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Inside the AI romance scam factories set up by Asian crime lords to con lonely Aussies out of their life savings
An Australian woman has revealed how she lost her life savings after falling in love with a man she met online - who was really just an AI-generated image.
Sarah, 45, had left a relationship of 20 years and decided give online dating a go when she met Daniel on Tinder on last year.
Although she was sceptical of starting a relationship using the app, the pair quickly struck up a connection and chatted several times a day.
Eventually Daniel - a good looking world traveller who scammers had created using sophisticated technology - explained he funded his jet-setting lifestyle by investing in cryptocurrency.
He recommended Sarah start using a legitimate Bitcoin trading app, through which she was able to make a profit and withdraw tangible funds.
Once he had her hooked on cryptocurrency, he told her to try another platform which took all her hard-earned savings and transferred the funds to his own account.
She lost $100,000 to the scheme and has little hope of ever seeing the funds again.
Sarah described feeling embarrassed and 'disgusted' in herself for falling for the scam but said there were no red flags that indicated Daniel wasn't a real person.
Sarah (pictured) lost $100,000 after falling victim to a romance scam on Tinder last year
Sarah met Daniel (pictured) who offered her the chance to invest in Bitcoin, but instead took her money for himself
'There wasn't anything that wasn't believable. His photos looked genuine, there was no reason for me to not believe who I was looking at wasn't who he was,' she told 60 Minutes on Sunday.
Scam victims like Sarah are often left thinking they've been the target of a malicious criminal and while that is true in some cases, a new trend has emerged which makes online transactions scarier than ever before.
Criminal syndicates have begun creating 'pig butchering' factories, which lure innocent people to South East Asia and use torture to force them to commit fraud in an emerging new wave of romance scams.
It's believed more than 120,000 people are currently being held in buildings on the Myanmar side of its border with Thailand, where they face brutal beatings and starvation if they don't meet scamming quotas.
'They would beat us very badly,' a former captive told the program.
'Fifteen days no food, no water. 15 days locked in the room.'
The large scale operations see managers create personalised portfolio of victims which detail their age, relationship status, wage and whatever else they can find from public social media.
These profiles are then given to the prisoners for them to con.
Sarah was just one of the scheme's many victims worldwide.
She shared her story in the hope that other Aussies don't get caught up in it.
Daniel (pictured messaging with Sarah) was a fake persona created by a 'pig butchering' factory in Myanmar
The person behind Daniel (pictured) was held captive within a factory and forced to scam Tinder users worldwide
'It's happening to so many people and I don't think people are realising what's going on,' Sarah said.
'You lose your confidence in yourself and your trust in people. You just want to hibernate … and it's a crime that's being committed against you. And one of the hardest things is, is that I'm also complicit in that myself.
'And they're getting to people through one of life's greatest things, which is love and romance.'
Benedikt Hoffman, from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime based in Bangkok, warned the 'pig butchering' scam factories were a world-first and made the online space drastically more dangerous.
He warned the schemes are even 'eclipsing the drug trade' and urged Australians to be extremely cautious when making any monetary transfers online, no matter how much you trust the recipient.
Aussie Mechelle Moore is based in Thailand where she works for Global Arms, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to eliminating trafficking and helping captives escape.
'They (the factory workers) were beaten very, very badly,' she said.
Scammers created 'Daniel' using sophisticated photoshopping tools such as AI
'They were held down and then hammers and metal pipes were used to beat their bodies.
'They have a lot of swelling, they have a lot of bruising all over their bodies.
'Sometimes you're beaten immediately and it's to scare you into complying. Other times you're beaten because you're not meeting your scamming targets.'
Australians who believe they've been the victim of a scam should report their experience to Scamwatch.
Using reports, the government agency works to help stop scams, share warnings and offer support.