When Ken Westbrook's elderly mother was targeted by a phantom hacker scam, he did what any former CIA analyst would do — he investigated. What he found shocked him: hundreds of billions of dollars draining from American pockets each year, flowing directly to transnational organized crime, and no one in the federal government in charge of stopping it.

In this episode of Stolen, Erin West sits down with Ken Westbrook, founder of Stop Scams Alliance, to talk solutions. Ken lays out a concrete three-step plan to turn the tide: a White House coordinator for fraud modeled after drug policy reform, a national data fusion center inspired by NCMEC, and stronger authentication standards for financial ads online. They also dig into the most comprehensive scam survey ever conducted — a Gallup study that will finally give policymakers the data they need to act.

America is losing this fight because we're not organized. Ken Westbrook has a plan to change that.

What do synthetic identities, bust-out credit card fraud, and pig butchering scams have in common? More than you'd think. In this episode of Stolen, Erin sits down with Steve Lenderman — a 26-year fraud prevention veteran who's worked across credit cards, PayPal, FinTech, and payroll — for a masterclass on how financial fraud really works, and why so many institutions are still failing victims.

Steve breaks down synthetic identity fraud (what it is, how it started, and why "digital ghosts" are now being used to launder scam proceeds), explains the mechanics of bust-out fraud in plain English, and connects the dots between old-school financial crime and today's cryptocurrency scams. He also gets into what banks could be doing right now — from device fingerprinting to behavioral analytics — to detect and protect customers before a pig butchering scam spirals out of control.

Plus: the fraud triangle, why KYC is not a fraud control, and why having great data scientists on your team means nothing if they don't understand what a scam actually looks like.

Erin West returns to Cambodia to investigate whether the world’s largest pig butchering scam operations are truly shutting down—or simply regrouping. From Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, she walks inside abandoned scam compounds, examines the crackdown tied to Chen Zhi and Prince Group, and exposes the human trafficking driving global crypto fraud. Are these compounds finished—or just paused? This episode reveals what American victims are really up against.

Erin West and Scamnetic CEO Al Pascual discuss the growing issue of scams and the development of innovative technology solutions to combat them. They explore the importance of technology in monitoring communications, verifying identities, and providing evidence to help individuals recognize scams.

Their conversation also highlights how AI and deepfake technology is making scams more effective and the need for a comprehensive approach to scam prevention that involves education, technology, and community support.

Episode 38: #whatifwecould actually slow the global scam epidemic?

This is a candid conversation about incentives, liability, human behavior, and why small, imperfect steps today beat perfect solutions that never arrive.

In this episode of Stolen, Erin West shares an update she never expected to give.

Months ago, Erin was in regular contact with a young man from Uganda who had been trafficked into a scam compound in Cambodia. Beaten, confined, and forced to scam victims around the world, he disappeared in late September—leading Erin to fear the worst.

Then, a WhatsApp message arrived.

This episode unpacks what happened next—and why his “release” from the compound is not the happy ending it might sound like. Erin pulls back the curtain on the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Cambodia right now: thousands of trafficking victims suddenly pushed onto the streets with no money, no valid documents, no clear path home, and constant fear of arrest.

This is the other side of the scamdemic—the side we don’t talk about enough. The human cost. The broken systems. And the hard truth that shutting down scam compounds without a plan doesn’t equal freedom.

A raw, urgent update from the front lines of a crisis that is far from over.

The future of AI education isn’t coming from a boardroom—it’s coming from a high school classroom. Erin West speaks with student innovator Adya Tewari.

In this episode of Stolen, Erin West talks with cybercrime expert Gary Warner about the solution he helped build through Intelligence for Good—a nonprofit that provides solutions by identifying scam websites, tracing crypto wallets, and disrupting transnational fraud at scale.

Gary explains how this model works in practice: his team uncovers fake investment platforms, extract wallet addresses, and feed that intelligence directly to crypto exchanges, analytics firms, and law enforcement partners—resulting in wallets being flagged, transactions blocked, and scam operations forced to rebuild from scratch.

This is what real disruption looks like: not awareness alone, but making scams slower, more expensive, and harder to run. If you’re looking for a practical, scalable response to pig butchering scams and organized cybercrime, this episode shows what’s actually working.

In this episode of Stolen, Erin West is joined by researcher and investigator Jake Sims to break down the unprecedented arrest and deportation of Chen Zhi, one of the most powerful scam kingpins operating out of Cambodia. They unpack how years of investigative journalism, evidence gathering, sanctions, and sustained pressure led to real accountability—and why this case matters for the global fight against pig butchering scams, human trafficking, and transnational organized crime. Erin and Jake also discuss what the arrest didn’t solve, the intelligence gaps it leaves behind, and what governments, media, and the private sector must do next to dismantle scam states for good.