On October 5, 2022, at a call center on the eastern outskirts of Metropolitan Manila, dozens of employees are calling Australians.
This call center is purportedly connected to sophisticated multimillion-dollar schemes that targeted Australians’ retirement funds. According to the ABC program 7.30, a scam “cloned” or improperly used real information without the consent of a business that the financial goliath AMP controlled.
According to the victims, cloning and other deceptive techniques made the scheme appear to be a legitimate, Australian-regulated financial advice firm.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has confirmed that “some investigations are at an advanced stage” as a result of the fraud.
Within the Manila contact center, employees are seated closely in rows. Investigators in an office containing con artists with their palms on their heads. During the raid, police officers keep watch over the contact center staff. They read detailed scripts while wearing headphones to gather sensitive information about the lifestyles, spending habits, and investment interests of individuals thousands of kilometers away.
The Anti-Cybercrime Group of the Philippine National Police is prepared to raid the contact center. Ken Gamble, an Australian cybercrime investigator, is present to observe the search. He traveled to Manila on behalf of Australian victims, who engaged him to track down the alleged perpetrators of elaborate fraud schemes.
Ken Gamble, an investigator of cybercrime, traveled to Manila for the investigation.The search was prompted by a criminal complaint filed in the Philippines by Ken Gamble’s company IFW Global on behalf of six Australian victims. They claim to have lost $3,300,000 in two schemes that targeted pensions and were allegedly connected to the Philippine call center.
Mr. Gamble asserts that the call center is the starting point and that the information collected there is transmitted to another organization.
According to him, a group of fraudulent financial planners from the West will then contact Australians. They have an in-depth understanding of how self-managed super funds are established and a wealth of experience defrauding people in this particular area. Therefore, they become very skilled at it and are able to add all the bells and sirens to make the scam appear legitimate.