“Hello Mom, I have lost my phone, this is my new WhatsApp…”

This is the beginning of one of the most common internet scams, one of many. Even at Christmas, we’re getting swamped with fake e-mail and fraud attempts that make you stop and wonder, “Who are all these terrible people, who do nothing in their lives other than trying to lure people? How can they be so good at portraying themselves as just like you and me?”

Well, they might be pretty much like you and me, but they are often in a very bad position:

Many of these scams come from “Scam compounds”. This is an unsettling new combination of human trafficking, basically kidnapping well-educated young people who are traveling for work or leisure and forcing them to work in scam compounds, where their work is to trick people like you and me.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221109-inside-the-living-hell-of-cambodia-s-scam-operations

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-cyber-scam.html

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221109-inside-the-living-hell-of-cambodia-s-scam-operations https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-cyber-scam.html To help slow down or even end this new trend, our annual holiday donations will go to Blue Dragon, a foundation in Vietnam originally intended to help street children, but now also active in the fight against human trafficking. You can find more information about their work and how to support them under: https://www.bluedragon.org/

We hope that you will have happy holidays with your loved ones and wish you a healthy, happy and peaceful new year 2024.