It begins with something as innocuous as a phone call: “There is a package waiting for you,” the caller may tell you. “But there's a problem - you’ll need to speak with police”.
For international student Xiao Chen*, such a message marked the start of a 10-day ordeal that ended in a Melbourne airport hotel, where police found her alone and confused in April this year.
“It was a kind of ‘mind control’,” she tells SBS Viceland’s The Feed in an exclusive investigation airing on 26 June.
“Every time they made me send money, there was a reason.”
Xiao Chen* gave $500,000 to the scammers. Source: The Feed
The deceit was so persuasive that when her own money ran out, the scammers coached her on how to access more - a ploy that led her to lose a total of $500,000.
“I totally believed them, so I did what they said.”
Xiao Chen counts among a global network of victims - spanning from New York to New Zealand - who have fallen prey to an increasingly notorious scam targeting Mandarin speakers.
In some cases, victims are told they face extradition and criminal charges in China. In others, they are coerced into pretending they have been kidnapped - with bound and gagged photos later used to extort money from their parents.
Some victims were told to pretend they had been kidnapped. Source: Victoria Police
Former scammer Ah Wei* revealed workers are given psychological training and armed with phone numbers, personal information and scripts to work from. He boasted of once making $200,000 in a single day.
“Usually we play on people’s anxieties and fears,” he said. “We keep them on the phone and don’t give them time to think.”
It’s an approach that pays: Australian victims have already handed over more than $9 million, according to figures from police.
Read The Feed’s full investigation into the phone scams and watch the report at 7.30pm, Tuesday 26 June on SBS Viceland.
*Names have been changed
