I've lost all my money'

The victims lured in by 'retention' agents using deepfakes and charm

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Ben Fogle was not happy. "Not sure I need to highlight this," the broadcaster posted on Instagram last spring, "but the deepfake of me from [ITV's] This Morning... circulating on Facebook [and] advertising crypto is a scam." Fogle's warning showed a fictional news article, linking to a doctored video, but not everybody noticed. One of those taken in was Mark*, a franchise manager in his 30s, who in one click lurched towards losing his life savings.

"I watched the video [of] Ben Fogle, like trading," Mark said, recalling how the clip had promoted a cryptocurrency website called AdmiralsFX. "So I just bang some details in [and] then I was contacted [by a call centre]. It was a £250 buy-in... I was like: 'Oh, well, it's worth a go for that.'"

Within a month, he had handed over £27,000 - the equivalent of a year's salary - and sounded less relaxed. "I've lost all my money, mate... What have you done with it?" he pleaded to an adviser.

Mark was far from alone and the sheer scale of this heist can now be revealed, thanks to a massive leak of data shared with the Guardian and international media partners by the Swedish television channel SVT and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Analysis of the files suggests at least 6,179 people were duped by a boiler room fraud operating inside three plush-looking offices in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia.

Calling themselves the skameri - Georgian for scammers - a group of 85 call handlers and support staff made it their daily mission from May 2022 to relieve ordinary people of $35m (£28m) of their savings.

They routed the cash through what appears to be a sophisticated money laundering network and yet, somehow, almost nobody seems to have noticed this sizeable venture, which appears to be still operating.

The networks