Scam Empire

Project
Published: March 5, 2025

Banner: James O’Brien/OCCRP

Scam call centers have been a scourge for years, conning ordinary people around the world out of hundreds of billions of dollars. 

Touting fake celebrity endorsements and deploying the latest technological buzzwords, skilled fraudsters lure victims into handing over their life savings for imaginary “investments.” And they operate with near-impunity: they’re hard to track and harder to prosecute. Their inner workings usually remain a mystery.

But not anymore. An unprecedented leak of nearly two terabytes of data from two major scam operations — thousands of hours of phone calls, screen recordings, spreadsheets, and other files — has enabled journalists to enter the scammers’ world and even to watch them at work.

It took a months-long collaborative effort by dozens of media partners to scour through this trove of evidence. The result is an unprecedented look into the heart of one of the world’s darkest industries.

This is Scam Empire.

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The Big Picture

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Stories From Our Partners

OCCRP and Swedish broadcaster SVT worked with over 30 media outlets around the world to bring the stories of Scam Empire to life.

Deepfakes, Cash and Crypto: How Call Center Scammers Duped 6,000 People
The Guardian

Deepfakes, Cash and Crypto: How Call Center Scammers Duped 6,000 People

A nursing home resident and pensioners were among thousands of victims of a massive fraud network operating from Georgia.

Read the article (English)

The Reporting Team

Project Coordination: Joachim Dyfvermark (SVT)⁩; Antonio Baquero (OCCRP), Kelly Bloss (OCCRP), Lawrence Marzouk (OCCRP) 

Journalists: ⁨Lorenzo Bagnoli (IRPIMedia), Sophia Baumann (Paper Trail Media), Lars Bové (De Tijd), Tom Bolsius (Follow The Money), Julian Bonnici (Amphora Media), Jacob Borg (Times of Malta), Inese Braže (Re:Baltica), Luc Caregari (Reporter.lu), Šarūnas Černiauskas (Siena), Maria Cheresheva (OCCRP), Atanas Chobanov (Bird), Riccardo Coluccini (IRPIMedia), Andreas Cosma (CIReN), Turgut Denizgil (CIReN), Paul Émile d’Entremont (CBC/Radio-Canada), Victoria Denys (Le Monde), Pamela Duncan (The Guardian), Karim El Hadj (Le Monde), Ester Eriksson (Qurium), Margaux Farran (OCCRP), ⁨Eiliv Frich Flydal (VG), Juliette Garside (The Guardian), Michael Goodier (The Guardian), Simon Goodley (The Guardian), Mariia Horban (Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty), Eva Jung (Berlingske), Sanna Klinghoffer (SVT), Minna Knus-Galán (YLE), Remy Koens (Follow The Money), Lukas Kotkamp (Follow The Money), Miglė Krancevičiūtė (Siena.lt), Moritz Kudermann (ZDF), Damien Leloup (Le Monde), Tord Lundström (Qurium), Christodoulos Mavroudis⁩⁩ (CIReN), Gur Megiddo, Bastian Obermayer (Paper Trail Media), Gisle Oddstad (VG), Marta Orosz (ZDF); Stelios Orphanides (OCCRP), Greete Palgi (Delfi), Begoña P. Ramírez (Infolibre), Daiva Repeckaite (Amphora Media), Florian Reynaud (Le Monde), Laurent Schmit (Reporter.lu), Graham Stack (OCCRP), Holger Roonemaa (OCCRP), Iulia Stănoiu (Context.ro), Tom Stocks (OCCRP), Dimitar Stoyanov (Bird), Nora Thorp Bjørnstad (VG), Alexis Troma (Le Monde), Björn Tunbäck (SVT), Kornelija Ukolovaitė (Siena), Romy van der Burgh (Investico), Linda van der Pol (Investico), Dewald van Rensburg (AmaBhungane), Simona Weinglass (OCCRP), Zoe Wood (The Guardian), Emma Wright (OCCRP), Jeff Yates (CBC/Radio-Canada), Frédéric Zalac (CBC/Radio-Canada), Kira Zalan (OCCRP)

Six Georgian journalists contributed vital reporting to this project but cannot be named for security reasons. 

The OCCRP Project Team

Writing and Editing: Peter Jones, Ilya Lozovsky, Sally Mairs, Laura Mannering, Miranda Patrucic, Julia Wallace

Lead Data Journalist: ⁨Malina McLennan 

Research and Data: Alina Tsogoeva, Eric Barrett

Lead Fact-Checker: Bojana Pavlović 

Fact-Checking: Ia Asatiani, Birgit Brauer, Ivana Jeremić, Olena LaFoy

Video: Sergiu Nicolae Brega, Brindusa Nastasa, Matt Sarnecki 

Design and Graphics: James O'Brien

Photo Editing: Erika Di Benedetto 

Web: Fabienne Meijer 

Social Media and Promotion: Sam Brooke, Amber Crossen, Lauren Jackman, Fabienne Meijer, ⁨Ekaterina Selivanova, ⁨Nils Weisensee⁩ 

Logistics: Nadia Ouddane

Media Partners

  • AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism (South Africa)

  • Amphora Media (Malta)

  • Berlingske (Denmark)

  • Bird (Bulgaria)

  • CBC/Radio-Canada (Canada)

  • CIReN (Cyprus)

  • Context.ro (Romania)

  • Delfi (Estonia)

  • Der Spiegel (German)

  • Der Standard (Austria)

  • Follow The Money (Netherlands)

  • Infolibre (Spain)

  • Investico (Netherlands)

  • IRPIMedia (Italy)

  • iFact (Georgia)

  • Le Monde (France)

  • OCCRP (global)

  • Paper Trail Media (German)

  • Qurium (Sweden)

  • Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty Ukrainian service (Ukraine)

  • Re:Baltica (Latvia)

  • Reporter.lu (Luxembourg)

  • Siena.lt (Latvia)

  • SVT (Sweden)

  • Studio Monitori (Georgia)

  • De Tijd (Belgium)

  • The Guardian (U.K.)

  • Times of Malta (Malta)

  • The Governance Monitoring Center (Georgia)

  • VG (Norway)

  • YLE (Finland)

  • ZDF (Germany)