
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Female con artists are exploiting superstition and family love to swindle women with Chinese heritage living in the west. The blessing scam is an elaborate piece of criminal street theatre, which over the last few months has claimed victims across North America and the UK. It begins with an apparently random meeting with a stranger in the street, and very quickly escalates from there. Victims are tricked out of their money and possessions, after being terrified into believing that a relative’s life is threatened by evil spirits. Are the criminals just master manipulators, or could something even more sinister be involved? Now a social media activist is fighting back and trying to put the crooks out of business.
By BBC World Service4.3
16071,607 ratings
Female con artists are exploiting superstition and family love to swindle women with Chinese heritage living in the west. The blessing scam is an elaborate piece of criminal street theatre, which over the last few months has claimed victims across North America and the UK. It begins with an apparently random meeting with a stranger in the street, and very quickly escalates from there. Victims are tricked out of their money and possessions, after being terrified into believing that a relative’s life is threatened by evil spirits. Are the criminals just master manipulators, or could something even more sinister be involved? Now a social media activist is fighting back and trying to put the crooks out of business.

7,827 Listeners

377 Listeners

1,074 Listeners

5,488 Listeners

970 Listeners

588 Listeners

1,842 Listeners

2,058 Listeners

363 Listeners

599 Listeners

973 Listeners

404 Listeners

425 Listeners

736 Listeners

849 Listeners

362 Listeners

997 Listeners

3,214 Listeners

1,031 Listeners

770 Listeners

1,046 Listeners

368 Listeners