Media exclusively interviewed Mr. Zhang, a PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who was deceived into a scam park in Myanmar for over a year. Mr. Zhang provided two materials obtained from the Myanmar scam gang, one is the so-called "study of professional business knowledge," and the other is "chat examples."
The so-called "professional business knowledge" consists of 16 pages, detailing requirements in various aspects such as understanding of hardware devices and personal image shaping. For example, in the item of personal image shaping, the scammers require the victim to fabricate themselves into a 32 to 40-year-old, 1.68 to 1.72 meters tall, independent divorced woman.
In the "chat examples," 21 chat screenshots specifically show how the scam gang uses the crafted identity to chat with middle-aged and elderly men, thereby leading them into the trap of financial fraud. Mr. Zhang said that to gain the trust of the victims, playing hard to get is a common scam tactic.
The 16 pages of so-called "professional business knowledge" contain more than 11,000 words.
Mr. Zhang said: "It was sent out by me in August, it's relatively new (version), this is just one of them, there are others. Scammers also learn new knowledge every day, including those anti-fraud materials promoted domestically, they watch and improve upon them. They require (us) to watch for a period every day, and over time, you gradually memorize it. If you can't remember, the company will punish you by making you copy it with a pen, and they also have exams, based on the training content, they list questions and then answer them on the exam paper. They pay special attention to details in chatting, and if the details are not handled well, it's easy to give themselves away."
Since the gang mainly implements financial fraud, they start by learning what cryptocurrencies are, what wallets are, and why digital currencies will become mainstream, while also having a thorough understanding of the company's hardware and software systems to pave the way for subsequent telecommunications fraud.
Of course, in this set of "business," the most important thing is the creation of personas. Mr. Zhang said that the document details the "female" traits that these scammers need to shape.
Mr. Zhang said: "The age is generally 30-something white-collar women, single or divorced, hobbies will be packaged into more high-end women, with hobbies like fitness, golf, these high-end hobbies, height and weight also have requirements, about 35 years old, about 170 cm tall, weighing about 50 kg, even zodiac signs, birthdays are required to be memorized. The education is generally from prestigious schools, and the job is in a well-known large company as a white-collar worker."
The document explains that the scam gang's target customer group leans towards middle-aged and elderly men, and the scammers will shape themselves into a specific perfect image, not only suitable in age and appearance but also in temperament, and the personality must be positive and sunny. For example, despite being divorced, in terms of marital views, it must be full of positive energy, the document clearly states "the two people must understand, accommodate, respect each other, and give each other space."
If the "study of professional business knowledge" is just mastering the theory, the 21-page chat example document, with specific chat screenshots, shows how to "practice." The chat occurs between a woman and a man in his 60s who is retired. The scammer first sends a photo of a woman with a high appearance value, introducing herself as a 38-year-old white-collar worker at an online technology company, showing the gentleness of a woman in her conversation. Mr. Zhang said that the requirement for scammers is to act as realistically as possible.
Mr. Zhang said: "The photos are generally stolen from the internet, there is a whole set of photos that might have hundreds to thousands of pictures, all kinds of photos, just a whole set of character materials. They also have to learn some things that women often do, such as skincare, beauty knowledge, yoga, these activities, slowly learning, exploring, improving through chatting, that is, relying on experience to accumulate. While working, they summarize and analyze problems in the chat, and then they will be trained specifically, all these things are to make their image appear more real, just like the role of an actor, the more realistic the better."
After the basic information such as age and height is fabricated, the professional knowledge document also requires the gang members to set details such as ancestral home, talents, experiences, and life stories, among which a "close relative" image needs to be shaped, which can be an uncle, aunt, or uncle, etc.
Mr. Zhang said: "Family members also need to be fabricated, because our salespeople are just responsible for chatting about emotions, gaining the trust of customers, and later when talking about financial investment topics, they will tell the customer that they do not understand this area, but can introduce their uncle or aunt, letting their uncle or aunt explain the investment knowledge to them, transferring them to the role of uncle or aunt."
Scammers will chat with several victims at the same time. After a lot of dialogue, the scammers will extract the victims' work, address, and other information, and sort out each victim's characteristics for labeling, during this process, judging whether the other party has money, whether they are easy to deceive, the theoretical document specifically requires scammers to remember the logic of "either do not open for business, if open, eat for three years."
For example, in the aforementioned chat example, the scammer disguised as a woman asks the other party: "I saw a lot of beautiful flowers in your photo, did you plant them yourself?" Mr. Zhang said that the purpose is to judge the other party's living environment.
Mr. Zhang said: "Talking about work is to extract the personal information of the deceived, talking about their own work, the deceived person will definitely also talk about their own situation, then you can judge whether they have money, if they don't have money, just drop them and don't chat anymore. Based on the photos sent by the customer, if the person is relatively wealthy, the environment they live in, the car they drive, these can be judged whether they have money, so they need to probe, this is judged through experience. The team leader, gang leader, or other people who have deceived big money (people), will share some of their own chat experiences, and then say what we need to improve in our chats."
Once trust is established, the topic can shift from emotional topics to financial investment, and the scam gang's initial purpose is basically achieved, and then they can "cut the customer."
Mr. Zhang introduced, according to the "study of professional business knowledge," the most common method is, while chatting hotly with the customer, suddenly stop chatting, and after a while tell the customer: "Sorry, just now my teacher suddenly told me there is a good market, let me go trade, look, I made so much money."
Mr. Zhang said: "'Cutting the customer' is to start guiding the customer to invest. It can be through sharing news to talk about the economic situation, and then further talk about whether the customer has done investment-related issues, will see the customer's reaction, if his reaction is good, then directly guide him to invest, if not good, continue to chat about emotions."
Reviewing the entire so-called "study document" and chat examples, the routines are not new, but after accurately targeting the target customers, using "playing hard to get" to dispel the vigilance of the victims is their common strategy. Mr. Zhang said that the first responsibility for anti-fraud is oneself, for everyone, first of all, be cautious about adding strangers as friends, secondly, if the other party mentions investment-related topics, you must be vigilant.
Mr. Zhang said: "In the process of chatting with the victims, we will hide our purposefulness, not letting the customers discover that they are being scammed. For a long time at the beginning, we do not talk about investment, financial topics, just talk about hobbies, gaining emotional trust, and then mention investment-related matters, and will not actively invite customers to invest, just say how much money they made from their own investment, keeping the customer hanging, letting him take the bait himself."
