He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive.
January 29, 2026 at 12:30AMAndy Greenberg’s nerve-racking feature for Wired recounts his relationship with Red Bull, a human-trafficking victim forced to work in a cyber-scam compound in Laos, defrauding people of their savings. A tense reporting procedural, Greenberg details Red Bull’s courageous commitment to disrupting exploitation, and his own efforts to determine whether his source can be trusted. A truly hair-rising read.
The message had no subject line and came from an address on the encrypted email service Proton Mail: “vaultwhistle@proton.me.” I opened it.
“Hello. I’m currently working inside a major crypto romance scam operation based in the Golden Triangle,” it began. “I am a computer engineer being forced to work here under a contract.”
“I’ve collected internal evidence of how the scam works—step by step,” the message continued. “I am still inside the compound, so I cannot risk direct exposure. But I want to help shut this down.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/01/28/wired-red-bull-golden-triangle-scam-escape/
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