The Skype sex scam – a fortune built on shame
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Or... with basic human decency, whether you're Moroccan and Islamic or not.
This is especially the case if you're a non-Muslim woman. I can't count the number of times men made crude comments to my gf. On several occasions shopkeepers sexually assaulted her with me standing right there!
I've been to some shitty places in my time, but none of them have been quite so horrible as Marrakech. Having said that, I also spent a couple of weeks in Fez and that was lovely — completely different atmosphere and attitude.
Edit: Just to be clear, I don't think this attitude is necessarily a Muslim thing. I think it's more to do with poverty and tourism. I live in Eastern Europe at the moment and there are plenty of scams here too, although not at the same level.
> "The attitude among the locals is basically this: it you're a Muslim, you're "one of them" so you don't get scammed. If you're not a Muslim, you're fair game for everyone from small boys on the street to shop owners to obvious thugs to sex scams."
Thank you for letting us know about your insight. I'm not saying you didn't experience this, I'm saying that you are making a dangerous generalization about all people of morocco/muslims. This scams by the way target wealthy people from the gulf, this has nothing to do with you being the "infidel" and being fair game. There are good and bad people everywhere. Your comment hints that moroccan only care about other muslims and would scam others because it doesn't matter. Well I can tell you it matters, we are human beings. Islam as any other Abrahamic religion, does not give you a free card cheating/scaming people just because they are not muslims.
But I stand by what I said: Marrakech, particularly the Medina is occupied by scam artists, thieves, thugs, and scum of every stripe. Perhaps this is based on an unusual and unrepresentative experience, but after six weeks of being harassed, conned, and abused I'm unlikely to return to find out different.
Your contention that they treat everyone this way, regardless Of race, religion, or nationality, isn't comforting.
No you didn't.
>But I stand by what I said: Marrakech, particularly the Medina is occupied by scam artists, thieves, thugs, and scum of every stripe. Perhaps this is based on an unusual and unrepresentative experience, but after six weeks of being harassed, conned, and abused I'm unlikely to return to find out different.
And that is fine with me, it's a tourist city and you would find similar cities around the world. I personally tend to avoid Marrakesh and Casablanca.
> Your contention that they treat everyone this way, regardless Of race, religion, or nationality, isn't comforting.
I still don't think you understood what I was saying. You are generalizing and tend to jump to conclusions quickly. I said scammers generally don't care about your religion, they only care about the money. Which happens surprise suprise everywhere in the world.
She looked extremely uncomfortable and asked to leave the store, so we did. It's an awkward situation because when you're in the Medina you're surrounded by dozens of young guys who are related to the shopkeeper and you can't really kick up a stink about it.
The girls were all real, I figured out some of their moves and got rid of all of them, it took a while to puzzle out the extent of the whole thing. Likely they made 1000's if not 10's of 1000's of euros before we got wind of it because the victims were extremely reluctant to contact one of the moderators or the authorities.
The simplest advice I can give to anybody that is being propositioned by some girl online is to simply not get undressed in front of your webcam.
It's sad that technology that I had a hand in creating is abused like this, and it really pissed me off that my website was a direct tool for blackmail.
But at least that particular ring got shut down, however it is likely they moved on to other ways of reaching their victims.
"hahaha! call em! and tell them you are reporting a felony... YOUR HAIRSTYLE!! You might wanna get that looked at!"
All the bots I tried it on did that same thing, so apparently they're all from the same software, and maybe even the same organization.
Pretty ridiculous statement there. Not many places on earth can a person earn that for simply being smart.
Running these scams doesn't require any kind of above average intelligence or rhetorical and technological skills. All this guy is doing is browsing social media websites for lonely men and pretend to be a pretty girl from a third world country to them. It's a no-brainer. I strongly doubt Omar has any skills that would get him an above average job.
I mean, this simple scam does not show much of a person. 1. You can use facebook 2. You know a weak spot in men that everyone knows about, and in countries that are more developed laws prevent companies to abuse men. 3. You know how to match when you type with a video recording that you are showing a person/victim.
Edit: on a social engineering level this doesn't score that high.
And I'm not going to list the negatives that this shows right now.
Let's not glamorize it.
If that's all it took, Samir is an idiot.
- The people who are scamming Samir are criminals.
One does not preclude the other. It's called "preying on the weak" and it's the reason why we have laws and stuff.
... creating a 20 year long world of relationships, work and virtual reality is all it took to fool sickbeard. He really deserved it.
Remove the scam part for a moment and imagine if this guy was just playing a prank and posted the video to all his friends list without the extortion part. Without the extortion he committed no crime and Samir will still have exhibited terrible judgement with some serious consequences
Oh you're so smart you have never been scammed in your life. Scammers pray on weakness, one day you'll be weak one way or another and it can happen to you. Don't be too quick insulting people of being "idiots". Only scammers themselves think that way.
personal responsibility is a thing.
Is Samir an idiot (Y/N)?:
And this is a crisis because?
Did your grandpa deserve that (Y/N)?
As it turns out, those dumb people are sometimes related to us and going through something.
Another thought, should we expect the geniuses of our time to completely exploit us? I mean, they are smarter and superior than the majority of us. Does that give them the right?
Alternatively, a photo of me in my nude being public should not mean that I am unfit for public office. Nobody would ban Jennifer Lawrence or Kate Upton if they wanted to be a teacher. Why should we fire our school teachers for sending nudes? Why should we refuse to hire people who have made sex tapes from teaching?
All this "think of the children" hysteria is pretty stupid.
As an example, right now the pirate party in Iceland is being smeared with a picture the press found of one of their high-profile candidates of him shooting guns in Afghanistan. He was there doing charity work and they shot off some rounds one day in their off time. I'm still not sure what message is being sent by reposting this picture, but it seems to be working to some extent - I just overheard coworkers talking about "that gun nut running for the pirates".
I think if we all had the good judgment of not having sex ever we would do much better for our children by stopping producing children in a world where we think a naked human body -- even one in the privacy of one's own bedroom -- is somehow shameful or an indicator of poor judgment.
Here's a question for you: assuming you have children, would you prohibit Jennifer Lawrence from going near your children? How about McKayla Maroney? Why is there a double standard here?
I can't honestly think I'd care.
And it probably varies by culture too, right? I would definitely be embarrassed if something like this was sent to my relatives and friends, but not €2,000 embarrassed. But I can easily see this being a very big deal in a much more traditional culture.
And now imagine that the victim is gay, and comes from a very conservative, religious culture, and both sides of the video are sent. (Or the victim isn't gay, but their masturbating video is just paired with another man's to make it look like they're gay.) Maybe they come from a culture where this means you're disowned, or worse.
I agree that we shouldn't worry about it, but we don't all have that luxury.
1) Am I the only person who doesn't accept random facebook friend requests, ESPECIALLY from beautiful women? If I don't know you, I just assume that you are trying to scam me by becoming my facebook friend. Then again, there must be SOME people who just randomly friend strangers that they have no connection with (or half of the stories in MTV's "Catfish" would have never happened).
2) People really shouldn't freak out too much about there family seeing nudes/sexual pics of them. My mother actually has unintentionally seen sexually explicit photos of me, and it wasn't nearly as big of a deal as I thought it would be. I let her use one of my USB drives, but forgot that there were pictures of myself and ex-girlfriends involved in some more intimate activities.
The result was that my conservative religious mommy realized her then 34yo son was not her "baby" anymore and she called the photos vulgar and pornographic, but beyond that, the world didn't end. I was embarrassed for about 30 seconds, then realized that the only thing that has really changed is she has visual proof that I am sexually active. Well, I am LIVING PROOF that she was sexually active AT LEAST ONCE, so what is the big deal?
The only REALLY uncomfortable part was when the nurse in her came out, and she started grilling me on contraception and whether I was getting regularly tested for STDs. Then she started pleading with me to tell her if she had any grandchildren out there (she doesn't). That turned into the "you really need to settle down and give me some grand-babies" discussion. I offered to buy her a puppy instead, but she said that wasn't the same.
I guess the whole point of my post is that (at least in the West) photos like this might be a little embarrassing, but if your family and friends love you, they will STILL love you even after seeing a video of you doing something that EVERYBODY does, only in private.
1. new to the internet 2. Do not know many long time internet users
Are good targets for these scammers. There all over the place in dating apps... either the dating app's own inside scammers or the worst kind like this one.
Maybe there should be a quiz before you are allowed on the internet that's schools you on if a hot young chick is crazy eager for you but you never met and she's lives far away well then....ummmm.....
Problem solved, next low point of the species.
First, why is she watching unsolicited "porn" if it's so bad? Second, what kind of parent watches a sex video of their kid? Should be obvious what's happening pretty quickly and then Alt-F4. And then why would a relative share the video?
I get there's a different cultural standard and not everyone can just shrug and say "ya well I don't know why you're watching videos of me".
It just seems like a serious deficiency if relatives are watching and sharing private media.
We quickly and discreetly contacted the relative, and let them know what they'd done, and they removed the evidence from Facebook.
Secondly, you probably don't hang out with cargo-cult-religious people too much. See One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's "pecking party" for some idea.
>Newly obtained police documents suggest that a cybersex blackmail scheme was behind Rep. Ron Sandack's (R-Downers Grove) resignation from the General Assembly.
> According to Downers Grove police reports, in early July Rep. Sandack was engaged in a video conversation via Skype with a woman "in her early 20's with long black hair." The woman, whom Sandack told police he didn't know, had originally contacted him on Facebook.
> Rep. Sandack, 52, and the woman had several text exchanges on Facebook that "could be characterized as friendly conversation, like two people getting to know basic information about each other" investigators say.
> A short time later, the Downers Grove father of two connected via Skype video-where internet users see and speak to each other on their computer screens. Although the nature of the conversation between Sandack and the woman is blacked out in the Downers Grove police report, similar blackmail schemes have resulted in disrobing and sex talk between the participants.
> In Sandack's case, the woman on the other end of the Skype hook-up told him that she had made a video of their encounter and would distribute it to all of his Facebook friends...unless he paid her a sum of money...which he did. This scheme is fairly widespread in the U.S. and well known to federal law enforcement officials. Authorities have screenshots of Mr. Sandack's communication with the woman.
Then "they all pay" can't be true. Either it takes longer, or the payment rate is lower. The numbers don't add up.
In Nigeria you might get away with stuff like this. But Morocco is besides an Islamic country also one with ambitions, good ties to Europe and increasingly modern infrastructure (as evidenced by their Internet racket). If I were them and I read this news article, I'd be putting my Japanese motorbike and German car on the boat and cross gibraltar. I bet it's not too hard to become a Spanish citizen if you have money.
Adding to this, it may be a very shrewdly chosen scam, as the crime (in some jurisdictions) of engaging in a sexual liaison without having the necessary paperwork in order may be graver than the one of blackmail.
Hence, even victims not giving in to the original scheme may find themselves unwilling or unable to report the scam to the authorities. Clever.
Wait, is posting porn to youtube a criminal offense?
The case that I am personally aware of the scammers were based in Ukraine and despite the person being quite cool headed about it, it did cost him severely.