Stolen Podcast

CRISIS IN CAMBODIA: Shakilu has found a shelter

Update from Cambodia: Shakilu was released from the scam compound where he’d been trafficked and forced to scam, but he’s now trapped with no way to get home.
 
Stolen is hosted by Erin West, former Santa Clara County prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock.
Learn more about Operation Shamrock: operationshamrock.org
Meet Our Sponsors
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's models reveal patterns that distinguish the criminal from the legitimate.
Scamnetic is a leader in AI-powered scam detection and prevention, protecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from digital scams. With solutions like KnowScam and IDeveryone, Scamnetic delivers real-time scam insights, identity verification, and intervention. Restoring trust, reducing losses, and empowering organizations to safeguard customers in an increasingly complex digital world.

CRISIS IN CAMBODIA: My trafficked Ugandan friend is alive and needs to get home (Ep 38)

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.
 
Stolen is hosted by Erin West, former Santa Clara County prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock.
Learn more about Operation Shamrock: operationshamrock.org
Meet Our Sponsors
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's models reveal patterns that distinguish the criminal from the legitimate.
Scamnetic is a leader in AI-powered scam detection and prevention, protecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from digital scams. With solutions like KnowScam and IDeveryone, Scamnetic delivers real-time scam insights, identity verification, and intervention. Restoring trust, reducing losses, and empowering organizations to safeguard customers in an increasingly complex digital world.

SOLUTIONS: A Student-Led Answer to the AI Education Gap with Adya Tewari (Ep 37)

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.
 
Stolen is hosted by Erin West, former Santa Clara County prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock.
Learn more about Operation Shamrock: operationshamrock.org
Meet Our Sponsors
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's models reveal patterns that distinguish the criminal from the legitimate.
Scamnetic is a leader in AI-powered scam detection and prevention, protecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from digital scams. With solutions like KnowScam and IDeveryone, Scamnetic delivers real-time scam insights, identity verification, and intervention. Restoring trust, reducing losses, and empowering organizations to safeguard customers in an increasingly complex digital world.

SOLUTIONS: How Gary Warner Is Disrupting Global Scam Networks (Ep 36)

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.
 
Stolen is hosted by Erin West, former Santa Clara County prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock.
Learn more about Operation Shamrock: operationshamrock.org
Meet Our Sponsors
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's models reveal patterns that distinguish the criminal from the legitimate.
Scamnetic is a leader in AI-powered scam detection and prevention, protecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from digital scams. With solutions like KnowScam and IDeveryone, Scamnetic delivers real-time scam insights, identity verification, and intervention. Restoring trust, reducing losses, and empowering organizations to safeguard customers in an increasingly complex digital world.

SOLUTIONS: Taking Down a Scam Kingpin: Jake Sims on the arrest and extradition of Chen Zhi (Ep. 35)

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.
 
Stolen is hosted by Erin West, former Santa Clara County prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock.
Learn more about Operation Shamrock: operationshamrock.org
Meet Our Sponsors
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's models reveal patterns that distinguish the criminal from the legitimate.
Scamnetic is a leader in AI-powered scam detection and prevention, protecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from digital scams. With solutions like KnowScam and IDeveryone, Scamnetic delivers real-time scam insights, identity verification, and intervention. Restoring trust, reducing losses, and empowering organizations to safeguard customers in an increasingly complex digital world.

Publisher’s Clearing House Scam: How My Family Was Targeted—and Why Awareness Isn’t Enough (Ep 34)

Even scam-savvy families aren’t immune.
In this episode of Stolen, host Erin West—former prosecutor and national expert on transnational fraud—shares a deeply personal story: how her own family member was devastated by a Publisher’s Clearing House scam, despite doing “everything right.”
From coached gift card purchases at Target to fake FBI agents, burner phones, and an unrelenting flood of follow-on scams, Erin walks listeners through how modern fraud actually works—and why education and awareness alone are failing victims.
This episode breaks down:
How Publisher’s Clearing House scams really operate
Why seniors remain vulnerable even with safeguards in place
How scammers maintain psychological control over victims
What happens after the first scam—and why victims are relentlessly retargeted
Why 2026 must be the year we move from awareness to real, scalable solutions
Erin also lays out what’s next: the technologies, partnerships, and cross-industry collaboration that can stop scams before they reach our loved ones.
If you think “this would never happen to my family,” this episode is for you.
 
Stolen is hosted by Erin West, former Santa Clara County prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock.
Learn more about Operation Shamrock: operationshamrock.org
Meet Our Sponsors
BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's models reveal patterns that distinguish the criminal from the legitimate.
Scamnetic is a leader in AI-powered scam detection and prevention, protecting individuals, businesses, and financial institutions from digital scams. With solutions like KnowScam and IDeveryone, Scamnetic delivers real-time scam insights, identity verification, and intervention. Restoring trust, reducing losses, and empowering organizations to safeguard customers in an increasingly complex digital world.

Sextortion Is Killing Kids: Inside the Financial Sextortion Scam Targeting Teen Boys with Paul Raffile (Ep 33)

In this episode of Stolen, Erin West sits down with sextortion expert Paul Raffile to expose the fastest-growing and most lethal online scam targeting teen boys. They break down how financially motivated sextortion works, who’s behind it, why cases are exploding, and what parents, platforms, and law enforcement must do now to stop it. This is a conversation every parent needs to hear.

How a Fake Amazon Call Turned Into a Full-Blown Government Impersonation Scam (Ep 32)

Jane thought she was talking to Amazon, her bank, the FTC, and the Social Security Administration. She wasn’t.Over the course of several days, scammers used authority, isolation, and fear to walk her—step by step—into withdrawing and shipping her own money in what felt like a legitimate government process.
In this episode of Stolen, host Erin West breaks down a highly sophisticated phone scam that nearly wiped Jane out—and explains why this can happen to smart, cautious people. You’ll hear exactly how the scam worked, why it felt real at every turn, and how one bank manager asking a single question stopped it before it went even further.
This episode exposes the psychology behind modern financial fraud, the danger of shame and silence, and why survivor stories are one of the most powerful tools we have to stop the scamdemic.

Meta, Scam Ads, and the First Scam-Driven Border Conflict: Jake Sims Breaks It Down (Ep 31)

In this explosive episode of Stolen, Erin West sits down with Jake Sims—Harvard fellow and global expert on transnational organized crime—to unpack two massive developments: the damning Reuters leak about Meta’s scam ad revenue, and the escalating military clash on the Thai-Cambodian border tied directly to scam compounds. Jake reveals what happened inside his high-pressure GASA “fireside chat” with Meta, why trust in big platforms is collapsing, and how scam centers are shaping geopolitics in real time. This is the episode you listen to if you want the truth behind the headlines.

The House Is On Fire: Erin West’s 2026 Blueprint to End the Scamdemic (Ep. 30)

Erin West delivers the keynote she planned give at the American summit of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance—an unfiltered, no-fluff breakdown of the global scam crisis, Southeast Asia’s compounds, Big Tech’s profits, and why 2026 must be the year we divide and conquer. This episode exposes the truth, calls out the enablers, and lays out what must happen to finally fight the scamdemic.