When Bloggers Are Better Than Spy Agencies. YouTube Guys Catch Scammers Who Defrauded Victims of $65 Million
A 97-year-old widow and thousands of other victims. The story of the largest refund scheme.
A duo of popular YouTube bloggers played a key role in uncovering a massive fraud scheme that deceived thousands of elderly Americans out of tens of millions of dollars.
As a result of the investigation, 28 suspected members of a Chinese organized crime group were arrested in California, New York, Texas, and Michigan. The criminal scheme had been operating since 2019 and caused total losses of $65 million.
The scammers collaborated with Indian call centers, whose employees posed as tech support or officials from banks and government agencies. They used various deceptive tactics, including convincing victims that they had mistakenly received a refund and then asking them to "return" the money via cash, bank transfers, or gift cards.
Among the victims was a 97-year-old Holocaust veteran's widow from San Diego, who was repeatedly targeted by the scammers and ultimately lost all her savings.
Bloggers Ashton Bingham and Art Kulik, creators of the channel Trilogy Media, as well as Pierogi, the creator of the "Scammer Payback" project, joined the investigation. Their channels specialize in exposing scammers—they lure criminals into traps by pretending to be potential victims and then expose those who come to collect the money.
"It was a sort of perfect union of our desires to entertain people and simultaneously serve a good cause," Bingham noted.
In one instance, Pierogi received instructions to send a package of cash to a person named "Hans Bum" in San Francisco. The Trilogy Media team visited the specified address, posing as couriers, and tracked down a man named Zhiyi Zhang, who was using short-term rentals to receive cash from victims.
"Not all heroes wear capes. Some have YouTube channels," commented U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon.
Authorities seized approximately $4 million in assets from the criminals, including several luxury cars. So far, 2,000 victims have been identified, though the number is believed to be significantly higher. The defendants are scheduled to appear in court in the coming weeks.
