The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Story: “Human trafficking in online scams - IOM” – Friday 24 July 2026
Speaker:
- Amy Pope, IOM Director General
TRT: 02’35”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 24 July 2025 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Geneva Press briefing
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: UN flag alley.
- Wide shot of the podium with speakers at the press conference room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Amy Pope, IOM Director General: “We're seeing victims from over 80 different countries being trafficked into the scam centers. They're specifically playing out across Asia. Criminal networks are luring people with the promise of a job. The job opportunities are being advertised on social media networks by and large. They present completely as a regular job. They're recruiting people who often speak English very well, who often have graduate degrees, some level of education.”
- Wide shot of the press conference room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Amy Pope, IOM Director General: “When the victims themselves show up at the scam center, their passports are confiscated. They're often subjected to physical or mental abuse. They are often unable to leave and they find themselves in circumstances that are well beyond their control. This is one of the fastest growing areas of human trafficking in the world. It is highly organized. It is highly, highly profitable, and it's increasingly global.”
- Wide shot: journalists at the press conference room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Amy Pope, IOM Director General: “What often presents as something that looks like an ideal job opportunity is just too good to be true. And people are looking for jobs, and so they're very easily exploited, and they're not asking the follow-on questions that you might ask before you're being sent. Now, one thing we've seen, for example, is that many people are coming in on tourist visas. They're not being given the proper visas that would enable them to work. So that's one key question you should be asked: will you help me to get the proper visa.”
- Cutaway: medium shot of journalists in the press conference room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Amy Pope, IOM Director General: “We're seeing many of the survivors of trafficking actually being identified as criminals, but in reality, they are the victims of this crime, of this scam.”
- Wide shot of the press conference room and control room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) Amy Pope, IOM Director General: “When you think about something that is defrauding people in the billions of dollars, as I said, between East and Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, annual losses are 88 to 114 billion USD last year alone. And then you think about the very, very, relatively disproportionately small resources that are going to fight trafficking, whether it's support for a UN agency, whether it's support for a government and its capacity on the ground, it just doesn't measure up. So, unless we take the issue quite seriously, we anticipate it will continue to grow.”
- Various shots of the press conference room.
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