In a recent series of videos on his YouTube channel aiming to popularise cybersecurity, Micode looked into one of the most lucrative scams of the internet. 

The investigation brought him to the other side of the world in Mauritus for three episodes, of which the first have almost reached one million views.

The three episodes have recently been subtitled in English for an international audience to understand how this very popular scam works.

It starts with a sketchy pop-up of a false Windows or Microsoft alert, encouraging the credulous user to contact a call centre in order to fix a problem on their computer.

The idea was to uncover what kind of businesses are hidden behind these famous pop-ups and how they’re operating to extort thousands of dollars to the most novice users every day.

While at first the aim was only to understand the operation, it soon began to be about trying to comprehend its extent – how far did it go?

Micode’s research quickly taught him that a big call centre, based in Mauritius, was operating this scam, and that five other companies in the cybersecurity or digital fields (that seemed to be owned by the same people) might also be involved.

In order to get as much information as possible, Micode successfully reached out to the man who presents himself online as the head of this group and applied to work in one of the call centres, located in Mauritius.

Quickly, his application was accepted and Micode flew to Mauritius to start training, face to face with the trainer of the centre, whom he would later find out was teaching him the ropes on how to make sure victims pay as much as possible, as fast as possible. 

This investigation was very interesting and had quite a big impact in France, as it’s one of the biggest scams used in that country. However, it is still relevant to those outside of France, as it was found these scammers are operating worldwide.

Watch the first episode here.