Pig Butchering: Inside the Billion-Dollar Scam Factories | “What The Fraud?” Podcast

THOMAS TARANIUK: Hello again, and welcome to “What The Fraud?”, a podcast by Sumsub where we expose the darkest corners of digital deception and, of course, meet the heroes who are fighting back. It’s still me, Thomas Taraniuk, Head of Partnerships here at Sumsub—the global verification platform helping to verify users, businesses, and transactions as well.

Today, we’re diving into one of the most heart-wrenching and fast-growing frauds out there: pig butchering scams.

These aren’t your everyday cons. They’re highly organized, emotionally manipulative schemes where victims are tricked into handing over their life savings—often after forming fake romantic relationships with their scammers. Since 2020 alone, more than $75 billion USD could have been stolen from victims worldwide.

So, this week’s guest is at the forefront of investigating—and more importantly, shutting down—these pig butchering scams.

She’s seen the inside of these scam factories and shows exactly how they carry out their lucrative crimes. Erin West has spent 26 years as a Deputy District Attorney and has carried out investigations into cryptocurrency-enabled crimes, SIM swapping, and digital financial fraud.

But now, as the President of the anti-fraud initiative “Operation Shamrock“, Erin is on a mission to unite the global community—from law enforcement to crypto platforms, NGOs, and more—to expose, disrupt, and shut down these fraud networks for good.

And today, we’re delighted to have Erin on the podcast with us.

How did you get started in fighting fraud?

Erin, thank you so much for coming on the show. I would love to go back to the beginning and rewind. Could you tell me how you got started in this industry? What was your first encounter with the world of fraud?

ERIN WEST: Thanks for asking—and thanks for having me on the podcast. It’s important to me to talk about pig butchering anytime I can, so I’m really grateful for the opportunity.

I was a local prosecutor in Santa Clara County for 26.5 years. I tried all kinds of different cases, and for the last eight years of my career, I was assigned to a high-tech task force where we prosecuted hackers and people who did account takeovers or stole cryptocurrency.

And ultimately, for the last three years, I really focused on one type of crime. And that type of crime is called pig butchering. It is a long con, as you said—a combination romance scam/investment scheme.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Before meeting you, I didn’t know too much about pig butchering. Right? What a name. But from your perspective, how big is the problem currently?

How big is the pig butchering scam problem today?

ERIN WEST: It’s massive. It is probably the biggest problem the globe is facing that you haven’t heard about. It’s amazing how massive the problem is—and yet how few people actually know what it is.

I think everybody can identify with getting a message—I got one this morning—a text that appears to be misdirected for someone else, or a text offering a job scheme, or a notice about a toll that you allegedly owe.

And those are all part of, as it turns out, a massive, industrialized “scamdemic“—a scam economy that is happening primarily in Southeast Asia. It’s really beyond comprehension how much money is flowing out of so many nations into the hands of organized criminals, how big the facilities are, and how big the industry is that is driving this.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Super interesting. So you’re saying when I get text messages saying, “Tom, you could be earning £200 an hour if you come work with us,” I’m not just highly sought-after? Someone’s actually trying to scam me?

Are those “work-from-home” texts actually scams?

ERIN WEST: I would say the odds are against you being highly sought-after in that way. But what I can say is: they’re everywhere.

I was with my dad last night—my dad’s 80—and he’s like, “I’ve started keeping a file of all these.” And I was like, “What are you going to do with your file, dad?”

But that file’s going to be thick, because it’s constant. And I can really think of no other circumstance—ever in the history of ever—where everybody can identify having received the same electronic communication in some way. I mean, they have the kind of marketing people dream of. They’re really able to get this information out to everybody, everywhere, constantly.

THOMAS TARANIUK: It’s super scary how they have access to so much data and can facilitate that outreach. But not only have you received these messages—you’ve been on the ground. You’ve actually just come back from the Philippines, from a place called Bamban, where a huge volume of these scams—including pig butchering—are taking place to this day.

So, would you be able to tell us a little more about what you saw there, what you did, and what shocked you the most?

Inside a pig butchering scam factory

ERIN WEST: Sure. I was really fortunate to go along with my colleague, who’s writing a book about the scam industry. It was the second time I’d been to the Philippines, and we connected again with an organization called the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission. They provided us with all kinds of information about the scam factories they are raiding in the Philippines.

They took us to a place called Bamban, about two hours outside of Metro Manila. And imagine—I don’t know where your listeners are in the world—but in Silicon Valley, we have campuses full of tech buildings.

Now imagine a campus with 35 buildings—but all of them are for the purpose of scamming. It was a walled-in, locked-down facility where hundreds—thousands—of people were in the business of scamming people all over the world.

The Philippine government raided that facility about a year ago, but they’ve left it primarily intact. So when you go into these rooms where the scams took place, there are still scripts on the desks. Notebooks with notes about who people were talking to in Dublin, in Montenegro. Their occupations. Names. Phone numbers. It’s a window into this world—one that is usually heavily guarded and completely inaccessible.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Is this geographically limited to certain regions, Erin, like what you saw in the Philippines, or are you seeing patterns in different regions too? I know you’ve also spent time investigating scam hubs on the Thai-Myanmar border and other places as well.

Are pig butchering scam factories limited to certain countries?

ERIN WEST: I’ve had some really unique opportunities to see these scam facilities in Dubai, on the Thai-Myanmar border, and in Cambodia. I took quite a driving trip through Cambodia.

They’re all a little different, but mostly the same. Mostly, they are massive dormitory-style buildings with only one point of access, heavily guarded by people with AK-47s.

What I saw in Cambodia was really extreme in terms of growth and development. It’s like walking into Las Vegas during its boom years. Massive buildings under construction. New roads. New towers. Everything being built to accommodate this industry. And that industry is criminal. It’s really hard to imagine—an entire economy based on crime.

THOMAS TARANIUK: It’s super scary, isn’t it, Erin? I’d love to discuss the actual human impact of these crimes. Figures from Chainalysis found that in the USA, as much as $9.9 million USD was lost to these scams in 2024 alone. Are we just scratching the surface of a much larger and growing crisis?

What is the human cost of pig butchering scams?

ERIN WEST: Absolutely. There are a few ways to quantify its size.

Anecdotally, I can tell you I’m inundated with victims—people who’ve lost everything. Whether it’s $1 million or $100,000, the impact is the same. Equally devastating. People go from being stable to having to ask friends to buy them groceries.

Officially, the FBI data is our best source—but even that is vastly underreported.

The number of reported scams is up 40% over last year. That’s a staggering rate of growth. And interestingly, just as many people over 60 are affected as under 60.

We like to think of this as a crime targeting seniors, but they’re targeting everyone: 25-year-olds, 45-year-olds, 75-year-olds. At massive scale.

When you add together the investment scams and romance scams reported to the FBI, you get a figure of about $7 billion last year. But AARP suggests that maybe only 1 in 10 people report this kind of crime—because it’s humiliating. People don’t want to admit it.

Suggested read: Detecting Romance and Dating Scams: A Guide for Dating Platforms and Their Users

If that’s true, if it’s 1 in 10, then the real number could be $70 billion. If it’s 1 in 5, then $35 billion. Either way, it’s a staggering loss.

A generation’s worth of wealth is being funneled into the hands of organized crime—and no one knows exactly where it’s going. But it’s not going anywhere good.

THOMAS TARANIUK: With the rise of crypto and non-fiat currencies, and more people using digital wallets, do you think this has made pig butchering scams easier? Has crypto made it dangerously simple to drain someone’s assets without raising red flags?

Has crypto made pig butchering scams worse?

ERIN WEST: A few things. Pig butchering is sometimes committed via wire transfers or by asking victims to buy gold, or even hand over cash to a courier. But when it involves crypto, it’s wildly successful for a few reasons.

First, the victims don’t understand crypto—so scammers can convince them of things that more experienced users wouldn’t fall for.

Second, there’s FOMO. Everyone’s heard stories of people getting rich with crypto. That plays right into the scammers’ hands.

Third, law enforcement is still catching up. They don’t know how to trace it. They’re overwhelmed. Victims are being turned away.

Crypto allows money to move fast, pseudo-anonymously, and often untraceably—if the bad actors know what they’re doing. We’re not ready. We’re not putting up a decent fight. And that’s why they’re winning.

THOMAS TARANIUK: It’s super difficult—and it’s making it easier for scammers to steal, but also to exploit people’s lack of understanding around crypto.

Just last year, a bank CEO in Kansas was sentenced to 24 years after embezzling over $50 million from customers—all to pay pig butchering scammers. The ripple effects hit the entire town: neighbors, families, coworkers.

How do these scams, from your perspective, fracture entire communities and leave long-lasting damage, Erin?

How do pig butchering scams destroy communities?

ERIN WEST: As a prosecutor—as a former prosecutor—I’m very attuned to how things affect victims. One of the hallmarks of my practice as a prosecutor was to always be looking out for the victims. But the really unusual thing about this particular case is that there are a number of sets of victims here. One of the key elements of pig butchering is the massive manipulation that is done by the scammers over a lengthy period of time.

This is not something that happens in a couple of days. This is a very targeted, manipulative strategy in which the enemy has consulted PhDs to figure out how to get people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. And they do that using techniques that are very familiar to us:

• isolating people
• putting time pressure on them
• causing anxiety
• turning the tables on them
• getting mad at them
• making them feel unsure of the relationship.

So when we think of the original victim of this bank situation, it was the bank president or manager—the leader of this bank—who was targeted and manipulated to move money. But unfortunately, it crosses a line when that bank president starts taking other people’s money to do that. Now, we understand manipulation, and I have a lot of empathy for a person who has been manipulated by bad actors.

But then he created a waterfall effect that ruined his town. He took money that wasn’t his to take, and he gambled it in this way that—I understand he was manipulated—but you can’t be taking other people’s money to put that into a concept of getting yourself out, or bailing yourself out, or making more money for the bank.

And so an entire town in Kansas was really emotionally destroyed by this. And I don’t say that lightly. There is a really core feeling of loss when you lose all of your financial stability. And that’s what was being experienced—in bulk—in this town. And then there has to be some responsibility and some accountability for what he did. 24 years seems like a lot of time.

What’s an example of the emotional manipulation scammers use?

THOMAS TARANIUK: It is a lot of time. Erin, would you be able to share a case, perhaps, that really captures the emotional manipulation these scammers use from your experience as well? And, of course, the human costs it leaves behind in people’s lives?

ERIN WEST: I just had a conversation recently with one of the first victims I ever talked to, and I revisited that conversation with her this week. She was the first person who explained the manipulation to me in a way that I could really understand. Sometimes it takes seeing someone who looks and feels like you to be able to understand the decisions that got made.

She’s a woman just a few years younger than me. She’s bright, she’s engaging, she’s an athlete, she has advanced degrees. And she was just looking for a companion—someone to share her life with—and really felt like she clicked with someone online. The way she described that relationship was really poignant. It was really like she felt seen in a way that she’d never felt seen before. She never felt so cared for before. And she really trusted this person.

What I like about her story is she was never trying to get rich. She had some advanced degrees, and so she was significantly in student loan debt. And he started talking to her about how she could get out of that student loan debt by investing in cryptocurrency in the way that he had.

But before they even got there, I asked her, how was it that he was… you never met him, you never even talked to him on the phone. How did that work? And she said that there was always an answer for everything. And it seemed reasonable at the time. Like, one of the things he told her was that he was compiling the conversations that they’d had, and he was putting them into a book, and he wanted to be able to give that to her on their first date.

He said his parents had met but were separated when he was in the military, and they had this book of all their love letters, and it was a family treasure. And so, when you are falling in love—and all the emotions that go along with that—something like that can sound really romantic and special. She kept thinking she was just weeks away from meeting him, and it kept getting delayed and postponed.

So I think one of the things that goes undiscussed is that by the time he was able to convince her to do these investments—and she lost the money, and it was very manipulative in the way that it worked—she not only lost the money and found herself further in debt, but she missed the companionship that she had gained with this person. He became her trusted confidant.

And that’s exactly part of the technique: “Let me be the only person you can trust. Let me be the person you rely on.” And that’s what happened. It was really a devastating loss for her. But what I will also say about it is: she’s one of the most resilient people I’ve ever seen. She’s one of those people where—that’s great—something happened to her, but she wasn’t going to let it crush her.

And so she took a class to learn how to trace cryptocurrency. And she made friends in the industry to try and figure out what had happened to her.

Are scammers always criminals—or are some also victims?

THOMAS TARANIUK: That makes a lot of sense, and it’s always difficult to, of course, not hold animosity towards the perpetrators who’ve taken, of course, something which is emotionally quite significant—which is always money for a lot of people as well.

But Erin, do we always think of the scammers as criminals, like in this case—manipulative and nefarious, for instance?

In many cases, these scammers are victims as well, right? Having been trafficked, forced into some of these crimes. And from the outside scope you may think, “Okay, these are all criminals. They’re doing a terrible, terrible thing.” But what should the public and the policymakers understand about the people who are forced in on the Thai-Myanmar border or in the Philippines to commit these scams at hand?

ERIN WEST: It’s very easy for all of us, when we first hear about a scam like this, to think, “Oh, what horrible people on the other end of the phone. What kind of evil is behind this?” And you’re right—there is definitely evil behind this, but it’s not exactly what you think. Again, the enemy has used circumstances against us.

They’ve used the unemployment in Southeast Asia and in Africa to recruit people—to think that they’re coming to Asia for a better job. They think that they’re coming to work in an office, that they’re going to be making three times what they’d been making before, and they’re going to live in a plush live-work facility and do great work.

And in fact, when they get there, their passports are taken, and their cell phones are taken from them, and they are put into vans and moved into compounds where they are guarded and required to work 16-hour days doing the most inhumane thing you can think of—and that is lying to their fellow humans and trying to steal their money.

And so in order to get people—normal, kind people—to do that work, you need to be violent with them. And that’s exactly what’s happening. The violence in these facilities is outrageous—and at the level of war crimes. At the low end of the scale, people are being beaten with baseball bats or made to beat their fellow peers with baseball bats.

They’re being hit with electric batons. I’ve seen torture rooms in the Philippines where people were taken to be beaten. I’ve seen the blood on the wall of those torture rooms. And I’ve heard from people who’ve been in these facilities about the really horrific crimes that are executed against them to do this work.

So when you think of someone who’s on the other end of that phone, they’re almost certainly not a willing participant, and they’re being forced to do this work for the benefit of organized crime.

Uniting law enforcement, banks, and tech platforms against scams

THOMAS TARANIUK: Erin, let’s examine what’s being done to shut down these scams. At Operation Shamrock, you’re on a mission to unite law enforcement, crypto firms, NGOs, and others to stop this type of fraud. So from your perspective, what’s the hardest part about getting tech platforms, law enforcement, and financial institutions and banks to work together? And from your perspective, what’s worked to bridge those gaps in the past?

ERIN WEST: We have a worldwide crisis here, and in order to solve a worldwide crisis, we need every piece of this ecosystem to be sitting at the table. And this is a situation where this group doesn’t usually sit at the same table, and they don’t usually share information. Law enforcement, by its nature, doesn’t share information. Tech doesn’t want to share information and is legally bound to not share a lot of information.

But the fact is that this is a turning point in history. This is where we either come together as the good guys against the bad guys, or we continue to operate in this fractured, siloed chaos and allow the bad guys to steal all of our money. So it’s difficult.

You’re trying to engage partners that don’t usually work together. You’re trying to engage tech and banking to think in a way that maybe doesn’t benefit their bottom line, but needs to be done, that there’s a bigger crisis at hand and it’s more important than their investors.

So you get the people to the table who are ready to sit at the table. And at the moment, banking has been a very good partner at trying to understand the nature of this crime and trying to come up with solutions for it. We’ve had a little more trouble bringing in our tech partners to really engage and share the information we need them to share.

But we won’t stop trying, because this is a human crisis. This is happening to your neighbor and your cousin and the person you’re sitting next to on that airplane. This is everywhere. And if you don’t know someone that this has happened to, you just don’t know because they haven’t told you.

Why international collaboration against scams is so difficult

THOMAS TARANIUK: It’s really difficult to, of course, see how far this has affected people, with the underreporting. But you’re completely right. And I think when we talk about private institutions actually giving an arm and a leg in terms of resources to try and help out these causes and communicate and share information and data—specifically within banking—it can be difficult.

Pig butchering scams are run across multiple countries, jurisdictions, and continents. And shutting them down completely requires coordination that spans these continents, these companies, and different law enforcement agencies as well. So Erin, my question to you is: Why is international collaboration—especially between Southeast Asia, let’s say, and Western institutions—so complex?

Would you be able to share anything about what would help build stronger bridges between these regions and, of course, these institutions?

ERIN WEST: The first piece is that there is no existing formula for how to do it. We don’t have a blueprint to look at, but when you start thinking it through, you can realize that there have been other such coalitions in the past. There are coalitions against terrorism that bring together all different segments of society and international partners to do this.

So I think the difficulty is in just finding a framework that suits, but also in finding appropriate leadership. I think this is an area where the United States could and should be a leader in bringing together the opportunity for these conversations to happen. I think that the United States as a government has been largely—I would say there are plenty of opportunities for the US government to step up and start working directly on some of these problems, and really get to know some of the solutions that have worked and are working in the UK, Australia, and Singapore—and start by building those coalitions. Start by working with the people that are having some success and figure out how to build on that success and not necessarily reinvent the wheel.

Suggested read: Fraud Detection and Prevention—Best Practices for 2025

Educating the public and financial institutions through the “Stolen” podcast

THOMAS TARANIUK: I completely agree with you there. And a big part of your work, Erin, is education—especially helping financial institutions and investigators understand what’s really happening inside of these compounds. As part of the education drive, you have your own podcast as well, Erin. It’s called “Stolen“, so I’d love to hear more about what you’re doing and the sorts of stories you’ve been covering on your podcast.

ERIN WEST: Thank you so much for asking about my podcast. During my journey over the past three years—from at first being inundated with victims of this crime, to then learning that this crime is happening on an institutional level, to then actually going over to Asia on a number of trips to understand the root cause of all this—I’ve met a number of people that are pieces of this puzzle. And I think that we need to start putting the pieces of this puzzle together.

We need to start looking at a framework where we can understand what’s happening in Asia. My third episode is with Ari Redbord, who’s a crypto expert. Why are they using crypto? What is crypto and what is the blockchain? Help me understand some basics.

What I want this podcast to be is an understanding of—we are in a new type of warfare. What we have here is bad guys that are targeting us. Not with bombs, not with physical activity, but with a digital—a very targeted digital—front. And the result of all of this will be draining of fortunes and causing mass chaos. And I think that we are severely underestimating the capability of thousands and thousands of industrialized people who are being forced to do bad activities by organized crime if we are not looking at what their capability is on a global level.

So “Stolen” is to tell the stories. Tell the stories that will make people care about this. Tell the stories that will get people to write to their congressmen and ask for a national strategy, and ask for the government to take seriously what’s happening here.

Because we’re way behind. And so “Stolen” is meant to appeal to your neighbors, so that they understand what’s happening and they are just as aghast as the rest of us about this major crime wave that nobody is talking about.

Signs of hope and progress in fighting scam networks

THOMAS TARANIUK: Erin, it’s a super important mission, and it’s one that I’m very happy to be involved in as well. But we’ve mentioned a couple of woes across the board, right? Amidst all of these, let’s say, issues or worries that we might have—what’s giving you hope, Erin, at the end of the day? Are there any breakthroughs, laws, congressmen that you’ve written to, or partnerships that suggest we’re finally turning the corner on a lot of these issues?

ERIN WEST: There is hope out there. There are good stories that happen every day. One of the pieces of the puzzle is an international collaboration of state and local law enforcement that never existed before. We started building it three years ago, and now we have a group of law enforcement that is at the ready to handle these cases.

So I’ll give you a specific example: A fraud fighter in London reached out to me and said, I am working with a victim. She was involved in a romance scam, and the perpetrator was arrested in Nigeria. The Nigerian police have gone through the phone of that perpetrator, and they have found that there is a victim in Florida. This victim in Florida has already sent $2.4 million, and she is selling her house. The house closes this week, and she is going to turn over another $1.3 million. Can you help me stop that from happening?

And so I put that into the chat of our fantastic crypto coalition. And I’m not joking when I tell you—within ten minutes—I had a phone number of a police officer in that jurisdiction who was willing to go to this woman’s house and stop her from doing it. And he did.

And that’s where we find ourselves: we have built a can-do coalition of people who really care about this. And that’s matching Nigerian police with victim services in London, with an American woman who has rounded up law enforcement in the United States.

There are opportunities. There are places to make change, and they’re happening every day.

There are good things happening every day. And, you know, if you listen to me, you know I’m going to complain about a lot of stuff, but there’s a lot of really good stuff happening, too. So I’m glad you asked me for that story, because there are a lot of stories just like that.

How can people in tech, policy, and banking disrupt scams today?

THOMAS TARANIUK: Amazing. And it’s really important. And it’s more important, of course, past the education that people do care. And I think it’s a very easy story, of course, or type of fraud to care about because of the number of people’s lives it affects as well. But what a wonderful story as well.

I would love to understand, as we sort of wrap up the show today, we have a number of different listeners or listener types. We have people that work in tech and fraud and banking and policy and many other disciplines. But for those, let’s say, that work in technology, they work in policy, government, or banking—what would you say is the one thing that they can do today to disrupt these scams within their sphere?

ERIN WEST: I’ll say, you’re all on notice now, and I know that you all can go back to your own shops and do something 1% better than it was yesterday. And that’s a step forward.

So what I would look for in my shop today is: who is a partner we can start talking about this with? How do we start breaking down silos little by little? You know, you may not be starting with the exact person in the other organization that can make some change, but yesterday I just spoke with T-Mobile, and I haven’t really had great connections with telcos before. I haven’t known who to talk to, and this conversation with T-Mobile was one step closer to understanding why telco can’t shut this down, or what it would take for telco to shut this down.

So I think there are opportunities everywhere for people to reach out to someone else in this problem and start talking about how we can work better together. I spoke with another woman from the Identity Theft Resource Center, and she was telling me about their capability—and I wasn’t aware of that—that they will speak to victims that call them up, that have had their identities compromised. And she will spend the time helping you come up with a strategy to get by. There are plenty of do-gooders, helpful people, and we need to link arms. So find someone to link arms with today.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Completely agree. And it’s going to have to be digitally for our listeners, but I’m sure that everyone’s on board, right?

Quick-fire round

If you’ve ever watched one of our podcasts before, Erin, you probably know that at the end of the episode, we do quick-fire questions. So to get to know you a little bit more on a personal level, I’d like to send five quick-fire questions your way. Are you ready?

ERIN WEST: I’m ready.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Excellent. So when choosing a digital wallet, do you opt for more features or for better security?

ERIN WEST: Better security. Always.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Great answer. What’s one thing about fraud that still surprises you to this day, even after all of your experience, Erin?

ERIN WEST: The grandiosity of how much money can be lost, how big it can be, how masterful the manipulation can be—that it gets people to do crazy things that they would not ordinarily do.

THOMAS TARANIUK: And with you, of course, on this episode, I’m finding out so much more about these types of fraud and how big the actual problem is—and it’s probably bigger than that as well. My third question for you, Erin, today is: have you ever been a victim of fraud yourself?

ERIN WEST: Yes. I talk to a lot of victims, and a lot of victims are really upset and feel overlooked. And they’re really upset with the system. They think it hasn’t worked appropriately for them. And so I spend a lot of time trying to explain the why. And so I was on LinkedIn, having a conversation one night with someone and going back and forth, texting. And then I went to bed, and I was upset for him. He wasn’t satisfied. I woke up the next morning and it was pre-dawn, and I was scrolling my email, and I saw an email. And it appeared to be from this victim.

I mean, it didn’t say it was this victim, but my brain jumped to this victim because this person said, “I think you’re a big phony. I don’t think you actually care about victims.” And so I wrote a whole blog about this, and it’s on my—and you could post it here. And I was like, oh my God, no, I do. And I clicked on it. And before I even thought—and that’s what they do, right? I clicked on it.

I don’t know how many times a day I tell people, “Don’t click on stuff from people you don’t know. Never click on—” but that’s how you do it. You put someone under pressure, under emotion. You trigger them, and they do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.

And so if you want to trigger Erin West, you don’t send her the McAfee thing. You don’t tell her she has a toll she has to pay. But you say, “I don’t think you care about victims.” And that got me. And so it really scared me, and I was so thankful I have a task force to drive immediately to and ask what I did and how bad is this problem. But yeah. Yeah, definitely. It’s any given day. Any bad day could be the day that you are targeted and that you are tricked.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Most definitely. And the scariest part of that for me—and this could be an entirely new podcast episode—is the intelligence gathering and the capabilities to find out so much information through phishing and other means of people like yourself, Erin, and myself as well. The stuff that they’ll come back with—I’m just like, okay, well, that’s a little bit daunting and crazy. But a whole other can of worms to open, I think.

So the second to last, the penultimate quick-fire question is: what’s one habit you rely on to stay safe online?

ERIN WEST: Multi-factor authentication.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Easy answer. I love it. Straight to the point. And also secure. If you could have any other career than the one that you have currently, Erin, what would it be?

ERIN WEST: I would be an investigative journalist. I am. And I think that’s part of why I find this story so compelling—there’s so much to it. There are so many layers. There are so many stories to tell. I really find things and people so interesting. And this story in particular is compelling on every level.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Erin, I couldn’t agree with you more. But checking out, of course, on your podcast and some of the releases you’ve done, I would very much say that you are an investigative journalist now in terms of your reach and, of course, the stories that you’re telling.

ERIN WEST: Well, I’m happy to hear that.

THOMAS TARANIUK: It’s very, very nice to speak with you today, Erin, as well. And thank you for answering some of the most critical questions here today, but also sharing, one, your experiences—gut-wrenching experiences. And secondly, for sharing all of the information around what people can do and the impacts it’s had, not only on individuals, but businesses.

I think, finally, of course, there is a big mission to involve both institutions from the West and also governments and task forces from the East as well to come together to solve this problem at hand, because it is bigger than all of us understand.