Scam investigations with Erin West

Watch the documentary series with cybercrime expert Erin West, founder of Operation Shamrock, as she investigates today’s biggest online scams.

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Erin West travels along the Thai-Myanmar border with investigative journalist Cezary Podkul to document what is happening to the region’s scam compounds following recent crackdowns. They visit KK Park, once one of the area’s largest scam hubs and now largely demolished, as well as other locations, including Tai Chang. As they trace where the compounds and their workers have moved, Erin and Cezary speak with a victim still inside one of the facilities, being forced to scam people. They also speak with Judah Tana and Amy Miller, who run organizations providing aid to people affected by the compounds.

This trip provides an on-the-ground look at how scam operations from both well-known sites and new locations are responding to enforcement. Erin uses drone footage to offer a rare bird’s-eye view of these sites, capturing what cannot be seen from the ground.

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Behind every investment scam, romance scam, sextortion case, or identity fraud operation is a sophisticated criminal network, spanning across multiple countries.

In this investigative docu-series, Erin West takes us along the front lines of today’s global scam economy. Through on-the-ground reporting and interviews with investigators, victims, law enforcement, and local sources, each episode reveals how these organizations recruit victims, move illicit funds, evade the authorities, and continue expanding.

With Sumsub’s support, this series documents the criminal infrastructure behind the fraud schemes that digital platforms and their users face every day, connecting frontline fraud prevention to the organized crime networks responsible for this damage.

Meet Erin West

Erin West is a global anti-scam advocate, former Deputy District Attorney, and founder of Operation Shamrock, a nonprofit dedicated to disrupting transnational digital crime.

After 26 years as a prosecutor, she became recognized for investigating and prosecuting cryptocurrency-related cases and pursuing the criminal networks behind online scams.

Today, Erin works with law enforcement worldwide, as well as industry leaders and communities, to expose the scam economy, support victims, and protect trafficked workers forced to operate criminal schemes. As host of the Stolen podcast, she explores scams, fraud, and online exploitation through the stories of those affected and those fighting back.

Through her speaking and education work, Erin equips audiences to take action against digital crime and help dismantle criminal enterprises.

Visit Erin’s LinkedIn

Explore the archives

Inside a sextortion network in Nigeria

Erin West and cybercrime investigator Paul Raffile create a decoy teenage profile to expose a financial sextortion network targeting children online.

With support from scam baiter Kitboga, they trace a real scammer from his messages in a social media app to a village in Nigeria. Along the way, they speak with local contacts about why these crimes have spread across the region and what is being done to stop them, while gaining rare access to members of the Yahoo Boy network to uncover how the scams operate and how the money moves.

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Cambodia’s scam compounds

Erin West travels across Cambodia with Nathan Paul Southern and Lindsey Kennedy from The EyeWitness Project, an investigative organization that exposes organized crime and supports the people it harms.

Together, they investigate whether the country’s crackdown on scam compounds has disrupted the industry or pushed it further underground. They visit abandoned and suspected active compounds and speak with a Ugandan survivor who was trafficked and forced to run scams. What they encounter raises difficult questions about the true scale of the crisis and what may still be happening out of sight.