And in the short time that it's been
around, it's been massively successful.

Just this month, it was at the center
of a huge local news story in Kansas,

where it brought down
a financial institution.

I was surprised.
I was shocked. I was disappointed.

Kansas State Bank commissioner
David Herndon

is talking about the massive
cryptocurrency scam

at the Heartland Tri-State Bank
in Elkhart.

In a cryptocurrency scheme

that the FBI has now referred to
as pig butchering.

In this case, Herndon says,
the victim was Shan Hanes,

the bank's own CEO.

And he's now facing charges
of embezzling nearly $50 million,

a loss that caused the bank
to fail last August.

That's true. According to prosecutors,
a bank CEO got pig-butchered,

sent his scammer the bank's holdings,
and the bank went under.

Which is alarming for several reasons,
among them, is that how banks work?

'Cause it really feels like there
should be at least one step between

"CEO gets tricked"
and "Whoops! The bank's empty."

It's estimated that, as of 2022,
this scam was taking people

for more than $3 billion a year
in the U.S. alone.

And that's almost certainly
a massive undercount,

as it only includes people
who reported their losses to the FBI.

So, given all of that, tonight,
let's talk about pig butchering.

Why it's easier to fall
for than you might think,

who's behind it, and what
we can do to protect ourselves

and our liked ones from getting
scammed in the future.

And let's start with where this began.
And to do that, unfortunately,

we do need to go back to the place
that no one wants to go:

the beginning of Covid.

You remember Covid.
It's the Stephen Miller of diseases,

in that we were all very worried
about it a few years ago

and have since moved on even though
it's still extremely dangerous.

But that is when
pig butchering took off.

Basically, at the start of Covid,
many of us were isolated and lonely,

desperately looking
for human contact online,

which made us ripe targets.

At the same time,
organized crime groups in China,

running casinos in southeast Asia,
were in crisis,

as, thanks to the pandemic,
gamblers weren't showing up.

So, "they turned those casinos into
bases for online scam operations".

And from there,
their workers identified people

and preyed
on their vulnerabilities.

And let me walk you
through the basic steps here.

The first is to make contact
and lure your target in.

Listen to this woman
explain how her scammer,

who called himself "Jimmy",

contacted her at a moment
when she was dealing

with cancer, the pandemic,
and the end of her marriage.

First message,
it came as a very innocent message.

I said, "Wrong number".

He came back.

And I said yes. He had moved here
just before Covid,

and then Covid hit,
and so he's not able to go home.

He was a

A lonely man in need of

comfort.

Jimmy would message me
every day.

I do remember receiving
these emojis with hearts.

It's quite flattering
for a middle-aged woman

to meet a young man
who finds you attractive.

Yeah, of course, that's flattering.

Because scammers
are telling their targets

what they want to hear
most in that moment.

We might not all fall for a GIF
of a heart-pumping emoji,

but if someone sent me
"nerd with glasses" plus "football"

plus "learning" plus "sad statistics"
equals "fire emoji," me personally?

Why, I would nut!

One way of making contact
is through those "wrong number" texts.

But experts that we've talked
to estimate that they only make up

about a quarter of the initial
contacts for this scam.

The rest can come
through sites like LinkedIn,

dating apps, Instagram,
or Facebook,

places specifically designed for you
to meet people that you don't know,

either for love, a hook up,
or, in the case of LinkedIn,

to find out what kind of person
is still on fucking LinkedIn.

And scammers often research
their target using social media,

where there is a lot of information
about people,

so they can pretend
to have something in common.

Take this woman,
who met someone on a dating app,

only to discover that they shared
an unexpected connection.

He started asking questions about
my family and my past experiences.

It was a connection
that felt even stronger, she says,

when he told her he came
from the same town in China

from where Hutchinson
was adopted.

We bonded over that.

I bet they did!
And I've got to say,

it says something about men
on dating apps

that they connected so well
simply because he did things

like ask her questions about herself
and listen to her responses.

I don't want to say
the bar for men is low,

but that story started with him
asking her questions about her life

and ends with her giving him
all of her money.

But regardless of how they start,
sooner or later,

we move on to step two:
turning the conversation toward money.

But even then,
there's a smart twist.

Because you won't be suddenly asked
to wire money to a Nigerian prince

with an obviously fake email like
"real-pr1nce",

spelled with a one instead of an I,
"at-scum-dot-farts".

With pig butchering,
there's no direct ask for money at all.

Instead, an opportunity
gets presented to you.

Watch as this man explains the moment
when a guy that he met on a dating site

started to reel him in.

He spent at least a month daily
talking to me

and cultivating my friendship.

Initially, the only talk about money
was how much his new online friend

had made in crypto.

After all, Scott thought he knew
how to protect himself from scams.

"You can invest with me
and I'll make you all this money,"

and I was like, "I'm not giving
you money, that's not happening."

So, that's when he started
"No, you don't give it to me.

You establish your own
account and I'll guide you."

Right. That's the clever hook here.
You're not sending the scammer money,

they're helping you set up
and control your own account.

Everything seems more legitimate
when there's an app involved.

You don't think so? When is
the last time you took an Uber?

Get in a nondescript car
with someone I've never met?

I would never do that!
But wait, what's this?

I can do it from my phone?
In that case, here's my address,

now you know where I live and
that I won't be home for the evening.

My name's John, I don't know
your last name but that doesn't matter

'cause I'm also not committing
your face to memory.

Everything's safe,
there's an app involved!

And the fact the investment
is often in crypto

can be persuasive
for multiple reasons.

First, who really knows
how crypto works?

I know your friend's weird husband
claims that he does,

but he sucks to talk to, so sadly,
it must remain a mystery.

But people have made money on crypto,
so it's not unreasonable

to think you might meet one of them
and they could give you some tips.

On top of which,
you may not be super familiar

with how a trading platform operates
or even what one looks like.

And scammers have created
incredibly plausible-looking platforms.

We got this footage of one,

which seems to have all the detail
and functionality of a real one,

and I'll be honest,
I could be fooled by that.

Also, some scammers
use legitimate apps

that allow anyone
to build a trading exchange.

The problem is, there are tools
that scammers can use

to simulate fake results on those apps,
while taking your money.

Watch this journalist explain how
this gave one victim false confidence.

In MetaTrader, it looks just like

any kind of normal trading interface
that one would use.

It's available in the Google Play Store.
It's available on the Apple App Store.

It's an app
that has a lot of good ratings,

and that was one
of the things that made Cy think

that this whole operation
was legitimate.

He believed that his investment
was making money.

If you're trading
on a legitimate trading interface,

right, you see the profits
and losses over time.

And this is exactly what he saw.

If your friend told you
to download an app,

and you saw it in the App Store
with good reviews,

you might assume
everything on it was legitimate,

even before you saw
MetaTrader's logo,

which looks like three men in suits
jerking each other off under a table,

a metaphor for cryptocurrency
if I have ever seen one.

Some scammers
even set up additional features

like two-factor authentication
or customer service lines.

This woman tried her best
to do due diligence

on the site that she was sent,

and came away
convinced that it was real.

There was a legal secretary
involved in another state,

vouching association with a law firm
where it was sending money to.

She's real. I could verify her, so it
was very complex and well-rehearsed.

Right. She spoke with a legal secretary
and a law firm before sending money.

And that is more vetting than
I've done for my kids' daycare.

I love them, they're precious to me,
but they're also loud, sticky,

and one of them is just getting
stronger and stronger every day,

so if you have a building with walls
and a phone number that I can call,

I trust you,
take them for the afternoon.

And at this point in the process,

things might look pretty good
for the people getting scammed.

You've sent a bit of money
to a legitimatelooking site,

through an account
that you control.

And your new friend's trading tips
seem to be working,

so maybe you send
a little bit more.

And pretty soon, you might
have a fair amount of money

tied up on this trading platform.

But when you eventually
go to withdraw it,

that is where we hit the
final step of this process.

Remember that woman
you saw earlier,

whose online friend claimed that he was
from the town where she was born?

Well, she'd convinced her
dad to invest as well,

they'd seemingly made a bunch
of money, and then this happened.

By December, their accounts showed
a combined balance of $1.2 million,

and Hutchinson decided
it was time to cash out.

That's when the site told her,
before she could withdraw her money,

she'd have to pay a hefty tax bill
of roughly $380,000.

That's when I was like
"Something's not right".

It wasn't. The cryptocurrency
investments weren't real.

All her and her father's funds
had gone into the scammer's pockets.

In all, $390,000 stolen.

I messed up my life.
I messed up my dad's life.

She told me
that it was all a scam.

Hutchinson's father, Melvin.

And all I could do was just hug her
and tell her, it's okay.

It's okay. And it was hard.

It was hard,
'cause we lost everything.

Yeah, their money
had already gone,

and that tax bill was just an attempt
to squeeze them one last time.

And theirs
isn't the only brutal story here.

This woman lost $350,000.
This guy lost 300,000.

And that woman
who fell for "Jimmy"

sent him two and a half
million dollars,

as she was dealing
with terminal cancer.

It is traumatic
and it's humiliating

and it took courage
for those people to come forward.

That is partly
why experts think

the $3 billion figure
that we have is way too low,

because most people
who've been scammed like this

simply don't report their losses
out of embarrassment.

And at this point,
you're probably furious

with the people on the other end
of all of these messages,

and want to see them taken down,
or, at the very least, fucked with.

And that does happen a lot.

People post screengrabs messing
with scammers all the time,

like in this exchange, where someone
replies to "wrong number"

with "My name is Inigo Montoya",

and, "You don't by any chance have six
fingers on your right hand, do you?"

Or this one, where a scammer writes
"I'm Sarah, nice to meet you",

with a picture, and gets the reply
"Weewoo weewoo. Boner alert".

And look, I'll be honest,

that doesn't seem
like the right sound to me.

That's not what I would've gone
with "a-woo-ga, a-woo-ga, boner alert".

But reasonable people can disagree,
all bodies are different,

there's no one right sound
for a boner alert.

But here is the thing,
as cathartic as that might be,

the person on the other end
of that phone

might not be
the one you should be mad at.

'Cause remember when I said that
this was being done in former casinos

by organized crime syndicates?

It turns out,
they're not great bosses.

This compound is where
an Indian man named Rakesh

says he was forced to work
for more than 11 months without pay

for a Chinese criminal gang.

Rakesh, who doesn't want
to be identified,

says he first flew to Thailand
for what he thought was an IT job.

Instead, he says he was tricked
into crossing the border to Myanmar

where a Chinese gangster
told him to work, or else.

- He threatened to kill you.
- Yeah. He warned me like that.

And the job?
Spend 16 hours a day

on social media targeting Americans
with a fake profile.

That is awful.

No one should be forced to spend
16 hours a day on social media.

You should do it either
because you love it,

or because you are 15 years old and
the algorithm has addicted you to it.

Completely normal reasons.
A lot of these organizations

are using people
who've been human trafficked,

after being lured to the compounds
under false pretenses.

They are actually victims
of a scam themselves.

Basically, they might see job ads
for skilled positions as translators,

or IT specialists,
in another country.

They then go through
a whole application process,

with some going through "up to four
seemingly legitimate online interviews"

and fly to their new job.

At which point,
they suddenly learn

their new bosses have their documents
and they now can't leave.

Back in 2022, ProPublica estimated
that tens of thousands of people

had been tricked in this way.

A more recent UN report estimated
that hundreds of thousands of people

have been forcibly engaged
in this scheme.

They also say "most victims
are confined to the scam compound,

and their screens
are always monitored

by the members
of the organized crime group."

And once they are in,
they are provided fake profiles

to try and hook people in with.

Here is who Rakesh
found himself being all day.

I got a Russian girl.

With using a Russian girl fake profile,
I need to scam the people.

Posing as a Salt Lake City-based
investor named Klara Semonov,

Rakesh flirted online
with potential targets.

70 to 80% fall for fake love.

Yeah, Rakesh was Klara Semonov
from Salt Lake City.

So, before we go any further,

anyone who thinks that they are
dating Klara, I'm afraid you are not.

The relationship is over.
It's not you, but it's also not her.

It's Rakesh.
But also, it isn't him.

It's Rakesh's boss,
who won't let him leave.

The whole operation
is highly organized

and set up to get around the usual ways
that you might detect a scam.

Some organizations generate
their own photos for the profiles,

so that they can't be
reverse-image searched.

And employees are given manuals,

like these that guide them
through every step of the process.

They're told to target people
who look wealthy and successful.

One advises on the first day,
talk about things

like your name, age,
occupation, and hobbies.

Then, the next day, talk about
your emotional experience,

with a message
divided into two paragraphs.

And then, on the third day, talk
about your entrepreneurial experience.

They're even given tips on how
to break down people's defenses.

We reviewed
several of these manuals

and they carefully explain
how to build trust

and exploit weaknesses
in their so-called client, such as

"Be funny,
make clients fall in love with you

so deeply
that they forget everything".

The chilling thing is,
that's kind of true.

If you're funny enough, you can make
people forget a lot of things,

whether it's common-sense
internet safeguards,

lessons from previous relationships,

or that they've been accidentally
learning about financial fraud

and human trafficking
for the last 20 minutes.

We're having fun, aren't we?
And if you're thinking

"Why don't authorities just
shut these compounds down?"

Sometimes they're in on it.

Here is one man who was trafficked
to a scam center in Cambodia,

explaining what happened
when he did the obvious thing.

On his second day in captivity,
Lu emailed the Chinese embassy.

He was advised to call
the Sihanoukville police.

But the police never came.

The property management
came instead.

They knew that I'd called the police.

Five days.

Lu says the managers then sold him
to another scamming company.

He said
"Because I called the police,

they had to take care of the police
with at least $4,000,

and I had to pay for that, too."

The authorities
weren't gonna help him.

Which actually makes sense
when you learn

that, according to UN estimates,
pig butchering in Cambodia

brings in an amount equivalent
to half the country's GDP.

Which is worrisome,
because as everyone knows,

when something generates that much
money, you don't shut it down,

you spin it off and pray
the magic works a second time.

Come on!

And conditions in these compounds
can be brutal.

That man you saw earlier, Rakesh,
took photos of abuse like this one,

of a coworker who'd been beaten.

And Lu, who managed to get out,
now works to free others,

and the stories of what he's seen
are, fair warning, hard to watch.

I saw a man get beaten up very badly.
He had injuries all over his body.

Lu contends it was this man,

who was reportedly
found hanging just hours later.

I'm certain it was him.

His phone is full of messages
from Chinese citizens

desperate to be freed
from scam companies.

There's videos of abuse.

Lu says he receives them directly
from victims inside the scam industry,

or finds them posted
in social media group chats.

And he's got handcuffs.
They're shocking.

That is horrifying.
And when you know all of this,

it kind of starts to change
who exactly you are mad at here.

Because suddenly, the individuals
on the other end of the phone

don't seem quite so fun
to send a message

of "Weewoo weewoo, boner alert" to.

Not that that isn't an excellent text.
Who doesn't love a boner alert?

But there's a time and a place,
and this might not be it.

Also, from now on, whenever you get
a sexy text from a new stranger,

good luck not thinking

"Is this a man who was just beaten
in a work camp in Myanmar?"

And that, if anything,
is the John Oliver effect.

You are welcome.

I can't say that every scammer
is someone who was kidnapped,

tortured, and forced to do it.

But even if not everyone who's
doing this is trapped or coerced,

the very fact that many are,
is still a huge problem.

So, what can we do here?

Well, when it comes to those
imprisoned in these compounds,

that's gonna take collaboration
between international law enforcement.

Unless you are the head of Interpol,
which, I'm guessing, you are not,

there's not much you,
personally, can do.

Now, in this country,
I'd argue that platforms like these

should be doing way more

to prevent the creation
of fake accounts to target people

because it's happening
on their watch.

But perhaps the most effective way
to stop this from happening,

is to make it less lucrative
by having fewer people fall for it.

And that is where awareness
of this scam is key.

This is one of those rare cases

where raising awareness
is, in itself, genuinely useful.

'Cause hopefully you've seen tonight,
this could happen to someone you know.

This hasn't just sucked in old people,
or those who aren't tech-savvy.

It managed to reel
in a bank CEO.

Everyone has an image
of the type of person

who is susceptible to getting scammed
in their heads,

but unless that image is a mirror,
ya might be wrong.

So, as a general rule,
when a stranger on a dating app

says "I love you" or "crypto" within
a month of talking to you, worry.

Honestly, even if they
don't turn out to be scammers,

those are pretty good red flags
to be looking for, personality-wise.

And it's worth telling your friends
and family about pig butchering, too.

It doesn't have to be a big lecture
or anything,

you can just send them
a link to this show.

And if they say
"I hate that guy",

say, "Yeah, me too, he's the worst,
just skip past the jokes".

And if they say, "I'll watch it,
but he looks like a LEGO accountant.

Wait, no. He looks like ChatGPT's
answer to 'show me a virgin.

' Wait, no. He looks like Harry Potter
if he just stayed under the stairs."

Leave them on read. You don't have
to completely sell me out.

Maybe drop a thumbs-up emoji,
but please, leave it at that.

If you know someone who's been
scammed like this, try to be kind.

It is human
to want companionship.

And it's actually a nice quality
to be trusting of people.

It sucks that the internet,

which should be
a way to alleviate loneliness,

can be turned
into a tool to exploit it.

But maybe,
if we all look out for one another,

we can ensure that the worst mistake
anyone ever makes on the internet

is inadvertently buying an excellent
Christmas tree for gay mice.

Because honestly,
it's really not that bad a purchase.

Believe me,
I know what I'm talking about.

And now, this!

And Now:

Local News Loses It Over Major
League Baseball's New Pants.

Major League Baseball
introduced new uniforms this year,

but there's a problem.

The pants are made of thinner fabric,
making them almost see through, Chris.

- Wait, what?
- Photos all over the internet

You've got my attention.

Luckily, the tucked-in shirts
keeping things covered for

Look at him, his hands!

- You can see the little tags.
- We saw it.

What's it?

- Steve! Okay.
- We saw the bottom of their

Does he look happy wearing them?
No.

He looks happy wearing them.

Do you see the problem though?

I don't think girls are saying
there's a problem there.

The players, I think,
probably have an issue with it.

Now if I've got patterns on my boxer
briefs everyone's gonna see that?

I don't know. Suddenly,
I'm very interested in baseball.

Bianca is on her elbows on the desk
trying to get closer.

Can we zoom into these photos
a little bit more?

- I can't tell 'cause I have bad eyes
- You can see the shirt tucked in.

Maybe these uniforms
will get more women

that aren't watching baseball
already to watch baseball.

- You've got Derica's interest.
- That's what I said.

- It's a good recruiting device.
- Yes, it is.

- I see nothing wrong with the pants.
- I think they're fine.

I was inspecting to see a problem.

All right. If snakes make you

Who put this order
of these stories in here?

Thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week, good night!