What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future · Slate Podcasts

Escape from a Scam Compound

February 8, 2026·31 min·2 clips

A Wired reporter gets an email from a computer engineer trapped in a crypto scam compound in the Golden Triangle.

What Next TBD is Slate's technology and power podcast. Andy Greenberg is a reporter for Wired who covers technology and cybersecurity. The episode opens with Greenberg describing the moment he received an unexpected ProtonMail message with no subject line claiming to be from a computer engineer trapped inside a crypto scam compound in the Golden Triangle — the region spanning northern Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar that is known for compound-based fraud operations. He moved the conversation to Signal, the source asked to be called Red Bull (after a can sitting on his desk), and proved his location credibly by showing his face and surroundings on video, including Chinese-language signage outside the hotel room he had rented to make contact. Red Bull's backstory: born to a Muslim family in Kashmir, he was mistreated as a teenage servant, ran away, enrolled in the Kashmir Polytechnic School for a computer engineering diploma, and was then lured with a fake job offer to Laos — told he would be an IT manager — before having his passport taken and being put to work as a scammer. He slept in a dorm room with five others. The episode explains pig butchering scams in detail: the scammer poses as a wealthy, attractive woman who builds a deep romance-style text relationship with a lonely man, eventually directing him to a fake crypto investment platform where his money is stolen. Deepfake video tools are sometimes used for verification. Red Bull described himself as wanting to be the Edward Snowden of the compound, determined to document and leak everything before escaping. Greenberg was taken aback by the selfless determination. The episode traces Red Bull's path from initial contact to eventual escape.

As heard by us

A strange email opens into a sharp, unsettling portrait of organized fraud and modern slavery.

The piece opens on a strange subjectless email on a Brooklyn roof and quickly widens into a grim look at a scam compound in the Golden Triangle, where fraud runs like office work and captivity sits underneath it.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A mysterious email opens into a detailed look at a crypto scam compound in the Golden Triangle.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future