When Annika Gustafson first heard the warm and charismatic voice of Anthony Adams over the phone, she felt an instant connection. He asked her to call him “Tony,” and he always addressed her as “dear.” He shared personal dreams of seeing the Northern Lights and even promised to visit her in Sweden. As a retired journalist in her late 60s, Annika was facing financial hardship-she needed costly dental work but lacked the savings to cover it. When she came across a Facebook advertisement promoting a lucrative new investment opportunity in October 2023, it seemed like a lifeline. That was when Anthony entered her life.

He claimed to be a senior financial adviser based in the UK, passionate about helping beginner investors navigate the stock market and cryptocurrency. His charm and apparent expertise quickly won Annika’s trust. But within five months, she had lost all her savings, was drowning in debt, and contemplating suicide.

“Anthony Adams” was not a seasoned British investor. He was a scammer operating from a call center in Tbilisi, Georgia-part of a vast and highly organized fraud network that has been exploiting victims across the globe for years. These schemes flourish due to the ease of setting up international call centers and the difficulties law enforcement faces in tracking cybercriminals across borders. Experts estimate that online investment fraud siphons hundreds of billions of dollars annually from unsuspecting victims worldwide.

Now, for the first time, an unprecedented leak has provided journalists with an inside look at how these sophisticated scams operate. A trove of internal documents, financial records, computer screen recordings, and over 20,000 hours of recorded phone calls was obtained and analyzed by OCCRP and its partners. The files reveal the mechanics of two major scam networks-one based in Georgia and another with operations spanning Israel and multiple European countries. While no direct link was found between the two groups, their methods and scale were strikingly similar.

The numbers are staggering. According to........

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