British YouTuber helps bring down scammers by hacking into their computers
By day he is a software engineer in Northern Ireland, but at night he hunts scammers online to expose their activities.
This British YouTuber who goes by the pseudonym Jim Browning has spent over four years turning the tables on fraudsters who operate in scam call centres. He does this by hacking into their computers and closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.
Once, he altered what was said in scam robocalls to warn recipients that the calls are fraudulent. In another instance, he spooked a scammer who had gained access to his computer.
He was able to seize control of the scammer’s computer in India and set the criminal’s wedding photo as the display picture of his desktop in Britain.
Mr Browning, who has nearly 4 million subscribers on YouTube, was a guest speaker at the Global Anti Scam Summit on Wednesday. The conference, held in the Netherlands, runs for two days.
Speaking to a hybrid audience of over 300 attendees, Mr Browning said the main aim of his YouTube channel is to educate people on what happens during a scam.
“If you see a scam happen, it’s much more impactful than giving general advice like follow these five steps to avoid getting scammed,” he said.
Mr Browning frequently posts videos on his YouTube channel showing his interactions with scammers and footage of fraudsters cheating victims from call centres.
He gains entry into the scammers’ network by first giving them remote access to his computer and then performing the reverse move that allows him to see what goes on in their devices.
This means he can find out the scammer’s real identity, how much money they are stealing and who their victims are.
Earlier this year, Mr Browning aided in stopping a group of fraudsters in New Delhi, India who were posing as law enforcement agents to cheat victims in Europe. The scammers had told victims their money in the bank was at risk and the only way of safeguarding it was to buy a security card.
Mr Browning submitted the evidence he had to the authorities in Europe and asked one of the victims to report the matter.
Subsequently, the police in Austria liaised with their Indian counterparts who raided the call centre in September and arrested two suspects. Cryptocurrency worth a total of US$160,000 ($224,570) was seized from the scammers.
His role in the arrests was praised on Wednesday by a law enforcement representative from Austria who worked with him on the case.
In an interview with The Straits Times, Mr Browning said baiting scammers can be time consuming.
“I observe a scam call centre for as long as it takes, sometimes over six months, to identify who the scammers are. If you don’t know who is behind it, there’s no good going to the police to say there’s a scam call centre in this area,” he said.
“It takes a while to work out who they are as scammers don’t use their real names. But they will browse the Internet or order food and type these things on their computer.”
Mr Browning tries to reach victims before they transfer money to scammers, but it is not always preventable. Some of these encounters are painful to listen to, he said.
“There was a woman who told the scammer she was legally blind and had been diagnosed with a condition that meant she had less than a year to live. He still kept going with the scam, it had no impact on him whatsoever,” he said.
Mr Browning acknowledges that hacking into scammers’ computers or their CCTV cameras is illegal but he refuses to apologise for it.
“If you can see the face of the scammer, it makes it so much more personal. And the only people who have a problem with it are the scammers.”
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