From Petty Scams to an International Industry

I have followed technological development for much of my life. I have watched computers, the internet, mobile phones, and digital services transform almost every aspect of our everyday existence. I have been impressed by the possibilities and have used technology myself to create, experiment, and develop ideas.

But the more I understand what technology makes possible, the clearer another side of this development becomes.

The infrastructure we have built to make the world more efficient can also be used to make criminal activity more efficient.

In an extensive interview, American cybersecurity personality Pierogi, founder of the YouTube operation Scammer Payback, explains how modern fraud works. His activities began by tricking scammers into wasting their time on fake victims. Gradually, the operation evolved into investigating criminal networks, identifying money transfers, and cooperating with law enforcement agencies.

What is truly interesting is not the spectacular videos in which scammers become furious when their schemes are exposed.

It is the organization behind the crimes.

We are no longer simply talking about a lone individual sending fraudulent emails from a hotel room. We are talking about networks with specialized functions. Some identify potential victims. Others establish trust through fabricated identities. Still others handle money, cryptocurrencies, cash, gold, and international transfers.

Crime has become a business operation.

Just like legitimate companies, these organizations use division of labor, digital tools, communication platforms, and international cooperation.

The difference is that their business model depends on destroying other people's lives.

A Woman Lost Her Money — But Also Her Reality

The case involving the fake Brad Pitt illustrates a particularly disturbing mechanism.

The scammers did not attempt to convince the woman through a single telephone conversation. They built a relationship. They created expectations, emotions, and a shared history.

When someone has invested months of their life in a relationship, the conditions for recognizing the truth change.

Every new message confirms the previous one. Every photograph reinforces the narrative. Every explanation for why the person cannot meet becomes another part of an already established reality.

Eventually, the question is no longer whether a photograph is authentic.

It becomes a question of accepting that someone you love may never have existed.

The psychological loss can be just as devastating as the financial one.

That is why I react so strongly when people laugh at victims.

Mocking someone who has been manipulated does not necessarily demonstrate greater intelligence. Often, it simply reveals a lack of understanding of how systematic manipulation actually works.

And with artificial intelligence, these methods will become even more convincing.

When Our Senses Are No Longer Enough

Throughout most of human history, we have judged reality through our senses.

We recognize a face. We hear a familiar voice. We observe someone moving, speaking, and reacting. We use previous experiences to determine whether something seems credible.

This has worked well enough for us to build relationships, organizations, and societies.

Now the conditions are changing.

With AI, someone can create realistic photographs of people who have never existed. Voices can be imitated, videos manipulated, and digital identities constructed with long, seemingly consistent personal histories.

A scammer no longer needs to speak a foreign language perfectly. AI can help formulate convincing messages and translate conversations.

A fake romantic partner can communicate with numerous people simultaneously, around the clock.

A voice that sounds exactly like your daughter does not necessarily belong to your daughter.

A video call featuring an apparently familiar person is no longer absolute proof of who is actually participating.

This does not mean that every image or conversation is fake. But it does mean that our traditional methods of recognizing authenticity are no longer sufficient in every situation.

We must begin distinguishing between something that appears real and something that has actually been verified.

These are two entirely different things.

Technology Is Not the Biggest Problem

One of the most interesting parts of Pierogi's interview concerns how scammers exploit systems that already exist.

They use banks, telecommunications operators, delivery companies, social media platforms, remote access software, and payment services.

None of these services is inherently criminal.

On the contrary, they are services we all depend on to make society function.

The problem arises when someone combines them in ways that no single organization can fully oversee.

A bank sees a transaction. A telecommunications operator registers a call. A social network displays a profile. A delivery company transports a package.

Each organization performs its assigned task.

But who sees the bigger picture?

This is where I recognize a pattern from many other areas in which I have worked.

When different functions are organized separately, problems arise at the boundaries between them. Everyone can perform their individual responsibilities correctly while the combined outcome becomes catastrophic.

The modern scammer exploits precisely these boundaries.

Criminals think in interconnected processes, while society often defends itself through separate institutions.

We have built extraordinary digital highways, yet organized much of their security as though every road still ended at a municipal border.

Why Do We React So Slowly?

This brings me to a question that I believe European politicians, public authorities, and business leaders should discuss much more seriously.

Why do we accept that criminals sometimes adopt the latest technology faster than the institutions responsible for protecting us?

We constantly talk about digitalization, innovation, and efficiency.

Yet when large international fraud networks use AI and our own payment systems, parts of society's response still appear to depend on victims recognizing the problem and contacting the appropriate authority themselves.

That is not enough.

Of course, police forces, banks, and international organizations carry out important work. But the scale of the problem is enormous. In the United States alone, reported losses from internet-related crime approached $21 billion in 2025.

And those are only the reported losses.

Behind the figures are retirees who lose their life savings, people forced to sell their homes, and families torn apart.

We should treat this as a major international security issue.

Not as a collection of unfortunate individual mistakes.

Europe needs faster cooperation between banks, technology companies, telecommunications operators, and law enforcement agencies, supported by clear rules protecting privacy and legal rights.

We need systems capable of identifying suspicious patterns before money disappears through multiple countries and payment channels.

And we need to understand that people's security in the digital world is part of society's essential infrastructure.

When Private Individuals Begin Doing the Work of Authorities

There is something fascinating about the fact that a YouTube personality like Pierogi can contribute to exposing sophisticated criminal networks.

He and other so-called scambaiters have developed methods for observing scammers' activities and collecting information that can be passed to the authorities.

In one notable American criminal case, information from Scammer Payback and Trilogy Media contributed to an investigation of a network responsible for approximately $64 million in losses.

It demonstrates that independent initiatives can make a genuine difference.

At the same time, it raises an important question of principle.

Do we really want private internet personalities to have to conduct advanced criminal investigations because established institutions cannot cope?

Pierogi also describes methods involving unauthorized access to scammers' computers and deliberately damaging their systems. Such actions can be legally problematic even when the intention is to prevent crime.

It is important to distinguish between collecting evidence and personally assuming the roles of judge, police officer, and enforcer.

What we should learn from Pierogi is, above all, his ability to understand how different systems connect and how criminal processes can be identified.

That knowledge should be used far more effectively within established law enforcement.

The Security of the Future Begins With Knowledge

I do not believe the solution is for everyone to become suspicious of everything.

A society in which nobody dares to trust anyone is hardly a society we would want to live in.

But we need to develop a new form of digital awareness.

We teach children to look both ways before crossing the street. We teach people to wear seat belts and lock their front doors.

In the same way, we need to learn how to verify digital identities.

If someone claiming to represent our bank calls and demands an immediate transfer, we should end the conversation and contact the bank ourselves through its official channels.

If someone we know unexpectedly asks for money in a message, we need to verify the request through another, independent means of communication.

If someone we have only met online begins talking about major investments, emergency hospital bills, or financial disasters, we need to understand that there may be a calculated motive behind the story.

This is not about becoming paranoid.

It is about adapting our habits to a new reality.

I also see opportunities to use AI as a defense against AI-driven fraud.

Imagine a simple digital assistant that helps people analyze suspicious messages, explains common manipulation techniques, and suggests ways of independently verifying someone's identity.

Such a solution could never guarantee the truth. But it could help people stop and reconsider before making an irreversible decision.

The same technology that makes manipulation cheaper could also make knowledge and preventive protection more accessible.

That is a development I would very much like to see more of.

We Must Not Lose What Makes Us Human

There is one final aspect that I consider more important than all the technical arguments.

The woman who believed she had met Brad Pitt was probably searching for something profoundly human.

Closeness. Recognition. Love. Perhaps the possibility of a different life.

Her humanity was not the problem.

The problem was that someone systematically exploited it.

And that is where the real danger of the modern fraud industry lies.

It does not merely attack our computers or bank accounts.

It attacks our need to belong, to be seen, and to feel that we matter.

We can build better identification systems, stronger banks, and advanced AI tools. And we absolutely should.

But we must also create a society where people dare to admit that they have been deceived without first having to prepare themselves for ridicule and humiliation.

Because shame is the scammer's greatest ally.

I think back to how the internet was once presented as a revolution in human communication. A world where distance would disappear and people could connect more easily.

That possibility still exists.

I use it myself every day.

But we have reached a point where we must think more carefully about what trust actually means in a digital world.

When a voice can be copied, a face manufactured, and a relationship simulated, trust must be based on something more than what we see and hear on our screens.

The great digital challenge of the future will not simply be to develop more intelligent technology. It will be to create a society where people can still feel safe trusting one another.

Because when we can no longer distinguish between reality and manipulation, we risk losing something far greater than money.

We risk losing trust itself.

And without trust, it does not matter how advanced our technology becomes.