‘Heartbreaking’: How Aussies lost $3 billion to scams

Organised criminals are targeting Australian backpackers to run scams in Asian call centres that are fleecing people of their life savings.

Organised criminals are hiring Australian backpackers to run scams in Asian call centres that are fleecing people of their life savings.

A cyber crime expert claims the travellers’ Australian accents make them the top swindlers as they are more likely to be believed by those on the other end of the phone.

Working in Thailand and the Philippines, they are being used to steal bank details from unsuspecting victims all over the world.

“There are Australians and others who travel, who get jobs when they’re in these countries (Thailand and the Philippines), and they become the old boiler room scam right now,” Alastair MacGibbon, chief strategy officer at private cyber security company CyberCX, said.

Tourists in Thailand are being targeted to work for organised crime groups. Picture: Getty Images

Back home, Australians answering too-good-to-be-true offers of making $1000 a week working from home are separately washing the proceeds of those scams.

The workers accept deposits into their bank accounts from the criminals – backed by Russian and Nigerian gangs – then transfer the money out into different accounts. This legitimises the transaction.

“There is a criminal infrastructure in Australia that is there. Successful bank frauds often still require money mules, people who are willing to move cash from one place to another,”

Mr MacGibbon, a former Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer, said.

“Now they are largely Australians, or people in Australia, who think they’ve got a job from someone saying I run a legitimate (business).”

While exact numbers of those involved in the so-called “boiler-room” scams offshore is unknown, Australians lost more than $3 billion to scams in 2022, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

However, those losses have almost halved in 2023, after the National Anti-Scam Centre was set up last year.

Alastair MacGibbon, chief strategy officer at CyberCX. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Mr MacGibbon, who established Australia’s High Tech Crime Centre when he was with the AFP, said organised crime was increasingly focusing on online fraud.

When asked whether Australian bikie gangs were now involved in cyber crime, he said, “Criminals tend to be agnostic to how they can make money. What they like is money and they don’t care who they harm to obtain that money.

“If there is a more lucrative way for criminals to make money, they will go down that path.”

Australian companies have also become targets of ransomware attacks in recent years, with hits on Medibank Private and Optus.

CyberCX was called in by St Vincent’s Health, which operates 13 hospitals and 23 aged care homes, when it was hacked on December 19 last year.

Mr MacGibbon was unable to comment on the St Vincent’s Health issue.

However, he said, speaking in general terms, that many of the scams originated in Russia.

“You’ve got a government that green lights you often to commit these crimes,” he said.

“If you go back 20 years, when I said the High Tech Crime Centre, the Russian police would help us track down hackers. They were cooperative.

“Now, clearly, there’s been a significant regime change … those police forces won’t help.”

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones attended a Global Fraud Summit in London in March, which included politicians from Europe, the United States, South Korea and Singapore.

Russia did not attend.

“Behind every dollar lost to scams is a heartbreaking story – we are working hard to intercept these malicious criminals before they can inflict pain on innocent Australians,” Mr Jones said.