08:39So, the shaman
10:33It's really hard to mention death.
10:37It's almost as if they will mention death to their children,
10:40It's really going to happen.
10:42And it's a very emotional one to try to tell me the story.
10:48So, to find this piece of the puzzle,
10:52I might need a little help from the community.
11:03I've been in the Bay Area for many years,
11:07as an emigrant from Hong Kong.
11:10In our culture, the concept of ghost is still, you know, in our thinking.
11:17And, as the head of the University of Crime Prevention Council,
11:21when we learn from history,
11:23where the entire Chinatown community continues to talk about ghosts,
11:28It has affected many people we know.
11:32as long as there is a soul,
11:33to try to protect a child or a child.
11:38They always tell me the same message.
11:42Whenever there is a woman,
11:45They ask me the first thing,
11:47they ask me,
11:48"Oh, you're being aware of this person
11:50with a special from the man who insures?
11:53Do you know each other?
11:54There is a man called "***" of man.
11:56I told myself so.
11:57"If you have a man who insures,
11:59there is a man who makes sure,
11:59There is a man who insures himself.
12:01There is a question that assures,
12:03there is a question about the victims of being family,
12:05children,
12:06and then there is a man who makes sure,
12:07"Oh, by the way,
12:08They saw the ghost.
12:10He doesn't make sure there is a man who makes sure.
12:12He does not make sure that a man,
12:12he becomes a man who insures himself.
12:14There is a man who makes sure,
12:16maybe a man who insures himself.
12:18A little later,
12:20two people who insure,
12:22"Oh, the ghost doesn't deliver, he delivers."
12:25Now there are three people repeating the same message.
12:29If you don't have to do something,
12:30Your son will probably get into a car accident and die.
12:36And in many stories,
12:38all the victims, who told me something similar,
12:41takes place on the woman's blood.
12:43The son is going to have an accident in the fall.
12:46The spirit will take place in an hour.
12:50So, this is a big, big emergency,
12:54to save your family.
12:59So at that point the victim begs,
13:01“So, what should I do?
13:02What can I do to prevent this from happening?
13:04I don't want my child to die.
13:08They said you're going back,
13:11you will return all your valuables,
13:12you will get back all your investments,
13:14you will return these items for a profit.
13:16and you will bring in a dollar or a valuable profit,
13:21the benefit is not going to work.
13:25So, these mothers,
13:27they returned to a place
13:29and made a comeback.
13:37At that point, the benefit is over.
13:40Here, your benefit is valid.
13:42The benefit of vallables of vallables of vallables of vallables.
14:12They opened their vallables of vallables of vallables of vallables.
14:14And the vallables of vallables of vallables of vallables.
14:17They were victims of the benefit of vallables.
14:21We are very surprised by this incident.
14:25How can this group of people be
14:27target only those who are most vulnerable,
14:31who are in the process of being valid of being valid of being valid of being valid of being valid.
14:37If you are in the process of vallables of vallables of vallables of vallables,
14:43they were sent back by the vallables of the vallables of the vallables IVN.
14:53When the victim closes his eyes to the wound,
14:56The scammer switched the ring for a duplicate and stole their property.
15:00We were at the end of what we responded to a victim,
15:06Another victim called and wanted to fix another case.
15:10Today, more than 50 young people were scammed in San Francisco.
15:15It was like...
15:18...but the end of the tine.
15:20...
15:30...
15:34...
15:39...
15:43Many of these families lost average about $100,000 or even more.
15:49This is an entire, entire life savings.
15:53You're left with nothing.
15:56You're not only destroying this one person,
15:58you could destroy the entire family.
16:02I spoke to another victim recently.
16:05She hasn't left the house in about two months
16:07since a blessing scam happened to her.
16:11When I have done presentations over the years,
16:14as soon as the scam is described, somebody yells out,
16:18well, why are they so stupid and falling for such a dumb scam?
16:22How can a ghost kill your child?
16:24She trusted people who identified themselves with her and her family members.
16:28Now she trusts no one.
16:31First hand, I saw it.
16:33One of my victims, as I was interviewing her,
16:35her son interrupted our interview at the house
16:41and scolded mom for being so stupid
16:45and losing the family fortune, his inheritance.
16:48The rest of her family treated her like she was dirt, she was dumb.
16:58She fell for this dumb scam.
17:02And it didn't matter that she was trying to save her youngest son's life.
17:09It didn't matter.
17:16There's a stigma connected to being scammed in this way.
17:21They really believed, truly believed that
17:24the youngest member of their family was going to die in three days
17:28if they did not go through with this blessing ritual step by step to a T.
17:32Just hearing a lot of voices from the community,
17:37there are a lot more victims out there
17:38who did not report for one reason or another.
17:42And of course, one of the reasons is shame.
17:46So that's why a lot of the victims are afraid to come forward.
17:50But at the same time, we really need to find someone else
17:54who can help catch the scammers.
17:57And that's when another victim called named Rose.
18:02Rose was a victim of the injury scam during 2012.
18:09And about five days later,
18:11as she was getting off the bus in San Francisco,
18:14she saw the perpetrators who ripped her off.
18:18She ran off the bus and cried out,
18:22A dickface.
18:27Give me back my money.
18:29You robbed me.
18:32The perpetrator made a turn and spun herself out of Rose's grip.
18:42Rose ran across traffic,
18:44but the perpetrator was quite far away,
18:47and she knew that the chase was over.
18:49But Rose was able to hang on to the purse
18:55that the perpetrator left behind,
18:57and she got to call the San Francisco police.
19:02And as SFPD was inventorying this purse,
19:06they found some key pieces of evidence.
19:09There was a digital camera.
19:14When they took a look at the pictures in the digital camera,
19:18there were images of four females.
19:21One of the photographs that I found
19:23came back to a location in Brooklyn.
19:27Another picture I found,
19:28I was able to identify that it was the Mali Sky Hotel
19:31in Honolulu.
19:33Other pictures I found were in a wild animal park in Australia.
19:38And so that gave me the first piece of the puzzle.
19:42This is transnational organized crime.
19:45Police in Chinatown leaders are warning people
19:48to watch out for scam artists.
19:50Asian women are being thousands conned out of hundreds of dollars.
19:53The scam is taking place in New Zealand, UK, Canada.
19:56Canada Border Services say the cash was hidden
19:59in between pages of magazines.
20:01We had no idea who these folks were at this point.
20:04The scam has hit both coasts of the mainland.
20:06But now we had evidence.
20:09They traveled the world to commit these crimes.
20:11But police believe there are many more.
20:14And through open source research,
20:16we found out that Hong Kong has been dealing
20:19with these types of cases for a long time.
20:23So I went there to have a meeting
20:25with the Hong Kong Police Force.
20:42In Hong Kong,
20:44we have what we call the Hungry Ghost Festival.
20:48Spirits are allowed to go out and wander for the month.
20:51It's important to make offerings
20:55to make sure that all the spirits are at rest.
21:02During the ghost month,
21:03the gates of hell open.
21:08So each day pass opportunities
21:10for the realm of the living and the realm of the dead
21:13to encounter each other.
21:16There's always a possibility of risk and harm.
21:19And so this is a time where these indigenous
21:23Chinese beliefs and practices
21:26would create a cultural environment
21:28for more and more ghost scams to happen.
21:33We knew Hong Kong could give us answers
21:36to a lot of our questions.
21:39There was a history of these scams there
21:42because of the traditional Chinese beliefs.
21:46In 2003, Hong Kong police received
21:49over 500 of these types of cases.
21:53And they explained to me the details
21:55of how the scam worked.
22:01And they told us
22:02how Hong Kong police were able to catch them.
22:05Some of the prevention ideas that they've used
22:14that seem to have worked for them.
22:16They were able to reduce the number of these cases
22:21by 2009, by 90 percent.
22:25I believe,
22:27I believe in America,
22:27I believe in South Korea,
22:28I believe in Hong Kong police
22:28can be able to catch the health of the world.
22:29The police said that they were able to catch them
22:31like Hong Kong police.
22:32So, in America,
22:32I like the same thing.
22:33We also want ourselves to catch them
22:36as soon as possible.
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