Intro Music Music Naka-blackmail ako ng isang tao or dalawang tao na na-blackmail ko ng 300,000 to 500,000 Music Music Sa isang buwan, nakaka-blackmail ka ng isang tao? Ilang tao nabablock? Marami. Kasi sa isang buwan, marami talaga kami nabablockmail.
Kasi everyday kami nag-online. Kahit sabihin mo may pera na, kumita na kami. Once na nag-online kami, nire-reserve lang muna namin yung iba. Para may income pa rin kami.
Kung baga, once na mablockmail pa namin yun, magkakaroon pa kami ng pera. Once na nawala na ulit kami ng pera. Music 50-50.
For example, sabihin natin 50,000. Tig-25,000 kami. Wala ko talaga akong idea na ganun yung magiging trabaho ko kasi nga in-invite lang din ako ng friend na sabi may easy money nakikita through online lang.
Siya talaga yung pinaka-parang putok yung pangalan na siya yung madam-madam talaga doon. Siya yung una. Mayaman na talaga.
As in, may mga kotse at bahay na. Ilang kotse, ilang bahay. Middle lang talaga siyang pamumuhay nila. Sabihin natin may kaya or ano. Tapos nung nag-start yung ganong pamumuhay, doon na siya naging big time talaga na bonggang-bonggang pasabog ganun.
Bigla na lang siyang umangat sa lahat. Wala siyang ginagawa, tutusin. Mag-claim lang ng pera, magpasahod lang ng tao. Hindi ko pa siya talaga totally nakikita. Narinig ko lang sa mga bakla na...
Ngunit nga na madam talaga siya na siya nag-start ng ganong bagay, ganong servisyo o bagay na pagkakakitaan na mabilis. I had no idea what this crime was or how it could possibly work until I started looking into it. The first thing we knew about sextortion was a case in Scotland involving a 17-year-old lad called Daniel Perry who apparently received messages through Facebook. Had some money extorted from him. Received sums of about 3,000 pounds from him before he ran out of money.
They then carried on threatening him, threatening to release these... video recordings of him. And they started saying to him, why don't you kill yourself? And taunting him even. And the last message he sent to them said, I haven't got any more money.
Bye-bye. And he then took his own life. When the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group was created, and there was a lot of report of extortion happening in the Philippines, victimizing foreign nationals.
Because of course international pressure started to build, especially after the death of Daniel Perry in 2013, and Interpol got involved. There was one, I suppose a typical victim, a guy in Hong Kong who was working in an office, who was approached on Facebook, and who went off into the office toilets and had this exchange with somebody he thought was a woman in the Philippines. Two hours later, they were demanding money from him. He had to rush out of the office at the end of the day and try and find a Western Union branch and send over, you know, one sum of money and the next day another demand came.
He eventually sent about 2,000 to 3,000 pounds or about 3,000 US dollars before plucking up the courage to go to the police and report it. Usually you'll find these crimes might originate in Nigeria or some African countries and then get copied overseas. But here, this was the first that anyone had ever heard of these crimes being perpetrated.
In about 2013, 2014, they suddenly started spreading. This crime didn't exist until Maria Capras invented it. The ringleader of a group of young people who were carrying out these crimes of sextortion and extorting money from people through Facebook and getting large sums of money out of it. Her syndicate is thought to have raked in millions of pounds. It's a crime.
Huge sums of untraceable money, all of which will be sent to Western Union accounts. Some of the Western Union branches in the area around where she lived recorded the biggest takings of any Western Union branches in the world for a period in 2014-2015. There was so much money coming in at this time.
So this operation was named the operation Strike Back which resulted to the crackdown of this syndicated. It's quite big because back then, the cybersex extortion or crime were new to us. It was not that popular yet so the impact of the story is alarming.
Music Nice, nice, got it, got it. Down, down. They were able to track the movements of money and all the proceeds were going through the two Western Union accounts owned by the Kaparas and her live-in partner.
I think they were able to seize a couple of laptops, hard disk, sex toys, several motor vehicles, including wig. I was told that she was still active on social media in prison and sent her a message in hope rather than expectation saying, I'd like to hear your side of the story. Will you let me come and see you in prison? Insisting she was innocent, insisting that another woman in the village was the real kingpin and she was just being scapegoated. She almost convinced me.
I mean, she told me that she'd been set up, she was crying and I asked her, what did you think about the men who fought for this? She said, they're stupid. They're just stupid. I told them.
I told one or two of them, don't do it again because... You've learnt your lesson now. So she could switch quite quickly and was clearly a quite persuasive and highly confident person.
Probably a sociopath, you'd probably describe her as. Maria Capras first started working in chat centers where Filipino women strip off and talk to foreigners. Let's face it, it's a pretty degrading line of work to find yourself in.
And I imagine that's perhaps where her cynicism about the victims comes in. She's seeing men who are behaving in a very exploitative manner and presumably working with other people who are being similarly exploited. Like a telemarketing office call centers, you know, they're selling porn, they're selling porn sites.
And once they saw an opportunity, someone asking for more. And at some stage, we don't know when, but clearly a light bulb went on and she realized how she could turn this to her advantage. It's an evil scam, but it's a very clever scam at the same time.
And it plays on the fact that people are so ready to strike up conversations with complete strangers. Nang nagtrabaho ako doon, tapos syempre wala pa ako alam yung tinuruan ako eh. Ginawa nila ako ng Facebook, pinagawa nila ako ng bagong Facebook. Makarotohanan, Facebook may aray talaga na everyday magpo-post, everyday selfie, ganyan. Kukuha ka ng may real Facebook account, ayun yung gagamitin mo doon na mukha.
So kada post niya, ayun yung popost mo din sa... sa Facebook na yun, gagawin mo talaga siyang tunay na FB. So yung mga tinukuha mong mga Facebook na account, yung mga fans dito sa Pilipinas o sa...
Sa ibang bansa din. Oo, mga Korea, gano'n, mga Chinese. They will use the persona of a pretty young woman.
The persona used will be a younger female, fun-loving, a bit silly, a bit more fun and games kind of approach. In social media platforms, most of the information is available. Easily they can go to your profile, go through this information, go through your hobbies, go through your habits, go through the messages, go through the image, videos, and all the comments.
Knows who is your friends. The main goal for them is to make the account as real as possible. And why?
Because they want the victim to trust them easily. Minsan ka sa akin, hindi sila nagtataka kasi pag binuyong profile ko, updated. Minuminuto, may post.
20 years back, you never publish your private image. You hang it outside your door and everybody could easily see it. Because that time was something like, that was private information.
We are freely posting information about ourselves and just give it away. Give it to the public, give it to the scammers. And we just invite them to just say, this is my life, you want to know anything about my life, here it is.
And then you can just have any information about me on my social media. I believe today there is a popular trend where popularity is above privacy. So the more popular you are, the better it is.
But again, it's a choice. With popularity and having a public profile, comes everything that relates to that and the risk associated. And that's where social platforms are, in general, a great platform for criminals in general to perform their crimes.
It's an easy way and they can hide. Behind a different, just fake identity. Basically, they use social media a lot. So, they would troll these social media websites and then interact with people and they're fishing for potential praise.
Music Mag-search ka sa Facebook ng, kunyari ano, Engineer lives in Malaysia, Engineer lives in Singapore, Hong Kong. Alam namin na, ayun yung trabaho nila, mayaman, ganun, may pera. Ano ang tinuka namin yung, yung may maayos na pamilya, yung maganda yung trabaho. Tapos syempre, kukunin mo doon yung ano, yung may mga details na hindi ka na mayihirapan na kapag clinic mo yung siblings, Ando na yung, lalo na usually, mas maganda kapag nakain relationship sa Facebook. The way sextortion works is that somebody will send you a friend request on Facebook, somebody you've never met before.
Siyempre mag-aantay ka ng ano, mag-a-accept sa'yo. Kapag, yun nga rin, sabi mag-add ka ngayon, tapos bukas, pag-isip mo, may mag-accept sa'yo. Lahat yun, ipipimuhay. Well, if you respond to that chat, okay, then you can easily be hooked to the chat. You know, a typical legitimate account, you have around...
200, 300, 400 Facebook friends. You know? And statistically, when we're trying to analyze the Facebook account of criminals, you see just around 10 friends, foreign friends, coming from everywhere. Oo, yung iba nagdududa na ano. Kasi usually kasi yung iba, oh, saan mo nakukuha yung Facebook ko?
Ganon-ganon. Sa sabihin ko lang na ano na, nakita ko lang saan, oh, you may know. Ganon. Tapos, o bakit mo ako inad?
Wala lang, ganun-ganun to make friends, ganun-ganun. And it's a script, a narrative that they use that almost always works. Ano tawag din lang?
Parang ano ko na siya, inaakit ko na siya. and they have a mastery over the script. The words to use, the emotions to show, the little attentive messages every day that you can send that makes somebody feel good. It is in this climate of trust that they take advantage of the victim. We always assume like those movies, like those Hollywood movies, somebody extremely skillful running some script and running some codes.
However, that I can say is a 15% of what happening in a cybercrime. The other 85% of the cybercrime practically is nothing to do with the technical things. What we call it social engineering. Social engineering is based on manipulating people and it is very effective when you create a certain connection with your victim and try to use that in order to achieve your crime. Mas maraming bakla kasi po...
Mas malawak yung utak ng bakla sa pagsasalita eh. Parang bibilawgin yung utak ng tao. And these were mostly teenage boys, some of whom were transitioning to be women.
Meron ako doon na kasama, ano lang eh, 17 years old lang. 17, 18, 19, tapos yung pinakamatanda sa amin which is 30. That's the age bracket normally that we were able to arrest this extortion because they know a lot about computers. You can just pay these jobless teenagers, give them 300 to 500 a day, and it will...
Suffice for them. You can easily lure them, attract them to this kind of sex activities. Good chatters would get bonuses and extra rewards.
She'd shower them with gifts like iPhones and Samsung phones. All the arrested individuals were minors. Syempre sa isang bahay kami na parang liblib. Kahit sa may man liblib yun sa bundok yun, dun sa NHB. The surrounding is much safe, safe for them.
Because there are inadequate police authorities who operate in the area. North Hills still looks like a very ordinary village. But somebody pointed out to me, have you noticed what's different about this village?
And I said, I can't, it looks like another Filipino village to me. But they said, look at the kids, they're all wearing designer t-shirts. You don't get that in a normal Philippine village. She owned a large property in the center of the village. It was like an entertainment center for the mostly young people who would work for her.
And when we were there, there was always crowds of kids sort of gathering. And of course those of a demographic that would be working for her or being primed to work for her as soon as they were a little older. Pangunahin, ano dun?
Ta'o dun? Or ganun? Yung unang kinabubuhay dun sa NHB, which is yung paggawa ng basahan at pagbebenta ng basahan.
Nagtatrabaho ko ikaw para doon na sabihin natin nasa 80%. Nakatao. Walang nagsusumbong doon kay Caparaz sa NHB kasi halos lahat, buong NHB yun, lahat ayun yung trabaho.
Lahat sila, scam yung trabaho. Pag lahat nang makikita mo doon bahay na may laki, all in yun. Si Caparaz kasi powerful kasi nga siya yung unang gumawa ng trabahong scam.
Which is, siya yung nagbigay ng... Trabaho sa mga tao, siya yung unang yumaman, siya yung unang nakapagpagawa ng business. Ano ang requirements sa doon? Kung ikaw, kung saksyon, madala. Madala ng iyo.
If you ask. Ano pa rin ang mga mga kapras na naisip ng amnesia at naisip na talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga talaga the scam or the other. Mabait na maano, maayos na mamakisama. Misgay event na siya yung nagpa, ano no, siya yung nag-set up nung event na yun.
Siya yung halos lahat gumastos. Doon ko narinig sa mga tao na, ay, si ano nag-ano niyan, si Miss CEO nag-ano niyan, ganyan-ganyan. Siya yung sumagot niya, siya yung nagpamisgi niya. Kaya sabi ko, wow, mag-eat naman siguro talaga. With money, you can literally buy people.
And that's technically what she was doing. Maria Capras came from an extremely poor background. She was living in the slums in Manila. When she first arrived in the village, the neighbors told me she was so poor she'd have to beg for a bowl of rice to feed her and her two children.
She had nothing at all. She's a slumdog millionaire, yes, effectively. She's come from nothing and become extremely rich in an extremely dark way.
I got a random Facebook request one night, what looked like an attractive female. At first I was resistant because I didn't know this person at all. At the time I didn't think nothing of it like I said so we started chatting.
The second that we got onto the webcam, this person was already removing their clothing. I did not anticipate this. It wasn't that kind of conversation prior to that.
I just thought they wanted to talk. They started removing their clothing, started doing some older things with toys and stuff like that. And then started asking me to remove my clothing.
I was resistant for a long time, for maybe about 15 minutes. I didn't really know this person, I didn't want to do that. I'm not really into that whole thing either, you know what I mean? But eventually, I did, and I showed them my private area. This person proceeded to stop the video chat and the screen went completely blank.
And once that happened, I kind of realized something wasn't right. Through Facebook. Ayun, doon mo siya kakausapin.
Tapos once na nakausap mo na siya, nagustuhan ka niya. Makiramdaman ko na sumasakay na siya sa akin. Doon na pumasok yung plano ko na ito nga, parang sasakay ito sa akin. Tapos nung sumakay na nga, which is sabi ko, start na kami.
Lumipat naman ako sa Skype para mag video call. I saw Maria Capras in prison and she explained to me actually how it all works. She says that within 20 minutes, the chat gets so intimate. Inakit ko na siya, nasabi ko na nakaubad ako, galing ako ng CR, kung gusto mo ba akong makita.
Sige, maano, magpapakita ko ba? So once na magpakita ka din. May application kasi kami na kapag in-add mo yung video na gamit namin, automatic, kapag nakapag-video call ka, ayun yung lalabas na video. Ayun yung makikita nila.
Ayun, kinukuha yun sa mga porn site. There are pre-recorded videos, you know, controlled by key points. Kasi yung iba kasi siya, magkata ka yan eh.
If you are not video, wave your hands. May wave yun. I-click mo lang.
Kunyari, ano siya, yung wave niya nasa 2 minutes. 2 minutes. I-click mo siya sa 2 minutes.
Para, oh, wave siya agad. Ganon. Yung galaw niya, pinag-aralan ko, like, yung mag-high siya, pagkaway sa camera. Tapos, yung mga pag-flying kiss.
Yun, alam ko yun. Tapos, like, yung sa dildo, dapat kabesadoin mo talaga lahat. Kung ano yung gustong ipagawa nung foreign lady. combination of keys to have that pre-recorded video play as if you are really doing it for him.
Which is yung mag-show dun di mismo ako, ibang tao. Tapos once na nautuko na siya na yun na nga na nakapag-show na ako. Tapos, sasabihin ko sa kanya na mag-show din siya. Gusto ko siya makita.
Ayan, doon namin i-start yung pagre-record ng video niya. After nun, i-record namin yung... Pag-record namin doon, kukunin namin yung mga information na like Facebook.
Kukunin namin doon yung mga pangalan ng mga kamag-ana, pinsan, mga gano'n, kapamilya, or mga pamilya niya. Like asawa, anak, lolot-lola, or mga pinsan, gano'n. Well, they don't need to be IT experts or hackers because all this private information is already shared in your social media platform.
For example, if you have a working experience somewhere, you already enter which locations you work, which company you work. They don't want only you be a target because all those friends, all those members which they are in your social media, It can be a valuable target to them. Tapos after nun, dun na papasok lahat ng information na hawak namin together with a video nando doon.
Tapos dun namin sasabihin na kung pre-Kavana pwede mag-show ulit tayong dalawa. Once na nag-show ulit siya, Doon na namin ipapasok, ipapasa yung video niya na nag-show. Then sasabihin na namin na may hawak akong video, ganyan-ganyan.
Kung magkano yung ingin namin, dapat maibigay niya para lang ma-delete yung video. Kung hindi, ipo-forward namin sa lahat ng kamag-anak, pinsan, kaibigan, yung video niya. And if you can record something and you can play over again, then the traumatization just happens each time you see it. Once na nagbibigay pa siya ng pera, hindi ko siya titigilan. Malaki din naman kapag nakakuha ka ng mayaman na client.
Tsaka yung takot-tatakot. Sa isang araw na mag-online ka, makakalima o sampung video. Kaya sa sampung video na yun na i-scam mo, na tatakutin mo, imposibleng wala ka makuha doon yung isa. Usually yung iba kasi na nagmamakaawa na walang pera, ganun-ganun. Siyempre, tatakutin mo yung takot-tatakot talaga yung ano.
Yung pipilitan namin mag-sell your things, sell your appliances, yung iba talaga nag-ibenta. When you are threatened that these things will be released publicly, you literally panic, right? And you get very upset. And many of these young people become very anxious, very depressed. Kaya doon pumapasok yung pag-suicide kasi wala na mga ibigay.
Halos mangutang na sa mga kapitbahay niyo or pinsan, kapamilya, yung taong binablockmail ko. Pero may iba kasing client na... Kinigilan mo na, hindi mo na kailangan ko sa kinaawa ka, kinabukasan, biglang magsasend sa'yo na ano, na, I know ano, I know you can do this to me.
Gano'n, yung matapang pa sa'yo. Doon ako napipipi ko na, ah okay, this is your wife, I send your ano, doon ko sinasend yung video na miss mo sa wife niya kahit wala akong makuha ang pera sa kanya. Actually, yung iba ano, magusumbong daw sa pulis.
Hindi naman ako natakot. Sa tingin ko, mga 30. Hindi nga lang 30. No, isang, kumbaga, salamesa. Apat o lima kami nandiyan dyan na laptop. Kakasama kami dyan.
Kami yung ano, yan. Sabay-sabay ang kami nag-ano dyan. Nakikipag-uusap ng kumukuha ng bibiktimahin. Palitan ng oras.
Bibigyan yung oras. Sa isang tao, may six hours ka para magharap ng ano mo, ng bibidyoan mo. Ano lang, yung average time kasi na ano yun sa isang tao, yun sa oras kasi napakadali lang. 30 minutes, kaya mong gawin yun eh. na mapashow mo agad siya.
Focus muna sa isa, pero may makakaano ka na, kasi marami kang kausap eh. Parang nandyan lang sila, nakaantabay lang sila. Tapos after yung isa, yan, pa.
E di, di ba nabidew ko na, save ko lang muna yan. Tapos kukuha pa ako ng kukuha ng kukuha ng iba. Siguro mga 6, 7, gano'n.
Mataas na yung 10. Yung ibang nga mabuti parang 15, 20. Habang binablockmail ko siya, tapos nakapagpadala na siya, may tao na isa na magkiklaim ng pera. Tapos, pag naklaim na yung pera, sasabihin sa akin, for example, through tawag or text. Chat, kasabi na nakuha na yung pera, hinga ko ulit ng pera.
Yun, doon ko ulit siya hinga ng pera. While she had the teams of young people running the sextortion racket, she had another team of people helping her produce fake ID cards with which she'd go and, she or her lieutenants would go and collect the money from the Western Union branches. Napapadala yung pera through fake ID.
The way it worked is that to collect these transfers, you just need an ID card that matches the name on the transfer from overseas. And in parallel to her sextortion business, it appears that Maria Capras had a cottage industry producing fake ID cards. Dahil sa blackmail, nakapagpatayo nga siya ng bahay ganon, tapos nakapag... Naka-branch siya ng sariling Western Union para lang doon na kumuha ng pera yung mga tao niya. From a money shop that is part of the syndicate is much easier than withdrawing the money from a money shop that is not owned or part of the syndicate.
So the syndicate can manipulate the transaction and the release of money. But when you trace the money, the details about the ID, it's all fictitious. It's a fake ID, eh?
It's a fake ID, definitely. So, for the last decade or so, So, we've been focusing on making the world more open and connected. And we're not done with this yet. We're always going to do this.
But I used to think that if we just gave people a voice and helped some people connect, that that would make the world a lot better all by itself. And in a lot of ways, it has. It's probably the tip of the iceberg, yes.
We find that about 50-60% of the scammers do most of their scamming on Facebook. Facebook is the perfect platform for the scammers because everything they need is in the one place. They're able to meet the people there, they're able to do video chat with them there.
They have their life there, their photographs, the list of their friends and their family. So it's just all encapsulated in the one place for them. I'd say we get around 500 reports a month, which is about 15 a day. When we originally started doing this, we were getting around 40% of people coming to us saying that the scam was from the Philippines.
Today, we get around 55-60% of them will come from the Philippines. The number one requirement for a person to involve him or herself in a sextortion is the internet. So it can be anywhere in the Philippines. There is no really specific location. They just need a very basic things, okay?
Definitely they need some device. Bulacan kasi, province eh. Ang gamit lang talaga nila ng internet is packet Wi-Fi.
Hindi sila, wala pa siyang ano doon. Wala pang wired doon na PLDT, lahat wala doon. Ano lang ang gamit lang nila doon, SIM card lang.
These syndicates can be anywhere. They don't need to be in a certain location to find the victim in that particular location. They can sit anywhere and the victim can be far, far away.
There is a continuous increase of the numbers of recorded sex torsion cases. You can see from the statistic that there is an increase of 100% per year. 80% of our recorded extortion cases uses social media.
There's a huge difference in investigating a traditional crime like a simple robbery. A case of homicide or a case of murder, there is a gap. There's a huge gap on the procedure of how you will investigate cybercrime.
The people do not know, they do not understand that we cannot just hack into someone's system and determine who is the person behind those who is victimizing them. Another thing, the social media administrators, they are outside the Philippines. They are not here.
Not days, not weeks, not months. several months for us to acquire the information that we sought. We need a lot of information to be able to identify who's the people behind the cybercrime.
So how do we know who we are in reality talking to? We are not able to verify that identity in a way like we have that possibility in a physical world. There's no need for verification due to the fact that social media priority is users'adoption.
They want more users on their platform. We do not have a worldwide legislation that can cover those cybercrimes, and criminals know that. In some countries, they do not even need to hide because they know. that no one will come and search for them. Siya yung unang taong nakapag-ipon ng maraming maraming pera kaya Ayun, nagkaroon siya ng ano, siyempre, nagkaroon siya ng kapit, ng ahawak na polis.
Siguro, kada monthly, binibigyan ng lagay, ganon, para hindi sila mahuli. Alam ko ilang beses na din kasi nandun ako, nahuli sila, tapos nakakalabas din. Pag once na nagsabi na may hulihan, may surveillance ba o may huli, kung iniimbestigala ba, kayo malalaman, malalaman mo na.
Kapag nagkahulihan kasi... Kapag may media ko, ko na lang na kinulong. Pero kapag wala ng media, ayun na, pera lang labas ulit siya.
Kaya labas-pasok siya kasi, ano lang, binibigyan lang niya ng pera. Binabayaran niya. Yung sabi-sabi kasi na yun na naririnig ko sa kapitbahay, meron daw na kalaguyo nga na, alam ko kasi polis din daw na, ayun yung puprotecta.
Talaga nagtanong kayo ng polis? Mas sira ka ulo kayo. Sa ano? Sa sira ka ulo kayo, pa kilala kami doon. Di ba?
Magmamakita yung hokka ka. O, kilala kami doon kasi sa NHB kilala lahat ng tao doon. Kasi hindi ka pwedeng pumasok doon ng ay lahat ng trabaho eh. Maria Caparaz was quite brazen about the way she operated. She She also posted pictures of her 13-year-old son lying down covered in thousand peso notes and lots of other quite overt pictures.
She was very open about the money they were making, celebrating Christmas and wearing t-shirts with her name on it, calling them the All Stars North Hills Village with a logo printed on the back. Showing her thumb with a cross, which is the sign you get if you're blocked on Facebook, and saying, we hate this. I don't think she personally sees any reason to stop so long as she can continue getting away with it. And all the signs are that she's going to carry on getting away with it.
She's the queen of sextortion and North Hills Village is her fiefdom, her kingdom, if you like.