A professional scam artist who has made more than $100,000 from his victims has revealed how he makes his money.
Andrew, 18, who is originally from Ukraine, was invited onto a video podcast to openly discuss his crimes on camera behind a face-blurring filter.
The teenager has been living in Toronto for a year, and currently works in a restaurant.
In an eye-opening episode of the Unmentionable podcast, run by comedian Jordan Power, the ex-swindler shares how he began putting people out of pocket since he was just 13-years-old.
Andrew – who doesn’t give his surname – explains he ran his first scam on the online game, CS:GO (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) and made $600 per month which he used as his ‘pocket money’.
He explained that he used to offer to trade people’s skins in the game.
He said: ‘The guns are different colours and they have skins and people buy and sell them.
The scammer, Andrew, from Ukraine and now living in Canada, didn’t show his face on camera as he told his story
‘It was really easy. I was looking for people going to sell their skins.
‘I told them I was going to double their skins. I had fabricated proofs of my work, so they trusted me.
‘And I just asked them to send me their trades, and then I blocked them.’
He added that the skins could easily cost $2,000.
Jordan asked: ‘So someone would transfer you $2,000 and you would just disappear on them?’
To this, Andrew said ‘yes’ – adding that there were never any checks or questions from his bank, and sometimes he would get the money to be transferred to a friend of his.
He said he believes the people he was scamming were mostly aged 15 – 25, and that a lot of his victims would have been stealing money from their parents to buy the skins.
But he said his profits provided him with pocket money so he didn’t have to ask his parents for money to go to the cinema or go out with his girlfriend.
He said his parents were ‘worried’ about where the money was coming from and admitted he had to ‘lie all the time’.
Since then, he estimates he has scammed $100,000 from victims through online schemes in order ‘to survive’.
His other main scam is in the betting world.
Targeting Russians, he places adverts on Russian sites directing them to a betting site run by his friends.
There, the people bet on simple things – such as whether a crypto-currency will go up or down.
To make their prediction, they will be looking at a graph of the current crypto rate – but these graphs are sometimes be fabricated.
Comedian Jordan Power has been presenting the Unmentionable podcast since November 2020 and has now done more than 100 episodes
He said: ‘It is gambling. You just bring the clients to the website. They lose their money there and you get 50%.
‘They win about 40% of the time so they keep coming back. It’s easy to lose, easy to win.
‘If they lose I get about 50%, so if they lose US$1,000 dollars, I get $500.
‘If you bring a lot of customers, it goes up so you can get 75 per cent of the loss.’
Andrew admits that most of this hefty sum was made in the past two years and suggested that global recessions have made his work easier.
‘Sometimes I feel bad but often I do not,’ he told Jordan, also from Toronto. ‘I do what I do to survive.
‘When I started, I was surprised at how easy it is to scam.
‘These people wanted to be scammed.
‘Online scamming will get a lot bigger with a recession.’
Andrew also said that he now mainly targets people in Russia from his bedroom in Canada and claims to have friends who also participate in scamming.
One friend, he said, sells predictions in sport.
He said: ‘This was for tennis, soccer, any kind of sport.
‘He would sell predictions and if they won he would get 50% from the customer. And he gets the loyalty from the customer.’
Andrew claims to often target young men in low income jobs, telling Jordan that he came to Canada before the war in Ukraine began in February this year.
His mother, father and younger brother have been significantly affected by the war, which saw his dad initially lose his job and they could not leave the country.
Jordan asked Andrew if he was worried about any ‘backlash’ from his actions.
Andrew the scammer (not pictured) appeared on the Unmentionable podcast with host Jordan Power (right) and his producer (left)
Andrew said: ‘I do not believe in karma.
‘I’ve never had any problems with them (the government), so I’m not worried about that.
‘And right now I’m living in Canada, and I’m scamming people in Russia, so how could it affect me?
‘I’m not hiding at all, I have an open instagram.
‘Of course they DM (direct message) me but I just block them (the victims). I don’t feel guilty at all.’
The appearance on the show has shed light on what a scam can look like and serves as a warning to others.
At one point, Jordan asked him: ‘How would you get me to go to the (online) casino?’
And Andrew said: ‘There are a lot of different phrases that we use to grab the people’s attention, all the stuff about the easy money, no work, do your own business, follow the trends, don’t lose your opportunities.’
Later in the interview, the fraudster reveals to Jordan that although scamming is ‘exciting’, he doesn’t feel ‘proud’ doing it.
He said would like to start up his own online ‘legal business’ and is currently working in a restaurant, and also helping Ukranians get Visas into Canada.
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